#novel scene commentary

[rynne]

There’s a moment in the Second Siege I really love. (Well, more than one, because the Second Siege is one of my favorite scenes in the whole novel, but one I want to talk about right now.)

Suddenly, Wei WuXian spoke up, “HanGuang-Jun!” Lan WangJi turned around to look at him. Wei WuXian took in a breath, “I want to do something.” 

The eyes of the others were led over by the conversation as well. Wei WuXian, “Will you do it with me?” 

Lan WangJi gazed at him. He answered, firm and articulate, “I will.” 

Wei WuXian grinned before he took off his black robe.

(Chapter 81, ExR)

I love this moment so much. It’s such a beautiful reversal of some of the biggest missed opportunities of WWX’s first life in the Wangxian relationship. WWX kept his business to himself. LWJ offered help that wouldn’t really work for WWX. Neither of them quite trusted each other enough.

And yet here is a moment full of trust. WWX outright asks for LWJ’s help. LWJ does not hesitate to offer it even when he doesn’t know what WWX wants to do. 

And the way this is phrased also feels meaningful to me. WWX says “I want to do something.” Like in his first life, this is something he is initially only committing himself to doing. But then he reaches out to include LWJ, to ask if LWJ will do this thing he wants to do with him.

WWX is also often fanon-stereotyped as being unwilling to ask for help, though that’s not really the case, and we clearly see here that WWX has no problems asking for help when he trusts that he can get it. And he’s happy about getting it. He grins.

But that’s the thing here. WWX can ask for LWJ’s help because he now trusts that LWJ will give him the help he needs -- and he trusts that so much that he knows he doesn’t even need to give LWJ more specifics. And LWJ, who once upon a time would not have been able to unconditionally offer whatever WWX needed, no longer hesitates to do just that.

It’s such a good moment. These two build such a good relationship.

#mdzs #mdzs meta #wangxian #wei wuxian #lan wangji #novel scene commentary #love the way their relationship evolves

[violetdisasterzone]

another unfriendly reminder: at Maigu Ridge, the sex is not what killed Shen Qingqiu. AFTER the sex, when Binghe was coherent again, Shen Qingqiu started drawing the excess demonic energy out of Xin Mo himself. and once Binghe realized what he was doing, they destroyed the sword together.

did we forget "'Dying together' also included a 'together.' It didn't seem that bad." ????

#DYING TOGETHER ALSO INCLUDED A TOGETHER!! #死在一起也包含了在一起!!!!!!!! #I think that's another poetic thing about this scene - that the 'papapa to save the world' didn’t save the world really #it saved binghe #and then they saved the world together #it's just such a perfect echo of the whole novel's commentary on false desires of narrative tropes vs the real weight of individual choice #they kill me oml #in the next scene when shen qinqiu is all worried bc the system can only save him and he's worried binghe already left #and when we learn he DID try to follow shen qingqiu... #my heart my heart my heart #they're everything #svsss #scum villain's self saving system #bingqiu #shen qingqiu #luo binghe #svsss meta #人渣反派自救系统

[lavampira]

wip whenever

tagged by @redwayfarers and I do actually have a bit more to share now! it’s another excerpt from my stormblood-era sidalia wip (spoilers for the DRK 70 quest) that still has me spiraling as I chip away at it. not tagging anyone else this time, but if anyone has any creative work to share, I def want to see it c:

Sidurgu faces away from her, his attention too preoccupied with the threat ahead of him in the form of an anguished elezen boy and magic born of stolen aether. His armored body shields Rielle, hunched over the girl’s limp form sprawled beneath him, and by the way that he leans on one knee and shakes with each heaving breath, she can’t be certain that he can stand. Fear catches in her throat.

Not them. Please, not them, too.

A hoarse cry escapes her chapped lips as she rolls to push herself off the ground. Rosy hair tumbles around her ears and face with the motion, falling loose from her haphazardly tied bow, and staggering in a pathetic arc to meet Myste’s gaze, she finds it not unlike the boy’s cascading blue hair and wild, bewildered expression before her. As the familiar glow of aether envelops him in preparation of another summon, she grits her teeth and braces for it.

Oh, what a fool she’d been not seeing through the ruse.

Before they had ever picked up a sword, her hands held a grimoire. Hers is the world of egi, simulacra, and trances, aether brought forth by crystals and arcanima, primals felled and their power borrowed at her hands, years spent honing the once thought lost Allagan art. ‘Twas she who the boy had got it from, after all—her aether, her knowledge, and her strength wielded by her own grief made manifest.

And now Sidurgu and Rielle may pay the price.

#director’s commentary but this fic isn’t a novelization but scenes building on their connection between drk questline + msq moments #mostly to showcase their dynamic leading up to getting together and the mindset alia is in ahead of it #because there is. a lot to unpack. for her before she allows herself to give into her feelings #and this section is a larger intro ‘prologue’ that bookends the end as the defining moment when their relationship officially starts #wip tag #tag game #oc: d'alia liveq

[altschmerzes]

I love these "ask the author" sort of games! I'm hitting the middle of the list: 13, 15, and 18, if you have time; 18 if you can answer only one. Please and thank you!

i ALSO love them, they’re so much fun

13. Is there a trope you wouldn’t write if it was the last trope on earth?

aside from all the romance tropes that i sort of rule out en masse already? reconciliation with/forgiveness of abusers. cannot be me, could never be me. not if it were the last trope on earth.

15. A Hollywood producer tells you that they want to film just one of your fics. Which fic would you want it to be?

MAN. man. i waffled back and forth on whether my answer would be my ted lasso mediafic or my gideon the ninth fix it (after we break it worse of course) fic, but that second one has so much like. introspection and internal narrative that’s crucial to the way it plays that i don’t know that it would play well in a visual medium. most of the things i write do, but that one in particular is very..... stylized in the way i wrote it. it’s also just interesting to think about how the media aspects of mediafic would play out in a filmed medium. fun to play with in m’brain.

18. What is a line/scene you’re really proud of? Give us the DVD commentary for that scene.

BOY OH BOY okay lemme see. i’m gonna pull one from ‘the same story’ (aforementioned mediafic) since i know that’s one you’re invested in :) after thinking on it very hard i am gonna talk about the scene in chapter four where jamie asks roy what roy’s parents are like, and he thinks about the situation with his sister.

i’ll paste the clip of the scene and then do some ~director’s commentary~ for it after-

“They had a falling out with my sister, years back now.” Seven years, about. “We don’t talk much anymore.”

“You and your sister?” Jamie sounds confused, like he’s adding that up with the things he knows about Roy and the fact that they’d literally just been at Sarah’s surgery that morning and finding the equation doesn’t compute right. Probably because it doesn’t. “But she was just—”

“Me and my folks.” It comes out stronger than Roy meant it to, a little angry. This isn’t his favourite thing to talk about. Not that it’s been a regular topic of conversation with… well, pretty much anyone. He’s told Keeley, but not in much detail, even with her. “I picked her.”

Falling out was, really, a gentle way to put what had happened there. Roy can still remember the night he opened his front door and found his sister on his porch, the handle of a suitcase clutched in her determined fingers and a positive pregnancy test in her pocket. The little plus sign appeared on the tiny screen, Sarah had told him, stirring a cup of tea over and over and not drinking it, and she’d packed to leave the man that science was determined to call Phoebe’s ‘father’ before she could even process what was going on. Then, she’d called a cab and gone straight to her brother’s, and there she was.

Roy sat with her like she’d asked him to at their parents’ kitchen table, and he’d kept quiet like she’d asked him to as he listened to them lecture her about everything from her taste in men to the stupidity of choosing to be a single mother, as if they hadn’t just gotten done lambasting the would-be other parent.

