"i don't care if they make their whole way though uni with chatgpt" i think you guys are so internetpilled that you have forgotten there are actual jobs out there that require people to know what they are doing in any way possible or else people die
Have u considered that sexual activity is a natural part of the human experience rather than some invading wild animal which must be staved off and hidden in shame?
Canāt wait for, like, 2025 when we look back on the 2018/2019 era and say āhey, remember when we were all really freaking depressed? That was a crazy time! Glad we arenāt like that anymoreā
something i really love about āthe crystal pavillion, for the third timeā is the fact that the entire plot only happens because a servant was ill.
most of the mysteries maomao solves are related to high ranking officials or concubines, and if they arenāt, they usually happen in such strange circumstances that itās impossible to not suspect potential foul play. in contrast, this episodeās mystery isnāt even really a mystery at all. a servant girl got sick with a rather common and treatable type of illness, and was put in isolation by her boss. on surface level, itās as low stakes a plot as it could get. in the imperial court, servants are merely tools that can be replaced once they die. their lives are not seen as valuable, as even maomao acknowledges.
and yet, it is this unknown, nameless servant girl who becomes shinās downfall. maomao may have had her suspicions about shin and the perfumes, even before this episode, but she had nothing concrete to go on. she couldnāt accuse a high ranking concubineās chief attendant of trying to harm a preganant concubine with no evidence (at that point, she didnāt even know who shinās target was). shin may have been a lot of things, but she was no fool, she was an incredibly intelligent woman who knew how to cover her tracks well, which is why maomao had to goad a confession out of her in order to prove her guilt. sheās arguably one of maomaoās cleverest adversaries yet, after suirei and lakan!
but shinās fatal flaw is pride. she believes sheās better than lihua and she believes sheās better than a mere servant girl. so she cruelly uses her as a means to an end in order to hide the forbidden perfumes through the smell of her sickness. and in the eyes of the palace law, she is not committing a crime either. a servant girlās life is nothing compared to the life of a high ranking concubine. who would even notice sheās missing? who would care if she quietly died?
but people did notice. the clinician noticed the maid had been missing and was worried enough to ask maomao to look into it. the other crystal pavillion servant loved her friend so much she planted flowers outside the shed because she hoped it would help her get better, which was the key clue that made maomao realize thatās the place where the servant is locked up. all of shinās machinations get revealed because she refused to treat a servant girl as someone who mattered. itās such a powerful message and i love it.
So I've been thinking about @macdenlover 's "levels of headcanon" chart (about how heavily a HC is influenced by canon), so I decided to make my own scale about how likely a HC is to be true (including different levels of canon) using queer cartoon characters as examples :)
I just spent an hour making this because I was bored. Enjoy. Image description under the cut.
Inspiration:
it came to my realization that 99% of my fandom related headaches would be cured if everyone understood this
ID courtesy of @hatreds-og-imagedescriptions (thank you!!)
[ID: a chart going from 10 to 1, with explanations of the ratings on the left and images of characters with queer flags and descriptions of said characters on the right.
10: "Explicit canon. Clearly stated in the original media." Trans Barney from Dead end Paranormal Park. "Barney says "I'm transgender"".
9: "Implicit canon. Never explicitly stated, but 100% canon in the original media". Nonbinary Raine from The Owl House. "Raine never says "I'm nonbinary," but uses they/them and is never referred to as a man/woman (also, confirmed by Dana)".
8: "Creator confirmation. Never stated in the original media, but confirmed canon by the media's creator". Aroace Lilith from The Owl House. "While never mentioned/implied in TOH, Dana has confirmed that Lilith is aroace".
7: "Heavily implied. Never confirmed, but likely true (either by canon evidence or creator implication)". Genderfluid Nimona from Nimona. ""Aaand now you're a boy" "I am today" (anyway, the whole movie has trans/GNC themes)".
6: "Possibly implied. Hinted at in the original media, but could be explained as something else". Trans Doofenschmirtz from Phineas and Ferb. "Doof COULD be transmasc, or the whole "raised as a girl" thing could just be for the bit".
5: "Fanon. Never confirmed, but generally accepted by the fandom". Aromantic Alastor from Hazbin Hotel. "While only confirmed to be ace, most of the fandom also sees Alastor as aromantic".
4: "HC with evidence. Headcanons supported by a dedicated fan's detective work". Bisexual Mabel from Gravity Falls. "People have noticed bi flag stickers hidden on Mabel's scrapbooks".
3: "Canon neutrality. Could be true, could be false, but overall makes sense and doesn't contradict the original media". Genderqueer Pleakley from Lilo and Stitch. "Maybe Pleakley is genderqueer, maybe he just wanted to crossdress for the mission, who knows? That's why it's a headcanon."
2: "I made it the fuck up. Based on vibes, has absolutely nothing to do with canon". Bisexual Megamind from Megamind. "No evidence, no explanation, he just has Disaster Biā¢ vibes".
