momosandlemonsoda

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Finished a new piece. I think it speaks to my state of mind. Notice the fine details. :)

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i forgot how fucking weird november is theres no afternoon its just night after 2pm

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and found

Fandom: Mysterious Lotus Casebook

Characters: Li Xiangyi, Fang Duobing, Di Feisheng

Rating: Explicit

chapter 9: nobody knows how to live forever

Di Feisheng and Fang Duobing do their best to figure out how one becomes immortal on purpose and finally take Xiangyi to see Lotus Tower for the first time again.

chapter 10: worth it

Xiangyi takes some time to figure out how to live forever.

Notes: Aw hey check me out posting two chapters at once like a cool person. Anyway all that's left of this fic is an epilogue. Epi-dog. I don't know if that really works. There's an epilogue, it's from Huli Jing's perspective, I look forward to sharing it with everyone.

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You should only write in present tense with extreme caution.

not because it's bad or anything but because if you do it even once you're going to be editing the bits where you shifted tenses out of your writing for the rest of your life

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Zhang Rishan takes a bath and shows off his heat-activated qilin qiongqi tattoo

From: Tomb of the Sea

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Mysterious Lotus Casebook 莲花楼 | Episode 10

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i’ve started to think about ao3 audience interaction as kinda comparable to doing a live reading in an intimate little bookstore, like kudos are everybody who stayed til the end and applauded, comments are everybody who waited to come up to talk to you afterwards, and bookmark comments are the little snatches of conversation you overhear outside.

this helps me feel better/less anxious about responding to comments with some form of thanks, because if someone walked up to me in person and said they liked my work right after reading it, i would compulsively say thanks. it also helps contextualize audience size in a healthy way i think, bc most of us naturally crave more attention on our fic, but if we were actually in the room with even like 20 people applauding and five people waiting after to tell us how awesome we are we’d be fuckin elated.  

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There is a way of washing your body where you stand use just a damp wash cloth to clean yourself, and you don’t stand under water or in a bath. Do you call this a:

- top and tail

- pta/ pits tits ass

- dry bath

- other (put in tags pls)

- never heard of this

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It's been so long since the last time I posted something. I miss the drama and the fandom. I have been so busy recently that I couldn't even respect my goals of posting a fic per month. I wrote several fics that are stuck in my phone uncompleted. 😢

But I want to come back posting, I need it. 👊🏻

In the meantime, enjoy the beauty of our man Xiao Shunyao who wants all of us damsels in distress death.

He is soooooo sexy and beautiful! 😍

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After watching a video essay on bilibili about the Jiangnan cultural topography of Mysterious Lotus Casebook, I've been thinking about how the drama engages with this cultural backdrop to explore what it means to be an outsider.

But first, what is Jiangnan?

Geographically, “Jiangnan is a geographic area in China referring to lands immediately to the south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, including the southern part of its delta” (from Wikipedia)

Historically, this area comprised the heart of the ancient Wu Kingdom, and its inhabitants speak the Wu Dialects to this day

Culturally, Jiangnan is associated with vibrant cities intersected by rivers and streams, prosperous merchant classes, soft-spoken people, and fine, delicate craftsmanship. It is distanced from the political centers in the north, far from the northern and southern borderlands, and is thus heavily associated in the cultural imaginary with civilian life (in contrast to courtly life).

The area in the pink circle on this map from Wikipedia is the Jiangnan that most modern Wuxia and costume dramas refer to.

Jiangnan as a cultural homeland

Jiangnan as a geographic backdrop and cultural landscape has interesting implications in MLC when it comes to understanding the cultural belonging and identities of the main characters.

Li Lianhua, Fang Duobing, Qiao Wanmian, and others in the Sigu Sect are locals to the region.

Di Feisheng is not from here (the Di Manor is in the “southwest”) and Jiao Liqiao is from here but identifies more closely with her Nanying nationality. They are both “outlanders” in the setting of the drama and in their relationship to the martial arts world.

Li Lianhua is native to this land of many rivers, and despite his wandering and rootlessness, he never really leaves his homeland. He wanders his homeland, refusing to be tied down by social relationships and public duty, but he is at home here. He is not truly rootless the way Di Feisheng is rootless: foreign to his newfound home and foreign to the home he fled from. Or the way Jiao Liqiao is rootless: foreign to the land she was born in, belonging to a nation that no longer exists.

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Gather around, my young friends and fellow dinosaurs, let me tell you about some BULLSHIT no one ever tells you about. I'm talking about menopause and perimenopause. Now, menopause has a very stringent medical definition. You have to not have had a period for exactly 12 months and a day to be considered in menopause. All the bullshit before that day once you start going through The Change is considered perimenopause. Here's some bullshit you might experience that people actually talk about when you're in perimenopause:

- shorter time between periods

- irregular periods

- hot flashes and/or cold flashes

- fucked up sleep

- OMG NIGHT SWEATS

- Vagina as dry as the Sahara desert

- lighter periods and/or endless bleeding like it's The Flood but it's in your pants

- lack of interest in Adult Fun Times

This time of joy can last anywhere from a couple of years to a god damn decade and there's no medical way right now to predict it.

