#that’s why he baited hua cheng into the conversation

[yea-baiyi]

reading xie lian’s POV is actually hilarious once you realise xie lian isn’t oblivious at all, he basically guesses most things immediately, he’s just taken the veteran autism tactic of “it’s too much effort to figure out when it’s appropriate to mention that i know something, so i’ll just pretend i don’t know until someone says it aloud”. sometimes it turns into a bit. the truth might be embarrassingly obvious, but social cues are hard, and xie lian has infinite time to wait for the other person to blink first.

[spockandawe]

okay. let’s think. if I were, very very very hypothetically, to attempt writing wei wuxian/jin zixun

it has to be set after phoenix mountain, but before things canonically fall apart with the wen prisoners

like....... perhaps when the families are considering patching up the prior xuanli engagement, and madam jin sends jin zixuan on some fabricated visit to lotus pier for uhhhh no reason at all why are you asking

sends jin zixuan and a very resentful jin zixun (is this for appearances? is it because she thinks that zixun-in-general is less of an idiot than zixuan-in-front-of-jiang-yanli? is it because she’s angry at him for also almost screwing things up on the xuanli front and wants him out of the house? you make the call!)

anyways I reread the part of the book that mentioned that jin zixuan had once visited lotus pier when he was younger and he hadn’t been interested in jyl and jc and wwx hadn’t wanted to play with him, and my socially anxious heart is VIBING, but also, my writer heart wishes to roll around in the profound awkwardness of echoing that situation, now with an even more abrasive cousin added to the mix.

however, this time, jiang cheng and wei wuxian are both (very resentfully) aware that jiang yanli’s happiness is on the line and she wants this to work out, and would also like it a lot if her brothers were on good terms with her maybe-future-husband and even ptsd’d, emotionally frayed wei wuxian is trying hard to make this work. and jin zixun is, unintentionally, part of the jin package that he’s trying not to bully

uhhhhh i don’t know, I don’t plan ship bait until I get to it. can the jin lads swim? what if they can’t? how fucking hilarious would that be? i’m into it. also, jin zixuan and jin zixun resentfully thirsting over a soaking wet wei wuxian. also, jiang yanli can outswim both of them. also, lotus pier is informal and relaxed and fun, but also everyone there is still... new to wei wuxian. they aren’t the people he grew up with, and he doesn’t have the same direct personal ties that he did last time jin zixuan visited. idk, lots of room to work with, if I wrote a small slice of a larger story, this would be the part.

also, even if jin zixuan and jin zixun are painfully self-conscious and awkward here, it’s territory where wei wuxian is on his most even keel. he’s the most relaxed here, and the least likely to lash out unexpectedly. also there are opportunities for jin zixun to see him doing casual necromancy without being aggressive about it, but that’s still uhhhh pretty alarming

anyways, the wen situation is still simmering. wei wuxian met wen qing in yunmeng itself. things could have potentially deteriorated without jin zixun’s direct involvement (maybe he’s still around, or maybe he’s just left), and wei wuxian knows he wasn’t there when wen ning was killed, and he’s not as directlyyyyy defensive about it

maybe he still confronts jin zixun to his face over it! maybe he’s still very angry at jin zixun! maybe jin zixun is angry at him too, because they’ve just been very slowly proving to each other that they are capable of getting along like decent people, and maybe jin zixun is reluctantly starting to think that wei wuxian is kind of cool, and now wei wuxian is chewing him out in front of god and everyone, and jin zixun’s pride can be a little... delicate

mumblemumble i don’t know, jin zixun isn’t going to be willing to be directly involved in the jailbreak, that’s for sure. not at this point. maybe he drags his heels a little about doing anything about it, and wei wuxian has more of a chance to get entrenched in the burial mounds.

this is the most intimidating part. i have no idea what would happen in here. do things change with jiang cheng and jiang yanli and jin zixuan? i feel like probably, but i don’t know HOW.

maybe occasional deeply, profoundly awkward visits? it’s all very uncomfortable, yo

anyways, jin zixun is still an asshole, and has managed to antagonize su she, and also jin guangyao (though he’s been around less often to do that antagonizing). do we still have the curse of a hundred holes? i’m undecided, but i kind of want it. now... did jin guangyao choose this, or was su she taking initiative? either way, if the holes do happen, jin zixun is more likely to have Doubts about whether wei wuxian would have really done this to him

now that wei wuxian isn’t really able to do the ‘who even ARE you’ thing and jin zixun isn’t quite so hostile, the conversation goes slightly, SLIGHTLY better, ends in less death, canon.... sharply diverges

HOW

I DON’T KNOW

in theory, everything I wrote up to that point would determine the shape of a properly satisfying conclusion, but in a story like this, with “villains” with very understandable motivations, a simple ‘bluh bluh defeat the bad guys’ isn’t going to be satisfying, and I have no idea how this would all work out

oh god, the venerated triad is still intact too. this is really complicated

let us not speak of lan wangji. let us only whisper about whether i would really have the nerve to break up a ship for good, or if we would be talking......... quadrants....................

this is the same problem as hua cheng and mu qing all over again, where i would be happy to simultaneously get two balls rolling, but someone in this room is a jealous motherfucker who is not going to go easily into that good night

[conclusion]