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ineffable-opinions · 1 month

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"Top", "Bottom" Discussion in Unknown ep. 12

The Office Gossip Scene

[Edited on 10th May; changes under clarification headings]

Now that the Unknown has resurrected the conversation about gong shou, let’s talk about it. The what and the why, so to say. Thank you @1serotonindeficientgirl (whose post inspired mine).

I welcome critiques and corrections. So, please feel free to do so.

Scenes and subtitles

The discussion in the episode starts with Wei Qian’s staff gossiping about his relationship with Wei ZhiYuan. One of the staff members comments that Wei Qian is like a little lamb (小绵羊) when it comes to his little brother:

只要遇到他弟弟就像小绵羊

Someone replies with the following idiom:

羊入虎口

(Literally: “a sheep enters a tiger's mouth”)

It means to enter a dangerous situation where one will certainly suffer [Source: Wiktionary].

The female employee (who witnessed their kiss) asks San Pang:

三胖哥谁是羊谁是虎啊 - Who is the lamb (羊; sheep) and who is the tiger (虎)?

This has some employees confused and they ask for an explanation. They receive the following reply:

就是攻跟受的差别啊 – [it means] between them, who is gong and who is shou?

One of the staff members repeats the unfamiliar terms:

攻受 – gong shou

and the fu-nu (腐女; fujoshi) offers an explanation:

好啦姊姊教你们 – let this elder sis explain

老虎看到羊会 – the tiger upon seeing the lamb…

Before she can complete her explanation, Wei Qian moves into the scene accompanied by the growl of a big cat. The gossipers disband.

In the end our fu-nu expresses their support for Wei Qian’s relationship with Wei ZhiYuan. Before she runs off, she throws him the question:

你们谁是攻谁是受啦 – between the two of you, who is gong and who is shou?

In the next shot Wei Qian is alone. He flexes his muscles and comments:

很明显吧 - It's obvious, isn't it?

[END OF SCENE]

Everyone at that office seems pretty close. The staff calls Wei “Qian ge” 谦哥 (first name + brother) and not as “Mr. Wei” (as the English subtitles suggests). Looks like Lao Xiong (emphasis on Lao = old) is the only one who clearly disapproves of such gossipmongering.

Notice how the terms gong and shou were translated directly into top and bottom in English subtitles. While that’s technically correct, there’s some nuance missing.

While there are tongzhi (同志;queer) people who use the terms gong and shou, these are not the most popular terms for top and bottom in the tongzhi community. This series specifically uses the terms gong (攻) and shou (受). Why? We’ll get to that in a minute.

In a BL, being shou means that character is the bottom in that particular ship. That character could be top, bottom, versatile or neither in another ship. A character is a bottom (as we use the term in English) only when that character is an absolute shou (sou uke in Japanese). An absolute shou is invariably shou. No matter which ship he becomes part of and no matter who he is paired with, he will be the shou. Similar difference exists between the terms “top” and “gong”.

English subtitles use ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ from the get-go. There is no need to explain what those terms mean. But that’s not the case with gong shou – only 腐 (fu) people (BL fans) really knows what those terms really mean and thus warrants explanation.

Clarification

[Edited. Thank you @abstractelysium and @wen-kexing-apologist for contributing to the conversation.]

As noted in the convo, Wei Qian is pretty ferocious in the office and is only gentle when it comes to Wei ZhiYuan. So, it is normal that gossiping irrespective of topic would end as soon as he arrives. Also, I think Wei Qian didn’t get what gong shou means other than allusion to tiger and lamb. The original language dialogues don’t make it clear that gong and shou means top and bottom (in a ship). [The English subs gives off that impression since gong and shou were simply translated.] Moreover, those terms are danmei literacies that has entered dictionaries but not necessarily public knowledge.

It is like an insider joke for fu-people made possible by Wei Qian’s ignorance. That wouldn’t have worked on Wei ZhiYuan who read danmei while growing up. That wouldn’t have worked if the fu nu (fujoshi) stuck around to explain what that means.

Usually in such conversations in BL, fu-people are shown to be mistaken: they either mess up the ship/dynamic (Love By Chance 1) or the character(s) in the ship deliberately trick them (Counter Attack). It is almost always played out with seme/gong’s approval in BL - not sure if that dynamic between fu-people & seme aka gong character ever appeared in any live-action dynamic. The trigger of this scene is Wei ZhiYuan’s deliberate choice of actions: PDA, kiss in the office right in front of a staff member.

BL literacies

BL is a media genre in itself with different sub-genres, genre conventions and classic works. It sure has a lot of overlap with other genres:

Romance as well as GL – they coevolved. They share mothers and other ancestors.

Queer – Is it really a genre? Even if one were to ignore queer as method in academia, it is still so complex.

Let me quote Taiwanese tongzhi author Chiang-Sheng Kuo:

… what exactly is queer literature? Is it queer literature if queer people like to read it, or is it only queer literature if there are queer characters in the books? Or is it an appendage of the queer movement? If a queer author writes a book without queer characters, does that represent a certain aspect of queer culture?

