Mostly my stream-of-consciousness thoughts.
Body in abyss (Earth in the year 2026), heart in paradise (some fictional world), lol.
Always happy to talk about CN fantasy series!
I found your blog, and now I really want to know. Who is in your icon! :D
Hello stranger!! Nice to meet you and thank you for asking~
(Warning: veryyy long post ahead, sorry! I just love this character and series too much.)
My icon is 苏秀行 Su Xiuxing - my favorite character from (imo) one of the greatest Chinese fantasy projects ever, the 九州 Novoland series!
(You might have heard of the name 'Novoland' because of the recent TV drama series, but the original project from the 2000s/2010s is irreplaceable in my heart, despite its complicated real-world history... To get dozens of China's most talented writers and artists of the time -- people like 沧月 Cang Yue, 伊吹五月 Ibuki Satsuki -- together to flesh out a fantasy world comparable in scope of Tolkien's Middle Earth was/is an epic feat of worldbuilding craft and of real-world community organizing that, as far as I'm aware, was/is without precedent.)
Anyway, Su Xiuxing in the Novoland project is a young scion of one of the three 'Upper (Rank)' clans of the assassin organization Tianluo 天罗山堂, younger cousin to the heir of the Tang vassal state 唐国, Baili Tian 百里恬. He's also known as one of the 天启四君子, the four famous junzi of Tianqi City (the capital of the empire during the Yin Dynasty 胤朝); he's often called Chunshan-jun 春山君(i.e. Spring Mountain jun).
(Btw, my blog's banner is Tianqi City.)
Su Xiuxing is known to be a gifted wielder of his family's unique assassination techniques and tools, and is particularly known for his finesse with 'bladed strings' 刀丝. He can weave a trap formation to immobilize (or cut up) his opponents in the blink of an eye, using only a single such string. His stated hobbies are playing Cat's Cradle (figures, lol) and daydreaming. He's also pretty much unconditionally loyal to his cousin Baili Tian, and has a lot of fond memories of their time together.
In terms of appearance: Su Xiuxing wears 7 rings of different materials on his fingers, and is almost always seen wearing cyan (? 青; basically, the color of his robes in my icon pic). The imperial secret police, which are called 缇卫 tiwei in the series (fantasy equivalent of the Ming Dynasty Embroidered Uniform Guard 锦衣卫, basically) call Su Xiu Xing 'the Cyan-Robed Demon' 青衣鬼.
(Side note: can never be sure whether 青 is green or cyan. For example, Qi Rong in Heaven Official's Blessing is also called 青鬼, but he's always depicted in green, and the English translation also calls him the Green Ghost.)
Su Xiuxing shows up in several different short stories and novels in the later Novoland series, but is probably best known for his heroic final mission smuggling the imperial crown prince Bai Yuxing out of the palace after the previous emperor passed and the imperial religious cult Chenyue 辰月 were plotting to seize the throne. After stealing the prince out of the palace and protecting him from their pursuers for ten days, across hundreds of li (hundreds of kilometers), he sacrifices himself to escort Bai Yuxing safely across the Xi/West River 西江 and into the Tang vassal state, his cousin's territory.
To honor Su Xiuxing's sacrifice, after ascending the throne, Bai Yuxing bestows the Su family with a home in the capital city and the aristocratic title Guoyi Hou/Marquis果毅候. "果", for Siu Xiuxing's courageousness and decisiveness; “毅”, for his determination and his steadfast, unwavering loyalty.
Characterization of Su Xiuxing from 江南 Jiang Nan's 《刺客王朝·莲》, translation my own (just an amateur here, apologies) --
"The icy, expressionless mask he always wore suddenly shattered. The almost childishly youthful face became terrifying, all of a sudden: 'I don't understand; don't they say that war is raging everywhere? That the country is on the brink of collapse? How many have died already? How many more must die? Even these heavens and this earth is crumbling! Didn't we come to the capital to rally behind our sovereign, to wield our blades in time of crisis?' He growled, as ferocious as a lion. 'How come there are still those who are so insatiably selfish? Why are there still people trying to profit off of blood-soaked coin? Who knows who can even make it until tomorrow? What good is all that money for? The Tianluo house rules that we've abided by for the last several hundred years — do these people still know to respect them? From the top to the bottom, each and every one harboring their own selfish agendas and ulterior motives. Broken bones might be mended, but what of rotten hearts — what are we to do with those?'"
