hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

the thing about eliot spencer as a character, right. the thing about him.

(and as always your mileage may vary on my analyses so if we disagree that's cool actually)

is that he is in fact a somewhat emotionally constipated idiot who is occasionally sensitive about his perceived masculinity and gets defensive about emotional intimacy around other men (largely hardison, who's much more comfortable expressing affection and embracing a softer kind of masculinity), but eliot displays enough emotional awareness and sensitivity and respect for women etc etc that anyone who's been subjected to that era of television will put on rose-tinted glasses without even looking twice.

(and he is, don't get me wrong, incredibly emotionally aware for a professionally punchy guy with enough trauma to sink the titanic. it still startles me to see.)

on top of which we have the layers and the accessories and the excellent hair with the secret braids and the way he barely has an ego and he's good with kids and protective of his team without taking it too far, and some of us never stood a fucking chance.

Oh no! I think these two walked too far!!

Working on some new custom signs and displays for Comic Con Stuttgart this December 🌼 this time featuring my most beloved!!

its so hard to watch time pass when things like careers and assignments exist. what do you mean im supposed to take that seriously

I've had this Dreaming The Proposal AU sitting in my drafts for a while. Then @voukkake comes out with this art and I figured it was time to brush off the dust and share what I'd written lol. This is seriously all I'm going to write so if anyone is interested I'm begging you to pick this up. I'm dying to read Dream awkwardly interacting with Hob's family (also @valiantstarlights suggestion that Betty White is Destiny?? ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT). Anyway...

------------------

Dream is about to be deported because his visa application has been denied. He is in the middle of a meeting with his lawyers when Hob, his secretary, pops in the room to inform Dream of a very important phone call and Dream comes up with the insane plan to marry Hob to keep his immigration status.

He gestures for Hob to come over and Hob, clueless, wanders into the room and stands next to Dream, who takes him by the arm and tugs him just a little bit further to stand awkwardly close.

Dream announces their engagement and Hob stands there, shell shocked and feels his mouth moving against his will. That yeah, they are getting married. They are in love, sure. It isn’t until they leave the office, following Dream back to his, that Hob’s brain seems to come back online.

“What just happened in there?”

Dream grouses, head down, already back to his work as if nothing happened. Like he didn’t just use Hob as a pawn in his scheme to get around his denied visa application.

“They were going to make Morningstar editor-in-chief.” Is all Dream says, disdain dripping from every word. He still hasn’t looked up.

Hob stands there, still as a statue. His head is swimming with words, with emotions. Anger, disbelief, betrayal… and a small tiny flicker of undeniable interest that he hastily stomps out.

He manages to put the pieces together rather quickly though, while Dream continues sifting through paperwork.

“This is illegal,” Hob manages to croak out, brows furrowing. 

“Oh, please. The government looks for terrorists, not book publishers.” Dream’s head is still down in his paperwork.

Hob blinks, taking a step up to Dream’s desk. “I'm not marrying you.”

“Sure you are.” Dream sets aside a stack of papers and finally gives Hob his attention. “Because if you don't, your dreams of ‘touching millions of lives with the written word’ are dead.” 

Hob’s jaw drops. That was a line, corny as it was, that he’d used in the panel interview for this job. Three years ago.

----------------------

“Were you not in that room? I could get fined, I’ll go to jail over this. If you want me on this deal, you will promote me to editor.”

Without even glancing up from his phone, Dream scoffs.

“Absolutely not.”

“Well then I guess you’re screwed. Buh-bye.” Hob turns with a flourish and has to bite back a grin at how Dream splutters behind him and grabs him by the arm.

“Fine– fine! Editor.” His face seems to go through the five stages of grief. He drops his hold on Hob.

“And You’ll publish my manuscript.” Hob throws in. In for a penny.

Dream’s brows narrow and he shakes as if he’s physically controlling the urge to stamp his foot.

“Sure. I’ll publish your hack manuscript.”

“Good.” Hob slips his hands in his pants pockets, staring at Dream, deciding on one last nail in the coffin.

