my favorite thing about this shot beyond the immediate level of seeing two people i ship in physical contact is that in their last onscreen interaction meng yao was barely comfortable looking xichen in the eye let alone touching him... there's been a Change in the Dynamic

not only THAT but he's arguably telling lxc what to do without speaking to or even looking at him? the touch feels very "stay there, don't move, don't get involved, i'll handle it" and lxc visibly absorbs all of that before he even turns around. which has various Implications.

god what else. nmj waking up in lxc's arms and smiling. nmj admitting that he looked for jgy during the campaign. lxc's first onscreen deployment of "a-yao" being in a conversation with nmj. The Kneel. so many things happening in this five minutes, all of them gay

between this scene, the scene with j*n gu*ngsh*n and the wen remnants, the wedding, and the sun palace banquet, this whole episode is a 3zun buffet... not like a regular buffet but like the buffet in pan's labyrinth. i eat and then the host tries to fucking kill me