AW GOSH THANK YOU SO MUCH ANON 😭♥️ for everything — for your kind words, for putting up with all my tweets even about fandoms you don't follow, for the hugs that i am virtually returning tenfold!! this genuinely means more than you know. i was a little late to the yz party, but i'm so glad to be here now with everyone ;v;

i also had no idea what was happening because i blocked the person the instant they qrted, but someone else sent me a link after so i saw how badly it spiralled lmao but you're right and it is what it is!! i intended to stay private for a little, but then i kind of just snapped out of it because why should i let someone bully me into hiding my account when i did nothing wrong sdhfjdhfs

the state of fandoms in general have become hard to navigate these days but i'm so grateful to have people like you around that enjoy them the way they're meant to be enjoyed ♡

he's definitely growing out his hair a little, if the recent li-ning pictures are anything to go by!!

tbh i didn't have to do much imagining about how qi xia looks because i took visual references from fanart and the official merch that they released :') the official art does differ a little bit (he looks older in some), but generally he's depicted as wearing a classic white turtleneck/shirt and a long trench coat. i'll attach some pictures in a reply when i share this answer on twt!

mini, insignificant context spoiler as to why he's dressed like this: when he was first transported to this strange space where everyone plays death games, he was in the middle of swindling someone out of their money HAHSJASHAJS 😭 he probably had to dress prim and proper to pull off whatever identity he was assuming at the time of the con...

which brings me to a quick spoiler-free introduction! qi xia is introduced to us as a swindler who everyone distrusts at first (because who's going to trust a conman...), but he quickly displays a very high level of intellect and an ability to make sense of the death games that they're all suddenly thrown into. he's described as having a cold, unreadable face; deliberate and careful but also fairly confident in his actions because he has the deduction/analytical skills to back them up. so far my strongest impression of him is that he's just scarily big brain

he, like xz (!!!!), is a study in contrasts: he seems to have empathy for the people around him, but doesn't hesitate to leave them at the drop of a hat if he feels the situation no longer benefits him. he's blunt with his words, but also learned, familiar with wordplay, and has a smooth tongue. he's not imposing or like a traditionally charismatic leader, but is headstrong and very stubborn.... also qi xia and zanghai would be good friends because he has no particular physical strength, but fights his way out of situations with his intelligence

i'm super, super excited to see what sort of qi xia xz will bring to the table — how faithful the adaptation is, what he'll change about his character, how he will embody this extremely complicated role!! i'm about ~100 chapters in and he is a real treat ;v; i'm trying not to tweet so much about it in case people don't want spoilers, but this gives me a bit more confidence sharing my qx thoughts with the world so thank you for your super kind words 💖

(ps: i am also queasy when it comes to watching horror but i find i can read it more easily since they're just words on a page ;v; even so i think tdu is not for the faint-hearted... the violence is VERY graphic and i think they'll have to tone it down a lot for broadcast haha 😭)

before anything else, i want to say that this is 100% a valid struggle, anon ;o; the state of the world has made it super easy to doomscroll and despair, plus sometimes people just need to let it out/get it off their chests...

i would definitely recommend making liberal use of the mute function!! if they're always tweeting about a few specific topics, i would observe if there are certain keywords or hashtags that are almost always being used in these tweets and add it to muted words!

but if it's not all that straightforward and they're just being negative in general, unfortunately i have no other suggestions other than to maybe consider temporarily muting them ;; the good news is if you're moots, they'll still show up in your mentions/replies/notifs tab; they just won't show on your home tab by default. this way you can set some boundaries for what you see but still be able to interact with them! i hope this helps, if even a little 🫂

periodically, yes! it's funny because there was actually a whole fiasco that happened earlier this week 💀

on the whole i just delete the messages, block (if possible), and move on! there's really no point in trying to talk reason into them or defend myself because if they had the vitriol to leave someone hate messages on the internet, i doubt they would be interested in any sort of logical thinking 😭 publishing the ask would just give them the attention they want and/or open up to dogpiling, so it's!! really!!! just easier to have a good laugh about how people need to touch grass and then carry on with my day :') if i let any random person bully me off the internet, i would've left this hellsite ages ago hahahaha

hi anon!! can i just say that i lit up like a child on christmas morning when i saw this come in because one of my majors was gender studies hsfhdsjdfshs thank you for this ask 🥹

the way i see it is gender norms like masculinity and femininity are inherently concepts, and like all concepts, that means they are three things: a) fluid; b) layered; and c) susceptible to interpretation and influence.

