#imaginaryelle

I think the common English translation for it is “Light Bearing Lord,” yes? What I want to focus on here is the “Bearing” aspect. Because... I have also... seen ppl go “ah, light bearing lord, bearer of light, lucifer. ergo, Lan Wangji is similar to Lucifer” which.. I have salt about because not everything is about Christian mythology and Christian-adjacent stuff, Janice, god. But that’s... a whole other gnarled web of stuff. Anyway. Onto the breakdown.

I believe that “bearing” has a certain kind of meaning/physical translation in English, yes? I think it brings more to mind the action of, say, holding in one’s arms, as one might an armful of gifts or other sundries, or a small animal perhaps (say, a puppy or a bear cub (hah)). “Light-bearing” might bring to mind the image of someone holding a lantern. Anyway the point I’m trying to make here, it’s an external bearing, and yes the bearer is bearing said thing (in this case) light with them, but it’s an external light. 

The han (含) in Hanguang-Jun, on the other hand, is more commonly used, imo, in the context of like.. holding in one’s mouth. (bear with me). I.e. if I encountered the character in the wild, with no other context, I would assume they’re talking about holding something in one’s mouth, such as like... a cough drop, or other kind of hard candy, or even something you maybe are trying to hide. That’s a more “layperson” usage of the term, imo, like a usage you’re likely to encounter, as a layperson (source: me as a layperson who sometimes encounters Chinese). But along that vein, it also has meaning of “contain, include”; “keep” (imo as in, keep inside; an example given is 含泪, which the dictionary gives as “tearfully” or “with tears in one’s eyes” but I think morphographically more resembles “holding back tears” as far as understanding the word construction goes); “nurse, cherish, harbor.” I.e., if what I’m trying to get at isn’t clear, it’s an internal kind of “bearing.” Depending on usage and context, it can also mean to permeate, and even endure (in the sense that if something is permeated with something, then that something endures).

So it’s not so much that Hanguang-Jun is “just” a “bringer” of light, nor is the emphasis on the fact that he brings light, but the fact that he is permeated with light. I.e. that it’s something inherent to him. Which in the context of Lan Wangji’s character, says a lot about him as a person, his character, and his reputation.

When I was studying, a combination of memorizing dialogues of common conversations (just everyday stuff) and then, when I was more comfortable with the vocab, answering open-ended questions made me think about the difference between what i would say in my native language and what vocab i had to say anything in Japanese.

LMAO, memorising dialogue in Japanese is like super important because A LOT of 'general’ conversations follow a very clear pattern that you can do in your sleep after a while. xD It definitely helps to do that, though honestly they can memorise that stuff on their own (as I mentioned before, I don’t actually teach, I’m there to get them to practise in ways they can’t do on their own, kinda difficult to explain really).

Maybe I should tell them to PREPARE something like that so we can do it together. Idk.

imaginaryelle

Picnic storytelling can also be good ("I went to location and i brought blank," "she went to location and brought blank, i went to location and did blank," etc.), because you repeat the vocab a lot but also have to improvise just a little. Basically anything where you're communicating in Japanese 100% of the time, but with just enough structure that you don't have to respond to surprise vocab too.

read on AO3

“Lan Zhan, what’s this?”

The voice so close to his face rings soft yet with a hitch in Wangji’s ear. Tinged with worry and something deeper.

Wangji’s skin tingles beneath the touch when the thumb of the hand cupping his cheek glides too easily, wiping at something; and when he blinks, to concentrate, to recollect his thoughts, his lashes cling, wet and warm.

The words are on his lips before he knows - “I’m fine,” - are spoken, before he even opens his eyes again.

Yet, once he meets those burning, searching eyes looking back at him, he still catches the furrow on Wei Ying’s brow.  Knows the man above him is weighing those words against the salty wetness between his fingertips, against everything he seems to find along flushed, heated skin. Against everything that fills the narrow spaces between their bodies right now.

