The mashup you never thought would work

Oh my god, anyone realise that for Jiang Cheng to have had the comb to give to Wen Qing after Lotus Pier fell, he must have had it on him on the day which means...he regularly carried it around. This teenage boy who knew full well after the Qishan Indoctrination that the Wen were The Enemy and he wouldn't ever be allowed to be with Wen Qing carried that comb around with him because he presumably couldn't bear to put aside that symbol of his feelings. Remember the day Lotus Pier was sacked started out the same as any other day - even if Jiang Cheng anticipated trouble from the Wen at some point following the fiasco in the Xuanwu Cave, there's no way he could have known that by nightfall he would have lost his home, his parents and his sect and be on the run with his siblings with nothing but the clothes on their backs and whatever they carried with them. And so he carried that comb around next to his heart everyday, just like afterwards he would carry his love for Wen Qing despite her clan massacring his, despite being so traumatised he flinched from her in the supervisory office. He carried that love through the months after the sacking until he offered it to her along with the comb when he found her in that cell. And much later, when she followed him down from the Burial Mounds and returned it to him because she couldn't accept his love and his protection, not when she would have to leave her family behind, the freaking devastation on his face as she gave it back and the way he took it so reluctantly as if it physically pained him because his feelings hadn't ebbed at all...man, that comb encompassed so much. And it was a crying shame that they couldn't be together, that the world wouldn't let them.

Can I also mention that combs and hair are also *marriage* related in Chinese tradition. Firstly, if your original wife (yuanpei also known as your jiefa/hair tying wife) dies young, tradition states that you break the comb you used during marriage/wedding night and keep the half with a few strands of her hair while the other half gets buried in with her in her coffin. (1.) There's also the jiefa ceremony, which iirc happens on the wedding night to your first wife where newly married couples each clip a lock of their hair to tie together to symbolize their union. Nowadays the term "jiefa fuqi/hair tied husband and wife" refers to a couple who knew each other and married when they were young.

There is ALSO a tradition for married couples to break apart a chai (double pronged hair stick) when they had to separate/one of them leaves on a long trip so that each of them has one half of the hair stick and the chai will be reunited when they reunite. (2.)

In some parts of china a comb is a betrothal present!! (pardon my exasperation I can find lots of modern sources re this comb betrothal present thing AND also about the hair combing ceremony but the historical sourcing I've been finding on this is vague, however this is not a vogue modern tradition so I think my search terms in chinese are just lacking)

The whole thing is a HIGH commitment symbol. They chose a COMB as a symbol of ChengQing's feelings towards each other for very highly specific cultural reasons and they have to do with what a comb symbolizes -- marriage, fortune, love, growing old together, romance, and most of all deep commitment.

1.) Baidu page about jiefa

2.) sourcing regarding the chai hair stick tradition

Me with Mr. Darcy

Do we think there was no mention of baby Jiang Disciples at the Burial Mounds Round Two because:

1. They weren’t plot relevant at that specific moment so MXTX didn’t mention them even though they were there

2. Jin Guangyao knew Jiang Cheng would show up for Jin Ling, making kidnapping Jiang juniors superfluous

3. Jiang Cheng is so paranoid after what Jiaojiao did to littlest shidi and the massacre more generally that the Jiang babies have Jianghu stranger danger drilled into their very souls and it simply was not worth it.

#jin guangyao captures all the other sect babies with the equivalent of candy in a white van but the jiang?#he’s not an idiot. he did the math. he did the cost-benefit analysis and it’s just too much of a risk (via howdydowdy)

#jiang cheng has all his baby disciples take part in fish training #wherein they watch how a fish escapes by wiggling and flapping about #and therefore baby jiang disciples are impossible to get a hold of #they slip they slide they flip they flap!!! (via lanjiangs)

#it is very hard to kidnap juniors #when every time you try to lure them #into a trap they shake their heads and #say they have to ask their sect leader #to fall into a trap today #because being kidnapped sounds fun #but it’s not worth Jiang Cheng’s #disappointed face#the one he gets every time #they fall into traps #sometimes literally #sometimes filled with snakes #that was last week #they are careful now they swear #jgy knows better than to try #and honestly #it’s easy to lure jin ling anywhere (via majestictortotoise)

