Xianle Quartet Is A Top Tier Polyship Not Only Because Of The Metric Ton Of Emotional Baggage (and The

anyway mei nianqing going "my dear highness" while getting chocked by jun wu who is actively trying to kill him is kinda insane. mnq is the biggest freak in this series and doesnt get nearly enough credit for it

I need someone to estimate the net casualties of junmei's divorce. It's in the millions for sure, the question is just how many.

Do you think MNQ have actual feelings for JW?Even after everything he's done?

[WARNING: SPOILERS ON TGCF END]

me, outside: *calmly typing*me, inside: LISTEN UP ONE (1) BRAIN CELL OF MINE - WE FINALLY GET A JW AND MNQ AND JUNMEI ASK SO SQUEEZE IT UP

Haha okayokay, so first of all - I’m not sure what you mean by “actual feelings” like is it in a platonic loyalty way? romantic sense? So I’m just going to try to be very general as much as possible. 

MNQ DEFINITELY LOVES JW (take the “love” however you mean it). MNQ left JW once already and hid from him. But now, he’s back and took courage to return and stay this time around. 

It’s evident that MNQ still cares for JW that when he found out that there was someone who was born under the same stars/circumstances and the like as JW, he disguised himself as that child’s teacher. We can also see how much he still respects him that even though technically JW was their “enemy”, when HC was being disrespectful to him with his “Why do we have to attach importance to you?”, MNQ couldn’t help himself to berate HC who was technically on their side with “Youngster, when you speak, don’t be too arrogant!” Of course, this is also because MNQ knew that JW is strong af and if pushed to his limit will wreck them all haha He also got how this JW’s mind worked (hence the many scolding and words he gave XL before) and even in ch237 we get that confirmed with “The Guo Shi can be said to be the person who understands Bai Wuxiang the most in this world right now”. 

And we also see how despite MNQ technically being a very big foil to his plans, JW holds him dear in his own way. He could have killed MNQ any time but time and time again, he keeps him alive (their false pretenses on each other when MNQ was still Xian Le’s Guo Shi and when he dragged him up the heavens and locked him up instead). Another instance this was very evident was when HC and JW were fighting and MNQ kept giving his insight to help their side and JW just lightly reprimands him with the part: He glances at the Guo Shi, smiling, “To teach others how to deal with me in front of me, and I won’t to kill you, but you’re certainly becoming increasingly bolder.”

Point is - MNQ and JW are on opposing sides and despite the fight not literally technically between them, the pain and hurt they have on each other seeps through. This was most evident during that time when XL was getting smashed by JW that MNQ screamed at JW asking him to stop and appealing to his humanity with arguments on “XL is young! Let him go this once! He’ll be sensible one day!”. And then JW turns his attention to MNQ and basically states his own hurt against him with words like “The one you wish to be sensible is not him but me, right?” and he starts accusing him of bringing up and teaching XL in hopes that XL will show JW that he’s wrong and anyway that whole ordeal. 

And when JW was pinned down, MNQ kept calling for him to stop, to please forget it and he kneels and begs JW to see reason even though JW kept roaring “scram!” to him. *cries* Then JW starts strangling him in anger and MNQ waves XL’s help away and just quietly says, “Your Highness ah.” And JW could snap his neck then and there and we all know MNQ would let him. JW would have continued fighting XL but it was MNQ’s words that finally reached him when MNQ admitted how he missed him, how he missed their friends, how he missed the days when they haven’t ascended and finally with that “i am tired now, are you not tired as well?” AT THE END, BOTH OF THEM ARE TIRED - MNQ is tired of running away, of letting JW down, of all this destruction; JW himself is tired of pretending, of deceiving, of suffering alone. 

