#can you imagine having to decide how to subtitle that
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circumference-pie · 2 years ago
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Wordplay in Xie Wanqing's fate poem
One of the things that confused me most in Love Between Fairy and Devil is why our protagonists insist that Xiao Run has to be the destined lover and murderer of Xie Wanqing, when the English subtitles only say she has to die at the hands of her "beloved," which could be Dongfang Qingcang, right??? Easy! Why do they lose all hope when Xiao Run doesn't follow their plans?
The TL;DR is that there's a bit of ambiguity in Xie Wanqing's fate poem, and xiao-Lanhua and co. interpreted it a little too literally, while the Netflix subs gave us the more abstract meaning.
Here is the crucial line, according to Netflix subs:
Then she meets her beloved who understands her well
In Chinese, it is
偏逢萧郎解语人 pian feng xiao lang jieyu ren
In particular, the two characters 萧郎 or Xiao-lang, superficially mean "a man whose surname is Xiao," the same Xiao character as in Xiao Run. This line could conceivably mean, "Then she meets Mr. Xiao, who understands her well," which is how xiao-Lanhua and friends interpreted it.
However, if you search for Xie Wanqing's fate poem on the web, you'll find lots of posts in Chinese explaining that 萧郎/Xiao-lang is actually a poetic way to indicate a woman's beloved. It has origins in multiple historical figures surnamed Xiao, but the definitive usage is in a poem by Tang-dynasty poet Cui Jiao, in which he laments that his lover, a maid, was purchased by another man, and alludes to himself as Xiao-lang [See https://www.gushiwen.cn/mingju_576.aspx]. Hence "Xiao-lang" became a way to refer to the person a woman loves. And as we see later in the show, the Netflix subs are actually right in interpreting "Xiao-lang" as "beloved," and not an actual person named Xiao.
To draw an English parallel, I think it's a bit as if the poem had mentioned a person named Romeo, and there just happened to be a guy named Romeo in the vicinity. I, as a viewer with a modicum of English literary education, know that "Romeo" can be a general epithet for a loverboy, but a thousands-years-old immortal with no connections to the human world might not.
That's not the end of the wordplay in the fate poem, though it is the most important. Here are some small things I found on the rest of the lines:
半世锦绣半世尘 ban shi jinxiu ban shi chen Mine: Half a lifetime of splendor, half of dust Netflix: Half a lifetime of glory, half a lifetime of dust Notes: The word 风尘, meaning prostitution, literally breaks down into "wind-dust," and the 尘 (dust) in the poem probably alludes to this, according to https://www.douban.com/group/topic/273507772/?_i=8820568QDrpMtA.
一舞惊鸿倾鹿城 yi wu jinghong qing lucheng Mine: The elegance of a beautiful dance overwhelms Lucheng Netflix: A magnificent dance stunned the whole Lucheng
韶华等闲随烟柳 shaohua dengxian sui yanliu Mine: A beautiful spring thoughtlessly follows the budding willows Netflix: Her beauty is just like the willow's Notes: https://www.douban.com/group/topic/273507772/?_i=8817957xu4lIgj suggests that this means Xie Wanqing is unhappy with her life and fate despite her status as Lucheng's number-one courtesan. https://edu.iask.sina.com.cn/bdjx/6fnw1wJF5xw.html explains that 烟柳 yanliu refers to the time when willow trees are covered in tender budding leaves that are not yet green, giving them the appearance of being shrouded in smoke.
凭栏元夜闻笛声 pinglan yuanye wen di sheng Mine: Leaning on the railing, she hears a flute on the night of the Lantern Festival Netflix: She hears the flute on the night of the Lantern Festival
断肠几欲飞仙去 duanchang jiyu fei xian qu Mine: Grief-stricken, she almost flies to the heavens Netflix: She is heartbroken and wants to end her life Notes: 仙去 is a poetic or figurative way to say someone dies, but also literally means "goes to the fairy realm," a nod to Xie Wanqing's real identity as the fairy God of War.
偏逢萧郎解语人 pian feng xiao lang jieyu ren Mine: Unexpectedly, she meets a man surnamed Xiao who understands her Netflix: Then she meets her beloved who understands her well Notes: Discussed above.
缘定花朝丝萝梦 yuan ding huazhao siluo meng Mine: Fate ordains a dream of marriage on the second month's fifteenth day Netflix: They are destined to be together
红烛剑影断芳魂 hong zhu jian ying duan fanghun Mine: The shadow of the sword in the light of the celebratory red candle cuts the young woman's soul short. Netflix: Her husband kills her on the wedding night Notes: https://www.douban.com/group/topic/273293366/?_i=8819367xu4lIgj agrees with me that this does not necessarily mean the groom will be the killer.
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007reid · 1 year ago
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coffee caramels. spencer reid
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this is my submission for the cm meet cute (or not) challenge by @imagining-in-the-margins ! i did VERY loose research on the stuff spencer sprouts off on because i am not our boy genius so sorry if there are any inaccuracies ':( this is my first time writing for spencer but i literally love it so much and i'd love to write more so plz flood my inbox with requests for him plzzz 😭
pairing: fem!reader x spencer reid
prompt: character sits next to a stranger in the theater, but the two end up bonding when there's a technical glitch.
warnings: slightly grumpy!reader and sunshine!spencer my fav trope <333 confident reader, reader makes the first move, spencer being a bbg and blushing a lot ;)) all the good stuff
word count: 2.7k
you arrived at the theater ten minutes early, bee-lined to the popcorn section and asked for extra butter. you loaded your oily popcorn up with coffee caramels and chocolate-covered coffee beans and bought a large coke. you walked in the theater, confident and fully armed with enough caffeine to hopefully keep you awake during the entire thing. you have tape in your bag to peel your eyes open just in case things go south, but you're confident enough to believe that it won't.
because it can't.
"aelita," your professor had said on friday, "is a russian phenomenon, and it is one of my top favorite films. considering how you are all in a russian literature class, i can make the safe assumption that you are all interested in russian culture."
now, not only were you in a russian literature class as an elective like two-thirds of your class, you were also a russian literature and poetry major. how you ended with that major baffles you and there hasn't been a day where you wanted to choose another major, but there hasn't been a day where you weren't depressed about your poor decision-making either. it's a battle you fight every day.
"aelita was first screened in 1924, and this year, next week, there will be a worldwide re-screening of the film in its originality, no edits, completely authentic, except with added subtitles for those who need it, of course," this was when your professor got very stern. "i want all of you to go and watch it. if you don't want to, fine, but there will be an assessment grade on this movie. this is not optional. i believe that the content of this movie is very true to our..."
at that point you had stopped listening, because you knew what your professor wanted you to do, and you dreaded doing it.
two hours, silent, black and white, russian film with subtitles. and you have to hang onto the movie's every word.
not your ideal saturday night plans, but for your academic career, you were willing to take that leap; looking like a sore loser at the empty theater with black framed glasses on instead of getting fucked up in someone's bathtub. it's fine. the partying was all up to the business majors anyway.
when you walked into the theater, it was, understandably, vacant, save for a couple men and women with graying hair or bald scalps and bad backs. you were clearly not the target audience. none of them had snacks on them either, and you felt awkward being the one responsible for the strong aroma of butter and coffee that stuffed the place the moment you walked in. a gentleman coughed in his hanker-chief and flared his nostrils. you were intimidated already.
you tracked down your seat and decided to not let any of it distract you. you needed a good grade on this assessment. you had already bombed your previous test on the imperial era; you don't need another bad grade stacked on top of it. you're acing this test, no matter what, and you're going to absorb this movie so well that it might as well be your favorite.
as you waited for the film to start, you munched on several of the coffee caramels, the caffeine slow to kick in. you shrugged it off. there's a whole bucket of sugar to fuel you through the film.
in midst of biting into a shelf of a chocolate-covered-coffee-bean, you heard a light thud and a hiss, and the quiet muttering of "i'm good, ow." an old man by the stairs called out;
"you alright, son?"
"yes sir," the man said. despite being alright, he was limping to his seat, and you watched him attentively, for there wasn't much else for you to observe. he limped closer and closer to you by row, ticket in his hand and checking the letters on the rows. he stopped at your row, and then walked crookedly and settled down in the seat right next to you.
you chewed on your popcorn as you directed your attention somewhere else, your determination slightly deflated. the film was late into starting, but you were still going strong.
"oh wow," you heard the man mumbled next to you, and looked over to see what he was talking about, nosy. but he was looking at you.
"what?" you said indignantly, immediately dropping the oily popcorn in your hand and wiping at your mouth, feeling oddly self-conscious. but mostly irritated. you'd say you hid your whiplash pretty well when you saw how pretty the man was when you looked over at him. you were so smooth with it. "chocolate on my face?"
"what? oh, no," the man breathed out a small laugh. he's got a soft, shy voice that got your insides feeling like broken tomato bits.
"then what?" you demanded, but not too authoritatively because you didn't want to chase him away. you kept it cool and in control. totally. it was hard to find eye candy in quantico, and the last place you would expect to find someone so pretty is in the theater for a fucking silent film.
even though it was dark, you could still catch the bright blush that crept up the man's neck, but it might be because he felt hot under all those layers. seriously, he was dressed like your grandpa, sweater vest, tie, collared shirt and all, but it was tied together in some kind of way that made it work, and it was the way the man carried himself that made him look youthful in all those ancient clothing.
"nothing," he ducked his head away, "i was just talking out loud."
you didn't have to be sherlock holmes to know that he was lying. "you liar," you accused, wiping your hand even more aggressively over your face. "i do have something on my face, don't i? just tell me if i do!"
"you don't have anything on your face!" he said, an indecisive and uncracked smile playing on his lips. you grumbled and turned back to look at the screen, still waiting for the film to start, popping candy in your mouth. in was silent for a merciful while, until the man said, "did you know that dmitri shostakovich conducted the music for this film and during its first showings in leningrad since the film was silent he came personally and played the piano whenever the soundtrack would be playing?"
you hummed. no you did not.
"i was surprised when i saw you, you don't look over sixty at all," the man continued. you didn't know how to take this piece of information as a compliment or an insult. "whenever i come to these things, it's only me who doesn't have grey hair. well, some people dye it, which looks pretty obvious because you can't really hide age, y'know?"
usually you'd be annoyed. very annoyed, in fact, you'd switch seats to be away from the guy. but this one's got a nice voice, and the moment he sat down you caught a scent to him immediately, that old cashmere and cotton scent that comes from old, thrifted clothes that you'll find dug deep somewhere in your grandmother's basement or in vintage stores, and sugar cookies and mint and coffee. it's a good smell, is all. you weren't being creepy about it.
"i'm not over sixty," you assured him. "just scraping twenty-two."
"oh! i'm twenty-two too!" the man said excitedly. he had child's glee to him, which you found more endearing than annoying. you didn't know why. you didn't know why you were still sitting with the man instead of scurrying three rows away like you would have normally the moment any stranger tried to attempt small talk with you.
maybe you were a changed woman.
"how crazy," you mused. you didn't sound half as interested or excited as the man did, but he had most definitely got your undivided attention. you nature tells you to not show it.
"how did you hear about this movie? i tried to get some of my friends to watch it with me, but none of them were too interested...except emily, she's usually more interested because she can speak russian but she got plans this weekend," his face fell into a thoughtful frown at the end, and the clockwork in your brain started to turn at the mention of 'emily.' was that his girlfriend? special lady? you shouldn't be googling, then.
"my professor created an assessment for this movie," at the man's inquiring look, you explained further, "it's for my russian lit class."
his eyes shone like a fucking diamond at that, as if russian lit was the most exciting thing he had ever heard of in his life. you could tell that you were looking at the kind of guy who would decline a party full of seniors to go read a dictionary at home. "is that like an elective you take? 'cause it's a subject that fascinates me a lot, but the demand for it is so slim that--"
he was cut off by the movie finally starting and flickering to life. you turned away immediately, eyes focused and attention zeroed onto the introduction screen. screw the pretty boy for now, you thought, you might as well pack your things and go back to your hometown if you fuck up this movie's assessment. it needed your attention.
black and white and grimy, a pretty font wrote 'aelita, adapted by alexei tolstoy.' but as soon as the film started, the picture quickly collapsed, blurring and then fading into black. with the audience being so small, there wasn't much commotion but whispers of confusion began to arise as the lights began to bleed more yellow, lighting up the theater more. it was as if the movie was over.
"sorry folks," a voice came from the grainy megaphone above all of them. "some trouble with the tape. we are trying our best, but not sure of our luck. all tickets will be refunded if bought online or you bring your ticket to us for a mark so you can present your current ticket right now at the next showing. thanks for your patience."
you looked exaggeratedly around, and the man in the sweater vest next to you looked equally as disappointed.
"my professor is not going to believe me," you muttered under your breath, but the man caught it anyway and chuckled quietly. you looked down at your still full bucket of popcorn and your large coke. you glanced over to the man next to you, not too smart things lottering around in your head. you travel through the subway, and the ride to your street is not until two hours. you weren't going to spend it morosely eating popcorn in the waiting lobby.
"is emily your girlfriend?" you asked suddenly. there was no point in being shy. the man's mouth unhinged from his jaw immediately, and you stared at him. his cheeks quickly stained an innocent pink.
"what?" he squeaked, his voice a higher pitch, caught off-guard. "no! no, she-she's my coworker!" he sounded almost offended.
this took you by surprise. you didn't know people who were close to their coworkers existed. "so you don't have a girlfriend?"
the blush on the man's face kept getting brighter and brighter. you bit your lip to keep from smiling like a fool. with how endeared you were by him, it's strange to think that you don't even know his name yet. it was rare for you to really be so mindful and think such soft things about somebody, especially to a stranger.
you were a changed woman. but maybe it's because of the coffee caramels messing with your head. sugar and caffeine tend to do that.
"no," the man said, then cleared his throat. he was fiddling with his fingers, an obvious stim. "no, i don't have a girlfriend."
"sweet," you grinned, "then no one would mind if i take you on a date, would they?"
he choked and got engulfed in a coughing fit, bending over in his seat. the red of his sweater vest nearly blinded you but you patted his back supportively. when his coughing ceased and he sat back up again, his eyes avoided yours for a while as he fought to keep the redness in his face down before he looked at you again.
"so?" you raised your eyebrow. "the night doesn't wait, pretty boy."
the nickname just slipped out of your mouth, and you cringed at the weight of it. how out of pocket. you were going to go home and contemplate this conversation later. but right now, you were trying to take out probably the sweetest looking boy you've ever seen, and that was a more important matter as of.
"okay," he said, and that was that.
"okay," you repeated. "let's start with finishing this, yeah?" you looked down at your bothersomely big bucket of popcorn. "we can walk to the park and eat it and feed it to the ducks."
"actually, it's not safe for ducks to consume popcorn because it causes digestive issues especially if consumed in large quantities and disrupts their natural diet," the man recited matter-of-factly, blinking at you obliviously as if he just didn't acted like a fucking android. you huffed out a laugh. handsome and smart. pretty much a package deal.
"the popcorn will be just for us then," you promised, standing up. he followed suit, as a lone line of people started to exit the theater. "i hope you aren't a serial killer in disguise," you said jokingly, but not really, because that was a genuine threat. he laughed. it was a sweet, syrupy sound that you could soak up and not get sick of for a long time.
"that's ironic," he mumbled, and it flew past your head, you being too busy maneuvering out of the rows.
"what was that?"
"nothing," he smiled, bright and easy. the initial nervousness was already beginning to melt away. when you were side by side, his hand accidentally brushed yours and when you looked up at him, he was already looking another way, pretending to be distracted by the movie posters but the red in his ears and neck gave it away. you smiled to yourself and grabbed his hand, holding your bucket of popcorn in the other.
"i forgot," you said, suddenly. his head whipped around to face you, but not before lingering his gaze at your intertwined hands. "i didn't get your name."
it was a foolish thing to say, you were holding a man's hand and you were pressed up side-by-side against him and you don't even know his name. he smiled softly, though, like he didn't mind. "i'm spencer reid."
"i'm y/n y/l/n."
"hi y/n," spencer said. you exited the theater and he started slightly swinging your joined hands. you laughed, the popcorn and candy in the bucket rattling and threatening to spill but you didn't care. "i'm a little disappointed," he said, pouting a little bit, bottom lip jutting out. "i was excited for the movie."
you breathed out an incredulous laugh. what a guy.
"i wasn't," you said, honestly. yours and spencer's arms were still swinging, and you resisted the uncharacteristic giggle bubbling at your throat. "rather be doing this instead." unexpected date at the park with a pretty boy in a red sweater vest or a boring silent film? the answer sounded pretty obvious to you.
"hm," spencer hummed, amused. "i guess i can catch the movie some other time."
"you can catch it with me," you blurted, and it sounded too early to say. you haven't had a proper conversation with the guy yet, you didn't know what he does and how he is, you didn't know whether or not he has a cat or a dog or a parrot or a ferret or if his room is kept tidy or messy, and you didn't know how much you were going to like him once the night is over. asking for a second date when the first one hadn't even started felt like too much, but it also felt like the right thing to say.
and if it's right, it's good enough for you.
spencer smiled shyly. when you turned right on the street, he pulled you back by your hand and redirected you left. "let's go the scenic route," he said, casually, and you could tell by the magenta tinge in his cheeks and the way he was firmly looking forward, avoiding your eyes that he wasn't feeling as casual as he sounded.
