yeet city

When Wei Wuxian intimidates a produce seller for a cheaper price is playful banter, but when Xue Yang does it is reprehensible threats to a honest merchant.

When Hua Cheng conceals his identity and helps his daozhang repair his roof is sweet attempt to get on his good graces, but when Xue Yang does it it’s predatory behaviour.

When Luo Binghe keeps his (as of then unrequited) crush’s body preserved to cuddle with while frantically searching for a way to revive him is a sign of devotion (if only a bit unhinged), but when Xue Yang does it is downright creepy. 

two things about this:

1. there’s a beautiful symmetry in xue yang’s hiding his identity from xiao xingchen, and song lan deciding to continue that deception himself.

2. just thinking about a universe in which song lan did manage to kill xue yang and then go to xiao xingchen - if he’s not going to tell xiao xingchen that his friend was xue yang, and definitely not going to tell xiao xingchen that his friend died, how is he planning on dealing with the thing where xiao xingchen’s living companion just…disappears? is he going to come up with some other lie about him being dead and deal with xiao xingchen’s grief over it? is he going to just say nothing and let xiao xingchen wonder and worry without knowing what happened? 

would a-qing ever tell him?

there’s a very painful au in here that i personally could not write where things go as it seems song lan planned, xue yang dies, and xiao xingchen never knows - not that his friend was xue yang, and not that his friend is dead, and not that song lan killed him.

and I wonder if xiao xingchen, in that situation, wouldn’t want to believe that his friend just abandoned him, because however much that hurts, it’d be better than the alternative. at some point maybe he expresses this to song lan. if he didn’t walk away of his own accord, then he has to think that maybe chengmei’s shady past caught up to him, this time fatally.

Idk why i decided to make this.

AU where A-Qing lives and she be around the same age as the juniors and they be scamming people together

two things about this:

1. there’s a beautiful symmetry in xue yang’s hiding his identity from xiao xingchen, and song lan deciding to continue that deception himself.

2. just thinking about a universe in which song lan did manage to kill xue yang and then go to xiao xingchen - if he’s not going to tell xiao xingchen that his friend was xue yang, and definitely not going to tell xiao xingchen that his friend died, how is he planning on dealing with the thing where xiao xingchen’s living companion just…disappears? is he going to come up with some other lie about him being dead and deal with xiao xingchen’s grief over it? is he going to just say nothing and let xiao xingchen wonder and worry without knowing what happened? 

would a-qing ever tell him?

there’s a very painful au in here that i personally could not write where things go as it seems song lan planned, xue yang dies, and xiao xingchen never knows - not that his friend was xue yang, and not that his friend is dead, and not that song lan killed him.

and I wonder if xiao xingchen, in that situation, wouldn’t want to believe that his friend just abandoned him, because however much that hurts, it’d be better than the alternative. at some point maybe he expresses this to song lan. if he didn’t walk away of his own accord, then he has to think that maybe chengmei’s shady past caught up to him, this time fatally.

A Gremlin ~~

are you ready for another post that’s just me straight up losing my mind about Xue Yang and Xiao Xingchen’s interaction here? because that’s what you’re getting!

like, there’s a lot going on here for Xue Yang, and I don’t think all of it is “haha sucker this is amazing” (though I do think that’s part of it). but I think that while that might be side by side with sheer relief that he’s at least sort of safe/not in imminent danger of death when he first realizes Xiao Xingchen doesn’t know who he is…I think this is the point where it shifts a little.

when he asks the question about why Xiao Xingchen isn’t asking who he is, he’s very blatantly inviting him to do just that and ask, and I don’t doubt he has a lie ready for it (just as I don’t doubt he’s also ready for that lie to fail). but that’s not what Xiao Xingchen does: instead, he not only offers this easy acceptance of his silence (”since you’re not talking about it, why should I ask?”) he also does two other things that I think contribute to Xue Yang’s “are you for real” face in those last two screencaps.

the first is his easy dismissal of what he’s doing as anything much: “I’m just helping a stranger I met by chance. It’s not a big deal.” for Xue Yang, for whom help has never been something that he just got, and when he did it has strings…that’s got to be both a little infuriating (”actually that is a big deal what the fuck”) and also sort of breathtaking in its sheer…openness. like, yes, Xiao Xingchen doesn’t know who he is (and wouldn’t be doing this if he did), but even so he’s still reaching out and offering this kindness and help to a complete stranger, no questions asked.

that’s just…not something that happens, in Xue Yang’s world - but here it is.

and second: “if we were to swap places.” the thing here, I think, is the idea of someone thinking of that possibility - of believing that there is a point of view in there that’s understandable and could belong to Xiao Xingchen. I’m having a harder time expressing this, but it’s something about…you don’t swap places with an animal. you don’t “if I were you” someone without having some kind of recognition of them as a person whose perspective has value.

and I think that’s kind of a lot.