#Her Lotus Year

[bargainsleuthbooks]

Her Lotus Year: China, the Roaring Twenties, and the Making of Wallis Simpson #BookReview #StMartinsPress #ARCReview #RoyalFamily

There's a forthcoming book on the Duchess of Windsor, whose year in China in the 1920s has led to rampant speculation about what happened there. Interesting read. #BookReview #StMartinsPress #HerLotusYear #NetGalley #ARCReview #WallisSimpson

It’s time for another book review from my never-ending TBR list. I’ve found a forthcoming book on Wallis Simpson, the future Duchess of Windsor, about her year-in-the-life in China. Most books mentioned in my reviews can be found at the affiliate links below or try your local library! (Amazon US) (Amazon CA) (Amazon UK)  (AbeBooks) (Barnes & Noble) (Booksamillion)  (Audible.com)…

[lotus-pear]

have you ever done . . . . genderbend dazai . . . . . . ebef ore .e.e. ... . .

when i tell you i speedran coloring this,,,,,,I LOVE WOMEN SO FUCKING MUCH

[kirby-the-gorb]

[cringengl]

I honestly think that the biggest problem the percy jackson show has, which is basically where the trio manage to figure out everything, such as the lotus casino, crusty's waterbeds, medusa etc is because the showrunners wanted to fit all of these little details and point of the journey into the show to appease all the fans and be different from the movies, but with only 8 episodes and 30-40 mins per episode, they really don't have time to have the trio be tricked by all these things, get into serious danger, then figure it out

I really think the show would benefit from like 5-7 more episodes because the book is too long for the length of show they are making

[tkinoiitalian]

Elly!

[catwafers]

ms kashiwabara

[moontale-official]

HAPPY 7TH BIRTHDAY IVIS

[scarlettohairdye]

I gotta say that I don't think the Untamed/CQL fandom specifically does enough with the fact that Wei Wuxian clearly inherited his despairing laugh-sobbing from Yu-furen, like...

they're the same picture.jpg

[sennamybeloved]

as i slowly ease back into selfshipping after this little mental health hiatus, i realize that i want to start exploring darker/more mature themes in my ships/my self insert work as a whole. i won't post explicit nsf.w here ever but i will post some mildly suggestive content, and content pertaining to whump, violence, horror, etc. i'm going to start posting what i want instead of what i think others want to see; yes, they'll still be plenty of fluff to go around (if not mostly fluff) but c'mon. i'm dating too many villains for everything i write to be clean and pretty. i do not want ANY of my art to be clean and pretty. i find so much beauty in the grotesque and i want to explore that more openly. i've always found comfort in frightening things.

[cuteniaarts]

Digitalised + coloured + redesigned version of my Suiren and Vaatu sketch from two days ago, as promised!!

Coming up with Suiren’s design was a very long process of trying and failing because after you’ve drawn 9+ different versions of one character, the creativity starts to run a little dry, but I’m actually really proud of this one, she looks absolutely adorable <3

(Also yeah I did mostly just scribble Vaatu’s pattern because who has the energy to draw the all out accurately. Not me, that’s who, I’m chronically tired. People who draw him on the regular have my utmost respect. He’s still a funky little guy though :D)

Bonus, Raava incessantly screaming inside Suiren (and being completely ignored because Suiren is tired of her) while all this is happening:

[oobi-oobi]

9/8/2023 Lotus

[qiaowanmian]

guys i'm being so serious WHO is princess qian qian isn't her name zhaoling

[cirrus-grey]

The more I think about it, the more I think Twoflower and his wife were separated during The Color of Magic and The Light Fantastic. From what we see of him in Interesting Times, he's a dedicated family man - not the sort to just take off for a few years and leave a committed relationship behind.

But, well, a new marriage, the stress of raising two young kids. Things happen, people snap. Words are said that are very hard to unsay.

So she leaves. She takes the kids with her. Twoflower is left behind, angry, heartbroken. Aimless. Well, he's always wanted to see the world, hasn't he? Nothing better to do, now that he's alone.

He has adventures. He meets his new best friend. He smiles through it all, ever the optimist, because the world is so much bigger and so much more beautiful than he'd ever dreamed. He never tells Rincewind about his marriage, or his children, because that hurts - and he's doing what he can to leave that hurt behind him.

And then... well, then they save the world. Then there's this great cloud of happiness and good feeling that spreads over the Disc, and he realizes, as he stares up to the new worlds spreading out across the sky... maybe he's ready to go back. Maybe he's ready to forgive, and try again.

