Verbena

2024:

✔️ Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

✔️ Dark Rise by C.S. Pacat

✔️ Peter Darling by Austin Chant 🏳️‍⚧️

✔️ The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley

✔️ The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley

✔️ A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske

2025:

✔️ Wolfsong by TJ Klune

✔️ Ravensong by TJ Klune

✔️ Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

✔️ The Magpie Lord by K J Charles

✔️ A Case of Possession by K J Charles

✔️ The Foxhole Court by Nora Sakavic

✔️ The Raven King by Nora Sakavic

✔️ The King's Men by Nora Sakavic

✔️ The Sunshine Court by Nora Sakavic

✔️ The Golden Raven by Nora Sakavic

✔️ The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer

✔️ Yield Under Great Persuasion by Alexandra Rowland

✔️ Coffee Boy by Austin Chant 🏳️‍⚧️

✔️ Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

✔️ Recursion by Blake Crouch

✔️ Swordcrossed by Freya Marske

✔️ All That’s Left in the World by Erik J. Brown

✔️ The Resurrectionist by A. Rae Dunlap

✔️ Death in the Spires by K.J. Charles

✔️ Forging Silver into Stars by Brigid Kemmerer

✔️ The Last Sun by K.D. Edwards

✔️ The Hanged Man by K.D. Edwards

✔️ The Hourglass Throne by K.D. Edwards

✔️ The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

✔️ The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

✔️ Any Old Diamonds by K.J. Charles

✔️ Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo

✔️ The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

✔️ Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

✔️ Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

✔️ Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst

✔️ The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden

✔️ The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

✔️ Babel by R. F. Kuang

✔️ This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

✔️ Sparrow by James Hynes

✔️ What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell

✔️ If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio

✔️ Slippery Creatures by K.J. Charles

✔️ A Thief in the Night by K.J. Charles

✔️ Don't Let the Forest In by C.G. Drews

✔️ These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever

✔️ Brothers of the Wild North Sea by Harper Fox

✔️ Witchmark by C.L. Polk

✔️ The Will of the Many by James Islington

✔️ The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez

✔️ The Binding by Bridget Collins

✔️ The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

✔️ Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle

✔️ Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb

✔️ Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb

✔️ Assassin's Quest by Robin Hobb

✔️ Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

✔️ Luck in the Shadows by Lynn Flewelling

✔️ Silver Under Nightfall by Rin Chupeco

✔️ The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

✔️ Small Joys by Elvin James Mensah

✔️ Jade City by Fonda Lee

✔️ Jade War by Fonda Lee

✔️ Jade Legacy by Fonda Lee

✔️ Fall Into You by Dylan Morrison

✔️ Vesuvius by Cass Biehn

✔️ The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz

✔️ The Sentence is Death by Anthony Horowitz

✔️ A Line to Kill by Anthony Horowitz

✔️ The Twist of a Knife by Anthony Horowitz

✔️ Close to Death by Anthony Horowitz

✔️ The Bell in the Fog by Lev A.C. Rosen

✔️ The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee

✔️ The Little House by Kyōko Nakajima

✔️ Rouge by Mona Awad

✔️ The Vegetarian by Han Kang

✔️ Almond by Sohn Won-Pyung

✔️ Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid

✔️ Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima

✔️ The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea by Yukio Mishima

✔️ Torto Arado by Itamar Vieira Junior

✔️ Honeytrap by Aster Glenn Gray

✔️ A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

✔️ Normal People by Sally Rooney

✔️ The Secret History by Donna Tartt

✔️ The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

✔️ The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

✔️ A Separate Peace by John Knowles

✔️ I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

✔️ The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

✔️ Love in the Big City by Sang Young Park

✔️ Reclaimed by Seth Haddon 🏳️‍⚧️

✔️ The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

✔️ Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

✔️ Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

✔️ Stoner by John Williams

✔️ The Long Game by Rachel Reid

✔️ Game Changer by Rachel Reid

✔️ Swimming in the Dark by Tomasz Jedrowski

✔️ The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

✔️ Flesh by David Szalay

✔️ All Systems Red by Martha Wells

✔️ Kiss My Axe by May Archer

✔️ Pick Me by May Archer

✔️ Tough Guy by Rachel Reid

✔️ Top Secret by Sarina Bowen

✔️ Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney

✔️ Sex and Rage by Eve Babitz

2026:

