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songofclarity · 4 years

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The theory that Nie HuaiSang pushed Mo XuanYu to suicide, especially the theory that he killed Mo XuanYu as some kind of eye-for-an-eye revenge against Jin GuangYao for killing Nie MingJue, doesn't make any sense to me because Jin GuangYao never wanted Mo XuanYu alive to begin with. Jin GuangYao was afraid of Mo XuanYu before they even met. In fact, he was likely more afraid of Mo XuanYu than he had ever been afraid of Nie MingJue!

[Jin GuangYao,] “Do you think that I’m in a steady position, here at the LanlingJin Sect? Do you think that I can rise into power the moment Jin ZiXuan dies? Jin GuangShan would rather bring another illegitimate child back than want me to succeed him! You think that I should be afraid of nothing? Well I’m afraid of everything, even other people!” (Ch. 49, ERS)

So Nie HuaiSang getting rid of Mo XuanYu would have done Jin GuangYao a favor. I just can't fathom Nie HuaiSang doing Jin GuangYao's dirty work for him at any point in time after Nie MingJue’s death. After all, Jin GuangYao had done a fine job getting started destroying Mo XuanYu’s life without anyone else’s help.

However, before Mo XuanYu [could] achieve success in cultivation and inherit his father’s position, he was driven back.

On top of that, he was driven back shamefully.

Like adding frost to snow, aside from the event itself, when Mo XuanYu returned, he often behaved in a crazy manner, almost as if his life was scared out of him. (Ch. 2, ERS)

Jin GuangYao was already playing with the dangers of incest, but now he’s going to make it work for his benefit. Claiming Mo XuanYu was toying with incest was possibly the one and only thing Jin GuangShan could not have tolerated. Mo XuanYu could have had anyone he wanted! Jin GuangShan knows it best! But his own half-brother? Absolutely not. Mo XuanYu was so psychologically damaged by whatever happened to him that he can’t defend himself. And to the rest of the family, Jin GuangYao is nothing but the victim of Mo XuanYu’s perversion. Jin GuangYao becomes someone they defend from Mo XuanYu.

[Jin Chan, Jin Ling’s cousin], “Mo XuanYu, you still have the face to return?” (Ch. 47, ERS)

It’s a win-win for innocent A-Yao. But Mo XuanYu could always come back if he’s alive. Reputations can be repaired, especially if they were falsely damaged. Mo XuanYu dead? That would be much better, but it’s not a pressing matter once Jin GuangShan is dead and Jin GuangYao is Chief Cultivator.

But to Nie HuaiSang, Mo XuanYu is far more valuable alive. We only get a few hints of what Nie HuaiSang is thinking, and here’s one of them:

[Sisi,] “But after my savior heard about what happened to me, he decided not to let that pretentious, immoral man continue to fool the world.” (Ch. 85)

Mo XuanYu was just another one of Jin GuangYao’s victims. He was a witness to Jin GuangYao's crimes just like Sisi and Bicao. If Nie HuaiSang went to talk to Mo XuanYu as is commonly believed, the evidence points to him trying to get the dirt on Jin GuangYao. Sisi told Nie HuaiSang about the rape-murder of Jin GuangShan. Bicao revealed Jin GuangYao’s incestual relationship with Qin Su. Mo XuanYu, as well, can reveal Jin GuangYao's ties to practicing demonic cultivation.

This is important because the lack of this information drives part of the story. No one knew Jin GuangYao had a hand in demonic cultivation or the Stygian Tiger Seal until the end at Guanyin Temple. Because no one knew this, there were no other suspects except the Yiling Patriarch wrecking havoc at the Burial Mounds before the second siege, and the cultivation world moved just as Jin GaungYao wanted it to move. Jin GuangYao was able to continue pulling strings from the shadows with Su She.

Xue Yang might have been a slim follow-up after Mo XuanYu to pin Jin GuangYao’s connections down, but even Nie HuaiSang’s role with Yi City is tenuous at best. And then Lan WangJi both killed that evidence and Su She whisked it away via teleportation. Jin GuangYao had many crimes, but the malicious use of demonic cultivation he neatly evaded, just as he evaded having to admit to murdering Nie MingJue.

Again, Mo XuanYu was more more valuable to Nie HuaiSang alive than dead.

Let’s still go ahead with the idea that Nie HuaiSang went to Mo XuanYu to ask questions. What happened to Mo XuanYu at Koi Tower? What did Jin GuangYao do that drove Mo XuanYu insane? What demonic cultivation did Mo XuanYu learn from Jin GuangYao? Where is the entrance to Jin GuangYao's treasure room? How does one get into the treasure room?

Don’t forget that Nie HuaiSang is still looking for the rest of Nie MingJue's body at this point. All he has is an arm. Might Jin GuangYao be keeping Nie MingJue's body close to home? Is that why Nie HuaiSang can’t find him? And he’ll find out not much later that yes, he was partially correct. Nie HuaiSang’s reaction in the treasure room could very well be half and half. Half of him suspected as much, but it doesn't change how shocking or disgusting the reality of it is to the other half. The best lies are based on truth, and Nie HuaiSang showing a weak constitution when faced with horrible news and frightening encounters might not have been completely fake.

(Nie HuaiSang was afraid but he didn’t let fear stop him. It’s the one trait he shares with Jin GuangYao, although their means and ends are quite different.)

Nie MingJue’s head was likely in the treasure room when Mo XuanYu was reading Jin GuangYao’s demonic cultivation collection all those years ago. Mo XuanYu could have told Nie HuaiSang of this, except Mo XuanYu might not have been in his right mind to be telling anyone anything of value.

Worse case scenario here is that Nie HuaiSang, as a willing conversationalist about demonic cultivation, stirred Mo XuanYu up from whatever abused docility he'd succumbed to for years. Mo XuanYu was kept locked up and abused and treated like an animal. Now here is someone willing to talk to him like a real person. Just as Nie HuaiSang saved Sisi from her imprisonment, he could have very well have saved Mo XuanYu from his, but the results were wildly different.

Any hints or reveals that Nie HuaiSang is out for vengeance could stir such wishes in Mo XuanYu in turn, his own trauma provoked, his own need for justice inspired. Mo XuanYu moves forward with his revenge just as Nie HuaiSang is trying to move forward with his.

Perhaps Nie HuaiSang name drops Wei WuXian or perhaps he doesn’t, it doesn’t really matter. Mo XuanYu would already have known who is the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation. Mo XuanYu already knows what evil spirit he needs to call upon for help. Demonic cultivation was likely the only thing he had left to make him feel empowered, and so Wei WuXian is the one who will take care to right all wrongs when no one else will.

Sadly, Jin GuangYao is not on the list of people Mo XuanYu wants revenge on -- because Jin GuangYao is already experienced at making himself look innocent. Mo XuanYu would have had no idea how wronged he was by his half-brother. So Mo XuanYu only wants the death of his immediate family. His immediate abusers.

But Mo XuanYu is missing something: knowing he needs to convey his wishes to Wei WuXian. Without it, Mo XuanYu’s sacrifice is in vain and the both of them die. Or that would have been their fate if Wei WuXian had not figured it out for himself in time.

We already know Jin GuangYao can put an extra piece into a cultivation technique, such as the Collection of Turmoil into Cleansing. It stands to reason that he is just as able to take a piece out of a cultivation technique.

After all, Mo XuanYu got the technique from him. The gap of this knowledge is thus a ticking time bomb just waiting for Mo XuanYu to give it a try and cut the wrong wire. Jin GuangYao also immediately knows and is quite happy to tell everyone the details of what Mo XuanYu did, despite finding out this is Wei WuXian in front of him barely thirty minutes ago and Mo XuanYu was banished years ago:

Jin GuangYao continued, “I’m sure that none of you know this, but back when XuanYu was still at Koi Tower, he had seen a copy of the YiLing Patriarch’s manuscript at my place. The manuscript recorded a dark technique that ‘sacrificed’ one’s body. With the price being the soul and the body, one could summon a powerful spirit to seek revenge in place of themself. Sect Leader Jiang wouldn’t be able to test it even if he hit him with a hundred more strikes. It’s because the person who used the technique sacrificed their body willingly. It doesn’t count as a possession at all!” [Ch. 50, ERS]

“I’m sure that none of you know this,” Jin GuangYao says, because this was all a plot of his own secret design. It benefits him now to reveal the truth of Mo XuanYu’s demise just as it doesn’t benefit him to ever reveal the truth of Nie MingJue.

But Mo XuanYu was as much a victim of Jin GuangYao as Nie MingJue. Jin GuangYao made sure they destroyed themselves on their own time rather than holding the blade himself.

Nie HuaiSang might not have been a holy avenger and mistakes were very likely made, but there is a lack of motive and evidence here that he ever wanted or sought Mo XuanYu’s death. Too much damage had already happened by the time Nie HuaiSang arrived on the scene. I can picture him throwing up his arms in despair and letting Nie MingJue’s arm go free onto this already crazy crime scene. Imagine the struggle the whole Lan Sect had had with the arm and now imagine Nie HuaiSang trying to manage it all on his own. He was not having a good time!

Mo Village was already a crime scene and now here was one more piece of evidence. The Lans knew inquiry whereas Nie HuaiSang did not. Let the Lans take the arm and find the rest of Nie MingJue for him. Let Nie HuaiSang continue to play innocent in front of Jin GuangYao. Let the arm claim more of Lan XiChen’s attention than Jin GuangYao.

But then Wei WuXian survived his resurrection trial and was taken in by Lan WangJi.

The next time Nie HuaiSang sees Mo XuanYu is at the Stone Castles, and by seeing Mo XuanYu, he knows immediately that the sacrifice worked.

But just because he knows and he saw doesn’t mean it was Nie HuaiSang’s doing, especially when Jin GuangYao’s bloody fingerprints were already encircling Mo XuanYu’s neck.

#nie huaisang #jin guangyao #mo xuanyu #nhs vs jgy #mdzs thoughts #thinking maybe nhs shouldn't be blindly accused of 1st degree murder #just for consideration lol #saying nhs killed mxy is so weird to me #nhs becoming jgy to defeat jgy feels uninspired #nhs is that meme where the man is like #do you think a depressed person could make this??#jgy was afraid and wanted power #nhs was afraid but he wanted justice #they are not the same person #you can tell how much i'm procrastinating irl #by how long these spur of the moment posts are lol

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robininthelabyrinth · 4 years

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Prompt: Jiang Cheng “accidentally” kicked Jin Guangshan down the stairs of Koi Tower. JGY busted a lung in delight and derailed all his evil plans, essentially stopping him from going evil. Madam Jin looks at him as if he was an angel of justice. Lan Xichen pulled a muscle trying to stop himself from laughing. Nie Mingjue went and asked him in marriage. NHS looks suspiciously delighted by the turn of events and only Jiang Cheng knows why. Ty!!!

“We could do it,” Nie Huaisang whispered in Jiang Cheng’s ear.

Jiang Cheng ignored him. They couldn’t, no matter how vile Jin Guangshan was, no matter how grasping for power, no matter how he’d looked at Jiang Yanli even though she was his future daughter-in-law – the political ramifications would be too great.

No matter how tempting.

“No, really, we can. Remember the time Master Lan hit me with the scroll…? Like that.”

No. They couldn’t. It would be –

“After the way he’s been talking about Wei-xiong all this time, it seems like the least we could do.”

…fine.

“How dare you!” Jiang Cheng abruptly shouted, turning and shoving Nie Huaisang. “You little brat! You little –”

“I’m sorry!” Nie Huaisang said, fleeing. “I didn’t think you’d be so offended, Sect Leader Jiang –”

“Offended! I’ll show you offended…!”

He threw himself forward, pretending that he meant to kick Nie Huaisang; Nie Huaisang dropped to the ground at just the right moment, and so the kick flew over his head, Jiang Cheng’s foot landing straight in the middle of Jin Guangshan’s chest just as he finished turning to see what was happening.

The force of it sent him flying backwards, which would normally be fine, something he’d be able to deal with, but he had just been standing at the head of the great staircase of Koi Tower and there was no safe place to land.

If he’d been even a little more inclined towards the martial arts, rather than devoting himself to dissolution, he would have still been able to catch himself, but as it was…

Thump.

Dead silence.

Of all people, it was the always calm and unflappable Jin Guangyao that broke first, letting out a snort and being forced to cover his mouth with his sleeves to try to prevent any further sound.

It was too late by then, of course; Nie Mingjue, who was afraid of nothing and no one, burst into full fledged laughter, coming deep from the belly, and it was so infectious and uncomplicatedly joyous a sound that everyone in the vicinity found themselves laughing along whether they found it funny or not.

Even Madame Jin’s lips were twitching so hard that Jiang Cheng briefly wondered if she was having a stroke; Jin Zixuan had buried his face into his wife’s shoulder to keep from disgracing the family, while Jiang Yanli wasn’t even pretending not to be giggling. The usually graceful Lan Xichen was clutching at his sides as if he’d abruptly developed a stitch and even the ever-expressionless Lan Wangji was actually smiling, his eyes curved into crescents, and he gave Jiang Cheng a friendly nod of approval for what might be the very first time in the entire time they’d known each other.

Jiang Cheng’s face was red from all the attention, and also maybe from laughter (thump, thump, thump, with some extra jingling sounds from all the gold Jin Guangshan was wearing), but he remembered his role in these proceedings and said, with great dignity, “Oops.”

That just set everyone off again.

“It was an accident,” he insisted, pretending like Nie Huaisang was not literally rolling on the floor laughing his head off. Just because some people had no shame didn’t mean he wasn’t conscious of his sect’s dignity, and of potential repercussions for what he’d just done on a mean impulse. “Really! I was aiming at Nie-gongzi –”

“Whatever he said to you, I’ll make it up,” Nie Mingjue wheezed. “Three times over. That was amazing.”

Jiang Cheng ducked his head. “Sect Leader Jin –”

“Should consider more exercise,” Nie Mingjue declared, his voice carrying all the way down to the foot of the stairs where Jin Guangshan, red-faced with fury, was being helped to his feet. “Or else shorter stairs. No, no, Sect Leader Jiang, this isn’t your fault at all; it’s clearly my brat of a younger brother’s – if anyone should be blamed, it’s him. Let my Nie sect answer for it.”

And that was tantamount to saying that no one would ever answer for it, what with the current tensions between the Nie and Jin sects – the Jin sect would never risk the loss of face that might happen if they asked for recompense and were rejected, or worse given something incredibly minor.

Jiang Cheng coughed into his hand. “Maybe we should all go back inside?”

As they went, he vaguely heard Jin Guangyao tell Nie Mingjue, “He’s going to want your head for that,” and Nie Mingjue say in return, “If he pressures you, tell me and I’ll kick him down the stairs again” and honestly, he really didn’t want to know.

Besides, Nie Huaisang was tugging on his arm with a grin and saying, “I’m going to tell Wei-xiong what you did!”

“No you are not.”

“I definitely am!”

#mdzs #jiang cheng #nie huaisang #nie mingjue #jin guangyao #madame jin #jin zixuan #jiang yanli #my fic #my fics #Anonymous

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madara-fate · 2 years

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Hey, maddy. I kinda wanna know what you think of this post: https://leportraitducadavre.tumblr.com/post/168085920069/you-talk-a-lot-about-nh-but-what-about-ss

Before you try though I just wanna warn you that it’s really long, I did read all of it and I disagree. Somehow the person making the post is somehow not getting much about it nor SS’ dynamic, like Sakura was someone so selfish who thought only of herself, but then again they are one of those Sasuke Reformist Fans that think Sasuke should’ve destroyed Konoha and one of those extremists that also think Sakura was making fun of orphans, so I don’t really expect much. They were not reading in between the lines like they think they do and constantly downplay SS’ moments like someone who’s in-denial. My personal opinion on Sasuke’s revenge is completely the same as Sakura’s, I understand the justice shit they preach about and I think Sasuke trying to kill Itachi was a right thing but Sasuke’s methods in trying to do so was obviously self-destructive and questionable and I think that’s what most Sasuke fans don’t understand. Back in the Chunin Exams when Kakashi tried fixing or doing something to the Curse Seal that Orochimaru implanted on Sasuke, Kakashi stated that there are chances are he might die if it takes over him, so Kakashi said he’ll stop the fight but Sasuke said not to do it. Sasuke knows he might die and yet he still wants the fight to continue, he’s becoming self-destructive borderline suicidal, Sasuke’s path towards revenge is self-destructive, he thinks his life is all about revenge to the point he doesn’t see value in his life or his needs or wants as a person and that he lives and breaths to kill Itachi and whether he succeeds or not is where his worth lies. That’s why Sakura got worried and ask him to pull out and Naruto scolded him to listen to Sakura, and when he didn’t listen and the Curse Mark took over him he remembered Sakura worrying about him and Naruto scolding him and he was able to suppress it. He started caring about his well- being because there were people who would cry for him if he died, someone who would scold him if he ever gets hurt or does something stupid, he found another reason to live besides giving his life for revenge. We all know Sasuke thought he was spared because he wasn’t worth killing that’s why he’s so adamant to get stronger and yet he met people who valued him and Sakura literally cried for him when he died and didn’t thought he was pathetic for dying like that or something. Yet, some Sasuke fans don’t get it and think Sakura or Naruto just don’t understand Sasuke. They were never against Sasuke killing someone from the very beginning the problem is Sasuke isn’t taking care of himself and as people who care about him obviously they get worried. They focus so much on that justice shit like Sasuke knows if he’ll leave Konoha he’ll be lonely again and their talk about closure, Sasuke managed to kill Itachi but I don’t see a smile or peaceful expression on that face. The thing is that Sasuke decided to sacrifice his happiness for strength because he thinks that Naruto and Sakura are distractions that his precious memories and bonds are distractions, he cares about them deeply but also keeps a distance because he’s afraid. Sasuke knows how it feels to love someone so much and lose them in a blink of an eye and he saw Team 7 like his own family. He left not because he didn’t care, it’s because he cared too much that losing one of them would put him to great grief. They have an affect on him and he doesn’t want that. He doesn’t like that. So he cut them off, the thing is that people think that revenge would bring Sasuke any happiness or any peace of mind, maybe it would’ve if Sasuke decided to stay at Konoha and Team 7 would hunt Itachi together but that’s not what happened. Sasuke would kill Itachi and he still wouldn’t have the happiness and peace of mind his fans hope for him in fact what happened just made Sasuke think that opening yourself to someone would mean weakness Sasuke would end up old and alone, and they always talk about how Konoha killed his clan as if Sakura or Naruto know about that from the beginning and even if they did. Sasuke was healing in Team 7.

Sorry that post is too long and I'm honestly just not willing to read all of that when I'm pretty certain that it won't contain any arguments that I've never seen before.

That being said, I agree with your critique of the post.

#Sasuke Uchiha #Sakura Haruno #sasusaku

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katiemcgrath · 4 years

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Let’s go through these names:

Sarah Reed (Black), 32, had severe mental health issues which was known to prison officers and doctors. She had been complaining about being unwell and untreated to her mum for a long time. She was found dead in her cell at Holloway Prison in 2012, they lied and said she was found hanging in her cell, she wasn’t - she was found in her bed. There’s video footage of a police officer punching her and grabbing her hair after she was arrested for shoplifting - the officer was suspended and faced no criminal charges.

Mark Duggan (Black), 29, in 2011 Mark Duggan was shot by police in Tottenham, London, the police chased him in a minicab claiming he had a gun - a gun was later found 7 metres away from the minicab. Protests and riots in London and other areas of England ensued. The police were cleared of any wrongdoing.

Sheku Bayoh (Black), 31, was murdered by police in 2015 in Fife, Scotland. Very similar to George Floyd, Bayoh was knelt on by police for 9 minutes. Much like George Floyd, Sheku Bayoh’s last words were also ‘I can’t breath’. The police were not charged.

Christopher Alder (Black), 37, was a computer programmer for the British army. He was arrested in 1998 after he was punched at a nightclub and was supposedly ‘aggressive’ at a hospital. He was found ‘face down on a custody suite floor, with his trousers round his ankles and his hands cuffed behind his back, while police officers made monkey imitations and references to banana boots and a hood with slits.’ The officers were cleared of any wrong doing.

Smiley Culture (Black), 48, Culture stabbed himself in the heart (hmm) when police raided his home in London. His death was a contributing factor in the 2011 riots.

Jimmy Mubenga (Black), 46, Mubenga was being deported - three private security guards held him down on the plane and restricted his breathing, despite already being handcuffed to the seat. His last words were also ‘I can’t breath’. Th officers were cleared of manslaughter.

Michael Powell (Black), 38, Powell had many mental health difficulties and dealt with it by taking drugs. In 2013, his mother called the police on him after he started smashing car windows this a hammer, she was afraid and just wanted him restrained. Several police officers came and subdued him using pepper spray. He died in the back of the police van. All officers were cleared but it’s okay because over 10 years later, police have apologised for the pain and suffering he was in.

Leon Briggs (Black), 39, Briggs died in custody in 2013 after being held under Mental Health Act but no medical intervention was sought, he became unconscious and died. Police officers were cleared of any wrong doing. They were suspended with full pay.

Ricky Bishop (Black), 25, police in Brixton, London, in 2001 claimed Bishop was attempting to escape so held him down, he had a heart attack. He was still in cuffs when he arrived at the hospital. All officers were cleared.

