I'm Studying History In All Its Horrifying Glory And Literally Have To Take A Breath And Think About

i'm studying history in all its horrifying glory and literally have to take a breath and think about tgcf every ten minutes to comfort myself

Eleanor update! This box is NOT for beans. NO beans inside the box.

The tags by @shen-jiu-domestication-club

Now I'm imagining Shen Jiu going around Cang Qiong or on a hunt, with his sleeves - or wherever they used to store stuff - completely overflowing with Yue Qingyuan's gifts

I know I'm probably overthinking it now after thinking about it but the fact that there are writers who have Yue Qingyuan and Shen Jiu have luxurious things is so spot on for people who grew up poor, who grew up with nothing. From my experience.

And this is me painting it with my brush of projection, of seeing a situation similar(worse) than mine, and while I haven't been as low as they have been, I have been there. I've watched my mother weigh needs over wants--I experienced it myself as I got older and I came out of it in the sense of, having materialistic things isn't necessary but if I had the money for it, of course I'd consider buying it. Not because I actually want it or need it, but because I was a young girl forced to see what a lack of money makes people do or what they give up just to live. Because having money just to survive is such a worry that rich people will never understand why it's a worry. And that expensive, overpriced, luxurious item isn't something that is even a need but a simple want to show that I can have it because I worked for it.

Now, as a grown-up, I can understand the image of Yue Qingyuan giving such guady gifts to Shen Jiu because that's what I do for the people in my life. I see this sparkling piece of jewelry or this pretty shawl or beautiful dress or something that is obviously showy and expensive, and I offer it up to whoever it made me think of because I want them to have nice things. Because I'm in a place to give it to them after living day after day, only allowing myself longing looks and resentful tears of how cruel life can be.

The symbolism of Yue Qingyuan giving Shen Jiu these clearly expensive and probably guady gifts shows that he cares, and it stems from remembering how they had nothing. How it was only a dream that they thought they'd never see come to fruition. But he's suffered, he's worked hard and he's now in a position to give everything they probably talked about to or things he dreamed about giving, to the one person who was there by his side. And it's a terribly messy gift filled with so many memories and feelings that even though he knows it's useless, or knows that it's ugly but he doesn't care because this thing just reminded him of Shen Jiu and it represents absolutely everything and yet nothing at the same time.

It's him saying I remember. It's him saying we had nothing, but now that I'm in this position, everything I own is yours.

And Shen Jiu accepting it is his silent agreement of I remember too.

Reblog if you ARE a woman in STEM, SUPPORT women in STEM, or ARE STILL BITTER about Rosalind Franklin not getting credit for discovering the structure of DNA and the Nobel prize going to Watson and Crick instead.

this is just my opinion but i think any good media needs obsession behind it. it needs passion, the kind of passion that's no longer "gentle scented candle" and is now "oh shit the house caught on fire". it needs a creator that's biting the floorboards and gnawing the story off their skin. creators are supposed to be wild animals. they are supposed to want to tell a story with the ferocity of eating a good stone fruit while standing over the sink. the same protective, strange instinct as being 7 and making mud potions in pink teacups: you gotta get weird with it.

good media needs unhinged, googling-at-midnight kind of energy. it needs "what kind of seams are invented on this planet" energy and "im just gonna trust the audience to roll with me about this" energy. it needs one person (at least) screaming into the void with so much drive and energy that it forces the story to be real.

sometimes people are baffled when fanfic has some stunning jaw-dropping tattoo-it-on-you lines. and i'm like - well, i don't go here, but that makes sense to me. of fucking course people who have this amount of passion are going to create something good. they moved from a place of genuine love and enjoyment.

so yeah, duh! saturday cartoons have banger lines. random street art is sometimes the most precious heart-wrenching shit you've ever seen. someone singing on tiktok ends up creating your next favorite song. youtubers are giving us 5 hours of carefully researched content. all of this is the impossible equation to latestage capitalism. like, you can't force something to be good. AI cannot make it good. no amount of focus-group testing or market research. what makes a story worth listening to is that someone cares so much about telling it - through dance, art, music, whatever it takes - that they are just a little unhinged about it.

one time my friend told me he stayed up all night researching how many ways there are to peel an orange. he wrote me a poem that made me cry on public transportation. the love came through it like pith, you know? the words all came apart in my hands. it tasted like breakfast.

This is making me doubt reality

I got the Top 4.47% on this English Vocabulary test