✔️ Common Goal by Rachel Reid

✔️ Toward Eternity by Anton Hur

✔️ All Fours by Miranda July

✔️ Tudo é Rio by Carla Madeira

✔️ When Haru Was Here by Dustin Thao

✔️ You’ve Found Oliver by Dustin Thao

✔️ They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera

✔️ Strange Houses by Uketsu

✔️ Trois by Valérie Perrin

✔️ HappyHead by Josh Silver

✔️ Yaga by Kat Sandler

✔️ Yellowface by R. F. Kuang

✔️ Crash Test by Amy James

📖 Famesick by Lena Dunham

📖 Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

📕 A Language of Limbs by Dylin Hardcastle

📕 Another First Chance by Robbie Couch

📕 At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O'Neill

📕 Captive Prince by C.S. Pacat

📕 Criminal Intentions by Cole McCade

📕 Dark Heir by C.S. Pacat

📕 Even Though I Knew the End by C.L. Polk

📕 The Burning Kingdoms Series by Tasha Suri

📕 The Half Life of Valery K by Natasha Pulley

📕 The History of Sound by Ben Shattuck

📕 The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab

📕 The Mars House by Natasha Pulley

📕 The Only Light Left Burning by Erik J. Brown

📕 The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry by C. M. Waggoner

📕 The Scottish Boy by Alex de Campi

📕 Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune

xz studio weibo update

because I’m a nerd who majored in ancient China and still can’t let it go

okay so we all know that wangxian invented romance, but let’s talk a bit more about the iconic dialogue in episode 25:

Lan Wangji: 你把我當成什麼人? / What kind of person do you take me for?

Wei Wuxian: 我曾經把你當做我畢生知己 / I had once thought that, in my lifetime, you would be the one who knew me.

Lan Wangji: 現在仍是 / I still am.

I’ve seen various translations of the phrase “畢生知己” as “lifelong confidante” or “soulmate,” and I’m always so torn because these are both fine translations but like, not quite there

over & over the only truth

Sometimes self care is making a painting using only a fan brush

(no reposts; reblogs appreciated)

+details I'm proud of :)

To celebrate this landmark, I will compile here some of the many things that happened on that day (June 18th) during the shooting.

Brace yourselves, and here we go!

Mo dao messes with the cycle of reincarnation, which is why the Yiling Patriarch becomes so reviled. The term mo dao is actually used only ONCE in the novel - when Wei Wuxian notes that people called him “the grandmaster of demonic cultivation”

It uses living humans, extracts qi out of them, and involves the destruction of golden cores, brainwashing, and effectively vampiring living beings for the sake of power. It doesn’t use ambient resentment, it creates it by harming others.

The reason we’re continuously told (by people who know nothing of Wei Wuxian’s path) that he’s at risk of going insane is because that’s what mo dao does. It warps the mind and body because the source of resentment is within the user

Wei Wuxian calls his cultivation “the ghostly path” or “ghost cultivation” (gui dao). Hell, the only other person shown to match his expertise on the subject - Xue Yang - also calls it gui dao. Xue Yang !! He’d be delighted to call his actions demonic !! If he’s insisting on calling it “ghostly”, then that tells us that the difference matters

So what is gui dao ? First of all, we know that it doesn’t mind-control people as a baseline - that’s why Wei Wuxian ended up dying the first go around. We know that it utilises pre-existing resentful energy in the world to direct the dead

We know, also, that it requires a certain level of understanding of the dead. One of the spells Wei Wuxian creates is literally named Empathy.

We know that the power source is usually external (the Burial Mounds, the Stygian Tiger Seal), and that it, most importantly, doesn’t create demons. It creates ghosts and fierce corpses. And because of this, it likely doesn’t prevent reincarnation.

Why is the distinction important ? Because the former is what mo dao does. It creates mo.

We’re told the difference - very intentionally - in one of the earliest parts of the story, when Lan Qiren asks Wei Wuxian the difference between gui (ghosts) and mo (demons) and yao, and gets the correct answer

So here goes !!

