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nightlychaotic · 2 years

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Fallen Angel

TW: Major Character Death, Onscreen Death, Death via Fall

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The air was uncomfortably still as he ran, the only breeze coming from him pushing himself to move as fast as he could without missing anything that could potentially lead him to where she went.

Everything was taking too long.

Every step a second too long. Each leap from rooftop to rooftop an ever stretching moment.

The voices in his ear a steady reminder of how fast time was passing.

Robin had half a mind to rip the comm unit from his ear as he searched. The incessant chattering of Oracle and the rest of his family as they searched for her, spread across Gotham, on rooftops, in the sewers, on the street. Working it in precise gridlike methods.

They didn’t seem to feel the frantic urgency he did.

He came to a stop. Eyes scanning over the rooftops for anything. Any sign of her. Any sign of the League, the Court, anybody. Anywhere they could have taken her.

A small flash of light in his periphery drew his attention.

He turned, quickly scanning for where it came from, blood freezing as he saw someone- Marinette- get thrown off the roof.

—----------------------------

The two of them had barely managed to make it three blocks from the Le Grand Paris, before a thin rope managed to wrap around both of them. Tightening and pulling them up, so they were hanging upside down.

“Don’t bother trying to cut through the string. You won’t get anywhere,” a bright voice chimed.

As the duo slowly spinned around, Robin caught sight of the two Parisian heroes they'd come to talk to.

“Ladybug. Chat Noir.”

“Batman and Robin. To what do we owe the pleasure?” She asked, recalling her yo-yo, leaving the two vigilantes to catch themselves.

“Your situation has recently come to our attention. We came to offer you our assistance. Training, help, mentorship, and back up.”

“We don’t need your help. Thank you. But we’d prefer you stay out of Paris. Any of the Justice League to stay out. We have it handled-”

“Tt. You’re two children fighting a battle you can’t win.”

“You did not just call us children when you can not possibly be any older than either of us.”

“Bugaboo, calm down.”

“We have been doing this for three years now, and he is calling us incompetent.”

“It’s not my fault you two are inferior to me.”

“Robin,” Batman warned.

“It’s been a long week,” Chat Noir apologized for her. “While we appreciate your offer of assistance, it is unneeded and unwanted.”

“Consider it at least. We’ll be in Paris for the next 24 hours. Commissioner Gordan at Gotham PD can also get a hold of us if you can’t.”

Ladybug gave a smile and nodded. “Thank you. We’ll keep it in mind. Safe Travels. Batman. Robin.”

Robin scowled as he watched her leave, flinging her yo-yo out and using it to pull her across the city, her partner following behind rooftop to rooftop.

—----------------------------

He shot his grapple as he extended the line as far as it could go as he launched himself into the air, falling fast before the line when taught, pulling him towards her.

He strained reaching, stretching, extending his arm as far as he could. Desperate. She reached out for him with a soft smile, fingertips brushing just barely as he swung.

No.

Nononono.

No.

Everything seemed to freeze around him as her smile turned bittersweet, drawing her hand back in, accepting her fate.

He hung, suspended in the air by his grapple as he watched her descent. It was almost beautiful. The way the colors painted themselves in an ever shifting pattern, dancing across her arms

She looked like an angel.

An angel without her wings.

She seemed to glow against the city lights, colors streaming by, trailing behind as she fell, before vanishing, a harsh white light left to illuminate where she lay.

—----------------------------

The soft zip of her yo-yo spinning, deflecting his birdarang, as she spun, coming to face him.

“Robin.”

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“I live here now. And before you say anything I had a nice chat with Batman last night. Gotham needs some good luck. We both decided that it’s best if I work my magic here.”

“And he gave you free reign?”

“I don’t plan on being babysat for my time in Gotham. Right now I’m just getting the lay of the land. You’re welcome to join me if you’d like. Since you don’t seem too keen on letting me go on my own.”

“Tt. I will.”

“I hope you can keep up,” she said before throwing her yo-yo, pulling herself up and over the Gotham skyline, Robin trailing close behind.

—-

Damian barely glanced up as the door opened, he noted the unfamiliar face coming in, before turning back to his painting. A soft, hurried conversation happening at the front of the classroom, before soft footsteps hurried across the room, slowing down at his table.

“Hi. I’m Marinette.”

He glanced over, not expecting the cheerful smile directed at him as she pulled out her sketchbook and pencils, flipping open to a new page. Catching glimpses of her sketches flipping by, mainly clothing designs. He would admit they were good.

“Damian.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“Tt.”

—----------------------------

It was cruel how beautiful she looked, hair splayed out, a dark halo framing her as she lay against concrete, silent tears falling from her eyes as she looked up at him.

"Why? Why didn't you transform? Why didn't you catch yourself?" he demanded as he knelt next to her, brushing a stray strand out of her face.

"I couldn't. They took Tikki."

She coughed weakly looking up at him.

"Damian-"

"Shhh. It'll be alright. You'll be fine. It's okay, Marinette."

She shook her head giving him a pained smile. "We both know that's a lie."

"Mari-"

“Damian," her breath was shaky as she winced in pain. "I love you, Damian. I want you to know that."

He swallowed, ignoring the stinging behind his eyes as he tried to say something, anything, in reply , but she continued before he could find the words.

