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DANDELION | overcoming hardship, healing, resilience, hope

I had the pleasure of painting the illustrious Dorian for @daflowerzine 🌼 leftover sales are now closed but you can still get a print of Dorian here!

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the scream I screamt

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sebastian in the last straw my BELOVED this is really his moment to shine he spends the whole game being boring and then suddenly this climactic moment comes. he’s on the floor screaming about that old lady because his whole family died and now his mother figure has also been murdered and everyone just IGNORES HIM. he’s the only one making any kind of sense at all (”why are we talking about annulling the circle in punishment for the terrorism when the terrorist in question is literally right there”). again, everyone IGNORES him. then I say that i’m going to let the terrorist who did all this go because i like him and he’s my friend. sebastian is like. “hey. remember how my whole storyline was about me getting bloody revenge for my family’s unavenged murders but i had a character arc and i’m past that now? if you do this shit i will literally get rid of everything i learned and fucking kill you. i’m going to come burn down this city. because anders burned down part of this city so i’ll burn the rest of it literally just to be a bitch” and then in the next game he does! completely offscreen! best character of all time 

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Golden, glittering, everything gleamed;                 no one will ever control me again.

Cole’s dialogue made me want to paint a young Viv enjoying life at court 

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Absolutely insane lines to just drop in the middle of an academic text btw. Feeling so normal about this.

[ A Critical History of English Literature, Vol. 1, Prof. David Daiches, first published in 1960 ]

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ASTOUNDING

THE TERROR x SUCCESSION Main Title Theme by Nicholas Britell

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Yaedi Ignatow, I Feel A Little Jumpy Around You: Paired Poems by Men & Women; from 'We Were Love', ed. Naomi Shihab Nye & Paul B. Janeczko

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the thing about li lianhua, though, is this:

he would vastly prefer to be ephemeral and unattached to others, but he is also full of desires he's stuffed away for ten years and then when they come roaring back to plague him, he's actually unprepared to face them

the entire text of the show is him being levered out of his decade-long rut of not doing anything much, because first fang duobing and then di feisheng crash-land (back) into his life and wreck his plans of a quiet exit. in this they're duly assisted by qiao wanmian, the rest of the sigu sect, and the whole bevy of charming npcs they meet along the show

but as much as li lianhua complaints, the doctor doth protest too much. because ultimately he lets them in, he allows himself to be roped into friendship and trust and intimacy, and every little gossamer thread of connection is another that he will eventually need to sever again

and still. he can't help it. stop the presses, local man fails spectacularly at non-attachment! under all the lies and schemes and evasions, he wants things and he enjoys people and cannot resist a proper meddle even when he's sagely telling you he's just passing through. under the layers his heart still burns, and that is the tragedy and the wonder of him

even when he has neither world nor time enough, he still entangles himself. it is that constant push and pull within himself that really makes him the Most Character

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okay strap in friends, i'm going to try my hand at unpacking ~everything~ in the scene between li lianhua and fang duobing after fang duobing chases di feisheng off like a livestock guardian dog/cane corso mix in episode 10. i love this conversation because i think it neatly illustrates the evolving way fanghua (however you wish to interpret their relationship, whether romantic or platonic) are learning to navigate truth and deception in their relationship.

like full disclosure, i haven't actually been active in this fandom for much longer than a month, but one thing i've noticed while reading fic and some meta is this characterization of fang duobing as someone who is always gullible and easily led, and that stopped being the case like four episodes ago tbh. because look:

fang duobing knows. he knows that li lianhua is full of shit in this moment, that there is far more to this story than he's letting on. and he's clearly annoyed and frustrated, but he isn't distracted from his point, either, which is that in his opinion, di feisheng is a clear and present danger to li lianhua's life. and he's got some opinions about that, obviously! because, as we established in yipin tomb, he cares about li lianhua!

even when li lianhua is /gestures below, like this:

(deflection, deflection, misdirection, "ohh, my head, young master fang don't scold me, i'll faint" never before has a cdrama protagonist been in more desperate need of a spanking, but i digress)

this 👆is fang duobing deliberately picking and choosing his battles in their relationship. and he is choosing not to push the issue of li lianhua's transparent deception because that would be such a waste of his time when he knows what is more important: li lianhua's safety. that's what he's got his little cane corso vinegar puppy teeth dug into right now, and he's not going to let go. but! he has figured out that sometimes the best way to needle information out of li lianhua is to give him what he wants.

so he does.

it's an effective strategy, too, because look what happens! li lianhua does start to talk. but, uh, before we can get into the meat of what he ends up saying, we have to take a minute to acknowledge the subtitle elephant in the room:

"""weired."""

anyway, li lianhua is couching all of his replies in his usual brand of irreverent malarkey, but not everything he says is pointless bullshit, and fang duobing knows it. he's going to take this comment to heart, that "a-fei" doesn't want li lianhua to die, because that is the partial truth he knows is hidden in and amongst the rest of the nonsense. that's the information that matters most to him, and even if he doesn't like the deception when it comes to li lianhua's safety, he doesn't push for more details.

and then, of course:

"besides, i have you. 😏"

yes, you do have fang duobing! cherish him, li lianhua! don't underestimate him!

but in all seriousness, i love that this is how he chooses to end the subject, and i love that fang duobing's reaction is an easy confirmation of what li lianhua says. because yeah, that's kind of his point, li lianhua! fang duobing is here for you, to protect you and to endure your aggravating circumspection in all things, because he enjoys this on some level lol. they both do.

not freak4freak, not clown4clown, but some other third thing. waves my hands vaguely, it'll come to me at some point.

okay that's it i'm done i swear!!!

