#eigong come here i'm giving this to you

[possessable]

*sleep paralysis guy voice* do you think anyone in Nine Sols eeever gets sleep pararlsysis waking up from the Soulscapes

[orngbanana]

ooo fengs ask you wanna talk about the fengs so bad oo

yes tumblr user possessable anything for you tumblr user possessable

these are so scrambled my god

the fengs, the fengs, i love the fengs an unhealthy amount, you give me any kind of codependent relationship in media and i'll gobble it up but codependent siblings just hit different esp twins

nuwa, nuwa, nuwa, poor, fucked up nuwa, as a younger sibling myself i relate to the feeling of not wanting to let go of your older sibling in any circumstance but MAN does she take it all the way

you could say that keeping your brother’s corpse “alive” and animated is an unhealthy way to deal with grief but omg who cares omg who careeersss?? (nuwa does)

as long as he's still with her nothing else matters, after all, he's still moving, even if it's wrong and his body isn't holding itself up right, he's still talking, even if it's barely discernible or hard for others to hear it; with those two things in mind he's basically all well and healthy! right?

i desperately want to know more about their life and thoughts before the main plot, we can get glimpses of it–the whole theater and opera love they had, nuwa has her feet binded so she cant walk at all, either hovering on that seat she has or sitting on fuxi’s lap; maybe he carried her most of the time before she got the former

we can assume nuwa’s a spoiled person, comes with being rich as all fuck, but with her feet being Like That i don't think she wasn't a victim of the beauty standards that we know of and whenever we see her in both of their memories she's not doing much but sitting and enjoying any moment she has with her brother, not doing any clan duties apart from organizing banquets so maybe she wasn't planned to have a busy future at all

she relies on fuxi for most of her decisions, she looks up to him a big amount, and in turn fuxi coddles her maybe a bit TOO much, telling her to not mind the diseased civilians they encounter–it's not their fault that they got sick and it's certainly not nuwa’s or his fault that it happened, so she can look away and not think about it, he'll make sure her worries are as minimal as possible

but wow what happens when he becomes one of the diseased? will she look away from that too? fuxi was basically as good as gone by the time they arrived in New Kunlun, so what was left for nuwa then? i don't think she was well versed in politics, so how would she lead without her brother? luckily she won't have to think about that either–eigong’s here to save the day!!

so her brother’s all well and dandy now and they can go back to their usual dynamic, yippee!!

i wonder if fuxi could actually form words even in his state, it's said he grunted out sounds but nuwa seemed to understand him just fine; that is if his talking isn't just one of her many delusions she leans onto so she doesn't have to acknowledge that he's rotting

with that said i have a lot of fuxi thoughts even if his actual self isn't seen much, he was raised to be his clan’s leader and loved theater, his profile said he was frivolous but responsible and i'm dying thinking about if his frivolous side is the one he showed nuwa the most, if he could be as relaxed as possible whenever he was with her and dutiful and stern when it came to his duties

obviously he was the more aware one of the situation with the virus and all and he still chose to shield her from that instead of bringing her attention to it so they could work on it together; it's clear that their relationship wasn't built on equality even if they loved e/o deeply–i could even self-indulgently compare it to an overprotective parent and their child who they think isn't qualified to deal with or think too much about the horrors around them so they simply drive their attention away from those things to keep their innocence in tact

and yet i still don't think he was as codependent with her as she was with him, maybe because he was so sure of her safety and well-being that he didn't feel like he had to crowd her with his presence, she has everything she could ever want in life, right? as long as she doesn't focus on the problems surrounding them and instead on the pleasures then he can be at ease

i will def ramble more later but im tired rn

[ladyofthebookcase]

anyway. redeemed goumang au anyone? extremely long post below the cut, i rambled, you have been warned.