Their parents had lectured Sarah until she cried and that was when Roy decided that he’d had enough. He stood up, announced they were quite finished, bundled his sister into the car, and left with her on the spot. Since that day, Roy has never apologized to them, because he doesn’t regret it and figures there’s no reason to. They’ve tried to fix things with him a few times, but they’ve never said they were sorry to her, and so he tolerates talking to them on the phone now and then, but that’s pretty much it.

It was just Roy and Sarah and their parents before, and then their family was effectively split down the middle, halved in a single night, and as far as Roy is concerned, if they’re upset about it, then that’s on them. They’re the ones who put him in a position where he needed to choose at all. Of course he picked Sarah. Fucking — somebody had to.

i wrote this scene for a couple of reasons. part of it was because i was fascinated by jamie repeatedly asking people he saw as Good Men what their fathers were like. i would LOVE to see that kind of a conversation between jamie and roy, especially because of the way jamie idolized roy when he was a kid. that’s something that hangs over all of their interactions in my mind, whether i’m watching the show or writing something. also i’m damn fascinated with whatever the hell is up with roy’s family.

debated whose pov to put in for a while but ultimately it had to be roy’s. it had to be roy’s because he wouldn’t tell that story, not really. the story i came up with was a story he would see as belonging to sarah, and not one he would give away without her.

i’ve thought about it a lot, and this like. headcanon of What Is Up With The Kents has built up over time. i’ve found it really like... telling that roy - whose life is not exactly empty of obligation or responsibility - spends so much time looking after phoebe when he and his sister’s parents presumably live in town and would be about retirement age at this point. i know it’s probably mainly just a thing where they wanted to have that as an aspect of his life and didn’t really want to spend time explaining where phoebe’s grandparents are in all this, when they’d usually be the go-to family member in this sort of childcare situation barring extenuating circumstances. however, it gets ME thinking a lot about why that might be. what’s going on there.

it also succinctly presents a pretty complex picture of the backstory of roy and his sister and what their relationship is like. i’ve thought about that a lot - i’m riveted by that dynamic though we’ve never so much as seen her or even gotten her name (i’ve clearly decided to call her sarah). it’s an incredibly important thing in ‘the same story’ as it’s not only that sarah physically appears in the narrative several times (once that we’ve seen and a few still coming), it’s that roy’s relationship with her and his history with her and their parents is informing a lot of how he’s feeling and what he’s doing about what’s happened to jamie. it establishes this like.... sense that roy has been repeatedly put in the situation of watching someone he cares very much for get hurt right in front of him without being able to do anything to protect them and remaining unharmed himself.

i thought about going farther into it. i thought about extending this section, getting more into what happened, but this is what it needed to be, i think. it’s short, to the point, and gets into one of the biggest like. Things. with roy i think, which is feeling so enormously responsible for other people that it suffocates him sometimes. he’s protective, and he’s a fixer - as i had sarah say directly to him in the previous chapter - and i’ve thought a lot about how running from and stepping up to responsibility is basically his whole. arc. he ran from captaincy. he hid from coaching. and then that line from a wrinkle in time is the centrepin of every important character beat of his, right? it has to be me. it can’t be anyone else. and that pins the centre of this scene too. he did what sarah asked him to do until he couldn’t anymore. until it had to be him to protect her, to get her out. take her side, pick her when he could’ve just accepted the way his parents obviously wanted to preserve their relationship with him even when they wouldn’t apologize to her.

i also debated a bit where to put this. whether to get into it at all in roy’s narrative before we saw sarah, before she came over to help with jamie so that we’d have that context before we saw her and heard what she had to say to roy about all this. but honestly i think it kind of hits better if we see them interact first. hear her tell him she knows how far he’d go for family before we see what she means by that. it’s a fun setup-payoff like that, i think.

anyways. i could go on about this forever, but i’ll stop there. there’s like.......... a whole story behind every scene in this fic honestly. it’s one of the fics i’ve put the most into i think, by a wide margin. effort, thought, heart. i’ve poured a lot into it and i like to think that shows, which makes doing this sort of. dvd commentary thing very fun and rewarding.

#gav gab #gav answers #FORGIVE THE NOVEL ON THE SCENE COMMENTARY I'M WATCHING A STRESSFUL BASEBALL GAME #AND THIS IS HOW I'M DEALING WITH IT #we did lose that game eventually but it's cool i'm zen about it #alter-alterego #writing liveblog #fic: the same story

[highwaydiamonds]

Clearly the Persuasion 2022 producers watched P&P 2005 and decided, "We could make it worse."

#jane austen #i just watched the 2022 Persuasion trailer and omg it was so obvious #main heroine must have messy hair instead of the hair done like it should be - and god forbid bonnets go on her #oh and emo scene between the heroine and love interest? ok - this novel is mainly in cities - ok nm we'll change that #oh there's a dramatic candle blowing out scene - to show emotional ennui - ok cool those are fun #this heroine isn't funny enough tho - gotta make her funnier - so she'll yell out at her male interest - and wear jam #oh and she's not obvious enough so we gotta add all kinds of sassy commentary in asides #thanks netflix - i hate it #and there are going to be people - probably younger women whho see this movie and think - this is what austen is! #and welp - no - she's better but you probably will be disappointed because she's not all modern sassy girl in a period world #the same way people fell in love with keira knightley's lizzie and i sat there going? wtf - her hair is down? um.. NO. #unless i am very much mistaken this production s going to annoy tf out of me. yep - t's time to sharpen the knives #austen related #bookish tv #persuasion 2022 #austen film

[skeleton-warriors]

ive been trying to be more active on here again, but as ive said the past, scanning stuff can take a lot out of me ｏ(＞＜；)

im currently prioritizing scanning the mini stories from the guide for now(since they have the most unused information), basically all extra lore can be found by reading the fleer ultra cards(the quality on the site is pretty bad, feel free to dm me if u want a better scan ^^b)

#and if you havent checked it out yet watch the documentary + commentaries posted here!! #the only other source that includes more lore info are the 2 novels(man theyre gonna take awhile to scan if i ever get around to that....) #i mean its not much. theyre based on the original scripts so they include deleted scenes. #and its only of the first 2 episodes

[esoteric-oracle]

Y'all, friendly reminder that Wei Wuxian was not actually a demonic cultivator. I honestly found it shocking how prevalent the misconception that he uses demonic cultivation is, and how casually people throw the term around. His title as “Mo Dao Zu Shi” is intentionally misleading, as Wei Wuxian himself states many times in the novel that he does guidao  - the Ghost path.

This fact is probably more obvious to those who've read more xianxia novels (especially for Chinese readers, whom MDZS was geared towards), where demonic cultivation is a pretty common trope. Classically, “demonic cultivation” involves actual demonic actions, (ie. eating another cultivator’s golden core) - and MXTX deliberately used a subversion of that trope. Demonic cultivation in MDZS would require demons - something heavily lampshaded when Lan Qiren asks Wei Wuxian the difference between yao, mo, gui, and guai in the Cloud Recesses Study Arc. MXTX literally spoonfed the difference between demonic and ghost cultivation to readers in this scene, but I still see people perpetuating the belief that he was an actual demonic cultivator.

Demons come from living humans, so in the context of MDZS, the only true demonic cultivator we saw was Xue Yang, who use living corpses. Wei Wuxian only ever used the dead and resentful ghosts to do his bidding. The title of MDZS is a deliberate misnomer meant to act as commentary on how easily wrongful rumours and slanders spread, especially given how many criticisms tossed Wei Wuxian's way weren't even accurate - and somehow, 95% of readers fell for the same trap.

It's even worse how the official 7Seas translation perpetuates this misconception, by using "demonic" and modao to refer to Wei Wuxian's cultivation when he explicitly refers to his cultivation as guidao in the ExR translations and original text.