Brian Douglas (Black), in 2005 PC Tuffey hit Douglas over the head with a police baton. Douglas was arrested and despite vomiting in his cell, he wasn’t taken to the hospital until 14 hours later, he suffered a fractured skull and damage to his brain stem. No disciplinary action was taken against the police.

Joy Gardner, (Jamaican), 40, “They say she was ‘illegal’, but she wasn’t illegal. She came here legally, she paid her fare, but she overstayed her time.“Then they broke into her flat, put 13 feet of tape around her head and a belt on her legs, and they suffocated her.” The police were cleared.

Roger Sylvester (Black), 30, Sylvester suffered from mental health illnesses. He was arrested in 1999 and held down by six officers. He fell in to a coma and never regained consciousness. The police were cleared of any wronging.

Azelle Rodney (Black),16, was shot by police 6 times in 2013. The officer said he suspected Rodney was hiding a machine gun. No machine guns were found on his person. The officer in question was arrested and sent to trial but the jury found him not guilty.

Habib Ullah (South Asian), 39, ‘During one hearing Emma Forbes, who was present at the time, said officers had held Mr Ullah face down on the ground at one point, and said they had “their hands around his throat, pressing down and putting their hands in his mouth at the same time”.’

Faruk Ali (South Asian), in Luton 2014, two police officers laughed as they chased after Ali, (who is autistic and has the mental age of 5) in their car and the proceeded to beat him. Thankfully, Mr Ali is alive and well. This incident lead to protests and a demand for justice for people with mental health issues. The police officers were sacked but no charges were made against them.

Adrian Thompson (Black), 34, Thomson was tasered by police after he was accused of breaking into flats when in fact he went to a friend’s birthday party. He died in the back of the police van.

Jean Charles de Menezes (Brazillian), 27, was shot by police after they suspected him of being a terrorist a day after the London 7/7 bombings in 2005 (he was not, it was mistaken identity but police shot first). No officers were charged, his parents took the case of the ECJ but they lost the fight.

Demetre Fraser (Black), 21, Fraser died after falling 11ft from a tower block in Birgmingham in 2014 after being chased by police. Police were not at fault according to met.

Aston McLean (Black), 27, McLean was being chased by police in 2014 when he was hit by an armed response vehicle. McLean was pepper sprayed before he was hit. officers cleared.

Olaseni Lewis (Black), 23, Lewis died after being restrained by 11 police officers. Officers were not charged but a law called ‘Seni’s law’ came into effect in 2018 ‘ Under the new legislation, hospitals will be required to publish data on how and when physical force is used.’

Anthony Grainger (Black), 36, was shot through the chest as he sat in a car in the village of Culcheth, Cheshire, by an armed police officer known as “Q9” in March 2012. Police were cleared.

David “Rocky” Benett (Black), Benett suffered with mental health illnesses. He was restrained for 25 minutes by up to five NHS staff members. He had punched a female member of staff after being moved to a different ward to separate him from another patient he had hit, but who later attacked Mr Bennett and racially abused him.“Rocky died a brutal death,” Dr Bennett said. “He was pinned face down on the ground by the very people who we trusted to care for him. “It breaks my heart every time I think about that night and it will live with me and my family forever.”

Alton Manning (Black), 33, “Manning, a prisoner on remand, and was killed on 8th December 1995 after being assaulted by prison officers at the private prison HMP Blakenhurst. An Inquest, which originally opened on Monday 12th January 1998 and concluded on 25th March 1998, unanimously decided that Alton Manning was unlawfully killed.” The officers were cleared.

Mark Nune (Black), 35, police acted as judge, jury and executioner after shooting Nune during a robbery.

- it’s not mentioned here so I’m not going to go into it right now by please search up Stephen Lawrence, it is an extremely important case and if there’s one thing you can do for his memory is learn about him and remember his name.

#uk politics #black lives matter #this took me over an hour and now I'm depressed #but that's okay baby before I'm an educator (;#forgive for any errors #I really did spend over an hour #I use google so you don't have to

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ibijau · 3 years

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Can there be grovelling in the next chapter of the concubine au? That's one of my favorite tropes in royalty au's -- where the one with power gets mad and the other person goes right down on their knees (or flat on the ground as appropriate) to talk to them (or not talk to them), and they're terrified because the power differential is so big... Favorite trope ever

oops, I'm... not sure that really counts as grovelling? But nhs is suitably terrified

concubine nhs pt9 / on AO3

If it had been up to him, Lan Xichen might never have returned to that little house. The humiliation of having been lied to for several years, and in so intimate a manner, the realisation that everything had happened for the sake of political scheming, had broken his heart too thoroughly. Nie Huaisang must have been laughing at how stupid he’d been to believe so wholeheartedly that he was loved.

An idiot, like his father before him.

But unlike his father, Lan Xichen wouldn't hide in shame, nor wash his hands of the whole matter.

Because some people had nothing to do with their time but to watch the life of others and comment on it, it was quickly noticed that Lan Xichen had suddenly stopped visiting his beloved concubine. It had already raised some eyebrows while Nie Mingjue was in the capital, but might have been mistaken as an attempt to save that general some face by not sleeping with his brother while he was there. But Nie Mingjue was only briefly around before returning to his troops, and it became a topic for discussion when Lan Xichen still did not go to the little house.

Much as Lan Xichen had enjoyed pretending otherwise when spending the night with Nie Huaisang, he was not an ordinary man, and even his private life did not fully belong to him. He refused to give any importance to the whispers he heard around him, but knew he could not ignore them forever. When Lan Wangji, who disdained gossip of any sort, felt the need to comment on the situation after his weekly visit to Nie Huaisang, while Lan Qiren started looking as if he too wanted to have a word with his nephew on that matter, Lan Xichen gave in.

Unwilling to deal with a lecture, and mortified at the thought of what his uncle might say if he learned how much Lan Xichen resembled his father after all, the emperor had no choice.

A week after learning the truth, Lan Xichen knocked on the door of that little house.

Because he'd come earlier in the day than he normally did, Nie Huaisang had not yet adorned himself with all the delicate silks and golden jewellery he usually wore. Dressed in a simpler manner, he looked again like the young man who had made him laugh in Qinghe, unaware of his identity.

Lan Xichen had been so sure back then that there had been a spark between them. He would never have asked for Nie Huaisang to be sent to the capital, nor dared to flirt so boldly, if he hadn’t been sure.

There was no spark that day. Nie Huaisang wasn't laughing, nor even smiling. Instead he stared at Lan Xichen the way most people did, with a mix of awe and fear. Not a lover in front of his beloved, but a subject in front of his emperor. Something broke inside Lan Xichen’s chest at that realisation.

"We must talk," he announced, using the tone of voice his uncle had trained him to favour during councils and official business, hoping that would hide his pain.

Without a word, Nie Huaisang stepped aside, lowering his gaze in a manner befitting an emperor's subject. Whatever comedy they'd played before had been abandoned. Lan Xichen came in, letting his concubine close the door while he went to sit at their table. There he found a book open, and some paper on which notes had been taken. The subject appeared to be military discipline, something his little bird would never have bothered with, but which Nie Huaisang appeared to understand quite well.

"Sit," Lan Xichen ordered. Then, fearing that Nie Huaisang might attempt to play his old role again and try to climb on his lap, he pointed at the other side of the table. "Over there."

Nie Huaisang meekly nodded, and obeyed without a word. Lan Xichen should have been glad perhaps, but could only think that he'd have preferred for Nie Huaisang to protest at being addressed so harshly, or to complain about being abandoned for so long. His little bird always grumbled if he went too long without a visit, demanding even more affection than usual to make up for the absence, never satisfied until he had been kissed a long while and heard everything that Lan Xichen had done while away. That was how things usually went between them, and if Nie Huaisang had done that, then perhaps Lan Xichen could have hoped that he'd just misunderstood the other day, that something between them had been real…

His father too must have hoped the same, as had many others upon discovering their love was never returned.

"Did your father order you to seduce me?" Lan Xichen asked.

Nie Huaisang startled but didn’t answer, still avoiding his eyes. Of course he’d avoid his eyes. It was not right for a subject to look at their emperor’s face, was it?

“Answer the question.”

“He encouraged it,” Nie Huaisang confessed in a low voice, pulling in the hem of his sleeve, his gaze refusing to meet Lan Xichen’s.

“You’ve lied to me.”

That was met again with silence, when Lan Xichen would have preferred a vehement denial, or perhaps a tearful plea for mercy, or just about anything but that quiet resignation. He hated to see Nie Huaisang afraid of him. He didn’t enjoy inspiring fear in anyone to begin with, but to do so in the person he had loved, whom he still loved in spite of the betrayal, was unbearable.

He wanted to leave right then, to never see so much fear in his little bird. But that, of course, was impossible.

“If I could, I’d send you back to your father,” Lan Xichen said, and that at last got him a reaction. Nie Huaisang shivered and hunched his shoulders, daring a quick glance at him.

Lord Nie could be a very pleasant man. He was well liked by many, including Lan Xichen’s own uncle who had little talent for making friends. But pleasant as he was, Lord Nie was also well known for his peculiar sense of justice, and the way it made him strike hard on those who failed to accomplish their duty. Even his own family was held to those standards, or so Nie Mingjue used to say when they were young.

Nie Mingjue who had been ordered to become friends with Lan Xichen when sent away from home to become the child emperor’s companion, though he’d had the honesty of just saying so, and made it clear at first he didn��t much care for Lan Xichen, not until he’d proven he was worth befriending. Perhaps it should not have come as such a surprise to Lan Xichen that Nie Huaisang too would have had orders, and unlike Nie Mingjue, he wouldn’t have had the security of being a legitimate first born to help him stand his ground.

“I won’t do that,” Lan Xichen announced. “The political ramifications would be more than I wish to deal with at the moment. If I do anything to imply that your family has fallen out of favour, their enemies will try to take advantage, which would complicate our war against the Wens. I don’t want to see that war drag any longer than necessary, so I must continue showing support to you and your father.”

He could only imagine what Jin Guangshan would do if he thought the Nie were no longer under imperial protection. There was an old feud of sorts between the two families, going back a few generations, and Jin Guangshan was the sort of man who would care more about improving his own position than about winning a war. Not only that, but Jin Guangshan had already offered to give some of his illegal children as imperial concubines, and he would try it again, selling his own children for favours. It had disgusted Lan Xichen the first time the offer had been made.

It still disgusted him, and Lord Nie had fallen in his esteem for having done the same.

But hearing this reassurance, some tension appeared to bleed out of Nie Huaisang’s body at last, though he still remained hunched up. He looked small, and frailer than Lan Xichen had ever realised before. He’d always been aware that his little bird was not a very big man, but he noticed for the first how thin he was, how pale… Much paler than he was when they'd met, and more delicate as well. Nie Huaisang looked almost sickly, though his usually animated nature hid. It was almost painful to see him so miserable. Lan Xichen wanted to pull him into his arms and comfort him, the way he’d done so many times before.

He would have done it, if not for the suspicions that his touch would only make Nie Huaisang more miserable.

“I will have to continue coming here regularly,” Lan Xichen said, and again Nie Huaisang’s eyes darted toward his face, wide and terrified. “I will come less. I will say that you’ve encouraged me to start thinking of taking a wife.” It wouldn’t be a lie. The reason he’d been so reluctant to enter a proper marriage had been because he’d wanted to dedicate all his free time to his lover. With that consideration removed, Lan Xichen could more easily do what duty demanded of him. “But I cannot simply stop coming. It would cause too much gossip if we ended things too abruptly.”

Nie Huaisang weakly nodded, and still wouldn’t react.

“Won’t you say something?” Lan Xichen hissed, hoping he sounded angry rather than desperate. “Won’t you defend yourself?”

“You have… I mean, his highness has made his decision. How could this humble one contest it? Whatever his highness decides, this humble one will comply.”

“I see,” Lan Xichen said.

What he saw, what he understood, was that even with his father’s anger to fear, Nie Huaisang was entirely unwilling to continue his comedy, now that he had a chance of escaping it. Lan Xichen could only imagine how much his little bird must have hated him, if he was so eager to be rid of him. It had all been a lie then. Every moment of joy, every kiss, every night spent together…

How pathetic that he'd never suspected anything.

It would take a while to fully accept that none of it had been true. That they hadn’t been in love, no matter how sure of that Lan Xichen had been.

It would take a while to stop loving a little bird who had never really existed.

And still, Nie Huaisang wouldn’t look at him, his eyes cast down, submissive and resigned. Had he looked like that when his father had ordered him to seduce Lan Xichen? He could imagine it too well, Lord Nie tall and domineering, demanding that his second-born sacrifice his pride, while Nie Huaisang, dutiful son that he was, accepted without protest to spend his youth in the bed of another man whom he disliked.

It would have been decided only between the two of them, Lan Xichen thought. He could not imagine Nie Mingjue approving of this, not with how angry he’d sounded the other day when Lan Xichen overheard everything, not when Nie Mingjue had spent so much of their youth complaining that he wanted his half-brother to be given the same respect he got. He’d always said he wanted to see his brother live to his full potential, harassing his father to recognise him, pushing for Nie Huaisang to be more than a mere servant, to be given a chance to study and enter the administration where he was sure to shine.

Nie Mingjue had to hate Lan Xichen, for robbing Nie Huaisang of that.

Lan Xichen, then, realised that he hadn’t lost just his lover. He had also lost his oldest, dearest friend. How could he ever have faced Nie Mingjue after this, how could he have confided in him, now that he knew the truth?

Shaken by that realisation, Lan Xichen stood up. He needed to leave that house. To stay there even one moment more, in front of that man who had lied to him for the entirety of their acquaintance, was more than he could do.

“I’ll come back tomorrow,” Lan Xichen said, struggling to keep his composure as he opened the door of that little house where he once was so happy.

He left, and still Nie Huaisang didn’t run after him, didn’t beg for another chance, didn’t so much as shed a tear. Lan Xichen, to his shame, wished that he had, just so he could have broken down and tried to salvage something that had never been real in the first place. Even with Nie Huaisang so cold, it was tempting to run back inside and ask what he could have done to earn his love, or if that were impossible, what he might offer to continue this comedy they’d been playing. He would have done just anything, like his father before him.

But unlike his father, Lan Xichen valued his dignity, and would not delude himself into thinking love was possible once it had been proven to be absent.

He walked away from the little house, whipped away the few tears that had escaped him, and returned to his duty.

#xisang #lan xichen #nie huaisang #concubine au #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #jau writes #I fear lxc is maybe not super sympathetic here but well he's angry and hurt

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hamliet · 4 years

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Am I My Brother’s Keeper?: Nie Mingjue and Jiang Cheng

Or, how the two most virulent Wen-haters in the story tragically mirror each other in far more ways than just their issues with the Wens.

I’ve written about MDZS’s use of character trios as a narrative structure before (here and here). In this meta I’m going to talk about the main three and the Venerated Triad. I’ve also written before about how Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao’s relationship (however you interpret it) parallels Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian’s, with Lan Xichen as a strong Lan Wangji foil (fitting, as they are the “Twin Jades”), and Jin Guangyao as a strong Wei Wuxian foil (as Wei Wuxian himself acknowledges in the story’s final chapter). So let’s talk about the third member of these trios: Nie Mingjue and Jiang Cheng, who also closely foil each other... in particular, through their respective relationships with Jin Guangyao and Wei Wuxian.

But wait, you say. Jin Guangyao killed Nie Mingjue, which parallels Jiang Cheng killing Wei Wuxian!

True. There are some parallels between Jiang Cheng and Jin Guangyao (such as JC killing WWX to avenge JYL, even though she wouldn’t have wanted that, and JGY doing it when NMJ hurts NHS, even though NHS adored NMJ), as well as between Chengxian and Xiyao, but this is not a meta about those specifically.

Nie Mingjue tried to kill Jin Guangyao in life (twice), and actually does do so in the end, and Jiang Cheng helped kill Wei Wuxian even if he did not do it directly. The reason both Nie Mingjue and Jiang Cheng were able to treat their brothers like this was because of their immense privilege, the privilege neither acknowledge until it is time to weaponize it. In those moments, both chose not to empathize but to see their brothers as an “other” instead of as someone they loved (and I do think both Nie Mingjue and Jiang Cheng loved Jin Guangyao and Wei Wuxian in a realistic, flawed way). In the otherizing of their brothers, both Nie Mingjue and Jiang Cheng put on robes displaying society’s flaws as blatantly as Sect Leader Yao does, but with a lot more humanity than the flat, static Sect Leader Yao. Thus, MXTX tells us we cannot even “other” society as a whole.

If this sounds like I’m hating on either character, I’m really not intending to. They’re great characters and I enjoy both of them (Jiang Cheng’s one of my very favorites), but they’re flawed, and in fact that’s the whole reason I like them. But I do admit this essay will be scathing to an extent; just know it doesn’t touch on my whole opinion of their characters, and isn’t meant to excuse Wei Wuxian (who had a savior complex) and Jin Guangyao (who sought society’s approval to his own doom); I’ve just previously excoriated those two.

I. Defining Justice as Trauma

Nie Mingjue and Jiang Cheng both lost their fathers to Wen Ruohan (as did the Lan brothers), and both vowed to wipe out the Wens as a result. However, both of them fail to think about the Wens as people, and wind up, well, becoming eerily similar to the worst Wens.

Jiang Cheng has lived through the pain of losing everything (status, family, home) and he not only refuses compassion for the two Wens who saved him so that he could fight to get those things back, but inflicts the same traumas on them. In fact, Jiang Cheng’s reaction to Wen Qing’s predicament post-Sunshot campaign is paralleled explicitly with Nie Mingjue’s:

Jiang Cheng’s brows were knitted. He rubbed the vein that throbbed at his temple and soundlessly took in a deep breath, “… I apologize to all of the Sect Leaders. Everyone, I’m afraid you don’t know that the Wen cultivator whom Wei WuXian wanted to save was called Wen Ning. We owe him and his sister Wen Qing gratitude for what happened during the Sunshot Campaign.”

Nie MingJue, “You owe them gratitude? Isn’t the QishanWen Sect the ones who caused the YunmengJiang Sect’s annihilation?”

...

Lan XiChen responded a moment later, “I have heard of Wen Qing’s name a few of times. I do not remember her having participated in any of the Sunshot Campaign’s crimes.”

Nie MingJue, “But she’s never stopped them either.”

Lan XiChen, “Wen Qing was one of Wen RuoHan’s most trusted people. How could she have stopped them?”

Nie MingJue spoke coldly, “If she responded with only silence and not opposition when the Wen Sect was causing mayhem, it’s the same as indifference. She shouldn’t have been so disillusioned as to hope that she could be treated with respect when the Wen Sect was doing evil and be unwilling to suffer the consequences and pay the price when the Wen Sect was wiped out.”

Lan XiChen knew that because of what happened to his father, Nie MingJue abhorred Wen-dogs more than anything, especially with how intolerable he was toward evil. Lan XiChen didn’t say anything else.

There’s a lot of irony in this. Wen Qing didn’t speak up because she wanted to protect her little brother--something Nie Mingjue should have been able to relate to, considering he sent Huaisang to safety in the Cloud Recesses during the war. Also, I mean, Nie Mingjue, you didn’t exactly rise up against Wen Ruohan until you knew you had the forces to win. He likely spent several years in begrudging deference to him, even sending Nie Huaisang along as tribute when Wen Chao demanded it. Jiang Cheng starts to do the right thing in this scene by speaking honestly about Wen Qing, but then Nie Mingjue reminds him of society and propriety, and Jiang Cheng backs down, crushed under society again. Both of them commit sins of omission, in that they stand back and allow society to belittle and vilify people.

The “sins of omission” is a motif that continues in both Nie Mingjue’s and Jiang Cheng’s arcs. For example, Jiang Cheng stood by to let Mianmian be brutally killed in the cave of the Xuanwu of Slaughter, and even stood by to let Lan Wangji and Jin Zixuan die too as they protected her. He goes on to blame Wei Wuxian for the deaths of his family because of Wei Wuxian saving them. Nie Mingjue keeps the truth about the saber spirit from Nie Huaisang, and additionally, the very same conversation about Wen Qing referenced above, Nie Mingjue is directly stated to know Jin Guangyao is lying to help his father, and he says nothing at all even though Wei Wuxian’s life hung in the balance. (It then karmically backfires on Jin Guangyao).

Jin GuangYao came to save the day, exclaiming, “Really? That day, Young Master Wei busted into Koi Tower with such force. He said too many things, one more shocking than the next. Perhaps he said a few things that were along those lines. I can’t remember them either.”

... As soon as he heard it, Nie MingJue knew that he was fibbing on purpose, frowning slightly.

...

One of the sect leaders added, “...Excuse my bluntness, but he’s the son of a servant. How could the son of a servant be so arrogant?”

With him having brought up the ‘son of a servant’, naturally there’d be some who connected it to the ‘son of a prostitute’ standing in the hall. Jin GuangYao clearly noticed the unkind stares.

While Nie Mingjue is quick to accuse Wen Qing for her inaction but languid with his own, this isn’t exactly unique. He also is quick to accuse Jin Guangyao of standing by as Jin Guangshan manipulates to acquit Xue Yang for his crimes against the Chang Clan. (I’m not defending Jin Guangshan or Jin Guangyao in this.) How dare they stand there and not argue for justice?