“Now do it properly.”

Dream cocks an eyebrow. “Do what properly?”

“Propose. Like you mean it.”

Dream’s entire body seizes up, but he manages not to let it show, distracting himself by slipping his phone in the pocket of his expensive slacks and clasping his hands in front of him.

“Will you marry me?”

“No.” Hob, the arrogant bastard, is visibly biting back a smirk. “Say it like you mean it.”

Dream takes a long, steadying breath through his nose.

“Hob Gadling. Will you–”

“And get on your knees.”

Dream absolutely refuses to decipher the thrill that shoots through his body at Hob’s command. Instead he keeps his mask of irritation and indifference on as he scans the crowd around them. They are still outside the courthouse, and the concrete sidewalk is going to potentially tear Dream’s Hugo Boss black wool pants.

So he carefully lowers himself, scowling as the smirk on Hob’s face only widens as Dream slowly settles onto the ground.

Once he’s as comfortable as Dream’s going to get, he clears his throat.

“Hob Gadling,” he glares at his subordinate from under his lashes. “Will you fucking marry me?”

Hob curls his lips in mock consideration, looking up past Dream’s head. He rocks back on his heels and nods with a forlorn sigh.

“Okay.” He still hasn’t met Dream’s gaze. “Could've done without the sarcasm but it will do. See you at the airport tomorrow.” 

And turns and walks away, leaving Dream to fend for himself on the ground.

I'm probably going to do a terrible job of articulating myself here but every time I think about the worldbuilding in Hatoful Boyfriend, I think about the implications of having the birds simply have adopted the structure and policies of human society and go insane.

It's clearly originally just for the ridiculousness of it all for the players, but AGH it explains so much regarding the extremely rampant classism/racism/speciesism and how apparently normalized it is. It also, to me, adds a bit of moral nuance to the Dove - Hawk Party conflict.

(Long post under the cut. I'm so sorry I just kept going.)

First off, I'm obsessed with the concept of the birds becoming sapient and simply... taking over a society that was not structured for them. It leads to difficulties in universe! Bird wings are not made for doing tasks that human hands can do naturally - there's a couple instances where the characters ask for Hiyoko's assistance or express envy since she can just do the task more easily than they can. The birds are outright disadvantaged in certain areas of life, and yet, the society is in such turmoil due to the newness of it all that there still aren't really any workarounds for stuff like this.

Not that there haven't been any suggested solutions, such as the Labor 9 series, put forward initially by the Dove Party. Yeah, you know, that one throwaway line about how the party that up until this point have been the "good guys" wanted to take still semi-conscious human brains and make robotic slaves out of them Cyberman-style? What the hell. And what gets me is that Shuu was able to find the initial proposal, which he really only made tweaks to, which means that the project was at least close to being finished on the conceptual/planning/design phase before somebody went "hey this is a little fucked up actually".

The Dove Party wants peaceful coexistence with the humans, while the Hawk Party wants to eliminate humanity entirely. But we don't really go into how these two lines of thought evolved. I believe I have a suggestion for at least one part of the puzzle though.

Of all the birds in Hatoful, who enjoys the most privileges and the highest status? Fantails, it would seem. A breed of pigeon that is popular as a pet, considered beautiful and sought after, and achieve high accolades in shows and competitions - for clarity's sake, fantails were valuable in human society, and this status appears to have transferred when birds became sapient and took over. Conversely, which birds are ranked lower and often blocked from entering certain higher class places? Rock doves, who, in human society, are given an unfairly bad reputation, and considered anything from unclean and dirty, to nuisances, to pests. Again, this status transferred over when the birds took over.

So, while we don't know too many of the birds who make up the agents of the Dove and Hawk Party, let's take a look at who we do know of.

Fantails (Yuuya, Dove Party) are considered valuable over other doves and pigeons for being specially bred for their striking tail feathers

Cockatiels (Leone, Dove Party) are some of the most popular and beloved companion birds, kept as pets and considered very friendly

Rock doves (Ryuuji, Hawk Party) are considered unclean pests who receive a bad reputation, and are generally not treated with respect or appreciation <;- notable thing to mention here is that Ryuuji actually does like humans - I think he was only Hawk affiliated for the grant money and research facilities, which... fair enough man.

