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While I absolutely love the name Sizhui, because what's more romantic than naming your child after the yearning you have for his other father, I keep wondering what courtesy name Wwx would have given A'Yuan if he had had the chance. Do you have any ideas?

oof, y’all keep coming for my weakness by asking me to name things， and I am truly so, so bad at coming up with names

Well, let’s see... the ‘yuan’ of A-Yuan is 苑, ‘emperor’s garden,’ which makes me think of Wei Wuxian’s lotus garden in the Burial Mounds...

there’s an essay by Northern Song thinker and writer 周敦颐 Zhou Dunyi called 《爱莲说》Ailianshuo，and it’s literally just this man waxing poetic about how much he loves lotus flowers. It’s a classic of Literary Chinese prose, and as a bonus, contains the line:

莲，花之君子者也 lian, hua zhi junzi zheye / The lotus is the nobility among flowers.

(in contrast to chrysanthemums, which are the hidden worthies; peonies, which are the wealthy, etc)

which has a fun resonance with Jin Ling’s courtesy name, 如兰 rulan, which Wei Wuxian defends by saying 君子如兰 junzi rulan / the noble man is like an orchid.

For me, the part of 《爱莲说》that’s always stuck with me is this sequence:

出污泥而不染，/ [The lotus] emerges from mud and filth, yet remains unstained

濯清涟而不妖，/ washed in clear ripples, yet not lurid 

中通外直，/ hollow center, outer uprightness,

不蔓不枝，/ no tendrils, no branches

香远益清，/ its scent travels far, bringing a delicate fragrance

亭亭净植，/ it stands, straight and clean,

可远观而不可亵玩焉。/ to be admired from afar, not to be be touched or played with.

The first line, especially -- emerging from mud and filth, yet remaining unstained -- feels particularly powerful in the context of A-Yuan’s upbringing and Wei Wuxian’s hopes for him to slough off the ugly legacy of the Wen Sect. 

(and if 不染 buran, unstained, reminds anyone of a certain dust-avoiding sword... well. At least it’s more subtle than 如兰 rulan this time around)

but if I’m gonna level with you all, 温不染 Wen Buran as a courtesy name doesn’t really sound nice to me, despite how much I like it’s literary reference, so I’m going to pop down to the next line and pick up 清涟 qinglian / clear ripples, because 1) it’s a lovely image, 2) it’s got hella water radicals like the 湛 zhan in 蓝湛 Lan Zhan, and 3) there’s a subtly subversive argument to be made that the subset of the Wen Sect that Wei Wuxian defends, that A-Yuan grows up in, is different from the 污泥 wuni / mud and filth of the major Wen Sect. A-Yuan may have his roots in the mud, but he grows through the clear water of the Burial Mounds community, to become a lovingly-tended lotus who can rise above his origins, back straight, upright, noble, elegant, righteous.

tl;dr it’s a total shot in the dark, but I’d make my argument for 温清涟 Wen Qinglian for an AU A-Yuan courtesy name

#mdzs #a yuan

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#yeeeesssss #nature

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kind of wild how much fiction still treats torture as something that objectively works when every study has shown that it does not work at all and is possibly the least effective way to get correct information

#it’s so true #writing

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After Maigu Ridge

Yue Qingyuan: I would like to invite Shang-shidi back to our sect

Shang Qinghua, suspicious: Why?

Yue Qingyuan: You have shown great bravery here today and have proven that you are willing to fight for humanity despite your demon allegiances

Shang Qinghua, squinting: What's the real reason

Yue Qingyuan: No one else on the mountain knows how to do taxes

#it’s so true #ling wen #tgcf spoilers #tgcf #funny

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AU where everything's the same, except....

#approved no notes #mdzs #lan wangji #lan zhan #fanart #art

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memories...