(You can find the whole interview here.)

Just as danmei (耽美; Chinese BL) has its roots in Japanese BL, so is gong (攻) and shou (受) from seme (攻め) uke (受け).

gong shou aka seme uke dynamics

Mother of BL, Mori Mari, didn’t come up with it, nor did her father Mori Ogai. Both she and her father, among the other dozen tanbi (耽美; same writing as danmei but different readings cause different languages, and different meanings cause different cultures) authors inherited it from authors before them who wrote on contemporaneous and historic Japanese male androphilia.

Spring Pastimes. Miyagawa Isshō, c. 1750 | seme uke dynamics in nanshoku pre-dates BL by hundreds of years.

While there is no dearth of riba (versatile) characters in BL, seme uke dynamics is:

a genre specialty. There are similar words in use in GL as well.

an enduring connection to the past of where BL was born.

remnants of a particular model of queerness; an alternative to LGBTQIA+ form of queerness.

What’s there in the scene

There is something hidden in the euphemistic explanation. On the face of it tiger devouring a lamb would be allusion to tiger gong devouring (topping) lamb shou.

But then tiger is a big cat and lamb is a herbivore. Neko (ネコ), the Japanese queer term for “bottom” means cat (etymology is obscure with this one). The term herbivore (草食) when used to describe a man means that man is masculine in a non-hegemonic way. In the series, Wei Qian embodies the hegemonic masculinity while Wei ZhiYuan is a quintessential grass-eater.

So, the description of lamb being devoured by a tiger would not be associated as simply as with the terms gong and shou especially when it comes from Taiwan which has been historically more connected to Japanese BL than any other BL producers (Sinophone or otherwise). This connection was highlighted during 魏之远 Wei ZhiYuan's naming scene where Le Ge used the borrowed Japanese possessive particle (の; no).

の = 之 (zhī)

The big cat sound effect for Wei Qian in particular adds to this. Wei Qian’s character is best described as a queen shou.

女王受 Queen shou: A shou who is as proud as a queen, and would devour gong. (source)

Wei Qian and Wei ZhiYuan’s ship is best described by Priest (the author of Da Ge, source novel of Unknown):

经典款毒舌女王和屁颠屁颠的忠犬组合 – paring of a classic, sharp-tongued queen and a tail-wagging loyal dog.

BL literacies & Affective learning

BL kind of has its own language (with words like gong shou), which fans use to share ideas and feelings. This secret language is what academics call ‘literacies.’ BL fans are all in on this and have their own ‘ways of behaving, interacting, valuing, thinking, believing, speaking, and often reading and writing’. Through ‘various visual, conceptual and textual literacies’, BL fans weave ‘an intertextual database of narrative and visual tropes which readers draw upon to interpret BL’. BL literacies is learnt through ‘affective hermeneutics – a set way of gaining knowledge through feelings.’ Audience learn BL literacies from BL works ‘which eventually leads to their active engagement’ with other BL fans. (source; Kristine Michelle L. Santos explains it in the context of Japanese BL but it applies to all BL media irrespective of where it is from.)

That scene in Unknown was set up to familiarize audience with BL literacies – not only those specific words but also the larger practice of imagining character pairing and indulging in that imagination. This is evident from the overall jubilant tone of the scene and the camera work. It is a celebration of moe. That is why we have a character who is not only a fu-nu but also willing to be openly fu-nu in that setting, sharing BL literacies and her colleagues interested to learn.

For other examples, check out Thomas Baudinette’s book Boys Love Media in Thailand: Celebrity, Fans, and Transnational Asian Queer Popular Culture. He has a chapter dedicated to explaining how genre conventions were taught to the early audience of Thai BL through similar scenes.

Why must they do this? Why break the fourth wall like this? To get more people interested in the intricacies of BL and to get them to participate in the culture. BL is created by fu-people and BL literacies are their tools and source of joy. BL must draw in more people to keep BL culture going. Commercialized BL we have today is the result of an affective culture formed over the years. It is built on years of labor of authors and their audience. I mean, look at the Unknown. This BL employs the well-developed Loyal Dog gong x Queen shou dynamics. Apart from that which the series took from the novel, it also drew upon other common BL beats to tease the relationship between Dr. Lin and his senior.

Teaching BL literacies is political. When Mainland Chinese government gets dangai productions to change names and relationships of characters (among other things), it is to prevent live-action audience from discovering BL as a genre with it disruptive potential. It is not only character's names and relationships that are changed. There are entire sub-genres of danmei (such as 高干) that got wiped out by censorship.

When a Taiwanese BL not only retains the character names & relationships and shows relatively explicit intimate scenes but also actively promotes BL literacies, it is an act of resistance. Discussion of gong shou, being genre specialty, manages to do so. Interestingly, they are doing it in an adaptation of a novel by Priest who has a particular reputation with self-censorship. That scene is not part of the source novel.

