Iām having Feelings about the very different ways that WWX plays up his childishness around his adoptive siblings.
Like with Yanli, itās more obvious, and intentionally so. When he acts childish around her, itās both more of a game - like playing house with your siblings as a little kid, āyou can be the mom and Iāll be the baby,ā or like over the top āIām Babyā jokes - and more genuine in that it reflects on his actual need, even as a young adult, to receive care and comfort in ways that reassure him that someone sees him as precious and worth fussing over. He lost his parents, was homeless as a young child, was emotionally and at times physically abused by his adoptive mother, had to live around the brokenness of his adoptive parentsā marriage ā he has very real reasons to have abandonment issues and trouble feeling like he even *deserves* to be safe, loved, and looked after. Yanliās Oldest Daughter Syndrome / innate Mom Friend tendencies / genuine kindness as a person provide for a serious psychological need that he has, and as a much older sibling with a strong nurturing streak, she also obviously thrives on being able to mother him a bit. To her, his immaturity, even when itās not a thing heās playing up as a joke, is an endearing sort of vulnerability, and it draws them close as she protects him.
With Jiang Cheng, itās much more subtle. Itās not a game theyāre both in on, itās an act that Jiang Cheng is meant to buy into.
WWX ignores or pretends to ignore a lot of things, but heās very perceptive about people as a rule. He knows from an early age that itās... awkward, to put it mildly, for Jiang Cheng as his fatherās heir to have an adoptive brother whoās so talented and so clearly favored by his father, even to the point of being his clanās head disciple at a very young age (and to a point of sparking rumors that he might be the Jiang siblingsā bastard biological half-brother). As his mother frequently and cruelly points out, WWXās over the top talent and his favor in Jiang Fengmianās eyes can easily be turned into a *threat* to her son.
So what does he do? He makes every effort to cede the Older Brother Role to his technically-slightly-younger brother. Itās partly genuine, sure, because he IS genuinely a pretty carefree guy, but itās also really clear when youāre looking for it that he plays up being a flighty good-for-nothing so that Jiang Cheng can have the power of being the one who has to guide him and keep him out of trouble. Itās a way of saying āyouāre not just the Legitimate Heir, Iām basically the silly baby brother anyway so it doesnāt matter if your father favors me, or even if people think Iām his Secret Love Child, because youāre the grown-up one and Iām not a threat to you or your position.ā
And in ways, for a long time, it probably worked. It clearly helped inspire protectiveness in JC, initially to shield him from their motherās abuse when he could and even in some ways long after they fell out. It was a way he could get JC to relax and play around more, too, something he clearly needed as a kid. But it also cemented him in JCās mind as someone reckless, genuinely immature, thoughtless, irresponsible. It made it so that when WWX had to start looking at his life and making difficult, painful moral choices that pulled them away from each other, JC couldnāt even truly entertain the possibility of him being *right* about any of their disagreements ā it was obviously just WWX being impulsive and not considering other people because heās a selfish goddamn manchild and thatās what he does, so why wouldnāt he just listen to him and come back to the people who loved him and needed him???
Itās just painful to think that a coping mechanism that he was initially able to use to bond with JC and make him feel secure ended up playing such a role in making it impossible for JC to trust him or believe in him when they both needed to be able to rely on each other the most, with such painful consequences for both of them (and also like, thousands of people who got Necromancied to death, I guess.)
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