#answering asks in the palace

[personinthepalace]

Hi I heard you have the Sxf musical, could you share it?? :DD

Sure! Please message me privately on here or email me (personinthepalace@gmail.com), and I’ll be more than happy to share it with you :)

[bklily]

Does Luka ever accidentally stumble into Adrien's Mind Palace when Marinette accidentally calls him the wrong name?

(Not trying to salt here, I think it would be hilarious)

He doesn't so much as stumble in- Luka has free access to anyone's mind whenever he wishes really.

He does use those powers for good though

[bokettochild]

hello! I have an ask for you! I’ve seen a post or two of yours mention that four ends up corrupted and was curious if this is a head cannon and what it’s based on! I don’t know much about four at all, so I’d love more background on his cannon and what your head cannons for him are!

Alright, so this is somewhat founded in canon, but the long of the short is this.

Nintendo released a GameBoy copy of A Link To The Past that was packaged with LoZ: Four Swords. In this special edition of the game there was a bonus addition to ALTTP. In the dark world, at Ganon's Pyramid, there was a small hole in the wall of the pyramid that hadn't been there in the initial release. If you'd already completed Four Swords, you could enter this hole in the wall which would take you to a bonus dungeon: The Palace of the Four Sword

In this dungeon, Link (Legend) must face off against four hero look-a-likes as the bosses in different rooms, before reaching the main chamber where he faces off against all four together.

Because it's called the Palace of The Four Sword, some fans believe that the four beings within are, in fact, the Four Sword heroes. How would that happen though? Why would the hero still be alive almost a thousand years after his time? Why would he attack the new baby hero who stumbled across him?

A couple of theories include:

The Hero of the Four Sword (from here on he will be called "Four") died some time after his adventures and was buried in a crypt beneath Hyrule Castle as an honor for his service to the kingdom. Ganon's power animated Four's corpse, and when a young hero stumbled into the crypt through the Dark World, the demon used Four as his puppet to try and get rid of the hero.

After his adventures, Four decided to try and find a way to revive Shadow. This led to meddling with dark magics and becoming corrupted, forcing princess Zelda to seal him away. Because he's her dear friend (or lover, depends on the writer) she can't make herself kill him, but rather locks him away until she can find out how to rescue him. Corruption of his soul prevents him aging, so that when, a thousand years later, Legend stumbles across him, he's the same as he was the day his experiment failed and he became corrupted.

The beings within the Palace of the Four Sword are not Four, but rather the spirit of the damaged sword lashing out to protect their blade. Because he forged it, and was their only user, they maintained a similar form to his own.

Hope this helps!

[guzhuangheaven]

I'm rewatching Ruyi, and all I'm thinking is, "Why is Yanwan such a stupid person?"

She is surviving and thriving because of luck most of the time. How is it that her mother murders his child and Hongli thinks that maybe she is not evil because her mother didn't confess Yanwan's part but he spend over a decade hating on Yuyan because of an accessory and her ambitious son.

I feel the writer faltered and could have made her a more subtle and clever villain. Her only becoming a Consort because Hongli wanted to piss of Zhen Huan, I think sucked the most.

See, here’s where I think the writing is genius in terms of human psychology, because it shows just how utterly narcissistic both Qianlong and Yanwan and how much they see themselves in each other. Yanwan panders to Qianlong’s narcissism, so he literally willfully tells himself that a woman he favours can’t be that bad, to the point that he actually believes it. He wants to always forgive Yanwan whenever she pisses him off, because he can’t admit that he likes or gets turned on or whatever by someone so despicable, because what does that say about himself?

In the situation with Yongjing, he would rather believe astrology nonsense that Ruyi’s vibes killed Yongjing than consider there was foul play. He gets so hyped up with the idea of Yongjing being a good omen that when Yongjing dies he feels like he's losing face to ever have hoped so much. Face is a huge deal to a person like Qianlong, he can't deal with losing face like that so he turns it on Ruyi instead. Later he would rather deceive himself that yes somehow Yanwan’s mother can miraculously pull all off this huge feat of paying off midwives and people both inside and outside the palace to endanger Yongjing and frame Hailan in the process, than admit the obvious that she couldn’t possibly have done all of this without Yanwan’s will or involvement. And some people really are just so narcissistic that they would believe these excuses they tell themselves rather than think that they might be wrong.