because it's human nature to want to define something clearly (so that the brain can process things more easily), we naturally try our best to divide these layers and box them up into a set number of traits. just as an example to illustrate: the stereotypes of traditional masculinity include being stoic, assertive, a logical thinker vs. soft masculinity leaning more towards empathy, communication, emotional intelligence, etc.

but humans, like life, are never that simple or straightforward :') it's not like these traits are bundled together in a fixed "set package" that you subscribe to! people will mix and match on their own — it's entirely possible for someone to think being A Real Man means having high emotional intelligence and a kind heart, but also needing to be beefybot999 with muscles for days. likewise, it's possible for someone to think men have to be the breadwinner (traditional masculine provider concept), but that they should also share in the house work (traditional feminine role).

that's why i think a spectrum isn't the most accurate way to see this! because a spectrum implies you must inhabit a single spot on the spectrum at any one time, but that's not how life works, right!! you can be many things at once, and these things could be polarising concepts.

another thing that these definitions don't account for is that we are all a product of our environments! and i think this plays a huge part in what you were describing re: xz:

it's not like i grew up with xz (SHDSHDJS 😭) but i think, at least from observation, that he grew up in a supportive but fairly strict family, and a fairly standard asian environment. we've all heard of the Asian Dad Of Few Words stereotype — it's super common in asian cultures for boomer-era parents to tell their sons that "real men don't cry". it's hard to describe, but in fact!! sometimes people think it's just easier to enforce discipline that way, "threatening" children with the loss of something that is inherently theirs (masculinity) if they don't behave. if you've grown up in an asian culture, you probably also know that, whether consciously or unconsciously, older asian folks do buy into traditional gender roles. they too are a product of their environments, which weren't as open about this as we are now, but that is a conversation for another day!!!

i think inevitably xz carries with him some of these things that are just so ingrained and normalised in society growing up. but he is also a young man who grew into himself in many different environments — when in school, when in university, when living apart from his parents for the first time, when making a name for himself as an idol, an occupation that sometimes challenges traditional gender norms, etc.

i'm sure xz, just like anyone else, has made and remade his understanding of gender and sexuality into what it is today, drawing from his varied experiences / environments / phases of life and changing ways of seeing the world c:

i am definitely not expressing this as well as i hope to, but thank you so, so much 😭

this was just!! so incredibly kind of you to say, and it made me giddy and warm and so happy reading this message 💖 sometimes i do wonder if the whiplash from bouncing between this many interests annoys people, so i'm just glad that there are people who do enjoy the fun of it all ;v; welcome to turtledom and i'm so glad i can be a small part of your timeline!! hehe

i can't speak for everyone, but i definitely agree that being multifandom goes a long way in keeping you sane! there's never a boring day because there's always something to look forward to in one fandom or the other, you're less likely to hinge your own emotional state only on one thing, and i feel like it also helps you meet friends who are more likely to stay with you for you, rather than, for example, the content you bring to only one thing. and like you've said, you learn and experience so much!!! i love listening to my friends talk about hobbies/fandoms i'm not a part of because i learn about it through osmosis and then it becomes like my hobby-in-law + i add it to my pool of conversation starters HAHA

between the two things you mentioned, it's more deliberate curation on my part, for sure! i think it's a lot easier if i simply don't see it vs. me seeing it and trying to regulate my emotions after, especially if it's just pointless internet vitriol

i 100% relate to how you said it takes so much time to have to constantly filter through your timeline to just set up a space that doesn't show you the stuff you dislike. i feel like there was a time where i was blocking/muting people every day because i kept getting solo tweets until my timeline finally got the message lmaoooo