In spite of Nie MingJue being a junior to Jin GuangShan, he conducted himself in a strict manner and refused to tolerate Xue Yang no matter what. With an angry lecture, Jin GuangShan was left with no words and a great deal of embarrassment. Nie MingJue, as the irritable person he was, unsheathed his saber on the spot with the intention of killing Xue Yang. Even when his sworn younger brother LianFang-Zun, Jin GuangYao, attempted to ease the situation, he ordered him to leave. After a harsh scolding, Jin GuangYao hid behind Lan XiChen, not daring to say anything else. In the end, the LanlingJin Sect could only give in.

But, Nie Mingjue never offers a critique of Jin Guangshan when Jin Guangshan lied to Nie Mingjue’s face about Meng Yao. He discovered that Jin Guangyao’s stepmother is routinely beating him, and Nie Mingjue does nothing. Even if his hands were tied, if he really cared about doing the right thing, why didn’t he intervene somehow, some way, for his brother? If he really cared about holding people responsible for their actions, about making sure justice was served above everything else, why is it that the only person he consistently holds accountable is Jin Guangyao?

Could it be that, much like society, what Nie Mingjue was angry about was not injustice, but actually his hurting self? His hurt pride, his hurt child self still reeling from the cruel way Wen Ruohan betrayed his father and left him to die an agonizing death?

Likewise, Jiang Cheng knows, when he leads the siege at the Burial Mounds against the Wens, that no Wen there is dangerous. They are all elderly or children, not soldiers. He knows even that his sister died saving Wei Wuxian’s life, but chooses to ignore her wishes to satiate his own anger and the inner child inside of him still crying in loneliness. No one had ever chosen Jiang Cheng: his mother viewed him as a disappointment, and his father preferred Wei Wuxian, but Wei Wuxian promised to stick by Jiang Cheng no matter what. When Wei Wuxian breaks this promise, Jiang Cheng never gets over this, and carries out revenge on him for choosing actual justice over staying close to Jiang Cheng (looking back, this adds a symbolic irony to Jiang Cheng refusing to intervene and save Lan Wangji and Jin Zixuan in the cave: they are both the people who will be his siblings’ spouses).

But the sad reality is, it’s a false dichotomy. Wei Wuxian did not choose the Wens over Jiang Cheng. Jiang Cheng, like society, chose society and conformity over Wei Wuxian.

I’ve said it before, but while Jin Guangyao isn’t correct that the siege on the Burial Mounds is “all” Jiang Cheng’s fault, he’s not wrong when he makes this point:

“But what you have to understand is that, for what happened to Young Master Wei in the end, you are responsible too and in fact, you are very much so. Why did so many people crusade against the YiLing Patriarch? Why did they shout their support, no matter if they were involved or not? Why was he one-sidedly condemned by so many? Was it really their sense of justice? Of course not. A part of the reason is you.”

...

“… Back then, the LanlingJin Sect, the QingheNie Sect, and the GusuLan Sect had already finished fighting over the biggest share. The rest could only get some small shrimps. You, on the other hand, had just rebuilt Lotus Pier and behind you was the YiLing Patriarch, Wei WuXian, the danger of whom was immeasurable. Do you think the other sects would like to see a young sect leader who was so advantaged? Luckily, you didn’t seem to be on good terms with your shixiong, and since everyone thought there was an opportunity, of course they’d add fuels to your fire if they could. No matter what, to weaken the YunmengJiang Sect was to strengthen themselves. Sect Leader Jiang, if only your attitude towards your shixiong was just a bit better, showing everyone that your bond was too strong to be broken for them to have a chance, or if you exhibited just a bit more tolerance after what happened, things wouldn’t have become what they were. Oh, speaking of it, you were also a main force of the siege at Burial Mound…”

II. Privilege

The main villain of all of MXTX’s novels is privilege (I’ve touched on this here and here and here). Unfortunately, both Jiang Cheng and Nie Mingjue are heavily infected with it, and it’s partially why they treat others as they do.

Jiang Cheng speaks negatively of Mianmian in chapter 56, noting that she’s probably just the daughter of a servant. When Wei Wuxian challenges this by pointing out he is also the son of a servant, Jiang Cheng expresses that Wei Wuxian is somehow different (and to be fair, he is indeed treated with more respect because of Jiang Fengmian’s background with Wei Wuxian’s mother), but the implication is also classist. Ironically, again, when Jiang Cheng will not speak up for Wei Wuxian or Wen Qing during that same conversation referenced earlier, Mianmian does; though Nie Mingjue expresses admiration of her for doing so, he does not do the same.

Additionally, Jiang Cheng says the following about Jin Guangyao:

Wei WuXian, “Isn’t Jin GuangYao here now? Jin GuangYao seems so much better than him.”

Jiang Cheng... “So what, if he’s better? No matter how much better he is, no matter how clever, he could only be a servant who greets the guests. That’s all there is to his life. He can’t compare with Jin ZiXuan.”

This pretty much sums up how society treats Jin Guangyao, and Jiang Cheng doesn’t think to question it. Wei Wuxian, on the other hand, points to Jin Guangyao’s character, which at that point looked decent (even if... later... sigh). Additionally, it’s hard not to see this as a commentary on how people think Wei Wuxian should be acting. Even though Jiang Cheng is, er, wrong about how far Jin Guangyao can rise, he contrasts with Jin Guangyao in how Jin Guangyao builds the lookout towers to provide justice for the common people, while Jiang Cheng encourages Jin Ling’s initially snobbish behavior (leaving common people in traps).

Not only that, but Jiang Cheng routinely commits atrocities under his protection as a sect leader. He’s described as having whipped the flesh off the backs of people accused of demonic cultivation, and supposedly no one arrested for that survived his tortures (ironically, Wen Ruohan is also known for torture). As someone pointed out once, the people who would turn to demonic cultivation are likely those unable to form golden cores (Wei Wuxian), or those taken in as disciples too late/too untalented to do so (Mo Xuanyu); Xue Yang was also taken in late as a disciple, but is noted to be unusually talented. The interesting thing is that all three of these people are from impoverished, humble origins. Thus it’s very likely the people Jiang Cheng was arresting and torturing to death were not wealthy cultivators (not to mention other sects would complain if so), but common folk.

As for Nie Mingjue, Jin Guangyao goes further than Wei Wuxian and directly attempts to challenge Nie Mingjue to acknowledge his privilege with brutal honesty on his own part, only for it to go... poorly.

Nie MingJue, “There’s no need for explanations. Come back to me with Xue Yang’s head in your hand.”

Jin GuangYao still wanted to speak, but Nie MingJue had already lost all patience, “Meng Yao, don’t speak such pretentious words in front of me. Your whole thing stopped working on me since a long time ago!”

Within a second, a few degrees of unease flashed over Jin GuangYao’s face, as though someone with an unmentionable illness was suddenly exposed in the public. There was nowhere for him to hide.

He spoke, “My whole thing? Which whole thing? Brother, you’ve always yelled at me for calculating people and being too dishonorable. You say that you’re a proud, righteous person, that you aren’t afraid of anything, that propen men shouldn’t need to play with schemes. That’s fine. Your background is noble and your cultivation is high. But what about me? Am I the same as you? First, my cultivation isn’t as firm as yours. Ever since I was born, has anyone taught me? And second, I have no prominent background. Do you think that I’m in a steady position, here at the LanlingJin Sect? Do you think that I can rise into power the moment Jin ZiXuan dies? Jin GuangShan would rather bring another illegitimate child back than want me to succeed him! You think that I should be afraid of nothing? Well I’m afraid of everything, even other people! He whose stomach is full believes not him who is starving.”

Nie MingJue replied coldly, “In the end, all you mean is that you don’t want to kill Xue Yang, that you don’t want your position at the LanlingJin Sect to waver.”

Jin GuangYao, “Of course I don’t!”

He looked up, unknown fires dancing within his eyes, “But, Brother, I have always wanted to ask you something—the lives under your hands are in any regard more than those under mine, so why is it that I only killed a few cultivators out of desperation and you keep on bringing it up, even until now?”

Nie MingJue was so enraged that he began to laugh, “Good! I’ll give you my answer. Countless souls who have fallen under my saber, but I’ve never killed out of my own desires, much less to climb up the ladder!”

Jin GuangYao, “Brother, I understand what you mean. Are you saying that all of the people you killed deserved their deaths?”

With courage gathered from nowhere, he laughed and walked a few steps closer to Nie MingJue. His voice raised as well, asking in an almost aggressive manner, “Then, may I ask, just how do you decide if someone deserves death? Are your standards absolutely correct? If I kill one but save hundreds, would the good outweigh the bad, or would I still deserve death? To do great things, sacrifices must happen.”

Nie MingJue, “Then why don’t you sacrifice yourself? Are you any nobler than them? Are you any different from them?”

Jin GuangYao stared at him. A moment later, as though he had finally either decided on something or given up on something, he replied calmly, “Yes.”

He looked up. In his expression were some of pride, some of calmness, and some of a faint insanity, “I and they, of course we are different!”

Nie MingJue was infuriated by his words and his expression.

He raised his foot. Yet, Jin GuangYao neither avoided nor took defense. The kick landed right on him, and again he rolled like a pebble down Carp Tower.

Nie Mingjue, here, is being compared to two other people: the man who kicked Meng Yao down the stairs at a brothel as the man dragged Meng Shi outside naked to humiliate her, and with Jin Guangshan--the very person Nie Mingjue’s enraged with--by doing the same thing: kicking someone he views as lower than himself down the stairs. Instead of addressing the actual problem (Jin Guangshan), he finds a scapegoat. It’s not a good look. All three of these instances are linked with society standing by and allowing it to happen, with a few exceptions: Sisi intervenes with Meng Shi, and Lan Xichen intervenes to stop Nie Mingjue from killing Jin Guangyao.

Nie Mingjue never had to kill to climb the ladder within his sect. He did have to kill to climb the ladder in the cultivational world--and he actually did so, through killing the Wens. Yes, I know Nie Mingjue killed the Wens because he wanted revenge for his father and protection for himself and his brother, but the problem is... that’s exactly what motivated Jin Guangyao: protection. Jin Guangyao just had more to fear than Nie Mingjue.

The irony of the above scene that Jin Guangyao knows killing is wrong, but it’s how to survive in this world, so he does it anyways. Nie Mingjue thinks the problem of someone thinking they are entitled to kill can be solved by killing the one who says such a thing, because he’s entitled to kill someone who thinks they’re entitled to kill-- You get the point.

That sad thing is that being shoved down the stairs doesn’t even end that scene. Nie Mingjue directly attempts to murder Jin Guangyao:

Just as Nie MingJue unsheathed his saber, Lan XiChen happened to leave the palace to see what was going on, concerned after having waited for long. Seeing the situation before him, he unsheathed Shuoyue as well, “What happened, this time?”

...

Nie MingJue, “... I know what I’m doing. He’s beyond hope. If these keeps on going, he’ll do the world harm for sure. The earlier he’s killed, the earlier we can relax!”

This does not at all justifying Jin Guangyao’s subsequent murder of him, but again, Jin Guangyao kills to protect himself, and he’s not without cause for fear of his life (this does not justify, because neither is Nie Mingjue entirely without cause, but people have gotta acknowledge that reality).

III. Reasons to Kill

I often see Nie Mingjue held up as someone who judged people based on their actions and was countercultural in that he was willing to stand up to Jin Guangshan when Jin Guangshan wanted to acquit Xue Yang of slaughtering the Chang Clan. However, this is decidedly not the case. Nie Mingjue is very much acting within society’s principals here (calling someone else out is hardly unique or noble: see, Su She, Jin Zixun, etc.) Nie Mingjue stood up to Jin Guangshan then because the crime was so severe he knew he might actually be able to win; otherwise, he let Jin Guangshan do as he wished.

To illustrate this, I’ll share the piping hot tea a commentator spilled on one of my fics recently, because she says it perfectly:

She isn’t wrong. You can hold Xue Yang--and Jin Guangyao and Wei Wuxian, for that matter--responsible for their actions and also point out the hypocrisy of a society that holds to ideals of how people behave, yet is constantly making exceptions for themselves. Nie Mingjue does just this by demanding Xue Yang’s head as a price for not killing his own sworn brother. Jiang Cheng does just this by murdering the older, helpless Wens at the Burial Mounds, and turning his back on the Wens who saved Jiang Cheng’s own life.

Why do these characters kill?

Nie Mingjue and Jiang Cheng killed out of revenge to honor their families and save themselves.

Jin Guangyao killed to get his father to acknowledge him as his son, and then in revenge when he realized he never would, and to save himself.

Wei Wuxian killed out of revenge and then out of despair--really, revenge against the whole cultivational world that had set him up for failure no matter what he did.

Xue Yang killed out of revenge for his little finger.

What do all of these have in common? They reveal what each person prized.

Jiang Cheng and Nie Mingjue prized the honor of their culture and of society.

Wei Wuxian prized his loved ones.

Jin Guangyao prized himself as his father’s son, a sort of combination of JC/NMJ’s status love and WWX’s wanting to be loved.

Xue Yang prized his body.

Xue Yang seems condemnable on paper, but let’s look at this a little deeper: what else did Xue Yang have? Nie Mingjue inherited a sect and had his beloved little brother, men who would die for him, people who admired him. Wei Wuxian had his loved ones, and then they were gone. Jin Guangyao had his dead mother’s wish for him to be approved for by society, and a famous father. What exactly did Xue Yang have besides his own body? He didn’t have parents, as far as we know. What else was he to value? Why is Nie Mingjue venerated, and Xue Yang condemned? Why is Jiang Cheng allowed to torture the poor under him for so many years, just because they reminded him of his brother, and Xue Yang hunted down?

The only answer is privilege. It’s privilege that allows Nie Mingjue and Jiang Cheng to decide when and how they want to enforce justice, and if they do at all. It’s privilege that they had families to avenge. It’s privilege that enables them to commit atrocities and get second, third, fourth chances. It’s privilege of his birthright than enables Jiang Cheng to never once die in the novel (Nie Mingjue not so much). But when Nie Mingjue dies, he seeks revenge on his murderer, not justice. He kills countless others in his quest to kill Jin Guangyao, people who had nothing to do with his death, and he could have killed his own brother. Even when he succeeds he ends up battling Jin Guangyao in a coffin sealed for a hundred years--hardly a victory.

So since we’ve brought him up, let’s talk Xue Yang and the Yi City trio now. The “judgy” member of the Yi City Trio is decidedly not privileged (A-Qing, as @thisworldgodonlyknows wrote about her, foils Nie Huaisang, but also she foils Nie Mingjue), and her character reveals these precise flaws in Nie Mingjue and Jiang Cheng. She is a beggar girl and a thief, but she seeks justice for Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan out of nothing more than love. She herself does not kill, and frankly I’d say she is the moral backbone of the series more than any other character (along with perhaps Mianmian). She was never a part of society, after all.

A-Qing dies young, alone by a river, mutilated. She has no privilege, but her spirit survives as a ghost solely because of her desire to ensure justice for Xiao Xingchen and for Song Lan. Her condemnation of Xue Yang is at first admittedly selfish--she was jealous--but then honestly understandable and easier to swallow, since she came from a similar background. But because of this, and because A-Qing is willing to empathize, she ends up understood and her wishes fulfilled. In the end, Song Lan leaves with the remains of her soul, determined to heal both her and Xiao Xingchen.

As I wrote here, A-Qing is also faced with a dark version of herself in Xue Yang. Similarly, Jiang Cheng is faced with a dark version of himself in both Su She (jealous of Lan Wangji, jealous of Wei Wuxian; he calls out their arrogance) and in Jin Guangyao in the temple, and only then is he able to move forward and grow. Nie Mingjue, unfortunately, did not recognize the dark version of himself in Jin Guangyao, and ends up trapped with him.

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trensu · 4 years

Text

Episode 46: The One with All the Yunmeng Bros Angst

gross, ouyang and yao are talking. let’s ignore them!

blah blah plot plot blah

ooh thank god, wwx is now the one talking

being all detective-y and asking relevant questions

I LOVE MY SUNSHINE BOY WHEN HE'S BEING CLEVER

wwx makes some Plot Relevant Point and yao is like I DISAGREE bc ofc he fucking does

LOL WWX'S FACE WHEN YAO INTERRUPTS LIKE THAT

IT'S LIKE HE'S BITING DOWN ON HIS TONGUE TO NOT SNAP SOMETHING BACK

kudos to him on his self-control tbh but it's wasted on yao.

wwx is all asking things like why are you ladies fessing up now, oh and btw that's a real neat bracelet you got there...

and then nhs is like, gee i wonder what kind of person would've sent these ladies here today

LOLOLOL NHS IS SUCH A TROLL OMG

and yao is like DETAILS DON'T MATTER, WHAT IS CRITICAL THINKING ANYWAY LET'S GO MURDER FOR JUSTICE AGAIN

and everyone else is like, HEY, THIS LOUD GUY HAS A POINT LET'S GO MURDER

okay, they don't actually say anything about murder but they're harping about "justice"

The last time they did that, it resulted in murder so i'm gonna go ahead and assume this time isn't any different

lwj: many skeptical points remain

THANK YOU, LWJ, FOR BEING SENSIBLE

oh, and i would like to point out that the crowd had been getting rowdy

but the minute lwj interjected there they all fell silent

My guy didn't even raise his voice and was able to shut up a whole room full of people.

I LOVE YOU HANGUANG JUN

lqr: what are they?

wwx: SO MANY.

wwx makes some Points and is like so we got some witnesses now but where's the HARD EVIDENCE GUYS??

and yao is like, whatever, we'll find it sooner or later now that we know THE TRUTH

and wwx's reaction lolol

it's like oh my god how stupid is this guy, that's not how it works, that's not how ANY of this works

I FEEL YOUR PAIN, WWX, I FEEL IT IN MY SOUL

ppl are blabbering Plot Stuff

i'm just gonna enjoy the occasional shots of wwx and lwj's beautiful faces

blah blah blah plot plot plot blah

gosh, my boys are so pretty

LOOK AT THEM BEING PRETTY, I LOVE THEM

(i say as the crowd devolves into vicious mob mentality)

wwx's had enough of this and turns to leave bc angry mobs are old news at this point

And we all know how he ended up last time there was an angry mob

but yao and some rando interrupt his exit as if they have ANY RIGHT to speak to my sunshine boy at all

Eventually we DO escape sword hall and the mob of stupid people and our boys are alone together wandering lotus pier!!!

they're reviewing Plot Info and bouncing ideas off each other and IT'S BEAUTIFUL, THEY'RE SO SMART AND IN LOVE

They determine that they don't have enough clues to say who the mysterious 3rd party is

but they def have enough evidence showing jgy murdered nmj and is generally an evil conniving bastard.

lwj mentions that he's going to send word to his brother to be careful since jgy is EVIL FOR SURE NOW.

oooh, our boys just came upon the jiang clan's ancestral shrine

wwx freezes, eyes red-rimmed and shiny, MY POOR SUNSHINE BOY

lwj: what's wrong?

ALL OF HIS ATTENTION IS GLUED TO WWX'S EVERY MOVE ALL THE TIME, ISN'T IT??

SEE HOW INTENTLY HE LOOKS AT WWX??

me too, lan zhan, me too

wwx: nothing. it's the ancestral hall of the jiang clan

he says this softly, like it hurts to acknowledge it or smth

lwj: do you want to enter?

wwx: no

WHICH IS A BLATANT LIE

EVERYTHING ABOUT HIM IS SCREAMING HOW MUCH HE WANTS TO GO IN THERE

they make to turn away and pause for a moment, during which wwx looks back at the shrine longingly

cut to the next scene where we see wwx burning some incense sticks in the shrine

AND OUR BOYS BOW TOGETHER 3x TO M-YU, JFM, AND JYL

wwx greets his deceased loved ones solemnly

wwx: it's me. i'm here to disturb you again.

idk about m-yu and jfm, BUT JYL WOULD NEVER THINK WWX'S PRESENCE WAS A DISTURBANCE

now wwx is telling lwj about how he used to spend a ton of time in that shrine bc m-yu would punish him by sending him there to, idk, reflect on his sins before the ancestors or smth

and lwj is like, yeah, i heard about that

then wwx comments on how he's never met a woman as irritable as m-yu, and how she punished him for trifles all the time

then he laughs bashfully and says "my fault, my fault" and bows another 3x bc omg wwx you can't speak ill of the dead, especially not at their shrine

this is a nice moment between them so far, actually.

it's nice to hear wwx reminisce in a way that's not 100% painful

and the fact that he's sharing these little bits of inconsequential info with lwj, his soulmate, is just very sweet to me

lwj: won't you tell jc?

wwx: idk. at least not yet

lwj: after all, you two are sworn brothers

it's nice of lwj to acknowledge that, without any sort of rancor in his tone, considering how much he does not care for jc (to put it mildly)

wwx: since the misunderstanding between us is so deep, it's not that easy to solve

HE SOUNDS SO RESIGNED, AND THE LITTLE SMILE THAT FLASHED BRIEFLY THERE WAS JUST SO SAD

and then he's like, besides, I created Plot Device 2, regardless of whether or not jgy ended up using it to make Plot Device 3

UH OH, HERE COMES JC

jc: wei wuxian

OH GOD, CAN HE PACK ANY MORE BITTERNESS AND VENOM INTO THAT NAME??

wwx stands immediately when he hears jc call, he doesn't look at him tho

lwj stands a beat after as jc enters the shrine

jc: you still take yourself as one of the jiang clan? come and go at any time you like, then bring people here when you wish. Do you remember whose house this is? who's the owner?

