Somewhere... a cuttlefish

Patchwork randomness - whatever tangles in my fancy tentacles: currently cruising through the depths of CQL & MDZS, Lan Wangji speaks to my heart. Musician, linguist, neutrino.

[thorinds]

1000 Books You May Have Actually Read

How many of these books listed you have you read?

1-15

16-30

31-45

46-60

61-75

76-90

91-105

106-120

121-135

136-150

151-175

More than 176

Voting ended onJun 12, 2024

[qpr-culture-is]

Qpr culture is wanting to find a Qpr cause your closest friend is now dating someone and you aren't as close as you used to be and you feel like it's a hit to your ego to talk to them as often. I just want someone I can talk to and be prioritized in the same way I prioritize my friendships 🙃

it is really sad that most friendships are seen as lesser than romantic relationships and tend to get tossed aside when such are formed :(

[sarah-yyy]

cdrama buddies, what are we watching??

[impending-cuttlefish]

Rewatching "Blood of Youth" (jianghu, friendships galore, me likes!). What comes next is either a rewatch of "A league of Nobleman" or starting "the Mysterious Lotus Casebook".

[ruanbaijie]

this is a very self-indulgent post.

[impending-cuttlefish]

And this is a very indulgent reblog.

I've just watched 君子盟 (A League of Nobleman) twice. Haven't been so taken in by a drama in a long time. Love the relationships between the characters.

And Lan Jue with his hair down is certainly a tasty bonus.

[sarahmackattack]

Ostracods are normally tiny, like a mm in diameter, so I was just now shocked to learn how big they sometimes get- up to like 1.3 inches - slightly smaller than a ping pong ball! That's a big orb!

Pic by Woods Hole Oceanographic

Learn more from @mbari-blog here!

[anotherdescentintomadness]

Happy Hanguang June!

Second Rainbow Hanguang-jun. First Rainbow Hanguang-jun.

No reposts please, but reblog for Pride Month 🌈 💅

Happy Pride, everyone.

[ayanaacorn]

A pet peeve in MDZS fics: WWX’s grey eyes.

The novel and the audio drama do not mention his eye colour, and we assume that they are probably brown (in both bodies). There’s one character with different eye colour- LWJ, whose light coloured eyes are probably a light hazel, which is a possible, if uncommon, eye colour for a Chinese person.

WWX’s eyes are grey in the donghua, that most people don’t tag on their fics. Most animated characters have colourful eyes, since their face shapes can be very similar and it helps the viewer to distinguish between them, and makes the design more expressive . That doesn’t mean that they necessarily describe characters with light coloured eyes.

Grey eyes are a type / closer genetically to blue eyes, unlike hazel, which is a type of light brown. In order for WWX to have eyes like that, he’ll need have lots of non Chinese heritage- it’s unlikely even for a mixed race person with one white parent and one Chinese parent, since it’s unlikely the Chinese parent will have the recessive alleles for blue eyes. Also - people will surely remark on it in the story, and not necessarily positively. As far as I know, light coloured eyes were considered barbaric.

But the thing that annoys me is not changing canon. It’s the fact that writers feel the need to assign a light eye colour to any important character, as if there aren’t any other ways to describe POC. I know the novel doesn’t exactly describe his appearance, but if you’re making up stuff, at least make up stuff that make sense for a Chinese character? The shape of his face, lips, or eyes. There are many ways to describe eye shape for Chinese people. Here’s a guide by zeldacw . At least in this sense, the CQL fandom is mostly better - most writers describe XZ face without needing to embellish it.

I know I sound a bit obsessive, but this is something I have seen in other fandoms, and also when people write about original POC characters. Somehow they always have an unlikely eye colour . And that feels a little insulting- is there no other way to tell people apart? Or can’t you be attractive without light coloured eyes?

[mapsontheweb]

Representation of the world according to linguistic diversity.

by Michael Parkvall and Jacques Leclerc, 2010

[sweetlittlevampire]

Blue Moon You saw me standing alone Without a dream in my heart Without a love of my own

And then there suddenly appeared before me The only one my arms will ever hold I heard somebody whisper, “Please adore me.” And when I looked, the moon had turned to gold,

I was itching to do more Art Nouveau-inspired drawings after I’ve finished my Untamed Elves for the Mirkwood AU, and I’ve always admired the portraits Alphonse Mucha did. And since I like flowers so much, I thought I’d try and do a portrait series with flowers. I’m not necessarily looking at the flower meaning, although I might; sometimes I might pick one because it’s an obvious choice, or because I think they look good with the character I choose to pair them with.

Gentians are the flower most people associate with Lan Wangji. In flower language, it stands for victory and accuracy, but also for loving someone who is full of sorrow, or a lonely love.

I personally love to associate Lan Wangji with the moon and the symbolism of the moon phases. It’s synonymous to me with how he shows emotion (not necessarily with how he feels it though), depending on who he’s with, and how much he trusts them.

Wei Wuxian  ♦ Lan Xichen

Lan Wangji / The Untamed / Mo Dao Zu Shi © Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

[sweetlittlevampire]

Happy HanguangJune! This is one of my favourite Lan Wangji drawings, and I felt like sharing it for the occasion.

[thefiresontheheight]

Did you know that the sunrises and sunsets on Mars are blue?

The scattering is produced by fine dust in the planet’s thin atmosphere. Also relevant, the disk of the sun is smaller, visually, than on Earth. Images like these reflect, more or less, the actual views of the sunset, as taken by Martian rovers. And looking at them like? It kinda makes me sad. ‘Cause I know irl any mission to Mars in my lifetime is likely to be a doomed corporate venture. But still. I would like to see a blue sunrise.

[thefiresontheheight]

Like! Those are real places! That’s just…a place. You could stand on that ridge, on that rusting rock, if you had a enough protection, and you could watch that with your own two eyes. How am I supposed to be chill that I can’t do that?

[sonechkaandthedynamos]

what language did you learn in school and can you actually speak it?

[catboyiboboy]

[lanwangjihouse]

[zelkam]

Lan Zhan, you are truly worthy of being Hanguang-jun.

And you are truly worthy of being Wei Ying.

[liu-anhuaming]

i found these two quick tests that are supposed to estimate how many characters you know:

test one

test two

as the explanation for the second test explains, you should only click on a character if you know both the pronunciation and definition since it’s fairly easy to guess a character’s pronunciation. you can take both tests in simplified or traditional

according to these tests, i know somewhere between 2,800 and 2,900 characters! what about you?

(if you study japanese you can give these tests a try too just for fun!)

[woaihanyu]

Can’t lie, I did awful on these lolol.

[impending-cuttlefish]

It’s so difficult to recognize characters out of context!

As expected I didn’t do too well. I got 1400 in the first test and 1000 in the second. I should make more of an effort to learn new characters. While reading MDZS, I’ve taken a very relaxed approach where I write down only words I’ve encountered often and are ripe for memorising or words I think are useful, interesting or are in my favourite sections. Maybe it’s time to pick up more words.

[lanwangjihouse]

[lanwangjihouse]