#not tagging this bc tbh this isn't even meta just a feeling i get sometimes while reading the books

[bidonica]

wait can you elaborate on "#not to be european on main but it's one of asoiaf's most tellingly american features to me" because I've never really considered this before

Well, if you look at the time frame of Westeros post Targaryen conquest that's roughly the same distance between the foundation of the USA and when GRRM started writing asoiaf, so there might be a (conscious or subconscious I can't tell, but it wouldn't suprise me if it was intentional) correlation with placing "the birth of this country as we know it" at that specific point in time. Which ties back to that feeling of "the beginning of history" while acknowledging that there has been a history before, but it's a lot more nebulous and badly documented and it involves ethnicities that are considered "native" vs more recent migrations (First Men vs Andals).

And it's something you don't really get to perceive from a European perspective because sometimes you might be living in a country that, in its current form as a nation state, is actually younger than the US (like Italy or Germany), but that state and its identity exists in continuity with what was there before, going back to several centuries. There are cultural and material callbacks to that history in your everyday life, be it the language you speak or still using very ancient buildings that sometimes even maintained their original purpose. I don't want to sound blasé but from that vantage point "300 years ago" is "a long time ago, but not that long". This is not a value judgment, and of course the key reason is colonialism -- I just think there are some contextual elements that might lead to a different perception of history. It's all relative in the end

[lgbtlunaverse]

#3zun meta#you're so fucking right and god you put it in WORDS thank you#bc yes especially in a happier au the tendency to know someone lies and avoids shit a lot and so not take them at their word isn't actually#....bad? its just realistic. and its bad *in canon* due to circumstances and shit thats going on w them otherwise but thats not bc like#LXC communication good NMJ communication bad its not that they've both got ways of#understanding JGY that the other does NOT and vice versa and a good happier au has got to account for thissss#anyway there is one fic I love for this even though I initially noped out of the NMJ characterization but then I was like wait -#and it's actually extremely good and crunchy bc its JGY being falsely accused of a crime but also he did commit other crimes (much like.#canon) and it has NMJs distrust function v realistically and like a ''you have to be honest if you want help'' not bc unwilling to help but#bc they genuinely *cannot* help him if he wont tell them shit and ugh. feelings. anyway. point is#court trials and false accusations are apparently my favorite setting for 3zun to resolve their shit akdhdkhf

tags via @woobifiedvillain

first of all, LINK???? PWEASE? Second of all, YES. THANK YOU. Like, as someone who deeply relates to jgy on the level of the constant lying specifically and who is trying very hard to learn to be honest with people who I trust and who I want to trust me... what Nie Mingjue did wrong wasn't assuming that jin guangyao was lying to him. He was! Like, canonically, he was doing that whole human experimentation and demonic cultivation thing with xue yang behind aeveryone's backs and also possibly getting pressured to assasinate Nie Mingjue specifically. Where nmj went wrong was assuming that the way to stop that was to enforce consequences. "be honest with us or else" This makes sense for his background as a clan leader who mainly deals with other clan leaders- aka powerful men who believe themselves to be above consequences and therefore do whatever they want- and the years-long period where everyone lied to his face about his dad's murder because that was more convenient for them personally. But it very notably DOES NOT WORK WITH JGY. Nie Mingjue has no idea how to create a safe environment for jgy to be honest with him. If a guy believes that he's gonna have his head sliced off with a saber if he tells you about all the shit his dad is making him do then he's obviously not gonna do it, da-ge!

As you said in a previous post (I'm just gonna start linking your metas like academic sources everytime I talk about 3zun tbh) Xichen's manner of not asking and not judging actually makes him the easiest person for jgy to trust and potentially be honest with. Except it also makes him very easy to not be honest with. That's the paradox. he's the safest person to tell the truth to but the reason he's so safe is also the reason jgy can continue to not say anything for so long.