MNQ understood the Wu Yong emperor, his friend, the one person he was loyal to. But back then, he failed to understand the fallen emperor, this devastation who wore a mask - who was consumed by pain, grief, and suffering that he destroyed, murdered, and made others bleed. It was only during this present time that he finally understood that part of JW; hence, why he stayed instead of running away again. One of my favorite parts on the last scenes of the big fight (besides XL putting his bamboo hat on JW as a parallel to how bamboo hat man put it on XL aka this act of kindness that saves is being passed on) is that small scene after the XL vs JW fight. XL asks MNQ to come with them but MNQ responds with “I’ll accompany His Highness the Crowned Prince for a while. After all, in the past, I didn’t accompany him.” 

*breaking down* It took them sooooo many years of dealing with pain, grief, and feelings of betrayal ALONE SEPARATELY but now they can stop. MNQ finally takes the courage to stay with JW this time and JW finally has that one person he needed by his side. They took a long destructive path to get here but now, they can start healing TOGETHER and rest.

Terrible Trusted Advisors

(Even more of my Nan Feng & Fu Yao are real deputy officials AU)

+

How it started

Awkward meeting

Hmm, I'm surprisingly calmer this chapter (it's the stress i'm telling ya) and so much yapping to be done for EndoChika istg. I'm sorry for sidelining our savior Ume for the nth time, I'll make it up to you king i swear 😭🙏.

My thoughts on Chapter 152 of Wind Breaker so spoilers ahead!

First, the title ("Symbols") is so very fitting let me tell ya.

Secondly, idk why but Sakura being worried for Umemiya is so heart warming 🥹. My son, oh my, have you have grown so much 🥹😭🤧. I hope he gets to do the "babe this isnt you" that other people have said about in previous chapters, but like in the funniest way possible.

Thirdly, this panel of Ume is insane!! LIKE THE EYEE, THIS IS BOFURIN'S LEADER Y'ALL. BEAT HIM UP UME!!

Fourthly, Endo and Takiishi tattoo lore drop??? Not me thinking that tattoo on Endo's left deltoid m. was exclusively for himself then Takiishi takes of his jacket only to reveal the same tattoo as well!?

AND THEN PROCEEDS TO LORE DROP THAT HE DREW THE TATTOO HIMSELF??? Moreover, TAKIISHI AGREED?? these two make me sick (/affectionate)

(TAKIISHI LOOKS SO TINY HELP WHAT-)

AND OF COURSE HE TOOK GREAT CARE IN FINDING SMTHING THAT FITS TAKIISHI SO WELL.

I made a visual for comparison:

(Btw, the "kuzushi" is actually a JP martial arts term for unbalancing an opponent + there's a story behind the Kunikuzushi: to briefly sum it up, a military commander from the Sengoku Period by the name of Ōtomo Sōrin had obtained an ichibiya likely imported from Portuguese Goa, India and used it for battle in other countries hence its name Kunikuzushi.)

-

Man's so gay he literally made a soulmark tattoo for his boo. Even Sakura could see it.

Endo lowkey be fantasizing an period dramas in his head with Takiishi and I can respect that.

Him also being jealous of Umemiya that he's the center of Takiishi's thoughts is so hwkwkfksl. Ume would very much like to not be Takiishi's center of attention and can you please get your boyfriend back, please and thank you. This guy I swear, I'm embarrased for you and all your boy failure. Keep doing you hun.

Lastly, this chapter has made Endo more & more relatable and I don't know how I feel about that so I made memes about it:

He's part of the art community my guys. (Not surprising considering he is a prodigy).

Thank you again Nii-sensei for the chapter and to Jacqueline Fung for the official translation 🙏 Please go and support them via the official international release in Kodansha.

K MANGA

K MANGA - You can read the latest chapter on the Kodansha official comic site for free!

K MANGA - You can read the latest chapter on the Kodansha official comic site for free!

(P.S. I've decided to move my wbk content on a new blog specifically for wbk. That also means new chapter rants will be there to for the forseeable future. So if you wanna check that out, come visit me @transient-winds )

I just want to say, before anything else, that I love your blog! It's so helpful to me when I write things. I'm also sorry for how long this ask is going to be. I normally ask anonymously but it won't let me put the photo in.

I really like this hanfu set but I don't know exactly what dynasty it's from, or even if it's actually historically accurate.