YIKES

THAT ONE HURT.

and wwx just takes it

wwx: i didnt take hanguang jun to any confidential places in Lotus Pier. i just brought him here to offer some incense to clan leader jiang and madam yu.

he's so submissive here and not even in a fun way

it’s in his posture and tone of voice, even in how he still doesn't look directly at jc...it makes me sad

wwx: we're leaving

He tries to retreat bc he def doesn't want this this confrontation to happen

jc: you really should kneel down to them, for coming to their presence to destroy the view and ruin their quiet.

DOUBLE YIKES.

that one hurt EVEN MORE

and lwj, who had been following wwx's lead and staying quiet, intervenes

lwj: clan leader jiang, pay attention to your words

oh boy if looks could kill, jc would be dead as a doornail

he's like HURT MY SOULMATE AGAIN, I DARE YOU. JUST GIVE ME A REASON AND I WILL STRIKE YOU DOWN

which is pretty gutsy since jc is higher ranked than him, technically, as clan leader.

AND they're both in jc's domain rn!

jc: what did you say? i think someone else needs to watch his behavior

he's glaring at wwx's back and he's got a mean twist to his mouth that would be a smile if it weren't so cruel

jc: you have already been kicked out of our family. how dare you enter and face my parents and my sister?

STOP HURTING MY SUNSHINE BOY

wwx is just accepting this. he's just accepting all these cruel things with his eyes downcast and submissive

BC IT HURTS AND HE BELIEVES HE DESERVES IT

lwj: jiang wanyin

HOLY SHIT

lwj fucking HISSED that name

and he took a VERY MENACING step towards jc

MY GUY

MY GUY, YOU CAN'T ATTACK A CLAN LEADER

ESPECIALLY NOT IN HIS OWN HOME

LIKE, I TOTALLY GET WHY YOU'D WANT TO RN, AND, Y'KNOW, I'M NOT THE MOST POLITICALLY SAVVY PERSON AROUND

BUT THIS JUST SEEMS LIKE A BAD IDEA ALL AROUND

thank god wwx is there

wwx stops him, pressing the palm of his hand into lwj's torso (!!!!!)

wwx: lan zhan. lan zhan, let's go

he practically whispers this, head bent down, AGAIN SUPER SUBSERVIENT

but jc is looking for a fight and he's not letting go until he gets one, apparently

jc: go as far as you can. i don't want to see you AWFUL PEOPLE again before my dead family

wwx just halts in his steps.

he had been all prepared to go after taking that tongue lashing that he thinks he's earned, but at that he takes a deep, fortifying breath bc jc crossed a line

he purses his lips a moment before turning to finally face jc head on

wwx: jc, scold me as you like but not the others (aka LWJ)

oooh, but that was the wrong thing to say to jc right now bc jc goes off on a VERY PAINFUL rant

he's like, oh, i should be nice to lwj? don't you remember that MY PARENTS WERE KILLED AND LOTUS PIER FELL bc you just HAD to play hero and save lwj?? and it wasn't enough! you HAD to play hero and SAVE THE WENS too, which killed my sister!!

oh he's getting really mean here

he's like, how generous you are wwx! letting wn wander the entrance of lotus pier and letting lwj offer incense!!

the minute jc started his rant, wwx cast his eyes to the side, again just enduring everything jc is throwing at him

oh but now jc starts in on lwj again

he's like, lwj, the great second jade, ignoring his reputation to side with wwx, your brother and uncle must be so proud

wwx: JIANG WANYIN!

wwx shouts at him

he's shaky and almost panting here.

wwx: apologize this instant.

jc: apologize? why should i? bc i insulted your great friendship?

THIS WHOLE ENCOUNTER IS A SHIT SHOW AND IT HURTS.

wwx just loses it here and grabs jc by the collar of his robes and gives him a shake

wwx: ARE YOU DONE?

and jc is still the little brother, you know, so obvs he does not back down here, he's not intimidated at all

jc: LET'S FIGHT THEN. should i be afraid of you two?

wwx's breath is all shaky and he's trembling and he would've given into jc's demands for a fight anyway but then he sees jyl's nameplate

and he must remember how upset jyl would get every time they fought

ME TOO, JYL, ME TOO. I HATE THIS, I HATE THIS, MAKE IT STOP

so he lets go of jc and stumbles back. he's looking very weak right now AND I’M VERY CONCERNED

lwj, obvs, catches him by the arm when he stumbles

lwj: wei ying

wwx: lan zhan, let's go

lwj agrees and the two of them turn and leave the shrine, lwj still gripping wwx's arm and providing support bc wwx is NOT looking good what’s happening to my sunshine boy, somebody fix this RIGHT NOW

BUT JC IS LIKE A DOG WITH A BONE BC HE JUST STORMS AFTER THEM, HE WANTS HIS FIGHT

he freaking leaps across the little lotus pond and lands before them, blocking off their exit

he starts antagonizing wwx, and he grabs wwx by the collar now, and again, wwx just takes it BUT LWJ DOESN'T

lwj slams his hand around jc's wrist (the one that's grabbing wwx), WRAPPING HIS FINGERS AROUND JC'S ZIDIAN, EVEN

lwj: let him go

holy crap. Stone Cold. LWJ'S STARE IS STONE COLD, AND HE TIGHTENS HIS GRIP ON JC'S WRIST

god damn, if lwj ever looked at me like that, i'd drop to the ground and beg for forgiveness. i'd be scared witless

when jc makes no move to let go of wwx, lwj releases his wrist and hooks his arm under jc's forearm and shoves upward to FINALLY break jc's hold on wwx

wwx stumbles at the force of it and his nose starts to bleed

MY POOR PRECIOUS SUNSHINE BOY LOOKS SO WEAK AND OUT OF IT!!

lwj looks at him, eyes wide with worry

lwj: wei ying!

even jc looks concerned (i would even say scared, tbh)

wwx reaches up and wipes his nose; he's not steady on his feet AT ALL

wwx: lan zhan, let's go.

lwj: okay

and he immediately starts to leave, practically dragging wwx with him bc wwx is barely able to stand at this point

lol, lwj shoulder checks jc as they walk past him

but jc is a stubborn bastard and brings out zidian and whips at their retreating backs

brief moment here to admire how FREAKING COOL THE ZIDIAN IS OMG,

*GRABBY HANDS* I WANT ONE OF MY OWN SO SO BAD.

IT'S A SNAKE BRACELET!!

THAT TURNS INTO A WHIP!!

A PURPLE WHIP!!! OF LIGHTNING!!!!!!

LITERALLY NO ASPECT OF THIS WEAPON IS UN-BADASS

so jc whips purple lightning at them but the hit never lands bc lwj swings his still-sheathed bichen and bats that attack away like nothing

but as he does that, wwx starts to fall

lwj spins around and AUDIBLY GASPS, eyes wide with worry again, as he watches wwx lose consciousness.

he dives forward and catches his soulmate in his arms and cradles him gently

jc doesn't see this happen and swings right back with another lash but wn swoops in out of nowhere to take the hit instead.

AND HERE WE'RE GONNA GET THE BIG REVEAL OH GOD I'M NOT READY

jc is all who let you in, how dare you?? and whips wn again

BUT WN WILL NOT STAY DOWN, NO SIR

HE'S GOT STUFF TO SAY AND BY GOD, HE'S GONNA SAY IT

he offers up suibian to jc but jc whips him and sends him flying again

Wn gets right back up goes back to offering the sword to jc, DEMANDING HE UNSHEATHE IT

AND IN A FIT OF FURY JC PULLS AT THE HANDLE AND SUIBIAN COMES FREE

SHOCK, UTTER SHOCK ON HIS AND LWJ'S FACES

(also YIKES jc nearly sliced out wn's eyes with the force of his unsheathing of siubian. he obvs didn't expect anything to come of him pulling at the handle)

GOLDEN CORE TRANSFER REVEAL!!

FLASHBACK to wn's part of the story

we see wn holding an unconscious jc and wq is telling wwx to come out from where he was hiding behind a convenient boulder

and we see wwx give the go ahead to start the golden core transfer

back to the present, jc looks like his whole world is a lie

bc it kinda is

I'm still kinda mad that wwx never told him anything.

like, i get why he didn't and i sympathize but informed consent in medicine and surgery is kind of a big deal!

and then omg, we got a close up shot of lwj's face

his eyes are wide and shiny and his jaw is dropped open just a bit. HE IS SHAKEN TO THE CORE

HAHAHA GET IT? THAT THING WWX DOESN’T HAVE ANYMORE?? Oh god i’m sorry that was AWFUL

he turns his gaze back to wwx, who is still resting gently in crook of his arm

i love the camera angle here btw

the scene is at a slant, with the white of bichen's handle, and the white of the flowering tree behind them filling all of the right side of the screen

it makes the dark bundle of wwx and the dark flow of lwj's hair more stark

the slant of it really emphasizes how the whole of lwj's attention is on the man in his arms

And how his whole world is off its axis at this revelation

god lwj is really just letting his whole heart pour out of his eyes as he watches wwx

jc and wn are arguing loudly in the background but lwj makes NO INDICATION of hearing ANY of it

now we get to watch the emotional confrontation between jc and wn

lwj finally looks back at them when wn starts reciting details that no one outside of jc would have known unless they were there themselves

another flashback as wn describes everything in excruciating detail

oh this line gets me every time

wn: the reason you thought it was repaired was because of my sister, the best doctor in the wen clan of qishan, Wen Qing

WN LOVES HIS SISTER SO MUCH. HE WAS SO PROUD OF HER

AND HE LOST HER. HE DOESN'T HAVE HER ANYMORE

GOD DAMN IT, SHOW, LET THESE BOYS KEEP THEIR SISTERS

and now we go back to lwj, gazing soulfully at wwx and a single tear rolls down his cheek as it really hits him what exactly wwx did, what wwx gave up

wn is going off on jc, like, didn't he ever wonder why wwx never picked up the sword again?

wn looks hardcore here tbh.

we cut back to lwj, who is now holding bichen tightly, and boy, he's got his jaw clenched so hard.

at least until he looks back down at wwx, and his mouth softens as more tears drip down his face

flashback to when jc first found wwx after the burial mounds, and a series of flashbacks of every time jc brought up wwx's lack of suibian and wwx brushing off his questions

THEY SHOULD'VE JUST TALKED IT OUT, MY GOD, THEY COULD’VE SPARED ME ALL THIS PAIN IF THEY JUST TALKED

another flashback to that time that jc pushed wwx and wwx fell hard to the ground and jc thought he was just drunk

I AM DONE WITH THESE FLASHBACKS, THX. CAN WE NOT, ANYMORE? IT'S HURTING TOO MUCH

and we also keep getting shots of lwj's face, STREAKED WITH TEARS

HE'S GOT A TEARDROP ON THE TIP OF HIS NOSE

ALL OF THIS IS PAINFUL

PLEASE STOP

oooh, lwj's mouth twists into a firm scowl and he slams bichen on the ground with a loud CLANG

this is too much for him too! he's furious, he's had enough of hearing how wwx suffered for jc

so he scoops up wwx, carrying almost all of his weight, as he walks the both of them outta there

wn leaves suibian with jc and tells him to have anyone else try to unsheathe it if he doesn't believe him

jc doesn't want it. he doesn't want it at all.

he desperately wants it to be untrue

AND I CRY A RIVER FOR MY YUNMENG BROS

WE'RE ON A BOAT NOW

UNCONSCIOUS WWX SPREAD BACK, HELD LOVINGLY IN LWJ'S ARMS

Now we get some lwj & wn bonding time where they discuss a-yuan! (after lwj promises not to tattle on wn to wwx)

AHHHHHHHHHHHH!! WE'RE GETTING A FLASHBACK FROM LWJ

LWJ IS ENTERING WWX'S LAB CAVE THING, ALONE, FRANTICALLY SEARCHING FOR WWX

lwj: on that day, when the wen clan were captured and killed, i went to the burial mounds to seek wei ying but discovered a-yuan instead

we see him find a-yuan, who is unconscious and clammy.

lwj immediately drops to his knees beside him and checks his wrist, then presses the back of his hand to a-yuan's forehead

oh, lwj's hand is all roughened with dirt. That’s very striking, for some reason.

he purses his lips making a split-second decision, and scoops a-yuan up

lwj: he was hiding there for so long that he had a fever and was severely ill

wn figures out that the fever is probs why lsz doesn't remember anything, and hasn’t mentioned wn at all. lwj looks surprised

lwj: didn't you tell him?

wn: about his birth origin? he's happy now. knowing too much about the past and remembering something heavy, would make him less happy than now

HE'S SUCH A GOOD PERSON

WHY DO THE BEST OF THEM HAVE TO SUFFER SO?

lwj: sooner or later, he will know

and wn doesn't deny it. he's like, yeah, sooner or later. just like master wei and jc with the golden core transfer.

at this lwj looks back down at wwx

lwj: is it painful?

the way lwj's throat bobs before he asks tho.

like he's forcing himself to ask, bc he needs to know even if he already suspects the answer.

He needs to know even tho knowing will hurt. he's steeling himself against the pain already.

wn: what?

lwj: taking out the core, is it painful?

wn: you won't believe me if i say it's not, right?

lwj: i thought wq might have some method

he sounds desperate, hoping against all odds that it didn't hurt wwx as much as he suspects it did

and here wn explains that wq wanted to ease the process, make it less painful, but due to the nature of the procedure, she couldn't use any anesthetics

wn: the one who donates the core has to be awake the whole time

THE WHOLE DAMN TIME

HE HAS TO BE CONSCIOUS TO WATCH IT GET CUT OUT OF HIM AND EXPERIENCE THAT CONNECTION SLOWLY BE SEVERED OTHERWISE IT DOESN'T WORK

HOW MESSED UP IS THAT OMG, HOW MUCH TRAUMA MUST THEY PUT MY POOR SUNSHINE BOY THROUGH

lwj: awake?

HE SOUNDS HOARSE AS HE SAYS THAT

wn: two nights and one day. he has to be awake

MY SUNSHINE BOY, MY BEAUTIFUL SUNSHINE BOY SUFFERED SO MUCH

lwj's lips purse briefly. he's staring at his wei ying

lwj: at the time, what were the chances

wn: fifty percent

lwj looks at wn here with horrified disbelief

lwj: fifty percent?

wn proceeds to explain how wq didn't want to do it but wwx kept insisting that the odds were worth

AND OH MY GOD LWJ FLASHES BACK TO THEIR FIRST CONFRONTATION AFTER THE BURIAL MOUNDS, WHEN THEY FINALLY FOUND WWX AFTER 3 MONTHS OF SEARCHING

IT HURTS JUST AS MUCH AS THE FIRST TIME AROUND

Wwx must have some sort of sixth sense for knowing when Emotional Discussions are Done, bc he regains consciousness only AFTER wn & lwj finish bonding lol

he sits up, head aching, and pulls himself from lwj's embrace

I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY, BC LWJ OBVS DIDN'T MIND HAVING HIM THAT CLOSE

IN FACT even as he helps wwx sit up, you can see his hand trail up wwx's arm, grip loosening and tightening sporadically

He's def trying to prolong contact here, very reluctant to let go of his wei ying

wwx: lan zhan, how did we get out?

lwj: we had a fight

AND ~THEIR SONG~ STARTS PLAYING

wwx: i knew that jiang cheng wouldn't let me go that easily. so unreasonable.

and then he looks at lwj and hurries to assure him that jc didn't mean all those cutting remarks. that that's just how he gets when he's upset.

lwj looks off to the side, pressing his lips closed bc he couldn't care less about jc or jc's words. THEY MEAN NOTHING TO HIM

wwx covers lwj's hand with his own and very earnestly says: so don't take it seriously

BC HE HASN'T YET REALIZED THAT LWJ DOESN'T ACTUALLY GIVE A DAMN ABOUT JC'S ENTIRE EXISTENCE

lwj doesn't look him in the eye as he's told this, and his lips are still pressed together in a firm line.

he probably doesn't actually want wwx to realize just how little jc means to him.

wwx notices they're on a boat on a lake now lol

wwx: i often played here with jyl when we were children

AND HERE HE HALLUCINATES HIS PRECIOUS BEAUTIFUL KIND AMAZING SISTER JYL

Jyl: a-xian come have some lotus seeds

WWX'S EYES REDDEN WITH TEARS AND HE CALLS OUT FOR HIS SISTER

AND I'M FIGHTING BACK SOBS

WHILE JYL'S SWEET GENTLE MUSIC PLAYS AND JYL SMILES WARMLY AT HER LITTLE BROTHER

wn snaps wwx out of it

ONLY FOR WWX TO FLASHBACK TO JYL CRYING AND SAYING THAT THEY'RE THE CLOSEST THREE IN THE WORLD

WWX LEANS HIS HEAD ON HER KNEE AND SULKS ADORABLY ABOUT HOW HE'S HUNGRY

AND I WANNA DIE FROM ALL THE FEELINGS I'M HAVING

back on the boat, wwx eyes are still filled with tears and it's awful

wn is all, wwx what's wrong? and wwx shakes it off and just says he's hungry

so he yanks out some lotus pods from the lake and gives one to lwj and one to wn and one for himself

HE'S SMILING NOW, THANK GOD

wwx: it's perfect timing to be here now!

and he's happily tearing into the pod

I LOVE SEEING HIM HAPPY AND SMILING

SUCH LITTLE JOYS AND HE REVELS IN IT

I LOVE HIM SO MUCH

HE SHOULD ALWAYS BE HAPPY AND SMILING.

NOTHING SHOULD EVER BE ALLOWED TO MAKE HIM SAD. NOTHING

lwj: wei ying

wwx: what

lwj: does this lake belong to someone?

LOL, HE GAVE THE POD A SUSPICIOUS LOOK BEFORE ASKING THAT AND HAS NOT TRIED GETTING ANY SEEDS OUT YET

wwx: of course not

HE SAYS IN A COMPLETELY NOT BELIEVABLE WAY

YOU CAN TELL BY HOW HE DOESN'T LOOK LWJ IN THE EYE AS HE RESPONDED AND KEEPS MUNCHING AWAY ON THE SEEDS AS A DISTRACTION

Lwj is watching like, yeah, i’m not buying it.

lwj: i heard that lakes here all have owners.

lolol wwx pauses in his chewing for a second and looks around guiltily for a bit before letting out a nervous laugh

wwx: hanguang jun, you really hear much, don't you? i didn't even know that.

he's looking at him all innocently and LWJ LOOKS BACK STILL NOT BUYING IT LOLOLOL

wwx looks away and then looks back, relenting

wwx: fine.

HE'S ALL POUTY, IT'S ADORABLE, I LOVE HIM

he sulkily tells wn to get them moving

and sulkily tosses his lotus pod at the bottom of the boat

HE'S JUST HAVING A SULK-FEST RN AND IT'S SUPER CUTE, I'M ENJOYING IT A LOT

wn starts to get the paddles to get the boat going, when lwj suddenly leans over the side of the boat and snaps up a lotus pod

he very seriously offers it to his wei ying, who is watching him wide-eyed and surprised

lwj: only for today

bc i just found out about your traumatic golden core transfer for your awful ungrateful little brother and i feel horrible that you suffered alone, he doesn’t say

bc i wish i could have done something to help but i couldn't so now i'm gonna steal you a lotus pod bc that's literally all i can do right now, he also doesn’t say

LOL

THE WAY THE CAMERA CUTS TO WN HERE CRACKS ME UP

WN IS JUST PASSIVELY MUNCHING ON A SEED AND WATCHING THAT EXCHANGE HAPPEN WITH HIS BIG BROWN EYES TAKING IT IN, WITH A VAGUE, "HUH, THAT'S INTERESTING" MANNER

wwx looks at the pod and then back at lwj before taking the pod with a nervous laugh

I am convinced that he had WAR-FLASHBACKS to that time drunk!lwj gave him roosters

He’s probably frantically trying to remember if lwj drank ANY alcohol earlier

TRYING TO CALCULATE THE CHANCES OF SOMEONE SLIPPING SOME ALCOHOL TO LWJ BETWEEN THEIR FIGHT WITH JC TO THIS BOAT ESCAPE LOLOLOLOL

he clutches that pod with both hands and gives lwj a pained smile

The exact pained smile he had when he accepted the roosters that time

LMAO WWX TURNS TO LOOK AT WN, HIS BROWS ALL FURROWED IN CONFUSION LIKE, WN WHAT THE HECK IS HAPPENING, EXPLAIN WHAT'S HAPPENING RIGHT NOW

but wn just smiles cheerfully at him

cut to the next moment where we see the boat's floor is now littered with a bunch of lotus pods and wwx is happily munching on seeds, all smiley

BUT OF COURSE I'M NOT ALLOWED TO ENJOY HAPPY PEACEFUL MOMENTS EVER

SO A GLOWY GLITTERY MESSENGER BUTTERFLY APPEARS AND LANDS ON LWJ'S OUTSTRETCHED PALM

I mean, wwx giggled happily there for a moment there!!!!! WHY CAN'T THEY LET ME BASK IN THAT FOR ONE MINUTE, GOD.

anyway, the butterfly

wwx: the paper butterfly messenger from the jin clan?

(side note to say that the butterfly messenger is actually very pretty. i like it a lot)

wwx pats lwj on the knee after the butterfly flies away

wwx: what happened? what did it say?

