shitpostingkats:

Shoutouts to Lan Xichen, who just spends the final chapters having the worst day of his life in like five different ways. FIRST he gets kidnapped by his situationship and dragged along to go corpse hunting because????? He likes you and wants you to be there when things break bad and he inevitably has to flee the country: just him, you, and the rotting body he is trying to dig up. Okay. Awesome. Don’t know how this is going to shake out.

And THEN your brother’s situationship crashes the party, and there’s a lot of complicated feelings there, this is the man your brother has absolutely destroyed his life over, this man has caused your brother two decades of pain and suffering as you’ve had to watch him slowly tear himself apart with grief. Also your brother really desperately wants to sleep with this guy. So. There’s that. Also he is just. Visibly covered in hickeys.

And THEN your brother’s situationship accidentally lets slip that he’s NOT sleeping with your brother and DOESN’T know that your brother is madly in love with him and literally everyone in the building (including your trusted and beloved situationship) has to stop what they’re doing and ponder this fundamental flaw in the universe. You are so blinded by rage you temporarily have to play couple’s counselor and simultaneously tear this guy a new one for daring to put your little brother through all this grief and not even having the decency to be aware of it. And you’re still a hostage (maybe?)

ANYWAYS, then the little brother in question shows up and he also looks like he’s having one of the worst days of his life (Worst days of his life #1-#4 also involve his situationship. You know this for a fact.) and your situationship threatens to kill his situationship, which would absolutely skyrocket this from The Fifth Worst Day Of His Life to Numero Uno Worst Day Of His Life.

And THEN the guy being held at knifepoint (stringpoint? Semantics.) takes a deep breath and loudly proclaims to everyone assembled that he DOES want to fuck your brother. He waits a beat. He looks ready to repeat himself.

You stop him.

All of you get shuffled into a further hostage holding area and told to sit tight so you have to sit there and pretend not to overhear your brother and his situationship have an extremely deep and emotional conversation and also talk about all the awesome sex they’re going to have if they survive this.

FINALLY you are saved from your agonies by your situationship almost dying and fully revealing himself as a for real villain, which hits like a knife to the heart because you loved him, you thought you could trust him, but you have your principles and you have to stick by them. It’s what your other (dead) situationship would have wanted.

ONLY THEN FOR YOUR OTHER (DEAD) SITUATIONSHIP TO SHOW UP.

Your dead situationship is trying to make your other sitautionship also dead and the problem is your dead situationship is really, really good at making things be dead. Actually that’s only one of the problems. You have a lot of problems.

For example, you have this problem where you are also really really good at making things be dead and you end up running your sword through your situationship’s gut. And with his dying breaths, he tries to drag you with him. Finally, all three of you can be together. One big, happy (extremely dead) situationship.

Except he changes his mind. At the last possible moment. You’re alive. And now you have two dead situationships and a box you have to bury and your brother is gone (presumably off to go have gay and epic sex) and you now have to go home and explain this entire thing to everyone and maybe go scream into a pillow and spend the rest of your life contemplating if love was why he tried to kill you or if love was why he saved you. And it’s still only Thursday.

confusion-and-more:

To go off of my last post a bit, I wanted to talk a little about LXC and Lan An and legacy. 

As I’ve said before on here, I do read the connection between Xiyao as romantic, even if it’s never acted upon, because their connection parallels three explicitly romantic relationships: Wangxian, LWJ and LXC’s parents, and Lan An and his partner.

Although Wangxian and the Lan parents are perhaps more obvious parallels, since we know more about them and they are in recent memory, I think it is actually Lan An who LXC parallels most directly, and this relates to my previous discussion of Xiyao and marriage. 

Here’s what we know about Lan An’s life, as it appears in Chapter 18:

The founder was born in a temple. He grew up listening to the chanting of sutras, and thus became a famous monk at a very young age. At the age of twenty, he used the “Lan” from “qielan” as his last name and resumed the worldly life, becoming a musician. During his path of cultivation, he met the “fated person” he searched for in Gusu, became cultivation partners with her, and founded the Lan Sect. After his partner passed away, he returned to the temple and ended his life there.

Lan An’s early life is a sheltered one, but he attains distinction at a young age, then at 20 experiences the wider world, meets his fated person, becomes partners and builds a sect with her, and eventually withdraws from the world after she dies. Who does this sound like?

In my previous post, I had discussed the difficulties of JGY marrying into the Lan sect, and here I’m going to draw a distinction between ostensibly running a sect together, as any Lan-marriage Xiyao might be expected to do, and founding a sect together, as Lan An and his partner do, since this sort of building, I think, is an important part of LXC and JGY’s relationship in canon. 

LXC and JGY are both builders, sometimes literally as with the reconstruction of CR, which JGY is instrumental in, and the watchtower project, which LXC and JGY are working on together even before JGY becomes sect leader, but also in a more general sense. 

