Won a writing contest at uni, and now I'm being requested to read an excerpt at the award ceremony. Oof, my bones are rattling. I'm nervous but also excited.
i think villains in general provide better, more epic romances because they're allowed to go to extremes. they're allowed to put their love over the greater good. they're allowed to be selfish. the best a hero can offer you is number two, because their duty comes first. villains, though. villains will burn down the world for a last kiss goodbye.
Yea, sure. Until YOU or people you love are among the victims for someone else’s love and the villains won’t care. Would also like to point out that some villians(Kuvira, for example) have been willing to sacrifice/throw away love interests for their own goals.
idk about you but existing in the real world gives me and my loved ones immunity from the actions of fictional villains. hope you manage to get your family out of star wars.
By rolling over and stubbornly feigning sleep if they did.
Their brains are little cause-effect engines. If standing next to your face and yelling until you feed them doesn't actually produce that result, they'll eventually stop doing it. You just have to outlast them.
So, we tried doing this with a cat we were looking after. We would not get up until the alarm clock went off.
One morning, he was standing by my head and screaming, but not in my ear. I looked up and saw that he had his little face one inch from the alarm clock. Because we only woke up when the alarm clock went off, he decided that it was the alarm clock that he needed to scream at until it woke up.
hey (culture ask incoming) im wondering about weddings in china and whether people generally wear more western style wedding clothes or traditional chinese style?
(Long-winded answer incoming)
Depends.
I would say Chinese/hanfu style wedding attire has been making a big comeback (so to speak) in recent years as a side effect of the hanfu revival movement, but there is also Chinese wedding attire that is distinctly it's own genre of clothing, i.e, bridal/groom wear. When you look at it, you know (if you know) that it's wedding attire. More on this in a second.
Still, for those who can afford it, it is popular these days to wear both western style wedding attire and Chinese wedding attire. Most people who I've seen wear both change into the Chinese attire for the wedding banquet. If they wear a western wedding dress, it will be at the ceremony/walking down the aisle. Likewise, if they wear both hanfu and Chinese wedding attire, they will wear the hanfu for the ceremony. Another thing to keep in mind is that in China, it is quite popular to take wedding photos in a myriad of outfits, not just the one you will be wearing on the occasion. So people nowadays may take photos in all the different kinds of wedding attire (via clothing rentals), whether they are going to wear it at their wedding or not. In that spirit, they still technically wear both western and Chinese style wedding clothes.
Hopefully that answers your question there. I have a #chinese wedding that covers a lot of videos but in which you can see the types of gowns and all that which I will briefly go into below.
So: when it comes to "traditional Chinese style" wedding attire, what does that really mean?
To me, three main types of clothing come to mind: 1) Chinese Wedding Attire™ , 2) Chinese style wedding attire, 3) Wedding hanfu
1) Chinese Wedding Attire™, AKA 秀禾服 Xiùhé
Visually distinct, it is not really hanfu nor qizhuang but a secret third thing.... In this case, it is a blend of Qing dynasty and Republican era styles dubbed "xiuhe". As bridal wear specifically, it is actually a rather recent trend (21st century), but it's become a fixture in Chinese wedding wear. While the colors can vary wildly and magnificently, the classic colors here are gold and red.
The style that exists today shows Qing dynasty influence in its construction and at its core consists of both bride and groom wearing embroidered tang suit tops and a matching silk skirt. The bride usually wears hair ornaments/pins in place of a veil. Since there are pins in the hair, brides may wear a xiapei/cape with a long train instead.
A few bridal styles (keep in mind that these are just the classic cuts and colors—there are other styles/colors that contain recognisable elements of bridal wear but are made of different fabrics, have different draping, have more tassels, have a softer look, etc):
2) Chinese style wedding attire
This is admittedly somewhat of the same thing as Wedding Attire™, just toned down as it was more popular/commonplace in the last century, when it was what was most affordable for most, but it's a style that nonetheless comes to mind. With this, the key is simply that the bride wears a mostly all red dress/top+skirt and the groom wears a suit. Bride and groom will also often wear a red flower/ribbon pinned to their top or worn around them gift-wrapped style, haha. My mom just wore a red top and bottom to her wedding dinner (that's as much detail as I've ever gotten out of her lol) when she got married in the early 80s. Another thing is, since white is a funerary color/color of death in Asian cultures, some people also just wear Western style wedding dresses that are red.
3) Wedding hanfu
As you can imagine, this is ornate hanfu that is worn for weddings. Song/Ming style hanfu is particularly popular here.This clothing is traditional in the sense that it has historical basis and is what those who could afford to word for weddings historically. Historical wedding colors varied but color pairings like red & blue and red & green are traditional (man wears red, woman wears blue/green; 红男绿女). Wearing hanfu for weddings is a trend that has become popular with the hanfu revival movement and is, as you might guess, a trend for Han Chinese people
Chinese ethnic minorities have their own wedding attire that they may choose to wear/wear as well (if they do a banquet, etc). Or they might just wear red/xiuhe/western style dresses, too—this is another area where wedding photos let you basically wear everything.
