Jack of all trades, master of none

Veteran serial reblogger. Has seen the conception, rise and fall of many a fandom. I fall off the face of the earth more than I actually talk here. I’ll give you my Twitter if you give me yours I guess.

[stiltonbasket]

cultivation baby a-yuan au: chapter masterpost!

Hi everyone! This is the masterpost for the cultivation baby A-Yuan AU, organized by AU timeline. Links will shift around as more prompts are fulfilled, so keep checking back for updates.

Main ships are LWJ/WWX and NMJ/LXC, with minor Xuanli and Chengqing. For all posts related to this fic, check the cultivation baby sizhui au tag.

Chapter links:

wangxian’s night under mount muxi

wei wuxian and a-yuan on the run

reunion with jiang cheng and lan wangji

lan xichen returns to the unclean realm

determining a-yuan’s parentage

lan wangji becomes a father

baby a-yuan’s greatest fear

discussing the wangxian wedding, part 1 (ft. lan qiren)

lan xichen’s betrothal arrangements

wangxian’s declaration of love

discussing the wangxian wedding, part 2 (ft. nie huaisang)

trouble in the burial mounds

a turbulent family reunion

a look into the future (ft. nielan)

[unidentifiedspoon]

so these sketches of ballet waterbending frickin EXPLODED and a lot of people seemed to want it animated SO. i give you extremely sketchy animations of katara, prima ballerina

[resonance-of-libra]

This is the Lucky Ace. Reblog to recieve a wad of cash that is oddly specific to your current needs.

[jukaidream]

I reblogged this shit two days ago y’all… what kinda sorcery is this. Oddly specific too …. I’ll take it tho 🤯

[thisisasinkingship]

I think I did it wrong

[comic-girl2234-deactivated20240]

Uh I reblogged this like 3 days ago and I start my new job on Monday??? Like idk how you accidentally find a job but I did.

[caprifreak]

I need to get paid asap so pls ace help

[caprifreak]

I GOT PAID I GOT PAID!!!!!! MUCH MORE THAN I EXPECTED AAAAAAAAAAAA THANK YOU ACE

[musinvenusian]

I legit have a specific amount i want in my head rn it better come true 😭

[riyerose]

I ALSO HAVE A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF MONEY I WOULD LIKE TO ACQUIRE, PLEASE HELP

[autumn-new-moon]

This has worked before, so why not again?

[witchling-guidence]

I could really use a miracle. So why not

[acewithdnd]

im super broke let’s see some magic people.

[veryblushyswitch]

I’m broke sooooo…

[bucky-is-my-precious]

I really need sneakers that won’t hurt my feet so…giving it a shot

[bellecs]

[ofgeography]

so here’s a fun story about this movie. guess who loves this movie? me! i do! i love this movie. i love this movie so much that when i was in the 7th grade and i saw “first wives club 2” on pay per view i was like: HELL YEAH!! FIRST WIVES CLUB TWO!! NO ONE TOLD ME THERE WAS A SEQUEL!!!

here’s the synopsis for first wives club 2:

disgruntled first wives take their ex-husbands’ new lovers under their wing.

sounds great, right? awesome viewing material for a precocious 11-year-old.

so i buy this movie, and like, three minutes into it i’m starting to feel suspicious?? like it’s really low quality and my girls are nowhere in sight?? how come none of the first wives are the same?? how come they’re alone in a bedroom with mood lighting?? why is she taking off her shirt?? why are they both taking off their shirts?? WHY ARE THEY–

here’s what i did not know about first wives club 2:

it is a lesbian porno of no relation to the beloved 1996 classic.

so of course i, horrified that i’ve accidentally bought porn on my family’s account (and in that state of panic that kids work themselves into whenever anything regarding sex is mentioned), quickly shut off the TV and go upstairs and watch an episode of veggie tales to like, cleanse my soul and apologize to jesus, and that’s that.