Heterosexual & gong shou

Association of bottom with the feminine (female or otherwise) has its roots in medicalization (and pathologization) of homosexuality in the west (such as through theories by scientists and doctors like Richard von Krafft-Ebing). This “knowledge” subsequently spread across the globe and was adopted to varying degrees and forms.

Moreover, the terms gong and shou applies to heterosexual pairing too.

BG (boy girl) ships have male gong and female shou

GB (girl boy) ships have female gong and male shou. [If this is interesting unfamiliar territory, check out the series Dong Lan Xue (2023).]

Moreover, if one is willing to look beyond LGBTQIA+ form of queerness (which is born and brought up in America), one can see other queer possibilities. For example, Kothi-Panthi queerness in South Asia which is characterized by explicit presentation of top bottom dynamics. There are very many similar forms of queerness in other parts of Global South.

In many cultures, sexuality doesn’t inform identity but sexual preference does. That’s why is you are to ask a kothi-panthi couple which one of you is the bottom, the kothi would tell you without hesitation: “I am.” Might even asked you in turn, “Couldn’t you tell?” For them, sexual preference (being kothi) rather than sexual orientation takes center stage. This is the inverse of how LGBTQIA+ form of queerness looks at it. While LGBTQIA+ model of queerness focuses on sexual orientation (being pan, ace, gay, etc.) as something that can be freely discussed but sexual preference (top, bottom, versatile, side, etc.) is considered private.

*Just to be clear, “kothi” is a term of self-identification. It means that the person is a bottom. Panthi is not self-identification. That’s how kothi address the men who top them.

While thanks to westernization LGBTQIA+ form of queerness enjoys more visibility, I think it is better to consider it as one type of queerness rather than the only model of queerness. Gong shou dynamics doesn’t fit into LGBTQIA+ form of queerness because it comes from another, much-older nanshoku model of queerness that made its way into Japan from China, hundreds of years ago. Friction between different models of queerness is common where ever they interact. In 1970s, Japan was witness to public debates between a younger, westernized Japanese queer activist Itō Satoru and other Japanese queer activists such as Fushimi Noriaki and Tōgō Ken who were rooted in indigenous tradition of male-male sexuality.

[Itō Satoru’s] insistence on the necessity of adopting western models of gay identity and coming out have brought him into conflict with other activists such as Fushimi Noriaki and veteran campaigner Tōgō Ken.

Interpretation and Orientalism: Outing Japan's Sexual Minorities to the English-Speaking World by Mark McLelland

Clarification

[Edited. Thank you @wen-kexing-apologist for contributing to the conversation.]

Under the LGBTQ+ model of queerness, it maybe considered inappropriate to have conversation about “top” “bottom”, especially in the office, going as far as to ask that to Qian ge. From that perspective, the BL audience (especially those who are unfamiliar with the terms gong and shou) are fair in their assessment of that scene being out of place or outright offensive.

I think things might have been a bit different if the subtitles retained the terms gong shou instead of “top” “bottom” since they aren’t exactly the same thing. That would have had the desired effect (of introducing BL literacies - gong shou in the context of 强强 (strong gong x strong shou) pairing) without unintended consequence.

What is considered rude under the LGBTQ+ framework is an essential part of fu culture. It is like addressing Wei Qian as just Qian – that could be considered rude in the original language but pretty normal in English. Different cultures, different norms, so to speak. It is only polite to be mindful of the cultural differences and avoid discussing about sexual preference where it is considered inappropriate.

As for the normalization of fu culture (especially discussions of gong shou), in my opinion the didactic scope of Unknown is undermined by the very fact that it is primarily a gǔkē danmei (via adoption (收养)) with tongyangxi vibes (highlighted multiple times by San Pang in the novel) associated with Wei ZhiYuan.

Somehow fu-culture gets judged by those who consume products of that culture. Everyone is happy with fu-cultural products as long as fu-people don't discuss who is gong and who is shou.

Why are fu-culture and BL always judged based on a culturally alien lgbtq+ form of queerness? Why must BL be arm-twisted to fit into norms of lgbtq+ form of queerness just because that is the most mainstream form of queerness?

That’s not much a conclusion but this is already so long. I really hope it gives you something to think about.

If you are interested, here's more.

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usps-first-class · 3 months

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#I just like crossing cute bubbly media with gritty dark media #kirby #art #taranza #king dedede #Meta knight #dark matter swordsman #dms is actually not a villain in this crossover #he's a dark priest #my art

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mejomonster · 6 months

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Modu by priest was truly such a good read. If you like romance? It has a sweeping romance, with a well done bisexual and gay lead (and straight best friend) all written in ways that manage to feel realistic, it's got features people likely found it for when looking for a danmei - rich manipulative younger man, older investigator who's got a hero streak, and yet those categories don't really do justice to them (and of course tao ran is the more grounded detective story lead who keeps his theories to himself and worries about dragging others into his mess).

