Something that always bugs me is that the way fanfic authors have it, there's absolutely nothing between 'beloved son treated and raised precisely the same as the two blood siblings in the blood based ruling lineage' and 'despised and excluded indentured servant psychologically manipulated into having no self worth cut off from any emotional support'. This is, historically, a very, VERY recent binary, as the fostering system outgrows things like orphanages and the idea of the nuclear family is cemented.
There is a whole range of different statuses that exist between those two extremes just in Western society, and more than that outside of what I already know. Wardship, for example. Fostering without adoption. Room and board apprenticeship.
Wwx is older than jc. Him being adopted and legitimised, despite not being jiang, would cause a succession crisis. By rights, as the eldest male (and prodigious and well liked besides) he would be first to inherit in some people's eyes. Being adopted formally in this way would cause those rumours of bastardry madame yu was always banging on about (though I'm never convinced those rumours were as prevalent as she believed). Jfm would lose reputation and status, yzy would take a tremendous hit to her reputation, jc's place as heir would suddenly be cast into uncertainty, coming under intense scrutiny as people suddenly feel as though they had a choice in who to support, and wwx would be forced into a role and potential future he has absolutely no desire for. And by putting him in a position where he could become head of jiang, there's the risk that he might assassinate jc to become the undisputed heir, something impossible if he isn't brought into the family officially. Would wwx ever dream of doing so? No! Not even slightly! But it is a valid fear of the time and culture, jgy just proves that worst case scenario.
Instead of being the child prodigy coming out of nowhere, the son of respected rogue cultivators so generously taken in the jiang and well trained, suddenly he'd be 'proof' of infidelity, both families involved would become scandals, even post-humeously. As jgy and mxy prove, being a bastard is a lower social status than the right hand man of the sect heir, head disciple of a major sect. Now wrapped in gossip and scandal, they would no longer be called the prides of yunmeng.
And then of course that kind of divisive succession would backfire horrendously when lotus pier is burned and jc tries to rebuild the clan while wwx goes demonic cultivator! It would be DISASTROUS for the jiang, jc having lost a lot of his legitimacy and political support, wwx's now filthy reputation being tied even tighter to the clan, reflecting on them so much more. Worst case gossip would be that the jiang as a whole are turning to demonic cultivation. People who wanted wwx for heir would be in a very dangerous position! People who disliked jc as heir would make it even harder for him! Not that the jiangs would/could have predicted the war and the burning of the sect but fr it would have made an already nigh impossible situation even harder and more volatile.
And it's not like wwx is treated purely like a servant! He isn't going round fetching tea and carrying jcs sword and keeping one step behind. He eats every meal with them, he gets pocket money from them, he is openly and pretty universally considered siblings with the other two, and nobody except yzy acts like it's weird, or he's acting above his station for it (though people like the wens and jin aren't above trying to use that 'son of a servant' thing when they're targeting him to get their own way).
Yes, yzy is deeply insecure and blames him, yes during their goodbyes jc gets hugs and wwx gets orders. They're far from perfect. That's the most affection jc ever got from either of them. Jyl got nothing, she wasn't there. Which is pretty representative of her treatment from her parents, ngl. But wwx had support from jc, had sorta paternal support and a safe authority figure in jfm, had maternal support and care from jyl (though she shouldn't have had to, but that's a different conversation). There are actual family servants (yzy's twins) who grew up with her and were trained for it and they act very differently to wwx. For all yzy throws her weight around and jfm is a bit of a doormat, wwx grew up well cared for and well loved.
The fact that the family as a whole was pretty messed up and his part in it made it worse? That's on the family members themselves. His never arriving would not have fixed that family. For wwx, genuinely, there really wasn't anywhere else he could really go once he was orphaned. If he hadn't died on the streets perhaps he could have made it as a civilian working for someone else, dabbling in cultivation because we know him.