Lwj’s like, jgy is in yunmeng now and my brother hasn’t responded to my message...

wwx: you worry jgy would harm him when desperate?

bc wwx can tell right away when lwj is worried. BC THEY'RE SOULMATES AND THEY KNOW EACH OTHER SO WELL

And then bc my sunshine boy is a GENIUS, he remembers the deed jgy had hidden away in the secret chamber, for Yunping City in Yunmeng

he excitedly tells lwj that this is where jgy will be

lol he was so excited he tipped himself over a bit and jostled the boat so lwj had to reach out to steady him

we cut to the next scene we see people dying fabrics and our boys wander through

Wwx confirms with some random worker lady that they’re in the right place and tells lwj they should explore the city as a date for Plot Investigation Reasons

lwj nods in agreement and then wwx turns back to look at the lady and gives her THE SWEETEST SMILE, THE ONE THAT SQUINCHES HIS EYES CLOSED AND MAKES ME SWOON

BUT LOL LWJ SEES HIM SMILE AT THE LADY LIKE THAT AND IT NOT AMUSED BY IT AT ALL

oh god, just the way his eyes flick from wwx to the lady and how his lips firm up before he stalks off in a snit cracks me up

GREEN IS NOT YOUR COLOR, LAN ZHAN, I'M JUST SAYING

LET THE GUY SMILE AT ME, I MEAN AT PEOPLE. IT'S NOT A CRIME

wwx is confused by the reaction but hurries off after him

oh wwx, you dense idiot. you're lucky i love you so

now we see come random guys bully wn for no reason 😞

wwx tells them to back off but they don't listen and lwj very nonchalantly pulls out a talisman from his sleeve and offers it to wwx

wwx looks at the talisman and then back at lwj with SUCH A PLEASED SMILE

OMG I WOULD DO JUST ABOUT ANYTHING FOR HIM TO SMILE AT ME LIKE THAT

wwx: lan zhan, you even kept it until now?

AHHHHHH SO CUTE, I LOVE HIM

lwj doesn't respond but it doesn’t matter bc wwx does that squinchy-eyed smile AGAIN AND I DIE, I DIE

wwx activates the talisman which releases a whole bunch of glittery butterflies that distract the guys and allow wn to escape.

omg guys, this is the same trick lwj used to distract wen chao and wen zhuliu to escape ages and ages ago WHICH MEANS LWJ HAS BEEN CARRYING A PIECE OF WWX WITH HIM ALL THESE YEARS AHHHHHHHHH

And after that wonderful, touching revelation, the episode ends.

SO, we had lots of depressing Yunmeng Bros Feelings that made me wanna die

BUT we also at the end here get rewarded with MULTIPLE squinchy-eyed smiles from my most precious darling sunshine boy that made me wanna die but, like, in a good way

I WOULD ENDURE SO MUCH MORE FOR THOSE SMILE, NGL

Return to Masterpost

#WangXiantics #wangxian #the untamed #cql

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weeweewuxian · 5 years

Text

Thoughts on CQL drama

So I know that while everyone is glad CQL turned out better than expected (and some hate it), I feel like I should voice a few opinions of my own while I’m at this. I’m really glad at all the backstories given to each side character that we’ve all always wanted more development more, but as a wangxian fan for a long time now, I feel like this might either be a good or bad thing for my favourite duo and couple. I’m personally afraid this adaption is easy to ruin the original appeal of wangxian to me---turning them into the typical BL couple.

While we do get cute wangxian scenes, what made me love them wasn’t only because they’re a good couple, but also because of their individual traits and characteristics, of having similar ideals and cored that drew them to each other. I fear that these ‘cute wangxian scenes’ would turn LWJ into a typical ML who’s entire focus was on WWX, but that is not the case—we all should also pay attention to LWJ when he’s struggling to come to terms with his uncle and brother, and how he defies them NOT because of WWX, but because he thinks it’s the right thing to do and he’s simply saving a friend when he saw the possibility. Remember that it doesn’t have to be WWX. It could’ve been anyone and LWJ would have done the save regardless. WWX just happens to be the one unfortunate soul.

Despite LWJ’s focus on WWX was more openly obvious in the show. We do see that despite hurting his foot, he stood up to MianMian. Despite having gotten the goddess, LWJ was the first to realize that WQ was lying, and he could not have known if he doesn’t pay attention to her. He saved Su She on his own accord while defying LQR, which is an event that isn’t related to WWX at all. In the scene where he left WWX sleeping on the roof in the Unclean Realm, he left because his sect and family was in danger. WWX, JC, and NHS are basically safe with NMJ around, so in a way LWJ knows and weighed the importance before he left them. LWJ is still is own human being. He knew that his family needed him more that timie so he left. He even chastised WWX when WWX was being insufferable about how he got involved in demonic cultivation and forced him to sit down and tell him everything and made him swear up and down that he would allow him to help him. That’s what true friends should do.

I’m super glad that LWJ gets so much more development that was obvious to the eye. For me, those traits are long in his character. They simply didn’t get flesh out well enough for enough reader to pick it up from the novels or donghua. What I love about CQL!LWJ is that he learns to speak for himself. He is more vocal about his thoughts. He fights for his own right as a person and not his sect’s or someone else’s puppet that is convenient for manipulation. He supports WWX because WWX is right. There is no justice and ‘peace’ within the cultivation world is meaningless if JGS carries on acting like he is the replacement of the Wen Sect. These are all things that weren’t shown novel or donghua obviously. So I appreciate it. As long as you don’t invest 100% of your focus on only wangxian moments it’s not difficult to see at all.

The content is there. It’s just whether people care to acknowledge it.

As for WWX, I know people are mad that WWX seems to have a crush at first sight on LWJ. To me, WWX might have an immediate liking for LWJ at first, but WWX still is not blinded by love. WWX left JC, JYL, and JFM simply because he knew LWJ was alone in the quest of the Yin Metal. WWX did not leave them because of LWJ. WWX left them because it was the Yin Metal & LWJ wasn’t simply going on any usual quest. WWX swore an oath to LQR and LXC that he wouldn’t tell anyone, and he kept his promise. He went after LWJ because he was the only one who knew about the Yin Metal and how dangerous it is, and he felt responsible for knowing that LWJ, a 15-17 year old boy, is alone on such a dangerous quest. As they say, not knowing is not a crime, but it’s a crime if you knew and ignored it. That’s why WWX went after him. When the fall of Lotus Pier occurred, during their escape, WWX constantly mentions that he wants to bring them to Lanling so they can reunite with LWJ there. It’s obvious he wants to see LWJ as soon as possible (yes you cant deny he’s biased) but you also couldn’t deny that WWX later puts off his own trip to Lanling because he wants to remain behind and give him core with JC. This shows that despite WWX’s obvious desires, he is willing to set LWJ aside first and places JC, his family, as his priority. For the very obvious and similar reason why LWJ left him before: his family needed him at that time more then LWJ did. That’s why WWX remained behind and set JYL ahead to Lanling. When WQ asked WWX for help, WWX did not even hesitate to go full out for her. WWX might have a crush for LWJ at first, but currently it’s been set aside for now so he could save lives. He isn’t even completely sure if LWJ sees him the same way he did with him, so naturally WWX prioritizes lives of people who helped him before in the past and puts his love life and interest aside. He still retains friendship and hospitality to LWJ, as he wasn’t hostile to him and was still willing to speak and reason with LWJ. It shows that WWX is kind of like a “You’re a good person, and I really like you. But right now there is something more important I need to do. The right thing, but I don’t want to drag you with me into something Im not sure if I can fix.” Mood. He asked LWJ whether what he does is right—but doesn’t force LWJ to come with him, because WWX knows that the path he chose might be a path with no chance of returning.

Ultimately, whether those actions are ‘gay’ or not is entirely up to the fans to interpret. It can be heavily platonic, or it can be not. The show did not explicitly advertise them as a couple (we know it’s because of censorship) but that’s also the truth. At some point whatever headcanons or views you have of CQL’s LWJ and WWX are mostly because of your own interpretation of them.

While I do like them as a couple and partners, I feel like it’s important to acknowledge their quality as also individual characters. LWJ and WWX both weights their priorities. While they are obviously attracted and fond of each other and did not like being apart, they know when other things mean more than themselves and acts accordingly. They’re both very fierce and stalwart. And I think that alone is beautiful.

#lan wangji #chen qing ling #the untamed #wei wuxian

138 notes · View notes

clockworkspider · 6 years

Text

[NieYao] Empathy - Ch. 17/18

Relationship: Platonic NieYao, platonic 3zun+NHS Rating: M (G for this chapter)

NO MORE CLIFFHANGERS it’s safe to read now.

Start from the beginning

Jin GuangShan asks for his son back. The man plays the very role of a worried father so convincingly that Lan XiChen can hardly believe this is the same man Nie MingJue claims to have made attempts on A-Yao’s life.

“Sect Leader Jin,” Lan XiChen says gently, “please trust that Young Master Jin is in good care here at the Cloud Recess. Wen Qing’s medical skills are unparalleled, but you must understand that he will be unfit for travel until he fully recovers.”

“Still,” Jin GuangShan says coyly, “he’s a member of LanLing Jin, I don’t want to impose upon Sect Leader Lan's hospitality any further.”

“Not at all,” Lan XiChen answers, enunciating every syllable clearly and firmly, “A-Yao is one of my closest friends. I’ll do anything to make sure he's safe.”

With a deep sigh, Jin GuangShan shook his head, “To think that ChiFeng-Zun would use violence against A-Yao, who has adored him with every fibre of his being. Nevermind, this is my fault, I should never have allowed A-Yao to speak on my behalf for Xue Yang’s matter. That child...”

“Sect Leader Jin,” Lan XiChen intercepts gently when Jin GuangShan trails off, “if there’s no further request, I’m afraid I’ll have to take my leave. The disciples would be happy to escort you around the Cloud Recess, if you do so desire.”

_________________________________________________

“I will return to QingHe,” Nie HuaiSang announces, "to see to sect businesses in your stead.”

“I’ll come with you,” says Nie MingJue.

“Dage, you should rest,” Nie HuaiSang says firmly, “XiChen-xiong has already offered to assist me in anything I don’t know, and I have the elders to rely on.”

“Besides,” HuaiSang continues, "don’t you want to stay until Yao-ge gets better?”

It’s true, Nie MingJue needs to watch Meng Yao. He needs to know which version of him wakes up. (If he wakes up.)

But Nie MingJue also knows what had happened to Song Lan’s sect in the other life. Now Xue Yang’s biggest enemy are no longer Xiao XingChen and Song Lan, it’s himself. And HuaiSang will become a target.

“You have no idea how dangerous Xue Yang is.”

Nie HuaiSang blinks.

“I do, big brother,” Nie HuaiSang answers, and there’s an odd sobriety in his eyes. “I know how dangerous he can be.”

Nie HuaiSang smiles, and there’s a firmness in his expression that Nie MingJue has never seen before, not even in Jin GuangYao’s memories. Sharpness, a hint of steel. Nie MingJue is suddenly reminded of Meng Yao as he headed out to go undercover at Wen RuoHan’s camp.

Nie MingJue feels his blood chill.

“I’ll be careful,” his brother says, before giving him a nervous smile, “besides, I’m heading right back to QingHe. We’re not a small sect like the Changs. We have hundreds of disciples. It’s not like I’m going to hop on my sword and look for him myself.”

Nie MingJue blinks, “you’re not?”

“Of course not! Look at me! Look at my cultivation! I’m not crazy! I don’t want to fight a homicidal madman!”

“Oh,” says Nie MingJue.

_________________________________________________

The truth about the Xue Yang's case was this: most people didn't care enough to get involved.

The fact was, despite his notoriety, Xue Yang had never killed anyone of importance. The massacre of the Chang family was an exception, but Xue Yang was thorough in his violence, and he didn’t leave anyone alive save one scion. Even thinking with their toes, it was easy to understand that the Changs were no more, and therefore it’d serve no advantage for any of the major sect to cry justice for them.

Xue Yang had few enemies, but a powerful benefactor. Though Jin GuangShan had denied involvement with the massacre, nobody wanted to damage their relationship with a major sect leader.

When it comes to justice, leave it to ChiFeng-Zun and foolish youths like Xiao XingChen.

And so, one massacre case became a power-struggle between the Nie and the Jin. Most watched on with idle curiosity as Jin GuangYao, son of Jin GuangShan, struggled to manage the butchered relations between his father and his former superior. The Lan Sect, naturally, stood with Nie MingJue to seek justice, but it wasn’t difficult to tell that Lan XiChen took a moderate stance in consideration of Jin GuangYao’s disposition. The Jiang Sect, tied to Jin Sect by marriage, were divided, and withheld their stance, but not without some scathing remarks from Wei WuXian, commander of the corpse army.

Then, overnight, Xue Yang escaped, and both Jin GuangYao and Nie MingJue became incapacitated. The facts were muddled. Witnesses claimed that Nie MingJue went into a qi deviation.

Amongst the rumours, a story emerged. Xue Yang had tricked Jin GuangYao, preying on his friendship and sympathy to let him out of his cell, only to stab him in the back as soon as he got out. Nie MingJue, finding his former aide gravely injured, went mad with rage and entered into a qi deviation.

The depth of Xue Yang’s treachery, the injustice suffered by the Chang Family, by LianFang-Zun and ChiFeng-Zun, heroes of the SunShot campaign, is passed around through tales and heresay. Naturally, Jin GuangShan no longer has any reason to defend Xue Yang. A beast loose in the wild is no longer useful, but dangerous.

A bounty was placed onto Xue Yang’s head.

In the end, all it took was a change in public opinion for the world to turn on Xue Yang. Tales of Xue Yang’s atrocities became worse and worse, and righteous cultivators everywhere sought to take down the thug for glory.

When the boy was finally hunted down and killed by a mob, it was with fanfare and celebration. It was said that the little delinquent cursed at the entire cultivation society before he died, calling up an army of corpses and injuring many. Fortunately, his control of the dead was no match for Wei WuXian of YunMeng. In the end, he was devoured by the very same corpses he brought to life, leaving behind no body to bury.

No one mourned.

It was a sentence long overdue.

______________________________________________

“A-Yao.”

When Meng Yao’s eyes lands on Lan XiChen, he isn’t smiling.

Lan XiChen approaches carefully, reaching out a hand to check Meng Yao’s temperature. Meng Yao visibly stiffens, and shifts ever so slightly away. Lan XiChen withdraws his hand.

He can’t tell if Nie MingJue is right. The A-Yao sitting before him seems unusually reserved, but one can attribute that to the shock of almost being killed by someone dear to him.

“How are you feeling?” He asks carefully, taking a seat next to the bedside.

“Much better now, many thanks to—“ there’s a brief, barely noticeable pause, “XiChen-xiong’s care. Jin GuangYao apologize for causing so much trouble.”

“It’s no trouble,” Lan XiChen answers.

“Sect Leader Nie?”

“He’s safe. He’s recovering from his qi deviation, with good progress.”

“That’s good.” There’s a helpless sort of relief in the way Meng Yao’s shoulder settles, yet immediately tenses again with new worries.

“Dage has told me about your past,” Lan XiChen says, vague enough not to give everything away if A-Yao doesn’t remember, but deliberately enough that he would definitely pick up if he does.

Meng Yao’s eyes twitches with recognition and wariness.

“Don’t be afraid, we’re—I'm not going to persecute you,” says Lan XiChen gently, withdrawing his hand, “just focus on getting better first.”

“If he told you, that means he thinks I already remembered,” Meng Yao says.

Lan XiChen isn’t sure what to make of his tone. A-Yao has always been sharp. Nie MingJue’s tale chills Lan XiChen to the bones. He doesn’t want to distress him, but he can’t lower his guard.

“He’s still uncertain as of now,” Lan XiChen says, implying his intent to inform Nie MingJue of his findings. “He wishes to see you, but only when you’re ready.”

“And if I won’t?”

Lan XiChen frowns. He doesn’t want to force anything upon A-Yao, yet he can’t just let him loose knowing everything. “Focus on getting better first. I’m sure you have a lot to process.”

A-Yao gives him a reassuring smile. “Worry not, I’ll speak with Sect Leader Nie tomorrow. I just need some time alone.”

“Of course,” Lan XiChen stands up, preparing to take his leave, “call on the disciples if you need anything.”

Meng Yao seems to study him.

“XiChen-xiong, did Sect Leader Nie tell you about–” His mouth stays open for a bit, but he doesn’t continue. His good hand presses against his chest for a moment before it lowers again, similar to the way Nie MingJue’s did when telling him about the other A-Yao. There’s a secret there they don’t want him to know about.

Lan XiChen shakes his head.

Meng Yao snickers, a mixture of pain and relief, and Lan XiChen doesn’t know how to comfort him.

“You of all people, I’ve never wanted you to find out,” says Meng Yao.

If this is the world MingJue-xiong has told him about, Lan XiChen might have been angry, disappointed to hear these words. But in this world, he understands. The anger isn’t for him to bear. In this world, he just want to hold and comfort A-Yao, to take away all the pain.

He think he hates this A-Yao a little, this A-Yao he doesn’t know whose memories torments the one he loves.

But in the end, A-Yao is still A-Yao.

“It’s better this way,” Lan XiChen says, “I wanted to know how to support the two of you, A-Yao.”

Meng Yao falls silent again.

"XiChen-xiong…” Just as Lan Xichen takes his leave, Meng Yao calls out to him, "if you would please… refrain from calling me A-Yao. Just for a little while.”

“Of course,” Lan XiChen agrees easily, seeing another old wound between this A-Yao and the other Lan XiChen.

Another pain which he doesn’t share.

______________________________________________

He has prepared for Nie MingJue’s visit, hair tied and properly dressed in the clean white robe of the Cloud Recess. It was unfortunate that his own sparks amidst the snow robe was soiled by blood. He wants Nie MingJue to see him for who he is, not as the boy Meng Yao, damaged and vulnerable.

“You tried to change me.”

Those are the first words Jin GuangYao says —sitting in the centre of the room, upon the matted floor— to Nie MingJue upon their reunion. It’s an accusation, but Jin GuangYao’s tone was mild.

“Of course you would,” he mutters to himself. When Nie MingJue didn’t give an answer, he gives a tired little laugh. “So is this what you mean when you told the day I find out will be the day of my death.”

“How much do you remember?” Asks Nie MingJue.

“Everything,” Jin GuangYao answers, "I always remember everything, you know this.”

He watches as Nie MingJue’s hand rest upon the hilt of his saber, a gesture he’s all too familiar with.

“I’m sorry, Nie MingJue. I cannot be the man you want me to be.” He never could have been. Even as Meng Yao, given a second chance with a clean slate, he couldn’t put himself to Nie MingJue’s standards.

With an exhale of breath, he adjust to a kneeling position.

He’s following the Sect Leader to the outskirts of town, and the man tells him to kneel.

He’s kneeling on a battlefield at HeJian, and Nie MingJue has his saber drawn.

Jin GuangYao closes his eyes. He’s done pleading. He’s no longer scared. Whatever judgement Nie MingJue has for him, it’s long overdue.

As the seconds ticks on, there’s no pain, no death, no violence. He feels a light touch trailing along the wound on his shoulder, barely noticeable through the fabric over his skin.

He opens his eyes to see Nie MingJue’s hand shaking.

Jin GuangYao allows the corner of his lips to quirk in triumph.

“What happened to ‘I’ll kill you, then myself’, Dage?”

“Your shoulder,” Nie MingJue asks.

“Healing, thank you for your concern, Sect Leader Nie,” Jin GuangYao answers with a soft smile.

Nie MingJue’s hand drops.

They sit in silence.

“Which one are you, then?”

“Both,” Jin GuangYao answers, “I am myself.”

“What’s your plan?”

Jin GuangYao gives a light laugh, soft and airy, “Am I allowed to have one now?”

“You always have one.”

Jin GuangYao turns his eyes away with a soft smile. “You should have killed me when we first met in YunPing, before you can be addled with all these sentiments."

Nie MingJue observes the man before him, a pale spectre in Gusu Lan white. He remembers Meng Yao, hope in his eyes as he told Nie MingJue the name of his sword. He remembers Meng Yao, radiant in the sparks amidst the snow robe, raising his cup to him with both hands. He remembers Meng Yao, storm in his eyes as he pleaded for Xue Yang.

“No,” he answers easily enough.

Meng Yao is not a flame he wants smothered.

“If you have done so back then, you wouldn’t be hindered by your guilt now, stuck in a stalemate with me. Was it because I was innocent then?”

“You were never innocent.”

Jin GuangYao frowns. “Even after knowing your memories, I still cannot read you. You tell me, then. Was it pity that made you take me in?”

“Yes,” Nie MingJue admits, “that’s not all of it.”

“Arrogance, then. You thought you could change me.”

“Yes,” Nie MingJue admits again, despite the ire it provokes. But this isn’t it. This isn’t quite right. He needs to find the right words.

“What more do you have to say, Dage?” Jin GuangYao demands evenly, sensing Nie MingJue’s frustration.

“You didn’t kill me,” Nie MingJue says.

Jin GuangYao blinks.

“I did…” his brows furrows in confusion.

“In our first life, when I told you to turn yourself in, you had a chance to kill me but didn't. At the fire palace, you stopped Wen RuoHan from killing me even when it would have been easier for you to be rid of me. Why?”

