#complete lockdown

[unseeliefaerie]

Noticed a pattern of Crowley reaching out to Aziraphale and Aziraphale rejecting him and now I'm sad

Bonus (Spoilers for Season 2!)

In the face of all that, Crowley is so brave for this

[1phakephan]

🗣️🗣️ pov dan and phil base their pizza selection in part 2 of their iconic mukbang video on their hatred for the detroit pizza company that almost ruined your life

[gayeddieagenda]

im not kidding anymore i need to write fanfiction. NOW.

[musical-chick-13]

How would a female Jishi be? Is it a cursed concept?

This is an interesting question, because I think, in order to have a female Jinshi with the same general characterization choices, the entire premise of The Apothecary Diaries would have to change.

Jinshi's major point of characterization is that he's in a position of power and political significance that he has to take part in, but that he doesn't actually want at all. The line of rule/inheritance is through the sons, and women are afforded very few actual career opportunities outside of being a courtesan. Maomao is an exception, not the norm--very few girls and women are allowed to be on retainer as doctors or detectives. They can be servants/court ladies, they can be ladies-in-waiting, they can be courtesans or, if they gain enough standing and attract the attention of the right people, concubines, but they aren't often allowed to be anything else. Not in the miliary, not in serious medicine, and certainly not in politics.

If Jinshi is suddenly female, then...well the only way for this character to be in a position of political power in this universe is to have gotten astronomically lucky in the process of actively working for it. The world of The Apothecary Diaries isn't going to plop a random woman into a political position for grins, and the only justification anyone would find to install a female official is...if someone had an exceptional amount of skill that was recognized by the right people, like in Maomao's case (and Maomao isn't even an official, nor does she want to be one). But how WOULD this version of Jinshi have gotten that skill, if Jinshi hadn't worked to develop it? Jinshi-as-a-girl would not have been afforded the level of education needed for that to happen, and if female-Jinshi had pursued that education on her own time...then that would suggest that she wanted to be in politics, something completely antithetical to the version of Jinshi that we know. (And even if we suspend disbelief past the point of reason and say that she magically ended up with this training she doesn't want, the only way that skill would ever come to light is if she were consistently using it in front of people, which...I don't think she would do if she wanted to avoid politics that much.)

If Jinshi doesn't have this disinterest, we have a completely different character. Which is completely fine, there's nothing wrong with that at all, plenty of character traits and archetypes can be interesting or entertaining. But I don't think a version of Jinshi that remotely resembles the canon version of this character is possible if Jinshi is now a young woman.

I think having a politically-savvy female character to contrast with Maomao would be very interesting (and given a few things I've heard, I'm hoping we might see some of that in season 2), in the sense that any power a woman has in this setting has to be carefully managed and, often, fought tirelessly and intensely for. Except for Maomao, who is...pretty much just living her life. Don't get me wrong, she does still have to be careful, and there is still a significant amount of danger she faces, but there's a surprising amount of leeway she's given, courtesy of her unique position and the fact that she has Jinshi (and. sort of? Lakan? maybe?) in her corner. And she gains a degree of relative peace in spite of her circumstances, without having to become a courtesan or concubine or politician. So for a young woman who is in a political or politically-adjacent situation to look at Maomao and go, "Well why do YOU get this degree of freedom but not ME, why do YOU get to be yourself, but I have to curate every aspect of my being?" would provide a complex and highly gripping dynamic. But I don't think a female version of Jinshi can provide that dynamic.

The only potential way female-Jinshi ends up anywhere close to the character we have in canon is if the entire gender landscape of this story is flipped--if women were the ones with social and political power, and men were the ones who had comparatively few choices afforded to them. (And this, of course, means that pretty much all of the characters have to be genderbent, which I do always find to be a really fascinating thought exercise.) But while a Reverse-Gender-Landscape version of this story isn't...a horrible idea, necessarily, I think there are very few writers out there with a deep and nuanced enough understanding of misogyny and gender politics to pull off a "What If Matriarchy Instead" story without having it fall completely flat.

But if the question becomes, "Would a female character with Jinshi's qualities still be compelling, or would she just be annoying," then. Well my answer is the same as it always is: any type of character with any combination of qualities can be compelling in the hands of a skilled enough writer.

[chestersbraincell]

Thinking about the type of kid/early teen I used to be. The kind, caring, sociable, helpful, empathetic to a fault hard-worker.

And thinking about how she was emotionally beaten out of me by force.

And thinking about how she’s probably that odd ache in my chest that refuses to go away no matter how hard I try to make myself jaded to protect both her and myself.

[thirdtimed]

heres a rare non hc/life/mcyt related post but there are apparently a number of isat enjoyers in the audience here and i have nowhere else to outlet this. Would anyof you like to listen to the single most siffrin coded song that has literally ever existed

[corviiids]

btw my twitter is locked right now because i had too many tweets blow up in a row and was not enjoying the heightened visibility so we're having Quiet Mode for a little while, but you're still free to follow it if you want to send a follow request!! i am still yapping over there all the time

[nonbinary-sticks-the-badger]

i dont care about canon in my head espio has a croaky awkward teenage boy voice

[menstits]

Sometimes i am a bit sad that i had to drop russian because i genuinely liked the language and i'd like to pick it up again someday, but also i know that whenever i start thinking ough maybe i shouldn't have dropped it that's the devil speaking like no it really was necessary i would have definitely killed myself if i hadn't

[quaranmine]

glass animals released tour dates for their upcoming album which means i simply have to buy tickets. just because lord huron rearranged my psyche in 2021 does NOT mean i forgot how GA rearranged my psyche in 2020

[sonofsin]

I'm having an extremely weird time with my relationship to my trauma... when I came out of dormancy in 2022, I was stuck in a constant flashback 95% of the time, even when I became a host. it was very much my trauma that happened to me, and it had built my sense of self. but now, it's been completely locked away and I don't understand what happened. I don't remember anything, I can't make myself feel anything about what was done to me. it's just gone, and the absence is so confusing. it's been about a year of this now. I must be an ANP subsystem part that's been frontstuck, it's the only explanation that makes any sense. other alters remember still, it's not like we're still collectively in complete denial again. I still know and believe it happened, it's just... not mine anymore. which is it's own pain, to know and feel so vividly that there was once something there. something that was the basis of my entire fucking existence for the first 20 years of my life. I feel like I've been theseus's ship'd. there's nothing left of the "original" adam, at least nothing left that's capable of fronting.

[dog-violet]

and that’s why verlaine got tossed into the basement

[windydrawallday]

Don't you love when the impostor syndrome jumps in the middle of a happy moment? :')

This is ventart but ended too well looking to let it rot between my files, so here it goes! When was the last time I drew [Scintilla], uh? I think this is her first rodeo with this type of art. Poor thing.

My interpretation of Lockdown is here too because.

Because.

[noisytenant]

i spent a semester at art school at the height of covid lockdown as like a "study away" type experience because i missed being around ppl who were interested in technique and wanted more critical feedback. did a lot of interesting things and met some interesting people but mostly realized that being a professional illustrator would be a unique form of torture for me. unless i could make like magic the gathering cards that would be dope

[conartisthaiji]

looking back it's actually super funny that i told my parents that i wanted to take a semester off of college and the first thing they did was call my therapist and book me an appointment. i was like "mom dad school is making me want to kms i want to take time off" and they were like "oh god this is above our paygrade. what's your therapist's phone number". they did not let me take a semester off, but i got to go to therapy about it, so, like. problem solved! (it was not fucking solved)

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

WAS NO ONE GONNA REMIND ME THAT ITS BREAK WEEK 😭😭😭😭😭😭