#well. sort of

[mcrololo]

Pairing: Bechloe Rating: T Summary: Series of prompts to write in 2025. Sixth prompt: Listen. Even the ocean begs. Excerpt: She didn’t say much else for the next five minutes as they chose a comfy spot to lay down their towels and Chloe handed them a drink to hydrate after their weary trek through the sand. Beca whined about her coffee, and finally Chloe found her voice to chastise her. “Coffee will only dehydrate you more.”

“Energy drink, then,” Beca said, with an edge to her voice. “Or coke. Anything with sugar so I can kickstart my brain.”

“Those are just as bad,” Emily countered for her. She hummed. “Maybe even worse?”

Beca groaned again, putting her hands behind her to lean on and dropping her head back for good measure. Chloe watched her exposed collarbone for a second too long.

“You’re being a baby.”

“I know. This was the price you had to pay.”

Read the rest on AO3!

[maggiecheungs]

poems in episode one of the story of kunning palace

in episode 1 of kunning palace, xuening grabs a book of poems in order to trick her maids into thinking she keeps a ledger. my knowledge of classical chinese isn't particularly high level, but it's good enough to at least identify which poems are on the page that she opens to, and i'm certain they were deliberately chosen because of their relevance to the characters and themes of the show 👀 so i thought i'd do a post about them :)

this page contains three poems by the tang dynasty poet wang changling (698–756): 芙蓉樓送辛漸 (farewell to xin jian at lotus tower); 閨怨 (boudoir lament); and 春宮曲 (spring palace song). detailed analyses under the cut:

1 - 芙蓉樓送辛漸 (farewell to xin jian at lotus tower):

my translation

poem summary: the poet's friend came to wu on a night when cold rain was pouring into the river, and departs again at dawn. the poet accompanies him on his journey as far as the chu mountains [but cannot carry on journeying with him because he must stay at his official post in wu]. as he bids goodbye, he asks his friend to tell his family back in luoyang that his heart is still pure and resolute.

key themes: loneliness and solitude; duty; having a pure heart and noble character

analysis: this one is a fairly famous poem about parting before setting off on a long journey. it's particularly notable for its final line, 一片冰心在玉壺, which roughly translates to "my heart is as pure as a piece of ice within a vessel of jade"... which could easily have been written as a summary of zhang zhe's character.

however! while there's a definite emphasis on having a pure and guiltless heart, when you combine with the previous line, the couplet as a whole also gives a sense that the speaker wishes to be remembered by those they love as someone pure and righteous ("tell my family back in luoyang that my heart is still pure etc"). this seems to be a theme of xuening's second life: wanting to correct her past wrongs and treat the people she cares for better, and to prove to zhang zhe that she can be a good person in future

in particular, this poem makes me think of xuening's last moments in her first life. the poet's final request before he bids farewell to his friend? for his companion to tell his family that he is still noble at heart. xuening's final request before she dies? for xie wei to take her life in exchange for that of zhang zhe, as her way of repenting for being dishonourable and ruining his life... 🤔🤔🤔

2 - 閨怨 (boudoir lament):

poem summary: the young wife in her boudoir knows nothing of sorrow, but as she completes her toilette and ascends the emerald tower, she suddenly sees the hue of poplars and willows on the roadside and regrets letting her husband leave home to pursue official position and power.

key themes: love and marriage; abandonment; ambition (and the effect that ambition has on love)

analysis: it's essentially about how the husband's ambition causes him to abandon his wife to grief and loneliness, which seems like a clear parallel with xuening's willingness to abandon her faithful lovers for the sake of her ambition; there's also the implication that political status is ultimately less meaningful than a loving marriage.

i think it's worth noting that the character 怨 (yuan) in the title is fairly hard to translate, as it implies a mixture of grief and anger/resentment, or even hatred. it's fairly common in boudoir poems about women left behind by their husbands, and in that context it's often translated as 'lament' or 'grief', but i think the ambivalence of the term is fairly important, particularly if you apply it to kunning palace and the mix of grief and anger that xuening inspires in her old lovers in her first life.