#mdzs #wei wuxian #demonic cultivation #guidao #ghost cultivation #mdzs meta

[bonus-links]

Directors commentary on this latest update?? 😁

hehe on it

if you follow me on main, you might have seen me complaining about a scene I had to rewrite a thousand times, to the point I made a whole separate google doc for all the versions of it. that was this update! it might not seem like much even happens during their convo lol but originally they had a conversation about a different topic on top of it. i spent forever trying to make the segue sound natural and trying to decide what fiddly lore bits I wanted to commit to, before finally giving up and pushing that topic to later in the story lol. I hope I don't regret not setting up what I was gonna set up later lol but I think ultimately this was a good choice

that being said there is still some important info in his update before Wake warps them :-))) we'll come back to that

I accidentally sketched this entire page around Wake using the Wind Waker with his right had, and got halfway through drawing all the poses before I realized. i was just gonna take the L and leave it but it bothered me too much so I redrew everything JHFKJ

Got some asks about what Linebeck is reading: it's a trashy romance novel lol

in the last update where Slate is crouched down talking to the koroks, they're asking him to tell Link hi and that they miss him HAHA i was actually supposed to put that as text and then. forgot and just put empty text bubbles. good job on the set up and payoff, me

the sound of Loft's mouth audibly clicking shut HAHAHAHA. Slate is like we're not doing this again. we get it, I don't know shit or fuck abt hero stuff. can u let it go.

Wolf actually does know what the triforce is- even though twilight princess doesn't ever call it that explicitly, at the very least he's put two and two together.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRAN GRAN!!

#think that's all Ive got for now #directors commentary #bonus content #ask

[evilminji]

Okay, But, >.> Listen...

So MAYBE, just MAYBE, I am an incureable RoFan Isekai nerd. Shut up about it, maybe. What're you a cop? Mind your business. BUT! And hear me out...

W...What would actually? HAPPEN if Danny went into a Visual Novel? Some Otome game? You know, aside from being vague flustered by and then DEEPLY ALARMED by these walking Red Flag Fruitloops that girls are supposed to find "dreamy" or something?

Like we know how MMOs work for him. And probably OTHER open world games? But a visual novel? Would it be like the Christmas Episode? Would he hear narration? Be stuck in static "scenes"? Or would it be like a cut together "only the interesting parts" movie that he's somehow IN?

Like?? At SOME point his curiosity is gonna get the best of him. He's gonna want to know what different video games are LIKE on the inside? What's Pong like? Tetris? Mario? One of those Mama's cooking games? Etc etc.

He probably hits up a game sale. Buys a box or two. Figures he can always resell um or just give them away for free. Might even use them for parts. Who knows. And?

It's kinda cool!

It's even SCIENCE! See? Tucker's in charge of notes. Sam's in charge of hilarious commentary and pizza. Jazz is keeping them from drinking and doing ghost shit (terrible combination, we never speak of What Happened(tm) again). And the Dr's. Fenton got distracted by making fudge and debating what games should be counted towards which categories.

They've made an afternoon of it.

And NOW? They've reached the bottom of box one. It was "Survive The Villainess! My Rose for You!" Or... judging by Sam's climbing eyebrows and growing scowl? A DEEPLY unpleasant porn game about school girls.

You could not PAY him enough.

Yeah, he DOES realistically kinda want to know what happens.. if.. like? You know... sexy games... like would he? Or does he just WATCH or...? *awkward cough* But! That's NOT for Family Science Night! And DEFINITELY not THAT game, THANKS.

He'll find himself an ETHICALLY SOURCED smutty game full of consensual boning. For PRIVATE TIME. Those test results are gonna show up like MAGIC and we WILL NOT be talking about them! Got it? Good.

Now what the fuck is he look at here?

Jazz is surprisingly knowledgeable. They are not allowed to ask. They respect it. The main character "wakes up" inside the body of a "villainess" and must survive. Turn her terrible reputation around. Avoid "death flags". Preferably romance one of the hot guys?

Uuuuuuuh... you realize Danny's in a committed relationship, right?

Sam and Turker allow it. But they reserve the right to blast his taste in Fantasy Guy's. Chose carefully, for their roasting shall be BRUTAL. Luuuuuv yoooou~♡

He wants a divorce. They're not even MARRIED and he wants a divorce. You see how they mock him, Jazz? The cruelty he suffers? He's taking the Blobs and moving to Frightknight's. They always warned him about you living folks and your fast ways, but he didn't listen! *continued dramatics* *is smacked with a pillow*

But actually going IN? The weirdly, vaguely European over the top EVERYTHING? Giant jewels and ridiculous, fancy dresses? The walking red flag Romantic Archtype Leads? He wants to PUNCH half these guys! This is ABUSE! Are people OKAY!?

Like? I feel like he'd stay way, WAY longer then he needed too? Just out of morbid curiosity? W-where is this plot GOING? It's so dramatic. Why is my dress MORE dramatic now? Why is everything so... Sparkly.

It would be? AMAZING and baffling and I would pay real money to hear their live commentary. "Why not simply judo flip the crown prince off the balcony, then take over the country, sweetie?" "Solid plan, honey! He deserves it!" Beautiful. Flawless. Sage advice really. Too bad Danny can barely walk in his five million bows dress.

It's the BEST Au and I might be a genius. Or deeply sleep deprived. Meh. We'll 50/50 it, six of one, half a dozen of another.

@hdgnj @ailithnight @nerdpoe @the-witchhunter

#dpxdc #dcxdp #dc x dp prompt #danny phantom #RoFan #Family Science Night #is an excuse to fuck around and eat pizza #but if you write notes #its technically SCIENCE now! #this week #danny brought GAMES #game testing Au #RoFan games #otome games and ghost powers au #dp x dc #dc x dp

[originalaccountname]

Mori Ougai’s belief as the boss is [...] “The boss stands on top of the organization, and at the same time, be the slave of all.” For the sake of the organization, the boss must always take the “logical optimal solution.” That is the duty of the boss. [...] “Therefore, no matter how much your heart aches, you have to ignore your personal feelings.”

Kafka Asagiri, for the BSD exhibition

On Mori and regret.

This man acts based on his perceived "optimal solution". It means relying on cold logic, detached from (his own and others') emotions. In that way, he fits right in as one of the smart characters of BSD, contrasting for example Dazai's way of working with/around people's feelings, and Fyodor's way of manipulating and twisting those feelings into monsters.

Mori remains cold, logical, distant, efficient. It meant disregarding Yosano's and the soldiers' deteriorating mental health during the war because the concept of an army that cannot be wiped out was too good. It meant following Natsume's plan and taking the old boss' place himself to fix Yokohama's underground and protect the city and its people. It also meant disposing of Mimic by sacrificing Oda in order to get the special ability business permit, despite (and perhaps because of) Dazai's attachment to the man.

The thing is, humans are not logical creatures, and will inevitably encounter conflicting emotions.

(does this look like the face of a man without regrets to you?)

Mori in Dark Era tried to pass on to Dazai his practice of putting aside his own feelings for the sake of choosing the most efficient solution that will benefit the group. It backfired spectacularly, so much so even, that Mori regrets it to this day.

For the BSD exhibition, Asagiri wrote some individual character commentaries, all very interesting insights into their characters and the writing intentions. For Mori, here's what he wrote:

“He who fell out of the optimal solution” Mori Ougai’s belief as the boss is described in the novel “Dark Era” and “Dazai, Chuuya, Fifteen”. That is “The boss stands on top of the organization, and at the same time, be the slave of all.” For the sake of the organization, the boss must always take the “logical optimal solution.” That is the duty of the boss. There is an unspoken additional point to it. “Therefore, no matter how much your heart aches, you have to ignore your personal feelings.” We can catch a glimpse of that in this scene. [the ADA-PM alliance meeting] Mori’s expressions after “Burnt it.” and “Like what you did to your predecessor”, gave us a glimpse of his true feelings that were made sacrifices for the sake of the “logical optimal solution”. (By the way, it goes without saying that Dazai is inducing Mori’s thoughts by words that will make him regret the past. It is to make him decide to form an “alliance”.) source and translation: Popopretty

(notice the inclusion of Hirotsu in this scene. Remember that later, Hirotsu suggests that Dazai knows why Mori did what he did to overthrow the old boss, which, in my opinion, is both a proof of Dazai's support in Mori's goal, and a reminder to uphold it.)