First, the Yunmeng Jiang’s purple lotus. But first l, their motto - the infamous “Attempt the impossible”. Or more accurately “明知不可而为之” - “Do what you know cannot be done”

It is a variation on a famous part of the Analects of Confucius - “知其不可而为之” - having the same thing but being a bit harder to parse

Idiomatically, “知其不可而为之” is used when someone insists on doing something they know is futile - undertake a Sisyphean task, to use an English idiom.

As with most of the Analects, the idiom can be translated many different ways, of which some are positive : “not taking things lying down”, “persevering against all odds”, “to attempt something before writing it off as impossible”, etc. Thus: “attempt the impossible.” however…

The more conceptual meaning of the phrase gets lost with this direct translation.

In a more detail-oriented translation, 知其不可而为之 doesn’t mean you should insist on doing what you know you can’t achieve. Rather, in your actions, don’t ask yourself if you can, but if you should. It’s not about the result, but the journey—to have a clear conscience regardless of the outcome

“‘不可为’ is not necessarily that one is *unable* to do X but rather, that regular people view X as an impossibility, as wasted effort without reward (or even with negative repercussions), so they feel there’s no reason to do it. They act only after ensuring immediate results or personal benefits to them or their in-group are guaranteed. To act only to achieve merit or reward

In the eyes of Confucius, for the virtuous (“君子 “) man, the most important thing is morality, virtue, and justice. The achievement of merit is not placed over justice, but rather found in it’s pursuit

Actions that don’t align with morality and virtue may have brief benefits, but will ensure grave and deadly consequences. Individual or immediate benefits may not exist as a result of virtue, but enduring benefits to the whole will eventually come about

As you can see, the Jiang precept heavily relate to the actions of the Jiangs - JC and WWX in particular, but also Madam Yu.

WWX truly embodies the Jiang precept, as we are told. Again and again, he does good deeds because he believes he should, despite the lack of any personal gain, despite the unclear outcome

his actions are placed in stark contrast with how JC (as WWX’s foil) responds to the same situations.

This is best shown in the scene in the Xuanwu cave. WWX puts himself at risk by protecting JZX and LWJ, and again to distract the beast and allow everyone else the chance to escape. JC outright states later that he believes that WWX should have escaped, or kept his head down, not “played the hero”

Now, this doesn’t mean JC is evil. He does good - working tirelessly to save WWX - but only because WWX is a member of his immediate family, and likely wouldn’t have done so if someone he didn’t know that well - like LWJ or JZX - were trapped instead, because what do they have to do with him ?

He acts, and he acts righteously, but only when he and his have immediate, personal, benefits

This is why JC brings up the Jiang precept so bitterly regarding the Wens and WWX - because he knows his fault, and knows he would never be able to truly embody the motto the way WWX does (and also, you know, Daddy issues and Mommy issues and who knows what else)

Narratively, this is also why MXTX keeps the reveal of Lan Sizhui’s parentage from WWX to the very end - because the fact that WWX went into his second life thinking that all those he had tried to protect were dead, and nevertheless chose to do good and be good, without hope of reward or fear of loss, is the full realisation of the Jiang precept

(There’s also something to be said about how this relates to the Buddhist concept of renunciation of the self and worldly attachments, and of the ephemerality of gain and loss, but this post ain’t about that)

Jiang Cheng is not a righteous person. He is a person who has let the Three Poisons of Buddhism overwhelm him almost completely, using them as weapons to wield - to the point that his title is “Sandu Shengshou”, the skilled user of the Three Poisons. Yet he is praised and honored by the jianghu, because he is the son of the Jiang Clan

Zidian’s emblem is a snake - the very symbol of hatred, which, to cultivators, who have to deal with RESENTFUL energy on a daily basis, would be the worst of them all

But there’s deeper symbolism to this, because in terms of action - each Jiang, save for JC and WWX, would naturally represent a different poison

- Jiang Fengmian, so attached to Wei Wuxian that he neglected his own son, and in the process, enraged his wife. So attached to the memory of Wei Changze that he didn’t even bestow the name Jiang upon his son, thereby othering him from the “rightful” members of the Jiang sect. Is it any wonder that the jianghu only ever saw him as a servant ?