"want some of my popcorn?" you offered, feeling the large bucket was burdening you.
"oh, no thanks," spencer said. "i'm sure the pigeons will appreciate it more than me."
"does popcorn ruin their digestive system and disrupt their natural diet, too?"
spencer popped a large grin. it sat beautiful on his pretty face. "you listened," he said happily, and it felt like a large airbag had just inflated in your lungs. "no, i think pigeons are too used to picking our food, especially those in the city," a long pause, and "in fact, pigeons have a stronger digestive system than most birds due to adaptation, but the strongest out of all of them are vultures, whose stomach acid are so strong it doesn't get sick e eating rotten and bacteria-infested meats."
you hummed. you wished you had paid closer attention to what he said, but instead you paid attention to the smooth sound of his voice and how nice it sounded. well. you'll get there one day.
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lurkingshan · 5 months ago
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The Miracle of Teddy Bear Saved the Gays
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Last weekend, both @twig-tea and I had time off and were in the mood to binge something, so Twig suggested we finally watch The Miracle of Teddy Bear. Both of us had missed it while it was airing live (because it didn’t have international distribution) and had been given the impression by others that it had a sad ending that included some anti-queer messages. It was also very long, so we were not exactly rushing to get to it. But we are stubborn and like to judge things for ourselves, so we decided since we had the time and the show was now available, we should jump in. And imagine our surprise when we found out everything we had been told about it was wrong (we have our theories about why). This is one of the best queer dramas we have ever seen, with phenomenal acting, writing, and direction, and we have so much to say about it. The post that follows is co-written by the two of us. Strap in, folks, because it’s a long one.
If you haven’t seen this show yet and don’t want any spoilers, stop reading this right now and head over to YouTube, where international fans can now watch it for free with English subtitles. We’re going to go deep on the show below, and because this drama is designed to slowly reveal information in a very deliberate way, nearly everything counts as a spoiler. We’ll try not to give too much away in the early sections, but be warned!
The Story
The Miracle of Teddy Bear is the tale of a deeply traumatized gay man in desperate need of healing, and the teddy bear who comes to life to help him. In the process of taking care of his person, our bear uncovers deep family trauma and many secrets and lies, accidentally solves crimes, makes lots of friends, heals a family, and saves several lives. He is a very good bear, and through this adventure he contemplates his own existence, learns how to be human, and discovers what it means to truly love someone. 
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This is primarily a family drama with important things to say about queer truth, and while it includes several bl storylines, it is not a romance. Intertwined with the family drama is a bl show within the show and a series of interrelated mysteries that slowly get unraveled as the story goes on. One of the things this show does best is parcel out information from various perspectives at the perfect time to keep the viewer one step behind—we found ourselves constantly almost guessing what the show was going to do next, but it always chose a direction a little to the left and surprised us in the best way. 
In the end, every question we asked was answered, and every time we thought a character’s motivation felt a little too shallow, we were given more. The experience of watching this show was deeply satisfying and really made us feel seen. This show gets us. 
The Characters
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The Bear: Tofu
Tofu is the titular teddy bear who comes to life via drama magic and does his best to support his person. He starts the series incredibly innocent, and the show and his actor, Inn Sarin, do an incredible job of depicting the change in him as he lives life as a human, becoming more complex and less naive. Tofu is the heart of the show, and it is his love and kindness that enable the growth of the other characters in this story. 
The Core Family: Nut, Na, and Kuenchai
Nut is our protagonist, and his struggles with life as a gay man are the soul of this story. He lives with his mom, Na, and their dog, Kuenchai, and Tofu is his beloved teddy bear. Yes, Nut is a cranky ass grown man with a beloved teddy bear. It will make sense eventually, we promise. Nut is a bl novelist working through old trauma via adapting his work for the screen. Na is a woman who has been Going Through It, and while we start the story with only the vague sense that something is not quite right with her, we spend a lot of time on her history as well as her growth in the present until we get the full picture. The way Nut and Na’s stories are tied together gets to several of the core themes of this show (discussed more below). 
The Sides: Gen, Song, Prib, and the nosy neighbors
Our cast of friends and allies who support Nut and Tofu and have romantic trials and tribulations of their own. Without giving too much away, we’ll just say this: all of these characters have satisfying arcs, and some of them may have caused us to squeal in delight. 
Specters of the Past: Neung and Tarn
Telling you literally anything about them is a major spoiler so just know they are here and they are important and you will fully understand why and how by the end. Oh yeah, and Neung looks exactly like Tofu (or should we say Tofu looks like Neung?) for Reasons (which are explained! We love this show).
Villains: Saen, Sib, Jan, and Parit
Expect these four to show up often and cause a lot of trouble. Their motives and exact crimes are revealed over the course of the show.
Other Elders: Anik, Juea, Kanya and Sittha
They are mostly here to serve a few key plot functions and represent a spectrum of parental figures (related by blood and not) and acceptance of queerness.
And we cannot forget: The inanimate objects
In this show, inanimate objects can come to life under a certain set of magical conditions, and they are Tofu’s friends and helpers along the way. Some of their stories are shockingly touching! They also add some needed levity to the show, especially the grumpy ones. Special shoutout to the cactus and the spare blanket, our crime solving MVPs. We have to admit, the animation for these took a bit of getting used to, but within a couple of episodes we were cheering these creepy blinking eyes on. 
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The Themes
And here is where we start to get into spoiler territory about specific character arcs. This show had so many clear and well-articulated themes, and they stayed consistent throughout the story.
Queer people can be happy
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This is stated explicitly as well as demonstrated through multiple storylines: gay men can love each other, have good relationships and fulfilling sex lives, and get their happy endings. Those who argue that people should fight against their queerness because it will make their lives harder and keep them from happiness are not just wrong, they have it backwards. 
Queer people can only be happy by living their truth
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This is perhaps the main thesis of this show, and it comes across in so many ways over the arc of the story. We see this theme exemplified in particular through Nut, Tarn, Song, and Gen, with each of them representing different versions of the queer experience that shape who they are and how they show up in the world. Even before the story tells you, it’s clear what kind of experiences each has had from his relationship to his own queerness and his general demeanor and outlook on life. Nut has survived an abusive homophobic father, and that shows up in his anger, his self-protective rejection of others, and his struggle with emotional regulation. Gen has been raised by loving and accepting parents who support his choices in all ways, and this shows in his good humor, balanced perspective, and confidence to be himself. When we say good media should show, don’t tell us its point, this is a fantastic example of what that means. 
Accept and love your queer children or pay the price
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Relatedly, this story is very interested in the consequences for parents who fail their queer children, and explores a whole spectrum of acceptance from enthusiastic support to negligent ambivalence to misguided suppression to violent bigotry. We see so many different parents and parental figures react to learning about their gay sons and gain insight into them by how they respond—and only the ones who manage to get it together to love and support their kids get to keep their families. Critically, the adults who fail their queer children are convinced they’re acting in their best interests at the time, and we are along for the ride as the redeemable ones go through the stages of first admitting they were wrong but still thinking their intentions justify the pain they caused to fully acknowledging the damage they have done and making amends. 
Be patient with others, you never know what they’ve been through
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That said, the show also invites us to stop and consider what might be behind aberrant behavior before judging it. Tofu is unfailingly patient with others, and even with the worst people in this story, he always seeks to understand why they are behaving a certain way before giving up on them. The show slowly and methodically reveals information that recontextualizes things we thought we understood and encourages us to keep digging for empathy and missing context. People in this story behave very badly and make a lot of mistakes, but a lot of it becomes more understandable once you have the full picture.
Unprocessed trauma will prevent you from healing and cause you to perpetuate harm on others
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Speaking of bad behavior, so much of what’s wrong in this story is driven by unprocessed trauma of one sort or another. Nut’s anger is at its core a deep hurt from being betrayed by the person he trusted most to be on his side. Na’s refusal to live in reality causes her to continue to hurt herself and her son. Saen’s denial about his own actions leads to far-reaching consequences he could not imagine. And the healing process depicted in the show is not linear; people who have made mistakes in the series make them more than once and advance and regress as the situation around them changes. 
People are responsible for their own actions and inactions
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And while the show is clear that trauma is the source of the bad behavior of these characters, it is also clear that this is not an excuse. Everyone in this story is held to account for the things they do, as well as the things they don’t, no matter how understandable their reasons are. The people who refuse to heal face serious consequences in addition to seeing the damage their unprocessed trauma causes others. 
Noble idiocy leads to everyone being unhappy
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One of the biggest sources of said unprocessed trauma in this story is characters making self-sacrificial choices for the ostensible benefit of others and bringing misery to everyone in the process. We love a drama that recognizes noble idiocy for the selfish and destructive act it truly is and clearly says you have to communicate with your loved ones if you don’t want to make a mess of everyone’s lives.
You can’t appease an abuser
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No amount of hiding who you are or making yourself small will convince an abuser to treat you better or guarantee your safety. This theme is most obvious in the main storyline between Nut, Sib, and Na, but Jan is another example of a manipulative and emotionally abusive character who other characters continually try to play nice with, to no avail. She takes every opportunity to be cruel, whether the person she’s talking to is kind or combative in return. The show reinforces that abusers will always find an excuse to justify their behavior; changing yourself for them is pointless. 
Love is wanting the best for someone, even if that means letting go 
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This is really the show’s core point where romance is concerned: being with you may not actually be what is best for the person you love, and if your love is true you have to accept that. The people who could not see this—Saen and Jan—were the ones who continued to cause harm to their loved ones and themselves, while the characters who honestly worked towards the happiness of their beloveds even if that happiness was not with themselves—Tofu, Tarn, and eventually Prib—were rewarded by seeing that happiness play out and ended our story truly content. The MVP of this theme is Tofu, whose pure teddy bear love for his person became more complicated and selfish as he became more human. But in the end, he held to the truth at his core that Nut’s happiness was his happiness.
You can have more than one great love, and one doesn't tarnish the others
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Which brings us to one of the most beautiful takeaways from this show, and something that dramas so rarely do well. Nut loves two different men, neither more than the other, and he never chooses between them. They both hold important meaning in his life and he honors that whether they are with him or not. When Nut is with Tofu, he remembers his past love with fondness but he is clear that these memories do not make his love for Tofu any less real. A lesser show would have had those moments where Nut was thinking about his past cause him to distance himself from Tofu. But in this show, Nut sharing his past and working through his lack of closure was when he and Tofu had some of their closest and happiest moments together. This show is extremely clear that we can have happiness with more than one person over the course of our lives, and it is not only okay but encouraged! 
The Resolution
From here, we will be talking about the ending, and so by necessity will no longer be avoiding major spoilers. If you’re intrigued by the above and want to avoid being spoiled fully, stop now! One of the things that is so brilliant about this show is the way information is slowly revealed, so if you think you would like this show we recommend experiencing it for yourself. If you’re still not convinced and need to know the ending before you decide, read on. 
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In our view, this story ends exactly as the show signals it will from the very beginning—and the way it should—and the ending is unambiguously a happy one. Tofu realizes that he and Tarn’s life forces are tied together, that it was Tarn going into his coma that caused him to awaken, and that as long as he continues to live as a human, Tarn will not recover. We and the characters have come to love Tofu in his guise as a human, but the truth is he does not belong there—he is a teddy bear, and for him to stay by robbing an actual human being of their life would be wrong. The story took pains throughout to show us how tenuous and restricted Tofu’s existence is, because he is not a real person and thus can’t live a full life (for example, he can’t get a job or safely leave the house because he doesn’t have documentation or any life experience). We also see Tofu struggle so much with the added complexities of the human experience that he becomes ill with overwhelm multiple times. He repeats to us through the whole story that all he really wants is to be a comfort to Nut. While he finds value and joy in being human, it does not change who he is at his core. And so he allows himself to be poisoned by Jan, sacrificing his human existence to bring Tarn back and exposing Jan and Saen’s crimes in the process. 
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With this decision, the other characters get the chance to mourn him and move on. Nut grieves, finally makes the connection between human and teddy bear Tofu, goes to therapy (!), makes peace with his mother, and writes his love story with Tofu as his next show. Tarn wakes up and begins his recovery, and he and Nut slowly reconnect and rekindle their relationship over time. Na finds joy in her lucid moments and enjoys time with her family, finally free of the hell Saen and Sib unleashed on her life. Gen and Song get their happy ending with acceptance from Song’s dad, and Prib’s fixation on gay men becomes clear when her new female love interest enters the scene (let’s go, lesbians!). We get confirmation that the nosy neighbors are, in fact, an elder gay couple. Even Kuenchai and some of the inanimate objects have character arcs! Kuenchai is instrumental in making sure Nut is reunited with bear Tofu, and we get to see a slipper gain some independence from her other half and a grumpy bolster cuddle in to comfort her people when they need it.
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We end our story with several happy families who love their gay children and a call for marriage equality via Nut and Tarn deciding to marry whether it’s legal or not. Tofu is a bear again but his human life is very much not forgotten—Nut speaks to him every day, honors the love they shared, and talks about him openly with Tarn. And we even hear from Tofu again, see a final moment between him and Nut in a beautiful dream, and are reassured that Tofu is happy to still be with Nut in his original form and to see him living so well. It’s everything he wanted, and he made it happen. He truly is the very best bear.  
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The Purpose
We wanted to take some space to get a little extra meta and talk about why this show matters so much in the broader queer media landscape. First, it was a landmark queer television event in Thailand—please read this post by @flowerbeasblog to get the background on its significance in the cultural landscape. This show was broadcast very intentionally to educate and send a message to a broader audience in Thailand than is typically reached via bl dramas. And that’s why understanding and taking its themes seriously is so very important.
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This is a story that is deeply rooted in queer truth, written by a queer man who wants people like him to be seen and understood. The show puts forward an unapologetically pro-gay message on broadcast television (on a major national network! during primetime! that does not shy away from the sexual component of queer love!) and embeds important political commentary in a fantastic and engaging story in a format familiar and comfortable for the Thai audience. It’s not meant to be received as a romance, and its nuanced and mature take on love and relationships is certainly not designed for ship wars. The writer even turns directly to the camera and underlines this in the final episode: while he respects the importance of bl in the media landscape, he has a bigger agenda in mind for this show and important things to say.
And that’s why some of the discourse around this show is so frustrating. A small portion of international fans who watched this show live seemed to misunderstand it deeply and created such a false impression of it that it caused others to stay away. Contrary to some of the takes out there, this show does not have a sad ending, Tofu’s resolution is not remotely anti-queer, and there is no woman who ends up with Nut (we are so confused that this was anyone’s interpretation; Nut at every age and several times within the show explicitly shouts about how very extremely gay he is). To see this story as a tragedy because Tofu “dies”—which he doesn’t; his human body disappears but he returns to being a conscious and content teddy bear—is to misunderstand Tofu’s character journey, his narrative purpose, and his agency. We can only assume that shipping got in the way of comprehension here, and people who wanted to see human Tofu and Nut end up together focused on that to the exclusion of pretty much everything this show was saying and doing.
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At the end of this story, Tofu is happy. To think that Nut was better off with Tofu than with Tarn is to not allow for the complexities of human experience; Nut did love Tofu, but he loved Tarn, too, and their relationship was a positive force in his life both before and after Tofu entered it. And Tarn was an actual gay human man in a coma who could not wake up while Tofu existed. Tofu was the creation of Tarn’s love for Nut; his existence was limited, and he found being a human extremely difficult. All Tofu wanted was to be Nut’s teddy bear and stay with Nut forever. He wanted Nut to be happy, because Tarn wanted Nut to be happy, and during his time as a human he worked to enable that happiness. He was instrumental in moving forward several stuck characters and uncovering many secrets, all of which were necessary for Nut to get to where he ends up at the end of the show. Being in a relationship with Nut was a bonus. He enjoyed the experience of being in love with Nut, but in the end he chose to sacrifice his human life so that Nut could have a permanent, lasting happiness with someone who was real. Tofu’s human death is not an example of the bury your gays trope; in fact, it is a total rebuke of it. Tofu, and this show, saved the gay men in this story and gave them full and happy lives. We cannot recommend watching and supporting this show enough.
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writingwithfolklore · 7 months ago
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5 Things about working in a (small) publishing house that surprised me
My experiences definitely aren’t true of the entire industry. I work in a very small, very local publishing house as a marketing assistant, and I’m certain that you’d have a much different experience at Penguin Random House, or even another small house on the other side of the country. That being said, here’s five things that really surprised me about what I’ve seen from the industry so far…
1. Very few of the people who work in publishing are writers
Okay this was one of the biggest surprises but also kind of makes sense? Publishing is a lot about the business side of things—numbers and marketing strategies and event planning, etc. People who are talented in design and accounting and other essential pieces to book publishing aren’t necessarily good at or practiced writers, and not all people who love reading also love writing!
I guess this surprised me so much because I’ve never been a reader without being a writer, but we often actually rely on the author’s writing on their own works (summaries, bios, etc.) to populate the backs of books and other marketing. Including me, there are three writers in my entire office.
2. Big booksellers (think Indigo) release yearly cover palettes for book covers
When we’re deciding the colours for a book cover, one thing that goes into that consideration is actually the different palettes Indigo releases! They have different palettes for different sections they update every year. I imagine it’s to fit a certain look for their shelves for new releases, but it’s not something I had ever really thought about, or thought that they would care about!