Jin GuangYao’s frown deepens.

“Does it matter? I eventually had to finish the job,” he answers with a wry laugh.

“Why didn’t you?” Nie MingJue presses.

Jin GuangYao stares at him, at the floor, at the window, and then back at him again.

“You know the answer.”

“Say it,” there’s an urgency in his voice.

“I…” and for once, the words that resounded in Jin GuangYao’s mind, the words that he wanted to shout at Nie MingJue so many times in the past, won't come out. He takes a deep breath, swallows, and closes his eyes. “I didn’t want you to die.”

I don’t want you to die, Nie Mingjue. I never wanted you to die. I didn’t want to kill you. I don’t want you dead.

With that said, his shoulders sag as if all the strength has left him.

Nie MingJue looks to the man before him, the man who had killed him once and saved him thrice, the boy he has seen growing up twice over, and says “I’m glad you are alive.”

A series of soft, shaky laughs escapes from Jin GuangYao’s lips.

Two lifetimes of grudges, bundled and tied neatly in five words. I’m glad you are alive.

When Jin GuangYao looks up again, his eyes are shining. “This life…”

Meng Yao, are you happy here? His sect leader had asked, under the light of the setting sun.

He rests a hand upon Nie MingJue’s chest, clutching lightly at the fabric of his robe, "I’ve been happy.”

To feel safe, to have a place to call home, these are not the things Meng Yao has ever sought for himself. Yet Nie MingJue had done what he could to provide them to him, in his brutish, selfish manner.

He can’t stop the warmth rising from the pit of his stomach, spreading through his chest.

“I’m sorry,” Nie MingJue says, abruptly interrupting the moment and adjusting to a kneeling position facing Jin GuangYao.

Jin GuangYao lets go and looks to him in alarm.

“I’ve never apologized, for humiliating you, for kicking you down and calling you—“ He cuts himself off upon Jin GuangYao’s glare.

There’s no forgiveness to be offered. So instead, he says, “I killed you for it.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry for…” Nie MingJue continues with difficulty, “I used you. The same way you used Xue Yang in the past life.”

“You recognized my worth,” says Jin GuangYao, “it was important to me.” It made me happy.

They knelt in silence, staring at one another face to face.

“Nie MingJue,” it’s Jin GuangYao who breaks the silence again, “you should know that I am not someone easily satisfied. I do not plan to repeat my previous life, but my father…” He laughs again, the warmth he felt earlier dispersing, “I cannot allow him to continue living.”

“If you wish to kill him,” Nie MingJue answers, "I won’t stop you. But I won’t allow you to involve innocent lives.”

“Innocent?”

“Unrelated.”

Jin GuangYao studies him, “That’s very generous of you, Sect Leader Nie.”

“Your brother?”

“I won’t touch him,” Jin GuangYao says, with a hint of resentment. So Nie MingJue knows he’s telling the truth.

“Good.”

“You would trust me?” He asks, puzzlement and wariness in his voice.

“No. But I know you."

“Dage…” Jin GuangYao says drily, "I’ve hidden things from you repeatedly, it’s not hard.”

“Then don’t,” Nie MingJue says, “we will stop hiding things from each other from this point on.”

“That’s an impossible demand,” Jin GuangYao starts slowly, patiently, "You’re only offering this because of what I have done recently. If you choose to trust me, you risk being tricked again. If one day you choose to doubt me, I have no way of disproving your preconceived notion of my nature. Don’t you see? I can’t go back to living in the shadow of your judgement anymore. I can’t wait on your approval at every turn. I can’t—“

“Meng Yao,” Nie MingJue interrupts, visibly struggling to find what to say before he opens his mouth to question. “What do you want?”

“I want…” Everything. Doesn’t he deserve everything? Recognition, respect, stature. Doesn’t he?

And look where that had gotten him?

“I want to live.” The words slips out of his mouth, unbidden. “And I want you to stay alive.”

“Then let’s live,” says Nie MingJue, almost pleadingly. He places a firm hand on Meng Yao’s uninjured shoulder, “we can work out the details as we go. Let’s live.”

They can work out the disagreements, can fight, argue, build watchtowers, plot out the future. They can live.

“Okay,” Meng Yao answers, “okay.”

_________________________________________________________________

Note: I’m sorry XY fans... When I started this fic I had decided that I won’t fix everything, and I think XY is the only one who got off worse than canon here. >: I admit that XY is more of a plot device in this fic, but I do hope I’ve presented his death with enough respect. I’ll address it a bit more in the next chapter or an epilogue. ;_;

Fun fact: A traditional Chinese wedding involves the couple kneeling face-to-face as they say their vows, then bowing to the heavens, the earth, then each other. I mean they didn’t bow here cause they’re not getting married but... you get the gist... it’s symbolic blah blah.

I hope this fic finally has enough LXC content to justify him being tagged. He’s like... actually doing stuff now.

Happy belated birthday to Pegu, who draws a lot of steamy NieYao XD I was really hoping to finish this fic and be like “SURPRISE!!” on your birthday but... eh... Have an update instead. *Laughs*

Next chapter will touch on HuaiSang.

#nieyao #nie mingjue #jin guangyao #nie huaisang #lan xichen #mdzs fic

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stars--n--stripes-blog · 5 years

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Like any religion, wokeness understands the need to convert children. The old Jesuit motto (sometimes attributed to Voltaire) was, after all, “Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man.” And so I was moved but not particularly surprised by George Packer’s tale of a progressive school banishing separate restrooms for boys and girls because this reinforces the gender binary. The school did not inform parents of this, of course:

Parents only heard about it when children started arriving home desperate to get to the bathroom after holding it in all day. Girls told their parents mortifying stories of having a boy kick open their stall door. Boys described being afraid to use the urinals. Our son reported that his classmates, without any collective decision, had simply gone back to the old system, regardless of the new signage: Boys were using the former boys’ rooms, girls the former girls’ rooms. This return to the familiar was what politicians call a “commonsense solution.” It was also kind of heartbreaking.

As an analogy for the price of progressivism, it’s close to perfect. Authorities impose an ideology onto reality; reality slowly fights back. The question is simply how much damage is done by this kind of utopianism before it crumbles under its own weight. Simple solutions — like a separate, individual gender-neutral bathroom for the tiny minority with gender dysphoria or anyone else — are out of bounds. They are, after all, reinforcing the idea that girls and boys are different. And we cannot allow biology, evolution, reproductive strategy, hormones, chromosomes, and the customs of every single human culture since the beginning of time to interfere with “social justice.”

It’s also vital to expose children to the fact of their race as the core constituent of their identity. Here is an essay written by a woke teacher about the difficulty of teaching “White boys”:

I spend a lot of my days worried about White boys. I worry about White boys who barely try and expect to be rewarded, who barely care and can’t stand being called on it, who imagine they can go through school without learning much without it impacting in any way the capacity for their future success, just because it never has before.

This sounds to me as if he is describing, well, boys of any race. And when boys are labeled as “White” (note the capital “W”) and this requires specific rules not applied to nonwhite boys, they often — surprise! — don’t like it:

This week, a student spoke up in class to say that every time a particular writer talked about White people and their role in racism, he would start to feel really guilty, and it made him not want to listen … I try to keep an arm around the boys who most need it, but it’s hard, because I’m also not willing to give an inch on making my room safe for my students of color. It’s not their job to keep hurting while White boys figure it out.

Children, in other words, are being taught to think constantly about race, and to feel guilty if they are the wrong one. And, of course, if they resist, that merely proves the point. A boy who doesn’t think he is personally responsible for racism is merely reflecting “white fragility” which is a function of “white supremacy.” QED. No one seems to have thought through the implications of telling white boys that their core identity is their “whiteness,” or worried that indoctrinating kids into white identity might lead quite a few to, yes, become “white identitarians” of the far right.

One of the key aspects about social-justice theory is that it’s completely unfalsifiable (as well as unreadable); it’s a closed circle that refers only to itself and its own categories. (For a searing take down of this huge academic con, check out Douglas Murray’s superb new book, The Madness of Crowds.) The forces involved — “white supremacy,” “patriarchy,” “heterosexism” — are all invisible to the naked eye, like the Holy Spirit. Their philosophical origins — an attempt by structuralist French philosophers to rescue what was left of Marxism in the 1960s and 1970s — are generally obscured in any practical context. Like religion, you cannot prove any of its doctrines empirically, but children are being forced into believing them anyway. This is hard, of course, as this teacher explains: “I’m trying. I am. But you know how the saying goes: You can lead a White male to anti-racism, but you can’t make him think.”

The racism, sexism, and condescension in those sentences! (The teacher, by the way, is not some outlier. In 2014, he was named Minnesota’s Teacher of the Year!) Having taken one form of religion out of the public schools, the social-justice left is now replacing it with the doctrines of intersectionality.

Last week, I defended drag queens reading stories to kids in libraries. I don’t take back my words. Getting children interested in reading with costumed clowns strikes me as harmless. But when I was directed to the website of Drag Queen Story Hours, I found the following:

[DQSH] captures the imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood and gives kids glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models. In spaces like this, kids are able to see people who defy rigid gender restrictions and imagine a world where people can present as they wish, where dress up is real.

However well-meant, this is indoctrination into an ideology, not campy encouragement for reading and fun.

And then there is the disturbing “social justice” response to gender-nonconforming boys and girls. Increasingly, girly boys and tomboys are being told that gender trumps sex, and if a boy is effeminate or bookish or freaked out by team sports, he may actually be a girl, and if a girl is rough and tumble, sporty, and plays with boys, she may actually be a boy.

In the last few years in Western societies, as these notions have spread, the number of children identifying as trans has skyrocketed. In Sweden, the number of kids diagnosed with gender dysphoria, a phenomenon stable and rare for decades, has, from 2013 to 2016, increased almost tenfold. In New Zealand, the rate of girls identifying as boys has quadrupled in the same period of time; in Britain, where one NHS clinic is dedicated to trans kids, there were around a hundred girls being treated in 2011; by 2017, there were 1,400.

Possibly this sudden surge is a sign of pent-up demand, as trans kids emerge from the shadows, which, of course, is a great and overdue thing. The suffering of trans kids can be intense and has been ignored for far too long. But maybe it’s also some gender non-conforming kids falling prey to adult suggestions, or caused by social contagion. Almost certainly it’s both. But one reason to worry about the new explosion in gender dysphoria is that it seems recently to be driven by girls identifying as boys rather than the other way round. Female sexuality is more fluid and complex than male sexuality, so perhaps girls are more susceptible to ideological suggestion, especially when they are also taught that being a woman means being oppressed.

In the case of merely confused or less informed kids, the consequences of treatment can be permanent. Many of these prepubescent trans-identifying children are put on puberty blockers, drugs that suppress a child’s normal hormonal development, and were originally designed for prostate cancer and premature puberty. The use of these drugs for gender dysphoria is off-label, unapproved by the FDA; there have been no long-term trials to gauge the safety or effectiveness of them for gender dysphoria, and the evidence we have of the side effects of these drugs in FDA-approved treatment is horrifying. Among adults, the FDA has received 24,000 reports of adverse reactions, over half of which it deemed serious. Parents are pressured into giving these drugs to their kids on the grounds that the alternative could be their child’s suicide. Imagine the toll of making a decision about your child like that?

Eighty-five percent of gender-dysphoric children grow out of the condition — and most turn out to be gay. Yes, some are genuinely trans and can and should benefit from treatment. And social transition is fine. But children cannot know for certain who they are sexually or emotionally until they have matured past puberty. Fixing their “gender identity” when they’re 7 or 8, or even earlier, administering puberty blockers to kids as young as 12, is a huge leap in the dark in a short period of time. It cannot be transphobic to believe that no child’s body should be irreparably altered until they are of an age and a certainty to make that decision themselves.

I don’t have children, but I sure worry about gay kids in this context. I remember being taunted by some other kids when I was young — they suggested that because I was mildly gender-nonconforming, I must be a girl. If my teachers and parents and doctors had adopted this new ideology, I might never have found the happiness of being gay and comfort in being male. How many gay kids, I wonder, are now being led into permanent physical damage or surgery that may be life-saving for many, but catastrophic for others, who come to realize they made a mistake. And what are gay adults doing to protect them? Nothing. Only a few ornery feminists, God bless them, are querying this.

In some ways, the extremism of the new transgender ideology also risks becoming homophobic. Instead of seeing effeminate men as one kind of masculinity, as legitimate as any other, transgenderism insists that girliness requires being a biological girl. Similarly, a tomboy is not allowed to expand the bandwidth of what being female can mean, but must be put into the category of male. In my view, this is not progressive; it’s deeply regressive. There’s a reason why Iran is a world leader in sex-reassignment surgery, and why the mullahs pay for it. Homosexuality in Iran is so anathema that gay boys must be turned into girls, and lesbian girls into boys, to conform to heterosexual norms. Sound a little too familiar?

Adults are increasingly forced to obey the new norms of “social justice” or be fired, demoted, ostracized, or canceled. Many resist; many stay quiet; a few succumb and convert. Children have no such options.

Indoctrinate yourselves as much as you want to, guys. It’s a free country. But hey, teacher — leave those kids alone.

By Andrew Sullivan

#transgender ideology #transgender children #transwomen #transmen #indoctrination #mental health #*

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it-goes-both-ways · 7 years

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Over the last few years I've been posting more and more of my actual views, which I'm not exactly ashamed of but realise they're not so much unpopular opinions as downright rejected ones. I pretty much know why I have them, I'm aware of my biases and make every effort to restrict them to words, not allowing them to affect my relationships or treatment of others, restricting the hyperbole and rants to this blog and my long suffering partner. Unfortunately I seem to attract the worst kind of women in real life, which is not at all helping. Every time I reveal something I worry about being rejected, told I'm a monster, a failure, a disgrace, an embarrassment, but each and every time I've gotten nothing but acceptance. I am greatly honoured by your support thus far, for tolerating my increasingly frustrated outbursts and hope I won't push you away with this, but it's been all consuming for almost my whole life, and part of “cleaning up my room” is putting all that baggage out there to be scrutinised and hopefully understood, sometimes all that is needed is a willing ear, suppression only breeding resentment and isolation.

All the bullshit feminism has caused, from protesting the male pill and shutting down shared parenting efforts to the Duluth model and erasing men who are raped by women or by counting them under "violence against women" stats to boost the female victim numbers. Mary Koss, the progenitor of the 1 in 5/4/3/-69/ π r2 stat claiming that it's "inappropriate" to consider male victims of forceful envelopment by women as they are merely ambivalent about their own desires. Lobbying for laws that regard mutually drunk sexual encounters as automatically rape by men, underage consensually sexually active couples (even if they're months away from age of consent or the girl is older) as child rape on the part of the boy, guilty until proven innocent, accusation is the evidence, kangaroo courts, sentencing discounts on top of the preexisting bias which causes a 63% disparity and difference in treatment to the point where if you take every step of the justice system into account the crime rate is pretty damned even (with women often using proxy violence so they have plausible deniability, and avoid responsibility/physical risk). Treating women as the definitive victims of prostitution no matter which side of the transaction they're on. Banning men from charity fundraising events, transpeople only allowed if they provide evidence that they are biologically female. Having the NHS class women choosing to have genital piercings as being victims of female genital mutilation, while male genital mutilation performed at birth is not so much as frowned upon let alone illegal by any single country on the entire twatting planet. In fact you can buy some baby foreskins if you want to, or rub them on your face, the target market being protected from the very process that brought them their anti-ageing face cream, complaining that it costs more than men's moisturiser.

The innate gynocentrism of humanity has always led to women being their top priority, now even above children, it tries to pander, and acquiesce to their every demand while being told it hates them. The cases like the woman who filmed herself raping her own baby and getting the oh so harsh sentence of community bloody service and house arrest. The "poor, neglected" woman whose husband had become distant from her (wonder why) so she raped her son's friend, whose punishment was being banned from his school, which she considered too harsh as she missed her son's graduation. An audience of hundreds of normal regular women cheering and celebrating a man being drugged by his wife, who then cut off his penis and threw it in the "garbage disposal" permanently destroying it, just for asking for a divorce (can't think why he'd want to leave), despite no further context it was declared "fabulous" to the ecstatic jubilation of the empathetic sex. There's the idea that men commit the vast majority of rapes while calling female teachers "seducing" their students mere trysts, shameful liaisons that do not deserve prison, female prison guards committing the overwhelming majority of rape of male children and youths in juvenile detention (89%), among other women who rape men and boys (my own mother being one of them), this in addition to the rape rate among female prisoners being 3 times that of male ones, not a single damned thing is done about the propagation of the bullshit narrative. Somehow the fact that female rapists tend to target children is irrelevant because male ones target adult women, and "you don't see women going around raping adult men" (even though the stats are still around 50/50 because it's a human problem, unless those women are exhibiting toxic masculinity or something). There's the 10,000 men and boys slaughtered in their schools by Boko Haram while girls were released and allowed to go home, the boys being set on fire, their throats slit, or shot if trying to escape, no one giving the slightest hint of the merest ghost of a toss, until they realised that they weren't getting the attention they craved so they kidnapped girls, causing an international outcry and the media/celebrities changing their motivation from "eradicate western education" to "oppress women and stop them getting an education". There's the refusal by both the left and the right to look beyond the plight of women when it comes to Islam, they not only ignore the laws which oppress men, but declare those men the "real" misogynist patriarchal oppressors and innately sociopathic rapists. There's the refusal to recognise that women are a part of society and have far more influence than anyone wants to admit. There's Muslim men's obligation towards women, the segregation in Saudi where they have many public places from which men are banned unless accompanied by a female family member, where they'll be arrested for accompanying a woman to whom he is not related while the woman is merely sent home, where men face potentially fatal consequences for the same "crimes". Where homeless boys in Pakistan are pretty much guaranteed to be repeatedly raped day after day.

Then in my own life, being 6 or 7 years old, my sister 8 or 9 and told to stay put as our Reliant Robin went up in flames, having to be pulled out by a stranger, a man, because we were more afraid of disobeying than of burning to death, mother not even sparing us a glance as she grieved the loss of her car, later keeping it in the garden like some sort of shrine. Around the same year, at an LRP event (Lorien Trust's The Gathering), being left in the tent alone late at night and going to look for her, finding her on top of an unconscious man, she at least picked up on the fact that I was revelling in her severe hangover the next morning. Sneaking downstairs one night to see the aftermath of one of her "encounters", the man was broken, so started my extreme protectiveness of men and distrust of women, to the point of being called a gender traitor for the first time at around 7 years old by my 60+ year old year 1 teacher (who also wouldn't allow me to use left handed scissors or to write left handed, unwittingly making me ambidextrous. Being left with a violent babysitter who made me sleep under the table, or on the floor beside her bed (despite having 4 bloody beds), who wouldn't let me eat since burning the toast, beat me for asking for a glass of water and wouldn't even allow me to drink out of the tap, she once threw me in a wheely bin and poured dishwater over me, mother was in the garden just a few doors down, yet did nothing. She’d always try and get her boyfriends to beat us but they always just laughed it off (they’d put up with abuse themselves but never lasted long after she started bringing us into it), one in particular was into BDSM and later got mother a job as a dominatrix (she was disappointed by our complete lack of surprise), and even he had to draw the line at demonstrating how sexual intercourse works to his girlfriend’s 6 and 8 year old daughters.

My sister and I as little more than toddlers, mother putting our onesies on backwards so we couldn't take them off, having to go to the loo with them still on. Having the door handles put on upside down so that we couldn't reach up enough to open it to get to the loo so we ended up pissing ourselves. Having a daily diet of four slices of bread and the cheapest of generic vegetable spread as we weren't allowed mother's butter, being starved as punishment or just because she felt like it (having won custody of us only to spite dad), leading to malabsorption and osteoarthritis at the grand old age of twenty bloody six (3 years ago now), once a week we got an actual meal. Being around 8 or 9, visiting my auntie who was in hospital after having a stroke, having already had MS she was left paralysed, just 23 years old, granddad put together a system for her to speak by grouping letters and having her blink once for the stated grouping or letter or twice for basically undo. I gave her my only teddy which I carried everywhere, a stuffed donkey I got from Spain, she kept it. Staying in her house, continuing my habit of accidentally setting fire to the toaster, being left alone most of the night and going to look for mother in the village pub, finding her in one of her drinking competitions, walking in and vagblocking her, much to her frustration and anger. Being treated like a replacement husband, even trying to talk me into having a sex change despite only mild dysphoria, which was later greatly lessened by having an implant which stopped periods, eliminating most of the feeling of wrong (most cases of sex change regret are people who were abused, either treated like shit for their biological sex, treated as if they are opposite sex, or sexual abuse). Hearing about how the only way she'd get any when she was with dad was when he was asleep. Why did he end up dying a slow, agonising death while she gets to carry on regardless? Asking me about who I liked, later discovering exactly why she wanted to know, a man I care about was raped because I didn’t pick up on her ulterior motives. Having mother and her friends try to teach me to manipulate men, get them to pay for me, trying to turn me into a gold digger, only making me hate them even more. Coming of age (16), no longer eligible for child benefit, mother having been visiting friends more and more often until she didn't come back, only finding out that she'd been gradually moving out when we got the eviction order.

