#shhh shiome

[evilhasnever]

You know. I think a troubling issue the MDZS fandom has had basically since its inception is the tendency to take memes for canon facts, in virtue of their widespread popularity. Even when they literally contradict the text. smh

[evilhasnever]

…the almost 69 people (nice) who voted xiyao: hi, where have you been all my life?

[evilhasnever]

every time I see Lan Xichen hate on this website an angel loses its wings

[evilhasnever]

"lxc could do better than jgy" "lxc deserves better"

listen, we all agree that lan xichen deserves the world, but what he wants is A-Yao. End of story.

[evilhasnever]

Some interpretations of “I never even thought of hurting you” seem to downplay the uniqueness of what Lan xichen is for JGY, at times, or to take it as situational/observational rather than (allow me the term) axiomatic for the way JGY sees himself and his core beliefs.

To me it’s especially important that in context he says the iconic phrase immediately after saying “I killed literally everyone, my wife, my son, my brother etc.” BUT, and here’s the point, never, ever considered hurting you. The emphasis of this juxtaposition seems more than just an observation that LXC was never in any danger from him - it is furious and resentful! He has always held LXC as a unique exception in his life, only to be in the end killed by him as if he were just another of his haters (lol).

Certainly LXC was always on his side, so not ever a threat to him or his well-being, but when he DID become a threat (stabbing him to death, notably) JGY still doesn’t take revenge (which he could, by dragging him with him to get killed by NMJ); he STILL saves him, as if to drive that point home with final clarity.

I guess the debate on whether JGY, whose survival is paramount, would ever kill LXC if LXC became clearly and openly his enemy, is a juicy one and one that doesn’t have an explicit answer in canon. (But! We do have an inkling in canon of what he would do: namely, take him hostage and seal his cultivation, without harming him.)

(also not to be that guy but I wrote a xiyao fic about it ft. Villainous friends if that’s more your speed? Definitely more complete than my meta)

[evilhasnever]

multiple of these except number 1... the novel itself refuses to give us an answer, but the fact that option one ONLY comes to us via Sect Leader Yao, the character used specifically to spread rumors and misinformation in the text, is telling.

I think we are supposed to wonder just how much JGY really did and how badly he coped with an existing situation and never truly know, much like Lan Xichen in Guanyin Temple.

But consider this: if JGY really had wanted to purposely eliminate unfortunate incest baby, there were plenty more options that would have been easier, cleaner, and faster. He could have done it anytime, given Qin Su some concoction, staged an accident with a nanny, literally anything. I doubt he was rational and farsighted enough about the whole ordeal to wait YEARS until he could frame that anti-watchtower guy over it. Ultimately, JGY probably rolled with the punches and tried to make the best of a horrifying situation. I personally buy the "inaction" options in the poll above, but regardless of what happens we know that JGY blames himself for it at the end of the day - which is not the same as saying he did it (he also blames himself for Jin Zixuan and Qin Su, neither of which he killed! etc.)

sensitive topic incoming

not a haterpost i promise.

sect leader yao is not a reliable source

further explanation/hypothesizing:

it happened exactly as sect leader yao said: self-explanatory. the version of events preferred by jiggy antis

he mercy-killed rusong: maybe rusong was already showing signs of a life-altering disorder as a result of the incest. or maybe jiggy just felt that, if the incest information ever came out, rusong would be doomed to a life of suffering in a heavily prejudiced society. jiggy himself had spent his entire life suffering and getting kicked around due to his own proximity to society's pariahs/taboos, so perhaps he felt that he could not subject his son to the same miserable existence. thus, jiggy gave rusong a more peaceful end, before (in jiggy's mind) society could force rusong to suffer.

he allowed rusong to die through inaction: this is really only a "kill" under a utilitarian moral framework. by this explanation, maybe jiggy found out in advance that someone was planning to kill rusong; however, for any of the other reasons listed here, jiggy decided to do nothing and allow the assassination to happen. thus jiggy would consider himself guilty of allowing rusong's death to happen through inaction.

he did it to justify eliminating an opponent of the watchtowers: maybe the advancement of the watchtower project, which jiggy knew would make society a safer place, had hit a deadlock because of a particularly stubborn opponent. so jiggy killed rusong and framed the opponent in order to engineer a situation in which his annihilation of the opponent would be entirely socially sanctioned.