I also wanted to ask about the hanfu from Flourished Peony, and how accurate they are. Specifically that one pink round-collar hanfu Mudan wears when she's getting flowers from the mountain that I thought was a men's item, rather than a women's one.

Sorry about the long ask!

Going to answer both of these together since they're about the same show.

About the hanfu in the picture, this is a Ruqun (襦裙) set from the Weijin. The biggest giveaway is the stripe at the sleeves (it looks like 2 stripes but I have another pic of this outfit and you can see it's actually 1 decorative stripe with two bright borders). Also, if you look at this pic below with it untucked in the skirt, you can kind of see that there's a horizontal piece of fabric along the waist area.

If you take a look at my post about the Ruqun (here) you'll see an artefact that's very similar.

For Flourished peony, I'm only going to comment on the hanfu as I don't have enough knowledge about Tang dynasty hair or makeup right now to make any judgements. I'm also not looking at the patterns on the fabrics, I'm literally only looking at the styles of the clothing themselves.

Disclaimer, I haven't watched the show. These photos are from Google and Baidu promotional pics, and I did click through a few eps to take screencaps.

And if anyone has a screencap of, or can let me know which episode, the "pink round-collar hanfu Mudan wears" that's mentioned in the ask I'd really appreciate it (I tried looking for it but couldn't find it T__T)

Looking briefly through some of the posts regarding this show, it seems the production team put a lot of effort into recreating the Tang Dynasty aesthetic, from costumes to props (there are some people who have found props and matched them to museum pieces). For the most part, the clothing seems appropriate for the time period, the only nitpick I'll do is that it seems to mix together clothing styles from early Tang all the way to late Tang (but the show isn't set in a specific period of the Tang Dynasty, so they can kind of get away with that).

Most of the men seem to wear the round-collar robes that was most common during the Tang Dynasty (my post on it here).

This style of qixiong dress (over-bust dress) seems to be most common in this show, and definitely a staple for women's hanfu during the Tang Dynasty.

If you look at the width of her sleeve here, it doesn't appear very wide. Sleeve width became wider and wider during the Tang Dynasty, so looking at these sleeves it seems more early-going-into-Gold-era Tang (my post on Gold-era Tang hanfu here).

This style looks more early-Tang with the very form-fitted sleeve and the non-qixiong skirt. I can't see clearly the pattern of her dress here, but early Tang skirts often had alternating coloured blocks on their skirts (called jianqun/间裙子)(my post on early Tang here and here).

I can't tell clearly if this dress is a qixiong dress, or a hezi dress. Hezi dresses so far are not backed by any artefacts, there are rumours of its existence but nothing has been unearthed to verify it (someone asked me about this, I posted on it here).

Looking at the long outer robe with the wide sleeve, even if this was a qixiong dress, this would be late Tang, edging into the Five Dynasties post-Tang (my post on this here).

In the first pic, the two maids are wearing outfits that are very typical in early Tang. The collars, the little vest/half-sleeve of the shirt, etc.

I'll nitpick that historically, Chinese capes did not have hoods attached. They came separately.

You can see in this pic (from the 1987 Dream of the Red Chambers), the woman is wearing her cape, the man is holding the hood for her.

My personal theory is because of the various hair styles women have, and the various hats/guan (head pieces) men wear, a separate hood offered more flexibility. Like in this pic from Romance of the Three Kingdoms (1994), he's wearing a very tall guan so trying to fit it under a hood that's attached to the cape would be difficult. But this is all just my guesses, don't quote me xD

This maid is wearing a round-collared robe usually associated with men, but actually during the Tang Dynasty it wasn't uncommon for women to wear this style of robe as well.

This man has half the robe on, the other half off his shoulder, displaying the half-sleeve underneath. This was a common way men wore their robes in casual situations (it looks like he's hunting) (my post on this here).

I took this screenshot because you can see the difference in lengths between these two men's robes. One is calf-length, one is ankle-length. Men's robes also got longer as time went on during the Tang Dynasty. It's possible this servant is wearing a shorter robe to make walking easier, but going by the length of the man in red, this should be at least late-Tang Dynasty (post mentioning robe length here).

