hello!! do you have any book recs for historical fiction/ non- fiction or something similar to the palace of illusions? thank you!!
A short list because I'm not well:
Song of Draupadi by Ira Mukhoty
Indian mythology retelling
Mahabharat from Draupadi's POV
Descriptive prose and lush worldbuilding
Everything Mukhoty writes about Indian women is readable
Nefertiti by Michelle Moran
Egyptian history retelling
Nefertiti's reign from her sister's POV
Morally grey central characters
The writing style is so descriptive and nice
She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker Chan
Queer Chinese history + fantasy retelling
Breathtaking, immersive worldbuilding
Wlw and mlm hostility; two evil non binary leads
Mulan but with a sapphic romance
The Forest of Enchantments by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Indian mythology retelling
Ramayan from Sita's POV
Exploration of duty vs desire
Not as good as The Palace of Illusions, but still worth a read
The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri
Indian inspired fantasy
Sapphic romance between central characters
Cool magical systems
Morally grey female lead
Circe by Madeline Miller
Greek mythology retelling
Morally grey female lead, lyrical prose
Same author as The Song of Achilles
I have heard divisive stuff about it tbh
Sati Series by Koral Dasgupta
Indian mythology retelling
Feminist historization of female figures from Indian myth
Includes Ahalya and Kunti so far
I hope you find something to your liking from this list!
Kofi: papenathys
Wei Wuxian’s adventures in wooing Lan Zhan gift-giving 😂💝 | MDZS Q ep.09
:(
making friends (especially after you’ve lost a couple or several ones) can be hard and incredibly isolating. finding people we can connect and be vulnerable with is no easy task, so often we feel like it’s a moral failure when things don’t work out between us and someone else. just know there are so many people in this world you have yet to meet who will love you and it’s okay to drop all this heavy relationship baggage now. you’re not defined by the people you’ve lost.
he’s so pretty *sighs*
mo xuanyu! wei wuxian making cute faces (。◕‿◕。)
WeiLan: 10,000 years of pining
WangXian: A decade worth pining
WenZhou: FUCK pining. I just met you but we are now soulmates. No take backs.
When you love the most natural thing in the world is to want to be together, but you must understand this does not always imply a physical proximity. Life is busy, time is limited, obligations seemingly multiplying and never-ending, and yet that doesn't stop the desire to be with the one your heart longs for. So we find ways, our soul searches them out, and then we find them in the rain and in every wistful cloud, in the beauty of flowers and in the music of the wind. We color them into the songs we listen to, into the magic of the stars. We hear them whisper in our souls the truth of our hearts. You kiss them with your thoughts and caress them with every smile. You hold their hand when you reminisce of the memories you have created with your lives, with your time, so entwined. And so we satisfy the need that beats in us, and we learn to love the essence of their soul, in the distance, in the silence, and never are they truly far away from us.
e.v.e.
I’m rewatching Joy of Life because binge watching isn’t the best way to notice details, and I’m on ep40 at the part where Yan Bingyun and Fan Xian are arguing about the plan and I have two things:
1. I 💚💚 that Bingyun already believes in Fan Xian enough that he’s completely blasé about demanding that Fan Xian change his plan to kill Shen Zhong, to capturing him instead. He’s just like “well you can just change it no big”. And Fan Xian’s “do you think I’m a god???” is perfect lol
2. When Bingyun starts spiraling into “we should be ready to die for our country… the mission is more important than our lives”, I swear Fan Xian wants to burst out with “the emperor told me that if all else fails I have to come home alive”, but instead falls back on pretending to be selfish. Because how is Fan Xian supposed tell that to Bingyun, who has been a prisoner undergoing torture for months, and only ended being imprisoned because Chen Pingping valued Fan Xian’s life more than his… And that, actually, even though Chen Pingping and the emperor said that they wanted Bingyun back, at baseline they still don’t care either way, as long as Fan Xian comes back.
No wonder Fan Xian would rather be misunderstood.
me: *talking about how wei wuxian should have just accepted help and not do everything on his own and maybe accepted that some people really did care for him*
also me: *will spend weeks not talking to anyone if going through a depressive episode and isolate myself to not burden others*
He won my heart <8
⌗ Reblog or like if want to use
do you ever think,,, that when lan wangji is just totally done™ with whatever cultivation drama or dumb people that is happening that day,, he just goes to his huge colony of bunnies to detox. he decides "this is it I'm about to lose it" and just leaves the situation looking very serious™ and everyone thinks he's gone to do something important. Really he walks calmly to his bunny horde and lays down in the middle of them all. Letting the bunnies to pile over him until he's drowning in soft fur.