I said that I was going to be expanding on this in due time... but then the dash died, so I’m going to kill time and do it now. This is a loose outline of my thoughts surrounding Jean after Diluc’s father Crepus dies and the disintegration of the relationship between Diluc / Kaeya.
I subscribe to the idea that Diluc, Kaeya and Jean were incredibly close as children ; possibly ( at least to start ) more-so Diluc than Kaeya because the two could have spent years together in each others’ company prior to Kaeya’s arrival. I vibe with the idea that as the boys drew close due to sheer proximity to each other Jean was... not outed, per say, but she knew she would never achieve the same closeness as ‘sworn brothers’ and ( though she would certainly never admit it ) there was a streak of jealousy that was both the feeling of being replaced and the thought of not being good enough. I would like to stress that a lot of these feelings were more the grievances of a child trying to navigate new and unpleasant feelings rather than permanent animosity, and much of it was assuaged the moment Barbara was born. I’ve written more about her feelings about that here, so I won’t go much into it in that regard.
However, with Diluc’s dream of becoming a Knight and Jean’s family line gravitating her to that path, it’s little wonder the three fell into training under the Knights of Favonius. I think this period of youth/teenage years were some of the best for Jean. She was beside her two best friends, she was training to become the thing she’d always dreamt of, and life for the three seemed incredibly idyllic. She celebrated Diluc’s promotion as Calvary Captain, probably witnessed some of Kaeya’s less than scrupulous dealings with criminals and the like ━━ but, overall, there was nothing that stood out to her as being overly ‘wrong’. I imagine she attended part the night of Diluc’s eighteenth, drank some dandelion wine, teased the boys in her own way... and then she went home.
It was when she woke up her whole life had been turned upside down.
Crepus was dead, Diluc was inconsolable ; his relationship with Kaeya was somehow fractured beyond repair, and neither of them would tell her why. Here she was looking into the faces of her best friends who had become strangers in as little as twenty-four hours, and she had to put on a smile and pretend everything was fine. But nothing was fine, was it ?
Diluc then defected from the Knights and disappeared without so much as a word, Eroch was ousted as a traitor and subsequently dethroned and, every time she so much as thought about asking Kaeya about the events of that night, she’d decide it was a waste of her time ━━ or he’d smile and feed her half-truths. I think she believes the omissions are less to absolve him and more to protect her, but... it stings. For as close as they got in Diluc’s absence, there was always that overhanging truth that there are things he’s keeping from her, like a blade set in a guillotine. She believes with all her heart that he would never do anything deliberate to hurt her, she trusts him explicitly... but she also knows him. That trust, despite the fact he can be untrustworthy, is a dichotomy not even she tries to pry.
For as fine as Jean makes herself out to be, I she’s anguished ━━ she’s angry. She puts on a brave face because the relationships she’s forged with both Kaeya and Diluc are extremely important to her, but she also feels that invisible wedge that has driven itself between the three no matter how hard she might strive to bridge or crack it. How can she when she has absolutely no idea what forged it in the first place ? How can she when a part of her believes, albeit misplaced, that she somehow had a hand in the reason they won’t divulge pieces of it to her ?
Yet, when Varka left and she became Acting Grandmaster, appointing Kaeya as her second-in-command was an obvious choice. When Diluc returned from his misadventures, for all the change in him, how could she not be overjoyed ? She feels like she is at constant war with herself ; finding her predicament so unfathomably unfair, knowing hers is the worse crime to express it, yet constantly pretending that nothing has changed. How selfish she would be to take their problems and make them her own ? She bites her tongue, she schools herself in her knightly lessons and steels herself to be unflappable at all costs.
It’s why she buries herself in her work. It was what she was born to do and she’s good at it, but it also gives her a sense of purpose ━━ a sense of control. She can see how she is making a difference, rather than watching powerless from the side lines as the relationships around her wither and crumble, and it helps her forget just how much time has changed them in a few short years.
It is when she is away from work, or forced to confront these fractures, that the armour she’s meticulously built for herself threatens to chip itself away.
Basically, to sum it up like the smaller head canon, Jean’s entire self is this one picture:
“ Stop talking. “ There was the thrum of a headache behind the back of her eyes, her brows furrowing as she hoisted her gunblade into its sheath. “ I’m here to do a job, not make friends. You got that ? “