"I- Marinette Dupain-Cheng, hereby relinquish the Miracle Box and name- Damian al Ghul the new Guardian.”

"No!"

The bright light that flashed as she said that was blinding, the tears finally beginning to flow as he held her.

—----------------------------

“No. Nonono. Merde,” she cursed under her breath glancing around.

“What?”

“I’m about to transform back.”

“Can you make it to the top of Wayne Tower in time?”

“I should.”

“You’ll be fine to detransform there. I’ll cover you. Go.”

“You sure you’ll be fine?”

“Tt. Of course. Now go.”

She threw her yo-yo one last time, nailing one of the thugs in the head, knocking them out before throwing it once more, pulling her up as she swung through and pulled herself up and over, disappearing over the lip of the Tower.

Robin dealt with the rest of the thugs as fast as he could, tying them up and leaving them in the alley before grappling up to Wayne Towers. He landed, nearly silent as he landed, looking around, pausing at the sight of a familiar figure, sitting against the bulkhead as she dug around in her purse.

“Marinette?”

She stood, turning around with a soft yelp. Holding her purse close as she looked at him, before relaxing, making sure her purse was shut before letting it drop to her side.

“Robin.”

“You’re Ladybug.”

“You know me,” she narrowed her eyes slightly as she studied him, before giving a small smile, recognition clear in her eyes. “Damian?”

He didn’t say anything, turning away slightly as she continued.

“I should have figured it out before.”

“How?”

“The way you subtly hide injuries, for one. Another, you speak and act almost the same exact way.”

“Tt.”

“Like that.”

He huffed, eliciting a bright laugh from her.

“Does this mean we can be friends on both sides of the mask now?” she asked.

“If you insist.”

“I do.”

“We should get back to patrol.”

“Let’s go then,” she replied, smiling before she moved, running towards the edge of the roof.

He lunged after her, catching her wrist as she passed him, pulling her to a stop.

“Are you insane?” he hissed. She simply laughed, yanking her hand free from his grip.

“Not at all. Trust me,” she backed away before he could stop her, sending herself off over the edge before calling her transformation, swinging away in a bright light, leaving him to catch up.

—----------------------------

"Marinette, why?"

The look she gave him felt like a burning knife to the heart. Pain. Confusion. Fear. Her eyes searching for anything she could recognize as he held her.

"What-" she cut off as a round of coughs wracked her body. "What happened? Who are you?"

"You fell. You fell but you'll be okay. I promise. I'll make sure of it."

“I- I can’t feel my legs. Why can’t I feel them? I- I- i-” Panic leaked into her voice as her breath stuttered. Her heartbeat raced, skipping and jumping as she started hyperventilating.

“Breathe with me,” he said, trying to take deep slow breaths, pressing her hand to his heart. The two sat there in silence like that for a minute as he tried to get her breathing to slow. Hyperventilating would only make things worse. Shock. She was going to shock. No nonono.

"Thank you," she muttered, between stilted breaths.

"Rest, It'll be better when you wake up. Just close your eyes.:

Her breath rattled as she nodded, eyes drifting shut. Her heartbeat growing weaker as he held her.

In. Out.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

Weaker each time. Slower. Shallow.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

Nothing.

She was gone.

He felt it the moment her pulse stopped, the way her body relaxed, the rhythm of her heart coming to an end.

The sob that tore itself from his throat, the capstone on her life.

—----------------------------

"Are you sure it's okay for us to be on here outside of class?"

"Of course. I often spend my free time outside of class here. Mrs. Dellebar has never had anything to say against the matter," he reassured her.

"If that's the case, I'll grab my watercolors."

He nodded, heading up to their table while Marinette grabbed a clean cup to fill with water before joining him.

The two worked in a comfortable silence, content with the others company, for an long while before Marinette placed her brush down, giving the paint time to dry before laying on shadows and highlights.

She slid her stool closer, watching him work for a few minutes before finally speaking up.

"Is that me?"

He stopped at her sudden question, putting his paintbrush down as he took a quick breath to collect himself before looking at her.

The tips of their noses nearly brushed against each other as they turned towards the other.

Time seemed to freeze as neither one of them moved. A faint blush colored her cheeks as his heart raced.

“Dami-”

“I will see you tomorrow, Marinette,” he said, quickly standing up, turning away to hide how red his face felt.

He didn’t look back as he left the room, closing the door behind him before finally feeling as if he could breathe again. He leaned back, sliding down the door slightly as he ran a hand through his hair.

That was…. new. He was unaware when he had gained such feelings for Marinette. Surprised at how flustered he felt by that small interaction, kicking himself for running.

“Tt,” he scoffed at himself as he picked himself up. He may have blown it today but tomorrow was a different matter. He would remedy his mistakes then.

—----------------------------

Tomorrow never came.

—----------------------------

"-obin? Robin what's happening?"

"She's gone," he said, voice threatening to crack. “She's gone, and I didn't tell her that I loved her."

He recognized the sudden clamor of voices, plans and tasks being made and assigned but he wasn't listening. It was all static. A loud ringing in his ears drowning out everything around him. Time felt like it was moving through water. Slow and heavy. Pushing against him. Barely keeping from overflowing and coming crashing around him. It felt like the breath of anticipation right before the surface tension broke.

