Rulingtheworldistoomuchwork

I am always on some level thinking about Lan Sizhui’s trauma, and this was only compounded for me on this rewatch, because I’d forgotten just how absolutely abysmal Wei Wuxian’s mental health is during the burial mounds farming commune stretch of the show. Just extraordinary emotionally volatile, prone to angry outbursts, and with the capacity to drop from soaring enthusiasm to plunging despair at the drop of a hat. And they’re all living in such close quarters that his erratic moods and unacknowledged trauma that he’s stewing in just kind of spills over into the overall environment.

And certainly Wei Wuxian is great with a-Yuan, and is a positive influence for him in many ways! But none of them are living in an optimal environment - they’re struggling to get by, and frequently short on food - and Wei Wuxian in particular has an entire festering host of Issues that the current situation is only exacerbating. He’s living in a place that traumatized him, and to some extent he feels trapped there - he chose to help the Wens, but now that he’s made that decision, there’s no going back, and he explicitly knows he has no other options at this point. He misses his family and Lan Zhan. He’s practicing a brand of magic that is wreaking havoc on his temperament and eating him from the inside, and he’s gone through a voluntary but nonetheless pretty traumatizing kind of body modification. He can’t be expected to function at his best, or do as right by the people in his life as he could if he were in a healthier place.

So of course a-Yuan is affected by this! He can tell that one of his favourite people is frequently stressed, that his moods are easily ruined by little interferences, and that he’s sad for reasons that are hard for a little kid to comprehend. a-Yuan gets yelled at for uprooting a lotus plant by accident - and sees Wei Wuxian, rather than try to replant it, declare the venture hopeless (you have to be careful what you do, all the time, because he’s always hovering over a pit of despair and any little thing could flip the switch!). a-Yuan witnesses Wei Wuxian become physically violent towards Wen Ning after the JZX stabbing fiasco. For most of that outburst, a-Yuan is crying in the background after getting a truly terrifying glare from Wei Wuxian. 

Sharing an environment with someone who does not have access to the kind of coping mechanisms they need - and compounded with the fact that a-Yuan has already gone through a considerable amount of trauma due to being a war crime survivor at an incredibly young age - is it really any wonder that teen Sizhui has so many people pleasing impulses? Is so accommodating and acquiescent and pacifying, so inclined to mediate and de-escalate? I see people saying that it’s a wonder that Sizhui turned out so well compared to everyone else, but imo the way he turned out makes complete sense, and I don’t think that his interpersonal behaviour is entirely healthy either.

For me, what exemplifies it the most is this little exchange when they’re at the restaurant with Lan Wangji:

Wei Wuxian gets upset when the topic of Jin Zixuan comes up and slams his jug on the table in a sudden burst of anger; a-Yuan reaches out and gently puts his hand on his arm. It’s a very sweet gesture, but in in the context of everything else, there’s also something unnerving about it to me, in the sense that this toddler really seems to have internalized that it’s his responsibility to manage the emotions of his caregiver.

Aaaand what do we seem him do, in episode 2, as a teenager? Once again feeling responsible for managing the emotions of people older than he is; jumping in to bail Lan Wangji out of his extremely petty vow of silence by engaging in diplomacy for him and defusing a conflict based on a grudge that he doesn’t have the context for. 

And I think that his relationship with Lan Wangji also compounded these same issues for him. When Lan Wangji comes out of seclusion and starts being a major figure in Sizhui’s life, he’s still pretty freshly grieving. Sizhui is likely one of the few bright spots in his life, and I’m betting Sizhui picked up on that, if perhaps only subconsciously, and developed a deeply protective impulse towards Hanguang-jun. Once again, feeling responsible for managing an adult caregiver’s mood. And again, of course Lan Wangji had plenty of positive impacts on Sizhui, and was overall a force for good in his life. But both Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji have their own baggage that they’re not super great at coping with, and that has an unavoidable impact on Sizhui’s development as well. 

tanoraqui

Still thinking about an au in which for some reason WWX and the Wens are left to just live peacefully on the creepy death mountain - some detente wherein they don’t leave the mountain ever and in exchange no one tries to visit ever. Borders patrolled by corpses and sect disciples. So A-Yuan grows up raised kind of collectively but mostly by WWX and Wen Qing (the one most likely to tell WWX that he’s doing it wrong), and learns healing-focused spiritual cultivation AND demonic cultivation, and then at some point starts sneaking out to be the terrifying force of righteous kindness he was always going to be

tanoraqui

Righteous kindness but also, like, having picked up WWX’s cavalier confidence (or at least some of the ability to fake it) and Wen Qing’s general attitude of Do No Harm But Take No Shit

Like IMAGINE

tanoraqui

In this au, despite the strict border-by-mutual-agreement that’s the only reason somehow no ones tried to attack, LWJ sneaks in like one a year so he and WWX can make eyes at one another but not actually say anything ever, and Wen Qing and LXC are both EXHAUSTED bc both their dumb little brothers (WWX is a sibling by adoption now don’t @ me) mope for like a week after EVERY SINGLE TIME THIS HAPPENS, and it’s been /over ten years/.

tanoraqui

Meanwhile Jiang YanLi and JZX are FINE, and JYL somehow keeps up some sort of correspondence with WWX - or at least, he’s faithfully managed to send a birthday present for Jin Ling every single year, and every time, JYL makes her son write a thank-you note and bribes some series of people to get it smuggled back to Yiling

tanoraqui

…which means, honestly, that Jin Ling is probably wildly curious about his uncle the evil demonic cultivator kept trapped within the terrible ghost mountain by the forces of Good and Right, and WILL sneak out one day to try to visit. Optimally, obviously, at the same time Wen Yuan is sneaking out to see the non-mountain world

tanoraqui

The optimal plot is that Wen Yuan ropes Jin Ling into helping him set up WWX and LWJ, because he, too, is exasperated at this point, and Jin Ling ropes Wen Yuan into arranging like a parent trap reunion for the Jiang siblings, and obviously there are monsters and undead to complicate it all

tanoraqui

They kind of acquire Lan Jingyi somewhere, somehow. He’s having a blast

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A dating service where matching is based on people’s search history exists. You’re a serial killer. You go on a date with a writer.

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