3. On that topic—publishing houses don’t sell to readers
My first day in marketing, my manager told me, “you’d think we’re selling to readers” I did think that. She said, “we’re actually selling to bookstores and libraries, they sell to readers.” How the money works is booksellers buy our books to put on their shelf. Everything they don’t sell, they’re allowed to trade back for credit, so we want them to buy big upfront, and then sell big to readers. Every book they send back is inventory we can’t get rid of and a “free” book for them down the line, so we don’t want books to come back!
If you want to support authors and your favourite publishing houses, buy from local bookstores who can’t afford to keep underselling books on their shelves for as long as say Indigo. If you really want to support authors, check out their books from libraries (yes really). Libraries are great because they buy books from publishing houses and can use the same one book to get into the hands of several readers, (in Canada) authors get a small amount every time a book is checked out (up to a certain amount so that the library’s entire budget doesn’t go to one book/author). Often, an author’s largest cheque is from libraries.
Unfortunately in the States authors don’t get the same boon, but still supporting your local libraries is just as good as supporting your local indie bookstores!
4. Soo many people look at covers, and soo much goes into creating them
I’m not really a designer, so I’m certain this wouldn’t surprise those of you who actually do graphic design, but they seriously look at every single detail and how it will benefit or hurt the sales. The placement of blurbs, choice of fonts, colours, subtitles, even the placement of raindrops for a rainy background, everything is discussed and tested and tried several different ways. So yes, DO judge a book by its cover, we work so hard on making covers perfect for the audience we’re trying to reach.
5. Publishing houses don’t necessarily have in-house editors, publicity, or other roles
I had always assumed that every publishing house had its own editors and publicists and what not. That’s probably true for the bigger ones, but if you’re being published by a smaller one (which you may be for your debut) you may be working with freelance editors and publicists who work somewhat with your publishing house and also with others as well. We have one in-house publicist, and no editors!
I wouldn’t turn down a publishing house just because they use freelancers (our freelancers are amazing!) but it’s important that they’re upfront about it. Huge red flag if they say they have in-house editors and they don’t actually—I would pass on a publishing house that lies to you.
Any other questions you have about the industry I’ll try to answer!
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bo0mcat · 9 months ago
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Hi Joker Out Tumblr!
I’m not very active here but after seeing all the comments regarding the recent JokerOutSubs interview in London I had to respond.
I was the one who went to go and interview them in London and the response over the last couple of days has been incredibly emotional, and incredibly overwhelming, so firstly, thank you all, from the bottom of my heart, for making me so indescribably happy. Seeing people say that they felt safe watching this interview, and that it’s going to be a comfort video for them, actually brought me to tears on a number of occasions.
I wanted to respond to a few comments that I’ve seen. The questions were mostly devised by me and @alephai . When we were perfecting the questions and going over ways we could make them as respectful as possible, she suggested that we ask permission from Bojan before jumping into personal questions about his anxiety. I immediately agreed and I’m so glad we insisted on keeping it in, even as the questions went through several redrafts. We are both strong advocates of mental health acceptance, and I certainly understand on a personal level how challenging it can be to talk about. We wanted to make sure he had the opportunity to not talk about it, if he didn’t want to, and we were prepared for multiple scenarios.
We also decided right from the beginning that we didn’t want to put our own interpretations on the band. We wanted to frame the questions so they could answer anything they wanted to them, and make it clear that we’re not trying to sensationalise or find some kind of clickbaity quote. A looooot of thought, time and effort went into the questions and we think that the band could sense that there was a lot of love, respect, and genuine admiration for what they do in them. We’re really glad everyone else noticed it too!
We were also really mindful that the questions flowed neatly into one another - for instance, the questions about Bojan’s anxiety got steadily less personal and lighter so it would move smoothly into the questions about music. Again I’ve seen loads of comments about this and it’s so validating to see that the hard work put in was noticed.
We were extremely mindful of appropriate boundaries, and kept the knowledge that we’re ultimately strangers to them front and centre. The main goal on the day was to be as professional as possible. I’m genuinely so happy that they felt relaxed and comfortable enough to open up. I’m glad to say there was never a moment in the room where there was any tension, it truly felt like having a chat with friends! Afterwards, Bojan asked me if I were a professional journalist (which I am not) and it really made me incredibly happy. They are all absolutely sweethearts and some of the warmest, kindest people I’ve had the pleasure to spend an hour with.
The aftermath of the interview was one of the most intense weeks of my life and I have to shout out to every member of @jokeroutsubs who worked on this one. The dedication I saw from the subtitles, translators and video editors was insane. Lots of conversations at mad hours of the morning trying to get this out to the highest possible quality, and I am, as ever, bowled over by the JOS team. To say that joining up with them has been life changing is an absolute understatement, and I’m glad to say that through JOS I’ve met a series of women without whom I can no longer imagine my life. Strong, intelligent women from all over Europe who I now consider to be my sisters, and whom I love incredibly dearly.
I have to mention the message at the end of the interview. This was the product of many months of conversation about the impact of Joker Out on Slovene society between me and several members of the slo team, something that it’s been amazing to learn about from the perspective of an English girl, and we’re so glad we had an opportunity to tell them. Massive thank you again for all the voice notes I was sent to help me practice my pronunciation. I wanted to make sure it was as good as I could possibly manage to show my respect for the Slovenian people, language and culture.
Lastly I wanted to say thank you for all the messages I’ve received complimenting me on this interview. Credit in this case has to be shared between so many people. It was truly a team effort and I’m just so happy I could contribute in giving something back to a band I love and admire, and a community that embraced me with open arms during a difficult time in my life.
I love you all, and thank you all for your wonderful words. X
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sugarnspice630 · 8 months ago
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Fancall Fiasco - Hongjoong PREVIEW
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•pairing: meandom!nonidol!hongjoong x idol!fem!reader
Summary: Being an idol, you have to provide fan service to your loyal followers, however your boyfriend thinks you went a little too far with this one male fan and decides he needs to remind you who you belong to.
A/N: This is just a preview! The full fic will be posted on March 29th! If you would like to be tagged in the full story, please comment below so I can add you! Happy reading!
─── ・ 。゚☆: .☽ . :☆゚. ・ 。゚☆: .☽ . :☆゚. ・ 。゚☆: .☽ . :☆゚. ・ 。゚☆: .☽ . :☆───
You got back to your apartment, finally wearing some comfortable clothes. You walked into the front door, took your jacket off, and started to kick your shoes off before shouting out to your boyfriend, who was hiding somewhere. 
“Hongjoong! I’m bac-!” Your words were cut off by Hongjoong pressing you against the wall. His one hand grips onto your shoulder to keep you against the hard surface, and the other hand holds his phone and shoves the screen in your face.
“What the fuck is this?” He said lowly and through gritted teeth. You glanced over at the screen, breathing heavily, and saw a familiar-looking face on his screen. The video was from one of the many fan calls you had today. Specifically the really nice looking one. What was his name? Ah right, Felix.
“I don’t understand…”
“Don't play dumb with me Y/N! You’re practically fucking him through the screen!”
“N-no Hongjoong..what? L-let me see.” You reached up, took the phone from his hand, and read the post the fan had made to yourself.
The attached video had no sound, but subtitles were provided. You reviewed the video and smirked to yourself, watching the fan get all nervous and flustered again at your fan service. That’s exactly all it was. Fan service. You scrolled through some of the comments that had been made on that post by other fans.
Waahhh, omg you’re so lucky!!
SHE IS SO IN LOVE WITH YOU! IMAGINE BEING CALLED HANDSOME BY HANA? GOD YOU’RE SO LUCKY
Ohhh she wants you fr fr
You smirked again and lightly scoffed at the various reactions from your fans. When you looked back up at Hongjoong to hand him his phone back, his arms were crossed, his breathing was deep and heavy, and he stared at you with aggressive eyes.
“B-baby it’s just fan service.”
“Fan service my ass!” He snatched his phone back from your hand and shoved it into his pocket. “Guess I’m going to have to remind you exactly who you belong to, hm?”
“Hongjoong no, you don’t have to do that. I-I know that-.” Your words were cut off again by Hongjoong pushing you back against the wall again and slamming his lips onto yours. The grip he had on your arms was enough to hurt a little bit, and you squirmed at the uncomfortable feeling. “J-Joong.”
“Shut the fuck up cheater, or I’ll shove something in your mouth to make you shut up.” His behavior was so left-field for you, and you didn’t know how to feel. If you wanted to be truly honest, his possessive nature was making your pussy ache and damp.
“I didn’t d-do anything wrong!” 
“Didn’t do anything wrong….listen to yourself!” He yelled slightly and slid his hands down to grab both of your wrists, then slammed them up against the wall. He pressed his body frame against you, so you were completely against the wall. His face is right in your face, leaving no room for personal space. “I fucking own you; you got that? You’re mine, and when I see you flirting and undressing your fans with those seductive eyes of yours..I get a little…pissed off. So now, I have to make sure you haven’t forgotten exactly who you belong to.”
“Hongjoong I-.” Your heart was beating rapidly, and you did not know what else to say or do. He waited for you to try to say another smart remark before he took your hands held above your head, held them in one hand, and pulled you along as he started stomping toward your room. “Stop! What are you doing?”
“Teaching you a fucking lesson.”
Tags: @pre1ttyies@isiloiale@moongoddess1982@yeosangsbbg@sanipan@10nantscompanion @xuchiya
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jokeroutsubs · 7 months ago
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📝ENG Translation: 🆕 Bojan Cvjetićanin's interview for May 2024 issue of OnaPlus magazine.
Article written by Daša Mavrič, published in OnaPlus magazine on 03.05.2024. English translation by TT katysmusic77 proofread by IG GBoleyn123.
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🗨 Bojan Cvjetićanin, Joker Out: I wasn't at ease on stage for quite a long time
The calendar causes them a lot of issues, Bojan from Joker Out admits in conversation. In one year, the boys experienced things that most of us don't get to experience in our entire lifetime. How can someone avoid mixing up the sequence of events?! Bojan Cvjetićanin is currently in Germany with Kris Guštin, Nace Jordan, Jan Peteh and Jure Maček, where they are recording their third album.
In a long distance conversation he only confirmed his professionalism, which they agreed upon simultaneously with their performance at Eurovision. "We very quickly and unanimously decided to take on the rock'n'roll lifestyle properly; for us to enjoy it, for our fans to enjoy it and to be able to enjoy it for more than a month," Bojan says.
We're talking during your process of recording the album in Hamburg, just before that, you finished the tour. The band members really spend a lot of time together. How has your relationship evolved during all the years of being in a band?
BC: The current line-up is not the original one, we switched two members. But the fact is that the intense band life began two years ago, when both new members had already joined the band. So our common home, so to speak, has only existed for about a year. A lot has changed in fact. I believe we don't even notice all of it, nor do we think about it, because we are together all the time and we filter through the changes regularly.
If I look back, I see that the relationship between us became extremely, extremely tight and a mutual trust has been formed, which can only be built when you spend as much time with someone as we do with each other. The line between our relationships has been blurred. What I'm trying to say is that the line blurred between being a friend, a band member, a colleague, it all became one thing. We are essentially a sort of organism, which evolves and changes together.
The growth of each individual is very dependent on the other four members. We really have been through a lot together; even the biggest moments of shock, which influence our feelings and thoughts, happened to us collectively, we were never alone. We have become very dependant opon one another.
Your pace of life would firstly be ascribed to a professional athlete, rather than a rockstar. And to me it seems you have set out on your career in this way consciously. There's probably no drinking, late nights out?
BC: When we started the first two Europen tours it very quickly became apparent that what we are doing is a lot more serious than people would imagine. At least for us, this is the most fun job in the world, as we get to create and play music for the people who love us. And we love them as well. Together we share these lovely feelings, which is the coolest part of this job. If we want to do this long term and at a high level, we knew that we had to take it seriously.
When you have 22 concerts in one month, you of course think that everyone who bought a ticket to your concert deserves your best performance. When you're living at an extremely demanding pace for a month, late nights out and similar things are a completely unnecessary stress and distraction for your body. We very quickly and unanimously decided to take on the rock'n'rolll lifestyle in a proper way; for us to enjoy it, for our fans to enjoy it and to be able to enjoy it for more than a month.
In the podcast for N1¹ you openly talked about your panic attack. How have you been taking care of your mental health since that episode? ¹You can watch the N1 podcast with English subtitles on our YouTube channel!
BC: This happened to me last summer when, even though I was sick, we played five or six concerts in ten days. Tiredness and probably everything that had happened to us took its toll. After Eurovision, which ended in May, we didn't turn on the emotional part of our brain, because so many things were happening so quickly, we fell into work mode. The combination of all these emotions and events probably mixed together with tiredness and illness. I wasn't really at ease on stage and continued to not be at ease on stage for quite a long time, practically a whole year. But of course to a much lesser extent and less severely. The whole team made sure that it would happen as little as possible. The boys gladly took on the responsibilities for which my presence wasn't necessary and took that burden off my shoulders. I hardly had to deal with the logistics, the bureaucracy and I left it to those, who are better qualified for it. The boys in the band and our team always make sure that everyone feels at their maximum best.
On tours that are behind you, something really fascinating happened, the fans were singing with you in Slovene. We're speaking during your process of recording the new album in Germany. Does it even matter in which language you create music?
BC: On all the tours so far it turned out that for hour and a half, people are singing our lyrics. When some of our friends from Slovenia came to one of the concerts, they really couldn't fathom what was going on, because the people around them were talking in their own languages, but when we started singing, they sang together with us. On stage, we hardly hear any details in the pronunciation through all the noise, so we don't even have the feeling that the people who are singing don't speak Slovene otherwise. We felt very at home throughout all of Europe, which was quite magical.
Regarding the recording of the third album, the songs will be in the languages in which the idea for them was sparked. When it comes to the language in which the song is created, we really don't limit ourselves.
But I can tell you that the majority of the songs will be in Serbian and in Slovene, I doubt there will be more than two, maybe three songs in English.
Who is your favourite to win this year's Eurovision song contest?
BC: To be completely honest, I haven't looked into into this year's contestants a lot. I want to hear the songs for the first time when we watch Eurovision, which will be here in the studio. I was a host at the Eurovision pre-party in Madrid and there I heard some of the songs, but I consciously moved backstage to not hear them in their entirety. I want to experience it with a neutral outlook and base my opinion on what I hear for the first time, and not after I had been listening to a song for three months and maybe even met the artist in person.
But I absolutely strongly believe in our representative Sara. I know that she sings the song live really well. And that's very, very important. I know she has the stage presence, I saw the reaction from the public after her performance in Spain and that reaction was very positive.
For now, Raiven's performance is the only one that I saw in its entirety. I want to experience the rest when Eurovision happens.
How do you look back on your Eurovision experience after one year? You are in fact the first Slovenian representative that really took advantage of it in a completely different way.
BC: Eurovision completely changed our career and our lives. It's interesting that so many things happened to us since last year that we find it hard to perceive time. The calendar represents a big problem for us (laughter). We have problems evaluating what happened three months ago, what happened seven months ago and what happened two years ago. The events get a bit mixed up. If somebody told me that three years have passed since Eurovision, I would believe them.
We had a hectic lifestyle for half a year, we fell into an extremely unique universe, which you can only really believe if you're a part of Eurovision, or if you're an avid Eurovison fan who lives for Eurovision. And there's a lot of them.
Yeah, you fall into some kind of universe and you live in a bubble, completely isolated from your surroundings. We had a blast, we enjoyed it a lot, we met so many wonderful people. Since last year, we saw half of the representatives during the tours and all of them joined us on stage.
We know and we feel, that we did a good job. We are proud of what we have done, proud of what Eurovision enabled us to do. We worked really hard, all of it was very much filled with competitive spirit, but every single moment was worth it. When the opportunity for Eurovision presented itself to us, we knew we would take it full-on, or not at all.
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bellezaycafe · 11 months ago
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Get Your Shit Together - Extra; a section of a DTS Episode.
Masterlist | Part 1
genre: 2024 Season AU
pairing: there will be romance but I haven't finalised who yet. platonic! oc x literally the whole grid.
warnings: lots swearing, major car accident, mentions of broken bones, blood and hospitals. A lot of shit happens.
context: Sadie, a 20 year old university student from Melbourne, decided to take a gap year and volunteer at 2 Formula One races in different countries.
Sadie's Faceclaim: Maia Mitchell (but you can visualise her however you want :) )
comments: READ CHAPTER FOUR BEFORE READING THIS. This is an extra and is not actually thaaaat vital to the story. I just know if this happened irl, DTS would 100% make an entire episode on it. This is gonna be so strange to write because DTS is a visual format but imma try for the cool perspective. You’re gonna need a good imagination.
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*Drive to Survive theme and intro*
WILL BUXTON: Silverstone, the home of formula one.
LANDO NORRIS: It’s one of my favourite tracks, I love the support we get there.
BUXTON: Our hearts were in our mouths, in 2024. The title fight was ramping up!
CHARLES LECLERC: It was close.
CARLOS SAINZ: We were fighting, but it was horrific race.
BUXTON: It ended in shambles.
OSCAR PIASTRI: I mean, I was out in lap, 5 I think, it might’ve been 6.
BUXTON: No one expected five DNF’s.
LEWIS HAMILTON: I don’t know how it happened.
