; the little -details- xXx

:(

or at least as me

(you know, if you're curious)

then let me share some thoughts

like

1) bursting to tears at the thought of shopping

2) browsing through the clothes on display and wow some of these would look good if only i were half my current size

3) choosing a piece then the shopkeeper would tell you, "sorry, not available in your size"

4) or "hang on, let me get the biggest size for you"

5) and then finding out that still won't fit

6) and then you know feel sorry that i can't bring business to that shop because i'm just too fat

7) and then resolving to exercise more and eat less

8) except i'm already torturing myself but god thinks it's fucking funny to still make me fat against all physical laws of sciences 

not gonna moan about my identity crisis

alhough you know identity crisis reminds me of dc comics=comics=bucky=matt fraction=FUCK YOU adfxadfadrageREDLANTERN but anyway

you know what i love about chinese history i think you know the root is like in that famous sentence luo guanzhong used in the beginnfng of the romanceof three kingdoms

the empire long divided must be united; long united must be divided

and as somebody who knows shit little about history i mean this is like th ebasic truth of the like the world

well it says something about entropy, at leas tthe last part does, so there is like a physical truth to it but the first part i think is like human tendency and that's the beauty of it you know it's just so human for us to try to fight the natural order (in this case to descend into entropy, into chaos) and try to glue all thes epieces together wheee

lol okay not gonna even bother spellchecking this k but my point is

that in the cycles of dynaties 

in the fires of war and the tide sof change 

so many heroes so many inspiring figures so many legends and stories everytime i learn something new i feel like wow this would make like the most epic movie/show/book/comic ever 

heroessssssss

not even super, just normal people with ambitions who know what to do

heroes

and you know troubled times attract heroes like moths to lamps and all tese stories between the dynaties, and how china as a world keeps rebuilding itself i mean it's amazing don't you think 

and even in "peaceful times" there are still like amazing figures you know. i'm so fascinated by the chinese culture of ... culture. how they so treasure their own traditions they hve like this huge inertia when it comes to reforms and changes and the battle this plays out in the magnificent courts in kaifeng or nanjing or beijing idk it's like uniform throughout the dynaties (except for the short lived ones of course). wow.

during a horrible tour that scarred me--idk it was a very ~unique experience~ but I'm too lazy to do up a proper post on it because of BUTTHURT feelings (LOL AM I BEING A HORRIBLE FUCKING TEASE)--but anyway we went to a wax museum that gave visitors a great outline of the Ming dynasty history.

Obviously doing one movie (impossible!) or one show just on one special emperor could cost JFC and take JFC but while I strolled through the museum I was like thinking just how amazing a story based on this entire dynasty would be. ALL THE BETRAYALS AND CONSPIRACIES AND HEROISM AND REVIVALS AND REFORMS AND DOWNFALL and oh my god when I left the place I was like, wow, I'd just walked through ONE OF THE MOST EPIC STORIES ever and it involved only about twenty-ish scenes crafted beautifully by wax figures. I can't even imagine the difficulty of constructing such a story if only just thinking of the scale of characters involved (oh my god the character work you would need--and the research and the details to make them come to life; you can spend a lifetime or two just on this aspect--to OUTLINE the characters). 

Anyway, Yi Herng actually called as I exited the place and I jabbered like an idiot (seriously I think all my friends think I'm an insufferable fool by now; I embarrass even myself listening to myself talk. Why do I have like 0 social skill GOD OH WHY). Then when he'd hung up I thought about the Ming dynasty again and I was just like

okay the most epic stories not even the brightest minds could conjure up

it's life, man.

the most amazing stuff still comes from life. nothing can even compare.

I felt like really enlightened (because you know I'm a stupid pessimistic shallow fool when it comes to understanding what life is, and because I've always been trying to escape reality thinking life is shit and stuff) for about five minutes until we had to go to our next tourist spot and my day was ruined. I don't know. What am I.

Listening to Li Shanchang so intently that he leaned against the teapot 


except that Zhu Yuanzhang isn't a cute figure. I mean, it's like a pretty good show if I didn't stop to think that oh God this is Zhu Yuanzhang, and he's currently like so adorable and awkward and cute but in slightly over a decade he's gonna go off the edge and kills almost everyone who would have helped him to establish the Ming dynasty--in the number of 30 to 40 thousand because he's convinced they're out to get him. Someone on youku mentioned that maybe it's just because he needs to consolidate his power, and since he came from peasant stock, he's got to cull potential usurper--but the very suggestion that all that is gonna happen under cold rational judgement just makes him even more terrifying. I mean. DEAR GOD. 

