Original Post From Changlinarmy.tumblr.com Which Has Been Deleted

The Chinese text is 故景如旧, meaning something like: Over the years, the scenery hasn’t changed. 

As usual, I need to advertise Nirvana in Fire (HANDS DOWN the best drama I’ve ever seen): Watch it here with Eng Subs

It’s an insanely beautiful historical chinese drama! I didn’t think it was possible for a story to be so ingenius until this came along. Prepare a bucket to cry into

Honestly, the cringe is worth it. The cringe is necessary. The UK is such a cesspit of growing transphobia and has been getting worse and worse and the biggest family show on air coming out as loud and proud and supportive of trans kids is EVERYTHING.

Eurylochus, Polites and their Third Wheel (bro was not invited and arguably ruined the party)

ARSENIC FOR TEA SPOILERS

(also I haven't read AFT for a while so please excuse any errors)

Stephen Bampton is so nuanced to me because YES he's a murderer, attempted murderer and also was very willing to be complicit in another indirect murder (Lord Wells would have likely been hanged if he'd been arrested) but on the other hand he's a poor, homosexual 17 year old who likely doesn't have a great time at school because of this (remember Hetty saying how she's been secretly darning his socks???) and I'm assuming boys at Eton would have picked on nearly anyone who had a hint of being an outsider. Violence or at the very least ostracization has likely been used against him his whole life and so that's his first resort.

I'm not saying he deserves forgiveness or redemption but maybe some more understanding??? Stephen has been proven to time and time again that adults cannot be trusted - Mr Curtis, obviously, and his father for leaving him and his mother for cheating and then Lady Wells for also cheating, and he also probably felt this way about the police who couldn't catch Mr Curtis the first time round. I'm not saying he was right in what he did, but Stephen could have very possibly thought he was doing Bertie and Daisy a favour by getting rid of their parents and letting Lord Wells take the blame as 'adults can't be trusted'. A lot of what he does seems to be a misguided sense of protection for others and self defence. And he does constantly reiterate to Hazel and Daisy that he's going to keep them safe, that nothing's going to happen to them. Stephen might possibly have also seen how Bertie's parents treat him (reading between the lines, it seems Bertie is mostly ignored and/or seen as a burden child) keeping up this thought process that 'adults can't be trusted'.

The calculated murder almost (ALMOST) makes me want to sympathise with him, as yes Stephen clearly wants to hurt Mr Curtis but then he doesn't want to hurt anyone else? He thinks that when Mr Curtis is out of everyone's lives, not only his but Bertie's too, then things would go back to normal, or at least he wouldn't have to relive the hurt of what Mr Curtis did to his family. However, I do say that it ALMOST makes me want to sympathise with him because in the second half of the book, Stephen gets panicky and resorts to unplanned murder attempts (ie. pushing Lady Wells down the stairs who he thought was Lucy) which screams to me that maybe, not a violent streak as such but definitely an 'angry when fearful' streak was always within Stephen.

In essence, I don't think Stephen murders because he's a cruel person, even though he nears this when pushing someone down the stairs, but murders because he wants to protect Bertie. Ok and yes quite possibly vengeance. As with all the murders, it always goes too far and too deep.

A lot of people around me are having kids and every day it becomes more apparent that hitting your children to punish them is insane because literally everything can be a horrible punishment in their eyes if you frame it as such.

Like, one family makes their toddler sit on the stairs for three minutes when he hits his brother or whatever. The stairs are well lit and he can see his family the whole time, he’s just not allowed to get up and leave the stairs or the timer starts over. He fucking hates it just because it’s framed as a punishment.

Another family use a baseball cap. It’s just a plain blue cap with nothing on it. When their toddler needs discipline he gets a timeout on a chair and has to put the cap on. When they’re out and about he just has to wear the cap but it gets the same reaction. Nobody around them can tell he’s being punished because it’s in no way an embarrassing cap, but HE knows and just the threat of having to wear it is enough.

And there isn’t the same contempt afterwards I’ve seen with kids whose parents hit them. One time the kid swung a stick at my dog, his mother immediately made him sit on the stairs, he screamed but stayed put, then he came over to my dog and gently said “Sorry Ellie” and went back to playing like nothing happened, but this time without swinging sticks at the nearby animals.

mythical girlfriends in hanfu <3

oh 12.65 litres of blood clinging to the outside of my body, we're really in it now

Thinking about how in a way, the identity of Li Lianhua dying was actually for the best, especially if he truly wanted to live for himself.