And broke it did.

The world that had shrunk down to just encompass him and her suddenly expanded, filling with the ever present sirens and city noises from blocks over. Not near them. No. They were in a construction zone. They wouldn’t be here, he noted in the back of his mind.

He barely registered whose arms were wrapped around him, gently pulling him away from her. Their grip tightening as he fought against them, pulling and twisting as tears fell, blurring the world around him into bright color and hazy images.

"Robin. D. Damian, shhh. It hurts. I know it does. It's okay, let it out."

He could barely make out the words Richard was telling him, soft reassurances and comforts as he held him.

He wanted to scream. It wasn't okay. How could it be? Richard didn't know. He didn't know his pain. How could he? He could only guess from his own experience. He didn’t know.

“Come on, just a short walk. A step away. Just to the end of the block and back. Just for a moment. Please,” Richard’s pleading voice broke through his thoughts. Damian shook his head, wrenching himself from the embrace.

“I’m not leaving her. Not unless it is to find who did this.”

“B and Hood are already going after them. Spoiler and Black Bat should be joining them soon. And Red's coming with the Batmobile so we can take her home. He should be here any minute. Just to the corner there. We won’t go far. She’ll be right there when we get back."

He relented, letting Richard guide him away reluctantly as a wave of heaviness seemed to finally sink in. Weariness hitting him. Grief and guilt etching themselves in his bones, as he spoke.

“I was so close,” he whispered.

“What?”

“I was so close. We touched. I was just too slow.”

“Damian-”

“If I hadn’t stood there trying to locate where she was exactly- If I had moved sooner- Left sooner- She was right there- I almost caught her- I-” his words caught in his throat as his mind raced, going over every little detail of the day. If he’d moved in the direction of the light instead of looking for it. If he’d left to look for her just a minute sooner. If he’d never left her alone in the art room.

It was his fault.

If he’d just done one tiny thing different she’d still be there.

It was all his fault

She was gone and it was all his fault.

“Don’t say that?”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“Because it isn’t true. You did the best you could. That’s all you could have done.”

No. He could have done something different. Made a different choice. Not hesitated.

“It wasn’t good enough.”

“Yes. It was,” he said softly. “Damian. Don’t beat yourself up over her death. It’s not your fault.”

“Tt.”

“Damian-”

“You won’t sway me, Richard.”

His brother gave a soft sigh, tucking Damian under his arm in a small embrace. Like he was trying to protect him from the world. Far too late.

“I know I won’t. But it kills me seeing you like this.”

Damian didn’t say anything, simply turning back, Richard turning with him and began the short trek back. The Batmobile was waiting for them when they got there. Red Robin, leaning against its side as he waited for the pair.

“Hey,” Red Robin greeted the two of them, the one word was soft, heavy, bearing some of the weight of the event. “So, where is she?”

Damian’s blood ran cold at the question.

“What do you mean, ‘where is she’?” Richard asked as he pulled away from the side hug, darting to the other side of the Batmobile, the quick words flying back and forth between his brothers quickly disappearing, a deafening silence wrapping itself around him.

The sidewalk was empty.

The only sign of where she’d lain were the almost dry spots where his tears had landed.

Richard had promised she would be right there.

Another mistake of his.

He never should have left her. Not at the art studio, not at Richard’s pleading.

It was his fault.

She was gone.

He’d lost her again.

He hadn’t even finished saying goodbye.

The tears that fell were fast and hot and overwhelming as everything felt like too much. Pushing, shoving, forcing him down with the unbearable weight. Everything he’d done had been wrong. Every choice, every moment, every move. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

He crumpled, gently laying a hand where she had been, squeezing his eyes shut.

‘I’m sorry, Marinette. I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault. I should have been there. I should have been here. I love you. And I’m sorry I never told you. I will find who did this to you. I will get Tikki back for you. I will find you and give you the final rest you deserve.

I will make up for my failures.

I am sorry I was too late.

I will right my wrongs.

If only you were still here to see it.

I will make those who did this pay.

I’m sorry, Love.

I will fix this.

All of it.’

She was gone.

It was all his fault.

She was gone.

And he would fix everything.

#Maribat #Daminette #MGI Bracket War 2022 #Round 3 #No Beta this is War #I somehow managed to win #everyone did such a good job #major character death

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seventh-fantasy · 6 months

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li xiangyi, yin, and femininity

we all know that li xiangyi is a character of fractured identities. and li lianhua is an unreliable narrator to his own story. these make him not the most straightforward character to study. but I've believed in treating li lianhua as a part of li xiangyi, rather than separates. and there must be a common thread that ties all of him together. thus, I offer what I have found to be the most useful lens to use to view him as a cohesive whole, regardless as li xiangyi, li lianhua, or any other identity he may reinvent into: his 阴 yin qualities. (yin of yinyang)

this framework suggested by the drama's text itself has helped clarify to me his strengths, weaknesses, motivations, and struggles. by identifying this constant, too, makes it so much easier talking about what has changed in him.

[to the, hopefully growing, boli lhl hivemind @markiafc @ananeiah]

there are some notes on the concept of yinyang and chinese conceptualisation of gender I have to preface with.

