Stars Of Chaos 杀破狼

MDZS Vol 2 Annotations, part 5

Here is Part 5 of my annotations of MDZS Volume 2, pages 280 - 318.

Zhou Shen did another photoshoot for the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival performance. It’s one of his Serious Photoshoots.

https://m.weibo.cn/detail/4812237040521729

And always the huge white sneakers.

im loving this article written by som mycologists who accidentally got high as fuck on fly agaric

CLADISTICS ruined my life

every day people tell me that the untamed is good, i’ve seen the first episode, stop gaslighting me

So during my second time watching Jiang Cheng walk across what I now know is a random mountain to meet Wen Qing, all I could think about was Wei Wuxian, Wen Qing, and Wen Ning’s plan and the fact that they must have been following him, like:

Wen Qing: should he really be walking across that field?

Wei Wuxian: I don’t know, I thought he would follow the path

Wen Ning: should we stop it now so he doesn’t trip and fall?

Wei Wuxian: naw let’s wait a bit, he needs to think it’s difficult

Wen Ning: is this a good place? can I ring the gong now?

Wei Wuxian: I think it’s good. wen qing?

Wen Qing: yeah yeah it’s fine. ring the stupid gong - I’ll lead him to a better spot

Wen Qing: I’m not going to wear the hat

Wei Wuxian: c’mon, you need to wear the hat

Wen Ning: yeah, wear the hat, a-jie

Wen Qing: he’s wearing a blindfold! he won’t be able to see my face anyway

Wei Wuxian: but what if he takes off the blindfold? what then, hmm? the hat is key

Wen Ning: yeah a-jie, the hat is key

Wen Qing: uuuuugh fine I’ll wear the hat

I’m looking forward to this (badly suppressed excitement I’m about to text this trailer to Everyone i know. Michelle Yeoh is and always has been a superhero!!!!!)

Everything Everywhere All At Once | A24

Starring Michelle Yeoh

青 is a great color! It can mean anything you want it to mean! 😝

Speaking of “Qing”, I highly recommended “Why isn’t the sky blue” by Radiolab. You can also read the Transcript, if you prefer.

青, or the most confusing colour word in old Chinese ever.

This is because while there is a modern distinction between 綠 green and 藍 blue, in the past we had 青 / qing for ‘nature’s colour’. In any old text (and old words still used) it could mean, depending on context:

blue

youthful / young

pale yellow.

green / verdant

the band of colour just above blue in the rainbow (紅橙黃綠青藍紫, which puts 青 in between green and blue）if you’re a kid but when you get to form 1, you get that the rainbow is actually 紅橙黃綠藍靛紫, so the blue-green we thought was blue green is now blue.

The blue of blue white porcelain (青花瓷）

clear sky blue - 青天.

indigo blue (青出於藍而勝於藍 / qing comes out of the indigo plant and yet it is more vibrant than indigo)

black.

Also, 青衫 may read “green clothes,” but together and describing historical / mythical figures it just means “scholar’s robes,” where the word 青 means ‘young’ and the robes could be any colour. It describes the style, not the colour.

A line from Peach Blossom Debt: 青衫公子站起身，本仙君驚且喜，恍若東風拂過，三千桃樹，花開爛漫。 The young noble clad in scholar’s robes stands, and this immortal one is pleasantly surprised, as though the east wind chanced by and every brilliant flower on three thousand peach trees blossom.

So, a very important question — what colour are Kunlun’s robes? Chapter 68:

Keep reading

(We’re taking a calculus final. The TA is a well-known Lord of the Rings fan, and we’ve had running LotR jokes all semester.)

TA: “Okay, guys, everyone look at me. We’ve been over the rules, but just in case: no notes, pencil your answers in on the scantron sheet, and graphing calculators only – no more ‘can I just used my cell phone’ nonsense.”

Student: “[TA's name], my calculator batteries just died! What should I do?”

TA: “Here, I’ve got a big box of spares.”

Student: *struggling* “I can’t get this packaging open…”

Student 2: “Here, I’ve got a pocket knife.”

TA: “And I’ve got a pair of scissors if you need them.”

Student 3: *from the back of the room* “OR MY AXE!”

(Everyone starts laughing.)

TA: “The only axes allowed on the exam are in the graph section.”

(Everyone groans.)

TA: “Oh, come on, you’re in a math class. Deal with the math jokes.”

(The professor enters with a stack of exams. With him are two exam proctors.)

Professor: “Tolkien jokes already, [TA's name]?”

TA: “Hey, I didn’t start it.”

(The professor starts handing stacks of exams to the TA and proctors.)

Professor: “But I’m about to finish it. [TA], take these exams down the left flank. [Proctor 1], follow the desks down the center. [Proctor 2], take your exams right, along the wall.”

(At this point, many of the students have realized where this is going: Theoden’s lines from ‘Return of the King.’)

Professor: “Forth, and fear no problems! Solve! Solve, students of calculus! Points shall be taken, scores shall be splintered! A pencil day! A red-ink day! Until three thirty!”

(The professor pulls out a pencil, holding it out like a sword, and runs down the first row holding it out. Students hold up their pencils, hitting his as he passes.)

Professor: “Solve now! Solve now! Solve to good grades and the class ending! MAAATH!”

Entire Class: “MAAATH!”

Professor: “MAAAAATH!”

Entire Class: “MAAAAAATH!”

Professor: “Forth, exam-takers!”

(The entire class rises to their feet and gives him a standing ovation. A week later, we get an email from the professor.)

Professor: *at the end of the email* “PS: I appreciate all of you who wrote in their evaluations that I was the one professor to rule them all, but the best one yet was the student who called me ‘Mathrandir.’”

MDZS Vol 2 Annotations, part 1

I finished annotating my copy of MDZS, Volume 2!

First off, I think the translations are perfectly wonderful and I am forever grateful that Seven Seas has given us the ability to share this story with a wider group of friends. With that, I went into Vol 2 trying to pretend that I did not speak Chinese, had little to no knowledge of Chinese culture.

Any time I saw something that didn't flow well to my North American brain or that didn't feel like what I remembered feeling when I read the Chinese version, I made a note. I love this story, and I don't expect my non-Chinese friends to remember the 5+ different things that Lan Xichen is called, or what in the world "shishu" is, so I made a lot of notes. Here they are:

MDZS Vol 2, Annotations Part 1, pages 1 - 86 (I tried to include the page number in each photo).