BUXTON: Let alone Lando’s accident.
NORRIS: I don’t remember much.
BUXTON: or the Mystery Medic.
*dramatic pause*
BUXTON: It was incredible, in a morbid way.
NORRIS: I was panicking
*onboard footage of moments after the crash, with radio subtitles*
NORRIS *onboard radio*: MY ANKLE, **** MY FOOT!
BUXTON: First, they catch Lando as he falls from the halo. He is in pain, and at one point you can hear him scream.
*onboard footage of the Mystery Medic catching Lando as he falls from the halo*
NORRIS: I knew it was my ankle or my foot. I’d never been in so much pain.
BUXTON: The medic starts to, essentially drag, Lando towards a safe section of the barrier. We could see that it was bad. We could see how much was relying on them and leaning on them, considering that he was taller than the medic.
PIASTRI: We could see that he wasn’t even letting it touch the ground.
NORRIS: “Keep it off the ground,” they told me. They didn’t have to, I was in too much pain anyway.
BUXTON: Then Sergio Perez approaches the accident.
TOTO WOLFF: There was debris everywhere, McLaren and Mercedes.
SERGIO PEREZ: I still do not know how I did not see it.
NORRIS: I didn’t know until I was on a stretcher.
BUXTON: You can see, if you watch the replay you can see, the moment the Mystery Medic hears Checo’s car.
*footage of the Mystery Medic turning their head towards the track*
BUXTON: Put the moment into slow motion, and you can see them make the choice.
*footage of the Mystery Medic putting both hands on Lando’s waist and switching to his right side*
BUXTON: To put yourself between a driver and a Formula One car? That’s either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid.
HAMILTON: Brave.
WOLFF: Stupid.
BUXTON: Either way, I don’t think Drive to Survive can show what happened.
*footage of Perez’s Red Bull striking black and papaya debris*
BUXTON: The medic barely stumbled.
NORRIS: If I hadn’t have seen it afterwards, I wouldn’t have known. I don’t remember it happening.
BUXTON: It was horrifying! They were walking, and almost carrying Lando, with a piece of debris in their thigh.
NORRIS: I’ve watched the replay. It was headed straight for me.
BUXTON: Watching it live was… it was awful! But you couldn’t look away.
*footage of everyone in the McLaren garage watching screens with various expressions of terror*
BUXTON: You had to know if they were going to make it.
NORRIS: They saved my life. Racing is my life, and if that debris had hit my leg? We don’t know what damage it could have done.
BUXTON: But there’s a reason we call them the Mystery Medic, and it may be a feat just as incredible. They did the impossible.
*seperate shots of Sir Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen placed side by side*
BUXTON: Lewis and Max worked together. They put their rivalry aside and worked together to keep the Mystery Medic a secret and we have no idea why.
MAX VERSTAPPEN and HAMILTON *in unison*: I’m not going to comment on that.
BUXTON: We don’t know their name. We don’t know who they are, where they’re from, or how they’re doing now.
*another dramatic pause*
BUXTON: It’s like they never existed.
120 notes · View notes
gadriezmannsgirl · 2 years ago
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Nothing's Going On -P.G
Warnings: A bit of mature content, nothing too explicit (IT'S SAFE FOR EVERYONE TO READ)
Summary: Your boyfriend catches you reading fan fictions of him and teases you about it
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It had all started as a joke. You knew your boyfriend's fangirls wrote some fictions about him (You knew because you also read in your 1D times, Niall Horan's and Louis Tomlinson's fanfic, you could imagine). One day, you were chilling around watching IG when you stumbled with a reel
It had said *POV: Imagine your boyfriend Gavi braging to his mates about you* and there was this video of him talking with Pedri, Balde and Ansu while the author of this edit, edited what they were saying with subtitles underneath.
You awed, it was cute.
Have you heard that saying curiosity killed the cat? Well, that was you at your best moment.
You went in your laptop and opened Google, by the tags on that video you decided to put in the browser *Pablo Gavi x Reader*. Tumblr inmediately appeared with a hundreds of blogs.
You created an account x and started reading.
You gotta admit, these girls had their imagination on the highest level, inventing these amazing stories, backgrounds, edit along with everything else... And you couldn't even know how to start a simple essay
You laughed at some stories, you fell in love with the majority, you felt lust while reading others, hell you even cried with the heartbreaking ones, or what they liked to call Angst. You even found a PEDRI X READER X GAVI POLY
"These girls are crazy in the greatest way ever" You murmured shaking your head
Being on your world, you didn't noticed when your boyfriend came home from his training and was crunched down behind you
"What are you reading?" You heard his voice ask right next to your ear as you yelled out scared
"WHAT THE FUCKING HELL-? PABLO!" You shut your laptop down as your hand went to your chest "YOU ALMOST GAVE ME AN ATTACK"
"You're reading fictions about me?" He asked with a smile as you looked at him dead in the eye
"...No" Your doubting tone made him laugh a little
"Why are you doing that?"
"OK, I WAS READING FANFICTIONS ABOUT YOU! IN MY DEFENSE... Your fans are really skilled and lots of them like our relationship" You nod
"Is that it?" He asked laughing
"Ok, an edit appeared in my IG feed so I saw it and curiosity got the best of me. I have spent the whole afternoon reading these things, they're fucking amazing and absolutely gorgeous. There are some other that are way to explicit but still they were sent by God because Gavs... They're incredible. And the angsty ones? OMG...! They are a blessing and- hijo de tu mamá, ¿Te estás burlando de mi?" (Son of your mother, are you laughing at me?)
"You know you've the real Gavi one and that you get to experience the fluff, a few fights and the sex, all of that in reality?"
"I do! But they're amazing" You opened your laptop and showed him another fic. This one was fluff and smutty
After some minutes reading it you were the first one to talk
"See?! It's so well written and the structure, their beggining, the middle and the end it's so precious... Some of these would do great as real writers; don't you think so, baby?"
You turned around facing Gavi who's expression was unreadable "Love?"
"You're right they're pretty amazing" He nods "On the other hand, way too explicit, it feels a little uncomfortable reading all those things about myself and at the same time boosts my ego up" You roll your eyes "Good side of this is that, I can try and do all these things they write, to you" You clenched your tights feeling hot all over your body
"Now?"
"Now" He said as you both jumped off of the couch into your shared bedroom. Laptop and fanfictions long forgotten
Yes, it may have been a bit embarrassing for you the fact your boyfriend saw you reading fanfiction of him, but it was definitely worth it.
°°° °°° °°° °°°
Tag list: @gaviypedrisbride
376 notes · View notes
colonelpancakes · 3 months ago
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Watching The Dragon Prince Season Six Part Seven: The Red Wedding. The title of this episode makes me so nervous nothing bad better happen to Amaya and Janai at their wedding.
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Okay, first of all, that is NOT Rayla narrating I don’t know what the subtitles are on about, I’m 99.9% sure that’s Ezran.
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Skjfklsa I love Rayla, she has absolutely no intentions of getting up, she is way too comfy.
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Aww Sneezles.
Also “There’ll be more kisses later” I love how the second they officially get together, Callum and Rayla resume their status as world’s sappiest, most clingy couple.
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UHHH. Wait a second. Is Kosmo just. not telling them about the Pearl before they leave?
...That seems like a really bad idea. They’re going to find out eventually and it's a huge potential risk to, you know, have Aaravos’s magic prison in the castle basement and not know it?? Kosmo, telling Callum before the star-truth ritual was a bad idea but you gotta tell him EVENTUALLY. KOSMO!!
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I love themmmm 🥹.
Also, yeah, Kosmo just did not tell them. Um. That may become a bit of a problem later.
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Hello bitch. Nice to see you again.
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Do some of them not know the plan? They seem very surprised to see Sol Regem. Did no one tell them??
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Wait, shit, who the fuck is Pharos? I do not remember, I really should have rewatched season five before starting season six. Oh well, hopefully I’ll figure it out...?
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Karim, man, that seems like the type of thing you should NOT be staring directly into. That cannot be good for your eyes.
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Oh Dang. That was way more powerful than I thought it was going to be
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ON HER WEDDING DAY???? YOU HAVE TO DO THIS ON YOUR SISTER’S WEDDING DAY? You cant have a single modicum of politeness and at the bare minimum choose a day that your sister’s NOT getting married on? KARIM.
I also love the continuity of Corvus playing the cello from Breathtaking
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Aanya!! I’ve missed her!!
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God, I wanna try Sunfire wedding cake too. I want to know what fire tastes like. Also, I think Aanya’s voice has gotten deeper since her last appearance and I really love it. It’s just really melodic and nice to listen too.
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Amaya!!! Janai!! They look so good!!
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Sjalskfjl I love them.
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“Two very special people helped us bridge our differences and understand one another before we learned to do it on our own.” I love them giving Gren and Kazi parts in the wedding so much and how they’re doing both a traditional human wedding ceremony and a traditional Sunfire wedding ceremony.
Also, I know Kazi was confirmed to be nonbinary by the creators but I think this is the first time their pronouns are actually used in the show! Yay!
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BAIT! NOOOOO! The wedding food!! I really hope that didn’t include the Sunfire wedding cake
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“So, how are affairs in Katolis?” “Oh. Affairs are well, fair.”
This is the royalty equivalent of when someone asks you how it’s going and your life is on fire but you can’t say that so you just reply with “it’s going.” This is an SOS call, someone get Ezran a hug and like. Some cold apple juice. And maybe a therapist. Definitely a therapist.
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Aww, Aanya and Ezran’s friendship is so precious. I’m glad that they each have someone who understands what it’s like being a child ruler. They’re so cute.
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I love seeing the Sunfire wedding custom and I love Kazi so much.
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Zym stomping his little feet so that he can clap!!!
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Aww Grennnn. He’s so sweet I love him.
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COME ON! Really Karim?? In the middle of their WEDDING?? Let my girls have a nice wedding ceremony! Let them get married and not have to worry about the safety of their nation! Please!
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Poor Janai and Amaya but especially poor Janai. Imagine finally deciding to get married after putting off scheduling your wedding because Something is always happening in your kingdom, only to have your fuckass brother decide to take a sixth of your army and invade your fucking kingdom ON YOUR WEDDING DAY right as you’re about to start the vows. I deeply admire the composure of these women, I would have lit something on fire by now.
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Karim, shut the fuck up. You are one of the least righteous people out there. You have done nothing but be wrong for this entire arc.
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Okay, so I guess that guy is Pharos. I remember absolutely nothing about him I forgot he was a recurring character until right now skjfalskj
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OH WAIT, FUCK, What happened there???? I cannot remember for the life of me who this guy is gosh dangit. Curse my stupid gosh dang memory
(It should be noted that, although I haven’t mentioned it thus far, I am watching this season with my family. My brother says that he thinks maybe the guy got bitten by the dark-magic zombies at the great bookery in season five? That sounds like it could be right so I’m gonna go with that for now. I’ll check when I’m done with the episode.)
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Ough… My heart. I love the character growth Amaya has gone through so much.
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Okay, go, but maybe take Aanya and Zym with you. Just for safety. Also, nooo, this means Ezran doesn’t get to see his aunt get married. Give my boy a break! Please, just let him have a good time where nothing goes horribly wrong 😭
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Oh, Corvus and Aanya works too! I love Ezran so much. He’s hopeful and kindhearted but he’s not naive. He goes to negotiate with Karim using words rather than violence, but he takes Corvus and Aanya for backup in case things escalate.
Continued in reblogs!
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laxmiree · 2 years ago
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[CN] MLQC Lucien’s Wild Luxury date translation + video with sub EN
⚠️ SPOILER ALERT!! ⚠️
This post contains a detailed spoiler for a date that has not been released in EN yet! Feel free to notify me if there are any mistakes in the translation~
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The slightly cool fingertips keep teasing and rubbing my wrist. In an ambiguous and ticklish feeling, the silk ribbon is tied into a bow.
My hands are completely restrained.
“If this student has no objections, then let's begin-”
“From now on, use your body's intuition to find the answer.”
”Give your body completely to me.”
[Warning]: The content of this date is borderline explicit and may not be suitable for individuals under the age of 16 (CN server). It is recommended that those who do not meet this age requirement refrain from proceeding beyond this point.
[Video + English subtitle]
(T/N: I highly recommend watch the date in video format or following the voice acting for complete experience.)
youtube
[Transcript ver]
=Part 1=
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MC: The engagement banquet has been canceled?
I stand there in shock, watching Lucien take the steaming iron from my hand and turn it off.
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Lucien: Hm, Xiao Fan just called and told me about it.
A trace of regret flashed across Lucien's expression. I open my mouth, so shocked that I don't know what to say for a moment.
The purpose of our trip was to attend the engagement banquet of Xiao Fan and Xiao Su, researchers from the Ultima Bioresearch Centre.
Since they met through Lucien's research project, they invited Lucien to be the witness for the engagement banquet.
We also arrived at this famous glamping hotel a day early to coincide with the rehearsal.
We had planned to spend a pleasant weekend here after the banquet, but now...
MC: Did something unexpected happen? Did they fight? Was it an impulsive decision? Or is there some other reason?
Seeing me keep asking questions, Lucien seems a bit helpless. He leads me to sit on the sofa where he sits down with me.
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Lucien: I admit that the Great Producer is indeed very imaginative, but none of these are the reason for the cancellation of the engagement banquet.
Lucien: Their reason seems to be very simple.
Lucien: -When they finally reached the stage of engagement, they realized that they could no longer avoid the issues that had been left unresolved in their relationship. They needed to work together to resolve them.
Lucien: So they decided to take a break for a while and calm down.
MC: …The reason is so sensible, huh?
MC: But when it comes to your rigorous and restrained researchers, it somehow makes sense…
I mumble to myself and see a smile on the corner of Lucien's lips. He crosses his arms and tilts his chin up, looking at me thoughtfully.
Lucien: Seems that MC has some bias toward researchers?
Lucien: How could you forget that you and I have done some "crazy" things together that were not so rigorous and restrained.
Lucien: It seems that the forgetful producer needs to be reminded.
(T/N: call-back to Crazy Date!)
As he said that, he moved closer to me, and his warm fingers twirled the strands of hair near my ears, causing a tickling sensation on my face.
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MC: There's no need to bother Professor Lucien~ I admit that I was not rigorous enough and had subconscious stereotypes!
I coyly raised my hands and saw his serious expression turn into a faint smile, only then did I let out a sigh.
MC: Okay, since it's their relationship, we don't need to say anything more.
MC: Shall we pack our bags and get ready to go home now?
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Lucien: (chuckle) No need to rush.
Lucien: We can start our vacation here, just as we planned.
I blink in confusion, not understanding what Lucien means.
MC: But the engagement banquet has been canceled. Wouldn't it be inappropriate for us to stay here...
Lucien: Let us stay and enjoy our holiday, this is also Xiao Fan's invitation.
Lucien raises his chin and looks back at the private garden outside the window. The brilliant sunset reflected in his eyes, showing a beautiful glow.
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Lucien: They said that because they had to deal with the nagging of their elders, they couldn't get away to appreciate the beautiful spring scenery here.
Lucien: So they entrusted us with the task of cherishing this springtime scenery for them.
I follow his gaze and look out the window, realizing what this "invitation" really means.
MC: Lucien, I sincerely take back the biased words that I just said.
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MC: The researchers are not only strict and frenzied, but also understand the ways of the world and romance.
There's a chuckle from behind. Lucien gets up and walks straight to the hanging ironing machine. He then takes down the white shirt I just ironed.
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Lucien: Being able to get approval from the great producer, I, on behalf of myself, express this researcher's most sincere thanks.
Lucien: And I would like to extend a formal invitation to you for a deeper understanding. How about it?
As he speaks, he undoes his shirt buttons one by one, revealing the smooth lines of his body.
Lucien: Since my girlfriend specifically picked out this shirt for our vacation, I must make good use of it.
His long fingers move slowly to the last button. With a slight sound, his muscular chest is bared before me, causing me to unconsciously swallow.
But in the next moment, he deftly puts on the white shirt in his hand, smirking slightly and extending his hand to me.
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Lucien: (chuckle)So, would you like to go out and take a stroll?
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=Part 2=
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Our vacation began with an unexpected event.
Amidst the blooming flowers, chirping birds, and wild swans playing in the spring water, it felt like we had stumbled upon a utopia.
Before we knew it, we walked to the venue where the engagement banquet was originally held.
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The waiters are removing the venue. They remove the tablecloths and chair covers, leaving them bare. There are many colorful balloons scattered on the grass.
The mix of warm and cozy colors amidst the messy leftovers left me with a feeling I couldn't quite describe. I couldn't help but feel a sense of nostalgia.
MC: Sigh...I remember when I went to see you at the research institute, and saw Xiao Fan giving Xiao Su a handmade lunchbox.
MC: I also saw them holding hands and going home together several times, with Xiao Su holding a big bouquet of flowers...
MC: They were so in love... how did things come to this?
Compared to my sighs and lamentations, Lucien's expression remains indifferent, and I can't discern any emotions from him.
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Lucien: I think there may be a connection between loving each other and sustaining intimacy, but it's not necessarily a cause-and-effect relationship.
Lucien: In the same way, we can't deny the beautiful feelings they once had, simply based on the choices they've now made.
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MC: That's true, but for people who were once in love but unable to make it last until the end, they must feel some sort of regret.