Chukar partridges (Shuu/Isa, Hawk Party) are game birds, specifically bred and released to be killed and eaten, and considered a delicacy

...do you... see what's going on here?

(I haven't mentioned Tohri as he's a special case. Give me a minute and I'll get to him!)

The birds we see in the Dove Party are those birds that were already viewed in a more favourable light by humans, a favourability that transferred over to their new society. Of course they are more likely to advocate for coexistence! They have less to lose, overall. And the Labor 9 series, and how that could've ever been suggested in the first place, suddenly makes a lot of sense. For many of these birds, society the way it exists now benefits them. Some of these high ranking Dove Party folks may be less about actual peace and justice (like Yuuya or Leone) and more about maintaining the current order of things - humans coexisting under their control, while they get to maintain their status... which is itself a product of human invention.

The birds we see in the Hawk Party, by contrast, are looked down on or hunted. Historically, even before bird sapience, they did not have a harmonious relation with humans - and it's likely this status carried over to their new society also, with many of these birds being more likely to have been disenfranchised. Their goal of elimination is therefore reactionary towards perceived threat. After all, the people who suffer when things go wrong aren't the ones at the top - it's all the people who sit at the bottom of the social rung; the vulnerable members of society who do not enjoy the same advantages as others.

Of course, the Hawk Party has built itself up into such a powerful group that they may have lost touch with this starting foundation - the only thing that remains is likely that reactionary fear. After all, people caught up in the actual conflict - Nageki, Hitori, Ryouta, and Hiyoko - see this kind of horrible bloodshed firsthand (firstwing?) and just want it to stop.

Again, it's not usually the people in these political factions who are the ones caught up in their conflict. It's the individuals who lack power or influence.

But that's just the political groups themselves. On an individual level, it's kind of interesting to look at and theorize where along the spectrum our core cast falls based on their species/breed.

Ryouta (rock dove) is actually rather indifferent towards humanity as a whole - he just likes Hiyoko. However, his witnessing of the Heartful House tragedy led him to abhor violence and unnecessary loss of life, and I'd imagine his mother's later illness solidified this. Ryouta doesn't seem overly interested in political struggles or the broader implications of a lot of things - he's actually a rather self-oriented character when it comes down to it (this is not a judgment, nor a bad thing! I love my boy!). Ryouta just doesn't want to lose people, really. A conflict would mean more loss, and rock doves seem to have to struggle enough as is.

Hiyoko (human) is the daughter of two diplomats, but interestingly, we don't get to see much of her political views on things - perhaps because even if she expressed them, it wouldn't really matter - she's not herself a diplomat, and humans are the lowest of the low - her going to a fancy school doesn't really change that. Social-wise, except with her friends, she is tolerated, not accepted. Yet, it's safe to say that Hiyoko strongly disapproves of people who flaunt their status - she's quick to not take crap from Sakuya, to get angry on behalf of Ryouta and herself over the gull clerk's assholery, and also to defend Miru and Kaku as living beings worthy of respect. Interestingly though, she also uses Okosan's status as a fantail to get Ryouta to let go of him and let him do whatever he wants so... it's kind of unclear what her firm beliefs are. Perhaps, as a human, she still values fantails more highly. I don't know honestly. Implicit bias?