He's obviously a very remarkable man. Very talented, gifted, capable. Within a decade, he rose from a starving poor monk to one of the most powerful warlords in China, and then not long after that, he'd established his own dynasty. It makes for amazing rags to riches story--it even rivals that of Liu Bang's. But anybody who's inspired by this tale would recoil at the atrocities he'd commit once he's consolidated power. 

Obviously parallels to Liu Bang would always be drawn when it comes to him (even in the show there was a scene where he explicitly mentioned Liu Bang was his most admired figure) but if you ask me, he's a much scarier figure than him. I find both an inspiring figure, but selectively so; obviously I'm just going to admire them for how they climb up from humble origins to the ultimate success, and how they calmly dealt with the humiliations and difficulties they were handed with, and especially how they could inspire their generals and followers, but the paranoia, the backstabbing, the outright, if not morbid, cruelty? I'll pass.

OH AND I WAS TALKING ABOUT THIS SHOW OH YEAH okay I'm like on the sixth episode and so far it's been very liberal in its interpretation of historical facts and events and you know I could be pretty okay with that as long as it doesn't cross that certain line nobody's bothered defining but tacitly agrees on. Hu Jun is anyway so adorable as Zhu Yuanzhang. WHICH IS DISTURBING idek but I'm going to give this more of a chance because I want to watch something about Zhu Yuanzhang and I haven't stumbled upon a better version. 

And I'm going to admit I find Zhu Yuanzhang very interesting but again I don't, like, worship the guy. How could anyone when they find out that for what he'd done he'd go down in history as one of its most notorious mass murderer? 

while I watch Zhu Yuanzhang

TEN OH GOD HE DIDN'T WANT TO GO OH GOD NOOO OMG CRYING CRYING CRYING

what is this this these arent tears this is me crying my fucking heart out MY FUCKING HEART OUT it fucking melted and leeched out of my eyes like fucking tears do you understand that I am CRYING

... and then Mom called. 

by the way I managed to successfully delay watching this for like what, four months because I was right in the amount of heart pain it would (and is) giving me. omg no Ten no I'm going to spend the rest of my day in bed crying for Ten.

he was Han Wudi in Han Wu Da Di

he was Zhu Yuanzhang in Chuanqi Huangdi Zhu Yuan Zhang

he was Li Shimin in Zhengguan Changge

as far as stereotypical casting goes, this is pretty kick ass. He hasn't got any offer to play Qin Shihuang or Emperor Kangxi or Qianlong, but he was Zhu Youlang, the last Ming emperor-in-exile in Jiangshan Fengyu Qing. 

and I have henceforth embarked on a quest throughout the comment pages of Youku and tudou to gauge the reception of these shows. Because I am of a weak mind and am easily swayed by crowds, I strike off negatively received shows from the list, whittling it down to a few. And then I decided that hey, okay, I'll watch the first episodes of each to see the tone of the show. 

There is <秦王李世民>, which has people (digitally) flying, pretty boys, costumes which the 6th century wouldn't have (but wouldn't look outta place in a video game or anime) and what why is the future Emperor Taizong of Tang a stereotypical bad bishi boy. 

I have nothing against flying people and impossible costumes if I were watching maybe wuxia shows or one of those quirky Hong Kong shows which are my secret guilty pleasure despite its super cheesy plot (it always involves people blasting inner energies at each other. Then again I grew up reading Dragon Ball) and special effects (probably the addition of the likes of Raymond Lam and Frankie Lam help. A lot) . I mean I'm enjoying the Condor Heroes which are very much shot in the same tone, and I am loving the fuck out of the new Judge Bao series(es), but these are all based on wuxia sensibilities, and this is what I expect of them anyway. I'm not anal when it comes to THE PROPER HISTORICAL REPRESENTATION WORD FOR WORD OMG (I mean look at me I spent how long gushing over The Qin Empire's versions of Wei Yang and Quliang who are exaggerations of their historical counterparts) but I'm in the market for a proper Li Shimin tale, thank you very much. 

Okay so moving on, I'm currently divided between two shows which are so far so good (for my inferior commonplace etc taste). There is <隋唐英雄传>, which is based on one of the two popular romanticizations of the Sui-Tang period, if I'm not wrong (the other one being <隋唐英演义>. The second show is <贞观长歌> which is going to be about Emperor Taizong's reign (zhenguan, hence the title). Fun thing is that there were two shows with almost the same title on this subject aired at the same time--one on CCTV and the other on a channel whose name escapes me. Apparently this is supposed to be the better series, so. 

I actually want to watch Li Shimin's ascent to power--and I want copious amounts of battle scenes too please because nothing says epic like batallions of armored people beating the crap out of one another--but because I'm a greedy bitch I also want a lot on how he reigns because he is one of the most successful emperors in Chinese history. Oh I don't know. 
jesus I'll just watch both then because I've got no life. Whee.

okay what was the point of this post idek