#fmftbs lore

[locria-writes]

Hi!, I was playing from mulberry fields the deep blue sea and I was wondering why does shu yanfei in relation to her own children call mc their mother and mc’s relations as her children’s relations?. Is this part of her trying to be friends with mc?, she trying to make mc see the kids as her if they’re her own so that eventually the four of them plus qls are one big happy family?. If so she’s clearly failing since mc wants nothing to do with the kids and yanfei’s son wants nothing to do with mc. Why does shu yanfei even bother with mc at this point?, mc doesn’t care and anyway she’s the mother of the future emperor not mc.

it has nothing to do with syf, and everything to do with societal norms and expectations. the children of a concubine are supposed to refer to the legal wife as their mother. syf is just really pushing for her kids to adhere to propriety because there's no reason to antagonize mc on her end

[locria-writes]

Sometimes I open up family echo and just admire the mess that is tcak’s family tree. (I made it myself)

On other days I cry trying to make sense of fmftbs family tree

it’s beautiful

it's crazy that i don't have a family tree done for tcak yet, even though i really need it bc i always forget what emmy and mc are to each other 😔

it's a little outdated, but here's the fmftbs family tree

[locria-writes]

hi, is there any place i can find a full physical description of all the ros from fmftbs and tcak? i wanna draw them

i always skimp on descriptions, so here it is --

gyx and qls both have long black hair tied into topknots and dark brown eyes, and relatively clean-shaven.

qls is tall (~179cm) and slender, fair-skinned, and with willow-shaped eyes. very effortlessly elegant and noble, and classically handsome

gyx is very tall (~190cm), very muscular because all he does is swing his sword around. very tanned with faint scars all over, and his left eye has two pupils. more roguishly handsome

---

emmy is pretty tall (~185cm), toned, but still a bit lanky. short curly red-gold hair, hazel-gold eyes, fairly tanned with freckles across his nose. very pretty and boyish-looking

goscelin is tall (~181cm), slender, and has light brown skin. has shoulder-length wavy dark brown hair, a short well-groomed beard, both of which are starting to grey a bit, and dark brown eyes

richart is tall (~183cm), not quite stocky, but well-built, and fair-skinned. has shoulder-length wavy black hair that's starting to grey, and light blue eyes

[locria-writes]

Actually now that I think about it why did gramps give mc away to qls?

Also how would gramps react if he knew/saw the shitshow mc’s life became because of that decision? How would her father react? (Basically them watching from beyond the grave or something)

it would bring song into the anti-yuan alliance, and bolsters their legitimacy because majority of the great clans would be against yuan. plus, it ensures that xia will be a compliant puppet emperor because xia has stronger ties to song than anyone else (chunyu di's mother is qls' half-sister, and the only reason gyx is able to act as regent is because he expedited gramps' plan and quickly married off his cousin to chunyu di, instead of them remaining betrothed)

i think they'd both be kicking themselves for not preparing mc to be on the defensive in the inner palace 😔

[locria-writes]

Who is bby Tangmei??? Have I missed a relative for the fmftgs family tree i’ve perfected?😭

tángmèi is your paternal cousin if she's younger than you and is the daughter of an uncle, not a name 😔

your táng cousins are basically your siblings and the ones you can't marry because you share the same surname

your biǎo cousins are the ones who don't share the same surname and aren't considered as close

[locria-writes]

Okay, I get that the first time was an accident, but why does qls keep getting that girl pregnant!? Like, doesn't he realize he is putting MC in an even worse position!? Just wait until MC has a baby first and stop cumming inside your concubine!

not having a secure line of succession is putting mc in a bad position

having two sons is safe, even if concubine-born. whenever mc has a son, or even a daughter, qls can shuffle them around. but if he dies before mc has a kid, syf's kids are seen as hers, which gives mc power as the empress dowager, and the ability to rule as a regent.

if he only has one son, that kid can easily die, and then his family might try to force mc to marry one of his brothers to keep the chao alliance, and it's possible because mc is part of the qilian clan because she's observed mourning for qls' dad

[locria-writes]

dear writer, i must thank you so much for your mirror flower - mulberry universe. i'm of chinese heritage myself and i've always wanted to read more media based on earlier chinese history rather than the later, more centralised system of power. your world is crafted with so much love. ik the amount of research that went into it must have been crazy.

i wanted to ask what inspired the clan names of the various characters? there are a few familiar ones like shangguan and chunyu, but i was wondering if any of the others have a historical reference. is there a reason they're overwhelmingly compound surnames? i love them btw. i write a bit of historical china inspired fiction as well and one of the things i struggle with is making the names flow nicely and sound distinct. which gets harder when you worldbuild too much and have a whole chart of lore characters, most of whom are dead lmao.

as much as i simp for the song dynasty aesthetics, the absolute chaos from the late spring and autumn period to the three kingdoms period is my favourite. it's insane how much the middle kingdom yearns to tear itself apart and piece itself back together afterward 😭 chu-han contention is a favourite period of mine because of how batshit it was -- like the battles of pengcheng and jingxing? how many people died in those? my poor little meow meow manchild xiang yu? my sassy and lazy king han xin? sorry to rant about it, but it's just so entertaining and chaotic i love it

and yes, i did take all of the compound surnames from historical sources! i used a combination of zh.wiki and baidu to cross-reference names, and to double-check that they were han chinese surnames, instead of names like dugu, tuoba, yelu, etc. that are taken from xianbei, manchu, xiongnu, khitan, etc. sources.

i don't really have much of a reason aside from i think compound surnames are cool? plus, they were more common in ancient china, versus modern day after centuries of people simplifying/changing their surnames. i also think it helps differentiate between the regular nobles and the royal/imperial families who hold all the power.

the names are also pretty hard for me too, especially since i'm cantonese, and names in mandarin are less natural to me. i genuinely do recommend pulling up like google translate or something and letting the text-to-voice read out the names to help with the flow of them. keeping the diacritics also helps keep the names distinct, even if it is a pain to go back and edit everything.

(also great hack is, a lot of women don't need full names. oftentimes, unless they're incredibly prominent, women are just referred to as lady [surname]. definitely helps cut down on the number of names, even if the practice is misogynistic 🤫)

[locria-writes]

Prince Bǎohù crowned himself Emperor Dé on the 21st of Chrysanthemum Month, just shy of a month after his coup. He created Shàngguān Jié as the Crown Prince, but Lady Liángqiū was not created his empress. Nobody knew why.

Was she punished for the hairpin?

since i don't think this will be addressed in the actual story, yes 😔 it was the only act of kindness she could think of (though idk if she thought mc would stab her son vs using it to threaten him with offing herself)

and bc inferior sgl wanted to marry his niece to legitimize his claim 🥴 even though it's considered taboo to marry someone with the same surname