He tries and puts it all into there, into the tilt of his chin, lets it play out along the curve of his lips, resonate within the tremble along his limbs; everything he needs to convey:

Wei Ying. I am perfectly fine. This time I am. It’s the truth.

It’s the truth.

He can tell the moment when Wei Ying accepts it as such.

There’s a shift of breath and a slow, blinding smile.

And then Wei Ying kisses him again.

Tagged by @imaginaryelle ❤

Rules: Post the first line of one of your WIPs and tag as many people as there are words.

First line: There’s a beautiful boy at the library in Gusu.

talk to me about angels

I think... I think we need to look at it from the angels’ perspective - and specifically, I mean the angels’ perspective, not from Heaven’s. Heaven is a collective, it’s an organisation, a corporation - the angels are individuals, and much as they say they’re a collective, they are individuals with individual feelings.

Now...

Let’s look to the first war. The split.

The split was between the angels who Fell - that is to say, the angels who turned away from obedience to God, who asked too many questions, who became too individual and came too much from the Host, from Heaven... and those who didn’t. We know they were lead by Lucifer. We know that at least one (and likely others, out of ten million Fallen angels) did not choose to Fall, intentionally, but just Fell with others.

The implication is that asking questions, or just having doubts about one’s place in Heaven is enough to make one Fall - or, at least, it was back in the Beginning. The goalposts may have changed since then. Jury is out, in fact, on whether Falling is an internal thing (i.e. you Fall because of what you’re feeling or thinking, somehow) or an external thing (i.e. someone writes you on the list, and you Fall).

So, you have the archangels. Gabriel, Michael, Uriel... Lucifer. Raphael, if you add him into the mix, but definitely those four.

Lucifer starts saying things that... honestly, make sense. He’s making some good points, actually. He’s making them quietly, and in his charismatic, silken way, and you all love Lucifer, because he’s one of you, and he’s a very likable angel. He’s beautiful, and he’s got that golden, persuasive way of speaking.

But then, Lucifer takes it too far. He says, you know, fuck God. And you, Michael... Maybe for just a second, you think-- Maybe he’s right. Maybe he’s right, actually. Fuck God...?

But no, no, you pick up your sword and you say, no, no, we can’t turn away from God’s word, we can’t, we can’t. Because you don’t want to lose everything else - you don’t want to lose Heaven, and God, and the other angels. So the war happens, and Michael takes up her sword and faces Lucifer head on...

Ten million angels. Ten million demons - how many of those are Fallen angels, and how many came later?

And that twenty million is how many we have in 2019. How many... how many were in the beginning? How many demons permanently perished under a flaming sword, or under holy water? How many angels were burned by hellfire? How many Fallen angels didn’t just Fall, but die?

So afterwards, Gabriel - goody two-shoes Gabriel, literally-minded Gabriel, stupid, naive Gabriel, he says we have to do everything right, from now on. We have to be bright and light and encouraging. Uriel agrees with him, except that she’s strong and hardy and warlike - she doesn’t just want everything to be neat and tidy and Right... she wants revenge, and rightly so.

How many people did they lose? How many other angels did they mourn? How many did they know, for certain, had Fallen, and how many did they just think were lost, were dead, were gone? How much grief did they go through, before they were expected to give it all up and go back to grind?

But Michael...

Michael is different.

Michael saw, in the beginning, that Lucifer had a bit of a point, maybe. She saw that if things were going one way, he was explaining things and he was convincing. Even if, ultimately, she didn’t agree with him, and didn’t want to do much with him...

She’d know he was good at convincing. 

And Beelzebub, for her side, like... You know, Beelzebub, she’ll kind of have the same thing in response.

War has changed. Even for angels and demons, we see them in a big corporate building and in suits - war isn’t just about meeting each other on the battlefield anymore. War is about numbers, and war rooms, and tables with flags in your toy soldiers. War is done as much with discussions and back channels and little words as it is with soldiers.

but what if i WANT to see that meta?