i always want to dispel the notion that blocking/muting is drastic or bad or anything negative!! i use it very liberally. my thought process behind it is always: "if i don't want to see what this person is saying (e.g. yz hate), they probably don't really want to see what i'm saying either (e.g. yz appreciation)." isn't it just time saved for everyone if i take the plunge first? :')

and even if that isn't the case i.e. you just don't really appreciate something or someone for any reason, fandom is always supposed to be your happy place. i think of curating your own fandom experience as similar to how some people decorate their workstations or put on a certain playlist to be more productive at work. or like... rather than complaining about the office noise, you put on noise-cancelling headphones. we can't really do much to control the people around us, but what we can do is to insulate ourselves as much as possible from the things that are distracting or unpleasant. and you just do what you have to do, for no one else but yourself ♡

AHHH THIS IS SO ENDEARING TO THINK ABOUT 😭♥️ i was honestly surprised that engraved cutting boards like that exist! it's already a world of trouble for me to wash off the occasional chilli or parsley stain from my plain wooden cutting board that has no engravings/grooves so i can 100% understand your friend LOL

the robot cleaner lrlg is still one of the funniest ones because you can tell he really thought the two-for-one deal was going to be enough to make xz close one eye over the purchase hsdjfhjsfhs

the cutting board scene made me wonder what their house must be like! i'm sure even with xz's careful eye for interior decoration, it must be peppered with little trinkets and oddities that they've both brought home from their travels! thinking back to the time xz says he collects magnets, and the crystal lamp that yb brought back from paris once (???????)

thank you for sharing this with me (i love hearing about little anecdotes from people's lives hehe) and thank you for the festive wishes too c: i hope the year of the horse is kind to you, with good health and good fortune and good experiences ♡

ahsdjadhajsds hello fellow sufferer in the hellfires of figure skating!!!! 😭

can i first say that i love how you got into fs because of yuri on ice ;o; i loved it as an old fs fan, and i think it's so lovely that fandom and/or a piece of media can be so impactful that it makes people appreciate the subject matter all the more ♡ YOI YOU WILL ALWAYS BE FAMOUS

i absolutely agree with everything you've said; it's the reason why i also checked out of the sport around the same time you did. to me, the golden era of figure skating was around 2012/13 - 2016/17, and the 2018 olys rounding up the quad felt like a culmination of all that, which is why pyeongchang still has such a special place in so many hearts. i only survived the 2018-2022 quad because of yuzu. but it was so disheartening to see the conversations surrounding figure skating at the time gravitate more and more towards boosting BVs, celebrating other skaters who tried to make up for the sheer difference in artistic skill just by jamming in jump after jump that aren't even executed well on their own, much less in a cohesive programme. i properly stopped keeping up with fs after beijing, which still makes me sad because checking back in now makes me see how far the field has fallen... i only follow men's and dance, but i can count the number of proper skaters on one hand ;;

i always joke that ISU should be renamed to IJU (international jumping union) 💀

because it reflects my biggest question for figure skating today: since when — and why — has figure SKATING (!!!) been about who has the most stamina for the craziest or highest number of jumps?

in the quest to play the game of technical inflation, a whole generation of skaters are now training to do jumps before they've truly mastered anything else, and so often this means sacrificing the time spent on fundamental skating skills like spins, step sequences, edge switches. and this creates such a vicious cycle because poor fundamentals → poor entry/exits and inability to do meaningful transitions → so much empty space in programmes because skaters spend all this time teeing up to big jumps that get them the big BVs. there is no connection between the choreography and the music, no lyrical or musical skating, and we all end up just watching skaters skate OVER their music instead of TO the music

and imo this is one of the saddest parts of fs because it's losing its ability to be one of the sports that truly connect the most to the public. like. let's be honest!!! the average fs watcher will not know the difference between a toe loop and a flip, much less be able to really watch edge switches or tell how rotated a jump is. BUT everyone can enjoy poetry in motion, an athlete who is able to blend technical prowess with artistry in a way that truly does justice to the music, choreography, and the effortless level of skating expected at the olympics — but we have none of that now and we're all just left watching, as you've rightfully called them, "highly disjointed choreography" that look and feel ugly!!!