and here is where the utilitarian arguments come in. perhaps jiggy knew that the watchtower project would improve the lives of millions of people and would make society as a whole safer. and he saw that one political opponent as the final major barrier. and jiggy could think of no other way to get rid of this guy. so jiggy weighed the lives of those millions of people against his one son, and concluded those millions of strangers were weightier; his son became his iphigenia.

of course, this is still a rather unhinged plan to just come up with on your own, so perhaps a better explanation of events is this reasoning paired with the "he allowed rusong to die through inaction" series of events.

rusong was killed by political opponents and jiggy blamed himself: now we reach the "he didn't do it" section of the potential explanations. jiggy has a habit of claiming kills he didn't strictly perform himself; so long as the chain of cause and effect can somehow be traced to somewhere near him eventually, jiggy will claim credit for someone's death. this is how jiggy takes credit for the death of jin zixuan: even though [novel canon] no one forced wei wuxian to lose control of wen ning and no one forced wen ning to attack jin zixuan, jiggy still acts as if he can call himself jin zixuan's killer, simply because he sent jin zixuan to wei wuxian's location.

jiggy, in pursuing the watchtower project, aroused a lot of public anger. jiggy made himself, and by extension his wife and his child, the political enemies of many, and thus political targets as well. thus, if an enemy targets the life of jin rusong because they are jiggy's enemy, jiggy is entirely justified in feeling as if rusong's death is his fault. after all, if he hadn't pursued the watchtower project, then maybe rusong would still be alive.

jiggy said "he had to die" as a Cope: losing your son sucks. perhaps jiggy, in the despair following his son's death, tried to cope with the new reality by telling himself that rusong would have had to die anyways, because he was an incest baby. if rusong was always slated to die, then the fact that rusong is now dead can now be survived. thus, "rusong had to die" becomes an emotional coping mechanism for jiggy.

no, jiggy himself is uncertain if he allowed rusong to die through inaction: this one is a a bit fanciful but bear with me here. on one hand, jiggy loves his wife and son. on the other hand, jiggy is horrified by his marriage with his wife and by the existence of his son, because his wife is also his sister and his son is the product of incest. jiggy lives with not only this horror but also the constant fear of exposure, because if this information ever got out, the lives of himself, his wife, and his son would all be over.

rusong's growth thus becomes a source of dread, not hope: every day lived brings the possibility of rusong developing some disorder or condition that eventually proves the incest. is it not possible that jiggy, living every day under such fear, might come to believe that things would be better if rusong stopped growing older? if rusong died--then gone too would be the evidence of the incest, would it not?

now along comes the political opponent who assassinates rusong. jiggy does not see it coming and jiggy is thus unable to stop it. but afterwards, upon beholding the corpse of his son, what does jiggy feel? rage? despair? no--relief! he feels relief! though he also grieves, the constant fear shrouding his entire life has, for once, lifted!

but if jiggy is relieved by the death of his son, what does this imply? can jiggy truly say, with full confidence, that he did not see the assassination coming? can he really say, with heaven and earth as his witnesses, that his failure to stop the assassination was not to some degree a choice? is there truly no small part of him that did in fact see the assassination coming--yet, knowing it would be so relieving for him, simply chose to do nothing?

but if jiggy did not see the assassination coming at all--if rusong's death truly cannot be pinned on jiggy at all--then what does that say about jiggy's power? about jiggy's safety? jiggy being innocent of killing through inaction means that jinlintai really is somewhere assassins can penetrate into. then jiggy's son really was killed by a force jiggy had no way of stopping. then, in this situation, jiggy really was powerless.

you can remove the ambiguity and argue the case either way: jiggy knew about the assassination and let it happen, jiggy legitimately knew nothing and could not have stopped the assassination. but the ambiguity makes this scenario more interesting to me. jiggy lives for the rest of his days uncertain if he chose to allow his son to die through inaction, or if he really was just weak enough to fail to protect his son. maybe jiggy's memories of the incident even manage to start distorting after a while, implying either one or the other depending on jiggy's own mental situation.

thus, when jiggy says "rusong had to die," he's uncertain if he's justifying his actions or delusionally coping with a reality he had no hand in making. when jiggy says "i killed my son," he's uncertain if he's even telling the truth or not.

ah well. this is basically original fiction at this point. it's just a potential scenario.

anyways, these are just a few scenarios based on various meta and fanfics of this subject ive read over the past few months. you can probably come up with all sorts of explanations. whatever you come up with, though, should be better than just blindly taking sect leader yao at his word.

