TOR WRAPPED 2023
Books for every Spotify Wrapped listener class!
VAMPIRE
Masters of Death by Olivie Blake
Starling House by Alix E. Harrow
Mordew by Alex Pheby
HYPNOTIST
The Library of the Dead by T. L. Huchu
Daughter of Redwinter by Ed McDonald
Spring’s Arcana by Lilith Saintcrow
ALCHEMIST
The Bone Orchard by Sara A. Mueller
The Genesis of Misery by Neon Yang
The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey
SHAPESHIFTER
Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher
The Warden by Daniel M. Ford
Wolfsong by TJ Klune
FANATIC
Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson
Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree
The Fragile Threads of Power by V. E. Schwab
TIME TRAVELER
Kinning by Nisi Shawl
She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab
MASTERMIND
The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake
Red Team Blues by Cory Doctorow
Exadelic by Jon Evans
COLLECTOR
The Wolfe at the Door by Gene Wolfe
Cassiel’s Servant by Jacqueline Carey
The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan
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father father
father father
father father
father father
why have you forsaken me?
in your eyes, forsaken me
in your thoughts, forsaken me
in your heart, forsaken me
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Ma Xiuying from the Radiant Emperor duology!
Design/research notes under the cut
The characters read 馬秀英 (Pinyin: mǎ xiù yīng), her personal name, and 孝慈高皇后 (xiào cí gāo huáng hòu), her name as Empress.
There's certainly no dearth of material on Chinese clothing history out there. That is, if you can read Chinese, which I can't, so everything I have is from secondary and tertiary sources and/or relies on translation software. Fortunately, we're dealing with historical fantasy here, so some anachronisms are not only allowed but encouraged.
While Shelley Parker-Chan takes many liberties, the books are still set in a very specific time period, which is both a blessing and a curse. Most readily accessible resources will tell you about dynasties, which can span hundreds of years, and the duology takes place in a transitional period. So how to dress a Semu girl from the Yuan dynasty who lives with Nanren rebels wanting to revive the Song dynasty and who later becomes the first Ming empress?
Let's go through them one by one. The best resource was this book which is on the Internet Archive. I disregarded Mongol and Semu influences for the design since clothing is very much political and a way to either stand out or fit in with the surrounding society, see for example Wang Baoxiang wearing a topknot in Khanbaliq. Ma, I imagine, would want to fit in with the Nanren around her, so she's pretty much wearing the attire of Han women under Yuan rule. For the hair I went for something that looks youthful while being plausible, though I found very little on hair in this period, so who's to say.
The next one is from a specific scene in the book, so there is some description to go on: red, long sleeves with gold embroidery, high hair, red and gold ribbons. Since this is the scene where Ma declares herself queen and future empress in front of the Red Turban, it has to be a very deliberate dress. It therefore takes inspiration from Song aristocrats' broad-sleeved gowns as well as from 翟衣 (dí yī), the highest ceremonial gown of both Song and Ming empresses. (Some examples for 翟衣 are in this post, which also features the bird shaped crown I just had to include, and this post.) Her hair still has the loops, but it's much more sculpted.
Finally, Empress Ma! This is mainly based on the two actual portraits I could find of the historical figure that Ma is based on, with elements taken from other portraits and paintings. It includes 凤冠 (fèng guān), the phoenix crown, 霞帔 (xiá pèi), the sash, and 禁步 (jīn bù), the jade belt. This video shows how Ming dynasty layers are worn, but it refers to a much later period so it's not quite the same as Ma's.
(Some additional, historically irrelevant notes: I realized too late that a right-to-left timeline might be more appropriate. Oh well! Also, how the colours photograph frustrates me, I swear I did not make her this deathly pale. And finally, some of the characters look a bit smudged because my cat spilled water on them. I did what I could to save them.)
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I think what really elevated Zhu’s character for me was the excellent cheer in which she goes about doing the most morally corrupt things. She’s mild and funny and grins a lot and jokes with her friends and flirts with her wife and loves her sooo tenderly (the end of swbts though oughhh); she’s a monk who can’t fight for shit (or ride a horse) and is altogether a pretty chill guy. And idk it’s so refreshing because the author subverts the (incredibly infuriating) trope of squashing every ‘badass’ non-male character into the snarky-and-cold-and-hates-everyone cast. Zhu is warm and loving and wily and incredibly fucked up and it’s so much more fun to watch than whatever is going on with most YA leads
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