I can't help but pout. Lucien is about to move his lips and say something when a loud noise comes from not far away.
As we look around, we see waiters working together to carry a backdrop sign bearing the words "Eternal Love" and walk out the door.
Waiter A: Engagement without engagement is a plague. Back home, it is said that if you attend this kind of engagement banquet that gets canceled on short notice, it will affect your marriage.
Waiter B: Fake or not, it is important to go to the temple to pray and get rid of bad luck.
As they pass by us, they seem to catch a glimpse of us holding hands tightly, and their conversation abruptly stops, leaving the air thick with awkward silence.
I squeeze Lucien's palm. I want to quickly leave this awkward atmosphere.
Suddenly, there is a "crack" sound from behind us, and I instinctively turn my head to see the backdrop sign being snapped in half as it passes by the exhibition booth.
The word "eternal" just happened to break from it, like a wordless declaration, and I can't help but frown at it.
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I subconsciously look at Lucien. He looks the same as usual, his eyes only lightly fall on this little incident for half a second and then look back at me.
I'm familiar with those smiling eyes, but for some reason, my mind was disturbed momentarily by the emotions that came out of nowhere.
I struggle to make the tone of my voice rise naturally and mentally tell myself not to think about it.
MC: Let's go, let's go somewhere else and take a look~
In order to shake off the negative vibe, we explore several other scenic spots in the hotel without even realizing it, until we arrive at a wishing fountain.
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The sunset pours on the shimmering water, and the ripples are finely divided. A sculpture of the God of Love stands in the middle of the fountain.
MC: "Love wishing fountain, couples who both toss wishing silver coin into the square platform in the fountain, their love will be blessed forever."
I read the introduction plaque quietly and found the coin bank on one side. I eagerly picked up two silver coins.
MC: Although it's a bit childish, since we've stumbled upon it, Professor Lucien, would you accompany me in playing?
Lucien bends his eyes and leans down.
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Lucien: How will you pay for this "playmate"?
His gaze seems to skim over my lips, and the end of his eyes is raised in a sly arc. I stand on my tiptoes and give him a quick kiss on the lips.
MC: Is this payment enough?
Lucien: Hmm... it seems a bit lacking in sincerity.
His feigned thoughtful voice was heard next to my ear as he clasped my waist with a little force, the sudden close proximity caused my heart to skip half a beat.
Lucien: So, I need to ask for some additional payment.
As he speaks, he leans down and lifts my chin, using his fingertip to lightly caress my lips.
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I almost melt in his intense gaze and unconsciously close my eyes. With a light chuckle, he presses his warm and moist lips against mine.
The tip of his tongue gently circles around my lips before unreasonably prying them apart, bringing a familiar wet and warm sensation.
His hot fingertips slowly trail up from my waist, causing a burst of sensitivity to spread until his palm grasps the back of my head, deepening the kiss.
I have no resistance and can only let him capture my breath.
Lucien: Now, this transaction seems quite profitable.
His heavy breath falls evenly on my lips, creating an enchanting tide of heat. The tip of my tongue is lightly nibbled again before he pulls away from me.
My brain is still buzzing, and the flush on my face has not yet faded.
But my gradually clear mind made me open my eyes wide, and after confirming that no one was around, I couldn't resist the urge to pinch his palm.
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MC: Lucien! We are in public place…
Lucien: A "reasonable fee" for public places. Miss, do you have any objections?
He teasingly narrows his eyes. His sly expression makes me lightly hit him on the chest again.
MC: ...I can never win against you!
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Lucien: (chuckle) Since I've already charged the "fee", it's only reasonable for me to fulfill your wish.
Lucien calmly takes the silver coin from my hand and walks to the wishing fountain.
He rolls up half of his sleeve and stares at the square platform. The sunlight falls on his eyelashes, casting a small shadow on his face.
At the next moment, he slightly moves his wrist, and after a sharp throwing action -
The wishing coin makes a beautiful arc in the air, drops into the fountain, and lands on the square platform without a hitch.
I can't help but admire the sharpness of his stance, which overlaps with that of the theater bar on the cruise ship not long ago.
(T/N: call-back to Slow Motion Fireworks MQ!)
MC: As expected of "Mr. Challenger", he played steadily as always!
Lucien: I remember that MC's hit rate was equally impressive.
MC: That's all thanks to you. But today's game seems a lot less difficult than the dart throwing.
I said while following the example and mimicking Lucien's posture to toss the silver coin away. "flop"- the silver coin falls into the water, far from reaching the square platform.
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MC:...
Lucien: Looks like this lady is a bit overconfident.
Lucien's teasing tone makes me stick out my tongue in embarrassment. I take the silver coin he handed me again, and use double the strength to throw it out.
This time it tumbles down to the other end of the wishing fountain with a clink.
MC: ...Again, too much force.
I adjust the strength, watching as the silver coin finally falls to the square platform this time, but it gets lifted up again by a slight ripple of water and slowly falls from the square platform.
The ridiculous rumors from the waiter's mouth now come to my mind. My heart feels blocked, and there's a vague feeling of unhappiness.
Unwillingly, I walked to the coin bank, but the next second I stood still-it was empty, and the silver coin was gone.
I point to the coin bank with a little bit of resentment.
MC: How can a hotel of this class be so stingy?
Lucien's eyes flicker as if he is holding back a laugh.
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Lucien: Do you want me to ask for some more at the front desk?
MC: No need. After all, it's only a wishing fountain in a hotel. If you didn't make it, then you didn't make it.
His thoughtful gaze crosses my face and he glances aside at the introductory plaque.
Lucien: Is that so? I thought MC wanted our love to be blessed for a long time. That's why she worked so hard to throw the coins.
MC: ...I just think that it's fun, and as a scientist's girlfriend, I'm not so superstitious.
Lucien raises his eyebrows non-committally and looks at me with probing eyes. I unconsciously avert my eyes, not wanting him to find my little thoughts
The next second, however, I hear the sound of his footsteps.
I turn my head to see Lucien go to the other side of the wishing fountain, leaning over as if to pick up something, and then shake his hand to me.
The round coin reflects the golden light of the sunset, and Lucien's face is shrouded in a layer of faint gold.
Lucien: But I occasionally want to be a scientist who is so superstitious.
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Lucien: So why don't we give it another shot, my Miss Producer?
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=Part 3=
MC: ...Oh, how could I forget that there's still another one here~
The surprise spread in the bottom of my heart as I exclaimed in a small voice. I quickly walked towards Lucien and solemnly took the silver coin from his hand.
Sensing his half-smiling eyes, I quickly clear my throat and hold back my little smile.
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MC: For the sake of Professor Lucien's invitation, I will try again!
But the moment I'm about to throw it, my thoughts suddenly get confused for some reason, and my raised hand hangs in midair.
Lucien: ...
With a sigh, a familiar scent gathers me into a warm embrace.
A slender hand closes around the back of my hand and gently squeezes the fingers holding the silver coin.
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Lucien: (chuckle) MC doesn't seem to understand what I just said.
Lucien: I mean, since I'm the one who's "superstitious", why don't we try it together this time?
I blink belatedly and suddenly understand what he means.
MC: But if we throw them together, doesn't it count as cheating?
Lucien turns his head and gestures to me to look at the introductory plaque with his eyes.
Lucien: "Couples who both toss wishing silver coin into the square platform in the fountain…"
Lucien: The rules don't require couples to throw alone.
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He pauses and affectionately presses his forehead closer to mine.
Lucien: Moreover, making a wish is a matter of sincere faith, and it can come true.
Lucien: Don't you think that the combined sincerity of the two of us would be more likely to move the God of Love?
His bewitching voice makes my mind sway, and the inner conflict in my heart begins to waver involuntarily.
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Lucien: Then I'll take it as you've agreed.
Lucien: Now, just relax and feel me.
Without giving me a chance to refuse, Lucien has already caught hold of my fingers.
His low and hoarse breath lingers by my ear, causing me to lean back into the embrace behind me uncontrollably.
The warm and soft scent spreads around, passing through my clothes and blending with my scorching body temperature, sticking closely to me.
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Lucien: Good, just give yourself to me. 3, 2, 1 -
At the moment the countdown ends, a familiar arc of light flashes and slowly descends toward the lonely silver coin.
On the square platform, two wishing coins are overlapped, emitting a bright and shining light.
MC: Wow, we won!
I can't help but excitedly throw myself into Lucien's arms, and a low laugh spills out from his chest.
Lucien: (chuckle) Doesn't it seem like the less-superstitious scientist's girlfriend is even happier than I am now?
His emphasis on certain words makes me sheepishly raise my gaze, and meet with his teasing eyes.
Realizing that my little thoughts have been completely exposed, I simply act like a spoiled child and snuggle in his arms.
MC: I admit -- I really do want to hit the mark and get some good omens.
MC: After all, the cancellation of the engagement banquet was so sudden, and the rumors that those waiters spoke of made me a little concerned...
MC: Coincidentally, when I saw this wishing pool, I inexplicably fell into the mood of 'must hit the mark'.
Lucien: (chuckle) Is that all there is to it?
The muffled sound of his chest echoes in my ear as Lucien calmly takes over the conversation.
Lucien: Why do I remember a little girl furrowing her brows when the backdrop sign broke?
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MC: …You noticed that?
MC: I-I just thought it was a little unlucky that the backdrop was broken at that exact moment, and we happened to see it.
MC: But thinking about it carefully, there's really nothing to be concerned about, really!
Upon hearing my words, Lucien slightly lowers his body, gently looking into my eyes with tenderness.
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Lucien: It doesn't really matter even if you mind.
Lucien: The reason why people often care about things that do not meet their expectations is often a reflection of their positive expectations for the things they cherish.
Lucien: The more cherished, the more it is cared about.
Lucien: But I hope that the next time MC makes a wish for something like "eternity" for our relationship-
Lucien: Instead of relying on these external factors, we should focus on ourselves.
His calm voice carries an unquestionable conviction. I gaze fixedly into his eyes, and the jumbled thoughts in my heart are like being gently soothed, giving rise to a sweet feeling.
MC: Professor Lucien is absolutely right. From now on, I will only focus on you and won't be disturbed by any inexplicable external factors.
Lucien: Words alone are not enough to prove it.
A curve forms at the corner of Lucien's lips, and he slightly opens the distance between us. He pretends to be serious as he crosses his arm.
Lucien: I believe that this student's future performance still needs another 'test' to prove it.
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MC: Please instruct me, Professor Lucien~
(T/N: This sentence is often used to express a respectful request for guidance or advice from someone in a position of authority or expertise.)
As I stand up straight with the appearance of a well-behaved student, Lucien raises his eyebrows and takes me to a private garden within the suite by the hand.
He inserts the key that matches the room card into the garden lock and opens the door.
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The bright light penetrates through the treetops and casts dappled light on the white hammock. The garden is pleasantly fragrant.
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Lucien casually leans against the flower rack, and a hint of ambiguous light flickers in his eyes as he looks at me.
I inexplicably swallow my saliva and maintain my inner composure.
MC:  Are we going to conduct the 'test' here?
Lucien: Um. In this 'test', our bodies are indispensable 'teaching tools', so...
His loose-fitting shirt is playfully blown open by a gentle breeze, revealing a vast expanse of skin and springtime sunlight pouring out from his collar.
Lucien: I need a "classroom" that is private enough.
I don't know what he's going to do, but my ears inexplicably feel hot.
Lucien's eyes are shimmering with a deep glow, and his hot palm grips my wrist, pulling me to sit on the hammock.
Lucien: To successfully complete this "test", I need to exercise some teacher's rights first.
The exquisite silver key suddenly hangs from his fingertips, and the amethysts embedded in it shine with a translucent light, barely grazing his alluring chest.
Lucien: Control the testing time and also control any factors that may affect the "exam discipline", which is-
He suddenly pulls out the soft satin ribbon on the flower stand and has already suppressed his smile, his eyes deep and mysterious.
Lucien: -You.
His steady heartbeat quickly envelops me as his scorching breath falls on my neck. I stand still as if enchanted, letting him wrap the soft silk around my wrist, loop by loop.
The slightly cool fingertips keep teasing and rubbing my wrist. In an ambiguous and ticklish feeling, the silk ribbon is tied into a bow.
My hands are completely restrained.
Lucien: If this student has no objections, then let's begin-
Lucien: From now on, use your body's intuition to find the answer.
Lucien: Give your body completely to me.
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=Part 4=
(T/N: -if you didn’t listen to the voice in this part you’re missing on a LOT of stuff. I won’t describe every… interesting sounds that he makes here bc that means I have to describe almost EVERY SINGLE LINE that he said in this part. so, please go watch/listen *wink*)
I instinctively moved my wrist and realized that Lucien had tied it tightly. A soft touch suddenly covered my forehead, like a light feather brushing by.
At the same time, the silver key in his hand reflects a fine, dazzling light, and my gaze follows its light arc, and then it falls back to the balance point.
The next moment, Lucien's kiss also ends, and the warmth on my forehead disappears with it.
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Lucien: This is my first question. MC can answer now.
MC: ...?
Like a student caught daydreaming during an exam, I stammered and couldn't come up with a coherent response.
Lucien: That means we need to focus on the next question.
Lucien doesn't seem surprised. Instead, he affectionately taps my nose as if it's expected. Then, he applies a slight force on the wrist, and the silver key swings again-
He bends down and takes my earlobe into his mouth, his hot breath brushing against my cheek and sending a shiver down my spine. I squirm and turn my head, tickled by the sensation.
He presses his fingertips against my chin, forcing me to endure his increasingly scorching demands.
Lucien: [subtle wet sounds] This student is zoning out again.
The tips of his teeth playfully scrape against my ear, stirring up a tingling sensation that sends electric currents coursing through my body.
MC: Because it's so ticklish…
I murmur to surrender myself to him, my voice overflowing with sickly sweetness. But he has no intention of letting me go, burying himself in my neck, his moist breath brushing against my skin.
He carefully nibbles, and the dense needle-like sensation brings a wave of heat, making my breathing gradually erratic.
Lucien: What about here, do you just feel ticklish too?
His fingertip falls on my chest, tracing circles in a bewitching manner. I feel restless and want to reach out and hold him, but the frustrating sense of restraint follows closely.
Just then, Lucien withdrew, and the no longer anchored hammock swayed gently, leaving me feeling as if I were falling into a void.
I raise my eyes in confusion and notice that the silver key has stopped swinging at some point. As my vision gradually focuses, a sudden realization dawns on me.
Does each swing of the silver key hold some meaning?
Lucien: Judging by the expression on this student's face, it seems that she's about to find the answer.
As he speak, the silver key sways again and Lucien's kiss lands on my lips once more.
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He gently penetrates my unguarded teeth, and I instinctively close my eyes, feeling him roam and lick over every inch of my mouth.
In the tight embrace of our burning breaths, he nibbles on my tongue and lip, causing me to let out a whimper.
Amidst the tender entanglement, a vague thought flickers in my mind, but it is quickly drowned out by his overwhelming presence.
I decide not to think about anything and simply focus on indulging in the kiss, letting his intoxicating scent fill me up with every breath.
Time seems to slow down in this trance-like state as our entangled breaths become increasingly drawn out.
It feels like we've been in this moment for an entire enchanting spring
The sound of the silver key swishing through the air gradually stops, and when I gasp and open my eyes, the pendulum has just returned to its balanced state.
I think I know the answer now.
Lucien: Are you ready to answer this time?
Lucien playfully breathes softly next to my ear.
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MC: Professor Lucien has put in so much effort, so of course I can't let you down. However…
I calm my slightly erratic breathing and bite down on the silver key under his gaze.
MC: I want to extend this analogy to other situations.
MC: Can the teacher cooperate with me to check if my answer is correct?
It seems like he didn't expect me to say that, and there's a hint of interest in his eyes.
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Lucien: (chuckle) More than willing.
I wink at him and my bound hands loop around the back of his neck, pulling him gently towards me.
MC: That would trouble you to swing the key again, teacher.
Lucien obediently applies force with his fingertips, but the gradually deepening smile in his eyes shows that he is not at all under anyone's control.
The silver key swings as I let my gaze linger on his thin lips for a moment, then I lightly bite his lip.
I put my legs down from the hammock, bend my knee, and slowly press it between his legs, climbing up little by little.
His indifferent gaze freezes for a moment, and as his Adam's apple bobs, a rare blush suddenly creeps up to the corners of his eyes.
Seeing this, I mischievously increase the pressure on my knee until it lightly passes a scorching hot area.
Lucien: (grunts sexily)...
A sultry grunt escapes his throat, and the fingers that have been holding me tightly around the waist suddenly tighten even more. I press heavily against him as the curtains sway together.
The crisp sound of metal hitting the ground suddenly comes, and I can't help but look down. I see the silver key already slipping from his hand and falling to the ground.
I was about to say something when a cold touch fell on my face, and the darkening sky began to drizzle with small raindrops.
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Lucien: (grunts and whispers hoarsely) Do you need to continue checking?
A hoarse voice comes through, and I fall into that hazy and enticing gaze, my mind swaying slightly.
I instinctively grip the back of his neck tightly and wrap my legs around his waist, until there is no gap left between us.
MC: Of course we should continue.
I lightly hook my leg and kick the silver key on the ground away. Lucien deeply looks at me, momentarily in a daze.
MC: How could the teacher be distracted while checking the answer?
