Liang Yi

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How Cruel the Dark Blade
 To Score the Spine Through the Throat
 Liang Cuts Deeper

-Nevada-Tan’s Happy Boxcutters and Other Postmodern Haiku, Yui Yamato


Liang Yi is a Nobilis character featured in the Black Hollyhock God Campaigns.

She is played by Jade Hammons.

This is a repository of character trivia, OOC observations, bits of IC splash fictions, and links to resources, from her complete Character Sheet, to upcoming Thought Records of sessions.


Liang is the Marchessa of Gender. More information will be forthcoming.


Links


I wasn't sure how long I had been unconscious this time. I didn't want to open my eyes. Every muscle ached, my throat burned. How long had it been since I'd had food? Water? Soon I would be a martyr like Him.

It was her footsteps that had woken me from my fitful sleep, the cold snapping steps of those cursed boots on her oh so perfectly shined marble floor. I could barely breath, my chest was tight against my lungs and it took all my strength to grasp my manacles and pull myself up so I wouldn't asphyxiate.

"Ohayo gozaimasu William-kun. My, you look more and more like your precious Jesus every day." She tittered at my scraggly beard and at the manner she had hung me from the manacles. I hated the sound of her voice, even as its beauty made me wish I had tears left to cry.

"I have come," She smiled, grasping my hair and slamming my head back into the wall, forcing my swollen eyes open, "to let you know that I finally hate you. I was afraid it would not be possible, I have hated so much greater things than you, I feared I could not hate anything so small." I felt tiny pieces of marble fall from my shoulders where my skull had cracked the wall.

I scowled, wishing I could spit into her perfect porcelain face, but found only dust between my lips.

"But your latest confession, it has stirred my china doll heart William-kun. I was almost out of torturers as well. The people of Aster, they do not like me very much, and I am afraid they were not doing their best by you. For that I apologize. If they loved me more, perhaps they would be have been more thorough months ago, and scoured this particular story from your wicked brain without so much scourging of your body."

A silvery straight razor fell open, shining in her small hand as she gazed up at my neck.

My eyes grew wide as I spat my words at her with bilious rage, "This? This is how it ends? You vile temptress. You drag me into your Hell, you torture me, for months.. unending. I am not going to give you the satisfaction! I will not feel remorse, they were WHORES, ALL of THEM, Women, Just like you. Go ahead and kill me, but I will never apologize" I felt such a flush of victory, whatever voodoo the harlot had played on my mind was gone, I no longer felt enslaved to her, I felt flush with my own burgeoning masculinity. She hadn't broken me. She had bewitched me, but I had not feared her, and by force of will and faith had I broken free!

"Oh William-kun... this isn't for you," she said, voice ever-sweet, as sweet as the devil's honey, as she drew the blade across her wrist, dark blood welling up from the deep gash, "And this isn't how it ends William. This is how is begins."

As she lifted her wrist to my lips, blood dripping, I heard screaming. It was with more than simple fear that I realized it was me.

-- from “I Don’t Like Mondays”, by Gervaise Goeth


Trivia

  • I wrote up the complete design before I found flowers that actually formed what I had described. I do have a pen&ink stylistic design in my head, but as far as a realistic depiction, it turned out perfect.
  • In case it's not blatantly obvious. "Nevada-Tan’s Happy Boxcutters and Other Postmodern Haiku" by Yui Yamato and “I Don’t Like Mondays” by Gervaise Goeth are complete fabrications, in spite of having correct bibliographical annotations on Liang's character sheer.
    • Both titles refer to schoolgirl murderers. Natsumi Tsuji, "Nevada-tan", and Brenda Ann Spencer, "I Don't like Mondays"
      • Both girls have gone on to become pop culture memes.
    • Further fictional works will undoubtedly follow this same pattern, make whatever assumptions you want from this.
    • The publication dates on "I Don't Like Mondays" are misleading. Many of the events in the book have not, and possibly will not occur. Technically the book will not be written for over two hundred years. It was written during the Lost Time and is composed of short stories about Liang's anchors, written by an Anchor that will not be born for two centuries.
  • 'Liang Yi' is another translation of Yin Yang, the ultimate symbol of gender.

Thought Processes

  • Gender as an Estate of Hell
    • From the write up, it should be pretty obvious that Liang still has a lot of Mika-chan in her, and that Mika-chan still cares very much about nurturing her Estate. This would seem at odds with the goals of Hell. Liang/Mika are the Yin Yang of Gender, but they are not separate people to the extent that it is disabling. Mika tells herself that Liang is a mask Mika wears for protection. And Liang tells herself that Mika is something in her heart she keeps around to keep from becoming the corruption she spreads. They are both correct. So as Mika nurtures her Estate and makes it more vital in Prosaic Earth, Liang knows full well that the more 'options' there are, the more it will make people suffer in the end. If there is only black and white, temptation has a hard job. Even if black and white are yin and yang and already have a seed of temptation within them.
    • But if there are a thousand choices, then temptation becomes easier, and suffering becomes richer. To fully understand, Hedwig and the Angry Inch would be a good primer.
      • Hedwig refers to Aristophanes' speech in Plato's Symposium. This myth, retold by Hedwig in the song "The Origin of Love", explains that human beings were once round, two-headed, four-armed, and four-legged beings. Angry gods split these early humans in two, leaving the separated people to forever long for their other half. Hedwig believes that Tommy is her soulmate and that she cannot be whole without him. She feels driven to either reunite with him or destroy him.
    • And Liang keeps splitting Mankind into smaller and smaller pieces, and thus serves Hell. Liang defines gender identities to separate mankind, not bring them closer together. So an individual might find solace in their gender identity, or they might find alienation, sooner or later though, someone will be alienated by their choice even if they themselves find solace in it. Another Power of Gender might seek to strengthen the 'likeness' of the choices, and bring mankind closer, even as it celebrates it's diversity and serve Heaven, another might make each the choices so broad and encompassing that like attracts like, and even though some lines are blurred all mankind benefits and serve the light. Liang strengthens the differences and engenders, pun intended, pride, envy, insular communities, and stereotypes, while giving strength, no matter how false, to the individual, while weakening the whole to temptation. Corruption and Suffering, Suffering and Power, Power and Corruption.

Unanswered Questions

  • I'm looking for a virtue for Liang, but so far all that I've thought of are really already covered by her domain anyway. Such as the strength and wisdom of the sacred androgyne which comes from her Estate. Here are some I'm looking at;
    • Dispassionate - As mentioned in her fiction, Liang had to work hard to hate a vile predator. She simply doesn't feel very much.
    • Cruel - As i've written her, she's been pretty nasty so far.
    • Vengeful - She doesn't seem the type to let things go, but that may have changed after her trial. I've avoided deciding how the Locust Court punished her, but if Entrpy did something like take away her heart or something, it would take away her ability to have this, and better explain dispassionate, it would also explain why she clings so tightly to Mika-chan, that last vital bit of humanity until her sentence is up.. if ever.
    • Asexual - Being a 'complete' being, Liang might simply see seduction and sex as another tool in her arsenal, and be immune to the very power her once angelic glory exudes.
    • Jaded - Been there done that, it's one thing for a human, utterly impressive for a Noble to be unimpressed by just about anything. But she came from a crap life, was Commenced in one of the most grotesque ways you can, became a complete monster, and was duly punished by the Locust Court already. It might not be unheard of.
  • Input is welcome.


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--Gothfae 09:11, 19 August 2007 (PDT)

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