Sakuya, Yuuya and Okosan (fantail pigeons) may share the same breed, but their experiences are highly different. Sakuya is largely separate from the human-bird conflict, as he is unlikely to be directly affected by it. As such, a lot of his story and development has to do with actually learning and un-learning about the world outside of the limitations of his "father's" classist views, which he simply mimics without understanding the larger implications. Yuuya and Okosan, on the other hand, may be fantails, but are also looked down on and often treated as inferior - Yuuya for being a "half-breed" and for his reputation, and Okosan for being closer to feral than a lot of other doves. Interestingly, these two show more interest and respect for the individual than Sakuya does, who often makes sweeping generalizations based on status - which makes sense to a degree, as they've been on the receiving end of this kind of treatment, whereas Sakuya hasn't. Okosan believes that each person has their own "wonderful names" (read: identity outside of breed or status), while Yuuya is a genuine fighter for justice who is able to get to the heart of people, especially in Holiday Star. However, even though they have experienced classism, they still have certain privileges with regards to species/race - take Okosan's shock when Hiyoko and Ryouta are barred entry from his favourite store. None of them are quite as out of place in everyday society as some of the other birds here, and it's notable that "diverse" St. Pigeonations still apparently has a significant fantail student population.

Shuu (chukar partridge) is really interesting, as he doesn't particularly care for the politics of the Hawk Party, and yet his role as a killer/hunter of both his fellow birds and humans is an interesting reversal of the chukar being a game bird. Shuu also has a disability (his semi-paralyzed right side) which hinders him in bird society even more than most. His extreme, yet coldly logical solution to kill all humans to stop the fighting between them, could be as much his rationality, as his joy in the sadistic, as a reactionary survivalism (remember he was caught up in a human terrorist attack as a child - while overall he considered this beneficial to him, he also did lose much of his colour vision and the use of his right side, so it did leave him weakened). Shuu attains control by "flipping the script" as it were.

Tohri (golden pheasant) starts out in the Hawk Party, but much like his colleagues, doesn't seem to care much for their politics. Golden pheasants are game birds whose eggs can be eaten, but are more often bred and kept for their plumage - they're not prey, but they're not exactly pets either. All this puts Tohri in this interesting position of being somewhat in the middle of this conflict, and indeed he goes on to be a part of (found?) the Crow Party - an opportunistic group that seeks to benefit from the overall conflict. Golden pheasants are birds intended to be admired for their beauty and intelligence more than anything else, benefitting in some ways from humans without a strong connection or a reliance, and Tohri's opportunism fits nicely with that. (As an aside, our sole crow character, Albert, is also something of an opportunist, being an assassin on the fringes of society.)

Hitori and Kazuaki (button quails) are somewhat interesting. It would be both expected and understandable if Hitori held hatred for humanity after the Heartful House incident, or even before then, considering they were all war orphans. Instead, he doesn't seem to harbour any particular ill-will - he seems totally fine around Hiyoko, and her being a human has nothing to do with his reticence with letting Nageki hang out with her in the shrine universe. Kazuaki, too, doesn't seem to mind Hiyoko being human and isn't afraid of her any more than he is anyone else. While quails are game birds, with both meat and eggs being eaten, button quails are too tiny for that and are mostly kept as pets - they are considered cute, silly, and entertaining, though a bit too jumpy to be outright companion birds. The quails don't seem to experience too much in the way of speciesism (except arguably with the whole mistaken identity of Kazuaki's corpse... there may be a bit of an "all quails look the same" thing going on perhaps). At the very least, they are able to occupy teaching positions at a renowned school as respected intellectuals, and did go to university. Still, it's kind of a known thing that you don't put button quails with bigger, more dominant birds, since larger birds will often pick on them or even outright try to kill them simply because they're small and shy - this may, in hindsight, explain some of Kazuaki's demeanour.