They're so much more... Fei Du is a traumatized young man who's worried he's as monstrous as the people who scarred him, who is preparing to take the leap and cross the line to become an even more terrifying version of himself if it will destroy the corruption poisoning this city and harming so many, Luo Wenzhou is a cop that used to want to be a hero and learned he will fail people and be unable to save people and holds onto Fei Du as someone who reminds him he DOES fail but also reminds him why he wants so hard to keep Trying to help people even when it seems impossible... why trying and putting in effort to care and help Even when its too late to fix things is Worthwhile. Tao Ran is a contrast to them both, Fei Du living in a world where there's only monsters and victims and Luo Wenzhou desperately trying to force the world to be a place where justice CAN prevail and win even as he sees it fail over and over, trying so hard to believe all people have the capacity for everything and are worth trying to save. Even though Fei Du doesm't believe that, being around Luo Wenzhou makes him want to consider it. Tao Ran, their contrast? Believing the world can go either way, and its up to people like him to create any justice at all, any structure at all, or else everything is just meaningless suffering chaos. As characters, the three of them serve to explore how the world works and views on it in terms of a detective murder mystery encompassing the whole city, the small scale version of the world. Modu is a romance, but its also fully commited to being a murder mystery that wants to tackle the kind of themes that come up in the setting it's created. Its characters are so much more than Insert Character Ship types here. These characters were made this way to explore these ideas (just as the villains are all made to parallel and contrast Fei Du to explord these ideas in comparison to our point of view Fei Du moments, our impressions of Fei Du from Luo Wenzhou and Tao Rans varied perspectives, all of them are different lenses to view humanity and how it works, if the world is just or if we have to make it good, if we can be inherently good and if good people will reach out to us if we just keep treading water to survive, if its luck and chaos, and how much... and much more frankly).

Modu is like. If you want a story about a corrupt city and its victims, symbolizing a corrupt world and all of us at its mercy, and you want to see the heart of the people doing something about it. First the main trio, but also every victim Fei Du recruits to help, every murderer recruited to the corruption, all the people in the cases swayed to some side. Thats what Modu is about.

The romance is just one facet of exploring that, the personal debate about what these things mean about the world as told through two people who view this world incredibly differently. Yet find some way to exist in the same space, same mutual world, when together. It hooks you in and doesn't let you go and youre wondering right there with them, left to draw your own meaning in the end. Hopefully that its worth trying, that doing something is worth trying even when its just the trying you can do and not the succeeding, at least thats what I got from it (at least in regards to Fei Du and Luo Wenzhou meeting each other, unable to live up to the pillar they put each other on but trying anyway, is what I felt from them).

Then like? Modu gives you THAT story, which in its own right is enough to make you contemplate.

And if you're like me and care about people, about characters? Well it gives you, like I said, those big themes and a city's nightmares symbolizing the world, and brings them down to an individual level. You read from the mind of the little girl who grew up in this (one of my favorite scenes and when I felt this novel was going to not shy away from dark psychological moments and bringing them to you). You read from the mind of Fei Du when he knows himself, when he doesn't. You read from the minds of all kinds of people, and the heart of much of the investigation is peoples motives and things they'd gone through and how that shaped what they'd do next. Why they'd do it. Leaving you to wonder who's right. Jaded idealist Luo Wenzhou who wants to believe in the goodness of the people he loves, but also is willing to risk that strangers may have good intent? Fei Du who thinks theres only victims and perpetrators and everyone is going to fall into one in the right circumstance? Tao Ran, who feels the world is too messy to dare declare predictable, who thinks even your closest can betray you and even you can accidentally hurt them, nevermind strangers, and the only thing you can control and rely on is your own choices? Some mix? None of them? The side characters as they come up, grow and evolve, do they understand the world better or worse, and is the world they experience different than anothers and justify why their worldview is likewise different? Modu gives you that up close and personal, over and over. Im still thinking about it. And the way its done, they all get to feel like lived in people. Not structures to tell the themes only. But on their own, there's a personal struggle between Fei Du feeling like a monster who'll destroy Lup Wenzhou if he loves him, like his dad destroyed his mom, and Luo Wenzhou carrying the guilt he could never save Fei Du and desperate to believe in Fei Du (and keep trying to save him in that way if only that way) as person who can do good despite not being saved and despite Fei Du's fears. You could cut the entire city's plot away, all of the crimes and make the city calm, and still that core of their plot would be carrying a Lot of weight. Theyre playing a game of "enemies" to lovers sure, or whatever romance story structures they fit into. But they're also made to be deeply rooted into each other, their personal beliefs tied into the outcome of what they hope or fear happens if they are close together. Modu made me care about that. Its like the fears many people might have, abiut theur own flaws, about getting close to others, about trusting and being unsure if that trust is safe to give. Its that and magnified into bigger form, in this landscape of a fucked up city and the tragedy of Fei Du and Luo Wenzhou's meeting and former lives.