I'd been training myself to eventually join the army from the age of 5, once when I was 6 mother had asked me to go to the supermarket to get a bag of potatoes, she usually got a 20kg sack, must have taken me an hour to get it home, a man helping me carry it some of the way. When I finally enlisted I had to stop taking codeine for the malabsorption, it wasn't as much of a problem if I was eating every day (I usually forget as my body had been conditioned by neglect, not even bothering to remind me to eat any more), my hips had always made crunching and cracking sounds when I move, but as my body adjusted to the lack of codiene the pain became unbearable, upon being diagnosed with osteoarthritis I had to give up any hope of ever being a soldier, I've lost my purpose, and have nothing to replace it with, couldn't even work a whole shift when I got a factory job, humiliating, I'd informed the woman of my condition and she'd assured me that it was just a machinist job. It wasn't. It was everything you shouldn't do if you have any sort of hip problems. I'd never felt such agony and I'd fractured my bloody skull (at an LRP event). The woman was such a nasty bitch about it, she went from compassionate and understanding to mocking me for being upset that I was so damned useless now. I offered to forfeit my pay but her colleague, who also had arthritis and could no longer work the floor, was obviously far more genuinely empathetic than the woman, my brief boss was also sympathetic and even paid for a taxi to take me home after I refused an ambulance. The pain didn't subside for days.

I've never had a female friend who hasn't betrayed me, my "best friend" in school found it hilarious to punch me in the back in the middle of class, causing me to yell inadvertently as the air was knocked out of me. In year 8 the other kids stepped up their game and went from throwing stones to a house brick, when I got back to school she asked where the stitches were, just so she could punch me and reopen the wound. I was never allowed to retaliate, it would always be me who would be threatened with expulsion even if I only snapped after years of beatings which everyone knew was happening. Every birthday the other kids would falsely accuse me of something so I'd have to spend break times stood outside the headmaster's office, the equivalent of the stocks. Whether it was asperger's making me so unlikeable or if I genuinely am just a massive thundercunt, I never found out what I did to provoke them. Every time I put my trust in a woman it gets thrown in my face. My neighbour decided she was my best friend for life and would call at all hours of the day and night to get me to pick up her bloody methadone twice a bloody week, go to the chippy at 11 o'bloody clock at night, she's always trying to get me to take the pills she buys off a disabled neighbour. There are three things I refuse to take, hormones, anti-depressants, and sleeping tablets and she's always trying to get me to take them. The last straw was when her husband, who I got on very well with and whom she abused constantly, died, I told her to be careful what she wished for. When I finally called her out on using me she leapt immediately to the "after all I've done for you" bollocks.

Time after bloody time it's the same damned story, even regular everyday normal women will talk about things that would get a man arrested or at least publicly lambasted, that erections equal consent, that MGM is not at all a violation of the right to bodily autonomy, that it's absolutely fine and dandy to hit your male partner only to call the police if he defends himself, that female paedophiles shouldn't be punished because boys always want sex no matter what age they are but girls mature younger, right the way back to "We should have the vote but not have to pay with our lives as men had to in their millions while we shamed men and even underage boys into doing the same". What terrified me as a child was women's ability to completely turn off their empathy, the "woman scorned" is seen as karmic justice, there are people defending even the most brutal crimes: assault, murder, rape, mutilation, over something as minor as rejection, or an accidental drive by fart, or just the crime of being a man who wanted a divorce. Empathetic sex my absolute arse.

A fellow MRA publicly humiliated Adam on a livestream when we went to the men's day march and conference, we were staying in an air B&B, Adam and Will Styles still riding the high of giving their first speeches, only for the woman to dredge up shit that was no one's bloody business and ruin the whole mood for no bloody reason, she also attacked 6oodfella on one of the hangouts. Another one was giving private information, with a vicious twist, poisoning the community against one of our group, Paul Elam didn't want to get involved and Janice Fiamengo immediately cut ties, treating him like a bloody criminal, what the hell did the woman say to her? I could see the Woolly Bumblebee thing coming a mile off, I worry whenever youtubers I like get girlfriends because they seem to either completely change or disappear, like Spino and Bread and Circuses respectively. I'm suspicious of female MRAs, I don't want to be but often even the sane ones are just tradcons. If it weren't for the Honeybadgers and you lot I'd have no hope at all.

The constant stream of "toxic masculinity", oppression, patriarchy, of women complaining that their air conditioned (which is also bloody sexist somehow), seated jobs at a till are paid less than the men (and women but they're not going to mention that) carrying heavy boxes, driving forklifts, working in a cold warehouse, and risking serious injury or death infinitely more than they ever will. The selfishness, solipsism, and sociopathy is too much. Throughout history women have never cared about men aside from ones they have a bond with, have never appreciated a damned thing men have done yet they demand that men prioritise them. Why should they?

I’ve seen and experienced the worst examples of female nature in action, “toxic femininity” if you will, and the difference in reaction to it, never being believed as a child no matter how many times I begged other family members and even strangers to please let me live with them instead, I’ll sleep in a tent, look I brought it with me. Pathetic, but you’d have thought someone would have cottoned on. I'm not going down the anti-women route as my sister has, given her own treatment of her partners and her own admission, she’s not so much pro male as anti-female, but it’s increasingly difficult not to resent them even if everything has a biological explanation. I still defend women if the facts bear it out, even if I don’t necessarily agree on a personal level, reals over feels, the people I agree with most also being female has definitely helped me not fall over the edge, one of whom feels very much as I do to the point where she doesn’t consider herself to be a woman due to her own observations and experiences. But the longer this goes on, the more laws are changed, media is poisoned, speech is suppressed, how the hell do I stop myself from just giving up entirely? How on earth can I stop myself from becoming an all out misogynist? Because it is women, not just feminists. It’s female nature being allowed to go unchecked, even when the same happens with male nature women are still prioritised. There are exceptions on both sides but it’s not enough to change the overall trend. There’s never been a balance, and because of human nature there never will be, which is where the problem lies. I know there’s no hope, that it’s utterly futile, completely pointless, and it’s driving me more towards extremism. I completely understand why we’ve lost so many MRAs to suicide. But I’m still going, even if the only way to make even the slightest change is to appeal to female self interest I’ll still do it. Everything I’ve been passionate about throughout my life is a pointless endeavour, I can’t stop myself from caring or change my fundamental character, it’s a downward spiral and there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do about it.

#Personal #Very personal

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robininthelabyrinth · 4 years

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Unfettered (aka NHS goes feral) - part 3 - previous parts: on ao3 or tumblr pt 1, pt 2

Lan Xichen had the strangest feeling that something was going to happen.

He wouldn’t pretend that he had a touch of foresight – life had shown him the hard way how completely he lacked any sorts of skill in that direction– and there was nothing altogether unusual about anything that had happened in the past few days of the war. Lan Xichen was helping with so much more now than he had during the Sunshot Campaign, when he’d been able to be a little above it all as a mere courtier or a single but powerful scouting force, thanks in large part to his sect’s then-existing weakness and Nie Mingjue’s utter brilliance. Nowadays he had to deal with the endless drudgery of war administration: the clean-up before and after battles, the mechanics of feeding and supplying all the cultivators in their front lines, planning their next move and the next after that…

Nie Huaisang had received a message and stormed out, looking annoyed, but that wasn’t new, either.

There were many demands on his time, after all. Nie Huaisang might not have much experience at war on a personal basis, having largely (and willingly) been sidelined during the Sunshot Campaign, but he was a sharp study and an excellent judge of people. He managed their generals – selected for merit without any attention to what sect they were from, if any – with an iron fist that rivaled his control over his own disciples, and on top of the war there was also his extensive network of spies, his constant scrutiny of their supply lines, his supervision of internecine disputes between the sects…

The divisions between us will be the first place Jin Guangshan strikes, he had said – snarled, rather – at the last meeting between sect leaders, taking to task men twice his age without so much as the blink of an eye. I want this petty bullshit between you resolved, now, and I don’t care how many generations you’ve been fighting over it. If you don’t fix it, I’ll fix it for you, and I assure you that neither of you want that.

They’d resolved it.

After all, Nie Huaisang was right: no one wanted him to step in.

It was a little ironic, Lan Xichen thought. The entire war had started because of Jin Guangshan’s lust for power, his desire to be called Chief Cultivator – a term Nie Huaisang denounced, as Nie Mingjue had before him – and now it was Nie Huaisang to whom the cultivation world deferred without question.

People were afraid of him.

It still seemed a little ridiculous to Lan Xichen, as if at any moment someone would step in and say that it was all a joke that they’d all been taken in by. That Nie Huaisang was still the excitable little roly-poly puppy he’d always been, Lan Xichen’s good friend’s little brother: stubborn and cute and smarter than he pretended to be, interested in nothing but his art and his fans and his clothing, lazy and indolent and unabashedly happy in a way that had brightened Lan Xichen’s day to see, every time.

He wasn’t, though. And it was Lan Xichen that had helped make him into what he was now.

During his travels, he’d heard cultivators in the field referring to Nie Huaisang as the Pallbearer, obliquely calling him the virtuous mourner as if he were a death-god whose name should not be directly uttered lest it draw his attention – it wasn’t anything Nie Huaisang had accepted as a personal title, utterly inauspicious as it was, but if he didn’t take one soon, he’d be stuck with it. If he wasn’t already.

People were simply uncomfortable calling him Nie-er-gongzi the way they had before, and Lan Xichen didn’t blame them one bit – the Nie-er-gongzi of the past was unrecognizable in the man of today.

But neither could he blame Nie Huaisang for refusing the title of Sect Leader Nie as long as his brother still had a single spark of life in his body.

Nie Mingjue…

Lan Xichen missed him terribly.

He knew he didn’t have the right to – Nie Huaisang had made that clear enough – but he did. He missed his old friend, with his confidence and his kindness and his goodness. He missed having a confidant who esteemed him and who trusted him, who shared everything with him without a moment’s hesitation, who always tried his best and honored those who did the same.

He’d once, and only once, caught a brief glimpse of Nie Mingjue after everything had happened: he’d been in bed, pale as death, face quiet and slack and peaceful in a way it never was, with doctors surrounding him. At the time, they were working furiously to save his life as Nie Huaisang paced furiously outside the door, refusing food and only drinking enough water to replenish the tears that streamed endlessly down his face.

That had been early on, before they’d realized Nie Mingjue had lapsed into a deep coma from which there was no telling when or if he would awake and, even if he did, in what state he would be left in. That had been before Nie Huaisang had banned Lan Xichen from the Unclean Realm…banned everyone, really, hosting them anywhere else he could rather than allow them anywhere near his brother when he was vulnerable.

Before he’d slowly started giving up hope. Before they all had.

It’d been years, after all. Surely if Nie Mingjue’s indomitable strength could heal him, it would have done so by now?

Of course, even if Nie Mingjue did eventually wake up, it wasn’t as if Lan Xichen would get his friend back the way it had once been. Nie Mingjue had always been righteous to the point of rigidity, willing to make the hard choices to punish those who had done wrong no matter their identity, and Lan Xichen had failed him so thoroughly, so completely…

Guiltily, too, he knew that if Nie Mingjue woke up, he’d undoubtedly step up as general once more, coordinating everything the way he had during the Sunshot Campaign – and that meant they wouldn’t need to rely on Lan Xichen’s assistance anymore.

Nie Huaisang had made that clear, too.

Whoever had raised his ire by sending him that message that had pulled him away from their work together…well, they’d better have a very good excuse. Nie Huaisang hated to be interrupted, his temper as short as anyone in his family’s had ever been, and his tongue was more poisonous than Jiang Cheng’s.

Lan Xichen would know, being its most frequent target.

Nie Huaisang had never forgiven Lan Xichen in his part in preserving Jin Guangyao’s life, and lacking the actual assassin to rend to bits, he had grimly decided to make do with the accomplice. He needled Lan Xichen at every instance, taunting him with his failures and deficiencies, making nasty jibes and underhanded remarks that cut deep – and Lan Xichen deserved every single one of them.

Back then, it had been Lan Xichen who had hesitated, refusing to believe the truth. Refusing to believe that his then (and, perhaps, still) beloved A-Yao could ever do such terrible things of which he had been accused, either at his time in the Nightless City or the assassination of Nie Mingjue – he had pushed back, prevaricated, insisted on investigating more, finding out more…in the end the truth had come out in all its ugly wretched filthy glory and the only thing his foot-dragging and indecisiveness that he’d pretended was a devotion to justice had gotten him was Nie Huaisang’s endless disdain.

The worst of it, though, wasn’t the humiliation or the insults, nor his feelings of failure and guilt.

No, it was the way his foolish heart raced at how Nie Huaisang looked now, with all restraint a distant memory – the sharp Nie features on his delicate face turning from blurred to clear as the childhood fat on his cheeks melted away; the intelligence that flashed in his eyes, now unhidden by any pretense or indifference; the utter brilliance in the casual way he rattled off orders, effortlessly taking command without permitting any backtalk; the way he moved, a mixture of the martial general and a dancer’s grace; the way everything about him perfectly fit to Lan Xichen’s taste –

He really was a fool.

He had a crush on you for years, Lan Xichen reminded himself. Nie Mingjue even told you about it, he’d even approved of it back then if only you were interested, and yet you pretended you knew nothing. But now, now when he hates you, despises you, sees you as little better than a worm to crush beneath his heel, now is when you finally choose to see what’s always been there?

He hadn’t said anything to Nie Huaisang about it, of course. There wasn’t any point when Nie Huaisang already thought of him in the worst possible terms – weakling, willfully blind, murderer – and he could easily imagine how it might go, if he ever tried anything.

(“I heard some soldiers say that I resemble Jin Guangyao,” Nie Huaisang had mused one day, his hands locked behind his back as he looked down at their troops training in the field. His voice was cold as ice and sharp as a blade. “Though there’s some disagreement as to whether it’s my face or the devious turns of my mind that bring up the comparison. I thought I’d ask you, Zewu-jun, you being the expert and all – am I a good replacement? A suitable stand-in? If I smile at you enough times, will you do whatever I say without question, the way you did for him?”

I would already do anything for you, Lan Xichen had thought at the time, full of sorrow. In a way that goes well beyond what I felt for him. But even if I told you, you wouldn’t believe me, would you?)

No, it was clear enough to Lan Xichen that his father’s blood ran strong in him, dooming him to only love where he was not loved in return, and to finally realize the strength of that love only when it was too late. At least it seemed that Lan Wangji had escaped that fate with Wei Wuxian, their earlier misunderstandings aside.

A moment later, as if summoned by his thoughts, the man himself appeared.

“Oh, Zewu-jun, there you are! Have you seen Nie-xiong?” Wei Wuxian asked, popping his head in through the door. Lan Wangji was a few steps behind him, waiting patiently as he always did – he was always patient with Wei Wuxian, gentle in a manner that reminded Lan Xichen of the way he sometimes cared for the wild rabbits back at the Cloud Recesses.

They hadn’t spoken much, of late. Lan Wangji had understood Lan Xichen’s weakness and had not held it against him, but that didn’t mean Lan Xichen had forgiven himself, nor did it lessen the sting of shame he felt over events he felt must have lost him the respect of his younger brother, no matter how Lan Wangji denied it – it was easier to focus on matters of war.

“He was called away suddenly, I’m afraid,” Lan Xichen said. “He left a few shichen ago, but he said he’d be back in time for dinner.”

“Dinner has already passed,” Lan Wangji said, his voice neutral – an obvious reprimand for Lan Xichen for having not noticed, shaded with concern over the way Lan Xichen didn’t always eat the way he should. He wouldn’t be hurt by it, he practiced inedia the way they all did, of course, but that didn’t mean he should miss meals if he didn’t have to. “He has not yet returned?”

“Not that I’ve noticed. But if it’s that late, he should be back soon. Do you need him for something urgent?”

“As urgent as anything else in this war,” Wei Wuxian said with a shrug. “If you see him, let us know.”

“Why do you assume I’ll see him first?” Lan Xichen asked, a little amused, but Wei Wuxian blinked at him as if he’d said something foolish.

“He always comes to you first,” he said. “Hadn’t you noticed?”

Lan Xichen’s breath caught briefly – no, he hadn’t noticed, and his mind immediately started to race, his heart growing warm…but no. He only was being foolish again. As the army’s courier, its administrator, Lan Xichen was the obvious person for Nie Huaisang to contact if he wanted to get his plans spread out to everyone as soon as possible.

There didn’t have to be anything more to it than that.

“So when he arrives, if you could just tell him –”

“No need,” Lan Wangji interrupted. “He is approaching.”

A few moments later, and it was clear from the footsteps that Lan Wangji was right, as always – when Lan Wangji was younger, Lan Xichen used to tease him about having the ears of a bat, capable of detecting everything, and sometimes he really thought it might be true.

They waited, and the door opened, and Lan Xichen instinctively turned away as Nie Huaisang let himself in, not wanting to see those hard eyes turn even harder, the instinctive sneer that rose to Nie Huaisang’s lips at the sight of him that it always took him an extra moment to suppress.

“Nie-xiong?” Wei Wuxian asked, his voice rising a register in his shock. “What happened?”

Lan Xichen turned back at once, suddenly cold all over in terror. Had Nie Huaisang been injured? Some ambush, some attack, or worst of all a garrote made of guqin string the way he’d so foolishly taught A-Yao – but no, when he examined him with his eyes, Nie Huaisang looked hale as always, but for the redness and swelling around his eyes.

He looked for all the world as if he’d been –

Crying?

And yet Lan Xichen knew that Nie Huaisang hadn’t wept in years. One could probably accurately say that Nie Huaisang hadn’t had any expression in years, nothing that wasn’t a sneer or a grimace, maybe at best a smirk. What could have caused him to do so now…?

Nie Huaisang shook his head and unexpectedly – smiled.

A real true smile, his eyes curving into crescents and wrinkling at the corners, his cheeks glowing pink and his teeth flashing just like when he was younger and more innocent and smiled like that all the time. A smile of the sort that Lan Xichen hadn’t appreciated when he had it, the sort he’d thought was lost forever.

Lan Xichen’s heart stopped in his chest.

He wished he could stop this moment, too, to keep it with him for the rest of time.

“It’s da-ge,” Nie Huaisang said, beaming. “He woke up.”

Oh, Lan Xichen thought. Oh.

Oh no.

#mdzs #lan xichen #nie huaisang #wei wuxian #lan wangji #my fic #my fics #unfettered #xisang

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notes-from-a-small-english-woman · 8 years

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Kindness Is Key

As part of the Huffington Post’s “All Women Everywhere” project, which aims to reflect the diversity of the British female experiences and voices through journalistic articles throughout March, actress Emilia Clarke wrote an article entitled “The New Sexy”. In this article, she approaches the topic of feminism and her own place within it with tact and grace. She recognises and admits that her own upbringing, grounded in equality, gave her a privilege that not all women have; the confidence and opportunity to have a voice that can be heard. She also addresses the problem of how women in her position who hold feminist views are made to feel like “guilty feminists” because they have not experienced oppressive sexism as strongly as others, but again approaches this issue tactfully, explaining that her situation has given her opportunity to understand the oppression of other women and the means to stand up against this. Moving on to the crux of her article, Clarke emphasises the importance of kindness in the fight for equality, to eradicate hate from our society where people are so used to tearing each other down (and being torn down themselves). It was at this point during my reading of her piece that I really began to engage with what she was saying, because it was a philosophy I already try to live by.

There’s a phrase I’ve seen circulating around Facebook, on those “inspirational quotes” pages, which really strikes me: “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” This quote, while not directly reflecting Clarke’s argument, outlines the basic aim I believe everybody should try to have within their lives: to make other people feel good around you. This may seem like an obvious ideal, as everybody likes to be liked, but in eighteen years of life I have had so many experiences with people who seem to live to tear other people down. Sadly, this is one big issue in social justice groups such as feminists, as women (thought they are fighting for equality) have this sense of competitiveness and individualism ingrained so deeply within them that they often fight among themselves about who actually deserves to be called a “real feminist”. In this sense, Clarke’s argument comes into play, with the idea of building other people up, as she says that “one woman’s success, is every woman’s gain”. If every woman in the world decided to stop fighting with each other and sectioning themselves off into sub-categories of “women”, the equality movement would move a whole lot more smoothly as its opponents would find it much harder to fight a unified force than a fragmented and dissonant one.

Extending this idea past feminism and equality movements into a general philosophy of life, simply the idea that everybody should just try to be kind to each other speaks to me on a very personal level. As a person who feels a bigger rush of happiness and achievement from making somebody smile than from getting a high grade on an essay, I can completely say that kindness is underrated in our society. I don’t think for one second that people are innately cruel, or that we as a species are becoming unkind – there are so many examples of some amazing acts of kindness by so many people – but I feel like maybe we have lost sight of the little everyday things we could do to make everybody’s lives just that little bit more pleasant. Something that really struck me was the influx of stories coming out about George Michael, after he died, detailing hundreds of his anonymous acts of incredible generosity. The sheer number of people who had these experiences with him really overwhelmed me, to think that this amazingly talented artist had a legacy of such kindness and pure humanity really gave me faith that there is a true essence of goodness in us. One thing that people seem to say in stories about George Michael or other celebrities who they have had similar experiences with is “I will always remember them as the person who did ...” It got me thinking about what I want to be remembered for when I die and the truth is, I would much rather be remembered as a kind-hearted person who made people who met them feel good than as a successful artist or professional. As a university student, I think sometimes about how the people I know now will remember me in ten, twenty, thirty years’ time. I hope they remember me as being the girl who wasn’t afraid to speak her mind, whether it be to say something contrary to popular opinion (as an English literature student with not much experience with the classics, I often have different views on the literary canon to my fellow students) or to simply tell someone I enjoyed their presentation or love their outfit today. If someone is looking back through their yearbook in the year 2047 with their children, sees my picture and says “Oh that’s Kesi, I remember her, lovely girl”, I will be ecstatic. Too often I see people trying their utmost to impress everyone with their intellectual remarks, but there is a fine line between intellectual and pretentious, and they often fall to the side of the latter. At the end of the day, nobody will remember you for the grades you got, they’ll remember how you made them feel.

