Guess who just finished her ref for Artfight! Perfect timing.
Tagged by @cosmemery, and I tag.... YOU!
— GENERAL
Name: Zly
Alias: She doesn't have an alias, just Zly. This is actually a bit of a plot point because it would make sense for her to have an alias or two but... nah. She's who she is and she owns her actions.
Gender: She doesn't have the same concept of gender as we do but she uses she/her. The easy answer, to use a word we'd use and she wouldn't her gender is butch.
Age: 25ish
Spoken Language: She's fluent only in Spiral Creole but tries to be BASIC conversational in Aliqua, Desteren, and the Perch sign.
Sexual Orientation: Listen because of gender and sex headcanons the concept of sexual orientation in Spire doesn't actually exist. She likes women primarily but she's only aware of the concept of a lesbian because of human interpretations of sexuality, which she is in fact aware of, but the concept isn't really meaningful to her.
Occupation: Bound of Perch! She is bound to her gear and her community, part of an organization of community minded vigilantes who keep the city guard out of Perch. She's also a Minister, a revolutionary agent of a forbidden cult, but that's like, a side thing.
— FAVOURITE
Color: The easy answer is the red that identifies the Bound, but ask her and she likes the deep blues of the night sky.
Pastime: Talking to people! She loves just being around people and talking and hanging out. She's constantly doing something with somebody because she just loves people.
Food: Asking Zly her favorite food is like asking a mother of 8 to pick a favorite child. She loves food! All sorts of it. Some of her favorite types of foods are spicy curries, sweet pastries, and a good old fashioned stuffed mushroom. Mmmm...
Drink: She loves tea a lot, she's constantly making tea, which feels like the easy answer here, but her real favorite is something special. A friend she's made that comes through Perch's skydocks to trade brought once, and then brought it again because Zly liked it so much, a spiced fruit juice drink with a strong, unique, almost acidic taste. Apparently the fruit it's made from, called pineapple, can really only be grown well on some of the human islands.
— HAVE THEY...
Passed University: Hell no. We are not in a place where education is widespread, university is only for the extreme elite, which she is not. She has a pretty basic home education and is capable enough at reading and writing.
Had Sex: Zly has a wide, sprawling polycule across Perch and occasionally into other districts. She has had lots of sex, and will in fact continue to have lots of sex, because its fun and strengthens bonds between people, and has she mentioned its fun?
Had Sex in Public: I haven't thought about this one! I think she'd ask for both your definitions of "public", and "sex". But it's also not like Perch is known for having thick walls.
Got Tattoos: Absolutely!
And she's got even more planned! The next one will be a half sleeve that includes a coverup of R.D. Fun fact she still sees R.D. around sometimes.
Got Piercings: You know I always forget about piercings in character designs so the answer is no because I have never drawn any
Got Scarred: Yeah, she's got a lot of scars. She's gotten lucky so there's nothing super major, but she's healing from a nasty gash on the back of her arm right now from when she (successfully, she'll add) diffused an argument where one party had pulled a knife. Otherwise it's a variety of scars at a variety of degrees of faded from having an active, dangerous lifestyle and carrying weapons around with her since she was a teen.
Had a Broken Heart: I mean. Yeah. Lots of times. R.D. was definitely one of them, but sharing lots of love means lots of love will be lost. There will always be more, though.
— ARE THEY...
A Cuddler: Absolutely! She lays all over her friends, lovers, lover-friends, anyone really. She loves reciprocated physical intimacy.
Scared Easily: She stays very calm in high stress situations and is not scared easily, and when she is scared, which she will admit is not infrequently, she is good at not letting that cloud her judgement. It makes sense to be scared! Scary shit happens to her all the time.
Jealous Easily: She tries hard not to be. But when people have it easier than her, naturally, or take for granted privileges they have... it's hard not to be. She's not typically the jealous sort around relationships though!
Trustworthy: She is an extremely well known and respected member of her community who doesn't wear a mask in a group that almost universally wears masks. She better be trustworthy, because if she isn't, everyone's about to hear about it. She's true to her word.
— FAMILY...
Siblings: She has a younger sister who's just about 10 years younger, and she had an older sibling, about 3 years older than her, who died after they were drafted into the army when Zly was about 13. Her younger sister wants to follow in Zly's footsteps and be a Bound, but to be honest Zly doesn't think she's cut out for it.
Parents: She's got a bit of a complicated relationship with her parents thats uh... kinda a fair bit her fault. They've always loved her and tried their best, though everything was rough for everyone after her older sibling died. As she approached Durance age—the age all drow are required to do 4 years of indentured servitude, and the thing that killed her sibling—she ran away to join the Bound, cutting all contact with her parents, because she thought it would be best to protect her family from the legal consequences of her dodging. It wasn't until several years later that she reconnected, after feeling guilty about the situation for a good long while. She tries to keep in better touch with them these days.