I wink at him, my fingertips lightly exerting pressure on the back of his head, bringing us closer again.
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MC: I want you to focus only on the present moment, on my breath, my touch, and my kisses.
Amidst increasingly scorching breaths, I hook my fingers around his neck and trace his gentle eyes inch by inch with my gaze.
MC: Isn't this the principle that Professor Lucien wants to tell me?
His burning breath is slightly stagnant. Lucien's eyes flicker gently, like a soft bright white moonlight.
The next moment, his palm moves to my lower back, giving a firm push as he lifts me up from the hammock and strides toward the room.
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Lucien: You're really a clever girl.
Those delighted eyes keep gazing at me, full of warmth and tenderness.
(T/N: THE VOICE THAT HE MAKES HERE AFTER THIS IS GODLY. BLESS XIA LEI. also no, u can’t convince me they’re not f-ing in this, the desc is very subtle but you can HEAR it from his voice;))))
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We walk to the room like this, until I am gently placed on the sofa and he unties the silk from my wrist.
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In the next second, Lucien moves forward, his reassuring scent makes me feel unbalanced, but my heart is filled with joy.
Lucien: Congratulations to this student for passing my "test." However, I want to share the most important lesson.
I feel a moist sensation on my back as his lips graze over it, causing a ticklish sensation that spreads through my body.
MC: …What?
The arm around my waist tightened, and a deep breath fell on my back again, mixed with the wet and tingling sensation, creating a great sense of satisfaction.
Lucien: I have always felt that "eternity" is a very abstract adjective.
Lucien: I prefer to experience the present moment to understand the meaning of 'eternity' rather than reaching for it.
Lucien: But when I'm with you...
Lucien: Every moment, the joy and excitement I feel are more intense than the previous one.
Lucien: This makes me have to admit-
Lucien: While wanting to hold onto every moment tightly, I also unconsciously start to have expectations and concerns for the future.
Lucien: Looking forward to our next trip, next experience, or the next crazy adventure.
The warm sucking sensation continues to fall on my skin, with a slight sting spreading all over my body, until it arrives in the deepest part of my heart.
Lucien: Perhaps this part is what you have taught me unconsciously.
Lucien: So, for a long period of time to come...
Lucien: Let Teacher MC attentively evaluate my learning outcomes.
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[Dating Diary]
Lucien was invited by a newly engaged couple from the Ultima Bioresearch Centre to attend their engagement banquet as their witness. However, when we arrived, the engagement banquet was suddenly canceled. The couple was very laid-back and asked us to stay at the Wild and Luxury Hotel for the vacation as planned.
We started our vacation unexpectedly. A series of unfortunate events made me feel uneasy, so when we passed by the wishing fountain, I pulled Lucien to throw a wishing coin together, hoping for good luck.
Lucien noticed my little scheme and helped me get the good luck I wanted. His comfort completely swept away my little bad mood. But at that moment, Lucien said he wanted to give me a "small test." Intimacy in the garden quickly led me to the answer to the "small test." But I didn't want to just obediently answer the question, so I used his method of asking questions and told him the answer."
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trelinha9 · 8 months ago
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Every time I see a Friede x Amethio post, ten of my neurons die. I know these posts come from new fans who only watched the episodes released on Netflix (which goes up to 13 if I'm not mistaken), and he's only appeared in 6 episodes at this point (which is a crime against my mental health. What the hell is he doing in that time offscream? I WANT ANSWERS!!!) I remember in the first episodes of Horizontes, that Tumblr and AO3 were full of posts and fics about Friede x Amethio, and they disappeared over time as the episodes went on.
It's funny, because nowadays, almost a year after Horizons officially started, fans who watch the subtitled episodes are all worried about the mental health of this teenager and wondering why the heck they are in Exploradores, while the new fans are in the same boat as most of the old ones were and abandoned, shipping the poor guy with Friede.
I personally never shipped them because:
1: Amethio is, canonically, and confirmed by his original voice actor, a teenager (on bulbapedia it said he was between 13 and 19, but now they removed that part and only added the fact that he is a teenager, without mentioning a possible age) I headcanon him as 16, because, for me, it's the age that makes the most sense for his behavior and mannerisms, but that's just me. You can imagine him as 18 or 19 if that makes you feel more comfortable shipping him with Friede, but it doesn't change the fact that he's still a young and emotionally immature person, with no apparent emotional support base other than his Pokémon and his subordinates (Zir and Conia will get there someday, I know they will), while Friede is a fully grown adult, and clearly more mature than Amethio (there's even a line about it in episode 25). Friede had already been a Pokémon teacher for probably a reasonable amount of time when Liko was around 5 to 7 years old (we find out about this in episode 18), and honestly, Amethio doesn't look that much older than Liko. The clear age difference between them makes me uncomfortable. There are a lot of adults in the Horizons cast to be shipped with Friede, leave the traumatized teenager alone.
2: The way Friede, especially in the first arc, keeps teasing Amethio, even though he's clearly irritated and on edge, makes me want to punch him. I love Friede. But the way he interacts with Amethio, one minute he's having a good time taking care of Liko and Roy, and the next he's ready to annoy the shit out of a teenager make me so angry. I love this idea that Friede is a complete social disaster who doesn't really know how to pick up cues (scareing a deaf girl, for example, is definitely something he would do by accident 👀), but there's no way he can't see how negatively his actions and words affect Amethio. Amethio wants to prove himself. He wants to fulfill the mission ordered to him, and this idiot adult, in addition to getting in the way, bothers him every chance he gets (ep 5, ep 22 and ep 25 are the best examples). I'm amazed at how Friede either doesn't really realize the harm his actions cause to Amethio, or he does and simply decides to keep doing it.
This post may make it seem like I don't like Friede, which isn't true. I love Friede. I think he's a very funny character, but he also has a lot of flaws, and bullying a teenager is one of them.
I don't want to start fights about ships, because I'm not in Horizontes for the ships, but for the story and the characters. The only ship I really like is Friede with a certain Explorer who erased a child's memory (because for the love of god, they couldn't have made their battle in the last episode any less gay, could they) I don't want to offend anyone who ships Friede and Amethio, I just wanted to give my opinion on the matter and why I, with my interpretation of the story and characters, hate this ship. (Hate is a strong word, but I feel uncomfortable whenever I see this ship somewhere)
I'm really sorry if I offended anyone at any point in this post, I just don't like seeing a teenager and an adult being shiped.
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shipcestuous · 2 months ago
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Grand Jete (2022 - m/s) (submission)
Hey Shipcestuous. ShipCestFan here. Thank you for posting The Surgeon.
I see Grand Jete on the m/s canon list but didn’t see any additional info. I know an anon just very recently mentioned it, and I can tell you it stands up there as my top m/s cestship movie. I don’t remember where I watched and purchased it, sorry. Looks to only be available (legally) on Youtube, now.
Grand Jete is a 2022 German film in German language, but it does exist with decently translated English subtitles. From best I can surmise, the film centers around Nadja, a professional ballet artist seemingly in her mids-30 to early 40s. Nadja is world-renowned and lives with her boyfriend in Berlin. She has decided to finally pay a visit to her mother after not seeing her since Nadja left home as a teen for her career. Nadja’s hometown where her mother lives and Nadja grew up is a small town outside of the big city.
It also seems that Nadja got unexpectedly pregnant as a young woman (teen?) and had given birth to a son, Mario. But she left him in the care of his grandmother – her mom – in order for her to continue to pursue a career in ballet. Twenty-some years later, and Nadja is back, visiting and meets her 20-something son for the first time. There is an instant attraction.
Nadja begins spending more and more time at her mother’s house in the small town. Mother and son begin spending more time together, and Mario takes his mom out to hang with him at raves and performance theater – the latter being an x-rated one in which Mario is starring and mom has a front row seat!
Eventually, mother and son come together with Nadja unable to resist her hunky son and making the first movie. This opens the floodgates and the pair move into a very sexual cestship. I imagine, for Nadja, it’s like meeting a handsome stranger since she does not really know her son at all. Still… the knowledge is there for both of them that they are biologically related, and yet, they seem to move forward with no guilt or remorse.
The two begin behaving like boyfriend and girlfriend much to grandma’s displeasure. But their love for each other is too strong, so Nadja kicks her boyfriend out of their flat in Berlin, and her son moves in with her. Alone and untethered from suspicious eyes, mother and son move into an unbridled sexual relationship that even has hints of sub/dom in one scene (at his instructions, mom eats food scraps out of her son’s hand like a dog).
Mother and son seem very happy together, especially Nadja. As we near the end of the film, we see her throwing up constantly, and the viewer initially suspects she’s regressed to her history of bulimia (established earlier). But we soon learn that she is pregnant. The film ends with Nadja nursing her newborn, and Mario shopping for juice boxes. Awww.
The International Cinephile Society’s review of this film summarized it as “a hypnotic deconstruction of the human psyche”. And I have to agree. We slowly watch Nadja and her son go from strangers to mother and son before watching them then morph into lovers, husband and wife and ultimately… a mother and father to their newborn. All of it done seemingly without even the slightest hint of concern or remorse on either mother or son’s part. And for this shipper, I found that refreshing!
Whether this ending can be considered a happy ending is probably wholly dependent on how one views cestships, inbreeding, etc. But I found it refreshing to see that 1) grandma came around, 2) boyfriend left, 3) no one died, 4) no one underage was abused, 5) no one was coerced, 6) mother and son decide to proceed forth and (seemingly) live as husband and wife, as well as, new parents.
I really liked Director Isabelle Stever’s commentary on her movie. IMDB quotes her as saying, “I wanted to shoot the sex scenes in such a way that they are not erotic, but sensual. The novel says they explore each other. The first scene in the bathroom is almost like an investigation. I wanted a visuality that would show them coming together and at the same time rolling off each other, a coming together in a poetic space. A mother asking her son to do homework while jerking him off has a strong irony. I wanted to show this scene in such a way that this irony is not in the foreground.”
Me, personally, I would give this film a positive incest award. But your followers should try to find the film, watch it and judge for themselves. Here are a few GIFs from the film.
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--
Wow, I had no idea things ended in such a way, with them still together, with a child. Really remarkable. WOW. Thank you so much for the detailed description and for the gifs!!!! What a treat.
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Gonna put the not safe for work images below the cut. I’m hoping they won’t get flagged. I think they’re OK?
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gamergirl-niffler · 10 months ago
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Dating game that surprised me... A lot!
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Recently I started to play a mobile game called "Love & deep space" and I need to admit it - This game really surprised me.
When my ex-friend showed me this game, all I saw was: dating, pretty 3D, Korean looking men. I told her it's pretty and didn't think much of it because it wasn't out yet.
Few days ago while trying to get up from bed in the morning I suddenly remembered about this game and I decided to check if it's out. It was, so I downloaded it and started playing.
At the very beginning, the game was just a pretty looking game. I need to say that wasn't ready for the kinda limited but nice character creator (no possibility to change chair color & length - only available in photo booth option) and a voice modification option.
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Main character looks pretty!
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I just played through the story and my jaw honestly dropped when my game suddenly flipped to the side for a fighting section of the game
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I was not ready, BUT I quite enjoyed it. Fighting reminds me about Genshin on mobile, dodge, tap, tap, tap, be careful of your health, etc.
Fighting parts aren't THAT hard, but at the same time you need to upgrade your cards and add things to them to make them stronger. Pretty basic stuff.
There are lots of fight related activities that give really nice rewards and drop materials needed to making your team stronger.
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NOW THE BEST PART! - THE MEN!
Game has three love interests
Xavier - The sleepy boy
Zayne - The doctor
Rafayel - The artist
Each of them have his place in the story, and each is so much more than he looks like at the very beginning.
I honestly love Rafayel, maybe because he is an artist... he is also a little annoying, but it's also kinda sweet. I have the most memories with him and the highest lvl.
Furthermore, I love how going through the main story isn't the only way to interact with them. The game provides lots of options to spend time with them and learn new stuff about them.
You can go hunt for plushies in a claw machine or play a game that is like tic-tac-toe but with cats and cards, or you can take a photo with them. One of my many favourite things, I mean LOOK:
(in order, I mentioned them before)
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I love it because in this mode you can actually REALLY change your MC's look, which is wonderful! You can change your hair length, color, change make up, outfit and add accessories. Also, you pick poses and background. You also can do pics of your MC, just him or couple pics or mix of everything!
Of course, the main story isn't the only thing, there are also plenty of 'side mini stories' that are unlocked by getting specific memories.
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THE LAST THING, I TRULY FALL IN LOVE WITH!
I am a sucker for ASMRs, especially the ones with my favorite characters. I can spend HOURS listening to those.
This game has something similar! You unlock specific audios by obtaining the right memories.
There are two versions - the first version is more of a story thing so you can listen, but it has "subtitles" that describe what MC says and what is happening. You don't have to, but yeah, it's a bit hard to imagine what's exactly happening sometimes.
But the other version... ooooh the other version. It's made to be JUST listen to! No subtitles or anything, just... listen and enjoy what you hear
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In summary:
I really fall in love with this game. It's so much more than I expected it to be. It offers a lot of rewards and makes it easy to obtain decent cards without throwing your real money away. Sure, it's gacha game, but it's not as annoying as it could be. Sure, you still can spend money for it if you want extra features, but if you look for a game that isn't just about spending your money, it's a good pick.
Animations look nice, cards are pretty, voice acting is good, story is ok I'd say.
As for me, it's a good game! I am recommending it! A lot!
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askzloyxp · 2 years ago
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Would you maybe be able to bring other editors on board? Perhaps teach Lyarrah how you do your jazz so she can take over for a couple weeks. Unless I'm mistaken in assuming that her job is just copy pasting the script into the YouTube captions feature. I don't really know how captioning works
Okay, this is actually quite fun to talk about because YES! Youtube's caption system does have a feature where you can get auto-captions made if you just feed it the transcript of the video! HOWEVER, Lyarrah's job on the Recap is not to just do that.
First and foremost, Ly actually handles all of the metadata of the vids except thumbnails. Tags, description and even the titles are all things she has to fill in after I upload, because by that time I have absolutely 0 energy to do that. She also is the one moderating the comments. Even if I'm often the one to reply, she does a lot to filter out the bad stuff and add spam-filters.
Then she has to make the actual captions. Even with the script available, this is actually still a serious undertaking. Because that feature that you just feed the script and it puts the timings in automatically? It sucks ass. The timings are all over the place, it struggles with even the british accent and it couldn't add who is speaking or sound/tone descrptions even if you put them in. And with Recaps specifically, it couldn't put in the parts where the Hermits themselves are speaking, because THEIR LINES ARE NOT EVEN IN THE SCRIPT! What clips to use and to add to the video is mostly decided in the video-editing phase, long after the script is written. So that stuff needs to be added later. But because it's not in the script, the system gets confused about parts where the words that are not in the script are said, and just puts whatever lines in there. As a result, cleaning up after the algorithm takes longer than to just make whole new subtitles. WHICH IS WHAT LYARRAH ACTUALLY DOES.
More or less every video she makes captions for is re-transcribed by hand with the script only as a reference. This results in much better captions where she can even add her personal touch with the emojis to convey tone and all that!
I know there are automated systems in DaVinci Resolve and Adobe Premiere that could output pretty solid captions with working timings, and she's actually looking into that, and will be trying them out. But even then, it will be her responsibility and her choice to use these tools, because she's our captioning specialist. Whatever research she does will still be a load off my back.
But could she just edit the recaps for me? Funny you say that, because in theory? She probably could. Lyarrah and Pixlriffs are both adept video editors, each with their own youtube channels, and perfectly capable of producing videos no worse than what I make. Pix has already edited a couple recaps in the past, and every time he'd deliver on time and arguably a tighter product than what I make. HOWEVER, the trick here is that to get the HC Recap done every week, week after week, on time and with passable editing, when the source material is a dozen videos at least and the result needs to be well paced, illustrative and well, passable, is a whole other ordeal. I don't mean to toot my own horn, but here you gotta not know how to edit, but know how to edit like a motherfucker.
...that doesn't mean "good" or "fast",... just.. like a motherfucker.
And for one, I wouldn't want to put that much work onto anyone, while for two, I wouldn't trust to put that much work onto anyone. Maybe to a professional editor or like, a TV-editor this isn't much, but I don't think I have the funds to hire one, especially when at the end of the day, to me the whole process has long become routine, entertainment even. I love the edit. Which is also why I struggle with stress and burnout the way I do: it is incomprehensible to me that I can't just sit down and do this like always!
One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
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a-shoebox-named-meap · 2 years ago
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a guide to people’s names, titles, and other forms of address in cang lan jue/love between fairy and devil
so for chinese media, i like knowing how to read and pronounce the characters’ names, but when trying to look up the names of the clj/lbfad people, i found the info i wanted rather hard to find. i wanted to know what characters made up their names! how to pronounce them! what their different titles and nicknames meant and what kind of people address them by those names! so i decided to try compiling this info myself, on a whim. it’s taken a HOT minute, and a Lot of scrubbing through the episodes, and it will probably need to be updated and edited as i go about rewatching the show (and improving my chinese :’) aha) but here’s what i got for now! feel free to message me if you have suggestions, edits, corrections, or requests :) hopefully some people find this helpful or interesting – i know some of the things i’ve included here are lost in translation in netflix’s english subtitles.
disclaimer of sorts: for definitions, i used MDBG (mdbg.net) and the Pleco app. also, i’m a native english speaker who’s been learning chinese for a handful of years; my chinese is so-so and i tend to miss things like Connotations™. i’ve watched the show 1.5 times and read 1 page of the book. i did my best :P again, open to suggestions! please be sure to check this source post for the most updated version, as i imagine i’ll be making edits now and again.
this is in no particular order. for each person, i put their official/most commonly used name at the top, then in bullets beneath that i’ve listed definitions for the individual characters in their name, along with any other titles or nicknames that they have been called in the show. any somewhat extraneous information is in italics.