[disclaimer: of course, I'm not even trying to cover a tip of what experts have extensively studied and debated in a depth it deserves. all I'm doing is try to parse the broad, fundamental ideas that are needed to explain my blorbos through my own spotty brain filter. so there bound to be nuances I've overlooked or some degree of my own interpretation. pretentious but needs to be done.]

阴 yin and 阳 yang are concepts characterised by passiveness, darkness, gentleness, femininity etc, and proactivity, light, toughness, masculinity etc respectively. a very key and handy concept to have in mind is their relationship to each other - which I'll not attempt at explaining better than literal scholars have:

Yin and yang exist only in relation to one another internally as the way warmth-coldness only exist relative to one another. Furthermore, when using yin-yang as an organizational schema, achieving balancing harmony is always the goal, not domination nor subordination of one to the other. [x]

while yin and yang can be symbols of femininity and masculinity, it doesn't mean all female are yin and all male are yang. it's certainly not a strict 1-to-1 equation. the concept of gender in chinese context is more social than biological. this suggests room for fluidity, and shaping of identities, often through social rituals as one journeys through life. it also means that there can be femininity in the masculine, and vice versa - in fact, that's only healthy because you need a good balance of the two worlds. no one part is better than the other. if you think of the two components as relative to each other, they are always interacting and affecting each other, rather than being strict and inert binaries. simply put, it needs to be kept in mind that there are greater nuances in applying yin and yang to the definitions of gender, and to avoid at all cost a simplification of this framework into a binary.

sure, the show has implied that lxy's powers and energy are yin-coded. but femininity is only one of the multiple attributes of yin. so how are we extending lxy's yin to femininity specifically? it's in the text that substantiates and qualifies lxy as feminine. dead women being used as proxies to his character. being literally dressed as a woman in order to put himself into their shoes and feel what they've felt. adopting a name that happens to be very, very feminine - 莲花 lianhua (lit. lotus flower) (it must be caveated that chinese names are NOT gendered. but there are just some names that are more feminine than others.) him coming to lead a life revolving around traditionally feminine, domestic things as li lianhua. him having interactions with the women around him like he's in his own element - no pressure and tension at all, unlike with all the other men.

as such, I'm more willing to use yin and femininity interchangeably in discussing lxy (while it's not necessarily applicable to every point that will be mentioned albeit there being some degree of implied association). and it's for the sake of elucidating what I feel is an intention or very plausible reading of the canon text in parsing feminine experiences in lxy's character. and thus, his queerness.

one last note is that taoism is going be mentioned quite a bit as well because of how much it as a philosophy honours the yin quality. its key tenets include valuing passiveness and inaction as a form of action, and submitting to the nature of things. and we will see how those come up in lxy's life too. (though I'm not gonna attempt to deep dive into it here beyond broad strokes of it.)

a huge part of li xiangyi's yin actually manifests in him being a passive person. this applies not just to li lianhua, but also li xiangyi. I know. ok wait hear me out. the idea of yinyang is after all components that can change and are relational to each other: thus, there were points in li xiangyi's life when he was less passive than other points, but they ultimately don't match up to the degree of aggression displayed by other men around him. so relative to their display of proactivity and aggression, he can be considered as passive. the best example is that of shan gudao proposing to launch an offensive on jinyuan alliance, while lxy - as much as he was arrogant about it - was standing his ground on not taking action in favour of peace.

it has already showed up in his childhood as well. he wasn't a particularly competitive child: 从来都没有谁要和你争 nobody has ever thought of competing with you over anything, he told sgd as he recalled of their times growing up. it was in fact sgd who was desperate to control and override lxy's presence. baby lxy did not hesitate at all over giving up on winning in favour of protecting his only rare few close relationships left in the world (given how hard-earned relationships are when they're non-familial !!!!). as much as I resent the one-dimensional writing of sgd, he has served as a very strong marker to highlight on lxy's yin.

I've harped on it several times before but this is the time I finally get to explain it proper: my own theory is that li xiangyi became an unparalleled swordsmaster because of his yin/feminine quality, not in spite of it. an interesting point that had been out in the open unclaimed until it was brought up in our friend group is that, li xiangyi does not actually fit anybody's conventional image of a 武林盟主 wulin mengzhu (ie. ruler of wulin). it would most likely have been some burly, muscular, ultra-masculine dude. even if they don't look like the demonic monk, it should be someone more like di feisheng. but. it's li xiangyi, the boyish, delicate-looking kid, who came to the top. (no wonder people - mostly men - love or love to bully hate him like weak men hate powerful women??)