In the present day, at the time WWX returns, the state of the cultivation world is the best we’ve ever seen it. The Jin may be the preeminent clan and JGY may be Chief Cultivator, but JGY is not acting like his father or like WRH, and despite the juniors’ personal losses and struggles, they have clearly grown up in a stable, secure environment. Given LJY’s everything, it seems that the Lan sect may be less rigid than it was in the previous generation, and JL’s observations in Chapter 123 provide good evidence that JGY as Sect Leader had done much to cut down on the pride and corruption of the Jin sect on the small scale as well as the large.

Therefore, even if LXC and JGY do not technically found a sect together, through their work, both in their own sects, and as a unit, in terms of things like the watchtowers and fostering further cooperation between the sects via conferences and the like, they achieve something equivalent, and even more wide-ranging, and, importantly, they do this as a true partnership of equals, in a way that is only possible because of their respective positions as sect leaders.

And then, of course, so much of that is destroyed by the events of the present day narrative, and, like Lan An, LXC withdraws from the world, and nothing in the text indicates that he will ever recover. 

To not end this on a completely depressing note, however, I will say that, just as the Lan sect survived after Lan An’s departure, even though it apparently went through some difficult times from what we know about Lan Yi, the juniors, despite their troubled relationship with the previous generation, clearly benefited from how things were during the timeskip, and how things were during the timeskip was primarily the result of the hard work of JGY and LXC. 

It’s a complicated legacy, certainly, but we see the juniors express empathy while grappling with it, perhaps best exemplified by JL’s post-GT thoughts in Chapter 110, when he feels like he can’t hate or blame anyone, and defends himself when SLY scolds him for crying. SLY may dismiss JL’s outburst as that of a “young brat” who “know[s] nothing about what’s right and what’s wrong,” but, in fact, JL, even in the midst of his emotional upheaval, is grasping that everything cannot be reduced to the simplistic worldview SLY and his ilk represent, and that perhaps, more than anything, shows the potential of the juniors to move forwards with understanding and do some building of their own.

hawberries:

I still, I still

^{[image is an ink painting of lan xichen in profile, eyes closed and tilting his head up slightly with a bereft expression on his face. stylized yellow peonies are painted in metallic gold ink sprouting from him and filling the space around him. following is a photograph of the same painting, showing a chinese ink stone and brush laid on top of the paper.]}

untamedmetablogiguess:

Thinking about how Lan Xichen tells WWX that Wangji’s complicated feelings for him are mirrored by how he felt regarding their mother, but doesn’t seem to realize that his own feelings for JGY are equally shaped and mirrored by his feelings regarding their mother!

Like, he looks at his brother and sees that stubborn, unyielding love and is like ‘ah yes i recognize this’ but he cannot see in himself that his lack of desire to know the details of his mother’s crime are exactly like his reluctance to look at JGY’s actions with any real scrutiny.

because lwj has had to grapple with “what if the person you love did something unforgivable?” and made his choice, but xichen has been studiously avoiding thinking about that question at all for his entire life.  lan xichen wants to give everyone the benefit of the doubt!  he wants to believe the best of everybody!  and sometimes that means deliberately not asking the questions he really should ask, because if he did he’d have to hear the answers!

he knows his mother Did a Murder.  If he asks why, and finds out her reason, then he has to decide, is that a good enough reason?  And if it wasn’t, if the reason was just, like, he annoyed her and she lost her temper, then he has to deal with reconciling his memory of his sweet, kind, loving mother with the knowledge that she did something morally reprehensible and completely unjustified.  but if it was a good reason, if for example the teacher had attempted to assault her and she was defending herself?  well, then she’s vindicated but the rest of his clan is implicated.  now he has to deal with the knowledge that her punishment was absolutely unjust and that all her suffering (and his, and his father’s, and his brother’s) was a terrible injustice perpetrated by his family!  now he’ll have to look at his clan’s elders, who he is supposed to respect, and know that they did something inexcusable to a woman who didn’t deserve it!

by not asking the question, he maintains a state of shroedinger’s-cat-like paradoxical neutrality - he can assume the best of both his mother and his clan.

