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so do you think wwx would still do the core transplant if he knew why jc lost his core? i think he might
Oh yeah. Actually it might depend on what scenario we're talking about here? Is this an AU where JC mumbles out the truth when feverish or something, or is this a time travel situation? Regardless, the following remain true:
Wei Wuxian loves Jiang Cheng very much and JC being sad in his vicinity is basically intolerable to him
Wei Wuxian considers himself to owe a debt to the Jiang
Wei Wuxian loves Lotus Pier and wants it restored and Jiang Cheng is the best chance they have
Wei Wuxian has rock bottom self worth and sky high self esteem, which means he does not consider himself of value while also simultaneously thinking he knows best and has the right to make decisions for other people
Obviously in canon or in a time travel AU where he didn't find out, he's ripping his organs out. If he does know, it kind of depends on timing. Teen WWX who heard JC's mumbled confession is drowning in guilt and self hatred and does it immediately. In some ways this improves the state of their relationship, because WWX now knows that Jiang Cheng considers him more important than his own life or even the sect. He's extremely upset by this, because "Your brother loves you" is the most devastating blow for either of them, but he is not questioning whether JC sees him as family in the same way as in canon. Wei Wuxian had to really tell himself over and over to consider the transfer as repayment or redemption to be alright with it, but this WWX is possibly trying to invent skin grafts to get rid of JC's scars. This is not a positive, but it does change things. However this also means that if JC ever finds out, not only will WWX have tricked him into a procedure he wouldn't have wanted, he purposefully and knowingly overrode his choice. This creates tension in relationships.
If it's time travelling WWX, if he has just found out and/or they haven't fully reconciled, he's having the same breakdown JC had in the Ancestral Hall and once again rips out his organs, possibly while whispering "Thank you and I'm sorry" because character development is not linear and WWX gets a little unhinged about his family. However if they've worked through things and communicated and hashed out where things went wrong and what they want their relationship to look like now and how they're going to achieve this, I think they can develop healthier habits. Wei Wuxian's postcanon advice to Jin Ling is to let himself rely on Jiang Cheng because being pushed away for his own good will just make him feel abandoned, and to respect JC's decision to risk his reputation to help and trust him to handle himself. As wildly hypocritical as this sounds, I think WWX has pretty clearly done some thinking about where he fucked up on that one. If WWX is able to come to this conclusion on his own without having worked through things with Jiang Cheng, I think he is capable of admitting that the core transfer while done out of love was maybe a touch fucked up. I do believe in these clowns being able to talk about the way they hurt each other and were hurt in turn and the misunderstandings between them. Wei Wuxian's character arc hasn't stopped at the end of the story, there's a reason WWX has that moment after Wen Qing and Wen Ning sacrifice themselves for him where he suddenly understands why Jiang Cheng hates when he does this. I think we can even out the self worth/self esteem ratio so WWX isn't constantly sacrificing himself because he knows best, and trusting JC specifically to make his own choices.
...Or at least that was what I was triumphantly going to say, until I saw a relevant gifset and contemplated Wei Wuxian suddenly being faced with a devastated Babie Jiang Cheng for the first time in decades. Jiang Cheng crying is already kind of a one hit KO for Wei Wuxian when they're the same age, can he really look at Babie JC's lip wobble without folding like a cheap lawn chair? I have long thought about them growing past their old mistakes and was confident that WWX could get there but now I am reconsidering this.