One of my favourite parts of the Dark Era light novel is a small scene during the epilogue that was not adapted into the anime. This is two weeks after Dazai defected:

To quote Asagiri again, "Therefore, no matter how much your heart aches, you have to ignore your personal feelings." Mori is conflicted about the outcome of the Mimic incident. He holds in his hands the Silver Oracle he himself gave to Oda, and reflects on its purpose: to "help the man mentioned above without hesitation in the face of any and all trials". Didn't he fail to do just that with Oda? Didn't he set him up and sent him to his doom? Didn't he abandon him to his trial?

But he rationalizes the events by saying he got the permit they so badly needed. No matter if he sacrificed one of his men. No matter if he drove Dazai away. He accomplished his priceless goal. It was a total success.

And yet, he poorly folds a paper airplane with the very Silver Oracle he gave Oda, throws it, watches it crash immediately, and mourns the loss of his right-hand man, without ever moving on.

But we have a direct example of Mori expressing regret.

The perception that Mori in BEAST is a completely different character than Mori is in canon, when that perception doesn't extend to any other character from that universe, rubs me the wrong way. The characters in BEAST are very similar to their canon selves, with some core traits getting a new twist. They are all one or two major life changes away from becoming these versions of themselves. As far as we know, Mori's only life-altering event was being forcefully removed from the Port Mafia by Dazai, and secretly put in charge of Atsushi's old orphanage.

Mori unambiguously made that orphanage a better place, as stated by Atsushi himself. BEAST!Mori is a lot softer, vulnerable and honest. That Mori offers to be a father to Atsushi while he heals. He also expresses regret in not being able to help Dazai when he was in his care.

I think it's very interesting, especially when knowing that Asagiri wrote both BEAST and Fifteen at the same time for the Dead Apple movie, because in Fifteen we have this:

The beginning of the first chapter of Fifteen is a gold mine. It is narrated from Mori's point of view, the man of logic and calculations, and yet it is full of doubt. He is alone and struggling to fix everything with so many people against him. But, throughout this scene about grasping at the Port Mafia's power, there is also this secondary thought being woven in, of Mori having started to actually care for Dazai.

The teenager is scary to him, smart enough to be a threat should he decide to be done with all this and turn against him, and yet, he immediately (and with a hint of sadness) finds that Dazai reminds him of himself. This lonely, lonely man found a kindred spirit, bright enough to grasp any situation in seconds and prone to using an uncomfortable obsession to divert and keep you guessing his true intentions. Mori entered Mentor Mode™ then. He taught Dazai his ways, he shared his struggles and thought process, he fought tooth and nail to keep him alive.

So when he asked Dazai why he wanted to die, it was with the concern of someone who has started to care. It was with the mind of someone who is trying to prevent the worst by fixing the problem at its source.

(translation: Reneray)

But it's also that self-projection/ability to relate that made him drive Dazai away, when he pushed too hard and forced Dazai to adhere to his optimal solution philosophy. Because Dazai cannot separate himself from his attachments, could not ignore his emotions like Mori does, and chose Oda over Mori's logic. From Dazai's point of view, that was betrayal. Mori and him were accomplices!

Dazai planted the idea that Mori was afraid of him taking over as boss, and Mori seems to agree with that thought (would it be because he feared for his life, or for Dazai's ability to replace him?) Yet, for a man afraid of his closest subordinate backstabbing him, he seems to be hanging on quite hard to the possibility of Dazai coming back, leaving his seat open to this day, inviting him back twice in the same arc, and...

(yeah I used this picture at the start too. "I hAvE nO rEgReTs" he says)

Mori may try to convince himself he feels no regrets and no guilt over his own actions by weighting gains and losses objectively, but he still hurts and has a very hard time moving on. He's human despite his best efforts, prone to mistakes and doubts. He's lonely and wishes to impart his knowledge onto others. His cold logic has both helped him in fixing the city, and alienated him from some of the people he most cared about.

In a similar vein, should the ADA employee transfer be of topic again, and should Mori clash with Yosano again, I wish we get to see some similar conflicting emotions in Mori between the usefulness of Yosano's ability, and Yosano herself as a person. The war was 14 years ago, that's a long time, and I want to believe that counts for something.

#there carrot i finished it 4 u #i can't be normal about mori and i've been having Many Thoughts about him #i needed that out of my system and lost the plot twice so uh. I hope this reads somewhat fine. #i could have started on twelve different tangents i have SO MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT MORI #i love mori i'm not even going to excuse or justify myself read the post #bsd #bungou stray dogs #bungo stray dogs #bsd analysis #bsd meta #bsd mori #bsd mori ougai #bsd beast #bsd beast spoilers #apparently i talk sometimes #what does it mean about him trying to get yosano back all these years later now that she's a grown-up with the means to oppose him? #is it only about her ability? or did 14 years of hardships made him reflect in any way at all? #food for thought (while we wait to see if that plotline gets cancelled or goes anywhere interesting)

[colleendoran]

Neil Gaiman's CHIVALRY: From Illuminated Manuscripts to Comics

One of the many reasons I wanted to adapt Neil Gaiman's Chivalry into graphic novel form was to create a comic as a bridge and commentary re: comics and illuminated manuscripts.

We're often told that the first comic book was Action Comics #1 featuring Superman, a collection of Superman comic strips that morphed into comic books as an art form.

Sequential art predates Action Comics #1.

Action Comics popularized sequential art book storytelling that had already appeared in other forms in fits and starts throughout history. Comic books didn't take off as a popular medium for several reasons, not least of which was the necessary printing process hadn't been invented yet and it's hard to popularize - and commercialize - something most people can never see. 

You find sequential art in cave paintings and in Egyptian hieroglyphics. I've read that comics (manga) were invented by the Japanese in 12th century scrolls.

And sequential art appears over and over again in Western art going back well over 1000 years, and in book form at least 1100 years ago.

The most obvious example of early sequential art in Western art - as a complete narrative in sequence - is the Bayeux Tapestry. 

At 230 feet long, this embroidered length of cloth was likely commissioned around the year 1070 by Bishop Odo, brother of William the Conqueror. It depicts the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and the invasion of England by the Normans. (The tapestry was made in England, not in France, but it is called the Bayeux tapestry because that's where it is now.)

Imagine what a task it was to embroider this thing. Whew. And you thought it was hard learning Photoshop.

This work of art is important in the history of sequential narrative, but the Norman invasion is also important to the legend of King Arthur - and another important English legend - for reasons we'll get into later. 

It's complicated.

All this is why you see this art in the background of this page of Chivalry.

Using the Romanesque art style of the tapestry in panel 1, I've added the Latin phrase "Rex Quondom, Rexque Futurus" - "The Once and Future King", the final words of Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur as inscribed on King Arthur's tomb, and the title of T.H. White's famous Arthurian novel.  (EDIT) and it has been kindly pointed out to me that QUONDOM should be QUONDAM, which is hilarious and annoying and this is how history gets rewritten by accident.

My original intention was to draw this Bayeux Tapestry scene out and juxtapose it with shots of Galaad interacting with the children, but the two page sequence I imagined didn't really work as well in reality as it did in my head. 