Likewise, he has carefully maintained a neutral state regarding his sworn brothers, trying to make peace between them and assume only the best of each of them, because if he looks too closely, then either NMJ is right, and JGY is a bad and untrustworthy person, or JGY is right, and NMJ is being cruel and unjust.  as long as he doesn’t actually look directly at the conflict, he can continue to pretend it is just a troublesome personality clash instead of a fundamental and irreconcilable difference of worldview in which he might have to make some kind of moral judgement call!

evilhasnever:

On the origins of Lan Xichen’s sexy music lessons outfit

I see people calling these Nie robes and I’m like no!! these are pure Lan Qiren swag!! The Nie didn’t trademark dark blues and geometric patterns, the original Lan Er-gege did.

piosplayhouse:

The fact that lan xichen’s birthday and lesbian day are so close together did not escape my notice… Happy birthday lesbian xichen

whetstonefires:

honestly the deepest burn on Lan Xichen isn’t any of his actual failures of political will and so forth

it’s that he spent the war hauling ass and getting shit done only for that gang of 12-year-olds playing Sunshot Campaign to not even bother to include him.

relatetonothing:

[mdzs] In depth analysis of Lan Xichen’s name

It’s been 2.5 years since my last MDZS name analysis(!!), and since then I’ve gotten so many requests from the fandom wanting to see more. So here’s to everyone who have enjoyed reading my posts so far - today I’ll be diving into Lan Xichen’s name. Sit back as this is an interesting one!

Lan Xichen is his zi ,or courtesy name, which means ‘chancellor of the morning sunlight’ (Xi 曦 - morning sunlight; Chen 臣- chancellor, minister).

It derives from the poem ‘Xian Qing Fu’ 《闲情赋》 (Ode to a Quiet Life) by Eastern Jin dynasty recluse poet Tao Yuan Ming 陶渊明. Tao is remembered for his appreciation of beauty and serenity of the natural world around him, often admiring the good of others and documenting his wishes for a peaceful and fair society. (NB: The majority of Chinese people would know of the phrase ‘世外桃源’ - Xanadu / fantastical place of great idyllic magnificence and beauty, which originated from him.) This particular poem is a long study on the beauty and virtues of an idealised woman, and is known today as one of the most iconic bodies of work celebrating a woman’s true inner qualities. “悲晨曦之易夕，感人生之长勤” (bēi chén xī zhī yì xī, gǎn rén shēng zhī cháng qín), translates figuratively to ‘it is regrettable that the light of this morning will soon be replaced by the dark night, reminding people that life is filled with endless fatigue.’

One can’t help but draw parallels to Xichen’s life - he was always a noble figure, approached people with sincerity, treated everyone with an equal level of respect and believed deeply in those he stayed close to. But life could not always pay back what he gave to others, as he learnt of his trusted friend Jin Guangyao’s corrupt ways and betrayal - the light that was replaced by darkness.

I find it fascinating how poet Tao’s perspective of the world is so similar to Xichen’s. Tao is known for spending much of his life in reclusion, living in the countryside, receiving only a few guests he had a strong bond with, reading and indulging in his love for poetry. As a talented and knowledgeable man, he spent a decade of his life as a politician - but soon lost faith in a system that was characterised by nepotism, violence, corruption and civil disorder. Torn between ambition and the desire to retreat into solitude, he chose the latter. I wonder if MXTX drew inspiration from this, as Xichen also began as a leader in the cultivators’ world, is a huge lover and collector of literature, and after all the turmoil also decided to withdraw into reclusion.

Xichen’s birth name is 涣 (Huàn), which has two main meanings: 1) ‘melting of snow’; 2) ‘water dispersing in all directions’. His title is 泽芜君 (zé wú jūn), which literally means ‘nourisher of barren lands’ (泽润 - to nourish, bestow; 平芜 - land overgrown with weeds). Combining the two, we can understand his name to mean ‘water disperses in all directions, nourishing everything it touches’. 泽 in Chinese is used specifically to describe bestowing something deep, long-lasting and meaningful (as supposed a one time gift/favour - which would be 惠). In the book, MXTX also describes him as “清煦温雅，款款温柔” (meaning ‘warm, gracious and elegant, gentle in all aspects’). Clearly, his name highlights the grace and kindness he radiates and bestows on everyone around him. He is the keeper of peace and righteousness.

Bonus:

Note that the word Huan 涣 has a water particle, similar to his brother Lan Wangji’s birth name Zhan 湛 - it brings to mind the ‘Twin Jades of Lan’ title for the brothers, with a water element - like Pisces.

Interestingly, in ‘I Ching’ or ‘Book of Changes’, the ancient Chinese divination text which contains of 64 hexagrams, there is a 涣 hexagram:

Again, it represents how gentleness can summon greatness. I copy the below from iching-online.com:

In simple terms, it symbolises water that washes away dirt and baptises new life within oneself. And the aftermath is precisely Zhan 湛 in his brother’s name, meaning crystal clear water.

Other name analyses:

Wei Wuxian

Lan Wangji

Jiang Wanyin

Lan Sizhui

whetstonefires:

Something about how Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen took the same parental trauma and, due to their differing ages and characters and the somewhat different pressures they were under, came away with very distinct conclusions that mostly seemed pretty similar at first, since they were cast in the same mold, i.e. the Lan disciplines.