苍兰诀 Cāng Lán Jué
the title of the show and the original novel; 苍 (cāng) refers to Dongfang Qingcang, 兰 (lán) refers to Xiao Lanhua, and 诀 (jué) means “farewell.” i’ve seen some people translate this as the Parting of the Fairy and Devil. (i discovered this halfway through watching the show and it made me SO nervous for how the show would end)
九鹭非香 (Jiǔ Lù Fēi Xiāng) is the author’s name/pseudonym.
东方青苍 Dōngfāng Qīngcāng
character breakdown: 东方 (dōngfāng) = east, eastern. 青 (qīng) = green, sometimes blue or black (or blue-green), young/youth. 苍 (cāng) = dark blue, deep green, ash-gray.
my hypothesized derivation of his name: while i was researching the Black Tortoise (玄武 Xuánwǔ) for this post, I Discovered Something Rather Important. there are four mythological creatures that symbolize the chinese constellations and four cardinal directions. besides the Black Tortoise, there are the White Tiger (白虎 Báihǔ), Vermillion Bird (朱雀 Zhūquè), and the Azure Dragon (青龙 Qīnglóng). the Azure Dragon represents the east. so get this: its epithet is the Azure Dragon of the East. in chinese it is called 东方青龙 (Dōngfāng Qīnglóng) or 东方苍龙 (Dōngfāng Cānglóng). SOUND FAMILIAR?? ISN’T THAT COOL?? i just think that is so cool. yes, the characters are the same as in Dongfang Qingcang’s name. associated with the Azure Dragon are: East (direction), Spring (season), Dawn (time of day), Blue/green (color), and Wood (chinese element). my mind imploded when i discovered this, have a good day.
大魔头 dà mótóu: (used in the book, changed to “da mutou” in the show for reasons? some folks mentioned they might have been censoring “mo”) lit. translates to big devil head/boss/chief, big demon boss
大木头 dà mùtóu: (phonetically similar to da motou, changed to this in the show for Reasons™) lit. big wooden head, big wooden chief/boss, or big log. it can also be translated as big blockhead, as per the netflix engsubs, but it’s not my personal preference — the connotations and intent between “da mutou” and “Big Blockhead” feel very different to me. (i.e., if you’re writing dialogue in a fic, i would recommend Da Mutou over Big Blockhead.) Xiao Lanhua calls him this, saying that it sounds a bit less serious than other, more formal forms of address for him.
东方强 Dōngfāng Qiáng, 大强 Dà Qiáng: the name and familiar nickname Xiao Lanhua calls him in the early days before she knew his identity, after she misheard him saying his actual name; 大 (dà) = big, 强 (qiáng) = strong, powerful
本座 běnzuò: a term used to refer to oneself, like “i/me,” but specifically if that person is very high-ranking; your average person wouldn’t use this word. (the usual word for i/me is 我 wǒ. near the end of the show Dongfang Qingcang transitions to using 我 wǒ with Xiao Lanhua — it’s a notable switch that gets lost in translation! similarly, he also makes the switch during his heated tirade at his father in ep. 18, and switches back to his usual 本座 (běnzuò) after he momentarily collects himself. i could be wrong, but i think he drops the 本座 (běnzuò) when less formality or authority is required or desired, like when Things Get Personal, or when he’s stepping out of his role as Moon Supreme, so to speak.)
尊上 zūnshàng: “my lord,” by far the most common term used to address and refer to Dongfang Qingcang by a majority of characters who aren’t his enemy. also part of the phrase often used to formally greet Dongfang Qingcang, “拜见尊上!” (bàijiàn zūnshàng) “Greetings, my lord!”
月尊 yuèzūn: Moon Supreme, used to refer to Dongfang Qingcang or this position (as in the throne, the seat of the Moon Supreme, the name of this Job) respectfully
月尊大人 yuèzūn dàren: Moon Supreme Lord (netflix); 大人 (dàren) is a title of respect towards one’s superior. this title is often used to address Dongfang Qingcang directly. Xiao Lanhua uses it regularly when she is being kept in the Moon Palace, both in private conversation and in serious public settings. (as the show goes on, she switches to 大木头 (dà mùtóu) in their more private, casual conversations but maintains 月尊大人 (yuèzūn dàren) in situations that warrant greater respect and formality.)
魔尊 mózūn: devil king, demon king; used in the book to address him at times (by Lady Chidi for instance, who in the show calls him 月尊 (yuèzūn), Moon Supreme; were they trying to avoid the word 魔 mó in the show or something, i don’t know)
儿子 érzi, 孩子 háizi: “son/my son” and “child/my child,” respectively. used briefly by Dongfang Qingcang’s father to address his son directly. the other times, he calls him Qingcang.
兄尊 xiōngzūn: a specific form of “brother”; the word that Xunfeng uses to address and refer to Dongfang Qingcang. 兄 (xiōng) = older brother (i.e., only a younger sibling would use this term), 尊 (zūn) = a respectful honorific often appended to these titles, usually signifying high, venerated status. 尊 (zūn) comes up a lot :)
for those who are curious about the reverse: Dongfang Qingcang usually addresses Xunfeng by name. when Dongfang Qingcang refers to Xunfeng with a familial term in ep. 2, he says “我那弟弟,” my younger brother (possibly translated as “that younger brother of mine”). for “younger brother” he uses 弟弟 dìdi, there’s no 尊 (zūn) or other honorific — probably because his younger brother is lower than him in status, so there is no need for an honorific. (it’s also interesting to see that he dropped the 本座 (běnzuò) for this line and used 我 (wǒ), but i’m not sure yet if this implies anything, if it might be a mistake, or if it just sounds more natural. in ep. 10, Dongfang Qingcang calls Xunfeng “本座的同胞弟弟,” “my younger brother (borne of the same parents),” where he does use běnzuò to refer to himself, but this line is a bit sarcastic in tone.)
both Dongfang Qingcang and Xunfeng refer to and address their father with 父尊 fùzūn, which is father + honorific, similar to 兄尊 (xiōngzūn). others usually call their father the previous/former/old Moon Supreme, 老月尊 lǎo yuèzūn. (extra note: Dongfang Qingcang doesn’t use 父尊 (fūzūn) in every case where he is referring to his father — on a rare few occasions he uses the more generic term 父亲 (fùqīn) — but based on my Research and consulting a few people with better chinese than me, this may be because of the way the word “father” is used in the sentence. more of a grammar/syntax thing than something significant to the plot or his character.)
a neat thing that happened in ep. 21, around timestamp 38:15: Dongfang Qingcang accidentally uses 父尊 (fùzūn) when talking about his father to Xiao Run in the mortal realm, which might have implied to Xiao Run that his father is of very high, emperor-like status (very sus, for an undercover agent); however, he catches himself, and switches to 父亲 fùqīn, which is the more common term for “father.” in the engsubs it just looks like he’s stuttering over the word “father.” 父亲 (fùqīn) is also used in modern day to refer to one’s father, but it’s a bit formal and usually used in conversation with other people or in writing; you wouldn’t use this term to address your dad directly, that’s 爸爸 bàba. in case any modern AU fic writers were wondering ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
少尊 shàozūn: Young Lord. used to address Dongfang Qingcang when he was a boy, when his father was still the Moon Supreme.
属下 shǔxià: subordinate. used to refer to himself (in 3rd person) when speaking to Xiyun, when he was acting as her servant after her rebirth. (this term is also used by Shangque with Dongfang Qingcang.)
小仙 xiǎoxiān: lit. little immortal, perhaps translated as low/lower immortal. this isn’t so much a title as a description of his position, when he is pretending to be from Shuiyuntian in front of Xiyun. this scene helped me understand how the word 仙 (xiān) works, actually. Dongfang Qingcang called himself a 小仙 (xiǎoxiān) of Shuiyuntian, to which Xiyun later said, “你身上没有仙气。根本不是仙族。” netflix engsubs wrote, “You have no immortal aura on you. You are not immortal.” and then i thought to myself, but he is immortal though, isn’t he? but 仙 (xiān), meaning “immortal” or “celestial being,” refers more to the race of people in Shuiyuntian rather than the state of immortality. immortal the noun, not immortal the adjective. Xiyun isn’t saying, “you are not an undying entity,” (because he is); what she really means is, “you are not of the fairy realm/tribe.” 仙族 (xiānzú), the term she uses in this sentence, means fairy tribe or immortal realm, referring to Shuiyuntian.
东方员外 Dōngfāng yuánwài: translated as “Mr. Dongfang” by netflix. this is the mortal title Jieli assigned to him, and how he is usually addressed during the mortal realm arc. 员外 (yuánwài) is an old word meaning “counselor” or “landlord.” Jieli intended for him to be a wealthy businessman. when he is just addressed as 员外 (yuánwài), it is translated to “sir.”
东方兄 Dōngfāng-xiōng: 兄 (xiōng) refers to one’s older brother; this is a familiar term Xiao Run uses to address Dongfang Qingcang when they become Bros™
内兄 (nèixiōng): brother-in-law, wife’s elder brother. Xiao Run calls Dongfang Qingcang this, after Jieli announces that Xiao Lanhua is Dongfang Qingcang’s sister.
郎君 lángjūn: translated by netflix as “young man” and “sir.” it is also an archaic form of addressing one’s husband, and could refer to the playboy of a rich family. however, i think in this show it is a respectful form of address, possibly directed at the head of a household unit (Xiao Run’s father and occasionally Xiao Run himself are referred to with the same term). i’m unsure though.
小兰花 Xiǎo Lánhuā (Orchid)
character breakdown: 小 (xiǎo) = little/small, but commonly used in front of names and nicknames for ... reasons i am too lazy to explain here, but other people have definitely written about it if you’d like to look it up. 兰花 (lánhuā) = orchid.
小花妖 Xiǎo Huāyāo: lit. little flower demon, little flower monster; the name that Dongfang Qingcang initially calls Xiao Lanhua, when he still doesn’t like her. netflix subs say “little flower spirit,” but to me this phrase loses a bit of the evil/demon/monster connotation — i feel like Xiao Huayao is not meant to be particularly respectful or polite :’) interestingly, i noticed in ep. 10 that Shangque calls her 小花妖 (Xiǎo Huāyāo) to her face, perhaps because she was annoying him, but he calls her Xiao Lanhua (Orchid) in his private conversation with Dongfang Qingcang shortly after. forms of address really have so many potential implications…
兰花仙子 Lánhuā xiānzi: Fairy Orchid; she is sometimes addressed as just 仙子 (xiānzi), “fairy,” including in situations where her name is not known by the speaker
仙族女人 Xiānzú nǚrén: Fairy Tribe woman (used by some Moon Tribe people to address her in third person, not when speaking to her directly)
月主 yuèzhǔ: translated as Moon Queen; zhǔ on its own means host, owner, or master. this is how people of the Moon Tribe address Xiao Lanhua after she undergoes her trip to Non-Abidance Cave to marry Dongfang Qingcang.
息芸 Xīyún: her name as the goddess. 息 (xī) = breath, or to cease/stop/rest; 芸 (yún) mainly refers to the plant Ruta graveolens, the common rue, as far as i can tell
息山神女 Xīshān shénnǚ: Goddess of Xishan; 山 (shān) = mountain
息兰(族的)神女 Xīlán (zú de) shénnǚ: Xilan Goddess (without parentheses) or Goddess of the Xilan Tribe (with parentheses, used by Xiao Lanhua at one point to refer to herself). Goddess of Xishan is the more common title, compared to Xilan Goddess, but both have been used.
breakdown of previous: 息兰 (xīlán) = the name of the tribe, containing the words for “breath” and “orchid”; 族 (zú) = the word for tribe, clan, race, nationality, ethnicity, etc.; 的 (de) is a possessive particle; 神女 (shénnǚ) = goddess (lit. god-woman; it’s also slang for “prostitute” but that doesn’t come up in this show)
故人 gùrén: old friend (literary); how the Xuanwu god addresses Xiao Lanhua/Xiyun. (this word is also used to refer to the deceased/departed, but not in this context.)
when referring to Xiao Lanhua’s plant form, people in the show use (小) 兰花草, (xiǎo) lánhuā cǎo. 草 (cǎo) = grass. it means (little) orchid plant. not every mention includes the “little.”
her familial relationship to Xunfeng: in ep. 28 Dongfang Qingcang says, “If you still regard me as your brother, then she is your sister-in-law.” 她就是你的阿嫂。阿嫂 (ā-sǎo) is an archaic term for sister-in-law, specifically for one’s older brother’s wife. if Dongfang Qingcang and Xiao Lanhua were married, Xunfeng might call her this, but this never happens in the show. Xie Wanqing, similarly, also refers to Xiao Lanhua as her future 阿嫂 (ā-sǎo). in a modern AU, Xunfeng would call his sister-in-law either 嫂子 (sǎozi) or 大嫂 (dàsǎo). my mom is a native speaker and says the latter is more likely. it refers to the oldest brother’s wife, the “big” sister-in-law, even if she is younger than the speaker.
on that note, the word for “wife” is 妻子 (qīzi), and it’s sometimes used in the show when referring to Xiao Lanhua per her relationship to Dongfang Qingcang. Dongfang Qingcang himself often uses 月主 (yuèzhǔ), Moon Queen, in lieu of “wife.” a couple exceptions: when he’s pretending Xiao Lanhua is his wife to trick Xiao Run, the word he uses for “wife” is 内子 (nèizǐ). when he’s speaking to Changheng in his dream state, he does use 妻子 (qīzi) to refer to her as his wife.
兰花娘子 Lánhuā niángzǐ: Lady Orchid. commonly used to address Xiao Lanhua in the mortal realm. 娘子 (niángzǐ) is a polite form of address for a young woman, at least in Ye Olde Days™; it can also be used to address one’s wife, which Dongfang Qingcang does when he’s pretending that Xiao Lanhua is his wife to trick Xiao Run. there, 娘子 (niángzǐ) is translated as “honey.”
女侠 nǚxiá: heroine, lit. woman-hero; 侠 (xiá) can mean chivalrous, brave, heroic. this is how Xiao Run calls her when he first meets her, thinking she’s The One.
画中仙 (子) huàzhōng xiān(zi): fairy in the painting. Xiao Run calls her this early on after meeting her, and whenever he refers to the fairy in his dreams.
月尊副将 觞阙 Yuèzūn fùjiàng Shāngquè (Moon Supreme’s lieutenant, Shangque)
character breakdown: 副将 (fùjiāng) = deputy general, translated by netflix as “lieutenant.” 觞 (shāng) = a wine cup or goblet, or to propose a toast. 阙 (què) = an archaic term for the watchtowers on either side of an (imperial) palace gate.
Dongfang Qingcang, Xiao Lanhua (later), and Xunfeng address Shangque by just his name. Jieli later refers to Shangque by name but addresses him with “stupid black dragon,” usually.
黑龙大哥 hēilóng dàgē: lit. black dragon big brother, translated by netflix as just “Black Dragon.” used by Xiao Lanhua and Jieli to address Shangque, at least in the earlier stages of knowing him — Xiao Lanhua eventually just calls him Shangque, and Jieli switches to “stupid black dragon.” 黑龙大哥 (hēilóng dàgē) is still a respectful form of address, but the appended 大哥 (dàgē) gives a bit of familiarity to it that i feel like “Black Dragon” alone doesn’t quite convey. (Jieli calls him this name as soon as she meets him. my guess is that she is trying to sound close to him, as a ploy to appeal to familiarity in order to persuade him not to throw her in prison.)
觞阙哥哥 Shāngquè gēge: 哥哥 (gēge) means “older brother,” but is often used to address a man or boy (of no blood relation) in a very familiar way. Jieli calls him this at least once in the show, when she’s trying to be cute and wheedle a favor out of him.
觞阙大人 Shāngquè dàren: Lord Shangque (大人 (dàren) is a title of respect toward one’s superior). palace staff address Shangque with this.
蠢黑龙 chǔn hēilóng: stupid black dragon. this is the affectionate insult Jieli uses to address Shangque. 蠢 (chǔn) means stupid, foolish, clumsy, or dull.
属下 shǔxià: subordinate. used by Shangque to refer to himself (in third person) when speaking to Dongfang Qingcang.
将军 jiāngjūn: general. the palace doctor calls Shangque this. it’s odd to me because Shangque was first introduced as “deputy general/lieutenant” — i’m not sure which is more accurate for the name of his position. unless Shangque got a mid-show promotion when i wasn’t looking.
结黎 Jiēlí
character breakdown: 结 (jiē) = (of a plant) to produce fruit; alt. pronunciation jié means to tie, knot, connect, bind. 黎 (lí) = many, multitude; (literary) black, dark; a surname; the Li ethnic group.
