#and more importantly IT’S DONE NOW

[hella1975]

hello!! I am so deeply obsessed with taob it’s actually taking over my entire life and i spent 9 hours of my day reading it. i genuinely couldn’t put it down once i picked it up. you are an amazing author and i’m lowkey obsessed with you. could you pls link the spotify playlists you’ve made for it? I don’t know which chapters you mentioned them in 😞. Anyways i hope your presentation goes well i know you’ll do great!!!!!

i am giggling a little kicking my feet even 🤭 tysm for reading my love im glad you’re liking it so far. ofc I’ll link the playlists i have MANY so bear with:

so we have the main playlists (ignore the titles they’re too much of a Thing now for me to change them):

taob book 1 playlist

taob book 2 playlist

then we have the oc playlists:

tomkin

nanook

kanut

chena

tulok

aput

tovah

and then i have some general atla playlists that aren’t necessarily taob related but still fun:

zuko playlist

azula playlist

zuko and azula sibling study playlist

i think that’s everything? one thing about me i will make a playlist

[chickenoptyrx]

Its 1am, so I am once again posting a wip/preview thing of a comic im physically fighting myself to just finish up

[ssaalexblake]

honestly, the absurdity is that Chibnall (and co) shouldn't get any props for just sticking Dhawan in 13's costume in tpotd (I sincerely doubt it's something that even went to the showrunner as an active question?? The scene was him regenerating into her body that was at the time wearing that outfit. You literally wouldn't assume he'd be wearing anything Else other than what was on the body in question to start with because of 60 years of precedent. I imagine that the costume department's only decision was to make 13's costume in a bigger size so he wouldn't hulk out of it).

There was no boundary pushing or much of Anything going on there at all, it was just plain logic. And even aside from the fact that it was just a consequence to an effect, They just had a man wear a slightly silly looking costume made of pants, boots, a t-shirt and a coat. which is not notable. Men wear those all the time.

It's absurd that i'm sitting here irritated that the above is getting a pat on the back when it is an entirely neutral thing that means exactly nothing. And while I am more than aware why the above thing is getting such treatment, it's still not notable as an action at all, up to the point that i I strongly doubt it was even a conscious decision by the production. A conscious decision and an active sequence of choices here would have been Not doing it. Which is what people are really talking about here anyway.

[pastelcheckereddreams]

Four Seasons Manor (四季山庄): Set Layout!

If you’ve been following my descent into madness my research progress for my next set design project, you’ll know that it immediately became impossible for me to work out the layout of Siji Manor from screenshot studies of the show alone. To backtrack to about a year ago: it quickly became clear that the exterior shots of the manor’s first courtyard and the birdseye view we see in episode 24 is not located in the same set, or possibly even film base, as the “interior set”. Unfortunately, that secondary set is where many of the indoor scenes take place (with significant rooms, such as Wen Kexing’s bedroom being redressed to be used for other scenes in the show), and is where the secondary courtyard is located.  I soon realised that I had to do three things in order to create a Four Seasons Manor for my project that feels as authentic as possible to the one we are presented with in the show. First, find the full film base on Google Earth (which has the most up-to-date satalite imagery I can find); second, identify all the buildings to create a “complete” Manor and confirm the secondary set isn’t just another part of the first; and third, find the secondary set in order to correctly map its layout and marry it with the birdseye view. Friends, I have achieved two of those three things. The second set still evades me. But so far, I have finally managed to correctly and completely identify the film base that is presented to us as Four Seasons Manor:

(Full research breakdown under the cut.)

This is one of two full manor sets on Hengdian World Studio’s No.1 Mountain in the ‘Spring and Autumn Tang Park’ filmbase. In anticipation for the birdseye plan in my set design project, I’ve gone ahead and mapped it out faithfully to the satalite image:

As you can see, there's five distinct areas that make up this manor: three courtyards (labelled 1,2,4) and two gardens (3,5). The first courtyard will be familiar to everyone who has watched Word of Honor:

It is the main courtyard of Four Seasons Manor. Likewise, the fifth area will also be familiar to you all, although you may not realise it yet. It's Sanbai Manor:*

*With the exception of the main gate. The main gate of Sanbai Manor is actually from another set in the Spring and Autumn Park filmbase - the Tang Palace. There is fantastic drone footage of that set here. The Sanbai Manor gate is at the rear of the set, but you may recognise the opening shot of this clip as another place we see in the very first episode of WOH 🤫 Edit: I forgot I had a second douyin clip for the Tang Palace set.

These are the main two areas used in WOH of this set. Confirmation of the rest of the set comes from drama New Life Begins and various douyin videos and tourist photos on the internet. I won't bore you with a breakdown because Tumblr has eaten too many drafts of this post and I am Tired, but here is a snapshot of my confirmation process:

Find the difference between these two pictures

Edit: On rewatch, I can confirm that are 4 is also used in WOH. We see it in the very first scene of episode 1, dressed as the Military Governer Li’s Manor:

Here is a daylight photograph (source here) of that same building:

You may be wondering though, about the alternate layout I have detailed in my map:

Friends, this is where I would like to hear your ideas.

After scouring many clips and photographs trying to confirm whether these photos are part of this same set or a later development, I've found that since the satalite picture of this site was taken by Google Earth in 2020, corresponding to what we see in WOH, Hengdian has remodeled this part of the set. You can see a wonderful walkthrough of areas 4 and 5 here, in which you can see the remodelled layout:

This douyin video was the last confirmation I needed to place the photographs from the article. This photograph in particular feels very much like Siji Manor to me, and so I will be trying to include this remodelled layout in my project design:

But.

