So I recently read that absolutely incredible amazing fic where Jun Wu causes Hua Cheng to believe Jun Wu is his beloved.
And now am absolutely having that problem where - I want more, I want more with the concept, I want things, but - that’s the fic - it’s this fic and it has what it has (and what it has is amazing of course!) -. And have all these thoughts and stuff. (And in specific I really want more interaction between that Hua Cheng and Jun Wu.)
And then also was reading another (wonderful!) fic, and there’s a line there where Hua Cheng is thinking - (there’s a specific line that caught me but I’m going to paste a few more for context and highlight the one):
Hua Cheng would burn the very world to the ground, and all of heaven with it, if it meant keeping his god safe. But he knows such a thing would only make Xie Lian miserable and he will never allow himself to be a direct cause of such a thing. The whole worthless lot of them should be kneeling at Dianxia's altar in supplication every hour of every day in gratitude for their continued existence.
And this caught me and it hit my thoughts about the Jun Wu taking Hua Cheng fic because - Jun Wu? He would want something like that, he would want that.
()I was talking to my queer platonic person about this, and it helped me get some thoughts more pulled apart and together, where - there’s kind of a few dynamics.
- Hua Cheng is - easily considers it absolutely correct and fitting to think about himself as nothing and less than nothing, as an unworthy servant, to think of his beloved as everything, to find himself graced by any attention he’s granted, by anything asked or demanded of him, by any treatment, by any decision. He will find correctness in it, and he will find satisfaction in it. This is very much there in the fic - this is the state he lives in, with Jun Wu - but it’s also I think something we can see lots of places - this is what draws him to dark!Xie Lian, this is I think clearly an urge he has toward Xie Lian, even as Xie Lian usually doesn’t want this from him.
(And this is something I’ve seen and like seeing explored in general in fics a lot, and I’ve seen explored in a lot of ways, that there’s actually some of a tension here, where there are things Hua Cheng would easily, absolutely offer, and (depending on the exploration) would find satisfying that Xie Lian (depending on the exploration) - doesn’t want, and wouldn’t want, and in some cases is distressed by the idea of).
- Hua Cheng very much yearns for - love and kindness and affirmation and care. That’s a very large part of the fic, I think, that Xie Lian keeps trying to be good to Hua Cheng, as much as he can be in the circumstance, and Hua Cheng feels it and it catches at him and it pulls at him and he wants it, on a level, even when it feels like it’s pulling against his core. And this again I think is something that’s very much there in general - he doesn’t think he should dare ask for it, he doesn't think he should want it, but he wants it, deeply, very much, and it means incredibly much, it does incredibly much when he is given it.
And again the fic works a lot with the second of those, and shows us the first with Hua Cheng before Jun Wu.
- And then this other piece, which is a sort of mirror twin of the first - as the first said, to Hua Cheng his beloved is everything. He is - well, the very opposite of unbiased. And again there is satisfaction in him for the idea of laying anything at Xie Lian’s feet, of Xie Lian having absolutely anything he wants whatever it means for literally anyone or anything else.
And again, this is very often something that Xie Lian - doesn’t want, and wouldn't want (and depending on things could be distressed about!).
(And this makes me think of another thing I think about, which is how Hua Cheng fell in love with Xie Lian because Xie Lian is kind, and shows people (and showed Hua Cheng) concern and care - and what this means and how fits with the first thing and the third.)
And so again the first fic I’m talking about does a lot with - Hua Cheng very much being in the first thing, while having this underlying yearning for the second.
And this line I found is making me think of the third, and how that fits into a Hua Cheng with Jun Wu dynamic.
And anyway I don’t think I have these thoughts all together yet at all but here I am having them a lot.