EXCEPT, OF COURSE:

you have to pay for pay per view.

so the end of the month comes and i have completely put this incident out of my mind, haha, i accidentally bought porn, how funny, TELL NO ONE. right? and i’m sitting at a nice dinner with my mother, my stepfather, and my very religious aunt deb, and we’re just talking about farm things, whatever, when suddenly my mother puts her fork down and says, “okay, there’s something we need to discuss. as a family.”

AS A FAMILY.

and i’m like, running through a list of people i know who could conceivably be dead, and fantasizing about my mother announcing that she’s going to buy me My Own Computer Just Because U Earned It Kiddo, and she pulls out a piece of paper that says DIRECTV across the top. and i’m like: OH NO.

“i received the tv bill today,” my mother said, and i was like, shoveling potatoes into my mouth as fast as i could because i knew that when i went to PORN PRISON they weren’t going to feed me this kind of quality starch. “does anybody want to tell me who purchased the pornography?”

as a reminder, a quick table survey:

my mother, surprised and disappointed by the porn bill (innocent)

my stepfather, a grumbly old cowboy who just wants to sing along to kenny chesney and watch the hunt for red october (innocent)

my aunt deb, a super religious catholic whose best friend is a nun named Sister Placid (innocent)

me, the 11-year-old with a mouthful of potatoes who definitely purchased the lesbian pornography

silence.

my mother said, “i’m not going to ask again.”

silence.

my aunt looked at my stepdad. my stepdad looked at my aunt. NOBODY LOOKED AT ME, THE 11-YEAR-OLD WITH A MOUTHFUL OF POTATOES WHO DEFINITELY PURCHASED THE LESBIAN PORNOGRAPHY.

my mother shook her head and put the bill down. “this was incredibly inappropriate,” she said. “skip, deb, whoever. buy that shit on your own time. i’m not paying for it. what if molly had seen it?”

WHAT IF MOLLY HAD SEEN IT?

“don’t expose my kid to that crap.”

DON’T

EXPOSE

MY KID

TO THAT CRAP

“if you want to watch porn, fine, but do it in private and don’t expect me to pay for it. i can’t believe one of you did that in the living room.”

I CAN’T BELIEVE ONE OF YOU DID THAT

IN THE LIVING ROOM

but molly, why didn’t you own up to it and explain that it was an accident?

are you fucking kidding

i did not want to go to porn prison

the fun conclusion to this story is that i never owned up to it, which means that there are 3 people in the world who have not solved the mystery of the lesbian porn. a quick survey:

my mother, who lives every day wondering whose porn she paid for

my stepfather, who probably wishes he knew less about his wife’s sister’s porn preferences

my aunt, who probably wishes she knew less about her sister’s husband’s porn preferences

but molly, why don’t you own up to it now, with the safety of time and distance and the knowledge that porn prison isn’t real?

are you fucking kidding

this is the best thing i’ve ever done

[secretlyaunicorn24]

This is the fucking funniest thing I’ve read in ages

[glassdrachma-deactivated2021022]

we were absolutely ROBBED of the passive aggressive i-dislike-him-deeply-and-will-be-obvious-about-it-but-he’s-technically-family-and-i-guess-i-trust-him-implicitly-or-whatever in-laws relationship between jin zixuan and wei wuxian that we deserved

wei wuxian at a discussion conference: he may be an arrogant, vain, and unappreciative jerk, but jin zixuan is also slightly less awful than the rest of his sect and he has my full support! wwx: *turns and gives jzx an unsubtle grin and thumbs up* jin zixuan: ………………………………………………. thanks, wei wuxian.

wwx and jzx competing over jiang yanli’s attention, or rather:

jzx does something nice for jiang yanli because he loves her and wants to make her happy. to his intense annoyance, as soon as wwx finds out, he makes a big show of getting her something thematically similar but technically grander or more impressive, and then smugly smirking at jzx over jyl’s shoulder.

wwx does something nice for jiang yanli because he loves her and wants to make her happy. when jzx walks into the room, wwx remembers he exists and smirks smugly at him over jyl’s shoulder as if one-upping him was his plan all along.

