#it's always great watching him have fun

[six-sticks]

english translation of zhou shen’s 四大名著 medley! I put a basic summary of each novel in the upper right hand corner when their corresponding song starts, if anyone’s unfamiliar with them

detailed notes under the cut, just for fun

disclaimer: I’m not fluent in mandarin and my classical education is... extremely lacking. I tried my best on the songs with classical chinese and asked someone who actually read these books for context, but feel free to point out any mistakes!

Dream of the Red Chamber

枉凝眉 is one of the original twelve songs that correspond to the twelve beauties. This one is about Lin Daiyu and her relationship with Jia Baoyu, the protagonist. 枉凝眉 literally means something like “brow furrowed in vain,” but according to my friend who read the book, Lin Daiyu furrows her brow when she writes poetry and she and Jia Baoyu write poetry together, so it’s a metaphor for their relationship

Lin Daiyu and Jia Baoyu have a special bond, but their relationship isn’t considered fated because another character, Xue Baochai, has a gold pendant with an inscription that matches the inscription on a piece of jade Jia Baoyu had in his mouth when he was born

Jia Baoyu and Xue Baochai eventually get married at the end and Lin Daiyu dies

(Fun fact, the “Bao” in “Jia Baoyu” and “Xue Baochai” is the same character, while the “Yu” is the same in “Jiao Baoyu” and “Lin Daiyu.”)

Lin Daiyu was a divine herb in her past life. What I translated as “divine,” 阆苑, refers to the home of the immortals in the novel

In his past life, Jia Baoyu watered Lin Daiyu, so in this life she’s destined to shed tears for him

Romance of the Three Kindgoms

I don’t have much to add for this one. All you really need to know is that the three kingdoms era lasted 60–90ish years and territory between the three states was kind of always shifting

Journey to the West

aka the only one I’ve actually read! I have fond childhood memories of watching the 1986 live action reruns with my cousins

“White Dragon Horse” is what they call Tang Sanzang/Tripitaka’s horse. He’s actually a dragon who’s shapeshifted as a horse because he ate the original (normal) horse

Tripitaka’s name in chinese is Tang Sanzang, but I think he’s more commonly known as Tripitaka in english because it’s basically the sanskrit equivalent, and I guess most buddhist terms tend to be translated/transcribed in sanskrit

The “81 tribulations” are the 81 obstacles Tripitaka had to go through before he could get the scriptures

The 72 earthly transformations are an ability of Sun Wukong, one of Tripitaka’s disciples. He basically gets 72 magic powers. IIRC a few other characters can also do this, but he’s the one famous for it

The song says they work together to defeat their enemies, but 90% of the time it’s just Sun Wukong. The other 10% is when Guanyin or the Buddha have to step in

Water Margin

The 108 outlaws later get un-outlawed and the emperor gets them to fight invaders, which eventually leads to them disbanding. I originally included this in the book summary, but I felt like it didn’t really fit the vibe of the song

生死之交 means something like “handing over your life and death” eg. trusting someone with your life. “shield brothers” is a little too viking-y for my taste, but I didn’t want to make the line too long

According to my friend, “we all have some” because the characters steal from rich people and redistribute their wealth

and that’s about it! if you’ve gotten this far, thanks for reading my assorted thoughts/translation notes/book context... it really wasn’t meant to be this long or disjointed haha

[sskk-manifesto]

Bungou Stray Dogs: Dead Apple and how “ability users” (opposite to “normal people”) learning to accept themselves through the acceptance of their own abilities is a queer metaphor of acceptance of own's sexual orientation and gender: an essay by me

[shadowfloofster]

I've seen people say you can't compare the QSMP to the DSMP because they're both completely different servers with different starts.

The thing is you can compare them. Not the stories told themselves because of course they're going to be different as they're 2 servers with different starts with 2 nearly completely different sets of people.

You can compare the treatment of the creators by the fandom, players (other cc on the server) and admins though.