You know the idea of a secret magical world kind of loses its appeal as an adult because you realize that a) everyone is terrible at keeping secrets and b) there are parts of society you never think about that have all of their own secret rules and jargon but they’re like. Electricians.
discourse from the year 2043: getting a song stuck in your head is immoral because it takes money away from the artists that would get paid if you were actually listening to it
I think that when you're overstimulated you should appear kind of grayed out and no one should be able to interact with you like a locked character in a video game
(I kind of butchered the flowers as I dont paint them 😅 but overall, I find it good for my first time trying to paint a character illustration in gouache 🌸)
For the love of god if your native language is different from the majority language of the country you’re living in don’t raise your baby speaking the local language. Either have each parent speak to them in a different language or only speak your native language at home. The kid will be okay. Get your native language in their head. You may think you’re helping them in the long term giving them the local language but no. When they’re an adult they’ll wonder why you never taught them your language. They can and will learn the local language in school. They’ll be okay. Produce more bilingual children. They are good for society.
And also, being bilingual helps with executive function. Not all kids have to reach the same language development at the same time as everyone else, it’s okay to have your kid speaking in more complex sentences a month or so later than the “normal” kids.
I've studied the science linguistically but I'd like to put that aside. PLEASE teach your kid the native language. It can go so much deeper than "wondering why", it can create a schism-like pain when you know there's a heritage you have but all access has been cut off. Yes, ALL. If you're fortunate enough to visit the country of your native language but dont teach your kid, they will be miserable, quiet, and alone, and go through difficult phases of hating that heritage because the ladders were cut for them.
And in the United States, this starts young. I've seen teachers tell a Kazakhstani parent that she should tell her kid to speak English INSTEAD. The kid was 2 and a half. A friend's five year old told him "Dad this is America we dont speak Chinese". If you don't teach your kid your native language this country will wrest all pride and heritage from them by force. An occasional visit or two to the home country will not stop the bleeding.
The pain of not speaking the language of my heritage is something I don't wish on anyone. And that language is one of the most spoken in the world, imagine if your native language is rarer. What happens? What happens?
I was an ordinary native Hindi speaker until I was 6, and my Year 1 teacher contacted my parents. Don't speak anything but English to her, because she's already behind.
and my parents listened, not because they had no pride in their heritage, because they were unsure immigrants in a racist country raising a child 5000 miles from home. White people explain their ways are best. So it goes.
I love how Xuan Ji and Yushi Huang in tgcf are like an inverse of Madam Yu and Jiang Yanli in mdzs. Both Xuan Ji and Madam Yu are female characters who feel emboldened by both their physical power and their social status to make the lives of those below them living hells, particularly other girls and women. Xuan Ji feels that she is better than Yushi Huang by virtue of being an acclaimed female general while Yushi Huang was a forgotten and unloved princess, while Madam Yu was a renowned cultivator and literally Jiang Yanli’s mother, able and willing to arrange Jiang Yanli’s life to suit her own whims while denigrating Jiang Yanli for her personality and interests. But in mdzs, Madam Yu’s vitriol is given a sort of saintly status by virtue of her untimely death, her abuses and toxicity elevated to unaccountability by her being turned into a “martyr.” Jiang Yanli, in turn, is disappeared into just “another death” by her own living relatives, her personhood relegated to personal vendettas, and her kindness and mildness only remembered through the man everyone falsely blames for her death.
This is the exact opposite of the situation in tgcf. Xuan Ji’s bitter obsessiveness is not rewarded by her early death, mainly because she drags that poison with her into the afterlife, killing young brides that had the lives she wished she did. She relegated to crawling on her knees forever for the actions that she took to ruin her own life, instead of being able to push the blame of her abuses and self-sabotages onto someone else. Her “strong” personality didn’t make her a better or more admirable person to those around her; it just made her contemptible for who she was willing to flex such strength for and on. In contrast, Yushi Huang ascends through her selfless kindness, remaining the mild-mannered, sweet girl she’d been in life even as she transformed into an irreplaceable and revered god. She didn’t need to become a “girlboss” or to stoop to the definition of “strength” befitting a character like Xuan Ji to be appreciated, because there is nothing weak or unworthy about being a “stereotypical” girl, someone kind, mild, and sweet. And by the end of tgcf, it’s Xuan Ji who dissipates under the realization that her centuries of bitterness led to nothing, while Yushi Huang continues on with the peace that she’s cultivated in her own life, unconcerned with how such a woman viewed her.