the first time wwx holds jin ling he bursts into tears and sinks to the floor. jiang cheng walks out of the room immediately, jiang yanli laughs, and jin zixuan stands there surprised and kind of horrified. he reaches out to comfort him until wei wuxian bawls, “a-ling … please don’t grow up as spoiled as your dad ….”

it’s actually wwx who spoils jin ling rotten the most in the end

jin zixuan calls wei wuxian “brother” as a sarcastic jab at one point. he regrets it immediately, when wei wuxian’s head snaps around so fast he’s shocked it didn’t fly off, gives him a maniacal grin, and from that forth on proceeds to loudly and publicly address jin zixuan as his brother at every opportunity. jin zixuan doesn’t hate it.

jiang yanli: i think hanguang-jun may be … fond, of a-xian. jin zixuan: *choking on his tea* oh?? jyl: it would be nice to see a-xian settled down, but we’re all already so busy with our current responsibilities, and i would hate to lose his company further to marriage. jzx: … oh?

thus begins jzx’s plotting to set wei wuxian up with lan wangji that eventually culminates in:

wei wuxian: i noticed you’ve been inviting lan zhan to lanling pretty often lately jin zixuan: *has been carefully arranging lwj’s visits so they coincide with wwx’s* … yes …? wei wuxian: well, i don’t care how handsome you think he is! you can’t have him! for god’s sake, you’re married already to the most incredible woman in the entire world, when will you be sated? isn’t she already enough? jzx:

the thing is: jzx logically knows that wwx is only really saying this shit to rile him up. knowing does not make it any less annoying.

things are a little awkward between jin zixuan and jiang cheng, who has grudgingly accepted his sister’s marriage but still side-eyes jzx occasionally in a way that makes it clear that he believes jzx as undeserving of jyl only slightly less than wwx does. however, jiang cheng quickly becomes the more tolerable of jin zixuan’s in-laws when his habit of immediately trying to throttle wei wuxian whenever he opens his mouth comes to light.

when lwj and wwx finally start getting their shit together, jin zixuan is relieved and gratified to discover jiang cheng and - to his surprise - jiang yanli turning testing gazes onto lwj instead. finally, he will no longer be the only oppressed brother-in-law of the jiang family!

this relief lasts right up until the day jin zixuan insinuates to lwj politely over tea that the swords of lanling jin would be quite willing to avenge wei wuxian’s tears if he ever has them, and jzs realizes with abrupt and sudden horror that - oh no. he’s become the overprotective sibling.

wwx: that stupid peacock of a brother of mine is so annoying! always getting in my business and sending me tired looks at discussion conferences and saying “could you please be a little less obnoxious wei wuxian, or for the love of all that is good i will lock myself in my room and scream into my pillow for thirty minutes straight”! who does he think he is, jiang cheng? lwj: you like him wwx: *angrily* maybe so!

[mondengel-deactivated20231111]

I love every bit of this.

[valdrift]

ur going to ruin ur husband wei ying

[akinohikari]

Imagine jiang cheng suffering innecessarily for 13 YEARS because he thinks the teeth marks on chenqing are from when THAT happened but then he overhears the following:

ljy after asking to look at the flute: senior wei, why is chenqing so messed up? All these marks...

wwx holding back laughter: that's because a certain someone thought it was the *best* teething toy, right a-yuan? xD

lsz: -////- i don't know what you're talking about

Meanwhile, jc is in the background, having a minor existential crisis

[mondengel-deactivated20231111]

That is hilarious!