This outfit's sleeve is very wide, indicating later in the Tang Dynasty. I think people believe form-fitted sleeves were more for younger girls, servants, or women of lower class who had to work and large, wide sleeves were for higher-level women or older women who sat around all day. In actuality, sleeve width was an indication of time period during the Tang Dynasty (for both men and women).

This look is straight out of a Dunhuang Buddhist donor mural. They painted these to commemorate people who were devoted to Buddhism and/or gave a lot of offerings, you can find these murals at the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang City today (my post on this here).

I know I said I wouldn't discuss hair but just this one, since it's such an iconic look for the Tang Dynasty. This hairstyle is a clear replica of the Ladies with Flower in their Hair painting (簪花仕女图), but they've changed the clothing. This painting was originally believed to be from the Golden-era or Mid-Tang, but in recent years historians believe it's more likely to be late-Tang or Five Dynasties (possibly even Song Dynasty) painted. Even in China a lot of people still associate it with the Tang Dynasty.

So overall, the show's production team clearly did research to replicate Tang Dynasty clothing. For the most part, they did a good job, no cross-dynasty clothing being tossed around. There's a bit of mish-mash for which period of the Tang Dynasty the clothing's from, but that's not a huge issue. Given some of the crazy costumes that's come out of period dramas in recent years, big applause to the production team to the costuming department.

Can you imagine being Pei Ming, God of Love, able to see when people love each other, able to see their emotions flowing between them, and having to watch Feng Xin and Mu Qing being the biggest clowns and making a ruckus across the Heaven with their fights while insisting that they don’t like each other?? I can’t decide if he’d just be wildly entertained or wanting to tear his hair out in frustration and despair.

«Thank you for giving me a family»

Hi! I really like your blog for the historical facts and the really nice statues and paintings of hanfus! I literally come back here whenever I'm designing outfits for my OCs and I just really really like learning about the ancient Chinese world. I really wanted to ask where these pictures and maybe the information on the timeline of the hanfu's come from. Any book or website is fine.

Also, how did most maids in waiting to a noble person dress?

Hi!!

Thank you for your kind message, I'm very happy that the information here can help you 😃❤️❤️ I love getting to share Hanfu with others who also appreciate its beauty!!

For maids in waiting, China differed a lot from the west. From what I understand (and if this is wrong please let me know), maids/ladies in waiting were often from nobility themselves, or had some family background, sent to assist the Queen or someone of a high rank. Historically in China, maids (either to the royal family, to nobility, or just to a rich family) are sold into this role so they themselves come from no/very low family background. Of course, in a complicated system like royal court there would be ranks in the servants as well, but they would not bring in a daughter of the nobility to serve the Queen or Princess.

As for their outfits, this would depend on the time period and who exactly they're serving. For example, maids in the court would dress differently than maids to a nobility. Here are some murals I found that depicts maids/servants. Overall their outfits and hairstyles are simpler than their masters:

For the photos in my posts I find them all over the internet 😃 Once I decide which garment(s) I'm going to be focusing on for the post, I Google/Baidu (Chinese search engine) search for images of the garment on unearthed artefacts. Then I go looking for where the artefact was found and where it's located now (some ppl don't label it, and then I have to play detective T__T). Sometimes I'll also search on Red Note (Chinese app/website) or Bilibili (Chinese youtube) for information as well.

For the timeline, I'm not sure which information you're referring to. The dynasties? I kind of just...know the dynasties from learning about Chinese history ^^;; You can also find it on Wikipedia, Wiki has a general overview of all the dynasties if you're interested 😃

As for books, the main book I'm using right now is this one:

中国历代风流服饰

It touches on some of the main garments in each dynasty and is a nice starting point for anyone just starting to learn about historical Hanfu. Unfortunately it's only available in Chinese.

I also got these two books a while ago that are also very helpful (but also only available in Chinese, there's a lack of any English books regarding Hanfu T__T).

True Love <3

(original audio by average_jake_)!