Foremost among my concerns was that the tapestry reference might be too obscure for most readers. I wanted to weave the visual meta-text of Chivalry into the story (For further reading on this project and my use of visual meta-text, symbolism, and history in Neil Gaiman's Chivalry, go HERE. And HERE. And HERE. And Yet again HERE.) in such a way as it would enhance the experience for people who "got" the visual meaning, while not dragging things down for people who didn't. So I cut this scene down to one panel.

The tapestry is a complete, long form comic strip created over 1100 years before some people claim comics were invented. So, I loved being able to reference it here.

But even more interesting to me are the sequential art sequences that appear in illuminated manuscripts - comics in book form.

I once got into a rather vicious argument with an academic who insisted illuminated manuscripts were comics. I said no. She said yes. Then she insulted the lowly comic artist and blocked me on Facebook.

Whatever.

My point was not that you can't find sequential art in illuminated manuscripts. My point is that an illustrated book isn't de facto a comic. Most illuminated manuscripts are illustrated books. Some illuminated manuscripts contain sequential art.

Just because opera is music, that doesn't mean all music is opera.

Just because comics books are books that doesn't mean all books are comic books.

And just because some illuminated manuscripts contain sequential art, that doesn't mean all illuminated manuscripts are sequential art.

But one is.

Let me show you it.

One of the earliest examples of an illuminated manuscript with comic art is The Bible d'Etienne Harding which you can see in this really bad jpg here, sorry, best I could find.

Created around the year 1109, property of a French Cistercian monk, it combines sequences like this with pages of text and illustration.

Not a comic book IMHO, but an illuminated manuscript with sequences of text, illustration and sequential narrative.

It's no more a "comic book" than a newspaper is for having text, illustration, and comic strips in it.

IMHO, academic lady.

And here's a look at the Old English Hexateuch (hexateuch refers to the first 6 books of the Bible) which I think is far more visually complex and interesting work, and comes much closer to the illuminated manuscript as comic, but still intersperses large sequences of text and illustration with sequential storytelling sequences. So I don't consider it a comic, but a book with sequential work in it.

Now this work below is a different matter. This is from the Holkham Bible Picture Book, circa about 1330.

This thing is genius. It measures a little larger than a modern comic, around 8"x11", and almost every page of it is like this spread here. 231 pages of beautifully rendered art, with repeated use of banderoles - "speech scrolls"  (basically word balloons) -  and captions, and (mostly) real sequential art. I've never seen anything else that comes even close to it, and by all accounts, neither has anyone else. 

It may not be a modern comic book - but it's a comic book as far as I can tell. I don't think there's any other illuminated manuscript that is as complete, sophisticated, and innovative a sequential storytelling work.

If this were printed and seen by more people, the comic book medium would have taken off centuries earlier, IMHO. But it wasn't. It was tucked away in a monastery somewhere and few people ever saw it. It ended up being forgotten for centuries until it popped up again around 1816 when a banker sold it to an avid book collector, Thomas Coke, Earl of Leicester, who inherited Holkham Hall and its library and set about restoring and expanding it. 

The banker wrote, “a very curious MS. just brought here from the Continent. . . which I think one of the greatest curiosities I ever saw”.

Sequential art got invented over and over and over by one artist after another until one day centuries later, some teenaged boys found their newspaper strips gathered together in a cheap format, and suddenly comic books were popular and like new.

And then a lot of people who didn't seem to realize that books had had pictures in them for centuries got all up in arms about the harms of books with pictures in them.

I think it's funny that it is called the Holkham Bible Picture Book. There really was no "comic" art language when this work was created or when academics began to catalogue this sort of thing. Will they change the name now?

Who can say.

Anyway, another Holkham Bible Picture Book reference for you.

Look familiar?

I referenced it in this scene in Chivalry.

One of the fun things about the Holkham is that it opens with a discussion between a friar who has commissioned the work and the artist. The friar admonishes the artist to do a good job on the project because it will be shown to important people. And the artist responds, "Indeed, I certainly will and, if God lets me live, never will you see another such book."

He wasn't kidding.

You can see the entire manuscript HERE. 

Sponsored by my Patreon. Thank you.

#chivalry #neilgaiman #neil gaiman #darkhorsecomics #dark horse comics #illuminated manuscript #medieval art #medieval manuscripts #watercolor #watercolor art #king arthur #arthuriana #arthurian legend #sir galahad

[fbfh]

older!logan x reader hcs

wc: 1.6k

genre: age gap, sort of sugar daddy logan

warnings: big (but legal) age gap, logan is early 40s reader is like early 20s, brief odette mention, logan is a killer lawyer, rory kinda traumatized Logan lol, I haven't finished gilmore girls or ayitl yet so don't come for me lol, logan is obsessedddddddd with reader, mildly smutty, mentions of marriage and proposals, your relationship progresses really quickly

summary: you were reading in a coffee shop when a charming gorgeous much older guy decided to strike up a conversation. little do you know that within a very short time that same charming stranger will know your dress size, your shoe size, and your ring size.

song rec: off to the races - lana del rey

a/n: the choke hold older logan has on me..... euthanize me at this point lmao

tags @yesv01 @magcon7280

As with all nsfw works, all characters are aged up to 18+ (like way over 18 in logan’s case lol)

That being said jesus christ let’s dive right into the brain rot

First things first, a little more about Logan

He’s in his early 40’s and aging like a fine goddamn wine

MEGA MEGA dilf vibes

After the whole millions of dollars sunken into a bad investment in his family’s massive media conglomerate mishap, he still faced a lot of pressure to join the family business

But with Rory rejecting his proposal, he felt so fucking down and beaten up by life

He just had two massive blows to his ego back to back

And he needed a win

Then the strangest thing happened 

He just got back from another late night of partying with his friends and switched on the tv so he wouldn’t have to fall asleep with his thoughts, and some random movie was playing

The girl in the movie is at dinner with her boyfriend and thinks he’s going to propose, but he breaks up with her instead

It hits a little too close to home and Logan’s about to switch it off

Then she decides to go to law school to prove herself

He finds himself getting more and more invested in this movie, relating more to Elle with every scene, and by the morning he confronts the idea he’s been shoving away for too long so he doesn’t rock the boat

He talks to his dad and they decide Logan will go to law school, but remain a prominent board member and shareholder of the family company

Mitchum is surprised by how responsible and well thought out Logan’s plan is

He’s forging a path to a very lucrative field - one Mitchum can tell he’s going to be very successful in - while still staying involved enough in the family business 

So Logan goes off to law school, and 20 years later he’s a total shark 

He’s a prestigious, expensive lawyer with a reputation for never losing and a long streak of killing it with really high profile cases

Now the Huntzberger name carries all the weight and power of his father’s media reach, and Logan’s success in the courtroom 

He’s excelling 

And he’s excelling enough to keep his family out of his personal life for a while 

He’s living the bachelor life until he hits 40

That’s when his parents decide it’s really unacceptable that he’s still not married 

So they tell him if he doesn’t get married soon they’ll arrange something

Some french heiress or something 

And Logan finds himself right back where he didn’t want to be

And then, like a gift from god, he sees you

Like I said in my initial drabble, Logan first saw you in a cafe reading some dusty novel no one actually reads like war and peace or crime and punishment or something

He's seen people your age do that before, reading complicated stuffy literature to seem smart and make some pretentious English class commentary that barely makes sense 

So he calls you on it

"War and Peace, huh?"

He’s expecting you to say something fake and pretentious

Some bullshit fake deep pseudo intellectual shit

But you look up at him, only pausing for a moment before you speak

You’re surprised to see such a gorgeous guy in a little cafe like this

Especially one that seems interested in talking to you

And god, the way you talk about it

The way your eyes light up

It takes him by surprise

He's not just interested

He's invested 

You start talking and realize that you've been talking for way longer than you expected to

And he wants more

He wants to know more about you, wants to see you sweet smile and hear your cute little laugh when he says something charming or compliments you

So he takes you out to dinner, his treat 

He guides you out the door and into his Porsche with his hand on your back 

It's a subtle gesture but it makes your stomach flip 

Then he buckles your seat belt for you

If you weren't sold before you sure are by now 

So he takes you to this nice fancy restaurant, wines and dines you, and he is laying on the charm thick

"Oh, come on. A pretty young thing like you must have a boyfriend."