3 - 春宮曲 (spring palace song):

poem summary: the wind is mild, the flowers are in full bloom, the moon is full and bright. the emperor has fallen in love with one of his sister's singing serving women, and is showering her with imperial favour and bestowing brocade robes upon her to keep out the spring chill.

key themes: happiness, success, security. (however, with contextual knowledge, there's also the implication of future doom, and that nobody can stay on top of the world forever)

analysis: i didn't quite catch the full significance of this one until i googled it and realised it's a poem about a real historical figure: wei zifu, a song-and-dance girl serving the princess pingyang, who wins the favour of pingyang’s brother, emperor wu of the han dynasty, eventually becoming his second empress (the second-longest serving empress in chinese history!).

wei zifu's story is essentially about a young woman of humble origins who survives numerous palace intrigues and eventually manages to ascend to the position of empress, trusted by the emperor to the extent that she was allowed to rule in his absence. however, after maintaining her position for over three decades, she eventually fell afoul of a conspiracy against her and her son, and committed suicide rather than allowing herself to be deposed.

i mean… the way this links to jiang xuening's first life is so obvious i don't even feel the need to explain it.

[symphorine]

WIP WEDNESDAY FRIDAY

tagged by @flowersforthemachines thank you <3 alas ive gotten the smut writing done so we're back to daea's horrible terrible visit home. yay (cw for suicidal thoughts)

tagging no one wednesday is long past 😔

[h0ney8ee]

the characters in better call saul are absolutely more likable than the ones in breaking bad nevermind like 2/3 of them are the same. its good but makes for so many more sad moments. im watching mike telling nacho's dad that hes dead. i cant do this 😭😭😭😭😭

[voidwalker-collective]

My darling Prototype. My creation, and my art. -Memory

[letthebookbegin]

spring has sprung

[skyransketches]

Smaugust Day 12: Prehistoric

Working on catching up with smaugust!! here's a dinosaur-inspired dragon design ^^

[ryuki23]

damn super-1, how come toei lets you have ten different kick attacks

[worldruins]

Ancient version of Teeth ✌️ I’m very normal about it. The bonelike spikes, cheek gauges and eyes are examples of body mods that might have been found in iterator Teeth’s city

[hershelwidget]

everytime an anon sends me “bites your hand” . well. what do YOU think happens huh

[infizero-draws]

drawing deltarune every day until chapter 3&4 drop ✨(day 101)

childhood sweethearts

[owlpero]

free will is all about headcanoning your faves as autistic

[plagueislost]

there is a voice inside my head that whispers “wing au” every time i join a new fandom. it is currently winning.

EDIT: made an update to bruce’s design!

[liquidstar]

If my mom sees a significant amount of blood she gets lightheaded, and has fainted on some occasions. Once it happened when we were kids, I wasn't there to witness it but I heard the story from my dad. Basically my brothers, around 7 or 8 at the time, were playing outside while my mom was making their lunch, and she accidentally cut her finger. It wasn't anything serious, but it drew a fair bit of blood and she passed out. My dad saw this and rushed over, but he didn't really know what to do so he just sort of started slapping her to wake her up (not recommended, but he had no idea and panicked)

At that exact moment my brothers both came in from playing, and all they saw was our mom unconscious on the floor and our dad slapping her. So, like, without even saying a word to each other they both just INSTANTLY start whaling on him, like, full blown attack mode to defend our mom. Which obviously didn't help the situation, but she did wake up and everything was fine.

Now our dad says that he's actually really glad they attacked him over what they thought was going on, because it means he raised good boys. And I still think that's true, they're very good boys.

[saccharinescorpion]

i'm watching a Deltarune LP in Japanese and found out that Tenna has a cute quirk where he ends a lot of his sentences with でしょう ("deshou") but he combines it with SHOW in English ("でSHOW" or "deSHOW")

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The Wizard Cowboy War (Wizboys VS Cowards) continues on.