So he goes home. And when he gets there, it turns out she's ready, too. They try again. They've both grown, over their time apart - it's good for them. They're stronger, happier - a better couple and better parents than they ever could have been before.

(Years later, when Rincewind asks, Twoflower can't imagine why he ever would have not told him he was married - the hurt is so long in the past that he can't even remember a time when it stung.)

[stiltonbasket]

honestly, the real reason Jin Ling and Nie Shiyong keep having babies is that Jin Ling loves to cuddle small kids/baby tigers and Nie Shiyong thinks that it's cute.

It's also because Nie Shiyong and Jin Ling are both orphans whose parents were murdered when they were babies. They were not expecting to deal with that past trauma all over again when Jin Hong was born; but eventually, they decided that they were going to have a large, loving, happy family at all costs. ;-;

[cuteniarose]

who's lien-hua??

Short answer: My absolute child and the only OC I have cried genuine, REAL tears over. And not tearing up or sniffling a little, full on SOBS. Kat still owes me emotional compensation for that one 😤😤

Long answer: She's one of @katkastrofa’s OCs that I now have partial custody of. P'Li's little sister, born in 136 AG, a sweet cinnamon roll too good for this world, too pure, no matter how damn overused that phrase is, it still fits her 🥺🥺🥺 When drawing her last year I accidentally made her look a lot like my friend's little sister so now I am always extra soft about her. But considering what happens, you can imagine the level of emotional devastation this is causing me and just how much this has affected my ability to look at Katya the same way ever again. Doesn't help that her older sister has an annoying tendency to wear her waist length hair in a brushed back braid...

Anyway, for reference, the baby girl, sweet girl herself, from about July 2023:

And now that you have been fully taken with this precious thing's cuteness, it is imperative I let you know that she is killed at age 7 by the warlord who tried to turn P'Li into a living weapon 😐

She's the living embodiment of a tragedy, a child born to be collateral damage, the one who could not be saved no matter what was done, the "it was always going to end this way" half of the tragedy dichotomy. A little girl unjustly killed as punishment for her sister not wanting to become a warlord's weapon, forever remaining as nothing more but a hazy memory of someone to protect. And I'm gonna stop now because I will start crying again, istg–

(There is a verse where she lives, though that is part of a much larger AU that can basically be summed up as "completely self indulgent mishmash of ideas, everybody lives/nobody dies, sunshine and rainbows and peace on earth, unless you're a world leader, then RIP", or as we like to call it, the Ultimate AU, because we never came up with a better name :P But getting into it would take too long and there really isn't too much to explain since it lacks a cohesive plot and is more a bunch of family shenanigans thrown together, so... moving on)

In Kat's fic Lost and Found the memory of Lien-Hua is the driving force behind all of P'Li's decisions, and she constantly blames herself for not having been able to save her (despite the fact she was a child herself, no older than 13), right up until the very end where she.. doesn't really get closure, per se, but is able to let Lien go, in the scene which I have affectionately dubbed "F.C. Yee owes Kat major royalties for this one, holy hell" #ifyouknowyouknow. But also Lien is a point of some interpersonal conflict since no one else can quite relate to P'Li in this case. Ming-Hua (while not present in LaF) is an only child, Zaheer is the youngest of three and was never close with his sisters, and Ghazan... well, his sister is two separate cans of worms depending on whether you're talking about Haya or Zada. Some pretty interesting stuff overall, really scratches my soft spot for family related dealings in fics, and I can't believe I just realised that P'Li's the only non-youngest child in the RL foursome, huh. It's oddly fitting, in a way, at least in my opinion

Oh, and also, Midori is a reincarnation of Lien-Hua :)

[qilingxiong]

I loved how FDB's view of Xiangyi directly contrasted wanmian's too. Wanmian said Xiangyi is so bright like the sun and viewed it as a bad thing, leading Xiangyi to have this negative view of himself to this day while FDB honestly views Xiangyi as human by saying "where there's light there's shadow" and reminded him of all the good he did.

i may be remembering wrong but i don't think wanmian meant that light as being an entirely bad thing? it was just a level of responsibility and fame that she personally couldn't keep up with in a relationship with xiangyi. while fang duobing also sees that light xiangyi had as a hero and the shadow of arrogance and pride, and recognizes all of it, doesn't turn away. imo i wouldn't call them super contrasting views but rather adjacent responses. i love the perception that it shows from these two though, because if there's anyone who managed to really see li xiangyi as being human with both flaws and strengths, and accept that those coexist, it's qiao wanmian and fang duobing (and di feisheng)