bastard man

sha hualing and liu mingyan designs (+ flirting shenanigans)

shang qinghua is gonna catch a cold if he keeps napping in his office...

notes and breakdown of a design for a royal advisor shang qinghua

He smells good

Lemme tell u guys a story

In my freshman year, my great grandma passed away. She never threw out or sold anything worth keeping if she could help it, having grown up in the Depression, so when she passed, my grandma suddenly inherited a lifetime’s worth of treasured items. She distributed most of them to her kids and grandkids, saved some sentimental items, and donated most of the clothing and trinkets to charity. I got back the stuffed leopard I’d given great-grandma in the hospital; the fur was still as soft as it’d been when I bought it. One of the biggest things she had to sort through was jewelry. For a year after my great-grandma died, my grandma was setting out organized rows of costume jewelry on basement tables and chivvying her granddaughters to take what they wanted.

And then, after all the choosing, she snuck me into her room while my cousins picked through wristwatches. On her bed were two small jewelry boxes: an old wooden one, and a cushioned one in white pleather.

“I brought you in here because if I gave these to your cousins, they’d sell it. I don’t want these sold. Do you understand?”

I understood.

This is the story of the biggest lie my grandma ever told her mom.

Great-grandma’s birthstone was garnet, and she loved the look of the stones, but could never justify paying for some. Her husband worked constantly, and so did she, and new clothes for the kids was more important than jewelry at the time. When my grandma was 16, she saved her first paychecks to buy her mom a garnet ring for Mother’s Day; that’s what was in the wooden box. The original receipt, handwritten, was crammed into the lid. Great-grandpa saw that ring and teared up; he’d always wanted to get his wife something nice like that, but hadn’t ever had enough money for it. Determined, he vowed to change that. He set aside money for years, slowly, hiding it away in a box in the attic, vowing to buy his wife something she could always wear with her ring.

Time passed, and inflation happened, and he slowly squirreled money away in the hopes that jewelry might get cheaper again sometime. Time passed again, and age had little mercy on him. He got older, typed up a note, and placed in in the box, describing what the money was for; he knew his time was near. Under no circumstances was the money to be spent on anything other than giving his wife a nice gift. The letter read, “One day, my dear Ruth, you’ll have garnet earrings to match that ring.” It’s what great-grandma had always mourned missing; she had such a nice ring, and no good earrings to go with it.

Well, men don’t live forever, and when great-grandpa passed away, my grandma cleaned out her mom’s attic as she prepared to move somewhere smaller. Going through boxes of polaroids and paper clips, she stumbled on the box of earrings money, note and all. She stashed it with her coat, and after that day of cleaning, went to the jeweler before her mom could try and spend the money on something too sensible. She came back with the white pleather box; sure enough, still nestled inside that box were two clip-on garnet earrings.

”Mom never got her ears pierced, you know. That’s why it took so long to find a good pair.”

Once she’d gotten the earrings, grandma presented them to her mom, along with the note. The paper was obviously old and warped by moisture, but it was legible. My great grandma cried happy tears and treasured those earrings more than any other jewelry; the last gift her husband could give her. Decades after the fact, I’d seen her wear them to Christmas parties and worry over them, checking that they stayed on her earlobes.

There was never any note from great-grandpa. Never any box. Never any earring money. My great-grandpa had spent his saved money keeping himself and his wife confortable throughout retirement. To set aside hundreds of dollars, even a bit at a time, for garnet earrings, was never a thought that crossed his mind. My grandma had seen her mom, exhausted, wracked with grief, and lied through her teeth about where she’d gotten the money for those earrings. She faked the note and everything, making sure her mom wouldn’t wonder where the money came from, and never winced at the pinch in her own pockets. And she never told a soul, not even my mom, until great-grandma was safely and thoroughly buried herself.

Fun fact! Water actually turns “blood red” when it is contaminated by sulfur creating sulfuric acid. And scientists have discovered that around the time of the plagues a volcano went off that disturbed Egypt’s environment. So the plagues are scientifically proven. The other parts of the plagues are explained by the sulfuric acid river making the animals leave the river and escaping into the human population.

WHY DIDNT ANYONE TELL ME THE PLAGUES WERE PROVEN

if anyone wants a full list heres how they happened:

basically they all stem from a massive eruption of a volcano on the island of santorini off the coast of greece. the ash then floated over to egypt which kickstarted the plagues

1) blood: the ash carried the mineral cinnabar, which has the capability of turning water red

2) frogs: the ash also had many toxic and acidic substances so naturally, all the frogs are gonna flee the river

3) lice: given what was going on insects would have burrowed into dead animals/peoples skin and laid eggs, which then hatched

4) beasts: everything is getting poisoned from the ash and toxins, causing animals to freak the fuck out/die

5) pestilence: toxins again

6) boils: the ash would have caused storms that carried acid rain which when it fell, would irritate peoples skin causing boils

7) hail: the storm again

8) locusts: again with the insects and the amount of dead bodies and such which attract more insects. a lotta insects basically.