Agreed that it's commonplace nowadays for weddings in China to involve multiple outfit changes, so that both Chinese-style wedding attire (hanfu, xiuhefu, qipao, qungua, etc.) and Western-style wedding attire are worn. In addition to the ceremony and banquet/reception, there's also the Chinese 接亲/jieqin ("picking up the bride") tradition that occurs prior to the ceremony, during which the groom goes to pick up the bride from her parent’s house. Most couples choose to wear Chinese-style wedding attire for jieqin and other pre-ceremony activities, even if they wear Western-style wedding attire for the rest.
Below - examples of couples wearing wedding hanfu during jieqin activities (1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10/11/12):
It's also common for the bridesmaids, groomsmen, and parents to wear hanfu if the couple does (1/2):
The red sash and large red flower that the groom and/or bride (usually the groom) often wear are called 披红/pihong and 大红花球/dahong huaqiu, respectively. They are mostly red, but can also have green colors.
Hey everyone, I know it's going to be a busy day for a lot of people, but Google enrolled everyone over 18 into their AI program automatically.
If you have a google account, first go to gemini.google.com/extensions and turn everything off.
Then you need to go to myactivity.google.com/product/gemini and turn off all Gemini activity tracking. You do have to do them in that order to make sure it works.
Honestly, I'm not sure how long this will last, but this should keep Gemini off your projects for a bit.
I saw this over on bluesky and figured it would be good to spread on here. It only takes a few minutes to do.
Because this isn't mentioned above, also go to google.com/drive/settings and turn off all the annoying bits that interface directly with docs there.
This is all in the "privacy" tab of your settings. How fun that everything is hidden two layers deep. 🙄 This DOESN'T get rid of the stupid little star constantly asking you to use it, unfortunately, but that's what the picker in ublock is for. 😉
More detail instructions for OP's post for those who are confused. This is done from the browser on my laptop, I don't know what they look like on phones.
When you click the first link gemini.google.com/extensions, you need to click on the setting icon at the bottom, then choose "Extension", like this:
Scroll down a bit, you will see the options, turn them all off.
Then, you click on the second link myactivity.google.com/product/gemini, you'll see it tells you that it's already "turn off". NO! IT'S NOT! You have to click on that "Turn off" option, it'll drop down a menu like this:
Turn that thing off. Until that button shows you have to click to turn it back on like this:
And then, click on the delete button down there too, even if it says there's nothing to delete, just do it as a caution.
After you's done with those two. You go to your Drive, find the Setting button.
Click on the "Privacy" tab, choose the button "Manage Workspace smart feature setting"
Tick both of those off, then click Save. Or if you still want to use Google AI assistant for some reasons, please read the fine lines very very carefully.
Only then, you can feel safe enough with this force AI assistant bullshit. FOR NOW 🤡 All these steps still can't get rid of that Gemini blinkblink icon though >:(((((
Since their origination in Tang Dynasty, these day beds were popular among aristocratic women of China. In costume dramas you often see scenes of noble ladies taking quite aesthetic naps on them, reading books, fanning themselves etc. There are several types.
I have an ongoing collection of such scenes from dramas lol something about them is quite alluring but ALSO funny to me at the same time 🤣 This post will be continuously updating till I reach the tumblr image limit (30), let's see how long that will take!
Or one can sprawl on the Luohan Bed 罗汉床 (Luóhàn chuáng) -though less comfortably- if too lazy to move onto even the couch 😆
Consider: Post-canon Zuko wakes up in the body of his childhood self, the morning of That War Meeting. Would he still speak against the plans, knowing his fate? What do you think he would do differently the second time around?
"Turned away at the doors, Zuzu?"
"Shut up, Azula," her brother sulked. But sulked weirdly, after staring at her too long and too wide-eyed, not like she'd surprised him but--
But like he hadn't expected her to be there. At all.
He turned away. ...He turned back. "Hey, Lala? Do you think you could help me practice that one set?"
He didn't meet her eyes.
She narrowed hers. "Which set?"
"The one I'm bad at."
She scoffed. Pushed away from the wall she'd been leaning against. "That's all of them, Dum-Dum."
He didn't shout or stomp or yell about the nickname. His lips twitched.
"It's okay," he said. "If you're afraid you won't be a better teacher that my instructor..."
It was the most obvious manipulation ever.
Perhaps if he proved an adequate firebending student, she'd work on his courtly survival skills next. Honestly, it was good that not even Uncle Gets-Cousins-Killed had been fool enough to take Zuko into that war meeting. She could only imagine how terribly that could have gone.