"Really, you have excellent taste.”

You don’t miss the way he’s been eyeing you all night

And he doesn’t miss the way you squeeze your thighs together when he touches your face or plays with your fingers

One thing leads to another and after he pays the bill and leaves a generous tip, you find him ushering you back into his porsche

And yet again he closes your door for you and gets you all buckled in

This time when he drives his hand rests on your knee

He thinks he can handle this

He’s the biggest whore on the east coast /affectionate 

Then you grab his hand and move it up your thigh

There’s no going back now

He’s in just as deep as you are

Before you know it you’re tearing off each other’s clothes

His lips are all over you and motherfucker does he know what he’s doing

He worried for a moment he might have lost his edge

But as he lays you down into his big soft bed, your skin touching his silky sheets for the first time

But definitely not the last

As he finally touches you and feels how wet you are for him

He knows he didn’t peak in college

“Shh, listen,” he says between kisses that make you feel dizzy, “you’re gonna tell me if it’s too much for you, can you do that?”

You nod while he holds your face in his big hands

“You gotta say it,” he chuckles at how sweet you are, how well you respond to him, “use your words, baby…” 

You manage to choke out a desperate yes between kisses that makes his stomach twist

And that is the very beginning to your intense affair with Logan Huntzberger 

He’s desperate to see you again

He sends flowers and a dress and a gorgeous necklace to your apartment

And not the normal amount of flowers

The Logan amount of flowers

So a lot

And you can’t believe your luck finding a hot rich older guy that’s so into you 

You really like this attention

Your daddy issues are SCREAMING

And Logan likes having someone as gorgeous and intelligent and into him as you are

And he wants to do this right

But he’s rapidly approaching the deadline his family set

He doesn’t want to scare you off

GOD that’s the last thing he wants

But he is terrified of proposing and having it end up like it did the last time

Eventually he works up the nerve to talk to you about it 

He’s explaining everything to you while you pay your bills 

But it says they’re already paid

And your credit cards are paid off

And your debt has just disappeared

Even your student loans are gone

And there’s a fat deposit in your checking account 

He paid off all your debt and didn’t tell you

By the time he’s done explaining that you basically either need to get married asap or you can’t see each other anymore he still hasn’t brought it up

And you realize he’s not going to

He didn’t pay your bills to guilt you into anything

He’s not holding it over your head

He’s taking care of you

And all you’ve ever wanted is someone who will take care of you

Logan is surprised when you agree

But he’s even more surprised at how fast you agree

You sit in his lap and end up rambling about how much you love him, how you don’t think you’ll ever find anyone you like as much as him or anyone that treats you as well as he does

To no one’s surprise the conversation ends with him taking you on every surface of your apartment

Hours later you’re cuddling naked on your couch, resting your head on his muscular chest and listening to his heartbeat

“So like… are we engaged now?” you ask looking up at him

He laughs sweetly

“No, not yet. I have to actually propose first.”

You think back to your conversation earlier when you first said you’d want to marry him

“So that didn’t count before?”

His heart breaks at how little you ask for

“No, that didn’t count.” He kisses your head, “I’m going to take you out somewhere nice, give you a proper proposal, with a nice ring.”

You get butterflies thinking about it

You can’t believe how much he does for you

How much he wants to do for you 

You’re quiet for a moment, and he can feel you smiling into his chest

“...Okay.” 

Your voice is so small and bashful, and he can hear you suppressing a flustered giggle

Fuck he can’t get enough of you 

He laughs and pulls you closer, grabbing your chin and makes you look up at him so he can kiss you 

You fall asleep in his arms

And you think that you won’t mind being married so young if it’s Logan you’re marrying

Logan is looking at you with so much love and adoration

And right before he falls asleep 

He thinks that maybe it’s not too late for him to find love after all

#logan huntzberger #logan huntzberger x reader #gilmore girls #gilmore girls x reader #logan huntzberger smut #gilmore girls smut #older husband!logan #older boyfriend!logan #older!logan #sugar daddy!logan #euthanize me #he's just #so #very #hm. #he's so #just #yeah #you get it #we're all like this after reading that lmao

[twilightarc-gm]

Why do you like jiang cheng?

At the risk of liking him for the wrong reasons, let me be verbose and annoying about it.

A short anecdote: I finished the donghua before the novel and I liked JC's aesthetic so I was happy to have that imagery in my head for the novel, but mostly I came out of the donghua like "cool story, the ending was frowny face though" and I came out of the novel like I was lost in the IKEA store "there's stuff here but it's not what I want and it's organized in a way that's hard to navigate through." Bit like giving me a puzzle to solve.

Anyway, imagine a cat bapping at a thing trying to get fandom to show me what to do with MDZS (i.e. reading fanfic) and then I come across anti-Jiang Cheng stuff.

//record scratch

I'm sorry what?

Why?

NO.

I started then on Shuangjie reconciliation fic and quickly evolved into Jiang Cheng "Apologist" ((I actually don't think he has anything to apologize for even if he would do so anyway.))

I've been in the xianxia/wuxia sphere of media consumption for a year or so before trying out MDZS and JC just fits so well as the main character of his own story; destined for a position of power through birth, friends with someone in his life that causes conflict, seemingly betrayed by said friend when needing that friend the most, losing and losing and losing as his trust in said friend proves unfounded because the friend walks a path he can't follow, and then he's left with the tragedy that befell the world because--ultimately he trusted this friend too much.

It's a classic story of love and attachment and how good intentions can have massive consequences. Two men entwined by fate and in the end there's a battle on a hill (off screen in this case) where one is forced to "kill" the other.

MDZS could have ended with the past timeline, and I would have liked it more but at least in the present timeline we get Jiujiu and a-Ling.

Anyway: Excerpts and Commentary Below about WHY I LOVE JIANG CHENG, courtesy WANYIN

Of all the clans to offend, you don’t offend the Jiang Clan, and of all the people to offend, you never offend Jiang Cheng.

We stand by a badass mf in this house. The first thing we learn is that he gets credit for killing a big baddy and the second thing we learn is how fierce the rest of his reputation is. He brooks no shit and leaves no quarter. Amazing 💜

Well, I was done for at "gaze like two streaks of cold lightning" so RIP me, I guess. Reminds me of some antis that are like "you only like him because he's hot" which isn't true but it is a nice plus. He's described as inferior to LWJ so like, if it was only about hotness then wouldn't I like LWJ???

“I am his uncle. Do you have any last words?”

At the sound of that voice, every drop of blood in Wei Wuxian’s body seemed to surge to his head but then immediately drained away again. Thankfully, his face was already a mess of ghastly white, so it didn’t look strange when he went a little paler.

A man in purple attire strode over. He was dressed in a narrow-sleeved light robe, with his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. A silver bell dangled from his waist, yet there was no sound when he walked.

This young man had fine brows and almond eyes, with a chiseled handsomeness to his features. His eyes were deep and intense with a hint of aggression, his gaze like two streaks of cold lightning. He stopped and stood three meters away from Wei Wuxian. His expression was like that of a nocked arrow on a bow, ready to shoot, and even his composure was suffused with arrogant pride.

Jiang Cheng ruled the Jiang Clan of Yunmeng alone, so it could have been said that he was in a state of isolation.

🥺 Alone?? And he could still afford 400 Immortal Binding Nets? Self-sufficient king 🤩 And like, his reputation is so fierce and he's boiling over with anger in that scene, but still he restrains himself because he did the cost-benefit analysis! And then later he takes a huge risk on WWX, like he always does for WWX, and that doesn't work out for him--like it always does.