Yanwan says it very succinctly in the end, he chose her, he raised her up, if she’s horrible, then what is he? That’s why he can’t ever admit to Yanwan’s worst actions until he can’t be in denial anymore, when it’s all shoved into his face in the end.

Yanwan basically spends her entire time as consort failing up because her benefactor (Qianlong) is too narcissistic to admit he was ever wrong and has the ultimate privilege to get away with that mindset. This happens in real life…

Anyway, I think while Qianlong is aware of Yanwan’s ambition from the beginning from the way she approaches him, and he nurtures that ambition to use her as a weapon against the empress dowager and Ruyi at times, he doesn’t see Yuyan (or do you actually mean Luyun and her hairpin?) in the same way. We see the Yuyan’s scheming private moments but I think for Qianlong, she’s just this plaything gift from a tributary state with a sharp tongue, and she is the equivalent of a sexy lamp to him. So he is blindsided when that toy dares have her own goals and uses her son to push her own gains.

If you mean Luyun, I always thought it was a perfect concoction of coincidences that sets up Qianlong’s suspicion of Luyun, from Langhua suddenly recommending Luyun as the next empress on her death bed even though she hasn’t shown any preference for Luyun before, after Qianlong just learnt that Langhua had supposedly done all these evil things, and then Luyun’s hairpin being found at the wrong place, then suddenly Luyun showing desire to compete to be empress that she didn’t have before and both Yongzhang and Yonghuang who were raised by Luyun acting up at Langhua’s funeral. With his tendency for paranoia of course he would be suspicious of her and he can continue to hold a grudge because Luyun isn’t a mirror to him the way Yanwan is.  

[marubien]

How would you rewrite Mulan 2?

I'd just begin from scratch really. I tried to come up what would I keep from the existing sequel and I think that's maybe just the yin-yang necklaces. Which were a deleted idea from the first movie anyway.

Easy and lazy answer would be to go with whatever idea they had in Mulan 2's deleted scene, battle sequence, (check it out, it's super cool). It's like spy-ninja-duo of Mulan and Shang working like a badass couple. Mulan 2 concept arts (part 1, part 2) are not too bad either, and although they definitely have some usual Disney sequel cliches(eg. having the girl Mushu dragon), I'd still think I could enjoy it a bit more than what they ended up with.

Then there's Barry Cook's draft, aka the co-director of the original movie wrote synopsis for the potential sequel when he heard that Disney was considering of doing sequel to Mulan. In fact there was going to be Mulan 3 as well, apparently Mulan 2 ruined it as it was too badly received. There's hardly anything known of Barry Cook's draft details, just that soon-to-be-married Mulan and Shang are sent to north since things are happening there, and at the end there would have been an epic battle between Mulan's ancestors and Shan Yu's deceased army.

Actually I lied earlier what would be easiest and laziest. That would be just doing the visual novel The Palace of Secrets. Seriously I wouldn't change a thing.

There's many directions where one could go with the sequel really, some fanfics have done pretty amazing job exploring different options. I have made a post where I put up some fanfic recommendations, but some are like one-shots so they could hardly be sequels.

Personally, rather than a sequel movie I really really would like to see Mulan tv-series. Something like Tangled: the Series. It could have the sillier filler episodes but the main plot could be epic. Series could also make possible to explore side characters' character arc in more detail. I have played with this idea before too, with my friend @mulanxiaojie.

I'm quite satisfield how the first movie ended, but I'll list some pointers that I and I think most would like to see in a continuation story:

Mulan getting a career

Mulan and Shang getting together

Chi Fu x Matchmaker :P

And then some that are not really necessary but would be really interesting to see, just to list some of the potential sequel tv series could have:

Fa Zhou's past

Mulan's and Granma Fa's relationship

seeing the other guardians besides Mushu (and the Great Stone Dragon)

developing Gang of Three as invidual characters

exploring historical China

an actual villain (should be basic but the sequel didn't have that)

[otmaaromanovas]

Are there any photos of Anastasia while she was sick with the Measles? I know there are some of Maria and Anastasia, and one of TMA recovering, but are there any of just Nastya? Thanks!

Hello!