Foolish for example. He made SO many amazing high quality builds to use and be shown to people. Ranboo and Tubbo had him build a giant mansion for them to live in! Yet it was entered maybe once after being finished. Foolish was able to use his builds for his own lore maybe once. Only a few people like Bad really acknowledged them by messing around in the area of them or adding something easy to get rid of to them as jokes.

Bad's treatment on the DSMP was frustrating to watch. He was the butt of the joke every time he was around. People would constantly swear on his streams because it was so funny for them! They constantly destroyed his and Skeppy's house and griefed the front of it. No one other than his friends really listened to him about things. And the egg arc was supposed to be something that was a massive danger to the server! But how does the server and fandom not directly involved treat it? Like a joke. Bad and his friends clearly worked really hard on this arc to include more than just the 'main characters' and their small circle, yet it was brushed off as if nothing by the players and fandom, treated like it was stupid.

Quackity's lore just kinda- happened. There isn't much I can say as I don't remember a lot of it tbh which isn't a great sign.

Philza and Wilbur probably got the better end of the stick for lore due to being connected to the main lorr, but it still wasn't great for them either.

A lot of CCs not on the QSMP have mentioned how the communication for the server was terrible too. At the start of lore on the DSMP, it made sense as they were purely doing improve so there wasn't really anyone to run things through. But the fact the issue was bad the entire time made the CCs on the server feel ignored and not want to play on it.

It was rare for people to interact with others outside their already established circles unless they're friends outside the server.

Now with the QSMP

Foolish has built multiple things on the server and has been acknowledged by everyone at this point. Bad might mess with them a lot still and encourage others to join him but you can tell the respect people still have for each one. Vagetta wants a version of the statue Foolish built him on other servers. People and fandom admire his builds and always make sure that if there's any damage to it, it's easily undone. Cellbit has made the castle Foolish built him his home the moment it was finished, he's been using it since. He paid him fully and made sure he was fully supplied and had company while building, staying on for hours to talk to him as he built.

Bad is respected by everyone on the server. He's taken seriously by everyone. Everyone trusts him with their kid's lives. Phil asks Bad to babysit Tallulah and Chayanne if he can't. The french trust Bad more than anyone outside their language group. Forever trusts Bad the most on the server other than Baghera. If someone needs something they'll go to him. All the eggs love him and so does the fandom. He's part of the joke instead of the butt of it. He can laugh along with the jokes made, even ones directed at him. When people swear on his streams and he languages them, they immediately apologize and switch to one of Bad's replacements (fudge being the main one) and no one makes fun of it either! They don't start swearing relentlessly at him to annoy him.

Even though Quackity doesn't show up often, when he does people are happy to interact with him and update him on what's happened if he wants it.

People can be off the server for weeks without being isolated because they're not keeping up with major lore, especially as people are happy to update anyone on anything they want to know. Hell people can be on a lot without being involved in lore but still be included as much as anyone else! As soon as there's a threat to the eggs or a new way to protect them, it spreads to everyone like wildfire and everyone's taken it on within a week.

The new arrivals are always welcomed by the islanders already there. They support them and treat with the same respect they do with everyone else. They merge with everyone else nearly immediately and become part of the community without hesitation.

The communication with the admins is clearly amazing too. Philza has pointed out how appreciated he feels compared to other servers. When an egg dies unfairly they're quick to get back to them within hours. If there's a general issues they're quick to get back to them and fix things. People are allowed to have their own stories alongside the main one. Events are planned and discussed so everyones aware before it happens. Anyone who wants to take part is welcome to if it's a big thing due to how open they usually are (rescuing Cellbit and Felps, travelling to Bobby's death site, etc). Thinfs are adapted and changed when needed and all CCs are in the loop.

Being able to watch the QSMP and not feel like any POV I watch is being mistreated or ignored is great. I couldn't watch anything but lore streams with the DSMP because Bad was my main POV and it made me so uncomfortable to watch him being made fun of constantly and be treated as a joke.

