tonight we're doing a meta thread on *spins wheel* ...my headcanons about lan xichen's gentle superiority complex

lxc is kind of low on...peers. he has, um, nmj? everyone else is either a more established adult or in his little brother's cohort. to the adults he's treated as an invaluable asset. the younger cohort is his responsibility

he's spent his whole life isolated and told to make himself into the vision of unattainable ideal. and then, what's WORSE, they tell him he's achieved it. he's just right the way he is: powerful but reserved, self-composed in a way that in practice means compliant

the /first/ jade of the lan. it's never even /crossed lxc's mind/ that he thinks he's better than lwj. it'd be like him noticing that he has ten fingers.

so when lxc meets meng yao things are IMMEDIATELY WEIRD. lxc sees meng yao and decides instantly that he would like my to be on equal footing with him. (particularly interesting because my and jzx are...the same age, iirc?)

and it continues in this vein - lxc vouches for my, protects him (literally with his body), reminds him to call nmj da-ge, teaches him music (even though, he says with a small proud smile, it is a very difficult piece), is the Only One who believes in him - and so on

with my/jgy, lxc gets to be the benevolent one, the one who's better and kinder than all the rest. i think secretly he's into that, into being the savior. their fucking signature interaction is lxc lifting jgy up

lxc's so self-assured and he's so comfortable with his own self-image; it doesn't occur to him that lwj could be the one who's right about his dangerous murder-husband being good on the inside while lxc is the one who is wrong

why wouldn't he be like that? literally everything his whole life he's been presented with unfairly high standards and then met them! it's not an /attractive/ trait but it makes sense.

this is why i personally think lxc is irreparably damaged after guanyin temple. that thoughtless superiority is fucked forever. now lxc doubts himself /utterly/. how much of lxc's identity was based in being "the reasonable one"? the one with the most unclouded, unbiased vision?

post-canon all of that is gone. no wonder he gives up as the roof caves over his head. lxc's lost the faith that he can make correct decisions, so he just decides to stop. no more making choices. he'll die if he dies.

in closing: lxc presents a narrative of himself as humble and down-to-earth. but if there's one thing (one thing!!) you should talk away as a moral of the untamed, it's that you should be careful about mindlessly believing the narratives that get built around people, lxc included