#like steampunk novels
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Me after watching the last episode of Candela Obscura: I now need to read more steampunk books and more witchy/kinda lovecraftian books now, I don’t know why, I just do.
#writing thoughts#candela obscura#like#i really love this ttrpg rn#i wanna play it and wanna read more books#like steampunk novels#and lovecraftian novels#but done right#even though i do have warlock holmes
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2023 reads // twitter thread
To Shape A Dragon’s Breath
YA fantasy
a young Indigenous girl finds & bonds with a dragon hatchling - the first time in many generations for her people - and is required to go to the coloniser’s dragon academy in their mainland city, to learn how to raise her dragon and the science of its magic
historical inspired setting on the cusp of industrial revolution with steampunk vibes
bi polyamorous MC, Black lesbian SC, nonverbal autistic SC
#To Shape A Dragon’s Breath#aroaessidhe 2023 reads#this is really really good i loved it!#the chapter titles are all like snippets of a story. or like sentence fragments that match up. which is cool#it is definitely more about being indigenous in a coloniser institution than Dragon School - not Super dragon heavy if you want that#I suspect the subsequent books will get into that when she gets big enough to ride and stuff#t’s also def YA! i’ve seen a few ppl assume it’s adult and be like its very young :( but like. I mean its perfectly reasonable for a 15yo m#definitely a Lot of racism and colonialism which is not fun to read! though it's still through a YA lens. there was def a part of me that#was imagining consequences of the narrative as if it were an adult novel#on that line of thought - at the end a lot of it is kind of solved by them going to the king and he's is like. oh no racism is happening?#that's bad i'll deal with those people! which felt like. a little simplistic. but maybe the easiest way to end the narrative for book 1 -#I don't think the author ACTUALLY is going to portray the king as a Good Guy throughout the series - it just felt conveniently like -#a simple YA solution to some very big and complex elements? if that makes sense? (but again - it is YA so it's allowed I suppose!)#some of the worldbuilding (like all the science learning) is probably setup for next books - we don’t really see any practical application#the romances are also subtle and not Overbearing In Book One which i like - leave some space for the series!#also her getting fanmail from a 10yo mixed race girl who looks up to her 🥺#anyway. i really loved it!#oh also it reminded me a little of leviathan. i guess just the steampunk/time period/european culture....#To Shape A Dragon's Breath
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This will sound strange, but I love steampunk furniture and jewelry. The FASHION on the other hand... Imagine if everyone ran around in their Spanx with discarded flash drive pieces sewn in. It's bad.
See, here's the thing.
I first got into steampunk back in like 2008, when it leaned more heavily towards actual Victorian inspiration. As in, outfits that resembled Victorian clothing- not just Victorian underwear or even modern underwear with absolutely no relation to anything Victorian (re: feminine looks) or modern suits with top hats (re: masculine looks). The pinup or modern/minimal looks existed, but they weren't all you ever saw.
And. That seems to have changed significantly.
Of course people can wear what they want. I'm not the fashion police. If "modern bustier and hotpants bedazzled with clock parts" or "normal dress shirt and slacks but with a pocket watch" makes someone happy, more power to them. ...but I do reserve the right to, very subjectively, be all You Kids Get Off My Lawn about that very specific sub-style taking over the public perception of steampunk.
I prefer my Inherently Victorian-Inspired Aesthetic to have at least a nodding acquaintance with, you know, Victorian things. But that's just me.
#ask#anon#steampunk#I feel like some people don't even realize it's supposed to be Victorian or Edwardian these days?#like. the 'steam' part comes from steam power- and by extension the eras in which that was most commonly used#it's always been as much about the era aesthetics as much as the technology#it was coined as a term for like...Jules Verne's novels and other late 19th/early 20th century sci-fi#or modern works with that same Vibe
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Is. Is there an English translation somewhere of the Saving Your Kingdom While Burnt Out thing because I'm in love with the art but I cannot for the life of me read Chinese.
OH alsdkjfa I think I'm hilarious in the tags, sorry about that! "saving your kingdom while burnt out" is me being cheeky about 《杀破狼》 Sha Po Lang by priest, which I've seen variously translated as Kill the Wolf or Stars of Chaos
I would offer you a more detailed summary but it really is about two extremely burnt out people working together to save a kingdom on the brink of disaster, and also falling in love. #multitasking. also the number of genres in this book are best listed via bullet points than sentences, which never ceases to amuse me, priest has the RANGE
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In ACOMAF and ACOWAR, our favorite characters are dealing with a mysterious substance that renders them incapable of performing magic: faebane.
I found this plotline interesting, but didn’t think much more about it until I came across this scene, early on in ACOWAR:
Lucien stood, back against a tree—twin bands of blue stone shackled around his wrists.
I’d seen them before. On Rhys, to immobilize his power. Stone hewn from Hybern’s rotted land, capable of nullifying magic. And in this case...holding Lucien against that tree as Ianthe surveyed him like a snake before a meal (ACOWAR, 85).
Aside from being completely grossed out by Ianthe (she gets worse every time I reread this series), I was struck by the description of that stone. The fact that it’s blue. It reminded me of another stone in another SJM series: gorsian stone, from Crescent City.
Sure enough, I found this description when Bryce and company are in Ydra:
Hunt went on, “This metal... The Asteri have been researching a way to make the gorsian ore absorb magic, not suppress it.”
Ruhn said, “Seems like ordinary titanium to me.”
“Look closer,” Hunt said. “There are slight purple veins in it. That’s the gorsian stone. I’d know it anywhere.”
“So what can it do?” Bryce asked.
“If I’m right,” Hunt said hoarsely, “it can draw the firstlight from the ground. From all the pipes of it crisscrossing the land. These suits would draw up the firstlight and turn it into weapons... The suit would never run out of ammo, never run out of battery life. Simply find the underground power lines, and it’d be charged up and ready to kill” (HOSAB, 473).
Now, I know that these stones are blue in ACOTAR and purple in HOSAB, but apparently Rhys and Ruhn have the same eye color, which is purple in ACOTAR and blue in HOSAB, so I’m going to assume that this stone is a similar color (which might have interesting implications).
Going back to the stone itself, gorsian stone/faebane is a huge problem for these characters. The good news? In ACOTAR, they have solved the problem of faebane:
“And what has this to do with the faebane?” Helion demanded. Thesan’s lover seethed at the High Lord of Day’s tone, but one glance from Thesan had the male relaxing.
Nuan turned, her dark hair slipping over a shoulder as she studied Helion. And did not seem impressed. “Because I have found a solution for it.”
Thesan waved a hand. “We heard rumors of faebane being used in this war... We thought to look into the issue before it became a deadly weakness for all of us.” He nodded at Nuan. “Beyond her unparalleled tinkering, she is a skilled alchemist.”
Nuan crossed her arms, the sun glinting off her metal hand. “Thanks to the samples attained after the attack in Velaris, I was able to create an...antidote, of sorts.” (ACOWAR, 431-432)
Prythian has already found an antidote to the effects of faebane/gorsian stone. It’s a powder that they can ingest in food or drink and Thesan, Nuan, and the Dawn Court of Geniuses have already figured out how to mass produce it. This makes their victory against Hybern possible, removing one of their most powerful weapons.
I have to believe that this antidote could also be effective in Crescent City, and now that Bryce is in Prythian, she might be able to reverse the tide of her own war by coming back with the antidote.
Later in the scene, Nuan goes on to say that: “The Mother has provided us with everything we need on this earth. So it has been a matter of finding what, exactly, she gave us in Prythian to combat a material from Hybern capable of wiping out our powers” (433).
Given the significance of Prythian to the Asteri and the Fae of Midgard, I think it’s interesting that the material for this antidote is specifically from Prythian.
We do know that SJM didn’t start planning the crossover until a year after ACOWAR’s release, but even so, I’m realizing that there are more of these significant objects and overlapping plots than I originally thought. Plus, I think this kind of save would be really satisfying to the members of the Court of Dreams—though I’ve got to be honest, I think that somewhere in the Dawn Court, Nuan is probably on to bigger and better things already.
But I definitely wouldn’t mind if she made an appearance in CC3, especially if everyone’s favorite tinkerer and alchemist had a grand reveal up her sleeve once again.
#hosab spoilers#hosab#house of sky and breath#acotar theory#gorsian stone#faebane#maasverse crossover#bryce quinlan#hunt athalar#feyre archeron#rhysand#nuan#justice for nuan#i would like a whole novel about nuan please#it could be steampunk in prythian!#the possibilities!!
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maybe i’m in the minority w this (or not, idk), but i think i love the mishmash of time periods that shouldn’t be mishmashed. love time being a fake concept. yes, piano man by billy joel would play in the 1910s. in the 1820s. time doesn’t matter. yes, these women will wear skirts with their trains and bustles, and yes, they’ll also wear trousers and men’s shirts and it’s not scandalous. this is all fake, it’s pulling from all time periods in our universe and it’s anchored by all these different time period reference points, and it makes a new universe. it’s not fantasy, but it’s not realistic.
#memorie.txt#i think those are my favorite ‘fantasy’ novels#huuuuge air quotes on fantasy#because i generally don’t like fantasy world building when it’s not rigorous and done with love#i understand WHY you’d be lazy abt it (*cough* stephanie) but it doesn’t make ME very happy#but when it’s real world reference points but they’re all conjoined in the wrong time periods?? IM THERE#like i understand that the mirror visitor series takes place post modern era but the different time period reference points? BARK.#i think that’s why some steampunk appeals to me#not rlly steampunk in general but the ones that combine time well and truly to make a new era of time intrigues me#i think my official chryzure story might play w that… the timelessness of their romance combining to a new time era….#they’ve lived so many lives that time has melded together into one….#it’s modern it’s the roaring 20s it’s the 19th century it’s the 70s it’s ancient roman times it’s everything it’s nothing time isn’t REAL#not anymore! not after they’ve lived so much!!!#things to ponder upon……
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i love rereading my own fic. oh a story about my blorbos specifically written to cater to my niche interests? wow whoever wrote this was a genius
#only problem is rereading it makes me want to rewrite bits#the other problem is i’m rereading my mq fantasy horror am and now i want to make art of it#or rather i want art of it to exist#banger fic tho i really enjoyed writing that one#still low key want to turn it into an original novel#just really enjoyed that universe#the like. steampunk-but-lovecraftian-magic vibes of it#anyway#read my fic lmaoooo other people enjoy it too i swear
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in a victorian strampunk novel I'd definitely be the ratgirl - set up shop in an unused storm drain and look after my lil rat friends. I'd send them out to fetch stuff for me like mechanical parts and such
#daemon.md#victorian steampunk#ratgirl#also i'm way more of a cat but like i can vibe w/ being a ratgirl for novel trope reasons#plus imagine a tiny rat w/ engineer goggles !!!!#(whelp guess i need a catsona and a ratsona sldkjf)
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I know I'm working on so many goddamn things but! I've been thinking about Steam Train and it's gonna get a bit of an overhaul~ ✨
#nyssa rambles#not sure if I've really talked about ST much on here#But!!#basically it was going to be a regular novel with a female protag and her sidekick#but it wasn't going well#so later on#I wrote a steampunk fairytale roughly in the same setting as that OG novel#and I really loved the world I built and wanted to expand on it#so I decided to merge the two ideas#and make a short story anthology featuring different characters#well#that idea went a lot further but#I ended up running into the issue that like#the initial premise for these stories actually taking place is still far too interesting to ignore#so I'm...remerging the ideas I guess?#it'll still more or less be a short story anthology#but it will ALSO follow a titular character who will be a major or minor addition to the story just depending on which one it is#but the stories themselves will all push that character's narrative forward#so it'll kinda like...give me some direction on what the fuck to even write about#while still satisfying that need to explain the backround stuff#and also the need to write about my old protag who is now a different character actually#idk when I'll ever work on this one but#I might ramble about it a bit more when I get more details done ✨#I still need to work on CFR which I'm...stuck™ on#I need someone to talk to about my writing so I can ramble my way out of my mental blocks... ;w;
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The History of Cyberpunk
Or why every other SciFi Genre is called [something]punk
You know what? Let's do this. Because I have seen the discussion on whether or not Solarpunk is "punk" over the last few days and... people really gotta learn their history.
The first time a genre took the "punk" name was Cyberpunk. And for context we gotta talk a bit about the history of the Cyberpunk genre.
While some books that we in hindsight call "Cyberpunk" were released as early as the 1960s, the start of Cyberpunk as a genre got its start in the late 70s and early 80s.
The term was invented by Bruce Bethke, who published a short story in 1983 with the name "Cyberpunk". His idea was to juxtapose the term "punk" for both the mentality and the punk protagonists in his short story with the term cyber, short for the cybernetics they were wearing. And while the cybernetics have become a main stay in the genre, the punk attitudes are not always carried through...
Well, the title Bethke invented stuck, though. When 1984 Neuromancer was published, one of the most influencial works in the early days of the genre, he called it "a Cyberpunk novel" in the marketing. And from there... Well, the genre was suddenly named like that.
The 80s were definitely the decade that had the most influence on the genre, given that a lot of the big novels and graphic novels of the genre were released here.
A big influence was, no doubt, that 1982 the Blade Runner movie had released and had inspired quite a few writers and artists. (And yes, this makes Blade Runner a movie that released not only before the term Cyberpunk was coined, but also before the genre had a chance to define itself.)
Given that the genre was defined in the 80s, there are a lot of 80s anxiety kept within it about the rise of the Japanese economy, that are these days rarely questioned within the western Cyberpunk movement.
When the genre was coined and developed, Japan was the fastest growing economy in the world, being so influencial that they got to buy out several things in America. Something that kinda jerked white people in the US a lot. This is, why Cyberpunk originally depicted not only a capitalist hellscape - but specifically a capitalist hellscape were everything was bought out by Japanese companies, with many of those early antagonists being Japanese companies. And yeah... there was a lot of both anti-japanese racism, but also cultural appropriation of Japanese things in early Cyberpunk, at time surviving to this day. (But that is a story for another day.)
The general sense that Western Cyberpunk had, was always the idea of: We have a capitalist hellscape where the world is slowly dying and people are exploited with no end, while we have those kinda punky protagonists, who stand outside of the society and try to work against it. This being where the punk comes from.
Now, I could talk for length about how a lot of that punky attitude has been lost in more modern Cyberpunk media, but that, too, is a story for another day.
So, let me just talk about what happened then.
The term Cyberpunk really is darn catchy, right? So just when that name took hold, writer K.W. Jeter retroactively called his 1979 novel Morlock Night "steampunk". And guess what: This stuck, too. Though while the 80s Cyberpunk still stuck to the punk attitude, a lot of Steampunk did not. While for certain there is quite a bit of Steampunk that has kinda punky characters go against the quasi Victorian society of steampunk books (something most common in the air pirate novels I have read), a lot of other stories are more focused on a general sense of adventure.
But never the less... The genre names stuck and gave a nice baseline for naming other genre. We got Dieselpunk, Atompunk, Nanopunk, Arcanepunk, Dustpunk, Silkpunk and of course also Solarpunk and Lunarpunk.
And for the most part... The "punk" names mostly communicate: "It is SciFi with this kinda aesthetic/twist going on". Which is just how it turned out.
Funnily enough Solarpunk is for once a genre that brings back the punk, as it tends to include a lot of the ideals aspired to by the Punk counter culture of the 1970s: Anarchism, anti-capitalism, anti-consumerism, anti-classism, anti-racism, anti-colonialism and so on. Though other than with Cyberpunk and the real world punk movement, Solarpunk for the most part imagines a place, where those things are culture instead of counter culture.
I personally find it kinda sad, how for the most part Cyberpunk kinda lost a lot of the counter-cultural, revolutionary mindset. And how fucking defeatist the genre often is.
But again, it is a story for another day. Just as the story of Japanese Cyberpunk is.
#cyberpunk#solarpunk#steampunk#cyberpunk history#western cyberpunk#science fiction#scifi#william gibson#neuromancer#genre history#punk
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Choose your favorite!
Vote in the other polls!
What fans say:
Kung Fu Panda:
Honestly iconic. The progression of story, the message, the acting.
The way this movie balances tone is nothing less than astonishing to me. It's funny and lighthearted but also intense and dramatic and neither ever take away from the other. Every joke and emotional beat lands excellently. Not to mention. The fight scenes SLAP. And so does the score!!
It's just GOOD. I love how all of them were insanely genuine. Po genuinely wanted to be a Kung Fu master. The Furious Five genuinely wanted to be the very best like no one ever was. And Tai Lung genuinely wanted to kick the shit out of anyone that even looked at that dragon scroll. But seriously one of the best movies.
Treasure Planet:
The setting and focal relationship!
WHALES IN SPACE. Second best treasure island adaptation (#1 is muppets). The song The Song!!
Where do I begin with this movie? It blends CG and hand drawn animation beautifully. All of the backgrounds are gorgeous. There are so many cool alien designs. The score is absolutely perfect. The amount of detail put into the design and worldbuilding shines through. All of the characters are so much fun to watch, especially Long John Silver and Captain Amelia. This movie takes at least partial responsibility for my love of space/sky pirates. Also it was actively sabotaged by Disney so I need to vouch for it at every chance.
Space pirates in a classic novel. It's gorgeously animated with a blend of 2d and 3d. Also, LONG JOHN SILVER HAS A 3D HAND thats hecking impressive for a main character to be a blend of the two in 2002. Did I mention the twink protagonist and malewife for the rich halfwit son? The aliens are beautifully unique, and a mantis guy floats off into space. from a pirate ship. because they aren't just space pirates, they're aliens and cyborgs on pirate ships going through space. Which fucking rocks.
It's a genuinely creative adaptation of Treasure Island that has so much heart and incredible animation. It helped pioneer 3D animationa nd it was the first feature animated film to utilize both 2 and 3 D animation
The animation is so good, and the way that the antogonist isn't black and white, he genuinely cares for the protagonist <3
Pirate ships in space!
Watched this on loop as a kid, gave me solace for not growing up with a dad
It fucks
The ☆A n i m a t i o n☆!! And captain Amelia
It's so fun looking, cool character design. It's funny, it's emotional. I love it so very much please aaaaaaa
How this movie looks is absolutely amazing. A space-steampunk pirate story with fantastic visuals and (mostly) great characters. The vibes this movie has are off the charts. Jim is the bad-boy-good-heart kid, the doctor is a silly-goofy-but-oddly-competent support and Silver is a complex father-figure-who's-made-mistakes. Also MORT the cute little jelly that won me over in 0.5 seconds flat. I am also a slut for a good soundtrack and this one SLAPS. I will stand by my opinion that the Russian version of the song I'm Still Here did a better job of fitting the montage and the mood. That's a hill I will die on.
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I have an opinion about the mechanisms (from cult classic steampunk band the mechanisms) to share. I think that they all sleep in one comedically long bed like Charlie’s grandparents (from hit children’s novel turned movie Charlie and the chocolate factory) and if any of them get too sweaty or snore to loud or anything like that they are immediately shot in the head no questions asked. and also they never ever acknowledge that this is a thing they do it’s just an unspoken reality. the cold medicine is wearing off
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this post has been apparently been making the rounds lately so I thought I'd add a follow-up:
Gu Yun / Sheng Lingyuan: (crawling out of their graves) ah shit I can't die, I can't leave that one unattended
that one: (becomes one of the most powerful people in the world) oh whoops, my hand slipped
#except Chang Geng is like 'my hand slipped' (blinks innocently)#whereas Xuan Ji is like 'my hand slipped' (who authorized this Lingyuan help)#spine chickens and war crimes#saving your kingdom while burnt out: the imperial intrigue steampunk wuxia light mecha alternate historical novel
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WELCOME TO FONTAINE - aether
❝ like any true love, it drives you crazy but you know you wouldn’t change anything. ❞
summary: traveling with the renowned traveler, you can’t help but be dazzled by him more than the sights of each nation
warnings: none, story quest spoilers for prologue
notes: kicking off the event with one of my absolute favs yayayay! challenge, find all the hidden lyrics and song references!
taglist: @staretes , @rynnlvrs , @sentifua , @i-probably-sleep-too-much , @reilly34 , @qqingque , @akutasoda
“paimon wants to try some yummy fontaine cuisine when we get there! ooh, maybe we can go sightseeing too!” the floating companion chirped, doing somersaults in the air alongside you and aether.
aether sighed in slight exasperation at her statement while you tried to stifle a laugh, your hand drifting to your mouth as you nodded at her words. “i’d love to eat some yummy fontaine food with you paimon. we just need to take the aquabus to the court of fontaine first.”
at the mention of eating ( and possibly free ) food, it seemed that paimon had suddenly been jolted, zooming towards the docking aqua bus. “yippee! what are you slowpokes waiting for?”
which left you and aether behind to pick up the pace, the tired blonde traveler shooting you a small smile which you tried to return though it didn’t meet your eyes. ever since you both had left mondstadt with venti’s blessings of finding the seven, it wasn’t that uncommon to find yourselves exhausted or worse for wear. especially since the battles you were facing ahead proved to be more perilous and tough than previous fights.
travelling to fontaine the nation of justice, you hoped that this cycle of laborious tasks would come to an end and you’d finally get some time to unwind. fontaine was the nation of justice…or love, some would like to say.
“i didn’t know that fontaine had a lot of people.” you murmur lowly, clinging to aether’s arm in an attempt to stay close to him. he shot up at your sudden touch, clearing his throat awkwardly before nodding. “maybe they’re just searching for something more.”
reaching the steps of the aquabus, he offered his hand to you, a sly smile on his face. “mon coeur?”
“i didn’t know you spoke fontainan.” you pouted, eyeing him warily as you took his hand gingerly. wandering the empty bus, your eyes drifted its interior to find paimon hounding the poor melusine conductor about fontaine’s delicacies.
“i don’t, i picked it up from lyney.” he shrugged nonchalantly, finding your annoyed expression amusing. you’re about to bite back a snarky reply until the bus started moving, causing the both of you to fall into each other’s arms, nearly toppling over the railing. perhaps the conductor was supposed to make an announcement before moving so suddenly…you were about to glare at the melusine but all you saw was paimon with a mischievous smirk on her face, one that could rival klee’s when she decided to go fish-blasting.
“you okay?” aether’s voice rung out which brought you back to reality, slightly crackly and squeaky, the kind when he was nervous or flustered. you turn your head back to him only to realise that you’re both so close that you could feel your breath on each other’s cheeks, your palm over his quickly rising and falling chest. the second hand embarrassment crept into your face as you recoiled almost instantly from him, the both of you trying to act as if nothing happened.
“hey look, it’s the court of fontaine!” paimon chirped out excitedly, thankfully breaking the awkward silence between the both of you with her hollering.
you’d heard how beautiful the city of fontaine was. how the sunlight hit the opera epiclese, the overall whimsical atmosphere that felt like you were living through a steampunk novel, the smell of morning dew on fresh rainbow roses. but nothing could compare to how ethereal he looked in front of it all.
the way aether’s face contorted to awe and disbelief, a genuine grin that you’d miss seeing after so long blooming on his face at the sight of the city. the dazzling lights were bright, like shimmering stars dancing across the night sky but they never blinded you.
half-dazed walking down the aquabus, all you could see was his smile etched in your memory like a stained glass painting. an mesmerising and majestic piece of art, the kind that people used to worship archons with.
“name!” aether called out to you from across the fountain of lucine, eyes twinkling with childlike excitement. trying to compose yourself from the internal screeching in your head, you couldn’t help but be curious and slightly apprehensive of what he wanted from you. paimon was no where in sight…how odd.
the sounds of fontaine were beautiful. a scene out of a ballet piece, like living straight out of an opera. your eyes widened as you followed aether’s gaze to the streams of water from the water fountain, completely in sync with the background music. it was a new soundtrack and you could just dance to the beat, the rhythm that intertwined with your soul.
it was like he read your mind, the blonde traveler grinning as he bowed to you in the empty plaza, a gloved palm outstretched in front of you. “may i have this dance?”
you tried to calm your rising nerves, taking his hand with a nervous beam. though his hands were on your waist, it felt like he held your beating heart in his hands, not that he knew off.
was this what love felt like? something that kept you second guessing yourself in fear of making a bad decision? something that would never change no matter how long you’ve known him, that same feeling of crystalflies in your stomach despite the fact that you’ve been travelling together for quite some time? something that drove you crazy, not sure whether you were going mad, a disease with symptoms that caused you to only think of aether? but you knew that you wouldn’t change anything.
maybe one day you’d muster the courage to tell him how much you felt but now you’d indulge yourself in this feeling of being in his arms, dancing to the soundtrack of this foreign city.
masterpost next->
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#🕊️ - 1989 event#・ nouveau livre ˎˊ˗#genshin impact x reader#genshin x reader#genshin x gender neutral reader#genshin impact x gender neutral reader#genshin x you#genshin impact x you#aether x reader#aether x you#🪧- event: 1989#🗞️ - genshin impact fics
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What Tai Sui is and Why Everyone Should Read It
So if you follow me, over the past couple weeks, you've probably noticed me obsessively screenshotting and posting about a book called Tai Sui. And now that I've finished it, I'd like to try and convince y'all to give it a chance.
What Is Tai Sui?
Tai Sui is a chinese web novel—a relatively unpopular work by the very popular author Priest (author of Guardian and Sha Po Lang, among others). Unlike a lot of the most popular web novels on tumblr, it's not a danmei. It's in fact rather important to the plot and themes that there is almost entirely no romance, but I promise you, it is absolutely worth it regardless.
What is Tai Sui About?
Tai Sui is a steampunk xianxia cultivation story. For those unfamiliar with xianxia and cultivation, this is a particular genre of Chinese historical fantasy.
The official summary of Tai Sui reads as follows:
“If I had a choice, I would only want to be a little insect in the mundane dust, born in confusion, dying in mediocrity, never seeing the light of day beneath the fog of Jinping City.
Better than taking this wrong road to heaven.”
You may have noticed that this summary is not in fact really a summary. It gives you a glimpse into the story's themes, mood, and destination, but it doesn't exactly tell you what happens in it.
That's because Tai Sui is one of those works that's incredibly hard to summarize. The story is incredibly wide in scope and changes massively over its course, to the point that any summary that encapsulates the whole thing is going to feel like a spoiler. However, I can try my best to add a little detail without giving too much away.
Tai Sui is the story of Xi Ping—an obnoxious, trouble-making rich boy with no interest in cultivation—who gets unwittingly involved in a plot to resurrect the "evil god" Tai Sui. This plot pulls him into the cultivation world against his will and, over time, threatens to rewrite everything he is.
Tai Sui is the end of immortality.
Why Should You Read Tai Sui?
Tai Sui is one of the most compelling stories I have ever read. It is a love letter to the power and promise of the whole world and its many mundane people. It also has some of the best worldbuilding I have ever seen.
Tai Sui is written in omniscient perspective, and though Xi Ping is very much the main character, as the story progresses, we spend more and more time alongside characters that aren't him. By the time the novel ends, his entire continent is at stake, and we the audience know that continent and its troubles inside and out from countless angles. Everyone from the immortal demigods of the cultivation world to the most wretched, miserable paupers is given a grand sense of emphasis.
