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Hearts divided, hearts mended: Loyalty in Sha Po Lang

Back when writing this promo post for four different Priest novels, I said (kinda off-the-cuff) that the main themes of Sha Po Lang are loyalty, changing times, and legacy. In truth, it’s a story about many more things as well, but of all of them, I feel that loyalty looms the largest: it connects to each branch of the main plot, and it is essential to the main romance: Chang Geng and Gu Yun’s shared devotion to the people of Great Liang is the strongest force that amplifies and deepens their love.

What do I mean by loyalty? As a classical reference point, there are five primary relationships in Confucian philosophy: father-son, elder brother-younger brother, husband-wife, ruler-subject, and friend-friend (the last one is the only one without an implicit hierarchy).

Now, I don’t aim to perfectly align these relationships to the bonds of loyalty as they appear in Sha Po Lang–after all, the values and actions of the main characters often oppose traditional Confucian values: Chang Geng’s reforms tend to have a more Legalist (in his adherence to laws and systems, his determination to break up the power of the aristocracy, his explicit self-comparison with Lord Shang, and his instruction of the crown prince in the words of Han Feizi) and pro-merchant (traditionally, Confucians were loath to mix mercantile and government affairs–see, for instance, the Han dynasty Discourses on Salt and Iron) bent. Chang Geng’s relationship with Gu Yun, too, is flagrantly unfilial. Beyond that, there are plenty of non-Han people in Sha Po Lang, whose views on loyalty would naturally not fit into any sort of Confucian framework.

But (especially given that many people reading this meta likely come from a Western background), I think it’s important to bring these traditional relationships up, in particular to emphasize the significance of family bonds, as well as the ruler-subject hierarchy, both of which come to play heavily in Sha Po Lang. The main bonds I’ll actually be talking about are as follows:

Loyalty to country/the greater good,

Loyalty to the Emperor,

Loyalty to family/family reputation, and

Loyalty to friends and lovers.

I am purposefully distinguishing the first two types of loyalty, because it’s especially significant that Chang Geng and Gu Yun share the first type in abundance, but they do not share the second: while Gu Yun has “the ever righteous and noble bones that… would never be able to commit such acts of overthrowing the throne and stealing away the country” (Ch.53), Chang Geng is not so overflowing with loyalty to Li Feng, and eventually manipulates the events leading to the Fang family’s coup and Li Feng’s death. This discrepancy is the main point of tension in their romantic relationship.

I aim to examine this tension and how it plays out. First, however, I will underscore the importance of the first type of loyalty to the main plotlines. Principally, I will contrast changgu’s high-minded sense of loyalty toward the people of Great Liang with the types of loyalty (or lack thereof) held by their adversaries: the Westerners, Jia Lai Ying Huo, Fang Qin, and Li Feng.

Keep reading

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jeonghan: *stabs somebody* cheol: aww…isn’t he just the cutest…

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The Case of the Colorblind Painter

This may sound like fiction, but it’s a real case the neurologist Oliver Sacks wrote about.

On January 2nd 1986, a painter called Jonathan got into an accident. He suffered brain damaged which made him totally colorblind (called “aquired cerebral achromatopsia”). Now, he saw everything as shades of gray. The difference between Jonathan’s case and normal color blindness was that there was nothing wrong with his eyes. Due to the brain damage his brain simply could no longer translate wavelengths into color.

People appeared to him like animated gray statues. He had to close his eyes to eat cause he found the gray food disgusting, but even that didn’t help cause his mental images were gray as well now, so he started eating black and white foods like olives and rice.

It also affected his daily life. He could only distinguish the traffic lights by position, his wife had to pick his clothes. Before the accident, he used to have synesthesia and saw music as color. That was gone now. Even his dreams were gray. But that didn’t stop him. He continued painting, but only in black and white. He also started to sculpture, which he had never done before.

This is one of his paintings:

Two years later, Jonathan felt a lot better. While he did not regain his ability to see color, he was no longer sad about it. He started to love the nights and even developted pretty good night vision. Three years later, a specialist said that he could retrain Jonathan’s brain to see color again, but he refused.