Seeing that nothing had happened to Jin Ling, Jiang Cheng was greatly relieved. However, that relief soon turned into a furious reprimand:

Parent behavior. Enough said.

He has a twisted smile when encountering a trigger for his PTSD and then he decides to fight it instead of letting it paralyze him. He's such a doer. Like, every other moment of the day he's carefully calculating pluses and minuses to every choice (valid) but when it comes to facing his personal demons he's ready to throw down. Excellent.

A moment later, Jiang Cheng’s lips pulled into a twisted smile. His left hand subconsciously began stroking that ring once more.

He said softly, “Excellent. Back, are you?”

He let go of his left hand, and a long whip dangled from it.

“Oh? Then please enlighten me, what is your type?”

Walking A-Spec flag very concerned about what the man who might be his shixiong thinks about him, more at eleven!

Wei Wuxian waved him off and then hooked his arm around Jiang Cheng’s shoulders. “Who cares? I’ll tease him a bit more before I go. You’ve already collected my corpse so many times. Once more won’t hurt.”

Okay but big lol that JC doesn't get to collect WWX's corpse that final time. //sounds of sobbing

A smile appeared on his face, but then he immediately humphed.

He's so grumpy and adorable! I love him! pre massacre JC is precious and I just want him to have someone to bring out that smile again.

He literally didn't have to do this. He makes all these excuses how he'll be embarrassed if WWX is rolling around 😂 Perfection. Boy, you are still carrying him and he doesn't want you to stop.

Jiang Cheng, walk slower, you’re gonna throw me off.”

Not only did Jiang Cheng want to throw Wei Wuxian off, but he practically wanted to bash his head into the ground to create a human crater. “So fussy even though I’m carrying you!”

“I didn’t tell you to carry me,” Wei Wuxian reasoned.

Jiang Cheng flew into a rage. “If I didn’t carry you, I think you’d hang out at their ancestral hall all day, rolling around on the floor. I can’t afford this embarrassment! Lan Wangji took fifty more strikes than you, but he walked away on his own, and you’re not embarrassed, pretending to be an invalid? I don’t want to carry you anymore. Get the hell off!”

“No, I’m wounded,” Wei Wuxian said.

Alrighty, like I'm just going through the entire book at this point.

Let me see if I can make this more concise:

Sacrifices himself despite his very dutiful nature that would oppose this. He throws away all his responsibilities for WWX, again and again, carrying on a tradition of favoring WWX over his own health and happiness. Citing: JFM favoring WWX to the detriment of his marriage, JYL dying to save WWX, and JC (exhausted and with little or no power) running into danger to save WWX ala distracting the Wen patrol and 2nd Siege.

Can't be honest in his affections and makes up excuses to do nice things for others.

Loves and understands his sister. She wanted JZX so he made it happen when LLJ had absolutely no reason to reinstate the marriage contract between Xuanli. JGS notes in the CR arc that he didn't want the marriage for his son in the first place and that there were better options than YMJ, and that was before the war! JC helped her get to Yiling to show off her wedding dress! Even though she married out he still felt so attached to her son he couldn't not co-parent Jin Ling.

Yes, he has Zidian, but he also has a second horsewhip that he keeps on him which is very exciting to know.

The narrative hates him but he survives. (He survives because the narrative hates him).

Most BAMF entrance in the novel at the temple scene with the busting the temple doors down and coming in from the rain with an umbrella. Like sure the narrative hates him but small blessings that rule of cool still counts for something.

Mama's boy.

Just some dude, shows up late to treasury room nonsense, knows all the gossip, no one has faith in him including himself, but he keeps going and doing what needs to be done even when he's so so tired and his shixiong shows up 3 months late with a ghoul lady and a latte, or disappears to liberate slave property without warning first and now he's called into a midnight meeting after trying to get some much needed rest and now he's got consequences to deal with. Someone help him!

An expert at sneering. Threats as a show of worry and care. This makes all the little and brief smiles so much more endearing.

Sandu Shengshou is an amazing title, get out of here if you don't agree. Holy Hand of the Three Poisons? Brutal, perfect 💜 It gets used like, ONCE. Crime against me personally.

Link to Blorbo Sheet for JC

He loves, he hates, he wants to hate he's not allowed to love. Zero middle ground, he's all in and there's no way out.

//is shot and dragged off stage

But just as the Wei Wuxian of the past who’d extracted his golden core for Jiang Cheng had been unable to tell him the truth, the Jiang Cheng of the present could no longer bring himself to speak up.

#jiang cheng #canon jiang cheng #asks answered #twi posts #yunmeng shuangjie #quotes

[intersexbookclub]

Discussion summary: Left Hand of Darkness

Published in 1969, The Left Hand of Darkness is a classic in science fiction that explores issues of sex/gender in an alien-yet-human society where the aliens are just like us except in how they reproduce. These aliens, the Gethenians, can reproduce as either male or female. They spend most of their lives sexually undifferentiated. Once a month, they go into heat (“kemmer”) and their sexual organs activate as either male or female (it’s essentially random).

Here's a summary of the discussions we had on 2023-08-25 and 2023-09-01 about the book:

HIGH LEVEL REACTONS

Michelle (@scifimagpie): even though it was written by a cis straight perisex woman there is a queerness to the writing that feels true and that she nailed. There is a queerness to the soul of this book that still holds up, that's true and good, and I cannot but love and respect that.

Elizabeth (@ipso-faculty): this book is such a commentary on 1960s misogyny. Genly is a raging misogynist. It takes a whole prison break and crossing the arctic for Genly to realize a woman or androgyne can be competent 👀

Dimitri: [Having read just the first half of the book] I wonder if it keeps happening, if Genly keeps going "woaaaah" [to the Gethenians’ androgyny] or if he ever acclimates. It's been half the novel my guy

vic: yeah a book where a guy is destroyed by seeing a breast makes me want queer theory

vic: [it also] makes me feel good to see how much has changed [since the 1960s]

THE INTERSEX STUFF

A thing we appreciated about the book was how being intersex is contextual. The main character of the book, Genly Ai, is a human from a planet like Earth, who visits Gethen to open trade and diplomatic relations.

On his home planet, and to Earth sensibilities, Genly is perisex - he is able to reproduce at any time of the month and is consistently male.

But on Gethen, Genly becomes intersex. On Gethen, the norm is that you only manifest (and can reproduce as) a given sex during the monthly kemmer (heat/oestrus) period. 

The Gethenians understand Genly as living in “permanent kemmer”, which is described as a common (intersex) condition, and these people are hyper-sexualized and referred to as Perverts.

At this point it’s worth noting that depiction is not the same as endorsement. Michelle pointed out the book is very empathetic to those in permanent kemmer. LeGuin does not appear to be endorsing the social stigma faced by these people, merely depicting it, and putting a mirror to how our own society treats intersex people.

Throughout the book, Genly is treated as an oddity by the Gethenians. He is hyper sexualized. He undergoes a genital inspection to prove he is who he says he is. 

When Genly is sent to a prison camp and forcibly given HRT, he does not respond “normally” to the hormones, the effects are way worse for him, and the prison camp staff don’t care, and keep administering them even if it’ll kill him. 

Two of us have had the experience of having hyperandrogenism and being forced onto birth control as teenager, and relating to the sluggishness of the drugs that Genly experienced, as well as the sense that gender/sex conformity was more important to authority figures (parents, doctors) than actual health and well-being.

Another scene we discussed the one where Genly is in a prison van en route to the gulag, and a Gethenian enters kemmer and wants to mate with him and he declines. He is given multiple opportunities over the course of the book to try having sex with a Gethenian, and declines every time, and we wondered if he avoided it out of trauma of being hyper-sexualized & hyper-medicalized & having had his genitals inspected.