Nageki (mourning dove) and Anghel (luzon bleeding heart dove) are the two who are uncommon bird species in Japan. Nageki is another war orphan, who would be forgiven for harbouring resentment for humanity, but instead is appalled at the violence and made a huge sacrifice to get it to stop. It's kind of unclear how Nageki fits into this society, as mourning doves are not prey or pets - they're wild birds. They live on the outside of the human world, and while Nageki exists within current bird society, he likely doesn't have a designated status within it. Nageki is unfortunately also alienated from much of the action due to his illness and later his untimely death - this is why a lot of Nageki's thoughts are somewhat from an observer's perspective, with his most emotional moments being derived from his rare direct experiences - specifically the Heartful House tragedy and the human killings he was forced into, which solidified a really firm stance of not wanting anyone to suffer like that. Anghel is another outsider, this time genuinely a foreigner, as opposed to Nageki. Again, Luzons are wild birds, not prey or pets, and so it's a bit unclear what his status is. This might explain why Hiyoko repeats Sakuya's remarks towards him without apparently realizing they're actually insults - Anghel is removed enough from the conflict she is familiar with that it seems she doesn't quite... get it. Again, Anghel's role is as this strange kind of omniscient observer, whose perspective is closer to the player's than to the rest of the cast. He definitely frowns on the Hawk Party's overall goal - the Demon Spores are evil to him, and his main objective is to stop them from spreading, as they would cause damage to both birds and humans. I attribute his morals to his mother having raised him right lol. The lack of a clear status for both of them may be why they appear to take the stance of judgment based on individual actions, but are not heavily involved in the conflict itself - while humans tend to like mourning doves and luzons, there isn't much interaction that goes on between them. Nageki and Anghel are simply less embroiled in bird society's human-derived status conflict, which makes them both outsiders and observers.

As a bonus note, Azami, Rabu and Kenzaburou are all species of birds that can be kept as pets (java sparrow, budgie, parakeet), which may account for some of their friendliness towards Hiyoko, and Kenzaburou's willingness to hire her. Kenzaburou is even a bit old-fashioned it seems - he sleeps in a cage, which implies his ancestors were probably pet birds themselves. It's likely he, in particular, has more positive views on humans.

...Please tell me I'm not the only one who spent ages thinking about the implications and workings of a fictional post-apocalyptic bird society. Also I hope this made sense I kind of went off the rails here.

... thinking about dad!oscar/dj!lando again.....

sometimes, i think about the extra bit of depth alex's romance is given when you date him as a guy and i just gotta. stare at the ceiling for a bit...

I'm on a bit of a sona kick today

ok heres this. how i interpreted his fears at least

you fascinate me

i think there's something to be said about what exactly it means to be "non-human" in a story that is as much about humanity as wolf 359 is, where even the dear listeners are defined less by their own perspective and more by what they fail to understand and therefore reflect about the human perspective - to the point that they don't even have their own voices or faces or identities that aren't either given to them or taken from humans. they speak to humanity as a mirror.

even pryce and cutter are "very much humans" - pryce defined by her resentment of and desire to transcend its limitations, and cutter by his aspirations to redefine and create a "better" type of human - and find the idea that they might not be human laughable. it's interesting that they have distinctly transhumanist aspirations when their goal is the narrative opposite of common science fiction fears: that we will expand the definition of humanity so much that we'll lose whatever it is that makes us human. pryce and cutter's transhumanism narrows the definition of humanity to the worthy and the useful, as defined by them; "there will still be a humanity; it'll just be our humanity."

in direct opposition to that, i think it's meaningful that the show instead expands the definition of humanity in ways that include lovelace and hera, who in another show with different themes might be considered (in the descriptive, non-moralistic sense) non-human. i will always make a point of saying that personhood and humanity are two often-related but meaningfully distinct concepts, especially when talking about sci-fi and fantasy. i am talking about humanity.

the question of how hera identifies, and what social pressures influence that, is a complicated one. i've talked about it before and i will talk about again. what's important for the purposes of this post is that i think the show considers her fundamentally human. think about her role in shut up and listen - consider jacobi's lion example and the concept of different paradigms - that even things that are close to humans, comparatively speaking, understand the world in different ways. whatever differences hera may have from the others, it's primarily in experience, not fundamental understanding. she shares their emotions, their concerns, their values, their thought patterns. she has an appreciation for music, which the show considers a hallmark of humanity. she fits within the framework of humanity as the show defines and is, in her own words, left feeling "uneasy" about how difficult it might be to communicate with beings who don't. and it's significant that this takes place in shut up and listen, of all episodes, specifically because the way she is clearly and unambiguously included in the show's understanding of what it means to be human highlights the ways she and lovelace are othered by eiffel's careless comments that suggest otherwise.

