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I just found the funniest font ever

Like. What is this. Why is this. Who is the target audience of this?

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The Lost Tomb Reboot | Zhang Qiling

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God I love “We’re enemies, but we’ve been enemies for a long time, which is sort of like being friends.” Great trope.

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This is huge: You can now buy ebooks from Bookshop.org, a website that helps boost sales to local independent bookshops!

To read an ebook purchased from Bookshop.org, you must use their own app (for a mobile device) or read it in a web browser. So, unfortunately, you can't (yet) send it to your ereader, but still, you're able to buy ebooks and also share a little bit of that profit with your local bookstore, if they're an affiliate!

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New WiP, who dis?

OK, so I've been sitting on this plot bunny for a while, and it finally got big enough to start jumping on my head with this last rewatch. One thing I've noticed about how Jiao Liqiao and those around her speak of her heritage, it always seemed to me like she was not just descended from Nanyin royalty, but somehow raised as Nanyin royalty, either by a secret enclave of Nanyin royalists... or because she is significantly older than she looks. I went with option 2. ^_~

Enjoy? ^_^

*

The End

*

"Xuan-tangjie!  Xuan-tangjie!!  You can't go.  You can't.  If you go, we'll never see each other again!"

Princess Longxuan turned away from her mirror to catch the child running at full tilt towards her from the door.  She was forever getting away from her minders and none had been hired yet who could effectively corral her.  Since her mother had died, Princess Longxuan was the only one she would listen to.  Longxuan pulled the girl up into her lap, gently rocking her and dabbing at her tears.  "Qiao-er, my Qiao-er, you mustn't think that way.  Our two countries are to be allies.  There will be visits of state.  You will one day marry, perhaps to a noble of Great Xi and we might live together once more.  You never know what may happen in the future."

Longxuan sat holding her young cousin until well after dark.  When she eventually calmed, they talked over other things, gentler things: Qiao-er's new dress, her maid's newest son, born with hair white as snow, what she was learning from her tutors, anything to take her mind off of their upcoming separation.  When she finally fell into an overtired slumber, Longxuan returned her to her rooms and tucked her into bed.  By the next night, Princess Longxuan of Nanyin had become Consort Xuan of Great Xi… and Nanyin was no more.

Qiao-er had been more right in her fears than she knew.

They never saw one another again.

*

The Middle

*

"Xue-gong… I need more time.  I know my cousin.  Xuan-tangjie wouldn't have gone to her death without a plan in place for her child.  I know he's out there somewhere.  I Just have to find him!"

Xue-gong clenched his fist at his side.  His parents had served his mistress until an unexpected bandit raid ended their lives when he was ten years old.  They had never been warriors, never trained to fight.  They never stood a chance.  It had been just he and the princess ever since… until several years later when they'd caught wind of others. 

Servants who had escaped the palace before the army of Great Xi tore it down and slaughtered all inside.  Peasants, nobles even, who had fled across the border, carrying all they dared of their heritage with them, knowing that every word of Nanyin script might give them away.  They'd found many on their journeys, none who recognized the princess for who she was.  Though this frustrated her ambitions, Xue-gong could not help but be grateful.  After all, the more known it was that a princess of Nanyin had survived its destruction… the more likely it would be that she would not survive another day more.  He would not have that.  He would not have the princess' death on his conscience.  No matter how it might anger her to sleep in barns, to hide in rags, to force her tongue to the speech of Great Xi until her native accent was not even a memory.  It would all be worth it if she survived.

"Your Grace, I suggest patience.  To seek recklessly after the prince could be to reveal his presence to those who would do him harm… as well as your own."

The princess threw her hand in the air and waved him silent.  "Bah!  Patience.  Caution.  That's all you ever council.  You would have me hide among the filth until I'm old and grey-haired and too dull-witted to care about the destruction of my homeland."  She began to pace, chewing at the ragged edge of a fingernail that had split just the other day and caused a tantrum the likes of which Xue-gong had been sure would bring the authorities down on their heads.  "It's all about time, isn't it?  Revolutions take time.  Resources.  Allies.  I just need more of the first, so I'll have time to collect the rest."

She turned back to Xue-gong, tapping her fingernail against her chin as her smile widened.  "There have always been stories of people cultivating to immortality.  I don't need immortality, I just need a bit more time.  To hold my youth for a bit longer.  I will find what I need, if I have enough time.  And you will find a way to get me the time I need."

Xue-gong bowed deeply.  What was one more impossible task among the hundreds he'd already fulfilled?  If his princess wanted more time, then surely there would be a way to get it for her.  He just had to find it.

*

The Beginning

*

"You Grace.  You know I will serve you until the day that I die, and beyond that, if I can find a way, but you are playing with fire, and I must caution you—"

"Caution again, Xue-gong?  When we are so close to achieving everything we desire?  What do I tell our people if we back down now?  We have the Rama Vessel.  We have the ice shards.  Shan Gudao has an army ready to take down the demons who stole our land, and Zunshang if finally within my grasp!  Why would you possibly urge caution now?"