- Yu Ziyuan, so consumed with her resentment and hate of Wei Wuxian and Cangse Sanren that she inadvertently used the son she claimed to love as a weapon against WWX, hurting both in the process

Remember, Zidian - the whip of hate- was hers first, before it passed on to Jiang Cheng, as he grew resentful of the very person she had always despised, inheriting her hate

- And finally, and most painfully, Yanli is ignorance, or indifference. Ignorant of the way her husband’s sect plotted against Wei Wuxian. Ignorant of her brothers’ suffering, both of them

Ignorant of the injustice of her mother’s actions or at least indifferent towards them

It’s notable that she died of being on a battlefield without adequate preparation- of ignorance

And in a way, Jiang Cheng inherited all these qualities from his family - he grows so attached to Wei Wuxian that he refuses to let him go, he grows so resentful of him that he hunts down anyone who so much as uses his style of cultivation for thirteen years after his death, and, of course, he is ignorant to the truth behind his own core

He truly is Sandu Shengshou - skilled wielder of the three poisons

And of course, then we have Wei Wuxian - the one who slew all three poisons, not once but twice

In his first life -

- He let go of his attachment towards his golden core, selflessly giving it over to Jiang Cheng, expecting no thanks in return. He also let go of the Jiang Sect to aid the Wen

- He bore no hatred towards the remaining Wen, sacrificing both life and reputation to save the innocent among them, despite what their leaders did. Once again, expecting no thanks in turn

- He refused to remain ignorant of the damage his Yin Hu Fu could do if unleashed, and put his own life at risk destroying it, despite the fact that he KNEW this act would go utterly unappreciated. He also refused to remain ignorant to the hatred of the sect leaders the way they themselves were, choosing instead to act first

- And of course, in his death, he denied the Sects their own poisons - in refusing to give over the complete Yin Hu Fu, he denies the Jin their greed, in refusing to die at their hand, he denies Jiang Cheng and the Nie their hatred, and due to the actions taken by Lan Wangji, the Lan could never again be ignorant

And again, when he returns -

- In slaying Xue Yang, he is slaying another utterly consumed by the Three Poisons - attachment to XXC, hatred towards the world, and indifference towards the lives of others (not relevant but i thought it was cool)

- His actions make Jiang Cheng confront his ignorance, which blunts his hate and makes him let go of his attachment to WWX, thereby conquering the Sandu Shengshou - master of the three poisons

- And, of course, there’s the fact that in the end, he soothes Nie Mingjue’s resentment, inadvertently forces Xichen to confront his own ignorance, and, of course, slays the member of the Triad who represents the hate that has dogged him from childhood, Guangyao

- In the process of this, he displays all of the three virtues - Amoha or non-delusion, given the way the whole plot is his quest to solve his own ignorance, Advesa or non-hatred, in how he holds no resentment towards the cultivation world, despite what they did to him,

As for the final one - Alobha, or non-greed. This was a little weirder, given that, yes, he seems to care very little for his material possessions, but we don’t get any explicit scenes of him breaking off former attachments (except for the one with JC and honestly that could be for any number of reasons)

Except… who does WWX end up with, at the end of the? Lan WANGJI. Wangji, as in “to hold oneself aloof from the world”. As in alobha

My final conclusion : unlike traditional wuxia or xianxia, MDZS is not a Daoist story. It’s a Buddhist one

Wei Wuxian’s name has three parts - surname Wei, birth name Ying and courtesy name Wuxian

Wei is a royal family surname that means “tall and grand”, but it can also be translated as “ghosts and spirits” - a fun bit of foreshadowing of both his overwhelming skill and well, his cultivation style

His courtesy name - the name most people know him by, incidentally - is Wuxian, or “no envies”. To be more precise, it comes from the last line of a poem by Ming Dynasty literati Xu Ben. “即无羡鱼志，外物非所迁” (jí wú xiàn yú zhì, wài wù fēi suǒ qiān) translates as “to be free of envy and aspire to greater heights; not be misguided by honorary reputation and personal gain”.