(i don't want to get too into these details for this particular post, but it's worth noting that hera will refer to 'humans' as a category, often when she is upset and feeling isolated, but has never said that she 'isn't human' - she has never been upset that people are treating her 'too' human. i've seen it said about the line "you need to get it through your heads that what goes for you doesn't always go for me", but that's a frustration related to ability and safety, not identity. far more often, she will refer to herself in 'human' terms - referring idiomatically to experiences or body parts etc. that she doesn't literally have - and is upset primarily with comments referring to her status as an AI. it does not diminish how being an AI influences her perspective and experience, but again, so much of that is in terms of ability that it feels almost inseparable from a discussion about disability.)

lovelace's humanity and hera's humanity are so interlinked and directly paralleled in the text that i think it's impossible to really argue one of them is "not" human without making implications about the other. in desperate measures, lovelace tells kepler he's "not human" and he responds "you're hilarious. on a multitude of levels." later, defending lovelace against kepler's repeated dehumanization, hera very pointedly uses the phrase "that woman." in out of the loop, hera says she's never met anyone who "worked so hard at being inhuman" as jacobi, who says "what do you know about being human?" hera very emphatically responds, "i know plenty." later, defending hera against jacobi's repeated dehumanization, minkowski pointedly uses the phrase "that woman." with the care taken towards language and the way scenes and turns of phrase will parallel each other, that's not a coincidence. it might seem strange to have the "non-human" characters be the ones to express criticisms based on perceived "humanity" (something hera will do in other contexts as well - "we don't have funerals for animals" etc.) but in the broader context of the show, i think it's the point.

so, whether hera would ever call herself human, or be comfortable with that, is a complicated question for another time and depends on a lot of other factors. but wolf 359 is a show about humanity, it includes her within its definition of what it means to be human, and i wouldn't be comfortable definitively saying she's not human because of that. it can't be a neutral statement within the particular context of this show.

on the topic of my "Illari gets recruited by Talon" theory, today I got a kill streak on her and she says "I've done worse, and I'll DO worse."

Doesn't sound like a very heroic thing to say lol

galaxy-brained mlc take of the day: mlc is wuxia, yes and maybeee not exactly? it very much is a wuxia aesthetically, but it's actually - conceptually - xianxia story in the core. (this is different from suggesting that it is a xianxia show.) however xianxia can (or should) be considered a subgenre of wuxia, not its own separate distinct genre despite the idea of 仙 xian being fundamentally at odds with the idea of 侠 xia, because they both stem from the same belief. (as seen in mlc, it works with the conventions of traditional wuxia aka li xiangyi the sigu sect leader, to get to the real bits of xianxia concept aka li lianhua's story.) so, mlc is wuxia through and through, inside out. send tweet 🫡👍

-

ok wait I can explain

so, this must be premised on the understanding that any discussion of "仙 xian/deities" in this context is only as its abstract idea of living a life distanced, detached from worldly, human woes instead of the possibility of immortality existing in mlcverse. (if you think about the deities in xianxia stories being basically human beings who have cultivated themselves into immortality.)

this is the explanation of xianxia as a wuxia subgenre (古仙武侠) in the baidu article of wuxia genre:

武侠中的侠，是脱胎于墨家“以天下为己任”的使命感；而仙侠的侠，通常是传达着“能力越大，责任也就越大”的朴素精神。侠乃入世，仙为出世，道教阴阳的无情大道（无情指寻求自我的不断体悟，以达精神的成仙，非没有感情之意）与武侠江湖的有情众生，即是矛盾也是循环，象征着太极之道，这也就是为何古仙武侠也属于正统仙侠流派的原因。

rough tl:

the xia of wuxia is born from the mohist ideal of bearing a sense of responsibility for the world

while the xia in xianxia focuses on the idea of "with great power comes great responsibility"

the idea of 侠 xia is secular. the idea of 仙 xian is beyond the secular - it is to pursue a life of suppressing/taming your own emotions (it does not mean to be completely removed of the ability to feel. it's a pursuit of self-realisation that makes one attain the status of a "deity" spiritually.) 仙 xian is then inherently at odds with wuxia jianghu's deep empathy and connection with the secular world, but it's also connected back to it. this is why 古仙武侠 is considered to be a part of the wuxia genre.