Both of them these under-parented kids trying to reconcile the message that the world is fundamentally just with the lived experience that it absolutely was not.

Lan Xichen comes away with this idea that justice is arrived at by keeping everyone happy–have I compared him to Jane Bennet yet, she’s my reference archetype for this kind of eldest sibling–and working for the best possible final outcome. In which possibility he persistently has faith even when it fails to come to fruition; a disappointing compromise is just a lesson to do better next time.

This is a pretty resilient coping mechanism, since it can stand up to not only a lot of bad shit randomly falling out of the sky but to other people and even you fucking up supremely in a lot of different ways, and also to being harmed by enemies, because of course enemies will do that.

It cannot survive the sense of being totally helpless, or a loss without recoup or silver lining, because it relies on the conviction that you can bargain with the universe. That you are in a position to do so, and that the universe is disposed toward mercy.

(This I think is why he attached himself so intensely to Meng Yao–at his darkest moment, when everything was falling around him and he was alone, someone came and restored his faith in the world being, fundamentally, a good place, that will pick you up when you fall and offer second chances. Right up until it gets pulled out from under him, that’s what that person means to him, every time he sees him again: that at its core life is kind, and you can be safe again after trauma.

The irony is imo less that this person is actually bad than that Meng Yao is the last person who believes that.)

Lan Wangji, on the other hand, younger and more rigid and somewhat more sheltered, comes away with the idea that bad things are the direct consequence of flawed actions. Punishment is natural law; on earth as it is in heaven; only perfection merits mercy.

(Mumble mumble Legalism I haven’t read enough Chinese history to unpack that lol but.)

The advantage of believing this is that it frees you from the bulk of internal conflict. If bad things happen it’s because they ought to. You can stop them from happening by doing everything right. There is no need therefore to be afraid, and relatively little need to be angry, and when you are angry it can happen in a contained, approved way, toward disruptions to the system.

This is not a worldview that can survive very many disruptions. It does not have a lot of shock absorption built in; to keep it mostly intact in the face of the universe glaringly failing to deliver requires, more or less, going systematically insane.

Plenty of people raised with these kinds of values do in fact choose to do that. If choose is the right word.

If our Lan Zhan hadn’t already gotten his coping mechanism shaken up and expanded by Wei Wuxian and his charismatic undermining of the Lan Sect’s system of making their laws appear to be the laws of the universe, I think he’d have been a lot more likely to break when the Wen took Cloud Recesses. Not in an obvious way, necessarily, not cracking up and screaming or berserking, and probably not even going into complete shutdown, but like. Retreating from reality a lot more.

Living way more completely in his own head, and lashing out more at people who threatened his elaborate, infinitely brittle mental architecture.

(In his worst moments, this is Lan Qiren.)

As it is, it takes Lan Wangji a long time and a pretty large amount of trauma to fully break out of this belief system, even once he’s been confronted with its inadequacy to handle the actual complexities of the unstructured world.

(This is narratively important, I think, because Lan Zhan having gone through that growth is kind of the reward for the tragedy of the thirteen years; a cathartic grace note.)

And just when Lan Wangji’s reached his success state on processing all that and been, essentially, rewarded by the universe with a Wei Wuxian, Lan Xichen’s far more robust just-world coping mechanism is finally brought to its own shattering point. And how.

…also Jiang Yanli is a very similar person to Zewu-jun in a lot of ways, but not having been orphaned as a child or thrust into politics from a young age the scale of her ambition is more modest. But that’s its own post probably!

pngheavy:

♪♫♬

autumnslantern:

I think I tend to differ with fandom a bit on Xichen going into seclusion, because like yes it’s very unhealthy but there are no healthy trauma responses at this point we are WELL past that. Quietly contemplating the shitshow that is his life is not the worst way to handle things. I too want LXC to leave his room and rejoin his family and his sect and the world in general, but he has a lot on his plate right now. He’s having to mourn JGY, process the role in his death, mourn NMJ again, process his role in HIS death, trapped wondering what he could have done to keep his sworn brothers from killing each other, second guess every interaction he’s had with both JGY and NHS in the past decade and wonder how much was even real, deal with living with the bit of uncertainty NHS refuses to give a direct answer to, and has lost complete faith in his own judgment. I think Zewu-jun has earned some bereavement leave. I think it would be nice for LXC to leave seclusion to disguise himself and go on an anonymous roadtrip, maybe in more rural areas or farther down south where he’s less likely to be recognized. Or I am always promoting the ghostbuster sequel movie where he figures out how to lay JGY and NMJ to rest. Or to figure out how to bust them out and live in zombie bliss. Or idk get a new hobby or something. I just think it’d be nice for Lan Xichen to get a break from being Zewu-jun for a bit while also being outside.

19silvermirrors:

Xichen Week 2020 Day 1: Gentians 💙😭