[evilhasnever]

Thinking about why “redemption” plots for JGY don’t work for me, I feel like it boils down to this: redemption implies that one needs to 1) understand what they did wrong 2) atone for it through suffering and/or selfless actions

But JGY has already done both of those things in canon. He both understands very well and dislikes most of the things he had to do, and as soon as he gained a measure of power he used it pointedly to help others (actually, even before he had power he was saving sect leaders and winning wars)!

You want him to redeem himself through suffering? He’s already suffered more than just about anyone else in the book! You want him to redeem himself through public service? He’s been doing that for well over a decade!

In short, redemption arcs don’t work for me because I read JGY as someone who, as long as his life is not threatened (and sometimes even then) already chooses to do good. So I don’t think he needs to learn or discover in himself the will to do good (through a redemption arc) - he only needs the chance and relative safety that allows him to act on it.

[evilhasnever]

will I be able to finish my annual halloween xiyao ficlet? jury is still out

[evilhasnever]

xiyao writers be like "I know a place" and then take you to guanyin temple

[evilhasnever]

gonna be honest for a second fam, I think FJ is the biggest disappointment I’ve experienced from a piece of media since the ending of how I met your mother

[evilhasnever]

People who write JGY as a raging misogynist always baffle me. Who even is that guy?

[evilhasnever]

people who take mxtx's flippant "only wang/xian are gay" as gospel and not as the safe, rehearsed disclaimer it likely is + generalized annoyance when people asked her to confirm their headcanons... y'all. don't you think there may be some external factors that influenced that statement? think about it for a moment.

[evilhasnever]

people always go “well he took JL hostage in the temple so that means he always wanted him dead/never cared for him”, ignoring all of the context surrounding that choice and the fact that, regardless, the two things are not mutually exclusive. In the novel, absolutely no blood is drawn and even in CQL, where they ham it up with the blood on JL’s neck, JGY is shown shoving JL away and to safety when NMJ attacks... like come on, people. There is absolutely no evidence JGY did not care about JL (or JL about him!! JL cries for him! JL is on his knees when he dies! xiao shushu RIGHTS.)

i love pain and suffering and am very in favor of making things worse but the thing for me about the "au where jiang cheng is the one to do the sacrifice summon because jin ling was murdered" is that it inevitably leans on jin guangyao murdering jin ling and just.

[evilhasnever]

people will go to bat for Madame Jin while I find her almost as horrible as her husband, rip

[evilhasnever]

I do subscribe to the Lans Only Love Once theory, because it has been proven true again and again by lwj and wwx, lxc and jgy, qhj and lan furen, lan qiren and his 3000+ rules.

[evilhasnever]

do you have any headcanons about the relationship between lxc and nhs post-canon? *yes it is inspired by recent reblogs *

In short, there is none. None relationship with left disdain.

Granted, we do not know exactly how much LXC has gleaned of the true extent of Huaisang's responsibility in the events before and during Guanyin Temple - but wangxian know, and someday they might remember that Lan Xichen is suffering from a lack of answers just as much as he is suffering from guilt and loss, and they might finally decide to tell him all they have kept from him during the temple (yes, I am sour about that, even though it made sense for them in the thick of a climatic hostage situation...)

Regardless, Lan Xichen at the very least suspects, because he questioned Huaisang in the temple immediately after the stabbing! And once the first shock wears off, he'd probably figure out the rest. He has nothing but time :(

So how would he treat Nie Huaisang after that? On one hand, I am firmly of the belief that LXC would never talk to him again - and while he is in seclusion, this is not difficult to achieve.

But if he were forced to come out of seclusion and subsequently forced to be in NHS's presence? I imagine the frostiest, most dead-eyed smile. A customer service smile, if you will.