Its like. Id love to to read another danmei (Ive got a lot on my to read list). But what's going to give me roo

#modu #silent reading #lb #meta #like... modu was so fucking good.#it was 3 characters symbolizing their city symbolizing the world in terms of worldviews morality justice and if theres a point to #trying to help at all. like damn #i want to read ANOTHER danmei that makes me weigh those questions. that uses the characters this personally and intimately with the readers #because the Characters weigh the themes in their OWN lives so heavily.#like... i know priest can probably give me this kind of huge delivery in can ci pin and sha po lang (at least i estimate #priesr probably can as theyre very popular novels by priest)#and 2ha can (because ive read half and know its themes)#but like. what other danmei can? can thousand autumns? can peerless? can wu shang jie?#can Mistakenly Saving the Villain?#like... the only non priest danmei i read was svsss and i got supremely lucky #cause i personally LOVE satire and critique commentary affection for the topics it explores #and svsss AS a satire is incredibly well done. having read 2ha first? and seen Eternal Love?#svsss does an amazing job at critiquing webnovel culture and flaws. at the way capitalism effects writing #at the way some tropes have become staples of certain genres and when used well yeah you get 2ha but when used badly you get #the fake novel svsss was making fun of that there Are many real novels like

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mayasaura · 9 months

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I may have seen one long ago and just forgotten, but do you happen to know of any particular writings unpacking the whole situation with Teacher in HTN?? It seems like he is portrayed so differently in Harrow’s brain, and I have always wondered how it is that Harrow’s brain Teacher knows all of this more detail history about Canaan House when Harrow herself doesn’t know all that yet.

I don't know of any off the top on my head, but for my part I'm pretty sure that's really Teacher, just like Abigail, Marta, and the others are really themselves.

Like you point out, there's no way Harrow could have just imagined all the insider knowledge he has of Canaan House, and Judith killed him, so he is dead and therefore available.

He doesn't start off all that different from the way he was in Gideon the Ninth. He's always been a bit. Uh. Kooky. And intense. With his little sermons about "the sum of all necromantic transgression" and "murder is done by the living", and the way he tells Gideon that he's always hated water and then laughs hysterically with her when she points out he's surrounded by the sea. His speech about the Sleeper is more exposition than he ever gave in life, but Harrow needed someone to feed lines explaining the scenario.

It's after they start realizing that they're in the River, and someone is dreaming the scenario, that Teacher really goes off the rails. And who can blame him? The man is fifty souls smashed together in a necromantic hadron collider and left to marinate for ten thousand years.

As he puts it,

Now here he is, finally dead and in the River, and he's been drawn back into a facsimile of his old box. It might be enough to make anyone wander the haunted halls caterwauling in hopes of attracting the second death of oblivion.

I don't know why his lips are so much looser with secrets in the River. Maybe he was necromantically prevented from telling the secrets of Canaan House in life, with a ritual like the Sewn Tongue. Maybe he's just decided "fuck it!" and gone whole ham doling out forbidden knowledge.

Teacher is fascinating, because he's a construct. He's the blueprint for what Kiriona will be, and may be the blueprint for what Harrow is. A manufactured composite soul, tethered to a perfectly preserved body. I don't even know if he was technically alive or dead or a secret third thing, in Canaan House, and that's just wild to me.

#teacher (tlt)#the priests of canaan house #canaan house #tlt meta #htn spoilers #ntn spoilers #tlt spoilers

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infiniteanalemma · 8 months

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I know that Act 3 of BG3 could use a lot of fleshing out in so many areas and that this is such a minor thing, but it bugs me to an absolutely unreasonable degree that the Planar Ally summons don't have anything to say.

So, for those who have no idea what I'm talking about, the Planar Ally cleric spell lets you summon either a deva (angel, basically), cambion or djinni. The three of these are all sapient beings of fairly high intelligence, possibly higher than the one who summons them. For context, the deva has 17 Int as his lowest stat, with Wis 20 and Cha 20. I think the djinni has 15 Int. The cambion I'd have to check, but you get the point.

Unfortunately, they don't have any dialogue, not even basic voice barks. 😒 This is especially annoying to me because you get dialogue with Us, Shovel and can talk to a bunch of temporary companions like Glut or the random Harpers who help you in Moonrise. You get all sorts of ambient commentary from the Sentient Amulet ghost monk, and you can talk to him at will. He doesn't have a lot of dialogue, but still! Come on, man!

Do you mean to tell me that a literal angel from heaven, summoned to help you, has nothing to say about your situation? (And keep in mind that this is a cleric spell. If you're playing as a good-aligned cleric, this is very likely a servant of your god.) You're saying that a devil isn't looking at this situation like 👀 ? A djinni may shrug and be like "this isn't really my problem, I'm just along for the ride," but even they're still (chaotic good) sapient beings who you'd expect to have thoughts. Even if it's just about the audacity of this random bitch (gn) to summon them from whatever they were doing without even offering them anything for their trouble.

And that's not even getting into the potential drama. Like, can you imagine taking a literal angel into a brothel and then going upstairs to the devil's private room to discuss a deal? Or the incredibly catty response Raphael would have if Tav brings another cambion into the meeting, or perhaps more explosively, to his house to steal from him? You mean to tell me the annoying djinni at the circus wouldn't prompt a summoned djinni to say something?

