#practicing >>

[birdears]

*jwqs spoilers*

The PDL author's note for JWQS chapter 230 is one of my favorites. The author responds to readers who feel Qi Yan is too enthusiastically helping jingnv's cause and abandoning her own people.

Translation (mine, rough and imperfect) and thoughts below.

Please also read Melts' translation of the AN, which is more spare and very accurate and very good. In my trans, I wanted to emphasize some nuances that were interesting to me.

It's been a while since I last wrote a long author's note. Today I must write another.

Yesterday I saw a commenter say Qi Yan is another GuiZu LanHai (TN: internet term for traitor to one's people or country, fanboy who kneels to the enemy). They argue Qi Yan took on so much hatred and unresolved revenge, but she's still helping JingNv and turning her back to her people. I respect every reader's viewpoint. Discussion is a good thing, so I thank you here. And then I thought about it. I believe I have already scattered among several chapters the reasons Qi Yan has for acting like this, so here in the author's note I'll simply sketch out those reasons for this reader, as well as other friends with the same confusion.

First, some superficial reasons:

1. Qi Yan doesn't have many countrymen left. The remaining grass plains people are Tu Ba fighters who ceded to Wei. Qi Yan hates them as well. Cheng Li tribe by now has practically been exterminated.

2. Qi Yan hasn't abandoned his quest for revenge. But unlike Ba Yin and Xiao Die, she experienced more spiritual and psychological anguish [after the genocide], while they were tortured physically and materially. That past shaped them differently.

3. On the one hand, Qi Yan has feelings for Jing Nv. On the other, Qi Yan personally brought about NanGong Rang's death and confessed to secrets that had been repressed for years. A psychologist might say Qi Yan has gotten [cathartic] release for the hatred and blame in her heart.

4. I wrote Qi Yan to be constantly changing throughout the story, from the early Qi Yan who wanted to destroy the entire Wei kingdom, just like Ba Yin and Xiao Die, to follow her growth as she sees more of the world and slowly shrinks the target of her revenge. But the NanGong family, XingJing Fu, TaiWei Fu, Ding Yi clan -- I have kept these as her enemies from the beginning to the end. So while Qi Yan loves JingNv, she still killed NanGong Rang.

It's just that Nangong JingNv has been taken off the list...

5. Let's not forget, Qi Yan is herself of mixed race. Her mother is a Wei woman.

6. Qi Yan is helping JingNv because she loves her. She isn't betraying the plains. As the emperor, for JingNv losing means death. Qi Yan believes she has already exacted revenge for her people. Her remaining enemies she will manage one by one. She doesn't want to start a war.

This is not a betrayal of the plains. So long as they don't send troops, the plains can maintain its current state. Its peoples have experienced brutal violence and injustice, a debt that indeed Wei can never repay, but the peace it has now... whoever destroys it will bring about a new tragedy.

These are mine and Qi Yan's thoughts, which I have folded into the novel. Qi Yan is not a woman who kneels and licks and never will be (TN: lit. kneeling and licking, like a simp, obsequious, fawning). She faces so many difficulties. Even I, the author, can not fathom everything. That's the kind of thing each person can only know for themselves.

Letting go is more difficult than getting revenge.

But Qi Yan hasn't let go. She has only stopped hating the ordinary people of Wei.

Falling in love with NanGong JingNv, that was an accident. And it also... well.

Thank you everyone who donated. There will be an update tomorrow.

There's one pronoun shift in the author's note where PDL refers to Qi Yan w male pronouns. I liked that, so I kept it.

So something I feel the commenter misses is just how much brutal revenge Qi Yan has already visited on Wei people. Remember how Ding You practices his medicine on scores of dying homeless Wei people? Those people are suffering because of Qi Yan. She exacerbated famines. She created poverty where it wasn't there before. She deepened the inequity of a, yes, already horrible empire. People are suffering as a result. Add also, the many commoners she murdered herself to protect Xiao Die and get her political way.

So that's why I think PDL says "Qi Yan believes she has already exacted revenge for her people". Qi Yan spent years pushing Wei to the brink. She no longer wants genocide of its people, hence hesitating to move troops... but she has doomed it as a country and a government.