Here's some of the REAL bullshit they don't tell you about but your dinosaur aunt is here to let you know:

- You can start perimenopause in your 30s, don't listen to idiot doctors who tell you you're "too young" because they don't know your body like you do.

- Perimenopause will make you HELLA DUMB. Seriously, I'm talking Bigly broken brain. Brain fog? Check. Short term memory? Wave goodbye to it. Ability to make words form out of thoughts? Yeah, good luck to you.

- Perimenopause can cause horrible fatigue because in addition to losing estrogen, you're also losing testosterone. Oh and that also leads to muscle wasting, cool cool.

- Things might suddenly hurt more because estrogen is known to be neuroprotective.

- If you're super lucky like I am, and like to collect rare illnesses, you might even get Burning Mouth Syndrome 💀

- And meanwhile, while you're going through this bullshit, you'll be getting gaslit by doctors who are operating based on 30 year old debunked data about how HRT causes breast cancer (not really) and that they shouldn't put you on it until you're in actual menopause. (Data shows starting HRT early can potentially prevent Alzheimer's in later years.)

- There are entire online clinics right now (I use Midi Health) focused on providing care for peri and menopausal patients and they will happily prescribe you HRT even if your regular PCP or OBGYN do not (if you meet the criteria). I've been pretty impressed with how holistically they view the patient. For full disclosure, I learned about them from my integrative health doctor and they do not accept Medicare (yet).

I'm 46 years old right now and I've been symptomatic for perimenopause for the last 8 years, although it's gotten the most dramatic in the past 2 years or so, which I hope means I'm almost done, holy hell. Yeah I was on the early side, but if it can happen to me, it can happen to you, so it's never too early to think about these things. And I hope to at least spare some of you the mind-fuckery I've been through because no one told me about most of this stuff, including my own mother who just DOESN'T REMEMBER what happened to her and now I completely understand why. And because I also have a connective tissue disease, I used to just dismiss my pain and fatigue as being caused by that illness rather than the loss of hormones.

Anyways, this is why we need Elders in our lives, so they can do Grandma Story Hour like I just did and validate you when the entire medical field tries to gaslight you. I hope you've found some or all of this educational/useful. Please share with your friends because we really do NOT talk about this stuff enough. (Ewwww Moon Blood!)

Stay well, and don't let the bastards grind you down!

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[screenshot] it was too perfect

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Li Lianhua + saying "I love you" without saying "I love you" (2/?)

Mysterious Lotus Casebook (2023)

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controversial writing tip

open a document and start writing

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Oooo whump ask! How about hypothermia for Xiaoge?

...I really wanted this to be whump for you, @fixaidea, but somehow it turned into fluff? Oops? XD

[if anyone else would like to spin the wheel and send me a prompt, here's the post!]

"Xiaoge! Xiaoge, your hands! What happened?"

Zhang Qiling let himself be led into the house, Wu Xie's worried tones following him into that badly needed warmth. It was far from normal to have snow this late in the spring, but it wasn't unheard of. He would have been fine on his own, would have known what to do to keep himself warm through the night and make his way back in the morning. But he couldn't take that chance. He could have survived... but they couldn't.

Zhang Qiling slowly shifted his arms out away from his body as it began to shiver, then just as slowly pointed towards his midsection. From inside his jacket, wrapped in his mittens, his scarf, and every spare article of clothing he could wrap around them, came several tiny, high pitched mewls.

Pangzi guided Zhang Qiling to sit on the couch, wrapped him in layers of blankets warm from the drier and a warm wool cap, then placed a cup of warm tea in his hands and ordered him to drink. Wu Xie fished through the layers at his waist, and with each layer he pealed away, the mews turned more and more strident, but strong for all their unhappiness. As he pealed away the last later, two VERY vocal kittens tumbled out into Xiaoge's lap and immediately began exploring.

Wu Xie put a hand over his face as Pangzi began laughing above them.

"You... you risked hypothermia to save a pair of kittens? Xiaoge... don't we have enough?"

One of the kittens had wormed its way back into Zhang Qiling's jacket as Wu Xie spoke, and the other now climbed up to curl up in the crook of his neck. He simply stared back at Wu Xie, a soft smile drifting across his face as the kittens began to purr. As expected, Wu Xie's face relaxed into a matching smile barely a few seconds later. "All right, all right, what's two more, I guess?"

Zhang Qiling let himself be tucked in on the couch after that, more warm blankets piled up over him and the kittens purring away, as his body temperature rose back to a more normal range.

It was a strange thing, to have a home, to have people who cared not only that he was physically able to do his job, but that he was comfortable... that he was happy. Some days it still felt like a dream. But Wu Xie was sitting by his head now, gently stroking it as he dozed, and Pangzi was tucking little warming packets in various places around the pile of blankets, and there were kitten purrs in his ear, and if this was a dream, then it was one he never wanted to wake up from.