Argh! The missed potential! *tearing out hair*

#baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #bg3 meta #bg3 spoilers #fandom stuff #I understand why they didn't include this from a development/time standpoint #it just irks me #especially as a cleric player because I feel like there are so many situations where a cleric should have something unique to say or do #and then they just Don't #playing as a cleric of Ilmater leads to so many annoyances #Abdirak being a priest of Loviatar? No biggie #You literally go into the Temple of Ilmater and talk to some followers about how “their” god would be proud #Anyways #can you tell I'm Annoyed?#ia rambles about...

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the-hanged-lover · 4 months

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literally NEED the meta-four to have their moment on the main roster. if wwe breaks them up i’ll be so upset 😭😭

their entrance alone is literally one of the best in all of wwe rn. the presentation is off the charts. everyone in the group is talented asf. not to mention, they have CHEMISTRY! they play off each other so well.

meta-four vs tjd i’m literally begging.

and jakara and lash for women’s tag champs!

#wwe #nxt #meta four #noam dar #oro mensah #lash legend #jakara jackson #the judgement day #finn balor #dominik mysterio #damian priest #jd mcdonagh #rhea ripley

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the-moral-of-the-rose · 3 months

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Yesterday Road, Today Road, Tomorrow Road...

Perhaps it's just another manifestation of my overthinking, but it seems to me that the three paths in Long John's Bush might have been written as a metaphor for Emily's life. Each path seemed to be somehow linked to a person who was important to Emily.

The paths were named by Emily and her friends, because: "The To-day Road is by the brook and we call it that because it is lovely now. The Yesterday Road is out in the stumps where Lofty John cut some trees down and we call it that because it used to be lovely. The To-morrow Road is just a tiny path in the maple clearing and we call it that because it is going to be lovely some day, when the maples grow bigger." (Emily of New Moon).

TO-MORROW'S ROAD (EMILY'S AMBITIONS AND DREAMS. TEDDY KENT):

The metaphor of Tomorrow Road was most clearly outlined. On the one hand, of course, it symbolized Emily's passion for writing and her ascent to the Alpine Path of glory and fame. As for the character with whom Tomorrow Road was most closely associated, it was Teddy Kent.

First of all, To-morrow Road never changed its name, even though by the time Emily reached her early teenage years, the maples grew big. In Emily Climbs, Tomorrow Road became the place of Teddy and Emily's meetings, where they shared their dreams and hopes for the future: "Then Teddy came for me and we walked together up the field and through the To-morrow Road. It is really a To-day Road now, for the trees along it are above our heads, but we still call it the To-morrow Road—partly out of habit and partly because we talk so much on it of our to-morrows and what we hope to do in them. Somehow, Teddy is the only person I like to talk to about my to-morrows and my ambitions. There is no one else." (Emily Climbs).

To-morrow Road was a place that marked the milestones for both Teddy and Emily (Teddy especially). Here he told Emily that his mother decided to allow him to attend Shrewsbury High School; here he told her that he had received an art scholarship and was going to the college in Montreal. Here he proposed. Here she was waiting for him with Dean's letter.

It seemed to me that Teddy and Emily's relationship was all about the future. Thorough Emily Climbs they seemed to think that they couldn't be each other's "today", because they both had their own separate dreams ("to-morrows") to conquer before they would be free to set on their rainbow quest together. (Side note: Montgomery skillfully mentioned that To-morrow Road was in fact - already To-day Road).

By the end of Emily Climbs, as their romance started to blossom, Emily's initial reaction was fear. Early on, she realised that she served a jealous goddess. We didn't get a glimpse into Teddy's feelings, but it was obvious from the start how ambitious and passionate he had been for his art. Perhaps it was something more than just a fear of Emily's refusal that drove him to silence when he had meant to ask her to wait for him? The scene itself happened on To-morrow Road (another symbol that it wasn't their time yet, perhaps?). During this scene, they both experienced a clash of two extremely strong passions: on the one hand, the desire to improve their art and fulfill their ambitions and dreams, and on the other - an awakening love. Teddy, before leaving for Montreal told Emily that there were two things in life that he had wanted "tremendously", but never told her that having her as his wife was one of these things.

I wonder if Juliet and Douglas Starr's tragic story might have forced Teddy's silence. Douglas Starr had once been young and ambitious too, but wouldn't have been accepted by Murrays because of his poverty. The result of this love was tragic; Juliet's elopement broke her family's heart and both she and Douglas died early, leaving Emily all alone. Perhaps Teddy felt that he might have been tolerated as Emily's friend, but not as her suitor. Since he seemed to doubt in his own success (especially since his chosen profession rarely resulted in a fortune), he might have been more likely to keep silent.

One quote of this scene between Teddy and Emily has always intrigued me:

"We walked along the To-morrow Road—[...]—until we reached the fence of the pond-pasture and stood there under the grey-green gloom of the firs. I felt suddenly very happy and in those few minutes part of me planted a garden and laid out beautiful closets and bought a dozen solid silver teaspoons and arranged my attic and hemstitched a double damask table-cloth—and the other part of me just waited." (Emily Climbs).