Children: None, and she honestly doesn't plan to. She's not the settling down sort.
Pets: Her lifestyle is a bit too precarious for a pet, she feels, though she loves animals.
Oh, my, I was just watching TTXS, but I can’t help but share the best moments of this... This is golden, seriously (for me at least since I’m seeing two of my favourite actors in the same show).
I don’t know if you guys know Zhao Liying (ZLY), WYB’s costar in YF. She’s a very powerful actress, and left a very deep impression in me for her role in “The story of Minglan” (知否知否应是绿肥红瘦).
(I must recommend “The story of Minglan”, since some of you seem interested in c-ent. This drama centers in the gender of 宅斗 or the schemes of the inner house, women in ancient times fighting in their own way to get themselves a better life, which usually meant a good marriage. I found refreshing that by playing by the rules of the game, Minglan, played by ZLY, was able to defend herself and the people she loved. ZLY’s rendition of Minglan is a kind and soft girl with a cunning mind, and her portrayal of a soft-spoken character with a steel core really shocked me).
Sorry, I always end up rambling. Well, ZLY is known by the name of “little knife” because of her sharp tongue. She’s not very fond of small talk and she’s rather straightforward and WH said: “with her, you only have to listen to her first words. The rest is to salvage what she has said”.
Many of you can guess why I’m writing this post (besides the fact that I liked it very much), and I left my opinion in the last part of the post. It’s a bit long, so I’m leaving a cut here. Happy reading!
Disclaimer: a heavy dose of my opinion and a little bit of speculation here.
1. In a video that has already spread on the internet, WH asked WYB if ZLY had invited him to eat.
WYB: we don’t go out very often so...
QF: See? That’s a no.
ZLY: I did invite him!
Then it’s WYB, all surprised, and like, “oh, yes, yes, she did”. Then QF asks him what they ate, and dd spends a few moments trying to remember: “emmmm...”
ZLY: there a lot of things... (QF: you remember it so clearly!) I paid, so of course I’d remember it!
(WH: did WYB invite you?) ZLY: he said he was on a diet...
BTW, always pay attention to what this guy actually remembers. He will forget that he was so sick that he went to the hospital several times or the fact that his coworker invited him to eat (at least 3 times), but he will remember that he met XZ in one episode he filmed 2 years ago or that there were swans in a scene they filmed together.
2. Her response to whether they talk is also golden.
WH: do you two usually chat?
WYB: once we were familiar, we chatted.
ZLY: once we were familiar, we chatted 2 sentences.
3. Before, dd’s answer to whether he can eat spicy food was that he couldn’t. But in this one, he clearly says that he can eat spicy food (and in a previous episode, even though the food was too spicy for him, he kept going back to the dish because “he couldn’t stop”). So... who has changed dd?
4. Their interactions while browsing the different stands were also very cute. They look like the kind of friends that doesn’t need a lot of words, but have a good understanding anyway (they have the same kind of character, very straightforward and colder with strangers). They are very comfortable with each other, and I’m glad for that.
I can see why some het-obsessed fans would pair them together (even though ZLY is married and has a baby and they sometimes visited her on the set). What I want to say to that is: compare how they are with each other, how they behave with other coworkers/friends and how they behave respectively with XZ and Feng Shaofeng (ZLY’s husband and his costar from “Story of Minglan”).
I can see that WYB is much more comfortable and relaxed with her than he is with other female celebrities. In fact, in the Tencent Awards night we can see him pausing and offering his help to ZLY, who was wearing a long dress and going up the stairs of the stage very slowly. Or the multiple times he was extremely corteous with her in TTXS. From my point of view, I think that’s because of a combination of the fact that she’s married + they get along well.
Since she’s married (and it may not look like it, but ZLY is 11 years older and she was already in the industry when WYB was in primary school), any pairing between them fans come up with is very likely to be dismissed as just fans’ imagination or baseless rumours.
Even ZLY was able to sense that there was something different when XZ and WYB are together (btw, she had conjuctivitis in her right eye the night of the Tencent Awards, and the stylists chose to hide her red eye with her fringe, which is why we get her left eye side glance).
Source of the photo: MayXian3.
(For those interested... before this moment, WYB had said something to ZLY from a normal distance. In the next second, he leans so obviously towards XZ that he leaves that huge gap between ZLY and him).
Nie jesteś ani zły, ani wspaniały. Ty jesteś Ty. Jeśli pozwolisz się wciągnąć w osądy otaczających Cię ludzi, to jednocześnie zjadasz owoce napięcia, nieprawości i lęku, gdyż jeśli dzisiaj nazywają Cię wspaniałym i żyjesz w zachwyceniu, to jutro nazwą Cię złym i wpadniesz w depresję.