after yi beats her ass she loses control of her jiangshi soldiers and gets her legs chopped off, like in canon, and with that comes the harsh realization that she's been beaten by someone who she thought was "weak". forced to reevaluate parts of her ideology, she crawls off to die in the canals and fields (yi leaves her to die), but her soldiers save her (maybe? im open to changing that part, im literally making this up as i write each word down lmao) and bandage her wounds. she miserably convalesces in her vital sanctum room, and when yi returns to the greenhouse/lake yaochi area much later (like on his way to the grotto of scriptures to fight ji), he recieves a call from abacus-- there's abnormal activity in goumang's inner quarters, like someone's still alive in there. he reenters the place, finds goumang, they argue but a lot of the fight has been taken out of her and now she's just kind of tired and upset. she hates yi and tells him to just kill her if that's why he's here, but he refuses, saying something along the lines of now she gets to know how it feels (?) to be stripped of everything. that pisses her off because that's exactly how she feels, she reluctantly understands what eigong did to yi now that she's forced to be in the same position (but it's important that she IS only understanding because she's suffering the same way lol, i doubt very much she would've come around had she not been humbled like this.) um. some more stuff happens? and somehow yi reluctantly allows goumang to come back to the four seasons pavilion since the farm area is rapidly shutting down due to advanced structural damage (or perhaps the yellow water is out of control and corroded key equipment?) and she'll die if she stays there due to cold/lack of food/some other environmental hazard idk. despite their differences, yi would rather not kill goumang? wants her to learn her lesson? idk they were students together and while they might have been rivals, i think about that conversation pre-goumang battle that yi and shuanshuan had, about how they were classmates but never friends. i think there's room for friendship there and i also don't think yi should just want to kill her. i'll make up a better justification that's more in character if i need to but by god she will live and grow.

i'll be honest i'm not sure what she could contribute to the gang back at the four seasons pavilion. her interactions with the others are strained at first, but shuanshuan pesters her like he did kuafu and eventually wears her down to tolerating him. she teaches him about her genetic engineering and jiangshi soldiers (though yi highly disapproves of shuanshuan hearing about that part) and is baffled by shennong's condition-- maybe she does some research on him to give a more informed picture of what's going on there. could also provide insight into yi's condition? after some time passes, she resumes some experiments with the limited supplies they have there, growing plants and the like. there could be a plotline with the water and oxygen synthesis area breaking down further and yi needing her help to restore it to save the ship and the sleeping solarians, that might be cool? idk im literally spitballing here but goumang deserved betterrrr. my terrible wife who pretends like she hates everyone but literally dedicated her life's work to making sure no other solarian would have to go hungry the way she once did. GAWD.

[a-goumang-ripoff]

The Use of Death in Nine Sols

I know it's been a while but I'M MAKING ANOTHER POST FINALLY!!!! Alright so, I was rambling to a friend and something clicked in my head. If you can't tell by the title, it's about the unique way death seems to be used in Nine Sols.

To summarize it, death is used in unique ways with each sol in a way that gives each one exactly what they deserve, even if what they nearly all get is the same exact thing: death. While I'll do my best to not explain every single case individually and make a super massive post, I will go over as many as I think is needed to make my point. My autistic ass has categorized almost every character into 2 categories I want to cover: the sols who are good, and the sols who are bad. I will also be talking about Kuafu, Goumang, and Jiequan separately as they are very unique cases for mostly obvious reasons.

Getting into the 'bad' sols first, the sols I've categorized in here are Yanlao, Fuxi, Nuwa, and Eigong. The thing that ties this category together is that these sols suffer death as a punishment for their actions. Yanlao I think encapsulates this the best. He would go on to die terrified of death, attempting to cling onto life as hard as he could, but still being punished with death despite it. And I think it's well deserved the way he dies, as in his sol seal memories he is shown to be a hypocrite willing to do anything just for the sake of respect, only liking the old relics he has because they make him respected and they make him money. He was brought onto a project to eliminate the deadliest disease that penglai ever faced, that solarians ever faced, that threatened the survival of the species, not for what he can provide to the efforts in skills, but for the sake of his relics which are actively remarked by multiple characters to be unnecessary or worthless. He spends his time as a sol doing nothing but criticizing others, demanding respect, and being extremely petty. He did nothing, and thus, deserves nothing, not even a death at Yi or his own hands, simply death itself. The fates of the rest can be argued similarly, Fuxi deserves his existence as a monster for him actively taking advantage of literal disasters to make money, and dying only as a monster. Nuwa deserves hers for her similar stuck up personality and asshole behavior. Arguably, Eigong could be said to be rewarded for her death by practically creating her ultimate work that would immortalize her, but the fact that it is immediately obliterated in its entirety with no one left to truly remember her makes me argue that her death was only a punishment in the end.