"why didn't they cast someone who looks more like a wulin mengzhu (read: traditionally manly)?" no, no that's precisely the point. nobody said wulin mengzhu have to look manly. and also who is to define the manliness required to be in a place of authority? (or in my other meta, we would ask, who is to define anybody gets to have the authority over anyone else at all?)

by taoist ideal, gentleness is the most refined form of strength. li xiangyi has been haunting and distracting me in my chinese calligraphy practices lately because I'm thinking about how this must be the closest to what it felt like lxy becoming the best swordsman in jianghu. (so pretentiously brainrotten of me, I know, BUT IT'S REAL and I'm suffering.) mastering a chinese art is essentially about mastering a delicate balance between force and gentleness; being able to draw force from softness 柔中带刚 and an ability to maintain this balance. a beginner will instinctively hold a brush for the first time with brute, unrefined force. some fairly reputable contemporary calligraphers, according to my teacher, can be seen as being either too soft or too forceful - but are still able to pass off as good enough. it's then, the master of masters who will have the sophistication of a firm yet flexible control of the brush with the appropriate use of gentleness/laxness that produces a harmony of strokes. this idea extends to any other sort of chinese craft or practice including traditional chinese medicine, and I believe, swordsmanship too. I'm taking a fucking leap of faith here to say this because I practise NO sort of (chinese) martial arts, I must caveat. (someone who does may want to say something...) but theoretically that should be how it works.

it is not for no rhyme or reason, or *handwaves* that lxy emerged to the top AND is almost undefeatable. among a competitive, forceful (ie. yang) wulin, li xiangyi stood out with a power and energy defined by yin (ie. gentleness and stability) that led him to create his signature 扬州慢 yangzhouman. it is characterised by 慢 slowness (my calligraphy teacher says to us all the time to take it slow), and also described by dfs as 中正绵长 - which I would best describe by painting a picture of a steady and stable stream. these precisely speak of the essence of a mastery of gentleness as strength to me.

conversely, dfs's way in mastering power is very largely premised on taking action because he literally had no other choice in the environment he grew up in. both of them develop in opposite ways. it was the case of gentleness for lxy clearly because he grew up in a safe, nurturing environment that had allowed him to be slow and steady at his own pace, drawing on his natural gifts.

now top of the wulin world at 17, li xiangyi founds sigu sect. li xiangyi, the boy before becoming menzhu and li xiangyi the leader of sigu sect are not the same.

how then did a (relatively) passive boy like lxy end up founding sigu sect. this lxy is the one who was fostered into competition - though not in an abusive, twisted way. in fact he was raised in a rather taoist way by his shifu: to be honest with yourself and respect your opponent. so he honoured whatever powers he had been bestowed with by nature. he gives into it. even so, at another level, I just have a sense that shifu and shiniang's competitive marital spat had an insidious effect on the boys...though the detrimental effect was more on sgd than lxy. baby lxy feels like a sweet-natured kid who was just in his own zone, you know - some (aka sgd) would say, too much of him even, to have not realised what was wrong at all with his shixiong for years.

that's not all of course. I've always gotten the vibes that his attitude behind forming sigu sect felt more like, this is what all the good men of jianghu do and I will have to do it now especially that I'm the best. it didn't feel particularly personal to me, but rather what would have been expected of him by the social climate of wulin jianghu (eg. lxy saying to 光耀师门 bring honour to his teacher). it's definitely not an expectation from his shifu, who explicitly told him that he was never expected to become a noble figure of any sort, but just to be alive and contented. as concluded by the man himself as li lianhua: "有些人入了江湖是为了立心，而有的人入江湖为的是立命。我却不知道自己真正想要的是什么。some people enter jianghu for the cultivation of the mind, others for a cultivation of a meaningful life. but I never knew what I truly wanted." he was ultimately, unwittingly a passive player in his own story of becoming the great sigu sect leader.

(at this point, as a side note, I do wonder if there were any other similar sects or alliances that function the same as sigu sect that came before it. because I'm damn well sure there must be something, as likely as there must have been generations of wulin legends who came before lxy. but of course, this is not what the story is concerned with at all and I'm ok with that.)

it's crucial to point out that, even despite this being the phase of his yang in the display of taking action and enacting firmness, lxy had still done sigu sect with the sole purpose and manner of upkeeping peace and order (in the way of the pro-universal love, anti-aggression mohist 侠 xia leader of the people). he's still very characterised by yin in my books, especially when vis-à-vis to sgd.

a li xiangyi full of himself and made himself too useful to the people was only bound for a great asteroidal fall, in the concept of 物极必反 - or in taoist lexicon 反者道之动 (ie. anything that has reached its limit will only start developing in the opposite direction). if you think you're above all, you can only go down.

this manifests during the next time he took action - and it was one so forceful that it overpowered even his opponent, dfs who ended up being the passive, receiving party in this case - was in initiating the battle at donghai 10 years ago... and gee oh boy. it didn't end well - for both of them, but even more so for lxy. (dfs was like 'tis but a scratch (shrugs)' as compared to him being ripped off his tendons by jiao liqiao like nezha did to the dragon prince. truth is he had to go into a 10-year healing retreat served by his entourage. :p) ok, I digress.

xiao zijin was quick to attribute sigu sect's fall to lxy's arrogance - in turn setting the stage for lxy's 10 years of self-hatred and the framing of lxy as a villain? irresponsible figure? by jianghu. (god forbid girls do anything! ok for legal reasons, this a joke.) lxy lost his mind in ways I believe he never had in his life there and then upon seeing his shixiong dead. so, you could say he led the jianghu world to ruins out of love (using this term loosely). but it feels inaccurate to say it's due to arrogance. he did not do that out of self-importance or ego, especially when the revenge for sgd was a collective decision made by sigu sect as we know from the flashback. so when llh pinned all fault on himself for being arrogant in the past, it is with caution to take his words because that's the unreliable narrator in him speaking.