"Keep up," she said, and turned her steps towards the training grounds.
He did. There, and during the katas she ran him through.
Azula kept her eyes narrowed.
"Hey," he asked, "do you know how to bend lightning yet?"
As if he could have missed it, if she'd been able to get more than sparks. "I will soon," she said.
"You will," he agreed, and flowed through his next set. The one she'd only just mastered.
Father didn't notice how weird Zuzu was being. Uncle never noticed anything. Zuko ate dinner and asked a servant for seconds and didn't stutter or flinch or lose his appetite when father asked, coolly, what he'd done with his day. Azula's shoulders tensed, because one mention of how she'd squandered her own training time teaching him--
"Azula hogged the training grounds. For hours," Zuzu scowled, exactly like a petulant thirteen year old.
Exactly like he hadn't been acting all day.
By the time Father was looking her way, Azula had her usual smirk in place. "I'm sure there would be room for both of us," she said, "you're not afraid of a little friendly fire, are you, brother?"
Zuko sulked. And ate his seconds, like he was enjoying each bite. There was something in his eyes, like a joke no one else was getting.
---
Father died that night. A heart attack. There were the faintest of burns to either side of the treacherous organ; the royal physician hypothesized that he'd grabbed at his chest, fingers burning hot in his final moments; so hot they'd only exacerbated the problem.
The royal physician would never have been brought any victims of lighting strikes. Those that occurred in the capital did not generally require a doctor in the aftermath.
Zuzu ate a hearty breakfast.
He didn't order seconds. Azula gave him points, at least, for not being tacky.
---
The sages named Iroh as regent.
They named Zuko as Fire Lord.
"No," the tiny Fire Lord in his perfectly miniaturized Fire Lord robes said, sitting at the head of his war council. "We're not doing that. And I'll be reviewing all recent battle plans, as well. What's this I hear about a division of new recruits being deployed to the front?"
He did not mention how he'd heard of the 41st Division. No one asked.
"Prince Iroh, surely--" one of the generals tried to appeal.
The young Fire Lord's regent was looking as startled as the rest of them, for a moment. Then he sipped his tea, and smiled.
"Your Fire Lord is correct, of course. A change in our leadership--a change the other nations may mistakenly view as weakness--will necessitate a change in our strategy."
"Now," said their lord, "what, exactly, is our overall objective in this war?"
War, the new Fire Lord decreed, was not an end unto itself.
---
The new Fire Lord continued to have time, to pretend to be trained by her. Azula watched him. Adjusted her footwork. Did not tolerate, and was not offered, any commentary on who was teaching who.
"What did you do with my brother?" she asked, as they flowed from one set to the next. As her hands, poised to throw fire, just so happened to be pointed his way.
He missed a step. It didn't look like an act.
"I'm, uh. Right here?"
She didn't bother to dignify that.
He didn't bother to look worried about her hands, one movement off from a true attack.
He looked around, then grabbed her sleeve, and tugged her further from any walls that may hide ears. The royal family's private training grounds were wonderfully large, and wonderfully open.
"It's me," he said. "It's still me. Just. More of me? Longer of me?"
She narrowed her eyes. A familiar expression, by this point. "Explain."
"...I found the Avatar," he said. "And this is definitely his fault, but--but I guess it started at a war meeting, when I was thirteen."
It would probably be more in-character for Liu Xiao to feel indifferent towards Liu Min, but I would also like to think he harbours some unsavoury feelings towards him from them growing up together
So I imagine him bumping into Liu Min while he's out with Vein or Xia Fei in the streets of Bridon, and being like "look this is my new older brother, and he's much cooler than you" (or something along those lines but more suave) just to taunt him, regardless of his true feelings(towards Vein and Xia Fei)
*btw according to the artbook Liu Min was 27 in S1. And taller than cxs (185cm)
Don't mind the comic being two months late, my bad
Note: Of all the familial terms used here, only gege and didi are explicitly familial. The others (-ge, -di, -xiaodi) are implicitly familial (it's the same vibe as calling someone a brother in arms, in a way) to different degrees/vibes. And the last 呵 is a sarcastic laugh.
Oh, and honourifics aren't usually capitalized (I mean, we usually write them as characters, so...), I've just capitalized them here to demonstrate that the characters are emphasizing them in speech.
Computers are very simple you see we take the hearts of dead stars and we flatten them into crystal chips and then we etch tiny pathways using concentrated light into the dead star crystal chips and if we etch the pathways just so we can trick the crystals into doing our thinking for us hope this clears things up.
why would this distress you friend the dead star crystal chips are just singing to each other with invisible ripples in the fabric of reality itself perfectly normal stuff
Every now and then some discourse pops up around a queer ship consisting of a pair of fictional characters who are not blood related, but refer to themselves as "brothers" or "sisters," or are in some way, according to the fandom, "sibling-coded."
