AROMANTIC PEOPLE

ASEXUAL PEOPLE

AND AROACE PEOPLE

ALL BELONG IN THE LGBTQ+ COMMUNITY

The Amur Leopard and Clouded Leopard (which recently celebrated its 50th cub born at the zoo!)

The Sumatran Tiger

The Red Ruffed Lemur and Ring-Tailed Lemur

The Cotton-Top Tamarin and White-Cheeked Gibbon

The Colobus Monkey and De Brazza’s Monkey

And the Mexican Spider Monkey!

@two-wizards-in-a-trench-coat #my future sounds funny as fuck

@kentm4nsley #oh that's so fucking cursed. not in a disparaging way just #if i had this happen to me once i would simply pass away.

@literallybyronic #10 bucks says I met op's parents at a diabolique ball like 20 years ago

@staggered-stones #it's true no one told me about this

@gideonisms #GOD. i can't imagine #no new problem under the sun but this is one i hadn't thought of

@chirpchirrup #condolences i think?

@erudipitous #mood #the greater seattle area polycule T.T #replace 'tri-state' with 'pnw' and this post could be about me #the number of times my polycule has almost wrapped around to MY FATHER despite the fact that I DON'T EVEN DATE is. #well it's happened like 3 times which is saying somethiny #at any given kink or poly event I can generally assume someone there knows my parents

@prairie-grass #Having priests for parents is kind of like this #Lol I know I know #But I bump into people that know my parents ALL THE TIME #If I'm at some sort of religious event I just assume someone there knows at least one of them #Inescapable #Gotta say I prefer that over the idea of fucking someone who also fucked one of them so l'd prefer the cards I got dealt there

@kurtwagnermorelikekurtwagnerd #i have to travel three hours in any cardinal direction to play comfortably it fucking sucks #last time i tried something local the host Messaged My Mother About It. needless to say that group is dead to me.

MaoMao and Jinshi are both intelligent in a lot of ways, including deductive reasoning. So one might expect their repeated misunderstandings or continued blindness toward certain revelations to feel contrived. But they never do, in part because of how brilliantly their characterization was established.

From the first installment, Maomao ponders how "knowing too much" could get her into trouble.

At first her main concern is her own literacy. The ability to read is not a skill most young women of her station possess, and would doubtlessly draw attention. Attention threatens her ability to lay low and wait out her service contract. So she keeps this skill hidden.

And indeed, her concerns are validated by the narrative, because she catches the attention of Jinshi and Gyokuyou—two of the highest authority figures of the rear palace—immediately upon employing her literacy in her effort to warn the concubines of the poisonous effects of the makeup.

This instantly alters the course of her life, a consequence that at first seems positive; after all, personal attendant to a concubine is certainly several steps above the average palace launderess. But these elevated steps bring more attention onto her, and it isn't long at all before the emperor himself is ordering her to perform medical miracles.

Knowledge is power. And as Maomao explains to Jinshi: it's not always about what someone will do with power; it's about what they can do.

So Maomao uses the powerlessness of her station as a shield, and hides behind it by pretending not to know things.

And the way she does this is interesting, in part because she is so good at deduction. Often it comes down to her simply choosing not to pursue a line of thinking, forcefully redirecting her attention elsewhere the moment she realizes that certain lines may connect to form a bigger picture than someone of her station should see.

Maomao is an apothecary. Effectively, throughout the story, she's an herbalist, pharmacist, chemist, physician, dietician, and forensic detective.

At the same time, her primary survival mechanism is avoidance. And this is established very early in her characterization, even before her actual titular passion.

When Maomao, solver of mysterious deaths, worker of medical miracles, foiler of assassination plots, repeatedly fails to connect the increasingly-obvious dots pointing to Jinshi's true identity, it doesn't feel contrived at all; because by the time those dots begin to come to light, the story has already established that it's firmly in-character for Maomao to simply refuse to pick up the pencil if she already knows what picture those dots will form. As long as she doesn't draw those connections herself, she can remain safe in denial.