anyway, it's precisely li xiangyi that is capable of bouncing back from such a fatal crisis, equipped with his yin and a mastery that gave him the power of flexibility.

it's extremely vital to re-establish that literally the only thing that was keeping li xiangyi alive, physically, as li lianhua is yangzhouman. (monk wuliao literally said that to lxy even though he did facilitate in saving him.) it's the yangzhouman that was drawn from lxy's mastery of yin. without yangzhouman, li xiangyi would not even have the chance to become li lianhua and undergo any needed process of transformation. without li xiangyi, there would have been no yangzhouman. no li xiangyi, no li lianhua, get it?

the point is not to deny the change li xiangyi wants to make and has made. but to acknowledge that change isn't about complete erasure and destruction. something from you survives. something in you had kept you alive to have you come so far, regardless of all the bad bits that you want to denounce of. you've always been worth it.

bringing back the thing about his new name: the distinction must be made that he did not pick it because it was feminine but it just so happened a feminine name had resonated with him. (read: he didn't necessarily identify as a woman but identified with femininity. at least within the parameters of canon text.)

he also made an interesting choice to retain his surname for someone who was desperate to sever ties from his past. hmm. or maybe he wasn't that desperate? when li lianhua says li xiangyi is dead, I believe it meant that li xiangyi the sigumen menzhu is dead rather than li xiangyi as an entirety. li lianhua is a returning to the path lxy could have gone if he did not establish sigu sect, the path that shifu wanted him to take. when he walked to the doors of sigu sect in the aftermath, nothing was actually stopping him from going back (people were still around and alive, instead of all dead people, you know)... except for himself. taking that action would have been too much for him. so he went with the flow of life giving him a chance at rebirth and walked away. there, inaction as a form of action.

zhan yunfei and qiao wanmian have said to li lianhua, oh that doesn't sound like li xiangyi at all. but has it been considered that, maybe it was sigu sect's lxy who wasn't the real lxy? sigu sect lxy was one big performance of the values of masculinity and heteronormativity that llh had came to an awareness of, and eventually struggle with again and resist against in the final year of his life. there had only been some glimpses of his true nature allowed (validated by fang duobing talking about lxy at his altar).

imho, most flashbacks of lxy during that period felt impersonal and more like a template of a hero expected to marry his girl at 18. going through all the motions and steps of a normative life even before he was old enough to grasp and explore his own identity and what it meant in the world. no wonder he denounced so much of what he had done as lxy including liking girls. walking away then also meant a walk away from those duties and expectations. li lianhua is li xiangyi liberated from masculine duties and heteronormative performance.

in doing that, he had the opportunity for the first time in his life to explore what he truly wanted, at least within the parameters of what he could afford to do at that point. he could go on to build a domestic, feminine life within the space of jianghu (as I've established here). it's a kind of feminine lifestyle that doesn't quite exist in mainstream society - being a woman there meant to stay put in a domestic space without much room to move socially. nor did it exist in wulin jianghu because even the women there like shi-guniang and jlq were expected to be masculine, aggressive, competitive. so building a mobile home in the space of jianghu is his way of defining the life he wants and can have. li lianhua is the extension of femininity in li xiangyi - and one that can be free.

it's also worth talking about in my opinion what is one of the most important and a favourite dihua moment: when dfs said to lxy that his greatest weakness was to like being a hero. and a swordsman should be without weaknesses. I'm forever wrapped up in how many layers this can be read in. was he mad at lxy for liking to be a hero or having weaknesses, or both? if the former, it was dfs criticising, based on lxy's public reputation, lxy's oversized illusions about being a hero - a figure of masculinity with an unrealistic sense to uphold noble goals eg. saving the world etc. that is actually perfectly logical coming from dfs, the straightforward, no-nonsense, morally neutral guy with no illusions about heroism (in this case, he feels more like a yin). but at the same time, we should understand that lxy's motivations behind the donghai battle are more personal than noble. if any, it was actually the opposite of noble - it was like he was acting out of the role of a caretaker of his family, and at a cost of the peace and order of jianghu he was set on guarding(!!) dfs also knew that lxy was there just for his shixiong. and so, dfs, who happens to be the epitome of yang, can be read as a symbol of masculinity disapproving of lxy for being sentimental and emotional; for having the "feminine" desires to simply want to defend his family (not saying those are exclusively feminine traits but they have been conventionally associated as feminine). I think both layers of reading are correct and should work together to contribute to the complexity of their characters. (we can see how it contributes to lxy and dfs being the perfect yinyang halves to each other, which I will come back to briefly touch on later.)

for 10 years he lived a life of seclusion and staying-in-his-own-lane a taoist would be proud of. he knew he was dying and has always been ok with dying, as he claimed. but did he want to die? to think of it, it was the opposite. because in those 10 years when he could have 100% just taken action to take his own life, he didn't. in fact, he lived on and took care of himself in the way shifu wanted him to. he had simply preferred letting nature run its course. if bicha didn't take him, he wasn't gonna do anything. but if he died one day very soon, he would be ok with it too. sure, he was maybe banking on a lead to sgd's whereabouts to appear during his last years alive but that clearly wasn't the only thing on his mind for NINE years because he didn't actively go out seeking for that either. this is basically him telling dfs that he would just lie in the sun and wait for the sweet release of death, if dfs were to force him to fight. not even the mortal threat from dfs was enough to move him into action of fighting back or killing himself.