"Because Xue-po is gone and she served you well for over 60 years.  Because Zunshang may seem broken and defeated but the look in his eyes screams otherwise.  Because Shan Gudao is not your cousin's long-lost heir and you know that as well as I do.   Because so many of our people are counting on you to build them a new home.  Because you and I have all the time in the world if we wish it and this is not a race, especially if the cost of winning is to lose everything else."

The princess turned, a stubborn look on her face that Xue-gong well recognized.  But even as he watched, that face relaxed, the stubbornness faded.  She took a deep breath.  "As always, there is wisdom in what you say, Xue-gong.  We will think.  We will make plans.  We will bide our time once more if necessary.  We will need an exit strategy."

Xue-gong bowed deeply, relief flooding his veins.  "As you command, Princess."

*

Xue-gong stood in the shadows, safely dead in the eyes of their enemies, as was his mistress… and he hardly believed what he saw.  The Mother Bug… gone.  That could mean only one thing.  He turned to find his princess' eyes just as wide and horrified as his own.

"Li Xiangyi… Li Xiangyi…?  Li Xiangyi is…"  She whirled away, stalking off into the shadows, her voice rising further in disbelief with every step she took, with every bound of qinggong that carried her away from the site of Shan Gudao's defeat.  When they finally stopped, coming to ground near the newest safehouse they'd established, she grabbed Xue-Gong's lapels and shook him hard enough to rattle his teeth.  He let her.

"How can Li Xiangyi be Xuan-tangjie's lost heir?  How?  How is this possible?  He's so… he's so…!"  At this, she ran out of words and simply screamed, pushing Xue-gong away as she began to pace the courtyard.

He waited until she slowed, her breathing ragged, her limbs trembling, before approaching once more.  He put a gentle hand on her shoulder, pulling until she turned and buried her face in his chest, wailing quietly into his robes.  "He stole Zunshang from me!"

Xue-gong held her, softly stroking her hair and down her back, soothing the tears that she seemed unable to stop.  When the storm finally eased, he took a step back, offering a handkerchief for the princess to dry her eyes.  As she did so, he tapped a finger under her chin… and smiled.

"Then won't it be incredibly satisfying for you to use him to steal Zunshang back… and achieve everything else you've ever wanted?"

The princess's mouth dropped open into a little 'o', her eyes widening at the playful tone of his voice.  She breathed out just one word: "How…?"

His smile widened.

"I'll show you."

*

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Some Jewish kids go to Narnia and the White Witch is endlessly frustrated because she wants to make it always winter but never Hanukkah, but she doesn’t follow the Hebrew calendar so she can’t accurately predict when it’s supposed to be.

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I don’t really Go Here but u can always rely on this man to read a right wing politician’s outfit for filth

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Spin this wheel of the top 50 fastest growing relationship tags of 2024 on AO3!

here's a link to the ships list

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Don't ask me how I ended up writing this modern AU MLC snippet, I just did (over morning coffee).

"Would you like a cigarette?"

"Why? Do I look especially poor?" Li Lianhua bit back, bracing his arm on the rough concrete wall and feeling a stab of something like glee darting through him because he could finally take it out on someone else tonight.

The young man, and he was young, that much Li Lianhua could already tell, from the way he was dressed in a thin cotton tee which stretched over his arms and barely seemed to cover his belly. And the stone washed jeans just hanging off of his hips with an array of silver chains looped over the pockets.

"I would have offered to wipe the blood off your face but I figured you'd like a smoke first," the man had the gall to murmur. "Fang Duobing," he said and extended his hand towards Li Lianhua, beaded bracelets jingling on his wrists.

Li Lianhua thought that if he ignored the man long enough, he would go away. He just focused on taking long breaths and pretending he couldn't feel the sting of cuts and bruises on his face and the way the left side seemed to be slowly going numb.

He did not, in fact, go away.

"Why are you still here?"

"I'm waiting for you to collapse so that I can carry you to the hospital," Fang Duobing replied.

The smugness of youth, Li Lianhua thought, fighting the desire to smile which would open up the cuts on the side of his mouth.

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Can't Have Nice Things

The Ketamine King Musk has shutdown the IRS's Free Tax Filing system.

Of all the things a government could off, a way to Freely calculate and file your taxes seems like a good one. But the richest man in the world thinks we shouldn't have that.

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spin the wheel 3 times

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IN 150 CHARACTERS OR LESS - Nikita Gill

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Use "said" for dialogue unless you are writing a man talking, in which case use "whimpered"

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Amazing pottery skills

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by yyryyr1030

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Idk what I was expecting the 泊蓝人头 to look like but it was not this