If you mean one of her in bed recovering, I am not aware of any :( Just in case, I checked their albums. Only Anastasia kept an album (that has survived, at least) during 1917. From all three versions(!) of Anastasia's 1916-1917 albums, only these photos of Maria and Olga recovering in bed/wheelchair are included:

There are also these two photographs of Maria recuperating in the big pair's room, which Anastasia didn't include in her album:

None of Anastasia by herself I'm afraid. However, the first photo of Anastasia, Maria, and Tatiana is yet to be in high quality from their albums. However, Ilya (LastRomanovs on Flickr) recently found this photo of Maria in high quality in the archives, so there might be more out there!

As for Anastasia after recovering, there are these photos. There are just two photos that we know of showing Anastasia alone whilst in captivity at the Alexander Palace.

I'm assuming you're looking for solo photos, but there are also these ones of her with soldiers/Nicholas, without her siblings.

Bonus photo of her foot!

I'm sorry if this wasn't what you're looking for!

In case you want to take a look at her 1917 albums, here are the links.

Album 1

Album 2

Album 3

[telemna-hyelle]

7 and 8 for palace au!

7. What inspired the idea for the plot?

Well, I believe i was reading a very good but angsty fic about Legend realizing he had killed a version of Four in the Palace of Four Swords, and I was like, this is good, but now i am very very sad. And then I had the thought: wait, there's two other timelines. Surely in at least ONE timeline Four could be saved, right? I'LL MAKE A HAPPY PALACE OF THE FOUR SWORDS FIC AND

and then some things got... kind of out of hand... but the goal IS still a happy ending for Four. Ehe~

8.What inspired the title for this fic? Is that usually how you choose titles?

What You Look At, You Change is a quote from a book i'm very fond of, The Carpet People by Sir Terry Pratchett. There's a character who has the ability to see all possible futures, and in nearly every single one, the good guys loose. But there's one single future that has a glimmer of hope, and the character turns her back on all the bad-ending futures and goes to look at the hopeful one, 'and what you look at, you change'.

The reason I picked that quote was because it suits what Legend and the Palace Gang are doing--they could have just avoided the palace and left, but they decided there was hope that they could save Four and went to go look, and therefore they changed Four's fate. It also fits my intention with the fic, as I was turning my back on all the said endings and looking for the happy ending. So, yeah!

And yeah, that is pretty exemplary of how i choose titles--i put WAY too much thought into them XD

[skyloftian-nutcase]

A prompt: Four and a ghost

Four sighed in contentment as he leaned back against one of the logs they'd arranged around the fire. Almost everyone had settled to sleep, and he was getting ready to head that way too, when he glanced at Legend.

The veteran was going to take first watch and was gazing solemnly into the fire, a strange contemplative look crossing his features when he noticed Four watching him.

"You okay?" Four asked hesitantly. "You seem a little out of it."

Legend stared at him for an almost uncomfortable interval before he waved a dismissive hand and returned to his vigil. "It's just late. I'm fine. Good night."

The smithy watched him uncertainly, not really knowing how to push or if that was even needed. So he gave up on the venture, sighing and heading to his bedroll, already prepared and awaiting his arrival. As he slid under the cover, he gave one last look at the veteran hero, and his blood ran cold.

What was--that was--

Was that himself hovering over the veteran?! What the hell was happening?!

Four stared at his strange reflection, who watched Legend just as solemnly as Legend watched the fire. Then the image flicked its eyes at the smithy himself, making him forget to breathe.

Before Four could leap out of his bedroll, the ghostly image of himself disappeared into the night mist.

[personinthepalace]

hi, i hope you are having a good day! I hear you might be able to help out with watching the mysterious benedict society?

I hope you’re having a good day as well!

And yes, I can help. I’ll message it to you shortly :)

[jiubilant]

do you think wizard duels are a tradition 🤔

short answer: YES. HA HA HA

long answer: among wizards dueling mano-a-mano is a time-honored mode of resolving grievances, winning new flash, or just showing off. since the fall of the mages' guild, which officiated such duels among guild members and often profited on them by inviting the public to spectate, the practice (some call it a sport) has become less common and more dangerous. the duelists themselves now negotiate the terms and conditions of combat, and no-holds-barred duels to the death are—despite being illegal in the empire—not unheard of in provinces where wizardry has been increasingly stigmatized and forced under the table

heading a little farther north, circa 4E 202, dueling's permitted at the college of winterhold as long as

it's either for educational purposes or, quoth the current archmage, "all in good fun"

two masters (usually the master of destruction and the master of the major school of magic with which the duelists intend to face off) supervise the duel in order to ensure its fairness and safety throughout

the duel adheres to a basic set of rules laid down by the supervising masters, in addition to any rules that the duelists themselves—usually prentices, but some of the masters will play along on particularly long and boring winter nights—specify

duels are hugely exciting for the students. you won't meet a first-year who doesn't have some hastily-scribbled tourney bracket stuck in the pages of their notes