[hiddenramen-deactivated20250513]

so for the purposes of my own writing, and also just because a bitch loves maps, i made this worldmap of the mdzs universe and figured i’d share with the class! ✨

some details / under the hood stuff under the cut

Keep reading

[suspiciouspopsicle]

THAT’S WHAT IT IS

it’s mistaking wwx (understandably) thinking that lwj hated him for wwx thinking he’s fundamentally less or unworthy. that’s where the weird catch in characterization comes from so often.

wwx knows that he’s clever, he knows he’s powerful and intelligent and handsome. he knows that he makes his decisions based on what he sees as the right path. he has regrets, and he has moments of despair, but he doesn’t hate himself.

he also knows that he’s not acceptable to the Lans as a whole, but that’s…that ought to be almost incidental to him (pre-end-of-novel). he didn’t care what the entire rest of the cultivation world thought about him, so why should he care about the Lans back then? there’s no reason that ought to put a dent in his confidence.

he cares what certain people think–his siblings, and probably lwj, but he’s still capable of setting that aside. and he had so much more going on that romance was a really distant concern…that, and he canonically never got invested past flirting, so either he wasn’t all that interested, or he wasn’t willing to invest in a relationship until something clicked for him. either way, he was willing to set it aside and wait.

but, so like when him acknowledging that lwj doesn’t like him and that lwj’s family doesn’t approve of him gets swapped with wwx hating himself…that’s where things get messed up. and it’s so easy to slip into the one from the other. ‘oh, woe, he despises me therefore I must be inherently flawed and unlovable,’ that and there are so many stories where the love interest swoops in and is the only one to see that the protag is beautiful and worth loving or whatever. We see so much of that kind of thing, that it’s super simple to just slide right into it with wwx. but that’s not right, tho. lwj doesn’t save wwx. wwx comes back and he’s ready to fight for this second chance he’s been given, he’s not just going to give up, he’s not giving in to the people who still hate him. he tells them to fuck off. he’s already died. he still regrets. but it’s his life, and he’s going to live it. he doesn’t need saving so far as his self-worth goes. he can handle all that. he doesn’t need lwj’s love to fix anything inside him.

[muse-kr]

[danhumphrey]

scott lang, completely misunderstanding peter parker’s power: hey if u want man we could get tiny and just like hang out, i don’t know if you’ve ever been in a lego castle but it’s pretty sweet

peter parker: u have no idea how much physical pain having to turn this offer down is causing me but,

[northstarthembo]

Scott Lang, upon realizing Peter Parker can’t shrink: oh okay no biggee, we’ll just make the LEGO castle big

[magical-awesome-kid]

Peter, ready to cry from joy: do you like Star Wars? Because I have a replica… and my friend Ned and I got it to fly…

Scott Lang, a mechanical engineer and nerd: kid you are my people

[letitrainathousandflames-archive]

Tony, calling peter: …and may I know WHY THE HELL IS SHIELD CALLING ME ABOUT A LIFE-SIZED DEATH STAR IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DESERT?!

Peter: we didn’t want it to crush any buildings so we brought it out here!

Tony: THATS N O T MY POINT!!!

[gingersnapwolves]

#and then Tony wonders when the hell HE became the responsible one#and promptly abandons his responsibilities#and jumps in his armor#to go zoom around the life size death star#pretending he’s Luke doing the trench run (via)

[153-centimeters-of-sass]

It got better!

[aqueerkettleofish]

I was gonna SAY, Tony would fly out there, look at the thing, and go…. No, this isn’t life size. Impressive though. Okay, bugs, put on these helmets, we’re taking this into orbit and doing this at 1:1 scale.

[joasakura]

Sam: Barnes is gonna make an awesome Chewbacca.

Bucky: -.-

[iconuk01]

Guardians arriving back in Earth orbit for a visit: Rocket : When the **** did Earth get another moon? Peter Qull (with an indescribable look on his face, but knowing his entire life has built to this moment): That’s no moon!

[literateterrarian]

(so this face?)

[courtofnothing]

Yes

[three--rings]

MDZS, Sex, and Consent, Part 4 (Oh god why is there a part 4)

(Part One) (Part Two) (Part Three)

Until @tonyglowheart reminded me, I’d forgotten there is an extended/alternate version of the Chapter 111 sex scene that was only in the Traditional Chinese hard copy of MDZS.  So this is basically, MXTX’s revised-revised version of the scene, and likely the closest to her actual intent?  It’s more explicit than the other versions.