1: "Um? No? But go off. Directly contradicts canon (but who cares, that's why it's fun)". Trans Stanley Pines from Gravity Falls. "Even though flashback scenes prove Stan is AMAB, some people HC him as transmasc." End of ID.]
Aragorn n Legolas r so funny to me bc people who donāt know lotr well see gruff manly ranger and elegant princely elf but they donāt know what i know. they donāt know that Aragorn is the long haired sensitive softboy writing sad poetry on his livejournal about not being able to show his girlfriend the awesome new song he wrote for her on his guitar meanwhile Legolas is doing backwards kickflips over gimli at the skate park bc gimli double dog dared him then he and gimli climb the tree at Aragornās house n yell at him through the window to come play halo
Tr*mp trying to conquer the world and brute force American exceptionalism onto everything and they just elected an American popeā¦ please go back in there and pick again I am fucking begging
So I want to try and make some things clear (shed some light, as it were)
Iām Catholic, and Iām a leftist politically and if you check my blog Iāve been pretty vociferously anti-Trump.
Prevost is the right choice, because he was almost certainly chosen for being anti-Trump.
Heās one of the progressive-leaning cardinals who helped Francis push through reforms on schismatic turboconservative American bishops (this was regarding Fiducia supplicans and additional reforms around blessing gay couples, allowing gay parents to baptize their children, and allowing trans people to be baptized as Catholics while being out as trans to their parish), and his election was hinted at when the African cardinals essentially rolled up to pre-Conclave meetings and joined forces with other progressive candidates to pick someone who wants to take the fight to Trump because heās a danger to the independence of the church and he killed PEPFAR, which they were heavily in favor of.
If it had been a pro-Trump candidate we would have expected to see someone like Cardinal Burke. Prevost has been a wild card for a lot of people but my friend and I were sort of hoping this as a kind of āoh please someone who speaks his language and hates his gutsā kind of thing.
Heās less progressive than Zuppi or Tagle, but heās not anti-Bergoglian (this means heās likely to continue in Francisās direction), and heās also almost certainly going to work to bring the American church in line. The white Catholics with any cultural power are dangerously racist and homophobic, and many nonwhite American Catholics are actively having to hide going to Mass to avoid ICE raids. This was a choice that I think has a lot of good bones behind it, not an attempt to promote American exceptionalism.
the Snork Maiden blushed a delicate viridian all over and murmured "those fishnets really suit you, my dear Moomintroll - and so useful for catching supper too!"
There is a reason why Maomao wears different clothes than the rest of the inner palace.
Part of it is a main character thing. But Maomao's clothes reflect her status and situation.
She doesn't wear the orange uniform the servant girls wear, because she is not a general servant of the inner palace. Remember, she did wear that uniform in the first episode. However, once she started serving Lady Gyokuyo, she changed into that familiar green and pink outfit.
Maomao does not wear the same uniform as Lady Gyokuyo's Ladies-in-Waiting because Maomao is not a lady-in-waiting. Those girls are literally Ladies. They are noble woman serving Lady Gyokuyo, and their fancy clothing reflects their status.
Its confusing because we as viewers see them acting as servants; cleaning, dressing Gyokuyo, taking care of the little princess, ect. But traditionally, Ladies-in-Waiting are actual nobles, usually younger daughters or from lesser houses, serving higher nobles or royalty. Queens would pick women from allied houses to be their Ladies-in-Waiting, and it would he an honor to be picked. It's why in the second episode of Season 2, it was a big deal that the other concubines had a bunch of Ladies-in-Waiting. It's a matter of status, having tons of noblewoman in your service. They are also paid quite a bit and given gifts for their service. Which was also a thing in that episode, with the caravan.
So Maomao isn't actually one of Gyokuyo's Ladies. She isn't noble. So she doesn't wear the same clothes as the other ladies. She only does it on rare occasions like the Winter Garden Party to blend in. In that case, her normal clothes would reflect badly on Gyokuyo.
It might be a coincidence, since Maomao has worn the same thing the whole series, but her skirt is the same color as the other skirts worn by Gyokuyo's Ladies. That dark magenta is definitely Gyokuyo's color, and likely let's other people identify her as being in Gyokuyo's service. Remember that angry lady in Lihua's service? And the nervous maid that delivered that letter to her? That maid wore a very similar outfit to Maomao's, only in blue and dark blue/indigo. The same simple tunic and skirt, in Lihua's colors. That woman was like Maomao, a servant of a concubine, but not a lady or general servant to the inner palace.
So yeah, Maomao's outfit is not only main character vibes. And we should all acknowledge Apothecary Diaries amazing worldbuilding and details.
really underrated part of the LotR films is when gollum gets exposition lines. like can you imagine? you're travelling with the most fucked-up evil little murder greyhound creature imaginable and he lives in a cave and doesn't know about potatoes but from time to time you have to ask him about local geopolitics. and he answers you
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