The QSMP feels like a community of people, instead of factions trying to go against each other. DSMP was my first and only smp experience and while it was great at first, it quickly soured. The QSMP treats it's CCs and fandom as if they genuinely matter, making sure everyone is welcomed and no one is isolated.

[frankenfossil]

Oh! I nearly forgot, but can I ask the significance of this panel?

It comes directly after Dee explains that he can’t come and see her from the future whenever he wants. (Which is one of my favorite moments where Dee’s true eldritch horror leaks in to the story), so I assume it’s… sort of a metaphor? How Emily finds herself at the foot of something she realizes is much, much bigger than she contemplated before?

(Also, I just wanted to compliment you for this panel)

(The first time I saw it, I imagined Dee was showing her this on purpose, time traveling from sometime the same day to really show her what it would be like. An object lesson.

The second time I saw it, I started to wonder

Because Dee himself doesn’t really look aware of what is going on behind him.

And maybe, just maybe, this one moment in time has become the only moment that Dee allows himself to come back to to see Emily, the one moment where he can get lost in the crowd with every other time he came back to look. The one moment where he’s explaining why he can’t come back.

Just… Makes me sad, and I wanted to say thank you for that too, because I love these characters and the story they tell, the sweet and bitter.)

Oh!!!

(Quick test of my ability to find which chapter stuff happens in)

I love your reading of that Uluru panel!! I think I probably didn’t intend anything that deep with it; these time skip montage style chapters are pretty choppy and I’m usually trying to figure out a way to touch on all these brief scenes or moments that I don’t want to spend a whole chapter on for whatever reason, and arrange them in a way where the cuts aren’t too hideously abrupt. For visual reasons I try to contrast different locations and not put 2 dialogue heavy moments directly next to each other. Mood wise, I don’t really want to cut from something serious and angsty to something that’s a complete backflip on that. I also sometimes just feel like drawing a nice landscape and hope it achieves my aims on these fronts haha.

I think also here I was trying to move from that final sentence, “The present is more than enough”, to demonstrating them appreciating having that present together - being able to go do cool and enriching stuff, something not completely mundane but not completely fantastical either. (I mean... sightseeing within your own country is extremely normal, but going to Uluru from Melbourne... not a convenient day trip, since it’s 2000km; 25 hour solid driving, or you can fly in a few hours but I think you have to go via Sydney, so that makes it take at least twice as long I guess. Not that it's specified how long they're there for. I haven’t been myself but I’d love to one day...)

So, yeah!! More of a mechanical/compositional rationale than an intentional metaphor, but I think your reading makes complete sense and actually improves the page! (Sometimes I do intend visual metaphors... but sometimes they’re just happy accidents.)

And thanks for the compliment re the crowd of Dees!! I also love the moments I can lean into his eldritch qualities... they’re sadly few and far between but maybe that helps them be more surprising?? Definitely your first reading was what I intended, that he zigzagged back pretty quickly, probably even from within the conversation, but there is an inherent ambiguity to Dee’s time travelling where unless I take pains to spell it out, there really is no way to know when he’s come from. Even if he can be assumed to be taking every interaction chronologically, there’s no knowing how much time has passed for him between each visit. I don’t even know how to estimate how long his experience of time is, when he’s zigzagging back so densely all the time; even the number of living things on Earth any moment is an incomprehensibly mind-boggling number. That eldritch horror again!

Truth be told I hadn’t thought of him coming back to this moment and blending in with the crowd for the rest of the future ;_; but that’s so real... he could well be, the sad sack...

I had a different sillier thought from slightly misreading your question on first pass, which is that maybe he doesn’t originally know what’s going on behind him, but then later on as he’s just going about his business he goes “oh I know exactly how to punctuate that thing I said earlier!!!” and then does it as an afterthought. Oh to have the ability to add the things you wish you’d said to an earlier conversation 😂

[sadrockandwaltzes]

Who is your fav from Xiaolin and why!