#mdzs #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #twin prides of yunmeng #wei ying #art #fanart

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Wei Wuxian: Has chronic memory problems that cause him to forget important information about both who is love with him and who wants him dead

Wei Wuxian: At most briefly met Jiang Cheng’s dogs one time over two decades ago before they were taken out of his sight and given away

Wei Wuxian: Needs only to meet a dog named Fairy to instantly recall that as a small child Jiang Cheng named his dogs Princess, Jasmine, and Love and develop an instant conviction deep in his soul that it is Jiang Cheng’s fault their nephew gave his dog a stripper name.

#amazing #yup feels accurate #mdzs #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #wei ying #the untamed

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#funny #one could even say… punderf-

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Cider drinkers are an oppressed class

#prev > #everyone asking for beer or wine. girl i want mead #mulled cider is one of the only hot beverages i regularly drink and you can pry it from me the same day the sun goes out and NOT BEFORE #and mulled wine but same difference #another reason to love winter #winter

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Sokka: Aang y'know how you took away Ozai’s firebending?

Aang: I recall yes

Sokka: can I have it

Aang: …what?

Sokka: can I have his firebending. just for like ten minutes

Aang: what no

Sokka: why not I wanna prank zuko

Aang:

Aang:

Aang: okay five minutes

#i adore it #god one of my favorite headcanons #it’s so good #funny #atla #fanart #comic

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we got the wedding photos back and this is one of my favorites

#taking notes taking quite a few notes #i adore #someday i will be a proper sword bisexual

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Happy birthday Hanguang-Jun!!! This set was inspired by the super cute fic “Important Distinctions”

#doing the good work #wonderful #the untamed #mdzs #lan wangji #lan zhan

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As someone recently diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, one thing that’s been helping me grapple with the intense shame I have over all my “wasted potential” is accepting that potential doesn’t exist and never did.

This sounds so harsh, but please bare with me.

I procrastinated a lot growing up. I still procrastinate today, but less so. And yet, I got good grades. I could write an A+ paper that “knocked [my professor]’s socks off” in the hour before class and print it with sweat running down my face.

I was so used to hearing from teachers and family that if I just didn’t procrastinate and worked all the time, I could do anything! I had all this potential I wasn’t living up to!

And that’s true, as far as it goes, but that’s like saying if Usain Bolt just kept going he could be the fastest marathon runner in the world. Why does he stop at the end of the race??

If ANYONE could make their top speed/most productive setting the one they used all the time, anyone could do anything. But you can’t. Your top speed is not a speed you’re able to sustain.

Now, I’ve found that I do need to work on not procrastinating. Not because the product is better, even, but because it’s better for my mental health and physical health to not have a full, sweating, panicked breakdown over every task even if the task itself turns out excellently. It’s a shitty way to live! You feel bad ALL the time! And I don’t deserve to live like that anymore.

So all of this to say, I’m not wasting a ton of potential. I don’t have an ocean of productivity and accomplishments inside of me that I could easily, effortlessly access if I just sat down 8 hours a day and worked. There’s no fucking way. That’s not real. It’s an illusion. It’s fine not to live up to an illusion.

And if you have ADHD, I mean this from the bottom of my heart: you do not have limitless potential confounded by your laziness. You have the good potential of a good person, and you can access it with practice and work, but do not accept the story that you are choosing not to be all that you are or can be. You are just a human person.

#always good to have a reminder

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inspired by that kinnporsche meme

look don't think about it too hard, I obviously didn't

#untamed characters by how cursed their kitkat eating habits are #mdzs #the untamed #funny

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Jin Ling mimicked the fighter’s pose and intense expression as the title flashed onto the screen: “The Golden Dragon, starring Jin Zixuan”

https://archiveofourown.org/works/31318517/chapters/77436083

#tiny angry baby #jin ling #mdzs #fanart #art

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happy hanguang-june!

#it is not june but that's irrelevant #happy pride 🌈 #every month is pride month if you allow yourself to be consumed by hubris #mdzs #lan wangji #lan zhan #art #fanart #so pretty

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a cute but disastrous old habit between a dragon and her foster knight

#absolutely adorable #art #comic #dragon #knight #worldbuilding