We discussed the way he described his genital inspection through a trauma lens, and how it interacts with toxic masculinity - in vic’s terms, Genly being "I am a manly man and I have don't trauma"

Those of us who read the short story, Coming of Age in Karhide, noted that once the world was narrated from a Gethenian POV, the people in permanent kemmer were treated far more neutrally, which gave us the impression that Genly as an unreliable narrator was injecting some intersexism along with his misogyny

WHY IT MATTERS TO READ THIS BOOK THROUGH AN INTERSEX LENS

Elizabeth: I’ve encountered critiques of this book from perisex trans folks because to them the book is committing biological essentialism, and dismissing the book as a result. I think they’re missing that this book is as much about (inter)sex as it is about gender. I think they’re too quick to dismiss the book as being outdated or having backwards ideas because they’re not appreciating the intersex themes. 

Elizabeth: The intersex themes aren’t exactly subtle, so it kind of stings that I haven’t seen any intersex analyses of this book, but there are dozens (hundreds?) of perisex trans analyses that all miss the huge intersex elephants in the room.

Also Elizabeth: I’ve seen this book show up in lists of intersex books/characters made by perisex people, and I’ve seen Estraven listed as intersex character, and it gets me upset because Estraven isn’t intersex! Estraven is perisex in the society in which he lives. Genly is the intersex character in this story and people who misunderstand intersex as being able to reproduce as male & female (or having quirky genitals smh) are completely missing that being intersex is socially constructed and based on what is considered typical for a given species.

WHAT THE BOOK DOESN’T HANDLE WELL

The body descriptions. As Dmitri put it: “ Like "his butt jiggled and it reminded  me of women" ew. It was intentional but I had to put the book down. It reminded me of transvestigators and how they take pictures of people in public.” 🤮

Not pushing Genly to reflect on how weird he is about other people’s bodies. We all had issues with how Genly is constantly scrutinizing the bodies of other humans to assess their gender(s) and it’s pretty gross.

vic asked: “how much of this is her reproducing violence without her knowing it? A thing I didn't like was how he always judging and analyzing people's bodies and realizing others treat him that way. And I wish there was more of his discomfort about this, that it made him feel icky.”

Dimitri added: “I really wanted him to have a moment of this too, for him to realize how much it sucks to be treated this way. As a trans person it's so uncomfortable. What are you doing going around doing this to people?”

Using male pronouns as default/ungendered pronouns. Élaina asked why Genly thinks a male pronoun is more appropriate for a transcendent God and pointed out there’s a lot to unpack there.

OTHER POSITIVES ABOUT THE BOOK

Genly’s journey towards respecting women, that he still had a ways to go by the end of the book. vic pointed out how “LeGuin was straight, and she loves men, and is kinda giving them the side-eye [in this book]. Her writing about how Genly is childish makes me really happy. It’s kind of hilarious to watch him bang his head against the wall because he’s so rigid.” 

To which Dmitri added: “I agree with the bit on forgiving men for stuff. I don't know how she [LeGuin] does it but she really lays it all out. She gives you a platter of how men are bad at things, how they make mistakes that are pretty specific to them. She has prepared a buffet of it.”

Autistic Estraven! As Michelle put it: “autistic queer feels about Estraven speaking literally and plainly and Genly not getting it”

The truck chapter. Hits like a pile of bricks. We talked about it as a metaphor for the current pandemic.

The Genly x Estraven slowburn queerplatonic relationship

The conlang! Less is more in how it gets used

MIXED REACTIONS

The Foretelling. For some it felt unnecessary and a bit fetishy. For others it was fun paranormal times.

Pacing. Some liked how the book really forces you to really contemplate as you go. Others struggled with a pace that feels very slow to 2023 readers.

WORKS WE COMPARED THE BOOK TO

Star Trek (the original series) - we wondered if LHOD and Genly Ai were progressive by 1960s standards, and TOS came up as a comparison point. We were all of the impression that TOS was progressive for its time but all of us find it pretty misogynist by our standards. The interest in extra-sensory perception (ESP) is something that was a staple of TOS that feels very strange to contemporary viewers and also cropped up in LHOD

Ancillary Justice - for being a book where characters’ genders are all ambiguous but the POV character is actually normal about how they describe other characters’ bodies.

The Deep - for being another book in a situation where being able to reproduce as male and female is the norm. The Deep was written by an actually intersex author, and doesn’t have the cisperisex gaze of scrutinizing every body for sex. But oddly LHOD actually winds up feeling more like a book about intersex people, because it features a character who is the odd one out in a gonosynic society. In contrast, nobody is intersex in the Deep - everybody matches the norms for their species, which makes the intersex themes in the work much more subtle.

Overall, as vic put it, “there's something to be said about an honest depiction that's not great, especially when there's no alternatives”. For a long time there weren’t many other games in town when it came to this sort of book, and even though some things now feel dated, it’s still a valuable read. We’d love to see more intersex reviews & analyses of the book!

#intersex book club #book summaries #book reviews #left hand of darkness #the left hand of darkness #ursula k. le guin #intersex books #intersex literature #queer books #queer literature #queer fiction #queer scifi #intersex

[thoughtfulstudentsalad]

Akatsuki no Yona's greatest yet most underrated strength: foreshadowing

I don't see anyone discussing this, but Akatsuki no Yona has insanely good foreshadowing, like on par with Attack on Titan levels. You only realize after a re-read. The hidden easter eggs, unopened pandora's boxes, lines of dialogue or actions that were Chekhov's guns...

It's like reading a mystery novel with the prophecy, Zeno's underlying insanity, Suwon's intentions and leadership, the political intrigues, Yona and Suwon being foils, Hak and Suwon's broken brotherhood, the commentaries about King Il's leadership, religion vs atheism, Yona's future-seeing powers, debates of free will vs fate, violence vs pacifism, moral dilemmas, personal wishes vs greater good, etc. etc. it's so rich and meticulously put together.

There were signs that Suwon was terminally ill and blood-related to Hiryuu (his appearance, his love for people, his dialogues about rushing his coronation and being willing to die later). There were signs that Zeno was going to betray the group ("i didn't approach her at first because i was testing her. i admit it wasn't very nice.", or "I will have my wish granted at the end of my journey, even if it goes against the gods") It goes right under your nose. Yet you can see that potential in their characters, their dialogues, their actions. It makes sense.

Even now there are great scenes will only make complete sense after they are recontextualized.

It's not why I heard the manga was good, but it's why I continued to read. You could really tell that the author had an idea of where she wanted to take the way and knows how it would end.

We just don't know it yet.

#but the foreshadowing is 10/10 #give it season 2 #season 3 season 4 etc #akatsuki no yona #yona of the dawn #yona #kusanagi mizuho

[thesiltverses]

A series of novels taking place in the same universe definitely worked for the welcome to night vale folks. I bet you have a lot of fan overlap too so you know it would appeal. If you did audiobooks do you think you would you have the cast narrate? Also for me the appeal to a collection of transcripts would be the kind of behind the scenes directors commentary aspect you get with the descriptions in the script of what a character is thinking or the tone that might be implied or sometimes just a clarification on what actually happened that you don’t always get from the audio. That’s why I read them. But having them in a book I could put on my shelf would be nice too.

We do already have those director's commentaries (from S2 onwards) on our Patreon if you're interested! But agree that they could be combined with the scripts themselves for ease.

Audiobooks read by the cast would be wonderful, I'm sure it'd just be a question of whether any prose adaptation sold well enough (if I managed to get it written and published in the first place! Lotta maybes) and how busy our cast are however many years down the line. Our actors are rightly seeing a ton of success in all their endeavours, exactly as they deserve, so I wouldn't want to assume.