即 - to seek; aspire

无羡 - to be free of envy

鱼志 - derives from the Chinese idiom 鲲鹏之志, originating from a literary work by Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi meaning “to be ambitious”

外物 - literally means “objects external to the body”, now used to describe personal gain and external honours

迁 - misguide; led by

This is, of course, the very definition of his character- selfless, seeking greater heights, not in status but skill, and never envying those more powerful than him. Being willing to sacrifice honour, wealth, power, life to help the feeble remnants of his former enemy

And the fact that most people- including the Jiangs - know him by this comes as no surprise. to them, and most of the world, that is what he is - kind, virtuous, but also utterly selfless

In fact, as we know, one person even mistook his name as Wu-Qian - a joke about being poor, yes, but also, in his zi’s poem, there is in fact the term “Qian” meaning “misguide”, making his name “no misleading”, once again, inadvertently praising him as “one who has never strayed from the path”

After all, even when presented with a broad, crowded alleyway, Xianxian chose to stick to his single-log bridge of virtue

In fact, there is only one person he dares to act childish around, without bothering with the half-pretence he paraded around before Yanli.

Lan Wangji

Now, Jiang Cheng is a strange one - for one thing, most people seem to refer to him as either Jiang-zongzhu, referencing only his sect, or Jiang Cheng, his birth name

The “Jiang” in his name derives from a poem by renowned Tang Dynasty poet Du Mu. “云阔烟深树，江澄水浴秋” (yún kuò yān shēn shù, jiāng chéng shuǐ yù qiū) translates to “vast clouds and mists entwine the deep forest trees; autumn bathes in the clear river”. Cheng (澄) itself means “to make [sth] clear and unclouded”

Now, weirdly enough, one of the phrases from the poem- 秋水- means “autumn waters” and is used to describe a “longing gaze” as derived from two idioms 秋水伊人 (meaning the friend one is longing for) and 望穿秋水 (meaning await with great anxiety).

Despite all his best efforts, Jiang Cheng simply cannot hide the truth of his feelings towards Wei Wuxian. He hides behind his birth name - because his courtesy, as you will see, makes his pain even more blatant - but that too is taken from a poem that references his suffering

Now - remember, this, while sad and sweet, showcases one of the three poisons. Attachment. And, as we see over the course of the book, Chengcheng grows very attached to the ones he loves, be they his brother, his sect, his sister or her son

And, more to the point, he’s been constantly forced to mourn those attachments. 秋水伊人

Even as a child, he was forced to part with his dogs, and then over time, more and more things were ripped away from him

Jiang Cheng is stuck in a perpetual state of mourning. A perpetual state that is foreshadowed perfectly by his last name

His last name, used by the one other person who truly understands the reason behind it. The one other person who could possibly hope to understand

Lan Wangji, the only other person mourning the Yiling Patriarch

Wan Yin (晚吟), comes from a poem by another Tang Dynasty poet Xu Hui. “茶香秋梦后，松韵晚吟时” (chá xiāng qiū mèng hòu, sōng yùn wǎn yín shí) translates to “I wake from a hazy nap in autumn, enshrouded by the fragrant aroma of tealeaves; at dusk I saunter and recite poetry, the pine branches swaying in time”. The words Wan (晚) means “at night” and Yin (吟) means “to recite” or “to cry/lament”.

And the SWORDS

Suibian, famously, means “whatever”. Except.. not quite. You see, Suibian actually means - literally- is something more akin to “as you please”

Or, since Jiang Fengmian is the one who had it named - as the Jiang please. Showcasing his then role as, basically, a guard dog they treated better than the average disciple

Rather like Wen Zhuliu, now that I think about it

But, even after that, the name “whatever” has its own meaning- showcasing WWX’s carefree nature, his beliefs that actions matter more than words. And the sharpness that lies under that facade

Power and frivolity, both in equal measure

Now, notably, JC is able to unsheath Suibian, if not use it - and of course, post core transfer and pre resurrection, Wei Wuxian is in the same boat

This reveals their inherent abilities and their more action-oriented natures, with the added caveat that of course, after everything, that has grown dull and muted. No longer is it “whatever”, it’s “as the Jiang please”

As for Sandu, that literally refers to the three poisons. The intention behind naming a child’s sword that, in fact, was very likely to have him “master” the three poisons. As in prevail over them

But you don’t master a sword, you wield. He didn’t master the poisons, he used them as weapons

You move hearts through the roles you play, and express your inner world through the music you sing.

The characters you’ve given soul to, and the melodies you’ve filled with thought, all are your dialogues with the world, your voice speaking to life itself.

Together, they become vessels upon the river of time, carrying others forward, and carrying you too.

May your new year bring steadier steps and a firmer gaze. May you stay untroubled by the noise, and always keep strength within.

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