#forgot to add something more about lxc when she was revising the novel

[leatherbookmark]

making it a separate post because i’d talk forever and it’s annoying to talk forever in the replies--

gnomeicecream replied to this post:

Makes me wonder if Lan Zhan isn't 'remember that time you thought my boyfriend was evil and nearly whipped me to death? I do' then deliberately not helping. He was left alone for what, three years after?

oh dear, now that's material for a loooooong conversation i'm not sure i'm qualified for, but like. i don't think lwj blames lxc for his punishment!

considering what the punishment is for, he kind of got off lightly; on top of that, lwj says in the banquet extra that "during the years i spent in seclusion, brother would always come visit me and talk to me sincerely", implying that now that the situation is reversed, he can't do the same. he has to feel at least a bit regretful/conflicted about that.

the thing that irks me is that... lxc is just a forever afterthought. this line i just quoted is from literally a three lines long post-coital conversation that happens and fizzes out quickly (wwx then doesn’t reply and they just go to sleep). another occasion lxc is mentioned in the extra is at the beginning of part 2, in which wgxn can’t try fucking while lwj’s doing handstands because “lwj has to visit his brother”. i know the book is about wgxn and the extras are even more so -- just a chance for the readers to bask in their adorable life together -- but from my pov (i don’t really care about wgxn’s adorable life together and i’m heartbroken about xiyao) it’s just... sad.

it’s been a while since i’ve read the chapters earlier than the one with the post-burial mounds lotus pier jgy haters conference, so i don’t remember all instances of the gusu twin jades interacting, but i can’t help but think that the whole jgy business kind of... changed it in a way that i’m not sure is salvageable. what i mean is that after lwj realized wwx is back, he sort of -- yeeted him on the very top of his priority list, and forgot everything and everyone else in the process, well, save for lsz because he’s wwx’s Kid Buddy From The Burial Mounds. he trusts and supports wwx completely, even if he has no real empirical reason for it -- wwx says jgy killed nmj, so jgy killed nmj, duh. the jades have their thing with silent communication, but i don’t remember lwj even showing that he’s in any way concerned with how lxc might feel about this.

in the guanyin temple as well -- i believe they do it out of concern for lxc, but i can’t help but feel bitter when wgxn tell lxc not to talk to jgy, not to believe him and so on, when they don’t want jgy to Tangle LXC In His Web Of Lies Again. i don’t know how to put it, but it’s like -- lxc isn’t a full person in this situation? they sort of assume he’s been tricked by jgy. they treat him almost like a child who doesn’t know better, when he says it himself that it’s not that he didn’t know jgy was up to No Good, he just trusted that he was doing it because he had no other choice. no thought is given to this revelation! jgy is bad, jgy is an excellent actor and a skilled manipulator, so it’s best to just not let him talk to lxc at all.

i think that at this point, lwj doesn’t understand lxc at all. i’m not sure whether he’s aware of this, so focused on wwx. probably not. but before he leaves, he doesn’t do anything to even show lxc... anything, really? i’ll be there for you, brother? i don’t understand, but i feel your pain? anything else, just anything! but there’s nothing. and by the time lxc is mentioned next time, it’s in the context of lwj not trying to help him because “it would be fruitless either way”. doesn’t that sound just fucking bleak.

because here, i feel, is the source of the problem, lxc’s crown of the most tragic elder sibling: his little brother doesn’t even know how to help him. there’s nothing he thinks he can do in this situation. does he even have anything to say about jgy, or his relationship with lxc? does he have anything to say about how his beloved helped bring him down? is he sorry about that, does he feel bad that lxc can’t or doesn’t want to face the world?

we just don’t know dot gif.

we do know, though, that at the end of the novel wangxian agree that they’ll tell lxc the truth -- the horrible truth that might make lxc, gasp! realize new things about his friend -- when he asks. which is honestly... well, i think you can guess how i feel about it.

it’s funny, though -- we talk a lot about the yunmeng bros’ reconciliation, is it possible or not, etc, etc, even though through jin ling all things are possible so jot it down. the fact that jl stubbornly points out that jc clearly wanted to say something to wwx -- this, i think, is a hint that they will eventually talk. or at least it would be in a world that i think would make sense; in a world where wwx has relationships other than lwj and the juniors. what should be debated more, i think, is the relationship between the lan brothers. the problem of lxc is often glossed over in fics; of course he leaves seclusion and attends wgxn’s wedding as their first and main shipper&supporter, and of course he finds peace, whatever the fuck it is. but does he really? i think lxc “finding peace” primarily should mean him figuring out what he wants as a person, individual, not “sect leader lan” or “lwj’s big brother”, but he, lan huan courtesy xichen. and i think that one of these things could be... understanding. and i don’t know if lwj can offer him that tbh