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I have so much respect for this man

OLIVER SACKS 1933–2015

Neurologist, professor, author and storyteller. Sacks was born in London to a Jewish medical family—his mother was one of the first female surgeons in England. He earned his medical degree from Oxford in 1960, then moved to California for his residency. While there, Sacks struggled with the knowledge that he was gay, and one of his responses was living recklessly. He began experimenting with drugs, speeding through the mountains on a motorcycle, and competing as a bodybuilder. He moved to New York City in 1965, and it was there that he worked with the statue-like victims of encephalitis lethargica. He wrote of his experiences in the 1973 book Awakenings, which later inspired a play by Harold Pinter, and the 1990 film starring Robin Williams. Sacks continued to write heartfelt, anecdotal stories of neurological disorders in popular books such as The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. He also contributed regularly to The New Yorker, including an article exploring his own past drug use, and another about his struggles with face blindness. What he never discussed until the end of his life was his homosexuality. After a series of heartbreaks when he was young, compounded by a crippling shyness and the deep sense that his sexuality was a personal flaw, Sacks decided it was easiest to ignore sex entirely. He remained celibate for 35 years until he found himself falling in love at the age of 75, and began his first real relationship with fellow writer Bill Hayes. Sacks publicly acknowledged his sexuality and relationship in his autobiography On the Move: A Life, which was released shortly before his death, after a long battle with cancer.

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“When they came to me with this, I suddenly felt like: Ok, well, here’s this opportunity to introduce another strong, female character into this series. I mean, you have Michelle Rodriguez and these other wonderful actresses who’ve been a part of these films in the past. But this is a story where you have these two men, and a woman who’s an equal part of their team. She’s not being objectified. She’s not the weak link. She doesn’t need them to fight on her behalf. She doesn’t need to be saved. I knew it’d be hard, and I knew it’d be fun to do. But what drove me was the idea that somewhere out there, some 13-year-old girl would go to the movies, and while her brothers are freaking out over the Rock, she gets someone to relate to. That girl gets to see herself up there. She gets to have the same experience her brothers or her male friends have when they go to an action movie. It suddenly seemed like this was an important thing to do as well.” - Vanessa Kirby (on her character Hattie Shaw in Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw)

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I knew it wasnt just me

Reblog if you felt the sexual tension between Deckard and Hobbs the whole movie

That shit wasn’t straight yo

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Wonwoo : At least I’m going to die doing something I love

S. Coups : What do you love?

Wonwoo : Dying.

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Vernon: Are you taken?

Seungkwan: Yes, bitch, for granted.

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Please tell me anything that you know about "Zuso San". We're really in trouble. Please help us. #MysteriousForumAnd7Rumors

[iPhone ver.] https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1435682088

[Android ver.] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.entabridge.chatnovel3en

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These things fits me so well but somehow I'm still confused whether or not I'm aro.. Everyone keeps on telling me I haven't met the right one yet and yeah maybe I'm still young and had a long way to go still... But idk it's just frustrating to think about it when all the world talks about is romance.

how did you /know/?

now here’s a common question: how do you know you’re aro? 

Since aromanticism is a lack of attraction, a lot of people spend years just… assuming they’re allo, simply because they don’t know that they can be aro. I know I did. So, here’s a list of some things that helped me figure out that I was aro, and then some extra from various other sources I’ve read over the years, formatted in such a way that my ADHD ass can actually read the whole thing.

Imagine someone attractive. Literally anyone, by any measure. I used to take those quotev quizzes when I was younger, the ones that would tell you which Harry Potter boy would have a crush on you, if you remember those, so I did this one with I think Fred Weasly (there’s your Casey fun fact of the day). Make sure they’re someone you like. Now imagine kissing them. Do you want to? Is it enjoyable in any way? How? If not, pick someone else. What about them? Now imagine them confessing their UNDYING LOVE to you. How’s that feel? 

This one works best if you’re 1)romance repulsed, and 2)not ace (aka if you’re ace this might just tell you if you’re sex repulsed. Also good to know! but not what we’re looking for).

Do you ever get confused about people not just… dropping a crush? Do you “chose” who to have a crush on? For me this felt like “hmmm he’s [conventionally] hot, guess I’ve got a crush on him”, which. Is NOT how that’s supposed to work. Apparently.

This one’ll work if The Heteronormativity Was Strong when you grew up, but may work regardless. Also squishes are easy to confuse for crushes! 

Have you ever had a crush on someone? What did that feel like? Was it bad? Good? It’s supposed to be less like the anxiety of preforming onstage (if you hate public speaking), and more like the rush of a roller coaster drop. Something that could be described as “bad” or “anxiety”, but also something that a lot of people seek out. A crush is supposed to be a net good (for the record I don’t know this from personal experience, not really, but figuring this out helped me realize that I had not had a crush. ever.)

This one still works best if you’re romance repulsed, but should work regardless of your sexual orientation

Have you dated someone? How did it feel? Did you resist “completing” relationship milestones, such as first kiss? Did your partner ever get frustrated with, for lack of a better term, you not meeting their needs? Did you feel that they went to fast, even if you took months to build up to anything? I did! It sucked.