I had to

Did this story as a play in high school, so when I saw this I fucking died🤣

My heart breaks a little for Jin Ling as he desperately tries to find a reason why Wei Wuxian isn’t really Wei Wuxian…as much as I’m proud of him a well

He’s grown up with so much hatred for Wei Wuxian, believes that Wei Wuxian is most monstrous of unforgivable monsters. He can’t just accept that someone he’s grown to like, someone who’s protected him several times over, someone who actually apologized for hurting him, someone who just a few hours ago taught him how to defend himself against bullies, is that same Wei Wuxian. 

He can’t reconcile the “Mo Xuanyu” he’s gotten to know with the evils of Wei Wuxian he thought he knew as the truth.

So even when Jin Guangyao tricks Wei Wuxian into revealing his identity to the room (which everyone except Jin Ling and some extras knew anyway), Jin Ling is grasping for any straw to the contrary while he perfunctorily points his sword at Wei Wuxian. He and Nie Huaisang are the only ones who question Jin Guangyao’s claim, and while Nie Huaisang has several reasons and agendas for trying to cover up Wei Wuxian’s identity, Jin Ling’s defense is utterly without guile.

And even after Jin Guangyao “soothes” Jin Ling with how much he got “duped” by Wei Wuxian (how much of that is manipulation to better set Jin Ling against Wei Wuxian and how much, if any, is real sympathy…well, it’s hard to tell with Jin Guangyao), Jin Ling still isn’t fully turned against Wei Wuxian

Like, yes, he definitely stabs Wei Wuxian. But afterward…he can’t pursue him. His hand shakes on Suihua, his father’s sword – the father he believes Wei Wuxian murdered – before he drops it.

He’s wanted vengeance all his life, been told he wants it all his life, and when he finally gets a smidgeon of it…

It just hurts him.

What he’s been told all his life and what he’s learned for himself in the past few weeks are colliding, and what seemed so clearly black and white…is no longer quite so clear.

But whatever thinking he does between now and being kidnapped to the Burial Mounds, the next time he sees Wei Wuxian, it’s his experience of the truth – of the way Wei Wuxian cares about him, genuinely – that wins out in the end

When you realise that Jiang Cheng's home is Wei Wuxian 🥺

bonus:

That quote about him being incapable of love is specifically from the scene where A-Yuan latches on to his leg and looks at him with his big puppy eyes. Yeah, novel Jiang Cheng couldn't muster up an ounce of empathy for a toddler. At least drama Jiang Cheng has more of a heart than that.

The Untamed costumes extra:

Someone else's clothes

Ok. I will be making a proper costume post at some point for these robes, but something just clicked and got stuck in my head so I had to get it out.

What I'm talking about is this set of robes Wei Wuxian wears during the time he and the Jiang siblings are hiding in the Yiling Supervisory Office after the massacre of Lotus Pier:

This outfit has been bugging me for some time, because it seems... off. Firstly, this is the only time we see Wei Wuxian wearing the Jiang purple. Purple that does not really sit very well with the rest of the outfit. Secondly, despite the colour of the robes (black with some red accents), the outfit is Definitely Not Wei Wuxian in style. I mean, the cape? The heavy pleating and the sheer excess of fabric? It doesn't sit right with what Wei Wuxian typically wears. He might wear many layers, but they are always more sleek in style than this. And thirdly, talking about sitting right, the robes do not somehow sit right on him, they more like just hang on him (off him?), like they would be somewhat too large, too wide for him and had just been gathered in with the belt:

So, I'm pretty sure Wei Wuxian is wearing someone else's clothes, but whose? Wen Ning would be the most likely one, but this set does not seem like something he would have, not even for formal occasions.