[tavina-writes]

When will we ever get something like yanxi palace and story of ming lan, the fact that they were allowed to take revenge on the people who caused the death of the women they loved most, there was no "revenge is bad" or "we're better than this" no. Ming lan schemed and planned so meticulously and ying luo when she found out Erqing played a role in the empress death she brought her in front of her portrait and strangled her to death without fear or hesitation. Dramas nowadays would get cut and censored to hell if they did anything close to that. I want my complicated badass smart women back, I'm so tired of shows trying to convince me very hard the leads are smart by having people say it again and again when the actual writing doesn't show it...

I feel your pain on this "the leads are very smart because people keep saying they're smart" nonny. I, too, sometimes question why it is that that happens, but I'm not entirely certain its only censorship at play!

I've been rotating this for a while now since I still haven't found anything that strikes me as hard as Yanxi/Minglan/Ruyi in the years since then, especially since I love political dramas with cool female leads and I'm always on the hunt for new ones. I think the Yanxi-Minglan years were a real treat for us tbh. I don't know that things are necessarily more watered down now solely because of censorship exactly, because we've always had to work around censorship. Yanxi famously cut Yingning's storyline as well as Chenbi's Korean costuming just to get by the censors, which is also why the back half of Yanxi lost like, 10? or so episodes? and we lost some supposedly STUNNING scenes in there because of those cuts to get past censors. (There are photographs that I drool over about the cut plotlines every now and again while shaking my fist at the sky.) Minglan was originally 80 episodes long instead of seventy-three. I'm not entirely certain what they cut from there, but there is a rumored director's edition with 80 episodes that I haven't been able to get my hands on that's apparently also very good so it's not like Minglan escaped the censorship cuts either.

However, like, I think stories like Yanxi and Minglan are so rare because it is very difficult to get the whole package together -- the actors, the costuming, the sets, the screenwriters, the directors, the ost, the editing, the air dates, the audience interest, the companies investing money and budget into a production, and yes, the production clearing the censorship hurdle. In my ~15 years or so of watching cdrama, I'd say that the Yanxi-Minglan years were still some of my all time highs when it comes to cdramas that really grabbed me and it's because for these productions so much of this came together. It's always vastly easier for a writer to say "this character is very smart! this character is very smart and other people know it!" rather than showing that the character is smart or setting up a plotline where the character is smart and getting the payoff back from that. We see this all the time in every sort of media. Most of it comes down to bad writing and the writers being so afraid of like, actually going for the throat rather than censorship (though of course the censorship doesn't help a writer lose their fear of going for the audience's throat on a plotline or a character moment).

So I think a lot of more recent cdramas that fall into that pit are in there more for bad writing than censorship tbh, and bad writing unfortunately has always existed, and shows that claimed their characters were super smart while also making my eyes bleed also existed prior to and during the Minglan-Yanxi years as well as after. (Looking at you Brocade Heart Like Jade, I still haven't forgiven you for baiting me.)

For the record I've been watching The Side Story of the Fox Volant which came out last year in 2022 recently with @autumnslantern and some of those scenes are dark. We're about 5-6 episodes in right now and it's been really fun and well constructed. This show definitely is not at all holding back with showing bloody deaths, societal troubles, or the implications of the jianghu being a dangerous and often miserable place. So I think that cdramas with smart people and extremely vicious moments do still exist! Or at least they did up to last year.

TLDR: I think it's a combination of "the censorship is obviously not helping" and "stories that good are rare for reasons other than censorship because it's so much harder to tell a good story."

I do feel you though nonny, when will a show like Minglan or Yanxi and a main character like Sheng Minglan or Wei Yingluo EVER COME BACK from the WAR. I WANT.

[strawberrywinter4]

Hi there:)

You don't know me and I'm sorry for bothering you but a fellow fan showed me your text about how Sherlock saved you and just yesterday I wrote a similar text here on Tumbler because that's exactly what Sherlock and John did for me.

I'm dealing with mental health issues since I was 14 years old and now I'm 43 and had suicidal thoughts every day of the week for 15 years.