Well when I was younger I think my fav was split between Jack and Omi with Kimiko as a close 3rd, but nowadays it's 100% Jack XD

He's just so funny and cringefail, but also very clever, passionate, and creative. The work he puts into his robots or his new plans to defeat the monks, the literal time machine he created, the fact that his favorite wu is the monkey staff

He's just a goofy guy having fun doing a competitive scavenger hunt and trying/failing to be edgy while doing so

Also he's surprisingly a STEM guy- he makes spreadsheets for fun!

*plus he has the best and funniest dialogue I think- which in a show like xiaolin showdown is actually kind of a feat. Him and Wuya are just an iconic evil duo like no other... except maybe James and Jesse from pokemon XD

[girlivealwaysbean]

pata hai last kuch din i was very busy with my project kyunki final dena tha and binding karni thi etc to wo karwayi then i went to the bookfair bekaar tha then parso submit karne jaa rahi to subah accident hogaya (bhai ki bike skid hogayi and we fell down) and now i have a big ass blue bruise on my upper thigh and my parents don't even know lmao and kal ek science conference thi to i had to sit in an auditorium for 6 hours listening to accomplished people speak. that's what you missed now your turn

omg i knew everything in this except for the accident cause i stalk your blog vigorously everyday are you okay!!!!!!!!!! did you get tetanus shots!!!!!!!!!! also on your upper thigh oh no that's where future jiju is supposed to write MINE na as per our beloved song guilty as sin?

[jaynovz]

Luke Arnold did not put his entire psyche and pussy into John Silver to the detriment of his own health for yall to say Silver is a mastermind liar and not a fucking repressed bisexual MESS

[bigbrainbiology]

A little surprise gift for @oya-oya-okay! <3

I love how cheerful you always are, you always bring my mood up! I hope you've had a great day ^v^

[termagax]

re: "good girl" i think they say it once randomly as a joke and its just one of those things that gets him wayyy more than they expected it would. so now its their secret weapon and they use it very sparingly and every single time he gets super embarrassed about it but it works ill tell you what.

[faunandfloraas]

of the skz stuff i've watched so far this comeback, i.n and seungmin on lets eat, seungmin on eunkwang's show and chan on young k's show a month back really are some of my faves and i know you will go Oh well of course seungmin poster, you would think that but it's really because they actually did talk about things and it was more than a parade of wow stray kids got #1 on billboard and i like seeing that!

[spider-man-2o99]

makes you read vulture 2099 again makes you read vulture 2099 again makes you read vulture 2099 again makes  you read vulture 2099 again makes you read vulture 2099 again

[whoviandoodler]

[Image description: a digital drawing of Thomas and Varian from Transatlantic in sepia tones. Thomas is sitting on a sofa smoking, one leg bent and resting on the couch. In his right hand he has an open book and in his left he's holding Varian's glasses. He seems to have just looked up from his book at a new arrival. Varian is lying on the couch, his head on Thomas's thigh, and sleeping while covered by a cardigan. End description.]

that awkward moment when you boyfriend said he'd just lie down for a second and totally wouldn't fall asleep (he has so much work to do, he can't take naps), but now he's been sleeping for an hour and your leg is cramping so badly but you don't have the heart to wake him because he's been exhausted for weeks

[tommygotwrittenoff]

i need eddie to get another guy friend in season 8, and buck loses his shit about it (again), so he breaks up with t because he's convinced that the weird feeling he gets when he sees them together is because he is Really attracted to the new guy.

[skeletalheartattack]

What are your favourite youtubes to eat food to?

i can't say i really have a favourite honestly, it's kind of luck based. i'll usually try to watch streams while i eat food, but if ive run out of the ones i'm interested in watching, it's likely im eating to a much shorter video.

[endbeginning]

and if i said.... pet.er peve.nsie.....

[silverislander]

people smarter than me have said this before but jesus christ why does every job seem to require at least a year of experience and a degree in some hyperspecific field. where did the entry level positions go? how am i even supposed to get experience if none of yall will give me a job without it?