A real life method i've employed in my own life when i was lying to someone is admitting that to a 3rd person who i'm not as scared of dissapointing first, and THEN once that hurdle is cleared, and maybe i've had time to brainstorm solutions with this 3rd person, finally telling the other. This is where all of 3zun come nicely together, because xichen will never ask but nmj could say "if you don't want to tell me at least tell Xichen." and that would probably work pretty well. (if this is canon he'd have to get over that one time xiyao were both hiding the spy thing from him but remember this is the universe where they're trying- or even an au where that did not happen- and in general he does trust xichen and would think jgy being more honest with lxc is a net good.)

(And if i may project EVEN MORE from my own life, I find that sometimes telling the truth to someone who's as kind as xichen is actually harder because you don't wanna burden them and the more personal issues a person has the safer they feel for me because they can't really judge me about also being fucked up so uhhh... for all the fic writers out there for maximum hilarity in a modern au you could make xue yang a person they do this with. If only for the psychic damage it would do to mingjue to have xue yang be a positive influence on his relationship.)

I would imagine a nieyao in a 3zun context who are trying to make this work would have a lot of conversations with nmj trying (and, at first, failing) to bite back his anger and a decent amount of guilt tripping on jgy's side (i know i lied to you before but i'm trying to be BETTER and if you never trust me that doess't help and you're so angry and mean all the time you know this is why i don't talk to you because you never react well. i've said all of these things before myself.) And the point is that these conversations go the exact same way regardless of whether meng yao is actually lying or not. The key to lying to a person who doesn't know you is telling a good story. The key to lying to a person who knows you very wel is knowing exactly how you act when you're being honest, and specifically how you act when you're falsely being accused of lying.

And slowly they would less often end in shouting matches. Jgy would go from guilt tripping to 'I really appreciate that and I will remember that the next time something is wrong... which is not right now. Because nothing is wrong." and Nmj would learn to say "fine, I'll stop, but if there IS something tell me later" or redirecting to xichen. And over time, even if they still end without a confession, jgy might come in a week or 3 days or even few hours later, make sure everyone was in a good mood first and then go. "Ok fine. Something is wrong here's what it is." and then the conversations slowly become less and less frequent as they learn to better communicate from the beginning.

This got away from me and i've basically started writing fanfic of my own. WHOOPS! anyway. what you said. nmj and lxc each have their own methods of communicating with jgy that can be expressed in healthy and unhealthy ways depending on the circumstances. And any au where those circumstances are better would still preserve those methods.

I cannot stress enough how MINOR of a petpeeve this is and how this is an interpretation that i'm comfortable with other people having even if i personally do not but I've noticed in a lot of 3zun fics, if jgy is holding smth back- generally his own feelings because his natural reaction to conflict is to make it Go Away and so if his emotional needs are the potential source conflict he will simply Not Look At Them.- That between nielan Xichen is the one who's worried and presses for comunication and Mingjue is like "Meng Yao is an adult if there was a problem he'd say so."

And I get why this is done, because nieyao's communication is generally atrocious and Xichen is the Gentle One who'd want to make sure a-yao is okay. So I get it. But. Canonically. The person going "I know a-yao, we trust each other, I don't need to ask him, he'll tell me on his own terms." is Lan Xichen and the one going "If Meng Yao doesn't want me to know something he WILL hide it from me and i'll have no idea because he's just that good at lying" is Nie Mingjue. And in a healthier nieyao dynamic, as these fics work under, that knowledge would not lead to automatic distrust but rather a desire to check in, to go: please remember that I value your honesty more than whatever you think you would burden me with by telling me what's going on.

Xichen also wants honesty and open communication ofc but his reaction to conflict is also to make it go away as fast as possible and he feels like saying it constantly feels accusatory so he wouldn't. If he asks if something is ok and a-yao smiles and goes of course er-ge checking again if it's really okay would be implying he was lying the first time!! He's showing his trust in him!! This is really refreshing if you're constantly assumed to be untrustworthy and meng yao appreciates it so much and it works really well 95% of the time but when it doesn't? Oh boy.