the relationship between xian and xia is conflicting because the former is all about distancing yourself from worldly issues while the latter necessitates an active effort to do something about them.

but it also means that both wuxia and xianxia acknowledge this weight of human emotions and connection to the world. it's just their respective responses and the outcomes they want that they differ in. what is the ideal person? wuxia says it's to be someone who can propagate and execute the ideal of doing something about this weight of your connection to the world, while xianxia says it's to learn to be at peace with that connection, and it's ok to not do anything about it actually - which might even be harder than trying to do something. (and focusing on your own cultivation can be a good thing for the world, in fact.)

with this, I hope it sounds less absurd that I'm connecting mlc's story to the concept of xianxia. lxy's life was a traditional wuxia archetype. (I've already harped on enough about how he fits into the quintessential mohist model of a xia leader.) what happens after, aka his journey as li lianhua, is the real story of mlc. it's a breakdown of that quintessential wuxia hero. it is a story in which the main conflict faced by the protagonist is to struggle with all the worldly woes including his own past and the cases' victims, in defense of the serenity he has found in the past 9 years. it is a natural battle to fight for someone such as llh because as long as you're still human, you will face the implications of human connections and the innate feeling of compassion and urge to do something about it (part of this, I guess, manifests physically in bicha breaking him down and the resistance to cure).

and relating that to an excerpt from an article discussing xianxia in relation to wuxia:

武侠剧的精神内核也是仙侠剧的精神内核，而“仙”实际上是实现新形式的“侠”的手段，由此扩展了“侠”的深度和其实施的时空范围。武侠之中的侠义精神，可以强调其自在，更强调其是自为的，前者是需要逐渐成长和觉醒的。然而对于高于人的仙而言，作为上位者的“侠”之精神，则应该是内在自觉且自为的。

rough tl:

the spirit of wuxia dramas should also be the spirit of xianxia dramas. xian should in fact be another way to bring out and explore the idea of xia.

the spirit of xia in wuxia can be an emphasis on the spirit of freedom, and even more so, the idea of agency and autonomy. the former is gained through growth and awareness. but for xian aka people who occupy a realm above the people on the ground, the xia spirit they embody should manifest in their inner awakening and agency.

it goes without saying that nobody is a deity in this show, and never will be. only in ep 40.5 it came so close to possessing that otherworldly, surreal edge, but that's all to it. deities do not exist in the mlcverse.

but but. it's interesting to point out in the ep 3 flashback when lxy walked through town in the aftermath of the sigu sect vs jym battle, commoners were heard describing it as 神仙打架 百姓遭殃 when immortals fight, commoners suffer. of course they didn't mean it literally but figuratively, that those people of wulin jianghu are high above, detached from the people on the ground. which is. contradictory to the idea of 侠 xia to begin with. so... it could even be interpreted that li lianhua living the spiritually "immortal" life embodied the xia spirit even more deeply than he did as li xiangyi the sigu sect leader, the "immortal" in the eyes of the commoners. actual immortals do not have any real attachment to the people, but a cultivated "immortal" does and is destined to feel and learn to deal with it over and over like llh did. it all comes back in a circle indeed.

i dont think ive flat out drawn kikumitsu before but the beast awoke tonight i guess

i think what hits most about nobara's backstory is everything that's left unsaid and peaks from between the lines. it's the fact you can easily infer that something was wrong without ever having clear answers on what exactly was wrong. but if you can relate to the feeling of wanting to escape a place and the alienation from everyone around you, especially when you're brought up in small communities, then you can certainly understand, if not fully then partially, nobara herself and the struggles she might have had to face all by herself for a very long time; maybe even the importance fumi and saori had in her life and the pain from having to part from them; and, perhaps the selectiveness in letting people in that she later on develops as well.