Li Xiangyi was the street kid unaware of his bloodline, who's adopted by a loving if not slightly dysfunctional (settling your couple quarrels through having the brothers fight to hone their skills was not healthy change my mind) family. And then as a teenager, he defeats this random villain and now he's not just a person, not anymore. He's the fastest sword in the land, he's the leader of the Sigu Sect, and maybe he did establish the sect with the noble intentions of helping people just like his childhood self, but in the end he's a teenager and he becomes a figurehead, a banner, and one command from him could move troops, and he doesn't know how to deal with this much responsibility but he can't delegate it because no one else is competent enough is expendable enough. In the end, Li Xiangyi wasn't living for himself, but for the powerful Sect he established and the ideals he's unwittingly become the figurehead for.

And then he becomes Li Lianhua, and this time it's more obvious that he's not living for himself. His one motive for surviving is to find his shixiong Shan Gudao's corpse, and it's my personal belief that if he'd found his corpse 5 years earlier, he would've buried himself next to his shifu and shixiong within a year. He says he's happy with his more relaxed life, and I'm not saying he's lying, but I also feel like the only way he could enjoy that life without the guilt crushing him was to tell himself "this isn't forever, this doing nothing will end. I can enjoy this because this helps me find my shixiong before I die." But then he finds out that instead of finding his shixiong's body, and therefore neatly tying up all his strings in life, most of what he thought was true is a lie. In a way, he survived only for Shan Gudao, then realized his one motive for surviving was a lie, so really, is there any reason for Li Lianhua to exist anymore, especially when this identity has gotten tangled up with his old life again?

And maybe, a few months after Li Lianhua is publicly considered dead, fortune teller Li will start following Di Feisheng and Fang Duobing around, but that's not part of the narrative. The point is, in order for the narrative to complete itself, Li Lianhua had to die.

Ma Xiuying from the Radiant Emperor duology!

Design/research notes under the cut

The characters read 馬秀英 (Pinyin: mǎ xiù yīng), her personal name, and 孝慈高皇后 (xiào cí gāo huáng hòu), her name as Empress.

There's certainly no dearth of material on Chinese clothing history out there. That is, if you can read Chinese, which I can't, so everything I have is from secondary and tertiary sources and/or relies on translation software. Fortunately, we're dealing with historical fantasy here, so some anachronisms are not only allowed but encouraged.

While Shelley Parker-Chan takes many liberties, the books are still set in a very specific time period, which is both a blessing and a curse. Most readily accessible resources will tell you about dynasties, which can span hundreds of years, and the duology takes place in a transitional period. So how to dress a Semu girl from the Yuan dynasty who lives with Nanren rebels wanting to revive the Song dynasty and who later becomes the first Ming empress?

Let's go through them one by one. The best resource was this book which is on the Internet Archive. I disregarded Mongol and Semu influences for the design since clothing is very much political and a way to either stand out or fit in with the surrounding society, see for example Wang Baoxiang wearing a topknot in Khanbaliq. Ma, I imagine, would want to fit in with the Nanren around her, so she's pretty much wearing the attire of Han women under Yuan rule. For the hair I went for something that looks youthful while being plausible, though I found very little on hair in this period, so who's to say.

The next one is from a specific scene in the book, so there is some description to go on: red, long sleeves with gold embroidery, high hair, red and gold ribbons. Since this is the scene where Ma declares herself queen and future empress in front of the Red Turban, it has to be a very deliberate dress. It therefore takes inspiration from Song aristocrats' broad-sleeved gowns as well as from 翟衣 (dí yī), the highest ceremonial gown of both Song and Ming empresses. (Some examples for 翟衣 are in this post, which also features the bird shaped crown I just had to include, and this post.) Her hair still has the loops, but it's much more sculpted.

Finally, Empress Ma! This is mainly based on the two actual portraits I could find of the historical figure that Ma is based on, with elements taken from other portraits and paintings. It includes 凤冠 (fèng guān), the phoenix crown, 霞帔 (xiá pèi), the sash, and 禁步 (jīn bù), the jade belt. This video shows how Ming dynasty layers are worn, but it refers to a much later period so it's not quite the same as Ma's.

(Some additional, historically irrelevant notes: I realized too late that a right-to-left timeline might be more appropriate. Oh well! Also, how the colours photograph frustrates me, I swear I did not make her this deathly pale. And finally, some of the characters look a bit smudged because my cat spilled water on them. I did what I could to save them.)

Ghost Marriage 冥婚

Red Lotus: Despair and Brokenness

初見你 眉目清 容顏秀 • 曾許你 此生一世無憂 • 殊不知 你心中有解不開的愁 • 轉身 竟成 永久

Meeting you, at first, looking delicate and pretty, (I) once promised you a careless life. Who could have suspected, the intractable torments of your heart and that turning around would become an eternal parting?

Xiao ShùnYáo 肖順堯 - 雲樹之思 Cloud and Tree's Longing