time and again, lxy as llh was dragged into fdb's cases but not only that, he also maintained an impersonal distance with them. it's starkly different from the usual (wuxia) hero archetypes (for eg. fdb) who would be more impassioned and personally invested in the plight of the victims- or unlike most seemingly aloof protagonists who would somehow grow emotionally invested over time. one of the many things I love about llh is that he never tries a second time to persuade people out of their decisions he finds unwise (eg. him just wanting to move on in response to the girls in 女宅 insisting on staying behind with their slave master at first.) he will not interfere in other people's choices made in their own lives. it's not his business. he didn't even want to be there, to be honest.

however as the story progresses, more and more people - especially men, his past, and the leads to the truth came back to demand and taunt him into doing something. they vary from well-meaning people without any harm intended such as fdb intruding upon his private space completely uninvited and qwm wanting him back; to dfs merely seeking him as a mean to an end initially (eg. I only need him to live long enough to have one last fight); and finally, on the other end of the spectrum, outright aggressive and hostile people like sgd and xzj who wanted him to die. under all this pressure, he tried his best to deflect, but he does waver especially when it comes to matters concerning the people he cares about aka his obsession wish of 10 years of looking for sgd's remains that had lied low until fdb entered his life, and then later on taking revenge for his shifu.

looking for sgd became his final bid at taking action. he was operating on a slim chance of getting some emotional closure from finding out his shixiong is dead for real, yes. what a good plan. but objectively unnecessary. or surprise! uhhh...finding out his beloved shixiong is actually alive and would strangle him for one corn chip? AND OH NO IT GOT WORSE- uncovering a devastating truth about his shifu's death that he could have totally gone on with life fine without knowing if he had continued not caring.

but it is sometimes just impossible not to care - it is only human to care. and he is human, not an icon in the image of a hero. so he took a chance, once more, and it killed him in unprecedented ways. it's donghai all over again. things in life don't go as planned. you fuck around and it fucks you back. finding out the truth behind his shifu's death and his family background from the past did nothing for him as li lianhua living in the present.

it's no wonder that this lxy decisively relinquishes the desire to take action in the end. he goes back to letting nature run its course. and this time, stands firmly to it despite everyone begging him otherwise. wangchuan flower could only give him a recovery (or survival?) rate of 30%. there's a 70% chance of failure and even in the 30% he was not sure what he was to become. in comparison, dfs took a 10% chance game of survival in a heartbeat, and it pushed him to new heights. that's how they differ: he thrives by taking risks and action while lxy the other way round. so, something like that has happened before and he wants none of it again.

he leaves lotus tower, only taking his horse and a sack - relinquishing almost every other material belonging he had - and sets off on a journey. before xzj interrupted...where to was he going?? I wonder. we don't know for sure, I think? and are we allowed to know? that makes the scene he had with xzj an understated inflection point in the very last part of his journey. yes, he was already on his way to...maybe die? but not necessarily. you don't have to travel distances with your belongings for that, right? or speak to dfs personally about not wanting to fight? (borrowing one of @ananeiah's takes.) regardless, he was definitely leaving behind jianghu - not only wulin jianghu (he already did that 10 years ago), but also the jianghu space he had carved out in the last 10 years.

what sparked the decision to jump off the cliff in him was dfs's words from the night of their wedding 10th donghai anniversary: 横扫天下容易，断相夷太剑不易 conquering the world is easy, breaking xiangyi sword is not. in the original context, dfs was talking about defeating lxy being harder than conquering the world. but when it came to this scene, it was to lxy about forsaking the very last worldly possessions he had after already giving up on lotus tower and hulijing (including releasing his horse), especially his only connection left to swordsman lxy.

perhaps it had dawned on him that, wanting things at all was bad for him. in the last 10 years, he lived a life of seclusion, wanting very little. but he had still wanted things. there were still things he couldn't let go of that had led him to this state. despite having lived on an identity inspired by a buddhist teaching for 10 years, maybe it was only at this point that he was finally the closest to reaching an understanding of it. (I wish I was knowledgeable enough right now to dive into the possible buddhist reading here but alas. I'll leave it to our resident expert @markiafc)

it doesn't quite matter in the end where he was going after all. what mattered was that he literally went where the water took him and we're not supposed to know where it ends. I'm not seeing this in a bad and pessimistic way though. I think the relief in all this is that he had tried his best to within his abilities. also it's a form of enlightenment in relinquishing a desire, an obsession, a need to take any more action in order to live well. thus his ending felt to me relatively tender, empowering, and kind - albeit bittersweet and heartaching - than other possible kinds of ending, in a story where it was very possible for him to have died under the knives of his opponents or bicha at any moment, outside of his control.

if you've come so far in this post, congratulations! but also a reveal is that... you're not immune to the dihua propaganda threaded throughout this post. :P

as mentioned, other men like sgd and xzj in lxy's life were incredibly hostile to him. their yang nature overwhelmingly powers his yin. but dfs is different. dfs is the yang counterpart that fits perfectly to his yin.

