Once in a blue mood

i miss you, and the summers have returned.

having an evil shishu: also extremely normal. what, you can have an evil shixiong but your shifu can’t? grow up.

having an evil shidi: also fairly common, although there might be a larger issue at play so keep your eyes open for that

having an evil shifu: this is itself an issue, since you are now in one of the classic Confucian Conundrums and have to choose between sacrificing righteousness or filial piety

kisses

Francis Alÿs, Nightwatch, 2004.  

Phalera bucephala, otherwise known as the buff-tip moth, is a remarkable mimic that can easily disguise itself as a twig. This moth has a unique resting position that makes its body seem narrower and more cylindrical, and its wings are covered in silver patterns that resemble tree bark, while the buff-colored patches on its head and forewings mimic the appearance of freshly-snapped wood.

Above: three actual twigs and one buff-tip moth

This type of camouflage is also known as a "protective resemblance" -- a form of mimesis in which an animal can avoid being preyed upon by mimicking an unremarkable or inedible aspect of its environment. Many other moths are able to disguise themselves in similar ways, often mimicking dead leaves, twigs, moss, and/or tree bark.

Above: more photos of Phalera bucephala

The buff-tip moth is particularly adept at disguising itself, however, and the fact that it so strongly resembles such a specific object (not just a dead leaf or a piece of foliage, but a broken twig from a silver birch tree, in particular) makes this disguise seem even more impressive and unique.

Above: the photo at the top shows a buff-tip moth in its resting position, while the photo at the bottom shows the same species with its wings unfurled

It also tends to look like there's a weird little smiley face in the setae surrounding the moth's head, which is arguably even more striking, but for some reason none of my sources seem to mention that weirdness.

Above: the weird little smiley face on the back of the moth's head

This species is distributed throughout the British Isles, mainland Europe, and parts of Asia, with its range extending into Eastern Siberia.

Sources & More Info:

Wildlife Insights: Buff-Tip Moth Identification Guide

Butterfly Conservation: Buff-Tip

Wildlife Insights: Phalera bucephala

The Wildlife Trusts: The Buff-Tip Moth

Moth Identification: Phalera busephala

Encyclopedia of Life: Global Map of Known Occurrences for Phalera busephala

Insecta: Phalera bucephala

Lepidoptera and their Ecology: Phalera busephaloides and Phalera busephala

Journal of Ecology and Evolution: Strong Foraging Preferences for Ribes alpinum in the Polyphagous Caterpillars of the Buff-Tip Moth

Roses without thorns

Wings without horns

Skin stained in color

Still, I grow duller

Because those takes are very similar to it and the prologue is the legend perpetuated by the Heavens. It's the propaganda. It's people perpetuating it going:" Here is what happens when people try to change things, they get punished...", even though he was right and if they had helped, none of this would have happened.

One of my CLEAREST memories of the many, many “oh shit we are doing things with that” moments — in which we realize that a recurring detail or “joke” actually does have backstory and thematic relevance — I had reading TGCF books (arcs) 1 and 2 was in book 2 when we reach the scene where Xie Lian refuses to apologize for saving a child’s life, and we see exactly how much he’s been reduced in the retelling.

The prologue/propaganda version reduces his thoughtful, well-reasoned discussions to these pithy one-liners that are easy to repeat as part of a story and present as naïve, unfounded opinions.

And years later, I still remember the feeling of reading book two and realizing, for the first time, that all of his kindness, his consideration for the feelings of others of any class, his consciousness of his own power and the effect that kind of thing had on people? He ALWAYS HAD THAT. Everyone, even the narration, would have you believe so many of his fantastic, thoughtful, insightful qualities, were the result of “learning something” where he used to be naïve.

Meeting a young Xie Lian who was not only less naïve than anyone else had told you, but also not nearly as naïve as even Xie Lian has been indicating himself? Narrative-shaping right there.

There had already been implications in book 1 that Xie Lian wasn’t ok and that not reacting to pain was ultimately going to be more about trauma than the comedy Xie Lian has learned to try and make it, but realizing that he’s learned to make fun of himself on an ideological level? In addition to on a physical one?

THAT was the point I sat up and went “oh, something is going to go WRONG wrong here in this flashback. There is SOMETHING ELSE going on here.”

And then the whole flashback and major portions of book 3 and basically the rest of the novel was more or less about the disconnect between the official story/the version of you known to the public, and the true/private you. For our main characters both, and many, many side characters as well.

We even do this in BOTH FLASHBACKS. The contrast is even more stark, in the second, between the actual circumstances and motivations behind Xie Lian’s banishment, and the neat, comfortable, easily-digested version that most of heaven accepted for centuries.

And then after everything, we END the novel on “what legend says about these characters/gods” as in, the story commonly told by people who don’t know all the details. You know, a parallel bookend to the prologue. In case it wasn’t already clear that that’s the type of unreliable version of the story the introduction was.

And the actual scene goes: