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mossmelancholic · 2 years

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i feel my main issue with the finale is that it’s a bad ending that exists for the wrong reasons.

one of the aspects of c!tommy’s lore that appealed to me was how fundamentally bleak his existence always turns out to be. he’s inherently a tragic character: the consequences for his actions are always overblown in comparison to both the intent and the impact of them. because of his loud personality and even louder voice, he’s the centre of attention in any room he walks into, which makes him a quick and easy scapegoat if you’re looking for someone to blame. he’s stubborn and he’s surviving, but he’s never at peace with his circumstances because something is always missing - his discs, his friends, his family.

i know that suffering for the sake of suffering is not a story beat that many are fond of. i know that many watchers just wanted tommy to heal because he deserved something hopeful. but to see a character whose circumstances are always stagnating, stuck in this tiring cycle where they always find themselves ending up right back where they started… that really appealed to me on a personal level, and so keeping that in mind, i always thought there was a chance his ending was not going to be a happy one.

but to me, this does not feel like his ending. it’s not an ending that exists for c!tommy. it’s not the natural conclusion to his story. this was an ending made to excuse c!dream’s entire villain arc instead. c!tommy’s characterisation as a victim did not matter here, because characterising c!dream as a victim instead was the intended goal. the abuse c!dream inflicted on c!tommy is less important than desperately clutching at straws to make a character, that we as an audience have no reason to view as sympathetic, ‘worthy’ of our sympathy. the narrative is desperate to give room for c!dream to have a second chance, something that comes at the cost of enabling victim blaming against a canonical child abuse survivor.

when c!tommy, in the haze of memory loss, befriends his abuser, i don’t think it was intended to be tragic. it could and should have been, because c!tommy having no recollection of anything is a good set-up that would leave him vulnerable, open to c!dream’s manipulation once again because he doesn’t know who to avoid and who not to trust. but it isn’t trying to be unsettling when we see c!tommy unknowingly befriending his abuser; it’s meant to be a sign of hope that now everything has been reset, maybe there could be peace again. it doesn’t work, because the viewers remember everything even if the characters don’t. instead the amnesia plot line feels like a flimsy method of making a blank slate and a fresh new start where c!dream can avoid the consequences of his actions completely. this is a unintentional bad ending for c!tommy, because he’s placed in a position where he will grow to trust someone who has the full capacity to hurt him, but it’s an intentional good ending for c!dream and it seems that’s where the cc’s priorities lie.

#dsmp neg #dsmp crit #<- i think these are the tags for blacklists?#it’s been so long since i’ve used tumblr :sob:#back in my day it was anti character not character critical #/#anyways i feel it’s important to note that I Do No Go Here anymore #the last serious lore stream i caught was c!wilbur having a maladaptive daydream about violently murdering dream #i’m only picking up second hand information #but i’m trying my best to articulate my grievances with what little knowledge i have #edit: i feel like i should also clarify that this is probably the only post i’ll ever make about this damn thing #i’m trying to put my dreamsmp phase behind me #my love for c!tommy is eternal though <3 he’s my little scrunkly guy fr

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threelivesthreeworlds · 3 years

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Anonymous asked: Hello sorry if I was unclear. What I meant to say is that most people have a superficial view on intimacy of any sort, and so while I love Tang Qi's portrayal of romance, I hate most people's physicality-obsessed interpretations. Dunno if it's a western thing, but fanfiction is so out of alignment with canon romance themes that the characters are barely recognisable anymore. (1/4)

Secondly, Most readers/viewers do not give characters like Yehua or Lian Song a chance before making stereotypical assumptions about them. I love their real personalities, flaws and all, but I hate the sheer hyperexaggeration the fandom makes out of it (e.g. hating on Ji Heng). People just cannot see a character as a whole but put them into one category or the other. (2/4)

Thirdly, I just added that I relate to Lian Song(depression etc) because I kinda share his views on romance/love and don't really care for physical aspects that much. I'm aware he's a playboy, but he's also not a stereotypical one (which is unfortunately how most people interpret him) so it's a relief that your blog instead backs up my interpretation of him with facts. (3/4)

Lastly, I'm so sorry for ranting in the Q & A section. Making several points with a word limit really compromises what I'm trying to say 😆. But the bottom line was that fandoms' misinterpretations of your favourite characters makes it hard to see them in an objective light again. (4/4)

(this 4th one came in after most of our answers were done, so we apologize if it comes off a little ??? we weren’t aware of the end goal for the anons received. We mean no ill-will in how we come across, just elaborating on things and we hope that’s alright with you. <3)

(Admin Lin): Hey! Thanks for sharing your opinions, though these anons are starting to get a little haughty for our own comfort to continue addressing. Both admins have our own grievances with the fandom / how it views particular characters (Ji Heng being a prime example here), however the fandom still offers plenty of good things from it. This is not only a western fandom “issue” (I say as this physicality isn’t necessarily an issue), it can be found in the eastern fandom as well for not only this series but others as well. Both admins are in fact western fandom despite Admin Ro being Asian.

As for when it comes down to interpretations - Peach Blossoms is written in first person and hard to find on the western side of the internet; Yehua has an extra from his perspective but that’s the only direct contact we get with him that isn’t through Bai Qian’s eyes. Qian isn’t a romantic person nor does she necessarily find what he does romantic, she’s been engaged to him for so long she kind of considered their engagement troublesome due to her past experience with his Uncle Sang Ji. When it comes to the drama’s take of Yehua, we get a clearer idea of him but at the same time it’s easy to see where others can’t grasp him in his entirety or simplify things when in a fanfiction. Or, for the likes of me, knows what he’s like but can’t formulate a more articulate summary or introspective version of him because of his extensive complexities and in some ways, the knowledge of a Chinese household of some fashion to express the intricacies of his upbringing. It’s merely harder.

In the case of Lian Song - the Western fandom doesn’t have access to the information that can be found on this blog as easily because Lotus Step is in the middle of a hiatus but will continue serializing by next year. So, it’s no one’s fault for misunderstanding what kind of playboy he is since that was only addressed in the fall of last year and the dramas both make it clear he’s a playboy / amorous person but never elaborates on it. So it’s an easy assumption to make that he may be a typical playboy by fans of the other available media because he’s not featured beyond Yehua’s uncle or Donghua’s best friend with touches here and there of his connection to Cheng Yu. It’s only in his novel that we get to see a different side of him that will ultimately have a shift at some point to what we see 50,000 years down the line. So, I’m not actually bothered by this myself, personally. It is bound to happen because no one on the western side of the fandom has as much access or want to read an untranslated novel.

With TQ’s stance on romance writing, I will say the concept of eternal love or a love that lasts 3,000 lifetimes is a very Chinese one that unless one digs through it with patience and interest in Buddhism / other Eastern religions, that it can be a harder nuance to grasp for those unfamiliar.

(Admin Ro): We’re sorry you’ve had bad experiences with “fanon” material. We’re thankful that you like the content on this blog enough to comment on it! These are my opinions on the whole affair: as a Chinese woman who reads Chinese novels, from a perspective of writing tropes, hyper-exaggeration is already frequently utilized...in canon. And - from a personal standpoint, when the tropes hit right, I - don’t necessarily mind. Depth can be dug out of the text, but it’s understandable for people to simplify when they’re simply writing or analyzing for their enjoyment.

I’m ace, so maybe I understand, Nonny, when you say that you don’t care for the physical aspects of love. I personally, in my life, don’t necessarily want or need that kind of intimacy, and I don’t find myself straying into the smut tag too often to read about it as it stretches my comfort limits. Granted, I am not sex-repulsed, and it takes a great deal to upset me - however, if everything is in layers and someone enjoys writing smut, then they simply enjoy that layer. Romance isn’t less good and interpretations aren’t less good if there’s a degree of physicality in it. Heck, Admin Lins and I have discussed extensively the physicality of these books - we keep it off the blog 80% of the time because tagging, but it’s a present theme. And, all of us enjoy different things. At the end of the day I think we can’t say the tropes aren’t good when the tropes are the lead-ins that drew us into the more extensive stories.

Furthermore, a lot of what is on this blog is “read,”and I will never say my read of a character or a part of canon is “right” - or that it's “right”-er than someone else’s. Yes, there’s room for passionate debate as evidenced by many, many essays, but I’m not upset when I can’t change anyone’s mind. People are not automatically wrong when they disagree with me - even if there’s textual evidence, there is difference in interpretation of that textual evidence. I understand why fandom thinks the way it does - though, you’ll have to forgive me, my brain is 90% of the time focused on Pillow Book. Regardless, whether you walk out of a book thinking “this character has this much depth and this many flaws” or “this character is just a flat out antagonist” is very much dependent on you. Yes, we as a blog synthesize textual evidence to make that synthesis easier, but ultimately we are no better judges of anyone’s personality than anyone else out in the fandom.

Rather, I think sometimes for the sake of finding reasons or understanding, or when we look for evidence fitting our own assumptions about characters sometimes we lean into a softer read, maybe entirely without realizing it. This is a big no in the world of analytical writing for the sake of, ironically “objectivity” - but this is for enjoyment and not academia. There are times when textual evidence is untouched by the author's tone in terms of connotation and so when we take it for our reading and we have our pre-formed opinions we fall a little more between the lines. Admin Lins and I obviously differ in where this happens as we each have our own, minutely different vibes for characters in question. We know where our confirmation biases in interpretation might lie. Everyone has those.

Up till about February or March this year, I, like a lot of the rest of this fandom, wanted to roast Ji Heng on a spitfire. That is my bias. We are humans, and I think we are perhaps incapable of reading something and staying entirely objective to each character. I clawed my way out of my bias (I say ‘clawed’ because it was difficult), however, by looking at the book, looking at my own opinions, looking at other people’s opinions and asking myself: which parts of this is most likely to be true? I think the only way of striving toward objectivity in terms of portrayal is to consider other people’s portrayals, even if you don’t like them - and see if there’s any truth you can see past your bias. And to accept that truth, even if it’s a hard pill to swallow.

I guess what I have been trying to say, for this entire time, is that we are not the authority on what is and isn’t objective, on what is and isn’t right in these characters, interpretations, and this blog. We are glad to be an interpretation you enjoy - but that doesn’t mean the rest of the fandom who have different opinions are wrong or misinterpretations. I realize we can come across like that sometimes because we make salty memes and because we write long paragraph essays when we have opinions, but ultimately, no one is wrong. Our bubble of enjoyment is our bubble, and no one has to agree with us.

#three lives three worlds ten miles of peach blossoms #three lives three worlds the lotus step #Yehua #Lian Song #admin lin answers #admin ro answers

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transformingyourlives · 7 years

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Personal Vision

Personal vision comes from inside of you. A couple of months ago, I was working with a young woman and she talked about her vision for our planet. She said lots of sweet things about peace and harmony, about coexisting in balance with the plant. As beautiful as these ideas were, she went on and on, completely without any emotion, as if these were the things we should all want. I asked her to tell me more about her thoughts on the subject. After a pause, she said, “I just want to live on a healthy green planet,” and burst into tears. As far as I could remember, she had never said this during our previous conversations. The thoughts just jumped out of her, almost as if they had a will of their own. Yet, the images they transferred clearly had profound meaning to her, probably at levels of meaning that she may never understand.

Like my client, most adults have almost no sense of real vision. They, like all of us, have goals and objectives, but those aren’t a vision. When most of my clients tell me what they want, I usually hear what they don’t want hidden in their answer. They’d like a higher paying job; translation, they’d like to get rid of the low paying job they now have. They’d like to live in a better neighborhood; translation, they don’t want to worry about crime, or their kids walking to school. They’d like it if their grandma returned to her own house in Kentucky, or that their arthritis lets up a bit. Those catalogues of “negative visions” are, unfortunately, all too common even with successful people. They are, in my experience, a result of a lifetime of trying to fit in, coping with life, and problem-solving. A teenager I worked with once said about his parents, “We shouldn’t call them ‘grown ups' we should call them ‘given ups.’”

Real vision can’t truly

be understood if you

separate it from the idea of purpose.

A less direct form of limited understanding of vision that turns up in executive coaching sessions is where my client spends time “focusing on the measures, not the result.” Lots of executives choose “high market share” as part of their vision. Why is that? “Because I want the company to be more profitable.” Now as a normally intelligent person, you might think that high profits are an intrinsic goal in and of itself, and truly for some it is. But for a surprisingly large group of executives, profits are just a means toward an even more critical result. Why higher annual profits? “Because I want us to remain an independent company, to keep from losing my line of credit.” Why do you want that? “Because I want to keep our integrity and our capacity to be true to our purpose for starting the business.” While all the early goals mentioned are good honest goals “the last, being true to our purpose,” has the greatest fundamental significance to most executives who think this way. All the rest are simply means to that end, means that might change under some new circumstance. The ability to focus on fundamental desires, not on secondary goals, is part of the foundation of personal mastery.

Real vision can’t truly be understood if you separate it from the idea of purpose. By purpose, I’m talking about a person’s sense of why he or she is alive…why are they here? No one can prove or disprove the statement that human beings have purpose. It is one of those “magical dogma’s” Heck, as I’ve written about before, it’s a waste of time to even engage in the argument. But as a life hypothesis, the idea has a lot power. One thing that springs immediately from the thought is that happiness is directly a result of living consistently in line with your individual purpose. George Bernard Shaw expressed the idea pointedly when he said:

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one… the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”

That same attitude has been articulated in some businesses and from some people as “real caring.” In places where people feel uncomfortable talking about personal purpose, they feel perfectly comfortable having a discussion about real caring. When people genuinely, really care, they are painlessly committed to their goals. They are doing what they really, really want to do. They are busting a gut with energy and enthusiasm. They persevere in the face of almost all frustrations and setbacks, because they know that what they are doing is something they simply have to do. It is their work. It is a beautiful thing to see.

Everyone has had times when everything just goes perfectly; those times when you feel in tune with the world and work proceeds successfully and effortlessly. Someone whose vision takes him to a foreign country might just find learning a new language much easier than he ever imagined. You usually notice your personal vision because you experience those kinds of moments; it is that goal or dream that keeps dragging you forward, making it all seem so worthwhile.

Here’s something to keep in mind—vision is really different than purpose. Purpose is sort of like a direction, a general heading, while vision is a very specific destination, a perfectly clear picture of a sought after future. Purpose is abstract and hard to quantify. Vision is clear and concrete. Purpose is “advancing man’s ability to explore the heavens.” Vision is “a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s.” Purpose is “being the best I can be,” “excellence.” Vision for a runner is breaking the four-minute mile.

It has been written time and time again that nothing happens until there is vision. But it’s just as true that a vision with no sense of purpose, no reality, no calling, is just a good idea. Who among us has had a damn good idea that never went anywhere—all “sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

On the other hand, purpose without vision has no scale. You and I may be basketball fans and enjoy talking about fouls, free throws, the thrill of chasing the hoop, of a three-point free throw. We may have a great conversation, but then we find out that I am gearing up to play at my local YMCA and you are preparing for The New Orleans Jazz Festival. We share the same enthusiasm and love of the game, but at completely different scales of skill. Until we establish the scales of skill we are thinking about, we might think we are communicating to beat the band, but we’re not.

Purpose is sort of like a

direction, a general

heading, while vision

is a very specific destination,

a perfectly clear

picture of a sought after future.

At the end of the day, vision isn’t relative; it’s inherent. Your vision is something you want for its intrinsic value, not because of where it puts you in comparison to someone or something else. Relative visions may be good enough in the short-term, but they almost never take you to greatness. I am not saying that there’s anything wrong with competition; quite the opposite. Competition, which literally means, “striving together,” from the Latin ‘competrerei’, is one of the best means developed by people to force us to bring out the best in each other. But after the competition is done, after the vision has (or has not) been reached, it is your personal sense of purpose that takes you forward, driving you to set a new vision. This, again, is why personal mastery is a discipline to work towards and, at times, to be coached through. It is a process of repeatedly focusing and refocusing on what the heck you truly want, on your visions.

Vision is multipartite. There are physical parts of our visions, like what island you want to live on, and how much money you want to have in the bank when you move there. There are personal facets, such as your health, your personal freedom, and what being true to yourself means. There are service facets, e.g., helping at church or contributing to the knowledge of the world. These can all be parts of what we really want in our lives. Contemporary society tends to aim our attentions to the material aspects, and at the same time, promote guilt for those same material goals. Society places less—but still some—emphasis on our personal desires. For example, it has become an obsession to look trim and fit, and relatively little attention is given to our desire to serve. In fact, it is easy to feel naive and foolish expressing a desire to actually make a contribution to your community. Regardless, I have seen from my clients that personal visions span all these areas and more. It is also clear that it takes real courage to hold visions that don’t fit within the social normal.

I want to say here that it is exactly that personal courage to take a stand for your vision that separates people with greater levels of personal mastery from those lacking it. Or, as the Japanese say of the master’s stand:

“When there is no break, not even the thickness of a hair comes between a man’s ‘vision’ and his action.”

So learn to sort between vision, purpose, goals, and objectives and you can build a vision that is as clear as a photograph, but as flexible as you are yourself. Now that is a goal worth pursuing.

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