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originally written 2 july 2021.

this was originally written in the comments of every morning in the dark by magicites on AO3. so if you find out my ao3 username like that, well. lol i guess!

"there's nothing to forgive, xiao" AHH­HHH­HHH­HHH­HHH­HHH­HHH­HHH­HHH­HHH­HHH­HHH­HHH­HHH­HHH

*insert thirty-six solid hours of screaming here before i am well enough and no longer in shambles to have coherent thoughts*

augh god i had a whole internal dialogue abt this when i read it like:

• you know you could argue that there are, in fact, things abt xiao to be forgiven by venti.
• but nothing was done on purpose! xiao was not in control of his own actions— can you repent for a sin that is not your own?
• even if it was your body that acted, should you be punished for the actions of someone that is not you?
• xiao does not need forgiveness from venti because he has done nothing that needs to be forgiven, and his intents are never to harm anyway bc as venti says, he's a sweet person underneath.
• ah, but seeing people whose actions have hurt you, even if it wasn't consciously or on purpose, as good intentions and sweet souls are exactly how you fall for phishing scams!
• xiao is NOT a phishing scam!!!!!!!!

and just!! should a person be punished for the wrong things their body has done (might continue to do) when they were unaware and not in control of it? this is a question i've wrestled with for a while now bc i was writing meta for a different fandom like… two months ago, and i still haven't found a solid answer for it. (and i still have not published that meta whoops)

relative to the situation presented in this fic, i want to say no, because it's a time loop, and everything ends up """"""""""okay""""""""""" after the reset ( huge scare quotes there bc obvs trauma). and i guess it's funny bc that seems to be the unspoken question btwn xv in this chapter: venti thinks not; xiao thinks so.

but to say "no, period," feels like it's brushing aside the real, tangible harm done to someone. and the fact that venti is the only one harmed and is also the one saying no makes it feel like he's extending forgiveness beyond his means, beyond what is healthy.

i was talking with my bff abt angsty xv ideas late last night, and she was like:
• god, is venti the kind of person to just give and give with no expectation of return until he's empty?
and i was like:
• oh my god i think he is.

and then we wept over that, but i'm saying it here bc that's what it feels like he's doing here. he and xiao are similar in that way, i think, though it's also what can make them clash: neither of them consider themselves worth giving back to .

and on the other hand, to say, "yes, period," the way xiao does feels like self-harm. the intentions were never to harm venti, but what are good intentions in the face of a horrible outcome?

venti might value intent more (because it feels more poetic, more noble, perhaps?), but xiao is all about the outcome (because it is the outcome of his actions that keeps liyue safe).

but does intent truly mean nothing? i try to be someone who values outcome more than intent, and i think i come across as harsh as a result, but that doesn't mean i don't try to take intent into account. it's easy to be harsh when a bad outcome came from bad intentions, but how do you deal when a good outcome came from bad intentions? how do you deal when a bad outcome came from good intentions? no matter how you roll the dice, it's probably going to seem unfair in some way.

and in terms of xiao n venti both being so stubbornly yes or no abt this question, i feel like i have my bones to pick with both of them. i think there should be a balance here!!!! like btwn both their levels of self-sacrifice, there has to be a balance where they draw a line in the sand and say, " this is where i end. i know where i begin and i end, and i know where my obligations lie as a result."

…but it's also kind of romantic to see people go so far just to save each other, no? and i want to see them succeed in the end. it's just the situation that's shitty, and i believe they can make it through. i'm a hopeful little punk like that, even when it gets me three hours away from home bc i believed so hard in the fact that i had boarded the bus going in the right direction and everything will be Fine.

(i know how to use the buses now at least lol.)

"none of this is fair, but it's what we have" is a line i loved so so so much too, because i'm the kind of person who has a bunch of angry, bitter letters written out, letters i know i'll never send because the point was never really about communication but catharsis— but anyway, one time i wrote, "it doesn't matter what we deserve; it matters what we get." because that's the reality that we have to live with n the end, and no amount of arguing about this nebulous ideal of "deservedness" will ever change that.

ofc, you can only say that once everything's over and done, and you can't keep looking back on what you would have done differently (if only you could …) because then you're regretting what happened. in the moment, deservedness is very important, i think; it dictates out actions. we do things to achieve the outcome we think we or other people deserve.

blah blah insert meta abt conflict btwn xv abt xiao not feeling like he deserves all these chances and venti thinking he does (bc he sees smth in xiao that xiao himself does not see.)

i wonder, is there something in venti which xiao can see right now that venti cannot see himself? probably. does he see venti as divine for his willingness to give these chances over and over again? i wonder. they do say forgiveness is divine. i wonder, if that's the case, if that's something he'll learn to see past, that venti is a flawed being. hmm hmm.

and ugh, venti being afraid of xiao but willing to keep giving him chances despite it all!! i'd be like, " is that not what a good person does?" but again, balance . there is such a thing as being too caring, too loving, too forgiving— it's when you keep giving out parts of yourself for nothing in return until you are nothing but an empty well.

and i don't wanna say that xiao doesn't give anything back— or at least, that by the end of it, he won't have given/be giving anything back, because falling in love is a reciprocation thing— but i wonder if he's afraid of giving back bc he doesn't think he has anything worth giving back but his life, and even that is drenched and tainted in death and sin. (what might divinity want with something so dirty?) and i guess going off this train of thought, xiao sees dying as the only way to pay things back with his life, but that's far from the only way to interpret the act of " giving your life to someone."

i guess bc to give your life over to someone, it kind of means that you put all control over yourself and your fate into your hands. there's the contract he had w/morax to protect liyue; that was giving his life over. (did he see it that way? i've been thinking so much it's getting hard to chase all these threads haha).

but when his life is in venti's hands, venti wants him to live . xiao does not think he deserves that, tries to insist on dying— isn't he, in some way, trying to take control over his life, if you put it that way? he is obedient to the death, but he will not be obedient to life, it seems. his soul screams for the freedom to die.

…i feel like i've gotten wildly off-track from what this fic is actually trying to convey. i think i'm just pulling at random threads and connection them back to general themes that are easy to explore via xiaoven lmao.

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