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“What do you mean?” he asked. “But there’s a full stop as part of the question mark!”

She nodded gravely. “I know!” she said. “A lot of people find this confusing. But the speech tag belongs to the line of dialogue, it’s still part of the sentence, so it’s wrong to capitalise it.”

(and I do genuinely mean conversation, I’d love to hear other people’s input on this, because I did just write a long-ass post about the subjectivity of interpretation in translations)

So when I started interacting with the fandom and reading people’s fics, I got really confused by the way some folks were writing dialogue for Lan Wangji; he often sounded super awkward, spoke in fragments, and sometimes exclusively in third person. To be fair, all of those are elements of his speech at various times, but like, seeing it in English-language material felt like a really heavy-handed way of rendering it in translation?

I guess when you use third person within the first three episodes of the show, it makes a pretty big impression on the audience

This is not at all intended to be a criticism of people who are 1000% writing and creating wonderful work, which is more than I can say for myself, but I want to poke and prod and tease at some linguistic nuance here.

Take a deep breath, grab a pot of tea (this’ll take more than a cup), because we’re going to take the scenic route on this one–

Clothing inspired by murals from the Yongle Palace  永乐宫 (a Taoist temple) by 鹤庐汉服 .

finished the TGCF character requests i got from twitter :D

Was chatting about Pratchett, thought “of course there has to be a crossover where Wei Wuxian meets Discworld’s Death,” then wrote … something that wasn’t that. But close enough. Pretty much crack, here ya go. 

Voice ragged from the pain, Mo Xuanyu forced out the final words of the incantation. Then he stood up. Nothing seemed to be happening, except that it didn’t hurt anymore. “Did… did I make a mistake?” he wondered.

MOST PEOPLE I MEET IN THIS SORT OF SITUATION ASK THAT QUESTION. Mo Xuanyu turned. Standing before him was a tall figure in a dark robe, skeletal face shadowed beneath his black hood. BUT IN YOUR CASE, IT SEEMS THIS RITUAL WENT AS PLANNED.

“Then, are—” If it worked, then someone this dark and scary could only be one thing. “Are you the spirit of the Yiling Patriarch?”

I AM NOT.

… That skeletal face was in fact, nothing more than a skull. Or, much more than a skull. And looking down, Mo Xuanyu saw his own body still kneeling in the center of the array. “…oh.”

THOUGH WE ARE ACQUAINTED, said Death.

Death watched him expectantly, but Mo Xuanyu shook his head. “Since I’m still here, I want to watch! I want to see them get what’s coming!”

THAT WAS NOT PART OF THE ARRANGEMENT.

“Oh…” In truth, Mo Xuanyu hadn’t really thought that far, anyway. The troubles his family had heaped on him were so all-encompassing that he had to do it this way, couldn’t let them win, but mostly…mostly he’d just wanted it to be over. And now it was. “Ehh, well, I suppose I can trust that Wei Wuxian knows what he’s doing.”

… .

Death’s silence was almost deafening. Then, HE CERTAINLY HAS HAD SOME INTERESTING IDEAS.

Just then, the door of the shed burst open and Mo Xuanyu’s cousin kicked him—no, kicked Wei Wuxian—in the face. Excellent! Now he would see the swift vengeance of the Yiling Patriarch in action—but no, he only fell back and looked around dazedly, letting his cousin do whatever he wanted. “That’s not—” What was Wei Wuxian doing? If it were still him, he would’ve—

IT’S VERY RARE TO BE GIVEN A SECOND CHANCE, said Death. I WOULDN’T REGRET IT TOO MUCH.

“So then…what happens next?”

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