I used the example of large-scale random acts of generosity by celebrities because these are the things we hear about through social media, it’s something we are aware of as a collective. An issue with this is the distance it creates between the individuals and the acts of kindness, as they are often too big to be done by people who don’t have millions of pounds to give to strangers or the superstar status to perform a free concert for NHS staff. Because of this distance, people possibly feel like there is nothing they can do to help others and so they don’t bother. This is why I love movements such as “pay it forward” or “random acts of kindness”, which encourage little, achievable gestures towards others which, while only really requiring minimal effort to do, can have a huge impact on the person on the receiving end. I mean, I once spent the last three hours of a shift at work with a huge grin on my face and a spring in my step because some customers (an elderly couple) told me I had a beautiful smile. Working in retail, I tried to make my interaction time with customers as pleasant as possible, which involved generally being polite, making conversation and smiling a lot. Receiving that once compliment made my entire work ethic feel validated in a job where most of the time it felt pointless (people can be quite rude to minimum wage retail workers), and it made my day a million times better. To refer to my earlier point about how people remember you, I will always remember that couple as the lovely people who made me feel so happy when they complimented me at work, whereas I have some people who I will always recognise on the street as people who made me miserable when they were rude to me as customers.

The idea that people remember traits such as kindness more than anything else about you was introduced to me, funnily enough, through Harry Potter. One of the few things Harry is told about his mother, that is repeated constantly throughout the series, is her kindness. In the film of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Remus Lupin tells Harry that his mother was “ an uncommonly kind woman” who had “a way of seeing the beauty in others, even, and perhaps most especially, when that person couldn't see it in themselves.” The series also presents a certain value of kindness, with Dumbledore telling Harry that he is “ unfailingly kind: a trait people never fail to undervalue”, comparing him to his mother. Growing up seeing these kind of traits celebrated in the stories I loved so much, I started to absorb these kinds of values myself. My moral education is ongoing, of course. I am one of those people who spent a lot of time watching YouTubers during my teenage years (and currently into my adult years) and one YouTuber I have continued to be inspired by is Carrie Hope Fletcher (her channel is called ItsWayPastMyBedtime if you want to check it out). She is one of my idols for many different reasons, but the one I want to focus on here is her philosophy that she first talked about in her video “Nice for No Reason”, where she encouraged her audience to carry post-it notes and a pen around and leave nice messages in public places to brighten other people’s days. She often talks about how she tries to be polite and friendly to service staff and strangers, the importance of smiling and the power in a simple act of kindness such as saying “have a nice day” to somebody. Watching her videos from the age of around fourteen, the values she promotes helped to shape my attitudes towards others and inspired me to try to be as kind as she encourages people to be.

Another inspiration I had for aspiring to kindness was my mother. Having grown up in the USA, she has a quite bubbly, outgoing personality compared to the slightly more reserved manner of the typical English person, so I was always very aware of how her behaviour towards others was different – she will just chat and joke with random strangers next to us in a queue or with service staff. I remember asking her why she did this, when I was probably around twelve or thirteen and in that moody hormonal phase where your family’s very existence is embarrassing, and she said “they’re a human being, not just a machine that’s there to serve me”. Her answer stuck with me. I had never really thought about that before. I wasn’t rude to customer service people or anything, I just got away with the bare minimum of communication and then left (in my defence, I was a shy child, but even so I probably should have said thank you more than I did). She made me realise that the bare minimum really isn’t enough, that being a kind person requires putting in that tiny bit of extra effort in your daily interactions with others. I remember once walking around a supermarket with my family when I was quite young and seeing this older teenage girl, probably around seventeen years old, who looked absolutely stunning. I can’t remember exactly what she was wearing, but I remember her entire outfit and her hair and makeup were just beautiful. I really wanted to go up to her and tell her how amazing she looked, but I didn’t because I felt like that would be weird and unappreciated. Looking back on that now, I realise that a lot of people are probably stopped by that fear, which is crazy really because what seventeen-year-old girl would be offended by a ten-year-old coming up to them and telling them they’re beautiful? I feel like the world would be a lot nicer to live in if people said more of the nice things that they thought about others and less of the negative.

A great thing I think we could all try this year is to do something nice for someone every day. It doesn’t have to be something big, simply saying “thank you” and “have a nice day” to the driver as you walk off the bus would be a start. Complimenting people’s outfits is always a nice thing to do, and it doesn’t mean you have to lie, if you don’t like someone’s outfit don’t say you do, but you are very unlikely to legitimately think that everybody around you is dressed poorly. Just make someone smile. It’s not difficult, it doesn’t put you out in any way. It can only be a positive thing.

Make someone smile today.

Until next time, folks!

#kindness #positivity #emilia clarke #all women everywhere #huffington post #feminism #carrie hope fletcher #george michael #inspirational people

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itsrattysworld · 5 years

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Adrina Legister Gift of a Granddaughter 4 May 2019

The start of the millennial is/was a time that I will never be able to forget in the annals of my history for many different reasons. That’s why I am here once more creating legacies as I am on a journey heading towards my 60th birthday. However, I need to make a few stops along the way as there was a time when I didn’t believe for a moment that I would be healthy and living to see my 3 scores years with such delight for living and being grateful for God’s blessings. Therefore, I will take time out to be a reflective practitioner, who developed the listening ethos. Resulting from the opportunities I was afforded at the Open University during studies 2004 to 2010. That’s why I must credit [email protected] PI: W3323643.

I have been making use of every available opportunity to empower myself from the time I decided to take on any job that was going to earn me money for my upkeep. If you want to know more about my journey you can find me at https://www.google.com. I have been using my initiatives to access all the windows of opportunity that are even slightly ajar from the time I arrived in the UK in June 1992. Since my life is an “Open Book” and charted, I will move on with my story about the gift of a granddaughter. This story is dedicated to my only granddaughter because I am an only girl who was privileged to grow up with seven (7) brothers. Five (5) of whom were older and two (2) younger. So I get to play the roles of a big and little sister to my heart’s content.

I am positive that my experiences with my brothers are just another aspect of my life that’s responsible for shaping the person I am today. Let me give an insight into aspects of my life that bear some reflections of my transitions into this woman who is not afraid to call a spade what it is. For fear of being criticised or not believed. I will get on with writing my stories to tell my truths. Because if I leave for others to do, they will embellish my stories to put a spin on my life to suit their own biases. Already www.peachespublications.co.uk decided to abuse her authority and went about taking over my book to publishing her preconceived ideas of who she would like me to be. Her notions come from the fallacy been peddled by those who can’t accept others.

Therefore, I will not entertain anyone else colluding to defame my name and character like has been done from the time I arrived in the UK and experience domestic violence. There are some who are ready to put others down to suit their own perverted self-fulfilling prophecy of superiority with their gloom and doom. It was after coming back from holidays in the summer of 2000 that my life was turned into turmoil. Because my ex-husband put his plans into action to get me out of his life. On reflections, I am thinking this was just another of those blessings in disguise that God has in store for me? God already have my life mapped out to help me escape the life my ex planned to enslave me. But like www.leyf.org.uk I survive to be writing to help others.

I managed to live with domestic violence even in the presence of mum, who was visiting in 1999. Let me tell you that it is only worthless men or women abuse their other half in the presence of their mothers, children and other family members. Mum was here to support me when my mother-in-law died whilst I was still studying. I was part-time carer to her, helping with the shopping and in the later stages preparing her soup on Saturdays. My ex-husband would probably have strangled me that day if his sister wasn’t present. He would think nothing of abusing me in his children’s presence. That’s one of the reasons I decided that I would not live anywhere without having control of the keys to my front door. That’s how www.hfw.org.uk.

My ex-husband went away on his annual pilgrimage despite his mum asking him not to go. He preferred to be with his woman than to stay for his mum. But had the nerve to accuse me about the outcome, when he had to return after her death. The fact that I was an informal carer, helping mum, was preparation enough for me. I had done the Care Assistant training in 1996. I am not sure my Care Assistant is registered at https://ofqual.gov.uk/qualifications-and-assessment/qualification-frameworks/levels-of-qualifications/? By the time I was made homeless, my ex had plans to bring his woman from Jamaica to the UK. I the summer of 2000 when I had to run to the Brixton Police Station for rescue.

I was ready to make some decisions that help me become a strong woman, who I am now. That’s why I have made a complaint to www.hfw.org.uk about the neighbour from hell the past eighteen (18) years. Because they rescued me from homelessness in December 2000, when I had to run for my life. My ex was crafty enough to try and use his psychopathic tendencies to get me out of the Refuge. This was so I don’t have anywhere to turn to. I still have one of his letters as proof of his lies and this was not a figment of my imagination. I refused to accept his gift offerings because I can’t be brought. And if I make my mind up, not even God can get me to change it. After spending September to November in Southwark Women’s Aid run Refuge I got my flat in Bermondsey and is still living here now.

I have to pay homage to my friend who was there for me during those times when I had no one else. We meet at the Ministry of Agriculture Food and Fisheries (MAFF) when I was doing Contract Cleaning and she works in the Café. She became a secure base where I was welcome to her home for that sense of familiarity, continuity, and consistency that I needed to survive. That’s why I am challenging everyone who is thinking they can get away by not implementing www.acas.org.uk/researchpapers that I was a participant in after the discrimination at Kings College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. This was where I have the first nervous breakdown after the death of my brother from colon cancer in 2008.

The fact that my friend lives in Bermondsey might have played a pivotal role in me getting my flat in the area? Her advice as a more streetwise person, with her own “personal challenges” was important for me in my transitions to becoming solely reliant, living on my own. My survival is the result of those who convinced me during the times when I doubted myself that I could do it on my own. Without putting up with abuse from others who tried putting me down to make themselves look better. No one else is going to make me believe that I am not worthy and that’s why I am spending less time on https://www.facebook.com/public/Mervelee-Myers. I have been accepting the challenges ever since I moved into my flat in December 2000.

However, I have to give thanks to every person who provided me with that support network that is crucial to my survival. That’s why I am upset by the way I have been treated by the authority from the time I have to ask www.icsouthlondon.co.uk to share my story to get my money back from fraudsters. Because I have seen the way how my neighbour TESS was treated during her time of needs. My old folks used to say no one care how you live, but they want to know how you die. That’s why I will be getting rid of some of those who have been using me to build their brands and turn around ripping me off. Because of my vulnerability. So www.personnelconsultancy.com be prepared for been called to justice for misrepresentations of Mervelee Myers.

The www.express.co.uk Russell Grant Taurus states New Challenges will test your ability to be versatile. An authority figure will challenge you. Since you know what you are capable of, this is your chance to prove what you can do. Keep valuables under lock and when visiting unfamiliar places. My Evaluation: Let me warn that I have had some awful encounters with some people who are users, from the time I was young. Most of this is due to them not understanding me. So Winsome Duncan introduces https://www.ryanclement.com/ to scam me after she was privy to confidential information when I signed the Agreement for her to help me with an online business and to publish my book. I was scammed by Julie Powell who used my vulnerability against me. And sharing this with Winsome Duncan is what led to her scamming me.

Let me, therefore, document the fact about some of the individuals from the establishments and systems that set out to discriminate against me from 2004 to date. These are they that would like to rewrite my stories to suit their criminal and psychological pervasive intentions as was the case why I was referred to https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/record-retention-and-disposition-schedules. Because if you are not careful they will airbrush you out of history like the Windrush Generation. After using www.ico.org.uk for Subject Access Request, LEYF claims not to have any data of my time working with them. But I have Subject Access Request – Data Protection Act – 117119 from [email protected] to bring my case forward about Modern Slavery thriving in the UK.

Since my stories are already created in cyberspace, I will have to move on with my transitional journey. But I will return to fill in some of the blanks in due course to complete my cyber footprints.

An introduction is Key to Some of my Relationships

I meet my husband Mr. Myers via an introduction from my best friend. The same happened with Mr. Tomlinson. However, this was because of a default introduction when someone else decided to return home. That’s why I intend to go back home, but I am here for the long haul. Until my husband no longer needs my attention.

2004 to 2019 are Key to my Existence

Let me give you an insight into how I ended up becoming a victim because I refuse to accept mediocrity from those in authority abusing their power.

2003 – Started working at Mapother House Day Nursery. Here’s where I had the first nervous breakdown after the death of my brother in 2008 from colon cancer. Later I was to understand the impact of developing traumas from a young age from slam-iapt.nhs.uk/southwark.

2004 – I had an unclear pap smear and had treatment for the next 5 years. At the time I have no knowledge about cancer in my DNA. But I later joined cruk.org to raise funds for charity in honour of my brother. As a result of more devastating experiences since the death of my mother, I set up Janet Beeput Facebook Page.

2004 – I lost the sense of smell. I later learned this might be linked to Parkinson’s disease in my DNA. I have since become involved with https://www.parkinsons.org.uk/get-involved/events.

2004 – I enrolled with the OU and became a graduate open.ac.uk/ceremonies before my 50th birthday in May 2009. Ten (10) years later I am struggling to clear my name, and I am positive the authority responsible will not get away with the injustices of the past five (5) years.

2004 – I contacted crb.gov.uk and www.disclosure.gov.uk about the manager at Kings College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust workplace nursery. Once I helped to build their brand I was targeted and this was to become the pattern of my life.

The trend continued as I contacted HR and http://unison.org.uk about the discrimination at KINGS in 2006.

2006 – I contacted the LEA and Southwark Council [email protected] seeking advice about matters to do with Safeguarding in order that I am on course with my Professional Development Plan (PDP) towards aoug.uk/awards.

2006 – I changed my life around applying a holistic approach to managing my disabilities. I was diagnosed with Chronic Anxiety in 2006. But it’s only now I have had some support with my disabilities when healthmanltd.com advised me to seek CBT (CBT) to find out why I react the way I do to certain situations.

2006 – I visited the USA to get away from the discrimination at KINGS.

2008 – I lost my brother to colon cancer. Then the allegations started and I self-referred to KINGS Occupational Health. I was passed fit for work. But once you cross that boundary of taking a stance that will be the end of my career. Because I was blacklisted and networked against after taking my case to the Employment Tribunal Services. That’s why I am standing my grounds after the second miscarriages of justice by http://www.justice.gov.uk/tribunals/employment/claims/responding. Because they have been negligent in allowing employers to get away with destroying lives, for lack of accountability.

2009 – Still in the wilderness trying to accept that the Employment Tribunals can sell out my case to the highest bidder and left me a victim with my life shattered.

May 2009 – Advised about applying to Westminster Children Society for a job. They were recruiting. Got the job before the interview was completed.

Summer 2009 – Went home for the Family Reunion I’d planned. But God I was in for more rude awakenings.

Come back to the UK, ready to start over.

The LEYF Years 2009 – 2014 in Fitzrovia & Luton Street

September 2009 – April 2010

2009 – Got the opportunity to empower me with training. Then the green-eyed monster set out to trigger my traumas. But I was rescued by a former colleague from William Wilberforce, Lambeth Walk Day Nursery. Suffice it to say Joelle Lax fall victim to the discrimination that can be viewed at leyf.org.uk reviews by parents and former employees.

2010 – Find my place at Luton Street where I was to empower myself and be responsible for building LEYF brand as can be verified at nurseryworld.co.uk with my first publications. But I should let it be known that I was attending the www.nurseryworldshow.com/london and SEN Conference before I worked with LEYF.

2010 – Started laying foundation creating legacies on https://www.facebook.com.

2010 – Entered the world of cyberspace at http://worldreferee.com/referee/valdin-legister/bio with my skills. Have to acknowledge the contributions of my former colleagues from Fitzrovia for my empowerment.

2011 – I was sharing stories with express.org.uk and contributing to the Mental Health CRUSADE.

2011 – I was representing LEYF and my https://ofqual.gov.uk/qualification-and-assessment/qualification-frameworks/levels-of-qualifications/ was used by LEYF to build their brand.

2011 – I was not given the job I applied for, months after representing LEYF on http://skynews.com/.

2011 – I went to http://communityplaythings.co.uk/ for training. Later worked in partnerships, only for them to join LEYF in discrimination in 2016. Refusing to hand over the intellectual property that I made an Agreement with them for.

2012 – Diagnosed with diabetes. Since actively involved with dibetes.org.uk. Participant in www.heal-d.co.uk after completing www.desmond-project.org.uk from the time I was on borderline.

May 2012 – I stated http://www.myvision.org.uk

June 2012 – June O’Sullivan issued Memo for staff to contribute to her blog on Social Media. I joined https://www.linkedin.com to be a part of that Community of Practice. The reception caused me to publish about TOLERANCE.

2013 – The rot sets in at LEYF. That’s why I am making the decision not to let morellomarketing.com and others use my intellectual property to build their brand and treat me like I am a criminal.

2013 – Started going about and meeting influential people from Community of Practices.

December 2013 – Visited Jamaica for my son’s wedding

January 2014 – Said my final goodbye to my mother in Jamaica. I diagnosed her dementia from my OU studies. The reason I am fundraising for alzheimers.org.uk/getinvolved. I am now a www.dementiafriends.org.uk as I am finding ways to occupy my time after my job was taken away by LEYF and cohorts.

January 2014 – Attended LEYF New Year Staff Party for the first time

March 2014 – Changes at Luton Street. New Leaders in place. OFSTED visited

April 2014 – Signed off work for stress

May 2014 – Overheard new manager Gemma Manns questioning a parent about me.

June 2014 – Went back to bury my mother.

July 2014 – Attended my oldest grandson’s graduation

Transferred to BIB 23 July 2014

July 2014 – Sorted Luton Street after granting of transfer to BIB. Meet staff from BIB who attended Luton Street for Induction into LEYF Core Values and Ethos.

Introduction to my work as EYFS coordinator, SENCO and Multigenerational Working Approach Facilitator – refer to Contract signed on 7th October 2009. Now using ico.org.uk LEYF claim not to have any data for me.

July 2014 – Transferred to BIB

August 2014 – Covered at Noah’s Ark and Hilda Miller and Lynne Kelly started the allegations that were to trigger my disabilities at BIB.

September 2014 – OFSTED at BIB. My disability used to show how they promoting Reasonable Adjustments to ofsted.gov.uk in line with the EYFS Welfare Requirements and the Equality Act 2010.

October 2014 – CEO Long Service Award – LEYF claim not to have any record of it – refer to https://www.google.com for my profiles

October 2014 – LEYF awarded Nursery Chain at Nursery World Show. See who were invited from BIB?

October 2014 – Allegations at BIB by Trainee Deputy Nicola O’Hanlan resulted in meeting after work with Lynne Kelly – refer to ET bundles.

Mewe Mechese Leaving Party – refer to ET bundles and her note to me about working at BIB.

November 2014 – June O’Sullivan visited BIB – refer to Letter & Case Studies

New Deputy – refer to her review at leyf.org.uk.

December 2014 – Early Years Consultant Stella Louis – refer to Lynne Kelly statements in bundles

Leading up to the Christmas celebrations – I narrated the Christmas Play.

BIB Staff Christmas Party

January 2015 – Rumi’s wedding – refer to ET bundles

January 2015 – MBE and CO visited BIB – refer to letter

January 2015 – Unannounced visits to BIB – refer to Policies & Procedures. Senior HR Dilys Epton tried to stitch me up re allegations. Tried to get me to take grievance, knowing I have no concrete evidence

Dilys Epton promised me support when I informed her about the DEPRESSION

February 2015 – Signed off sick

March 2015 – More allegations & chef suspended

Manager Michele comes to do Investigation after Supply Staff Whistleblowing

NHS Speech & Language training

More allegations and Investigations

Transferred to HOC 17 March 2015

Sent on Medical Suspension – refer to healthmanltd.com who recommended I seek CBT

Escorted out of HOC like a criminal

Invitation to Disciplinary

Got voicetheunion.org.uk involved

Passed fit to return to work

Taken out grievances after advice from Independent Solicitors

Transferred to New Cross 2 June 2015

Please see https://www.gov.uk/employment-tribunal-decisions/ms-m-myers-v-london-early-years-foundation-2300047-2016 for how the ET presided over the second miscarriage of justice.

Please see www.judicialombudsman.gov.uk to see how the EAT continued the hate crime in the Reserved Judgement online.

Please see https://petition.parliament.uk/help#standards for why I will not let the Government or Parliament get away with sanctioning the Modern Slavery thriving in the UK.

Written in honour of my granddaughter Adrina Legister on her 15th birthday. Another female should not have to endure what I have been through in the Mother Country.

Author: Mervelee Myers FD (Open) WTC (Open)

Mental Health & SEND Advocate, Carer & Mother.

Celebrating My Granddaughter’s 15th Birthday In May 2019 – A Gift From God Adrina Legister Gift of a Granddaughter 4 May 2019 The start of the millennial is/was a time that I will never be able to forget in the annals of my history for many different reasons.

#Family #Grandmother #Mother

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