Tai Sui is a deconstruction of the cultivation genre. It establishes a magic/cultivation system and its history, lets the main character live in that system for a while, and then dives deep into that system's depths. It looks at the cultivation genre, at the idea of people who leave behind their status as mortals for greater things, and asks "How does this really work?" and "Is this how the world should be?"
Tai Sui is the story of countless people who were never supposed to be powerful coming together to make the world a better place. It's well written (and very well translated), exciting, heartbreaking, and incredibly beautiful. It's also funny as hell.
I cannot recommend this story enough.
Warnings/Caveats
As I said before, Tai Sui is a deconstruction of the cultivation genre. If you're unfamiliar with this genre, while the book is certainly readable, you are going to be thrown head first into the deep end with the tropes and terminology at play. It's absolutely worth the learning curve, but it will be kind of a lot. Maybe do some light googling about what a cultivator is before you pick it up. (Or just ask a fan. I think most of us would happily explain anything that would win a new reader).
There are portrayals of people/cultures in Tai Sui that are heavily inspired by minority cultures in real-world China, and some of these portrayals play into pretty harmful stereotypes. It's not SPL "Barbarian" or TGCF Banyue levels of racist, but it's something to be aware of and careful about. I'd really recommend reading from the perspectives of those from the cultures in question (including but not limited to the post I linked) for more about the issues I'm talking about.
Tai Sui's English translation is 930,000 words long. I believe this is a strength, since its length is what allows it such an incredible scope. It is also a fucking daunting commitment, and I acknowledge that.
Finally, while Tai Sui doesn't need too many trigger warnings, it does contain some pretty viscerally upsetting depictions of inequality and mistreatment, as well as a few instances of violence toward children. You can't uplift without first seeing what the people need uplifting from, and hooboy. They need it.
There's also some scenes that are technically rather violent, but the goriness is not presented as gore, if that makes sense. It never feels intensely or overly violent in the way some fantasy novels do.
Links
If all my gushing and propagandizing has convinced you to give it a try, you can find the original Chinese version (where you can buy chapters to support the author) on JJWXC.
The complete English translation is free on the website of E. Danglars, who does a truly incredible job with the translating.
Happy reading :).
#my desperate shot at propagandizing now that my followers have sat through months of on and off obsessive tai sui posting#besties it is genuinely so good#it made me cry. and that is a fcking feat.#tai sui#priest#cnovel#webnovel#long post#I'm not putting a readmore on this bc I want to force y'all to look at it#sorry#book rec#invasion of the frogs
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OK, a wee personal thing. Skip over if you don't care - I, too, often don't read about the personal lives of people on the internet!
I've written about what OFMD as a whole has meant to me in terms of coming out, but also...it has meant other things.
I'm actually fucking excited about film analysis again. I went to film school, I've got a Master's in Film Studies, I've worked as a critic (and a clickbait writer), I co-host a film podcast, but I haven't felt really excited about analysis in a good while. Writing meta, and talking with others about it, the past few months has reminded me how much fun it is to dig into a piece of media and pull it apart and see how it works. This in turn has made me go back to old texts and start reading film theory again and actually move forward with writing a book on Hitchcock I've been talking about for, like, years.
I'm also excited about writing fiction again. I have (another) Master's in Creative Writing, I work as a fiction editor, but I haven't really been into my own work. I've been shopping around a steampunk SF/F novel (about, as it happens, pirates...), but that is a tiring and thankless job and involves a lot of disappointment. Getting into writing fanfiction for OFMD has, in turn, made me actually pick up steam on a queer horror novel that I've had on the backburner for a while and that I'm really excited about now.
Since coming out, I've been a lot happier, just as a human being. I've been way more willing to do things that I want to without considering if other people are going to judge me about them. I'm not concealing things about myself. I feel better about men (and man have I been mad at men for a long time) and other people in general. I'm less anxious. I'm excited about stuff that I haven't been excited for in a good long while.
So, yeah, Season 3 or not, I am immeasurably grateful to this show, the cast, the writers and directors, and to the existence of its fandom. No matter what, it is net positive for me.
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