it just makes me sad as a long-time fs enjoyer that not only it is alienating older fans who've been around for the glory days, it's also painting such a poor picture for newer fans who want to love fs

i think there is no true recourse for this sport until and unless the ISU is demolished entirely and rebuilt independently from the ground up. there's just too much corruption in there (federations buying support, suspicious judging assignments, the way panels become uncharacteristically strict or lenient on some nations) and the focus has shifted so far away from what figure skating itself once was. only when the governing body changes what it prioritises can the skaters do the same, because it means then that the correct skills are being rewarded at correct levels

honestly ice dance was onto something back when they had compulsories. it made sure everyone trained the fundamentals and you can't flub it with a backflip or 1324832423 quads in a programme. ~yes i am, in bitter fashion, throwing shade!!!~

this turned out to be such a long rant i'm so sorry shdfjsf but thank you for sharing your thoughts along with this ask too, and know that you're not alone in your frustration! hug of solidarity for this universal disappointment 🫂 (also thank you for reading all my olys rambling....... most of it was neither kind nor coherent lmao)

oh!! hello anon ;o; firstly, that's very kind, thank you so much ♡

the ask is definitely not too personal! i don't know if this necessarily counts as advice, much less Big Sister Advice, because it's more of how i personally see the world...?

if i had to narrow down how i try to stay calm(er), i think it's because i really think words have power. it is so, so normal and so, so understandable to be upset on xz and yb's behalf at the kind of injustices they've generally had to face throughout their careers — we're all only human — but when people are fuelled by anger, they tend to use really strong choice words in the moment. and i feel that doesn't necessarily reflect well on the people they claim to be protecting :')

so often, fans jump to the defence of their idols because "if i don't, then who will?"

i was there once! i was super involved in kpop spaces, to the point where i felt a slight against my idol was a slight against me.

but this trigger-happy response is not only super exhausting in an industry like this where shit boils over every day, it makes it so that sometimes the idols have to clean up a bigger mess, or a mess that wasn't even there to begin with. like at wbn, a lot of the initial anger was from audience members speculating about movement they saw on the ground and started pointing fingers at this celebrity or that celebrity when there was no way anyone besides event staff would've known what was happening. and how does that help him, when he already has a billion other things to be worrying about, first-hand, at an event as chaotic as that one shdfjhsjfhs

i'm not saying that people shouldn't speak out on behalf of them, especially when we all know they get put through the wringer for absolutely nothing sometimes 💀 but not in the way that so many people do in the heat of the moment: so desperate to push blame off their idols that they end up pushing it onto others, without really thinking about how that might reflect on xz and yb as people in an industry that is all about maintaining at least functional working relationships.

SO ALL THIS CONTEXT IS TO SAY THAT

my calm (???) probably stems from me believing that xz and yb, who have worked tirelessly to surround themselves with competent people that THEY trust to run their careers with them, aren't some damsels in distress that need validation for suffering some great injustice. they do a job, do it pretty damn well, and sure as hell know when and how to bite back in the future — always with a polite PR smile on their faces 🙂‍↕️ (xz at least. HAHA)

and as for me, on this silly little bird app that they will never read, maybe i can be a little humorous about it ("can you believe we're asking them to just sit down?").

maybe i can find meaning in other things (how their onstage interactions show they are deeply cherished by so many colleagues; how being backstage just means they can play silly games without prying eyes).

this is a long race! and this lets their work and natural goodness shine through on their own ♡

and also like. it helps keep me sane!!! there is already so much negativity in every other part of life; why should fandom be a space where everyone constantly goes through the pain olympics instead of finding meaning in the thing that brought us all together in the first place? ;v; there's no point waiting for other people to change how they speak about these things, because i can't control other people, but i can control myself!