For the 'good' sols, I've categorized Yi, Lady Ethereal, and Ji together, as they ultimately receive death as a reward, as opposed to a punishment. I think Lady Ethereal encapsulates this the best. One could say that she deserved death for what she did, causing the gruesome deaths of several people, including someone incredibly close to her, and remaining silent about it. However, aside from her having no clue that the soulscapes would have that effect, I believe she atones for her mistake in her own soulscape, suffering her own personal hell in it over the tragedy and her response. She suffers for I don't even know how long torturing herself over it all, even attempting suicide at one point, only to be forced to stay alive in this soulscape. It's only then, after being truly forced to torture herself, that Yi is able to interfere and allow her to finally process and come to terms with it, after making her own punishment she felt she deserved, and thus embrace a death that she earned and be able to truly rest. Yi ends up going through something extremely similar, obviously being the one to suggest harvesting humans for their brains and attempting to originally take the seals to take the cure into his own hands, but the game itself serves as his redemption and in the end, he is rewarded with death and the ability to see his sister again in the afterlife. Ji also is similar, though they don't really make this big awful disaster occur, only lacking courage to truly act despite their immortality, and actively express happiness in their death.

Alright, now to talk about the other three. I have made my point already about how each sol does deserve the fate they are given, being rewarded or punished with death in very unique ways. However, one that sticks out is Kuafu, the one sol who doesn't die within the events of the game. And, as you can probably guess, I think it's because he is the only one who doesn't deserve to die. He doesn't actively express a want to die, yet he definitely lies more in the 'good' side of the sols. Nothing he has done has warranted death as a punishment, the most punishment he needs and gets is being the last survivor, which can be seen as a steep punishment, but I think he's one of the few characters who could really take it in a much softer way, especially with his bonds with Shuanshuan and his changed view on humans.

Now something I've been itching to talk about: Goumang. I've singled her out because holy FUCK her ultimate fate is super fucked up. Way worse than any of the other sols. And as I've seen the community discuss, a lot of people think this was way too excessive, but, as fucked up as it is, I do think she deserves it to a degree as well. And, before I get into this, I do NOT think that this is something that should actually be done to anyone, even fictional characters, but the irony of her fate I think makes it something she does really deserve in a poetic way. While she does have a lot of good intentions and plans set in place to revive Penglai and save solarians, but I find her true awfulness in her ideologies and behavior. Starting with behavior, despite being in a grave situation in which solarian life is threatened, she does not decide to forget her differences with other sols and put her effort into helping the cause, she instead decides to remain petty and a full on asshole to Yi, in a way that surpasses other shitty sols because she is in a position to actually do something and work with other to help save solarians. Her ideology also heavily contrasts her genuinely good desires. To put it bluntly, she is a fascist, I've said it a thousand times and I'll say it again, she believes that every person needs to be micromanaged in the same way she micromanages her farms, that it would create a perfect society if this did happen. It doesn't help that "if everyone gave up a little freedom and submitted to higher authority..." is just straight up fascist rhetoric. She also is the ONLY sol to own human slaves to serve her, ones with collars that actively control their actions. I think all of this combines to really set in that she is the worst of the sols, that while you're meant to question Yi's true motives and intentions, his biases, because of this moment, Goumang still gets what she has coming to her.

As a final little sidenote, Jiequan is interesting not because of his alignment, he's quite clearly on the bad side of the sols, evil as fuck, the way his death is treated is interesting. It feels like a mix of death as a punishment and death as a reward, he does not want his death but in the end he still dies happy and proud, he believes he died a hero, and that is far from a punishment to the character, even though he well deserves to die. Maybe it's a mix of him being a horrible person and yet also surpassing his bullying he suffered as a child, the expectations put on him, etc. I love it as a point to show how unique the game is able to utilize death.