But today while making the latest collage post it just clicked. Who is the other person who typically wears black (and red) and who seems to like wearing capes? Yes. This guy:

The robes Wei Wuxian is wearing, or at least the outermost vest and cape combo, are pretty much exactly in Wen Zhuliu's style! I mean, just look:

And considering the difference in Wei Wuxian's and Wen Zhuliu's build, that is how Wen Zhuliu's robes would sit on Wei Wuxian. Wouldn't it?

But how in hell would Wei Wuxian end up wearing Wen Zhuliu's robes? It's not likely that Wen Zhuliu just decided to stash his spare robes in Yiling, after all. I think the answer is here:

Jiang Cheng's robes were pretty much ruined during his captivity, and by the time Wei Wuxian arrived at Lotus Pier to rescue Jiang Cheng, his clothes must have been pretty ripe after everything he'd gone through while wearing them.

So I can well see Wen Ning, being the considerate and capable cinnamon roll that he is, going to look for and pack some clothes for them while waiting for the drugged wine to take effect. Finding clothes for Jiang Cheng, including some sets of purple underwear, but failing to find clothes for Wei Wuxian. And then, knowing where Wen Zhuliu was bunking, going and raiding his wardrobe to get Wei Wuxian something in black (because of course Wei Wuxian needs something in black!).

So now I'm stuck with the headcanon that the outfit Wei Wuxian wears in Yiling (and when he goes to the golden core transfer!) is a mishmash of Jiang underwear and sash (Jiang Cheng's underwear?) and Wen Zhuliu's Sunday robes. Help. Though there is a kind of weird poetry to that...

That explains the gorgeous set of white and black robes that Jiang Cheng wears to the core transfer too! I always wondered where such a nice outfit came from if they had lost everything. And the symbolism of Wei Wuxian giving up his core for his brother in the clothes of the man who took that core, while combining it with his brother's clothes, is just *chef's kiss* 

Its The colonization

The first time I left the US was on a trip with my grandmother to Germany. My grandmother was always traveling. Always! Always off on some holiday somewhere, always bringing back tacky souvenirs.

I spoke a bit of German but was far from fluent. I’d been a little worried about communication but my grandmother assured me we’d be fine. She did this all the time, after all.

My grandmother left me in the hotel room one morning to sleep in while she went to the nearby bakery to get some pastries for breakfast. When she returned, she looked very flustered. She got me up because she had to get this off her chest. The woman in the bakery… didn’t speak ANY English. In her words, “Not a lick of English! Not one word!” I replied, heavy with sarcasm, “Really? In GERMANY?” She didn’t pick up on my sarcasm at all and just thought I was equally as astonished as her.

Turns out every trip she’d ever taken was with some pre-planned tour group for obnoxious white Americans. Never in all her years of traveling had she just gone into a small local shop and had to interact with a local whose entire business didn’t revolve around serving people like her. It was a genuine surprise to her that a person - especially a white person! - would actually not understand English.

I later went down to the bakery to apologize as well as I could in German. Fortunately the woman found it very amusing that the American woman just kept talking louder and slower instead of trying to communicate in some other way, and wasn’t bothered at all. But from that day forward I understood something about my grandmother (and a whole hell of a lot of other Americans) that I could never unlearn. That she literally saw everywhere in the world that wasn’t America like some kind of giant fucking Disney World and everyone who didn’t speak English as some kind of bumbling savage. I was embarrassed to be seen with her, ashamed to be there with her. This is very much A Thing and it’s fucking awful.

And then there’s the other end of the spectrum where said local does speak English but it comes as a total shock to the white tourists. 

To set the stage: I am a brown-skinned South Asian who did not live outside my country of origin until I was 19 and left for uni. Due to Reasons (i.e. British colonisation) there is a minority community here concentrated in the urban centers who speak very fluent English and imbibe Western pop culture. Many of the people I grew up with speak English far better than our native language and could name all the One Direction boys but be unable to name a single musician from within our local music industry, that’s how far removed we are from our own culture. So whenever I bumped into tourists as a kid or teen, I could converse with them in fluent English, no problem. 

And inevitably, at some point in the conversation I would hear these words: “Your English is so good.”