Luckily, there’s a nice translation of it.   It only covers the second half of the scene.  So all my quotes are going to be thanks to @bigbadredpanda.

Afficher davantage

[bigbadredpanda]

Thank you @three–rings for the thorough and informative posts. I haven’t really read the other translations so it’s fascinating to see the differences of interpretations and word choices and how they affect the reader. I’d like to provide a translator’s point of view on the hardships of conveying tone and interpreting the context.

First and foremost, every translation is a subjective interpretation. My translation follows my own understanding of the original text, of the characters, of the context. That’s one key aspect that makes Chinese so complex to translate, it’s a language that relies heavily on the ability to perceive the contextual clues in order to understand the implicit meaning.

Meanings

Unlike English which is a more precise language, Chinese commonly expresses with a single word a wide range of meanings that can even be contradictory.

In chapter 111, while Wei Wuxian is begging for mercy during sex, he says “你厉害，你太厉害了”. That’s the line that was translated as “you’re too much, you’re way too much” (ExR) and something along the lines of “you’re good, you’re too good” (chiaki_himura for the google doc) or “you’re amazing, you’re the best” (myself). If you break down the sentence, the literal meaning is “you are 厉害, you are too 厉害”. It’s this word, 厉害, that is the source of divergence between the different translations. Here are the dictionary definitions given by MDBG:

So nine meanings and one noticeably different than the others. It’s not like there is a consensus either, Fanyi Baidu doesn’t even have that last one:

In a vacuum, these are all valid translations of the word. If you had only “你厉害” to go by, you could understand it as “you’re merciless/harsh/unbearable/great”. That’s why when someone asks for help to translate a bit of Chinese, the first question that’s going to be raised is “What’s the context?” The ability to understand the context is something that is honed by practising the language and can’t be obtained from a glance at a dictionary. 厉害 is used fundamentally to convey a high degree of intensity. It can be negative if it’s about a person’s temperament or positive if it’s related to their skills. The positive meaning is also more frequent in everyday and colloquial speech, you can exclaim “厉害!” or “Awesome!” in praise of something or someone.

To me, it was in that positive sense that Wei Wuxian used the word within the context of that scene. He also used that same word a bit earlier when he was waxing lyrical about Lan Wangji, “How can such a gorgeous beauty play the guqin so well, have such proper penmanship, possess such strong spiritual energy, be endowed with such high cultivation base and even be so 厉害 in bed?”. That one is pretty much unambiguous. There’s other instances of the word like for example in chapter 38 where it’s Lan Jingyi proclaiming that Hanguang-Jun is amazing. Hence my choice of translation.

Implicitness

Chinese language permits to use words in parsimony. Dropping the subject or the verb in a sentence is commonly done without that affecting the comprehension because it’s understandable from the context.

In writing, you can make oblique references and not expound on the action of who does what exactly. In chapter 111, Lan Wangji muffles Wei Wuxian to stop his teasing. It was alternatively translated as a kiss or a hand covering his mouth or left vague. The original Chinese is just that, he “blocked his mouth”. (The audio drama makes it a kiss.)

Similarly, in the Taiwan extra, Wei Wuxian taunts Lan Wangji into using the silencing spell on him to prevent him from being overly rowdy during their nighttime activities. Lan Wangji then “seals” his mouth. As I was reading it for the first time, I thought that he did use the silencing spell but no, Wei Wuxian starts rambling again less than a paragraph later. I had missed the contextual clues that Lan Wangji had leant towards Wei Wuxian to seal his mouth, meaning that he had shut him up with a kiss again.

I’m fairly certain that this kind of bare-bones and oblique descriptions wouldn’t be ambiguous to the average Chinese reader with the intuitive linguistic and cultural awareness that can only be ingrained through immersion. (I’m leaving aside cases of more figurative descriptions that are subject to interpretation) When translating in English, you would feel the need to overtranslate for the sake of clarity.