Every time I see that discourse, all I can think about are the very real queer men I once knew, who, before their deaths, lived their lives posing as "stepbrothers." The only way to avoid suspicion for being two older unmarried men living together in a rural conservative area was to pretend they were from the same family, even though the truth was that they were lovers.
They were never out in life. Their relationship was a strict secret to nearly everyone. They never knew that I knew, and sometimes it fucks me up inside that they never got to come out to me. It fucks me up that they had to hide behind a fake "brotherly" relationship for their own safety. It fucks me up to look at a gravestone that reads "beloved brother" and know what it really means, and what it could have said if they'd lived under different circumstances.
In another world, they could have been husbands, but they never had the opportunity. The world will remember them as brothers, because, even in death, that is what was safest.
The freedom to declare queer love openly is something that not everyone has. And I think more people could stand to remember that.
I recently aided a library patron who was doing research on queer couples and inheritance law, and ended up reading a few of the articles they selected, including this one about a wealthy gay man who legally adopted his longtime partner before he died:
In 1960, at the age of eighty-six, Robert Allerton adopted his longtime partner, John Gregg. Allerton was twenty-five years Gregg's senior,
“In 1960, at the age of eighty-six, Robert Allerton adopted his longtime partner, John Gregg. Allerton was twenty-five years Gregg's senior, and they had been referring to themselves as adopted father and son since the 1920s. Although not a well-known practice, over the course of the twentieth century, some gay couples used adult adoption to secure family rights. This strategy accelerated significantly in the 1980s when AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) made questions of the legal recognition of queer partnerships desperately pressing.”
I’m no expert on the subject, but it seems that some people today may not appreciate how creative queer couples have historically needed to be in order to explain away their partnerships.
I've always really liked this clip from the trailers because of the way his face moves from the darkness to the light, and how his expression changes along with it to represent him putting on a friendly facade/a show, but now that we have context omg
Him in shadow = mob boss persona
Him in the light = smiley smiley
THE LIGHT IS XIA FEI WHOM HE HIDES HIS TRUE SELF FROM
in response, xia fei gets a loud laugh. vein covers his mouth as if he has just heard the funniest joke in his entire life. the red earring in his left ear shines brightly in the sun, and xia fei must close his eyes. vein plays with his braid, long hair dances between his slim fingers. xia fei knows his hair is soft. he has touched it so many times.
"why would i have to leave, hm?" vein's still laughing. why xia fei can't laugh with him?
it's weird. this whole situation is weird.
vein's pretty careless today. he doesn't think about his responsibilities. all vein does, is sitting together with xia fei in the meadow, watching setting sun and laughing. it's weird, odd. but isn't it all xia fei has ever wanted? just some time together where the whole world loses meaning and it's only them that matters. then why xia fei can't enjoy these sweet moments? why does it all feel like a dream?
"i don't know..." xia fei's voice is weak and quiet, "you're very mysterious, boss."
"but you still know me best, am i wrong?"
yes. vein's wrong. very wrong. but these words can't go through xia fei's throat.
his heart is a mix of different emotions. it's scared for unknown reasons. it's worried, also for unknown reasons. but underneath all this negativity, he's thankful to see vein so happy. his heart is beating so fast, there's a high chance it might jump out of his chest. if that happened, would vein caught his heart?
"just, please. don't leave me."
oh, how could i forget. xia fei's overwhelmed with love.
love for that man who's sitting right next to him. every time, when their fingers brush over each other, vein's soft smile grows bigger and bigger. he looks so calm, so innocent. his red eyes are full of nostalgia and stare at the sunset with a dreamy look. has vein always been like this? well, xia fei has known him for a long time, but he probably just overlooked these lovely details.
"just, please. don't leave me."
it's a beg. he's begging now. but why? his head is filled with so many questions he's too afraid to ask, but he needs answers. he demands answers. xia fei swallows a lump in his throat. something is wrong and he wants to cry.
"why do you keep asking me that?" vein's laugh disappears, and xia fei wants to punch himself for ruining the mood.
why does he keep repeating the same thing? good question. xia fei would also like to find out why.
before vein looks away, xia fei reaches out his hand to touch his boss's cheek. his fingers brush over vein's slightly blushed skin, as xia fei says, again.
"just, please. don't leave me."
"what's up with you today?" vein laughs. "i would never leave you—"
when xia fei wakes up, he can't catch his breath. his whole body is shaking. he feels dizzy, the whole room is spinning around. xia fei needs a minute to understand what's happening.
it was just a dream. just a dream, and nothing more.
xia fei covers his face with his hands. it's after midnight. the room is chilly, and there's no one to comfort him.
romaincrisis
snowghoul
stormborns
annaxmalina
theartofmadeline
pixelskylines