掌柜的 zhǎngguìde: shopkeeper, manager of a store. netflix translated this as “Miss” when the delivery man addresses Jieli in ep. 2.
长珩战神 Chánghéng zhànshén (God of War, Changheng)
character breakdown: 长 (cháng) = long or length; always, forever, constantly (not to be confused with zhǎng, an alternate pronunciation of the same character, with a different meaning). 珩 (héng) = an archaic term for the “top gem of a girdle-pendant (as worn by aristocrats and high officials)” (thank you, Pleco). 战 (zhàn) = war, battle, fight. 神 (shén) = god, immortal. 战神 (zhànshén) is his God of War title, and Lady Chidi’s as well.
长珩仙君 Chánghéng xiānjūn: Lord Changheng. fairies call him this, and he is often directly addressed just as 仙君 (xiānjūn) mid-conversation. 仙君 (xiānjūn) lit. means immortal ruler, as a title it’s usually translated to “Lord/my lord” or similar.
Supreme Liyuan and Master Sansheng call him 长珩战神 (Chánghéng zhànshén), in the first episode.
罪仙长珩 zuìxiān Chánghéng: immortal criminal Changheng :(
萧润 Xiāo Rùn: Changheng’s name in the mortal realm arc. 萧 (xiāo) is a surname, and a word that means miserable, desolate, or dreary. 润 (rùn) means moist, sleek; to embellish or enhance; or profit, remuneration.
润郎 Rùn-láng: the friendly name by which Qu Shui addresses Xiao Run, and by which Dongfang Qingcang also addresses Xiao Run when they are being Bros™. (however, when referring to Xiao Run privately, Dongfang Qingcang just calls him Xiao Run.)
萧家二郎 Xiāojiā èrláng: translated by netflix as Mr. Xiao, used to refer to Xiao Run when his gifts were formally presented to Lady Wanqing. i might translate this as “the second child/son of the Xiao family,” but to be honest, the definitions i’ve found for 郎 (láng) are a little hazy to me. i could be wrong. but Xiao Run does have an older brother, who is referred to as 萧家大郎 (Xiāojiā dàláng), which i would translate as “the eldest young master of the Xiao family.” Xiao Run’s father, similar to Dongfang Qingcang, is referring to as 萧家郎君 (Xiāojiā lángjūn), which is translated to “Master,” presumably as the head of house.
萧家郎君 Xiāojiā lángjūn: and on that note, Xiao Run is also addressed as 郎君 (lángjūn)! not often, but on at least a couple occasions, such as by Lady Wanqing and Xiao Lanhua. this form of address is still translated by netflix as Mr. Xiao. again, in other situations Xiao Run is referred to as 二郎 (èrláng), and his father is referred to as 郎君 (lángjūn). i honestly don’t know how the word 郎 (láng) works at this point.
萧公子 Xiāo-gōngzi: also translated as Mr. Xiao. could also be “Young Master Xiao.” used to address him directly.
丹音仙子 Dānyīn xiānzi (Fairy Danyin)
character breakdown: 丹 (dān) = cinnabar, red, powder. 音 (yīn) = sound, musical note, tone, noise.
曲水 Qū Shuǐ: Danyin’s name in the mortal realm arc. 曲 (qū) is a surname, and a word that means bend/to bend. 水 (shuǐ) = water.
蛐蛐儿 Qūqu-ér/Qūqur: it means Cricket, and it contains a homonym for the first character of Qu Shui’s name. this is Xiao Run’s familiar nickname for Qu Shui.
容昊仙君 Rónghào xiānjūn (Lord Ronghao)
character breakdown: 容 (róng) = to hold, contain, allow, tolerate; appearance, look, or countenance. 昊 (hào) = vast, limitless; the vast sky. interesting potential interpretations for his name! (both also happen to be surnames on their own.)
仙君 xiānjūn: Lord, my Lord, in his case. this is how the fairies address him.
阿昊 Ā-Hào: what Lady Chidi calls him. 阿 (ā) is placed as a prefix before monosyllabic names or kinship terms to indicate familiarity; this form of address shows that Lady Chidi is close with her apprentice.
海市主 Hǎishì zhǔ: Lord of Haishi; same 主 (zhǔ) as in 月主 (yuèzhǔ), Moon Queen, meaning “host” or “master”
主上 zhǔshàng: Lord, my lord, the lord. this is how he is addressed and referred to in his Lord of Haishi persona, such as by Dieyi and other Haishi underlings.
海市 (Hǎishì) is made up of the words for “sea/ocean” and “city”; together, they mean “mirage.”
also the 昊 (hào) in 容昊 (Rónghào) is the same as the 昊 (hào) in Haotian Tower, where Dongfang Qingcang was imprisoned. 昊天塔 (Hàotiāntǎ). “the vast, limitless sky” would be my translation of Haotian.
战神 赤地女子 zhànshén Chìdì nǚzǐ (God of War, Lady Chidi)
character breakdown: 赤地 (chìdì) = barren land. there’s an idiom that goes 赤地千里 (chìdì qiānlǐ), meaning “a thousand li of barren land — a scene of utter desolation (after a drought or insect plague)” (copied from Pleco). this definition reminds me of the Xuanxu Realm. hmm … thoughts for later. anyway, 女子 (nǚzǐ) = woman, female.
i’ve seen some translations of her name as “Chidi Woman” but i much prefer “Lady Chidi”
师父 shīfu: Master. this is how Ronghao addresses her (same as Xiao Lanhua towards Master Arbiter Siming).
谢惋卿 Xiè Wǎnqīng: Lady Chidi’s name during the mortal realm arc. 谢 (xiè) is a surname, and also means “to thank,” or sometimes “to apologize.” 惋 (wǎn) is a sigh, or to heave a sigh. 卿 (qīng) has several archaic meanings: high-ranking official, term of endearment between spouses, term used by the emperor for his subjects, or an honorific. (oh, where would i be without my dictionaries…)
惋卿娘子 Wǎnqīng niángzǐ: Lady Wanqing, commonly used to address Xie Wanqing in the mortal realm. when she is addressed as 娘子 (niángzǐ) alone, it is translated as “my lady.” (again: 娘子 (niángzǐ) is a polite form of address for a young woman, at least in Ye Olde Days™; it can also be used to address one’s wife, but that isn’t usually its purpose in this show.)
月族首领 巽风 Yuèzú shǒulǐng Xùnfēng (Moon Tribe Chief, Xunfeng)
character breakdown: 巽 (xùn) = to obey; one of the Eight Trigrams 八卦, symbolizing wood and wind; ☴; ancient Chinese compass point: 135° (southeast) (this definition copied directly from MDBG because all these definitions seem cool). 风 (fēng) = wind
巽风殿下 Xùnfēng diànxià: 殿下 (diànxià) is an honorific, usually meaning “Your Majesty” or “Your Highness”; Xùnfēng diànxià basically means “Your Highness Xunfeng.” he is sometimes addressed as “dianxia” alone, it’s not always Xunfeng dianxia.
to clear up possible confusion: Xunfeng is introduced in ep. 10 with the title card “Moon Tribe Chief,” per the netflix engsubs: 月族首领 (Yuèzú shǒulǐng), Moon Tribe leader/head/chief. this occurs after Dongfang Qingcang is reinstated as Moon Supreme, but in ep. 2 and ep. 10 it was mentioned that Xunfeng was made Moon Supreme (月尊 yuèzūn) upon Dongfang Qingcang’s presumed death 30,000 years earlier. nobody in the show, as far as i’ve noticed, calls or refers to Xunfeng as 首领 (shǒulǐng). the kings of the North and South are also introduced with the title 首领 (shǒulǐng), while we’re on the subject.
Dongfang Qingcang and Xiao Lanhua call him Xunfeng; Shangque and most other people call him 巽风殿下 (Xùnfēng diànxià) or just 殿下 (diànxià).
random note: if you’re like me and some of my friends who have watched this show after watching or reading Tian Guan Ci Fu/Heaven Official’s Blessing, it might seem like 殿下 (diànxià) is a term specific to the prince or crown prince-type figure. turns out, that’s not exactly the case. Xie Lian’s title, 太子殿下 tàizǐ diànxià, marks him as the crown prince. 太子 (tàizǐ) = crown prince. but Xunfeng doesn’t have this title, he’s just Your Highness, 殿下. anyway, this was kinda like that one twitter meme for me. “guy who has only seen tgcf watching any other chinese drama with a prince in it: so when are they gonna call him taizi dianxia?”
another note: it seems to be somewhat common practice on tumblr to refer to his character as Dongfang Xunfeng, but i should mention that nowhere in the show does anyone append Dongfang to his name. for several reasons (see my reblog), i don’t believe Xunfeng has a last name, and i don’t think Dongfang operates like one. it’s likely that Dongfang Qingcang is just the guy’s name, and Xunfeng is just another guy’s name, and that the two brothers don’t necessarily have a family name. BUT, i will say, if you’re looking to bequeath a last name to a modern AU Xunfeng, Dongfang probably works. “Dongfang” is an actual last name, in other contexts.
水云天 帝君 云中君 Shuǐyúntiān dìjūn Yúnzhōng-jūn (Shuiyuntian Emperor, Lord Yunzhong)
character breakdown: 水云天 (Shuǐyúntiān) = lit. water, clouds, sky/heavens. 帝君 (dìjūn) = emperor. 云 (yún) = cloud, 中 (zhōng) = middle, amidst, among; i might translate the meaning of his name as Amidst the Clouds.
云中君 Yúnzhōng-jūn: Lord Yunzhong. this is his usual title when people refer to him.
君上 jūnshàng: my lord. used to directly address Yunzhong. (yes, similar to the 尊上 zūnshàng used to directly address Dongfang Qingcang; “jun” and “zun” really abound with this show, but they are different terms. don’t ask me why some characters have jun and others have zun, i only have a vague notion.)
兄君 xiōngjūn: a specific term for “brother,” used by Changheng to address and refer to Yunzhong; again, similar to how Xunfeng addresses + refers to Dongfang Qingcang with 兄尊 (xiōngzūn)
in Changheng’s trial (perhaps a more official setting), Lord Yunzhong refers to his and Changheng’s father as 父神东君 fùshén Dōng-jūn, Lord Dong (lit. father-god Dong-lord) and Changheng’s mother as 母神 mǔshén (lit. mother-god). in other settings, Changheng refers to Lord Dong as 父君 fùjūn, similar to how Dongfang Qingcang and Xunfeng call their father 父尊 fùzūn.
澧沅仙尊 Lǐyuán xiānzūn (Supreme Liyuan)
character breakdown: 澧 (lǐ) = a surname, as well as a river in Hunan Province called Lishui River. 沅 (yuán) = the name of the Yuan River, another river in Guizhou and Hunan. funnily enough, both rivers flow into Dongting Lake. don’t ask me if that means anything significant, though.
仙尊 xiānzūn: Lord or my lord, in his case. similar to 仙君 (xiānjūn).
爹 diē: “father,” as addressed by his daughters. (please, it is not pronounced like the english word “die” … dee + ehh = dyeh, kinda like that)
司命仙君 Sīmìng xiānjūn (Master Arbiter/Lady Arbiter)
character breakdown: 司 (sī) = a department; to manage, take charge of, or attend to; it’s also a surname. 命 (mìng) = life, fate, destiny. so she Manages Fates, basically.
仙君 xiānjūn: Lord/Lady/Master. this word haunts me
司命星君 Sīmìng xīngjūn: also translated to Lady Arbiter, but there’s a new title this time! this is what Changheng and Dongfang Qingcang call her when they pay her a visit, near the end of the show. 星 (xīng) means star, or heavenly body. so this title means that she’s a lady of the heavens, or something similar. i wonder if this is because she was imprisoned and no longer an immortal of Shuiyuntian, where everyone is referred to with the word 仙 (xiān).
师父 shīfu: master (as addressed by Xiao Lanhua; the chinese subs say 师父, it’s a variant of 师傅, also pronounced shīfu)
sometimes addressed as just 司命 (Sīmìng), such as by Shangque and Dongfang Qingcang at the beginning of the show. by the end of the show, Dongfang Qingcang still refers to her as 司命 (Sīmìng) when speaking with Changheng, but addresses her with her title 司命星君 (Sīmìng xīngjūn) when speaking to her directly. Changheng, in contrast, keeps using her title even when she is not present.
上仙 shàngxiān: high immortal. less of a title and more of a description of her position in Shuiyuntian, e.g., “she is a high immortal of Shuiyuntian.”
海市流芳阁主 蝶衣 Hǎishì Liúfāng-gézhǔ Diéyī (Pavilion Master, Dieyi)
character breakdown: 蝶 (dié) = butterfly. 衣 (yī) = clothes, clothing; cover, skin.
阁主 gézhǔ: Pavilion Master. this is how most of the Haishi underlings address Dieyi.
流芳阁 (Liúfānggé) = Liufang Pavilion. the chinese subs use 留 instead of 流 sometimes, but for all these names and titles i default to the title cards written onscreen, not the subtitles.
三生仙君 Sānshēng xiānjūn (Master Sansheng)
character breakdown: 三 (sān) = three, 生 (shēng) = life, birth. in buddhism, 三生 (sānshēng) refers to three lives — past life, present life, and next life.
仙君 xiānjūn: Lord/Lady/Master, pretty much. if you’ve read this far you should kinda get what this means by now, right? and yes, the term is gender neutral, if anyone was wondering. a lot of these titles are.
三生姑姑 Sānshēng gūgu: Aunt Sansheng; the fairies call her this. (姑姑 gūgu refers to one’s paternal aunt, but can also be a familiar term for an aunt-like figure who is not related by blood.)
元龟 玄武 yuán guī Xuánwǔ (the Great Turtle, Xuanwu)
this dude’s got whole wikipedia pages dedicated to him but i’ll try to sum it up
玄武 (Xuánwǔ) literally means Black Warrior, Dark Warrior, or Mysterious Warrior. it is often translated as the Black Tortoise, though the name contains no animal-related words — this is just due to how it’s usually depicted. the Xuanwu is one of the four symbols of the chinese constellations, each being a guardian of one cardinal direction. the Black Tortoise’s usual epithet is 北方玄武 (běifāng Xuánwǔ), the Black Tortoise of the North. the other three are the Azure Dragon of the East (!! Dongfang Qingcang??), the White Tiger of the West, and the Vermillion Bird of the South. each symbol represents seven of the 28 Mansions; the Xuanwu would be the seven mansions of the north sky (or the god of the north sky in Taoism). each symbol is also associated with a season, time of day, and chinese element, but i’ll let you look those up yourself. anyway. tl;dr he’s a cool dude with a lot going on.
上古神灵玄武 shànggǔ shénlíng Xuánwǔ: netflix’s translation is “Great Turtle.” Xiao Lanhua calls him this when she first meets him. i might translate this title as “Ancient God Xuanwu” or similar. 上古 (shànggǔ) = distant past, ancient times, remote ages, antiquity. 神灵 (shénlíng) = god, deity, divinity, spirit, spiritual being, supernatural entity. Xiao Lanhua also addresses him by just 神灵 (shénlíng), a moment later. (it’s translated as “God” — no, not that one.)
玄武上神 Xuánwǔ shàngshén: God Xuanwu, as addressed by Xiyun. could perhaps be translated as High God Xuanwu.
元龟 yuánguī: translated by netflix as the Great Turtle. Sansheng refers to him with this term. the place where we see the Xuanwu is called 玄武幻境 (Xuánwǔ huànjìng), which basically means “Xuanwu dreamland.”
凶神太岁 xiōngshén Tàisuì (Evil God Taisui)
character breakdown: 凶神 (xiōngshén) = evil god; demon, fiend, devil. 太岁 (tàisuì) = a deity, the God of the Year, who was believed to change his dwelling on earth annually; also an archaic name for Jupiter, and a nickname for the most powerful man in a locality. (i think in this show he’s just some kind of evil deity named Taisui, not necessarily the God of the Year described in the dictionary.)
乌姑 Wū-gū (Ms. Wu, Dongfang Qingcang’s childhood caretaker who taught him woodcarving and music)
character breakdown: 乌 (wū) is a surname, but it can also mean “crow” or “black/dark.” 姑 (gū) refers to one’s aunt, a father’s sister; here, it is Dongfang Qingcang’s familiar term for her. (same concept as with Aunt Sansheng, although i’m not sure why it’s translated to Ms. Wu instead of Aunt Wu, especially since she seemed to have a very close relationship with Dongfang Qingcang. the singular 姑 (gū) might convey a bit less familiarity or closeness In Olden Times compared to 姑姑 (gūgū), and Dongfang Qingcang as the young lord might have had to maintain that marginal bit of distance for politeness and tradition and royalty reasons, but i could very much be mistaken, or just reading into it more than necessary.)
look, i know she’s not a major character but she was important to ME, ok! so here’s her name. hope someone writes a fic involving her someday.
长渊 Chángyuān (Arbiter’s dragon husband)
character breakdown: 长 (cháng) = long/length; forever, always, constantly. 渊 (yuān) = deep pool; deep; profound.
罪龙长渊 zuìlóng Chángyuān: convicted dragon Changyuan, dragon criminal Changyuan. same 罪 (zuì) as in “immortal criminal,” 罪仙 (zuìxiān).
aaaaaall righty, i am done for now. (it’s been over a week… phew…) again, i’ll update this if i discover new things or receive suggestions. thanks! :D
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