Tone

Tone not being conveyed properly and leading to misinterpretations is something that’s been bothering me… Not only the playful banter from the sex scenes but also some forms of speech with sarcasm or rhetorical questions that I see taken at face value. For example, at one point, Wen Ning addresses Jin Ling by his courtesy name, Jin Rulan. Jin Ling snubs him and asks “Who’s that?’. He’s being scornful, he does know that it’s his own name but refuses to answer it. (Because it sounds too sissy according to MXTX. Yes, that’s from the boy who named his dog Fairy. Though he probably also has complicated feelings over this courtesy name because of the person who chose it)

I try to pay special attention to the speech of the characters when I translate. Wei Wuxian is this voluble talker who frequently uses in Chinese sentence-final particles when he speaks. (Lan Wangji pretty much never does) These are Chinese characters that don’t carry actual meanings but are used to express the speaker’s attitude and to nuance to what is stated. Some are used for emphasis, to make a statement obvious, to soften what is said, etc… They’re often left untranslated in English because there is seldom an equivalent so some information on the speaker’s intent ends up being lost.

Some examples:

These definitions don’t even cover the whole range of expressiveness that can be conveyed with these particles, they’re very versatile. When Wei Wuxian goes “Lan Zhan a”, it sounds much more enthusiastic than a normal “Lan Zhan”. Or surprised or flustered depending on the context. 

Finally, I’d also like to mention that there are clues in the bath scene in chapter 95 that Lan Wangji sobered up before the heavy petting. His speech pattern is different when drunk. But that’s perhaps a discussion for another day. The audio drama also makes it clearer with the tone of his voice. I really can’t recommend enough the audio drama, the voice acting adds so much to the comprehension of the original text with the intonations used. (Even though the audio drama isn’t explicit, you can tell that Wei Wuxian is unabashedly teasing and is having the time of his life during their first time together…)

[poppycroscs-deactivated20230902]

‪Baby yoda doing his little toddley waddle. ‬

He has very important business to attend to. Places to go, people to see.

[omghotmemes]

Friday the 13th

[iprefertheterminsane]

Okay. I don’t think said it yet, so I guess it’s up to me.

look, I remember when I first heard of the Good Omens fandom, and naturally, Aziraphale’s name, I was struck frozen like, “Wait, I know that name. Israfil, that’s a first. Which is what reluctantly pulled me in

(I’m a Muslim)

See, growing up, we have this nursery rhyme for the 10 most important angels that you have to know, and Israfil’s name was right up there (if you want to know, the other nine are Jibril, Mikail, Mungkar, Nakir, Raqib, Atid,Ridhwan, Malik andIzrail)Christians to mention some of them in movies, I mean, you guys have versions of them too, right? So I’ve naturally heard the mentions of Jibril (Gabriel), Mikail (Michael) and Izrail (Azrael), but I was kind of stuck at the mention of Israfil of all angels, so throughout all 6 episodes  I kept trying to remember what his main purpose was, in the nursery rhyme (you know that thing that you can’t think of something purely due to the reason because you’re looking for it?). As the story progressed I began to recall that he was a pretty big deal for starting Doomsday, but it wasn’t until this scene happened;

Keep reading

[rustycol]

What is conspicuous about the “ancient China” setting of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation is the absence of the Emperor and the Imperial Court and Bureaucracy. It can’t be emphasized enough what a huge social institution the Empire is: although there are wealthy landowners and aristocratic clans, the provinces are governed and the laws served by officials directly appointed by the Imperial Court - so whatever you do, it’s likely you’ll run into the Empire’s machinery at some point. Admittedly, the presence and impact of the Imperial Court and its people is negligible in wuxia novels like The Proud, Smiling Wanderer but it is stated to be there, often served as a symbol of the mundane, petty society the proud, free-spirited martial artists look down on.

Keep reading

[marilyndraws]

I am completely enamored with the space cowboy dad and his force-sensitive green baby