DO NOT DATE SOMEONE TO TEST THIS oh my god please don’t, it sucks so much, I nearly ruined a friendship because of this, if it hasn’t happened already do NOT date someone just to try. Unless you really think you can make it work! If you really want to because you think you’ll enjoy it or it’ll make you life better, go for it, but don’t go into a relationship you don’t want or aren’t ready for because you feel you have to. Anyway this one works best if you’re a socially anxious wreck like me who needs everyone around em to be happy, all the time.

Have you found yourself IDing as bi, or pan, and it just… not really fitting? Or maybe you’ve found yourself going in circles with other IDs, cycling through because none of them really work? For me, this was “hmm, don’t wanna date boys, so I guess I wanna date girls, but I feel exactly the same about boys AND girls, so I guess I bi, but-” just around and around and around. Very unproductive! which is why it took me what, five years to figure out I was aro whoops

this one should work for everyone! if you’ve experienced that. But let’s be real, if you’re here, you probably have. 

And those are the five things that helped me realize I was aro, placed into convinient bullet point format, with shiny colors and bold. I hope this is helpful!

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Humans aren’t designed to be happy

Researchers argue humans did not evolve to be consistently happy but primarily survive and reproduce. Evolution, they say, placed an advantage on depression, preventing humans from engaging in risky or hopeless situations.

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◤ like/reblog if u use/save ◥

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What You Think Is What You See

Perception and working memory are more deeply entangled than previously believed.

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The brain’s pathways to imagination may hold the key to altruistic behavior

Imagination helps us act altruistically, a new study reports. When we see others in trouble, we imagine how we can help before acting. Researchers implicate the medial temporal lobe subsystem in guiding our prosocial behaviors.

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Area of brain associated with spatial awareness and planning actions also plays crucial role in decision making

The posterior parietal cortex, an area of the brain implicated in spatial awareness, plays a critical role in visual decision making.

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Pandora Hearts Sentence Starters

“Now now, ______, it isn’t nice to tell the truth.”

“Of course. I loved it so much it made me want to spit on you!!”

“Spoiling stories… is an unforgivable sin in this world.”

“Don’t try to excuse yourself by saying you’re doing it for someone else’s sake.”

“Don’t concern yourself with what those tasteless idiots say.”

“It’s always better to enjoy the present rather than grieve over the past.”

“Weren’t you the one who told me I can just be myself? Why can’t you tell yourself that? …Be Proud of who you are!”

“I may be weak and full of flaws, but I will never stop moving forward.”

“You’ve already managed to take a step forward. It’s up to you what happens after.”

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damn i need this kind of lifehacks thanks!

Access to deleted fanfiction.

I recently saw a post here on Tumblr that said that when a fanfic gets deleted from Archiveofourown.com or Fanfiction.net (or any other website you can think of) you will never be able to find this again. But let me tell you… this isn’t true.

Nothing ever leaves the web!

I’m going to be using @jbsforever as example. Hope you don’t mind! And if you do just tell me and I’ll delete this post. 

Anyway, jbsforever recently deleted all of her fics on Ao3. This is how her page looks like right now:

As you can see there are only 3 fics available. She had a lot more than that. Luckily for us, she’s putting them on again! (THANK YOU SO MUCH 😘). But there were still 16 fanfictions available that we can’t access through her page anymore.

All you will want to do is open google.com, type in the name of the writer (or the name of the fanfiction if you remember) + the website that their fanfiction was published on.

So for example: jbsforever archive of our own

Now you would have the normal search results appear, like here above ^^.

Normally you would click on the words that are in blue to go to their page. But this will bring you to how the page is currently installed. So we will be working with the words under there, the ones that appear in green. You can see a little arrow pointing downwards at the end of it.

Click on this arrow and a little box with the word “cached” will appear. You will want to click on this. Guess what her page looks like now? 

TADA!!!!! 16 fanfictions and their names for you to enjoy. Unfortunately if you click on one of the stories while on this (rediscovered?) page, you will get an error:

But don’t worry! All you have to do, is take the title of the story you want to read. Go through the exact same process you just did with the author’s name, but just type their name and the title into google now (author + title). And you will have access to their deleted stories!

You will have to google each chapter individually (so type in google: author + title + chapter of choice), but honestly that’s a small price to pay for having access to a goldmine of fanfiction! 

Hope this will come in handy for you! And thank you @jbsforever (ily ♥♥♥).

Have fun reading, everybody!