The noise level ratchets right back up again, and Alex lets out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding as he finishes stripping down.

tell me i'm not the only one who always gets taken out of the story when reading that sentence 🫣

Kuzy is my baby. Idc that he’s a ginormous hockey player. I have adopted him as my own and will protect him with my life.

Never change Kuzy.

mxtx said on weibo that she based puqi shrine on an actual daoist temple she once visited on weibao mountain in dali, yunnan, called 太子殿 / temple of the crown prince. it was also very old and dilapidated when she first visited, and the donation sign xie lian puts up outside puqi shrine is taken word for word from the donation sign in this temple, which you can see here:

本观危房，诚求善士，捐款修缮，积累功德。 / this temple is on the verge of collapse; we sincerely request that kind benefactors contribute donations for its renovation, and thus accumulate good merits.

she also says in that same weibo post, which you can see in this image, that she was struck with wonder at the size of the huge red camellia tree that stands in the temple. locals say that it's been there for over 400 years, and it still sprouts beautiful red flowers year after year. in her words, "that was when the basic characterisations for tgcf were settled."

thanks to mxtx and tgcf, this temple is no longer that old and dilapidated. if you go there today, you can see a temple filled with all the love every tgcf fan who has ever visited has to give. red thread and tgcf merch fill the entire temple, and the incense fires burn high now that the temple sees regular visitors; in fact, it's often said that this temple now sees the most worshippers/visitors on the entire mountain, rather than being the lonely, overlooked temple it once was.

(screenshot taken from @纪呆呆's douyin)

if you're ever in the area, i highly recommend visiting! the keeper of the temple is always happy to sit down with visitors to share cups of tea and chat about the temple, and he's got a bunch of tgcf stamps too, and there's a lot of tgcf merch in the town at the foot of the mountain

Okay but I feel like there are STILL books missing from this quest 👀

Give me your: ✨ messy city romances ✨ yearning in crowded apartments ✨ late night subway/taxi vibes ✨ ambitious hot people emotionally spiraling ✨ rooftop scenes / bar scenes / “meet me downtown” energy

Basically if the city itself feels like a character… I want it 😭

greetings from gusu! i was recently in suzhou, otherwise known as gusu, so i thought i'd share some photos of emperor's smile since it's in practically every single alcohol shop there is on the touristy streets (pingjiang and shantang):

i call this one short king lwj bc the angle of the art makes him look shorter than wwx

the text reads: "emperor's smile! here, I'll give you a jar. pretend you didn't see me, okay?" (my trans.)

this shop had an offer where you get one piece of mdzs merch if you buy emperor's smile from them. it's really not worth it lmfao. emperor's smile was made up by mxtx, so it's not a local tradition, and also it tastes nauseatingly sweet. wwx would never tolerate something like that

this is truly Check Please fanfic. like i think i’ve already read this on AO3

I have never before heard a character being described as having so many cowlicks in their hair that they look “like a startled sunflower.”

But it sounds adorable and I kinda need more of it.