Because... was it possible that she had seen herself from the future? This was the exact spot where Teddy reconciled with Emily by the end of Emily's Quest. Where he had finally confessed his love [1]. But, most importantly, this was also a spot of the very last scene of the trilogy: Emily, waiting for Teddy to tell him that Dean had gave them a Disappointed House as a wedding gift [2]. There was a certain symbolism in Teddy coming to her - the exact opposite of To-morrow Road's scene that took place in Emily's Climbs, where it was Emily who went away, leaving him alone: "Teddy was looking at the dim gold of Blair Water and scowling. Again I had a feeling that night air was not good for me. I shivered, said a few polite commonplaces, and left him there scowling." (Emily Climbs).

In a way, their story came into full circle. They both achieved success and overcame their own biggest faults (pride, insecurities, selfishness, vanity). Unlike their seventeen year old selves, they got to know what loneliness meant - they found out that their ambitions were not enough to fulfill their heart's desires.

By the end of trilogy, Emily and Teddy still had their own "Alpine Paths" to climb, but from this time, they would have each other's help and support. They also had the dreams of future they share: of home, fireplace, toast and bacon and marmalade.

YESTERDAY ROAD. THE PAST AND FAMILY TRADITIONS. LOST DREAMS. JULIET MURRAY, DOUGLAS STARR, DEAN PRIEST.

Yesterday Road symbolized the past, for it used to be lovely once. Perhaps it might have been a place where Douglas and Juliet used to meet (their own "To-day Road"). For each member of the Murray family, Yesterday Road might have had a different meaning. For Elizabeth, it could have symbolized either her youth, either a period when Juliet was a child; for Laura - her former love for Dr. Burnley; for Jimmy - his lost potential; for Juliet - her childhood, family, first love.

For Emily, Yesterday Road symbolized family traditions (the chapter in which Cousin Jimmy told her family stories was titled "The Book Of Yesterday") as well as her parents' love story. All that shaped her as a woman and a writer, but also nearly became an obstacle to fulfilling her dreams. Due to Juliet's elopement, Aunt Elizabeth almost kept Emily from receiving an education. The whole family tried to marry Emily off to cousin Andrew, so that Juliet's story wouldn't repeat itself. During Emily's later years, Yesterday Road might have symbolized Emily's lost hopes and dreams.

The person who directly referred to Yesterday Road was Dean Priest: "I shall carry pictures of you wherever I go, Star," Dean was saying [...] "pacing up and down in this old garden—wandering in the Yesterday Road—looking out to sea." (Emily's Quest).

In the second part of the trilogy, Dean Priest directly admitted that he was aware that Emily's future would not be his future: 'I hate to hear of your to-morrows—they cannot be my tomorrows.' (Emily Climbs).

During the year that he and Emily had been engaged, Emily rarely thought about the future, and felt anxious about it: "Always to be afraid of to-morrow? Content—even happy with to-day—but always afraid of tomorrow. Was this to be her life? And why that fear of to-morrow?" (Emily's Quest). In the rare moments that Emily thought of her future, she saw Teddy, instead of Dean in those visions. "She saw herself there in the future—flitting through the little rooms—laughing under the firs—sitting hand in hand with Teddy at the fireplace—Emily came to herself with a shock. With Dean, of course, with Dean. A mere trick of the memory." (Emily's Quest).

Perhaps Emily didn't understand what Dean subconsciously realized: that he would never be able to fulfill Emily's future: "to let myself dream something that couldn't come true—that I knew ought not to come true—" (Emily's Quest). During the year they spent together, he allowed himself to dream, but was left with nothing more than memories and ashes. And so, for Dean a Yesterday Road symbolized the one golden year of his engagement; the only glimpse into real happiness he had ever had. Emily became his yesterday. It is interesting how he worded his letter, containing his wedding gift: "And some day I will come to see you in it. I claim my old corner in your house of friendship now and then." (Emily's Quest). Again, he doesn't refer to her future, but her past ("my old corner").

TODAY'S ROAD: CHILDHOOD. FRIENDSHIP. ILSE BURNLEY.

Today's Road symbolized Emily's happy childhood and her friendships. It is the one path that never seems to be stained with bitterness or regrets. As for a character that simply screams "TODAY" - it is obviously Ilse Burnley, who never seemed to care about the past or think of the future:

"As far as Ilse was concerned it seemed as if no quarrel had ever taken place. “Why, that was yesterday,” she said in amazement, when Emily, rather distantly, referred to it. Yesterday and to-day were two entirely different things in Ilse’s philosophy." (Emily of New Moon).

"Ilse was growing, too, blossoming out into strange beauty and brilliance, knowing no law but her own pleasure, recognizing no authority but her own whim." (Emily of New Moon).

"Ilse had always been a merry, irresponsible creature." (Emily's Quest). "All her life she had done exactly as she wanted to do whenever the whim took her. No sense of responsibility whatever." (Emily's Quest).