The wen and jin would have eaten him alive. The lans? Don't make me laugh. I love a good 'wwx gets betrothed to lwj as teens and he moves to gusu and Fixes Everything' as much as the next person but let's not kid ourselves, canon wwx would have ended up whipped to death or expelled with the way he is. As a visiting disciple he got so many punishments and kicked out not even halfway through the year! Him living there with lwj as adults is due to him 'redeeming' himself through mystery solving and lwj being fully, openly ready to ditch the sect for him. Even then they're constantly on the road night hunting and lwj being the lightning rod of all of wwx's trouble making tendencies (and being 100% down to breaking the rules with him without enacting punishment). They might accept him now but it would not have happened without lwj doing it first (and the juniors all loving him lol).
The nie? Maybe, but that would have left NHS in pretty much the exact same position as jc: inferior second fiddle, unskilled, constantly compared to him. Wwx would be in the exact same position of being pressured to tone himself down and keep his dangerous ideas to himself, and NHS would have double the fear of inevitably losing both his brothers. And of course, the nie aren't exactly as patient and laid back as the jiang sect as a whole, with their hyper aggressive murder resentment swords. The first sign of wwx acting 'outside' of the clans best interests and getting risky and he's going straight down those stairs the same way as jgy.
Tldr: there's more options to raise a kid than full adoption or abused servitude, even today, and though officially adopting wwx would have made everything SO much worse, his other options would not have survived him. He deserved better with the jiangs but frankly so did the blood kids (and the mother and the father). All three were emotionally neglected and adoption would not have fixed that.
This is why I believe that if wwx had been even a day younger than jc everyone would have been so much happier.
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Why do I tell people to play indie games?
K' so you may have seen that post I made a little while ago asking people reblog and put into the tags an indie game that they did NOT like.
I made that post because I wanted to hear about what indie games people had bad experiences with. There was another post I made saying "Tell me you don't play indie games without telling me you don't play indie games" in response to a ton of youtube videos saying modern video games are no longer fun. A lot of tags would say, "Well indie games can suck too!" This response was extremely silly to me and I wanted to know what games they could be talking about.
I didn't ask for it, but so many people starting explaining why they didn't like a certain game. So I decided to make a little pie chart with the reason people would give in the tags
There are some outliers not here. There were 5 tags saying a game offended them and some responses that were too specific to really count. Half of the posts also gave no explanations so I'm not going to act like this is representative of every response on that post.
Okay so what's the point? Why did I do this?
There's this one 30 minute video by Josh Strife Hayes that does a super good job showcasing all of the bad practices that happen with modern gaming. He talks about each issue thoroughly, but I'll list them here:
Microtransactions, Limited Progression, Invite Boosts, Premium Currency, Loyalty Programs, Selling Power, Battlepasses, and Selling Progression
He doesn't even mention other issues like games releasing in clearly unfinished states, games that are clearly chasing trends, and game developers being restricted by their publishers.
Why is this significant?
Well answer me this: Was there a single tag response in my post that complains about an indie game doing these things?
Say what you want about indie games, but I bet you didn't pay $60 and got psychologically manipulated to spend more on that game.
I bet you weren't getting manipulated by some free to play model to spend more money than you would on a normal game.
I bet the game actually released in a finished state and even if it did, the game clearly communicated it wasn't done.
Sure, you could give me examples of indie games that do have those bad practices, but I guarantee you that you cannot prove that most indie games do this.
So yeah, play indie games. Don't support corporate bullshit unless you know the game was made with the player's best interest in mind.
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“Consider me pressured,” he says, plucking a cigarette from the carton and placing it between his lips. He gestures for the lighter in her lap.
“Well, don’t smoke just because I said so,” she says. “It’s not a good habit to start.”
“It’s a habit I already have,” Adrien says, his lips pulling sheepish around the cigarette that he’s artfully dangling at the edge of his mouth. “I’m just letting you pressure me into it again.”
“As long as it’s not your first,” she says, leaning forward and cupping one hand around the end of his cigarette, using the other to flick the lighter on.
His golden eyelashes brush his cheekbones as he inhales. “It would’ve been a pleasure to have you as my first,” he murmurs, looking up at her as smoke curls out from his lips.
from chapter 13 of my fic greatest hits :)<3
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