My first thought of the day was: " Oh crap I didn't die during my sleep".

I was filled with anxiety and depression and I was close to finally giving up when I stumbled across Sherlock without actually looking for it.

Within days my world turned upside down and changed almost everything.

After almost three years of Sherlock/ Johnlock I run my own Sherlock group, found unbelievably kind friends and because of another fellow fan I'm one of the most euphoric fanfiction readers.

I was a former librarian before I fell too ill to work anymore and I know great work when I see it:))

I recently also discovered Podfics and feeling like a kid at Christmas all over again.

It is like I was invited to live at 221b myself with the boys and a fandom that welcomed me like no one else ever did.

It calms me down and let me built up my own beautiful Mind Palace.

I reduced medication and I still have anxiety and very dark periods of depression but no suicide thought ever since!

I got the happiness back when I met Sherlock and his world.

I understand you so well and your words touched me and I thank you for your honesty and wishing you all the best in the world and many more Sherlocked moments.

And if you feel like answering ( not necessary of course!)

please don't hesitate to make this public.

I don't hide my issues and most certainly not my love for Sherlock and John.

It finally pays off that all my classmates thought I'm weird.

I like weird:D

Best wishes

Sabsi

Oh my goodness! You are the sweetest. Thank you so much for telling me this <3

I am so sorry you went through such a dark period of time but I’m so happy that it has gotten better. The fact that Sherlock has helped you as well warms my heart. 221B is something that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, so I definitely understand where you’re coming from when you say it’s like you were invited into the fandom once you stumbled upon it. It’s truly a safe haven.

I love how active you are in the Sherlock fandom. It’s awesome! Keep it up, I love talking to people who love this fandom as much as I do.

It truly is amazing because it feels like the Sherlock fandom as a whole is a family and I’m so excited to be apart of it.

Thank you so much for sharing your story. I greatly appreciate it and just remember that you are valid!

Please don’t hesitate to slip into my asks again. I love answering and I love to hear about what others have to say. It is not a bother at all. <3

[donniesexceptionalmind]

hi. vitally important question. opinion on jello?

a fruit-flavoured gelatin dessert made up from a commercially prepared powder.

It's a literal gift of hell.

It's texture ist just - no.

-10/10.

Would not recommend.

Once Leo mixed some in my desert: Mikey had baked a Lava Cake, but somehow Leo managed to sneak in jello instead of the chocolate filling Mikey was going for - or did they prank me on purpose?

It didn't end well.

Since then, no one has been allowed to touch my food, except for Mikey, but we all know how well that works. Not at all.

[brendathedoodler]

Oooooh you know the Palace of the Four sword from ALttP? Does Addie have a Palace of the Soul Sword where he had to fight a corrupted Wolfie? 🥺

Yup, though it took him awhile to make the connection between his good buddy Soul and the shadow wolf he fought in the Palace of the Soul Sword.

It clicked into place as he was in the middle of telling a story about that very palace. Soul himself was particularly intrigued by a place called the Palace of the Soul Sword, and listened intently as Addie regaled them with tales of his battles against Arrghus, the Helmasaur King, Mothula, and the Blind Thief.

As he eagerly reaches the grand finale, the final boss, he goes dead silent. The others listening to his stories lean forward, assuming that it’s just part of his storytelling.

It takes him a bit longer than it should’ve to get there. The gears are turning in Addie’s head; the connection between the name of the place, the enemy he fought, and the man standing right in front of him.

“I fought a wolf. One that fought an awful lot like you do.”

Soul is quick to mention his shadow self, the one he fought on two separate occasions. It eases Addie’s nerves, and gets some of the others to pipe up about their own experiences. Bard, Barren, and Cloud all have experiences to share as far as fighting a dark form of themselves.

What Soul doesn’t mention is that his shadow wasn’t able to turn into a wolf. He copied all of Soul’s abilities, all but the magic of the Soul Sword that it couldn’t replicate.

Perhaps it’s best to not bring it up.

[pastille-pain]

*Proceeds to drop Palace Magolor in front of Vhamp.* He has brought along a peace offering gift of one sack of money. (He could not find any snacks to bring.)

"You don't have to give me that, I make my own on daily basis-"

[playtimepalace]

ough i always 4get to say when im gonna b gone but i got invited to a field trip last minute hehe so ill be p much offline from tomorrow till monday! missing u already kiss kiss mwah ♡