Ok Like On One Hand, Fuck Chinese Censorship. On The Other Hand, Literally Every Other Piece Of Media

‘So everything sucks’ mental health toolkit

Hello everyone, I lost half my family last year between March and November, three of whom were elderly, and it was Not Much Fun Actually BUT I have had the horrible thought that many people this year are going to be in the same boat I was in in 2019, so here is how I coped:

Write everything down. I mean it. Anything you’re feeling; the grief, the worry about their health, how much you love them. Put it down on paper. Exorcise it. Don’t just let the bad feelings and the sadness fester. It doesn’t have to be exquisite poetry, just catharsis. 

Call your relatives! Especially the elderly ones. After the first 3 bereavements I got much closer to my grandma. Her passing wasn’t made harder by the fact of having spent more time speaking to her; it was eased because I knew that she knew how much I loved her. 

BE SENSIBLE. You want to see your family now. I get it. My uncle was given 3 weeks to live and I caught norovirus. I couldn’t see him for a week. It sucked. But I had to stay at home, because if he caught it, he’d die. Covid-19 is the same principle. Phone them instead. 

Talk to your family and friends about how you feel. Grief is a really, really lonely place sometimes. I didn’t know anyone going through what I was going through. This time, we’re all in it together. Share your feelings. Reassure each other that you’re valid and heard. 

Be kind to yourself. There’s going to be days, especially with all this social upheaval, where you just can’t. This is OK. You’re a human who has worth beyond your productivity. Let yourself feel sad if you have to. Eat a bit of chocolate. Have a bath. Then do the laundry.

Keep being human, in all the ways you can. Keep cleaning the house. Get up every morning and get dressed. Go to bed at a sensible time. Eat healthy, regular meals. Keep yourself strong, not just in case you get the virus, but to remind yourself that you can and will endure. 

As clichéd as it is, remember that you have survived everything in your life up to this point. You can get through this. There will be a time when it’s over. I thought 2019 would never end. It was funeral after funeral. I thought I wouldn’t make it out the other side. I did. 

Check in with people and ask them to check in with you. My friends literally got me through 2019, even though I wasn’t always up for seeing them in person. We phoned and texted. Build a support network. Being socially isolated doesn’t mean being lonely. 

I think that’s pretty much it, but a final reminder that we humans can endure so much more than we think we can, even when it feels like it’s relentless and it will never stop. It will. The only way through it is, well, to go through it. I hope everyone is staying safe and well!!

parents who tell their daughters they are ugly are bad parents

im pretty sure i cried reading this

I have… thoughts about wangxian, and specifically about the moment when they part ways at Qiongqi Path, with Wei Wuxian leading the Wen remnants and Lan Wangji declining to stop them.

I’ve seen a few people fluent in chinese do very thoughtful breakdowns of the exact nuances of the things Wei Wuxian says to Lan Wangji at that moment, but I’m going to link to and quote hunxi-guilai’s post, because tumblr’s search function is broken and this was the only one of the several I was able to dig up ;u;

蓝湛 / Lan Zhan

如果我和他们之间必有一战 / if there must be a fight between me and them

那我宁愿和你 决一生死。/ then I would rather fight to the death with you.

要死，/ If I must die,

也至少死在你含光君的手上. / then at least I would die by you, Hanguang-jun, at your hands

不冤了。/ I would not be wronged.

And specifically, I made a connection between Wei Wuxian’s attitude here and his perspective on life after his resurrection.

Because this is a low point. This is Wei Wuxian explicitly handing his trust over to Lan Wangji, saying that if Lan Zhan decides he’s gone too far, that he’s crossed an unforgiveable line, and that he needs to be put down, then Wei Wuxian accepts that judgment. Wei Wuxian is taking a stand and doing what he thinks is right, knowing that lots of people will probably fight him over it, but if Lan Zhan decides that he’s this far in the wrong and takes him out, he won’t argue, he won’t feel wronged, he’ll accept it.

So that’s good! That’s painful. This scene aches in all kinds of ways. 

But what I want to talk about is a different angle on Wei Wuxian’s self-judgment. Namely, whether or not he’s worthy of love.

He has… some issues with that. Madam Yu and Jiang Fengmian told him to protect his siblings no matter what, which he did, at horrible expense to himself. And then he kept the knowledge of what he’d sacrificed from them, because telling them what he’d done would have only hurt them more, and might have distracted them, making them think that they needed to spend (waste) their energy protecting him when he was the one who needed to protect them.

Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli are the most obvious examples of this, but there are moments like this with Wen Qing, when she has to physically knock him out before she and the other Wens can go sacrifice themselves to protect him, or later on with Wen Ning, where he speaks up on Wei Wuxian’s behalf to Jiang Cheng, knowing that Wei Wuxian would have never wanted him to tell Jiang Cheng these things, and that he would have been upset to know it happened.

And there are littler, smaller moments too, like in the Xuanwu’s cave, where Wei Wuxian has a giant fresh chest burn, but still tries to give all the limited medicine they have to Lan Wangji, or when Jin Ling gets a curse mark on his leg, and Wei Wuxian knocks him out so he can transfer it to himself without ever letting Jin Ling know that he was doing that for him. And then when he’s reunited with Lan Wangji, he tries to act like nothing is even wrong, nothing to worry about here, Lan Zhan!

I came to this book for the romance, but something I wasn’t expecting to be so compelled by was Wei Wuxian gradually becoming more at ease with the way Lan Wangji wants to care for him and protect him. I do think it’s a delicate balance, because Wei Wuxian isn’t incapable, even after losing his golden core, and there’s a subtle but important distinction between Wei Wuxian being willing to cheerfully impose on Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian not wanting to be a burden. Wei Wuxian has never been good at letting people take care of him, unless he’s being Baby with Jiang Yanli, and even then, he was pretty much only good at letting her know he needed to be cared for in very undemanding, roundabout ways. ‘I’m hungry.’

I’ve seen other people notice that he breaks out that same 'I’m hungry’ tactic with Lan Wangji, eventually, when they’re leaving Yunmeng. He doesn’t expect Lan Wangji to recognize what it means, and is moved when Lan Wangji reaches down to pick a lotus pod for him. And it comes out in other ways too, if somewhat indirect, deflect-y ways, like ‘please protect this weak, helpless man’ said with a grin, so Lan Wangji stops inching closer to figuring out the golden core thing.

But especially with that Qiongqi Path exchange translated up above, I feel like there’s an element here where Wei Wuxian is gradually starting to defer to Lan Wangji’s judgment about Wei Wuxian, regardless of Wei Wuxian’s feelings about himself. And as little as Lan Wangji says out loud, it’s pretty clear that he is firmly of the opinion that Wei Ying needs to be loved, protected, and cherished, and Wei Wuxian is gradually learning to accept that.

do you ever think about how brave lan zhan was to tell wei ying the name of their song. even though wei ying was too feverish to remember it, lan zhan had the courage to confess his love to wei ying. even if it wasn’t a direct ‘i love you’ it’s still a portmantau of their names, wangxian, a song about them – a song for them, written out of love and devotion.

JAY .:. BLESSED-CURSED MV — shooting sketch

no, YOU’RE looking at him respectfully. i’m objectifying him to filth we’re built different

(insp)