#you’d have to make jc ooc to get a good outcome

[mxtxfanatic]

Well, I don’t think the closure of the overall story is that “everyone just moves on with their lives.” That’s the closure to Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng’s personal drama. The closure to the story is that because Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji (and Wen Ning, and Mianmian) fought against the corruption of the cultivation world in their own ways, there is now a new generation of kids who don’t have to suffer what they suffered at that age nor fall into the same prejudices and mob mentality that led to multiple clan massacres.

The reason why you believe that canon Jiang Cheng could achieve a redemption is because you brush aside is canonical, willing actions under the unsupported hope that “maybe he didn’t mean it.” To say that Jiang Cheng “didn’t want” to kill the Wen remnants is to ignore that he wanted them sent back to the labor camp when he went to the Burial Mounds to demand Wei Wuxian’s return, is to ignore that he hates Wen Ning because he sees Wen Ning as just “another Wen dog” who destroyed Lotus Pier, is to ignore that in the 13 years that Wei Wuxian and Wen Ning were “dead,” Jiang Cheng still attacked civilians with the surname Wen even though they were unrelated to the QishanWen entirely. The Jiang were already restored to their former glory by the time the war ended. Jiang Cheng did everything that he did because he is a hateful person who holds grudges but ignores debts, the complete antithesis to Wei Wuxian’s character, not because he was coerced into it.

And this is the problem with a lot of fix-it fics: they don’t actually acknowledge canon Jiang Cheng because they all write the version of Jiang Cheng that you just describe, which only exists in the fandom’s imagination. They start from this fanon version of him where he “didn’t mean” to kill the Wen and he “didn’t mean” to hurt Wei Wuxian but he was just so sad and hurt and he had no choice, don’t you see? They essentially erase the essence of Jiang Cheng’s character to make the option of his redemption probable, but in whitewashing his character, they tend to drag down other characters, like making Wei Wuxian “equally” as guilty and pathetic as their fanon Jiang Cheng is. So instead of being a fix-it to canon, they’ve just rearranged everyone’s personalities, invented a new problem, and had that new problem be fixed instead. Nothing about canon was fixed because the fic was never about fixing the canon, it was about creating an “and they all lived happily ever after” ending. Also, shanastoryteller is why we’re plagued with “straight” Wei Wuxian who likes Wen Qing, so I could never take her fics seriously.

In my opinion, redemption for Jiang Cheng's character is impossible. It’s odd how most discussions about his potential redemption always solely centre around his relationship with Wei Wuxian.

While it’s true that Jiang Cheng wronged Wei Wuxian, his biggest crime isn’t his treatment of Wei Wuxian—it’s the massacre of the Wen Remnants. His redemption shouldn’t just be centred around his relationship with Wei Wuxian, it should focus on the Wen Remnants, who were brutally slaughtered under the siege he led.

Making peace with Wei Wuxian doesn’t erase the much larger moral crime of leading a massacre against innocent people. True redemption should be about confronting the full extent of one’s wrongdoings, and in Jiang Cheng’s case, that means dealing with the massacre, not just his wrongdoings against Wei Wuxian.

Jiang Cheng never reflects on the massacre, expresses any regret for the innocent lives lost, or takes responsibility. For Jiang Cheng to even have a chance at redemption, he’d need to show real remorse for what he did to the Wen Remnants—and honestly, I just don’t see that ever happening.