9) darkness: the ash covered the sky, blocking out the sun

10) slaying of the first born: given that children’s bodies were found in higher numbers than others, some archeologists think they may have been sacrificed to stop all the destruction, but they aren’t 100% sure about that. this is just me but I would say another possibility is that babies/kids are a lot more susceptible to toxins and shit, so while an adult may have been fine or gotten a bit sick, it might have been very dangerous/deadly for kids or babies

the volcano would also attest for the parting of the sea weirdly enough. the red sea was in fact the ‘reed’ sea, and was very shallow, probably waist deep or so. given the amount of shit dumped into the ocean from the volcano, this wouldve caused a tsunami to head towards egypt. the water would get sucked out from the reed sea right before the tsunami hit, letting people pass it easily, then the actual tsunami would hit, fuckin up anyone who tried to follow.

another theory is that the red water was caused by algae, which would cause the frogs and stuff to jump out as well. the algae also carried substances toxic to animals so if they ingested any they’d get sick and die, so more insects. in this theory there was a sand storm coincidentally that caused the rest

some sources: X X

The volcano wasn’t ON Santorini - it WAS Santorini, then called Thera. It completely blew away the Minoan settlements on the island and was one of the largest eruptions in human history. 

this is blowing my fucking mind

I love that if you really boil all this information down, what you get is something approximating “the sinking of Atlantis caused the 10 Biblical plagues of Egypt” which is, like, one of the greatest mythological mash-ups I have ever heard of.

Hey um I think we glossed over it ENDING A CHINESE DYNASTY

Hey um I think we

glossed over it ENDING A

CHINESE DYNASTY

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

A street performer covering 囚鸟 by 张宇 (Zhang Yu)

Unofficial English lyrics added by me :)

Cale’s really funny. Throughout the story, he shamelessly uses Alver’s status and name to tackle the more political side of his battles. Like ‘You think you’re the shit? Well, I have The future King (potential Emperor) as My backing. So don’t even try me,’ Is it Young Master Silver Shield or a villainess wife??? Abusing future Empress privileges comes naturally huh…

And then when we get to the indignity test where he’s 15yo Alver’s servant…

‘No backing??? I’m his backing. I’ll even sit him on the damn throne myself. Who has no backing??? Don’t look down on my prince…(flips the palace upside down)’ ah… my interpretation of Cale is getting crazy

So crazy about “When you become the sun… please think of me.” in chapter 734 cos what do you mean it isn’t from a fanfic and that Cale actually said that when he was posing as a servant of 15 year old indignity test Alver…

Extra sickening when you remember how they won’t ever actually get to meet again in that ‘illusion’… the thought of Alver having his coronation, scanning the crowd for even a hint of Cale… only to be met with disappointment… oghhghh just kill me JUST KILL MEEEEE

AlCale Fanfiction Recommendations from a Crazy Person (Updating…)

For those who can accept anything.

All the works are from sotdae (솟대). I recommend reading in this order…!

from the Maya Angelou quote which immediately make me think of MBD the first time i saw it👍

Thinking about how, in All Systems Red, when Murderbot is going through the DeltFall habitat and realizes that rogue secunits killed all the humans, it thinks to itself something like: "It would be smarter to leave right now and save my humans but I don't want to leave. I want to kill them."

And on a first read, it seems like Murderbot is mad because all of those helpless humans got killed, and it wants to, like, take vengeance on those rogue secunits. That maybe it's also angry and offended that the secunits are doing something so horrible like killing the humans they're supposed to protect.

And then later you find out that Murderbot went rogue once and killed a bunch of helpless humans against its will. And when Murderbot is investigating the crime scene where it happened, it realizes that at least some of the bots were trying to protect the humans back then, and for a second it thinks that maybe not all of the secunits went rogue (turns out it was the sexbots, but that's another post). And then you look back on the DeltFall scene and realize that maybe Murderbot was trying to redo what happened at Ganaka Pit, making it so that it was the bot that didn't go rogue and hunted down all of the others and saved / avenged the humans.

And then even later there's the exchange between ART and Murderbot where ART asks if it would have been kinder to kill Murderbot back before it hacked its governor module and Murderbot says yes (and ART says "You know I'm not kind" but that's again another post). And then you look back again on the DeltFall scene and realize that when Murderbot thought about wanting to kill those rogue secunits, it was actually thinking about how it wanted to kill itself back when it went rogue.

And then you just sit in silence for a while. If you're me.