#ALSO YINGXING WITH SURVIVORS GUILT

[havfayth]

HEADCANON. RE DAN FENG / DAN HENG && YING XING / BLADE

this is something i've always mulled on in regards to jing yuan's behavior around blade and dan heng after the recent storyline. I DO NOT THINK THAT JING YUAN WANTS THINGS TO RETURN TO THE WAY THINGS WERE FOR THEM. AND HE WANTS THE PAST TO STAY IN THE PAST. jing yuan is someone who has long moved on from his past ( given that so far, he is mara free and the last character story of his sort of spells out how ), he always steps ahead of everyone around him, and the only thing that is tying him down to the semblance of it is the duty he has to accomplish - and that is to clear dan feng's and maybe yingxing's name from criminals because he seriously suspects something off is going on. the very reason why he took up the role of general ( and as i predict, will end once everything has come to light along with when the stellaron crisis resolved ).

spoilers and possible very slight leaks under

this may be just for my jing yuan, but from the story itself, he exhibited a great deal of respectful distance around his 'old friends', he's shown a degree of distance towards their newly made selves and full awareness that they are not dan feng and yingxing and very much preferred if they remained in his past and free themselves from it.

jing yuan @ blade: if he were to forget everything, it would make things a lot easier for me. jing yuan @ dan heng: i understand the one i wished to trace exists now only in memory. but it's probably what's best for him.

he is always, always thinking of the best outcome for everyone and not just him. unless things change in the way dan heng and blade carried themselves and their past, it is not likely to change his mind. is there some sort deep longing ? yes. does he miss them ? yes. but does he wish things to go back the way it was or had illusions about it? i don't think so. because that is the least probable good outcome for them.

he will sometimes indulge in it for the sake of it because matters of the heart are that complicated but it'll be nowhere as much as disillusioning himself because his mind is far stronger.

a lot of his decision to stay in luofu as general to clean up their names and protect luofu is out of duty and if not, also survivor's guilt. something that he's learned to navigate around by devoting himself to resolving this crisis. now after that is done .. jing yuan has well .. plans of himself that will involve him disappearing from the public's eye for good, something that will not force yanqing's hand if he were to become mara-struck ( in my verse, he will seal himself up somewhere and place elaborate troll traps but this is a canon divergent headcanon for later aha ).

one very important and obvious trait of jing yuan is that he always has eyes towards the future and glances back only so occasionally. the distance between jing yuan and his old friends are a lot bigger than his old friends @ each other.

now come the fight between dan heng, blade && yanqing aka the three people who are more attached to the bygone history more than anyone.

dan heng: the person who is running away from his past and can never seem to be seperated from it. blade: who is chasing after dan heng to repay some debt from the past yanqing: who wishes to emulate past heroes of the cloud quintet and bring dan feng ( also jingliu and blade ) to the shackling prison where they're supposed to belong.

it was kafka who stops them and the scene reintroduces jing yuan once their little battle of past-chasing is over and starts addressing the present problem. jing yuan made a side joke comment that, 'if they were friends, they would've forewarned him" before it shifts to him addressing kafka to take this person ( blade ) away and he will pretend nothing will happen. for him, this is as far as he see himself needing to be in blade's presence - not out of malice, hatred or avoidance but .. this is simply coming to an end of their deal since blade finished his side of his role for jing yuan's ultimate goal. nothing more.

what about jing yuan and dan feng ? for jing yuan, he needs dan feng to split open the ocean and deal with the stellaron issue that works towards his ultimate goal. jing yuan says it outright, that all dan feng gotta do is help jing yuan clean up the mess that dan feng himself was involved in. once dan feng is done, he is free to go and be whoever he wants. imo, he is someone who became a general to clear his friends' names of the crimes which he felt was UNFAIRLY enacted on them and cannot resign until he sees this to the end, this is his ultimate goal along with ensuring the safety of luofu. talk about actually finishing what he picked up to do.

he doesn't need dan heng to become dan feng to be his friend again, he needs dan heng to play nice with dan feng's memories and powers so that they can move onwards and clear dan feng's name from exile ( which jing yuan enacted as pardon for dan heng, so as to buy time and allow him freedom and mercy until the day it needed for this phase of the plan where dan feng has to split open the ocean ). it is only after jing yuan is able to resolve the stellaron issue ( which is tied to dan feng's crimes, probably ) will he be able to clear dan feng's name and then let dan heng do whatever he wants. until then, he expects no more and no less.

aaand what about jing yuan's behaviour around dan feng ? associative regression, most probably. on the smallest scale of it, no less. he's never submerged in it, barely even drowned his entire ankles in it, as if there is no temptation drawing him into it. but he cannot deny that the familiar presence does have a bit of sway in how he behaves. it's common for a lot of people.

what is yingxing and dan feng to present jing yuan? old friends. his final duty to luofu where he has taken upon the task of clearing their names in the records decrying them as traitors / criminals before he can retire. he misses them sure, like any normal human being who sometimes misses their high school bffs who got into trouble with the law unfairly and never had a good closure parting, but it never went as far as to want them to hang out like the old times or return things the way it was, or making them do things along those lines. nah ? jing yuan is practically on the opinion that this isn't going to happen, especially not with them being the way they are lmao he is very pragmatic like that. he's like an old man who spends some time in nostalgia looking back but is very real about what is happening around him.

what is blade and dan heng to present jing yuan? they are their own person, they live the new lives they forged themselves and quite frankly, whatever is going on between them is none of jing yuan's business and they are adult enough to resolve things on their own. he did not seem all that interested in inserting himself in when blade chased dan heng to stab him through the heart, along with those around dan heng prior to landing to luofu., other than using it to draw dan feng out he struck a deal with blade to bring dan feng out and that was the end of their deal and kafka is to bring blade out of luofu. dan heng can rejoin the express once he's carried out his part too.

as far as he's concerned blade and dan heng are two important pieces on the board to overcome the match - in which, it is to bring closure to the incident that became his old friends, dan feng's greatest sin and yingxing's crimes. this is his closure.

#headcanon. / jing yuan. #man this became longer than i wanted. i hate it here #just tacking this here for how i write my jing yuan and hopefully refer back to #even if canon retconned it. this will be canon divergent. #this can change when it comes to shipping but when the shipping glasses are off - this is how i'd write him