Every. Single. Time. 

And it wasn’t just me either. Plenty of people I know from within my community have seen the same surprise from white tourists. And it always annoyed me to no end because hey, it is my mother tongue just as much as it theirs. No need to be so surprised that a brown person from a third-world nation can speak English, Barbara. Your racialised elitism is showing. 

@queer-cosette you are not allowed to be this funny!!

Shocking how many people don’t know that hens lay non-fertilized eggs and think the yolk they’re eating is a baby chicken

once tried desperately to make my friend understand that yolks were not, like, a liquified potentiality of chicken, and she looked at me for a while and then said, "but they’re both yellow."

Behold

A chicken

[image: a lemon.]

Image descriptions that incidentally make the joke infinitely funnier.

The one who posted the lemon picture is Diogenes

Reblog this to prove your blog was made before the February 2022 tumblr resurgence

i am terrified about what apollo may do with this post

this won’t get 1% of the women’s version of this post. 

the world we live in, and people in general don’t care about men. we are pretty much robots who aren’t allowed to show emotion. we’re taught from a young age that boys don’t cry. 

fact is women are sexualised, men are idealised. because men can’t be raped because they’re big and strong right? right? yea, pretty much the idiots view of living. 

Always reblog

Sks support this idea or unfollow me i dont give 3 shits if i loose yall as followers, fuck off if you dont support this

you can unfollow me if you think that Men don’t have stigmas against them or get sexualized or are told they have to live up to a standard. 

Women are not the only ones who can be victims of sexual assault! 

Always ALWAYS reblog! This is really close to home for me as most of my followers well know!! Men can be victims just as well as women, and the illusion that ‘Its different for a man because he can defend himself’ is complete and utter bullshit.

WARNING!!!!

People, please be careful. There are also people tracking children and people and putting bids on them based on their profile pictures on whatsapp, tracking and kidnapping them. Especially young children, so please be cautious, especially parents who have their children as their profile pictures.

Please pass this on to everyone so that they are aware of the danger. I don’t how it is all around the world but I know it can’t just be here so please please spread the word. Thank you.

oh my god

I HAVE BEEN GETTING THIS TEXT REGULARLY FOR WEEKS

HOLY SHIT THANK GOD I DIDN’T

I’ve gotten a few of these. Never ever click a link from an unknown number!!!

oh yeahhhh, I saw that on snapchat. it’s been freakin’ EVERYWHERE lately. i haven’t been getting the text, luckily, but im still extremely cautious about it. shit’s scary.

not just girls, but boys and other genders have to be careful as well. this could happen to anyone. please be safe, my friends <3

FOR ALL THE YOUNGER PEOPLE THAT FOLLOW. YOU GUYS ARE SMART. YOU KNOW THIS. BUT JUST IN CASE THERE ARE SOME WHO MIGHT NOT. THAT DOESN’T MAKE YOU NOT SMART, PERHAPS JUST LESS INFORMED. 

DO NOT CLICK LINKS IN TEXTS EVER. GO TO ACTUAL WEBSITES FOR ONES YOU RECOGNIZE AND TYPE IN THE URL. OR A BOOKMARK IF YOU HAVE ONE. DON’T CLICK LINKS IN TEXTS AND SOCIAL MEDIA MESSAGES/DMS AND EMAILS. EVEN IF YOU KNOW THE PERSON. TAKE EXTREME CAUTION. 

IF YOU’RE GUTS SAYS EH WOULDN’T DO THAT BUDDY. LISTEN. 

ALSO SIGNAL BOOST THE HELL OUT OF THIS

I DON’T CARE WHAT YOUR BLOG THEME IS!! REPOST THIS TO SAVE A LIFE!!

!!!!!!!!!

PLEASE REBLOG! THIS IS VERY SERIOUS!!

uh no im not allowing sex trafficking imma just reblog thisss- 

!!!! Reblog !!!!

RE-FOKIN-BLOG MATE

Stop whatever the fuck you’re doing and 

REBLOG