Maiosu

Qijing is my onion

[garsamarela]

Some old ruzhui fanart !!

[soshrimped]

qiyan agula my criminal babygirl 🙏

[themonstrousother]

One of my favourite parts of the novel is the development of QiJing’s relationship because at the start of the novel, Qiyan Agula is significantly older and treats Jingnu as a mixture of a little sister figure like Xiao-Die or a daughterwife who she will inherit after the death of Nangong Rang and hold her life in her hands. Jingnu sees her husband as almost an older friend she wants to impress, desiring to shed away her childish skin to meet Qi Yan as equals, in intelligence and maturity. And by the end of the novel, Jingnu is that deeply intelligent, perceptive and powerful emperor, who has, not surpassed per se, but has outgrown her to some extent. Like it doesn’t escape me how reminiscent it is of a parent/child relationship especially with how Qiyan Agula parallels Nangong Rang in their relationships with Jingnu, and there’s this idea of her pouring herself into Jingnu in a way that’s self-destructive; the more Jingnu grows, in intelligence, in power, the more Qiyan Agula shrinks and becomes weaker and more vulnerable. By the end of the novel, it’s Jingnu who has to balance between the world and her wife the same way Qiyan Agula would struggle with her revenge against Jingnu, and she emphasises on taking care of Agula like she did especially when Jingnu was younger (carrying her, nursing her, letting her lean on her, reassuring her that Qiyan Agula is her wife and that she loves her) whilst Qiyan Agula is not only dying and losing her memories and constantly blacking out, but has lost the pride and dignity she used to carry herself with, completely letting down all guards and being left in a state of constant vulnerability, she’s constantly feminized in her relationship with Jingnu (Jingnu locking her up at several occasions, Qiyan Agula becoming disconnected from politics like Empresses are said to be, the council regarding her main duty to give Jingnu children and that if she doesn’t then she should be replaced, their reverse marriage scene, Qiyan Agula slowly losing her connections outside of her relationship with Jingnu like Baishi and the bank, Jingnu’s perception of her shifting into seeing her as a wife and someone to take care of).

And it’s really easy to have ended it there, to concede on who the characters are and what they’ve been through. It’s so convenient, Qiyan Agula was no longer accused of betrayal and was reinstated as Imperial Husband. She and Jingnu could’ve been together for a few years and then left together to explore the world. But how can it be forgotten that this was the same Qiyan Agula who lost her parents and homeland and came here for revenge? Qiyan Agula’s story is of a struggle between masculine and feminine, Wei and Jing, revenge and love, body and mind, life and death, of forming any sense of self wrt what is needed of her to succeed in her revenge plan and die when it’s over. For a second it seems that she has settled, choosing love over revenge, cutting off her roots and staying in the Wei Kingdom, but then the novel reminds that, no, it is unfair to her to reduce herself, no different from when she had arrived only seeking revenge, and it’s destroying her. Even with the woman she loves (a relationship that is a product of all those oppressive structures and is defined by them even if both of them deeply love one another and have come to understand each other), she lives within that pain and suffering and her declining health, she cannot conceptualise much else other than death. And so she gets out, forgets all of it and for the first time, nothing is imposed on her, she’s living away from all those influences and pressures. But even in that she leaves behind a clue for Jingnu, on her own terms, that she chose to look for her after all. Once she, too, escapes from the structures that have defined them all their lives.

[streamdotpng]

Qijing but they live happily ever after in the grass plains

[themonstrousother]

I do feel many readers end up disregarding Qiyan Agula’s plot regarding her racial and cultural identity, and her connection and both the after-effects she feels from the colonial violence she faced as a child and the continued oppression and genocide of the Jing people, even despite how central it is to the novel. I think for most readers it ends up much less relatable to most of the readers especially compared to her and Jingnu’s gendered plots. And in arguably a big part of this is because the novel itself often fails it (increasingly subsuming Qiyan Agula into her Qi Yan role, which actually I think is handled well wrt her character, especially with the endingC but admittedly there are times in the middle that this is really so that the main relationship is in focus, the entire Nomin plot, the racial stereotypes surrounding characters like Bayin and even Jiya, the deprioritisation of Jing people in the novel). Still it’s frustrating to see when not only is this central to Qiyan Agula’s character but QiJing’s entire relationship, to disregard it is to disregard the racial tension between the two, as their power dynamic shifts and changes and the implications this has for Qiyan Agula as a Racial Other in the Wei Kingdom. I feel it’s underestimated just how much danger she is in during the events of the novel, at multiple occasions, even in the beginning she is subjected to suspicion (iirc once by Jingnu’s rapist brother, who attempts to assault her, we are meant to link the overhanging threat of colonial violence with sexual violence). And it is her proximity to Jingnu, who is at first a passive party in this, and later become increasingly active, defending Qiyan Agula or directing away suspicion or consequence, and this isn’t a net positive moment for their relationship, it’s uncomfortable that Jingnu’s increasing power puts her in a position where she has control over the racialised violence and oppression Qiyan Agula is threatened; if she can shield her from it, she can exert it. This his is meant to be troubling for their relationship and even Qiyan Agula herself is at certain points unnerved by it (iirc). And she does exert power over Qiyan Agula, and the nature of those characters and that relationship means that it can never be truly neutral, there is a racialised layer to it, even if it’s understandable for Jingnu to be reacting to the years of personal and politicised pain Qiyan Agula has caused her, even if Qiyan Agula herself has often used her own power (and continues to) and her betrayals, even if she had given Qiyan Agula chances to leave and she had chosen to stay.