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oh. oh the foreshadowing of it all.

ok li lianhua we see how unconvinced you are, no one is fooled. however.

consider: fang duobing, pale-faced and unhinged due to active bloodloss from a serious injury, off his head with protective fury

idk i just think it's a good look for him! minus the blood loss obviously.

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[ID: gifs from the series "Mysterious Lotus Casebook" showing the characters Fang Duobing and Li Lianhua interacting in chronological order. They show Fang Duobing forcibly taking his pulse, Li Lianhua catching a drunk Fang Duobing before he falls over, Fang Duobing threatening Li Lianhua with Erya when he attempts to stand up, both of them pretending to drink poisoned wine, Li Lianhua grabbing Fang Duobing to force him to eat his soup, Fang Duobing putting a protective arm in front of Li Lianhua, crouched over Li Lianhua after he collapses, pushing Li Lianhua, helping him sit up, and Fang Duobing handing Li Lianhua water in Lotus Tower. /end ID]

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Li Lianhua's quiet, fond smile for Di Feisheng EP7 // EP24 // EP38

for @cheetahing

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#the way DFS clearly feels betrayed #but also the way he immediately tries to convince LLH to want to live and insists he will find a cure #and it's after that fails that he decides to lean into the villain role LLH had cast him in #by saying he'd kill qwm and baichuan if llh doesn't agree #and it's partly that he's trying to get LLH to fight him with words and to fight for the will to live even if it's bc of blackmail #but I think it's also bc he wants to know if LLH will think he'd kill them the way he thinks he killed sgd & thought he'd tried to kill LLH #he's forcing a confrontation to try to see Lxy in LLH #but also to see if LLH can still see him in Di mengzhu: scourge of the jianghu (via bbcphile)

Okay already pausing partway through the Donghai battle to scream a little. We talk a lot about how Li Xiangyi felt betrayed by Di Feisheng, and how this battle was Di Feisheng's priority despite being in he middle of a war. But Di Feisheng during the donghai battle doesn't look even remotely smug or satisfied or any of the things that a man who's been looking forward to this fight at any cost should look like? Li Xiangyi's grief and betrayal are louder, more obvious all along, but the more I watch the more I wonder if Di Feisheng also felt horribly betrayed by Li Xiangyi's actions.

Li Xiangyi defied every expectation people must have had of the 'Hero' by signing that treaty with Di Feisheng. What did they mean to each other before it all went to shit? Did they see someone who would look past the myths they were made into? Someone who wouldn't fall for the stories people liked to make about them, who could be trusted to see the truth, keep track of what really mattered. Equals in more than their skills. And in the light of that... did Di Feisheng's faith in Li Xiangyi waver, did he felt let down when Li Xiangyi accepted without question that Di Feisheng had killed his shixiong and broken their treaty? Did he take Shan Gudao's body only to find the true culprit and throw them at Li Xiangyi, disappointed and furious that he would assume Di Feisheng would break his word like that?

Li Xiangyi leading his sect into war against Jinyuan Alliance and Di Feisheng- that's not the battle Di Feisheng wanted. It's not a battle of swordsmen as equals, it's a Hero who's come to defeat the Villain. Maybe Di Feisheng wondered if he was wrong after all. If Li Xiangyi never was his equal in spirit, if he was just another Righteous Hero who ultimately went along with what the world demanded of him. "Your biggest weakness is that you like being a Hero. And a swordsman should not have weaknesses." Di Feisheng says that. There's not a hint of gloating when the sounds of the battle on the shore reach them, and he asks Li Xiangyi "How does it feel to bring them here to die?" It sounds confrontational. Di Feisheng looks furious. How does it feel to play the part the world had assigned you and lead them to death?

Just. The donghai battle as the result of two people who thought they understood each other, who were deceived and felt so betrayed by each other that instead of mending anything they just made it worse. Never has a divorce been this messy

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I'm a pro a denying canon tragic ends, but every few days I'm forced to reckon with how Mysterious Lotus Casebook is a heartbreakingly perfect tragedy. It's a man making peace with his inevitable end. It's him determined to write his own ending no matter what his past has been like. It's the inevitability of him leaving everyone at the end, because the people he loves will never let him go otherwise. Only, it isn't inevitable. He has simply told that to himself a million times, so often that he has forgotten how to consider that maybe he gets to not just die, but live on on his own terms.

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was reminded of this one too tbh

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un espejismo, una rebelión

by matialonsor

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listen here guys, I’m really trying to develop more headcanons for Theta and Koschei’s background, nothing too specific but mostly their families…. Especially for Koschei’s though. All my favourite head canons are based on what the Doctor and the Master were saying in the 3rd era, I don’t know much about Gallifreyan society as it appeared in books/audios/other eras…

So, does anyone have headcanons about the Oakdown and Lungbarrow families?