Also, she has already fucked with her enemies. We as readers have watched her do unspeakable things! She has killed or contemplated killing several people, including children. Nearly a whole clan. She grit her teeth and murdered people who were directly responsible for the genocide of her people.

When Qi Yan sent a note to NanGong JingNv while visiting Ba Yin on the plains, I was like... really, dude? With Ba Yin right there? He endured torture, slavery, abuse, dehumanization. He's raising your sister's child, a product of rape. I thought it was messing with her arc... like, already valuing your wife above your people? This early in the story? But like PDL says, Qi Yan wants to avoid war. And it doesn't serve HER people to go to war... it serves Jiya's. Her love for her wife is significant, but it's not the complete reason for her actions. She is also reflecting her own values.

Also chilling: Her tribe was actually, genuinely destroyed. No one is left.

I believe PDL has been clear that Ba Yin and Xiao Die are justified for taking a hardline stance against the Wei. I also love that unlike Jiya's tribe and the masked person, they are more hesitant to actually commit genocide because of the same experiences that make them hate Wei... and a realization they dont personally benefit from it. They aren't nonviolent, but Qi Yan is definitely more scary. They have their own principles they stick to, while Qi Yan often compromises hers. I like that. PDL is ABOUT it.

[blondebrainpowered]

Mouse Armor by Jeff de Boer

Etsy Mouse armor necklace and earrings available as well as other work by Jeff de Boor.

[bloodbending]

can’t believe tiktok is actually getting banned, twitter is infested with bots and brainworm-infested musk bootlickers, facebook is king of QAnon, instagram caught the plague from facebook and is dying a slow death in real time… and as the dust settles… only Miss Tumblr is left standing… failing upwards once again

[meanao3thoughts]

a feel like the new generation of fanfic readers NEED to understand that clicking on a fic (interaction) does nothing. ao3 has no algorithm. your private discord discussions of fic do not reach the authors. if you do not actively engage with writers they will stop posting. this isn’t social media this is community.

[octo-l95]

he is so tall

[yourmajestybee]

EVERYONE NEEDS TO LOOK AT HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON UNTRAINABLE THE STAGE PLAY RN

[myriad-of-things]

my little brother tried to show me a "cool trick" where he entered my name and hometown into chatgpt and tried to get it to pull up my personal info like it did on all of his friends, then was absolutely shocked when it couldn't find anything on me

so. keep practicing basic internet safety, guys. it still works. don't put your personal info on social media, keep all your accounts on private, turn off ai scraping on every site that you can, enable all privacy features on social media apps. our info still can be protected, we have to keep fighting for control

[clonerightsagenda]

I was rambling on the issue of museums and human remains and how certain populations are more likely to have their bodies put on display to be gawked at and then went "well I guess the Pompeii casts were of Europeans. there are bones in there right?" and Googled it to make sure, at which point I confirmed that yes there are bones in there, but more interestingly DNA testing revealed that a cast of an adult holding a child everyone assumed was a mother and child were, in fact, a man and a kid entirely unrelated to him. Honestly that's more moving to me. Maybe they were connected in a way other than blood, but maybe a stranger saw a child when the world was ending and thought the one thing he could do was hold them.

[gorjee-art]

a comic about cuddles

[squirrelmop]

[fromcainwithlove]

author’s notes today: hey guys so just a warning there isn’t 100% explicit verbal consent even though they’re both really into it so remember this is FICTION, also they don’t use a condom :((( but in real life safe sex is important!!! please be safe out there everyone

a/n back in the day: kept thinking about ____ stabbing knives through both of _____’s hands to pin him in place while they fucked so here you go lol =P

[noamglompsky]

ERASE the plot of the whole series from your minds. they’re living a calm regular life and have their own jayviks to obsess over.

[peachdoxie]

I bought a desktop laminator using money I got for my birthday and by god if this isn't the sexiest piece of office equipment I've ever had the pleasure of owning

[georgeharris0n]

PRACTICAL EFFECTS AND WILLEM DEFOE?? Letterboxd is going to devour this

[tothechaos]

hello my fellow Horror And Houses fans.... i have come to recommend the book "horror in architecture" and its sequel "horror in architecture; the reanimated edition" by joshua comaroff and ong ker-shing to you all. ive been reading horror in architecture for the past couple days and it is excellent