dfs's yang is one that contains yin, that mirrors lxy's balance of yang in yin. it was suggested in text they are yinyang-coded meant to complement each other, given that whenever wangchuan flower's yin vs yang properties were discussed, the two men were always spoken about in the same breath. more importantly, as with the above few analyses of dfs's words playing a big role in shaping of lxy's choices with multiple meanings - as well as their day-to-day interactions - we can see that they constantly play off each other.

dfs's yang energy has been used to help lxy prolong his life (though not saving him entirely), while lxy has used his yin energy to save dfs and subsequently helped him attain his breakthrough. dfs has also helped lxy in his breakthrough of yin but not in the same way as dfs's cultivation of his combative powers, and rather, it's for lxy an understanding of his own path to take in life - a cultivation of the mind (both times 10 years before and after). given how significant dfs is in the shaping of lxy's realisation of the yin path - alike his shifu has, it's no wonder that they were the only two people lxy had imagined in his last sword dance of a farewell to jianghu.

with each of them coming together to form the perfect yin-yang model, they're a harmony of yin and yang representing the cosmos. what I also love is that they didn't start out as a perfect fit, but only towards the end of the story was the harmonisation completed, which makes sense for two components that are always in a flux influencing each other. the fact that they were number 1 and 2 of wulin, and being the only ones capable of understanding each other in a level nobody else could... it all reinforces the cosmic sense of their relationship. they're the halves to a whole, fitting in a specific way nobody else can.

(I mean. technically this is going into the space of extrapolation based on a tangential interpretation of canon text, so do take it with a pinch of salt. but of course this pinch of salt can do wonders for a shipper's feast... :P and this certainly could have been a meta of its own expanding on dfs's side of the analysis, but this is it for now in this context.)

to think of it, li xiangyi has actually died more than that one time that turned him into li lianhua. first was a death of him as a nanyin royalty - I resent having to bring up nanyin like it should hold any weight to the narrative as far as I'm concerned, but the point being that he had a completely different (familial-based) life before that still stands. then he had a rebirth as li xiangyi, disciple and swordsman to his shifu and shiniang, and later died again when li xiangyi the sigu sect leader took over. lxy the sigu sect leader died at sea in the battle 10 years ago and came back as li lianhua. (just like nezha, died after battling at east sea and rebirthed from the lotus) li lianhua then dies by the end of the drama.

there can be a myriad of interpretations as to what exactly happened to him, including the possibility that he's still alive. regardless, we can agree that li lianhua as an identity has ran its course, and he had to evolve again. but into what form?

in the line of thought of yin and femininity, and how his transformation has been in an increasing degree of presentation of femininity - even way back when I was watching the show, I had the idea of him living socially as a woman post-li lianhua. I don't know what he would be realistically doing or what could be practical for him in such an identity. but conceptually it was sensible and compelling to me before diving deeper into the details. (I have more elaboration to do on this that I won't be talking about here publicly but it is in the same strain of idea as this other comparative meta I wrote.)

I think the next possible identity lxy can assume - alive in the material realm or not - is one that will be beyond a material being. a nameless entity. once you've gone through the phases of life - from not knowing to knowing, and perfecting knowledge, then to the surpassing of knowledge - you surpass all worldly existence, and become one with the cosmos.

I end this off with an excerpt from Tao Te Ching's Chapter 41 (I'm not pretending to have read the whole book ok but I couldn't resist including this):

明道若昧，进道若退，夷道若纇 [...] 道隐无名 The bright path seems dim; Going forward seems like retreat; The easy way seems hard [...] The Tao is hidden and without name. (x)

the character translated into "easy" is the same 夷 yi of li xiangyi's name. somehow this seems to encapsulate the journey of his life: one that seems blessed and smooth-sailing but ending up to be rocky and turbulent. but at the end of the day, after all that he had been through, he will become hidden and without name.

#莲花楼 #mysterious lotus casebook #lhl #lhlmeta #my posts #a big win for the inaction fandom. lxy would have been patron saint #this inevitably turned into a 'lhl is a taoist and buddhist story if not a very chinese story' meta hbhjbjhbhjjb #the last thing i do before going to sleep is write this meta. the first thing i do after waking up is write this meta.#i feel so insane writing this. it kept growing like a monster. do you think this is a joke it's like my part-time job now #but it's one of the few times in my life i have confidence in my insanity. so.#crazier thing is. this meta is approaching 6k words yet i still think there must be things i haven't covered.#the last section is so nuts idk how i even wrote it guys i think i was possessed #it's also like the most pretentious way to put that he's dead in this world ok hjbjhbhjbhjbjbh #to be clear iirc the drama didn't say LXY'S POWER/ENERGY IS YIN in the same way it literally said dfs's energy is yang #but it's definitely implied by the explanation of the flower's healing properties for both of them. on top of yangzhouman #also fuck. another reason he didn't choose to save himself was so dfs could have the yang flower which he believed was what dfs wanted #thank u frens mark and ana for indulging my brain in the first time i brought the lxy as woman thing up. for it to have come this far #ofc disclaimer is that a lot of this is my own reading. it doesnt have to be agreed by everyone #i would be very happy though if any part of it resonated with anybody #also a good part of the analysis is based on my memory of the show. though i did revisit parts selectively to verify. sooooo. yeah.

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