Despite not having located the secondary set yet, I have been thinking over which area would be best to remodel myself, to try and incoporate the kitchen space and the two rooms it sits between, which I have confirmed to be WKX and ZZS's rooms:

Reminder of that early process here.

There are two options that I see right now:

1) I use area 4 as this second courtyard. I remove the gate, make the main room ZZS's room, remove the side halls, drop in a kitchen, put WKX's room where the gate was. Chengling's training dummies then get dropped whereabouts the hexagonal pavillion is in the alternate layout, and I tweak a random building here or there:

However, somewhat crucially - the view from WKX's moon widow would be blocked by the big building that is the centerpiece of area 5. I don't like that. Past the first courtyard, there's a certain sprawl and lack of uniformity to Siji Manor created in part by this CGI shot. I think that's why the above photo appealed so much to me.

So, 2) I remodel area 3. It's pretty sparse. I was thinking of making courtyard #2's main hall into a private study or meeting room, with the sidehalls being ZZS's "medicine room" and the "first night room" - the Cold River Room, as @minnarr​ called it in their stellar sleuthing post (I hope you don't mind that I'm using the name? And may continue to use it? Also, I'm still searching for this set and your sleuthing is going to be so much help.) - they could later become Chengling's room (and Han Ying's. For hanwenzhou headcanon rights).

Area 4 could then be used as a training courtyard and lecture hall perhaps? Meanwhile area 3 can be completely redone, to have ZZS's room at the bottom facing north, WKX's facing south:

The "training area" is then still technically past a covered walkway to the left of their courtyard. The spirit remains. However, crucially: The dotted line between areas 3 and 4 is indicative of a drop in elevation. The whole set is on a slope, with areas 1,2 and 3 at a higher elevation to 4 and 5. So. If the moon window in WKX's room did face west across the garden and down the mountain, it would actually be true to the CGI we see out of his window in the show: Especially because you see part of a roof. That could totally be the roof of the building that sits against the dotted line.

But additionally, there's also this alternate orientation:

It makes the kitchen feel more tucked away, and the additional screened walkway would give ZZS and WKX their privacy. But the view from the moon window would be blocked, and there's no reason to not have the rooms central to the courtyard the way they are here.

...Does any of that make sense? I bypassed Normal about this show a solid year ago. I'm leaning towards option 2 right now, but I will continue my hunt through cdrama for this other set. What's irritating is that I can see its style in lots of other places, including Lotus Pier, and I just can't find the real world setting for it...

ANYWAY, as always, thank you for joining me on my research adventures. Supporting me through ko-fi, and checking out my previous CQL projects here and on inprnt, would be greatly appreciated. 

Part One | Part Two | Part Three

[dylanconrique]

thinking about "i-i pushed her right at him" and how guilty tim felt about giving lucy the advice to go out with caleb, and how he is going to feel like he's responsible for putting her in the hospital again if it really is this person from his past who targets her.

[xcziel]

if i could have your attention please

jawdropping portrait of Liu Chang via 水与雨 on weibo

for those discerning interested parties who may find it relevant, i present: Haaaaaannnds

a photo post from a fan who clearly has their priorities straight

a beautiful collection from 氧气缺氧了 on weibo

[lesbiangiratina]

Not very fond of people like waving off testament’s gender as just a Gear Thing but well at least it becomes funny when people apply it to gears as a whole. Like yeah i can agree with that. It has nothing to do with being a gear tho theyre all just transgender

[wickedhawtwexler]

one good thing that's going to come out of me being unemployed for a bit is that i'm going to finally finish all my current quilting projects

[xoxoemynn]

So we know when Ed and Stede first meet Ed’s hair is down:

But then by the time we see him again he’s already starting to do his cute half up, half down look:

And we don’t know much about what Ed’s gotten up to during this time except hanging out in the captain’s cabin watching Stede sleep so...

What if he used some of this downtime to continue to poke around Stede’s belongings and found a cute little hair tie so he could get his hair out of his face and have a better view of this handsome Gentleman Pirate? And then he just keeps it because let’s face it, he looks good, and it’s just nice to have a little thing of Stede’s on him at all times. It’s basically the 1717 version of stealing your girlfriend’s scrunchie and wearing it at all times.

Plus, we know Ed snagged Stede’s cravat, and does have a penchant for borrowing some of his other clothes, so I find this entirely plausible and, more importantly, it makes my heart happy so I’m declaring it canon. Thank you for understanding.

[death-rebirth-senshi]

My original unfiltered opinion of the chantry boom was "Anders that's so terrible! Well at least something interesting is finally happening in this boring ass game" and while I don't 100% agree with that it's like. 90% agree.

[shaykai]

Not me crying over Baldur’s Gate 3, my Tav is slowly getting more and more morally dubious and it’s only a little bit their fault

[dallonwrites]

i love not counting word count literally only just found out that lover boy is past 10k. just a fun thursday night revelation

[cosmicdreamgrl]

.

[wedding-shemp]

I sort of don't think "those babies were MERELY murdered and not decapitated so what are you whining about" is the winning argument some of you think it is

[xviruserrorx]

Currently in distress because I thought "Oh hey Gotham I haven't seen that in years!" Then it only took me till the end of episode one to remember the heartbreak that was nygmobblepot...

[finexbright]

hshq should change their url to uselesshq or stunthq at this point because like instead of posting about actual monumental things in his career they literally post things that are equal to skippable ad breaks