Besides, Ilse seemed to be the contant "today" of Emily's childhood and youth. She couldn't be Emily's "to-morrow", though, for both girls would have to carve their own separate futures, build their own homes in which the other one would be a cherished guest: "we'll visit each other, you and I—and compare our children—call your first girl Ilse, won't you, friend of my heart—" (Emily's Quest). Emily didn't seem to mind visiting the house Ilse was going to build with her imaginary husband; but she did mind being a guest at Teddy's house, few years later when Ilse repeats her invitation: "When Teddy and I come back and set up house in Montreal you must spend every winter with us, darling. New Moon is a dear place in summer, but in winter you must be absolutely buried alive." Emily made no promises. She did not see herself as a guest in Teddy's home." (Emily's Quest).

That's perhaps the difference: Ilse would be a vital part of Emily's future and vice versa, but it would be their husbands who'd be a part of their to-morrows. Even when Ilse got married to Perry and the three friends reunited, Emily's life wasn't complete. Perhaps it couldn't be, because Ilse - dear as she was - couldn't fill a certain longing in Emily's heart and soul - the voice that needed Teddy's love and presence.

Headcanons for the Long John's paths:

Juliet and Douglas used to walk through Yesterday Road. He asked her to marry him there. Before she eloped, Juliet had a good cry there. She was thinking of her half-sibling and her father - she loved them fiercely, despite everything.

Teddy and Emily said their wedding vows in Long John's Bush, under the firs where they used to meet and where they reunited. (Both Aunts were absolutely mortified by this idea). Or, if it wasn't an official ceremony, at least they had repeated the vows there. (Let's be real, Emily would definitely repeat her vows after the ceremony, changing "Frederick" into "Teddy").

The future generations liked playing on To-day Road.

The names of the paths were never changed, even if the paths themselves did.

The children of four friends invented their own names for the paths, though.

The quotes [1]-[3]:

[1] "Suddenly I heard Teddy's signal whistle in the old orchard. [...] We walked along the To-morrow Road—it has grown so beautiful that one wonders if any to-morrow can make it more beautiful—until we reached the fence of the pond-pasture and stood there under the grey-green gloom of the firs. [...] I'm going to work hard—I'm going to get everything possible out of those two years,' Teddy said at last,[...] '"And when I come back—' he repeated—stopped again. "'Yes?' I said. I don't deny to this my journal that I said it a trifle expectantly. "'I'll make the name of Frederick Kent mean something in Canada!' said Teddy." (Emily Climbs).

[2] "It came clearly and suddenly on the air of a June evening. An old, old call—two higher notes and one long and soft and low. [...] It came again. And Emily knew that Teddy was there, waiting for her in Lofty John's bush—calling to her across the years. She went down slowly—out—across the garden. Of course Teddy was there—under the firs. [..] He put out his hands and drew her to him, with no conventional greeting." (Emily's Quest).

[3] "How very—dear—of Dean. And I am so glad—he is not hurt any longer." She was standing where the To-morrow Road opened out on the Blair Water valley. Behind her she heard Teddy's eager footsteps coming to her." (Emily's Quest).

#lm montgomery #emily of new moon #Long John's Bush #Meta I guess?#And some headcanons #Tomorrow Road #Emily Starr #Teddy Kent #Ilse Burnley #Juliet Starr #Dean Priest #A long post #Thank you if you managed to read it all

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geneticcatalyst · 6 months

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okay. just trolley problem things:

at this point in the novel the tension and the emotional weight is wound up really high and things are really just primed for the impending mess to say important things about the characters in new and interesting ways. i think the main piece is the contrast between zzs' careless attitude in the carriage post Jiang assassination sort of smugly dismissing jby's veiled reservations and the version of him in jby's courtyard in the middle of the night, disheveled and shell shocked because he really hadnt thought this would happen. he was fully confident he could keep ljx in the dark forever, and even then maybe didn't expect ljx to condemn him so thoroughly.

i try really hard when considering jby and zzs to not extrapolate too far beyond the bounds of the characters as presented in the (somewhat notoriously biased) narration. both are presented as and also shown at times to be cold, ruthless, unfeeling etc. that's a starting point. i do think we can look at the whole picture and see the other more human aspects of these characters too, both explicitly stated and not, but if you rush into those hidden emotional depths and forget the rest you get word of honor really woobie really fast and that's SUCH A SHAME to lose sight of these characters who are so fascinating BECAUSE of their worst traits and actions. so I always try to start by explaining their behavior the way they would explain it- in terms of political gain, calculation, masks, power.

the really fun part comes when none of those things are enough to explain anymore, at least not in entirety, and you get to peek at the really raw soft inner shells of the remorseless war criminals <3 i'm getting into the weeds here let's go back to the courtyard.

zzs is in jby's courtyard in the middle of the night and he's visibly a wreck. this is wild because up until this point zzs is rarely visibly Anything. he's in the background, he's going unnoticed, he's this perfectly cool and collected tool of the empire.

but something unthinkable just happened, which was a risk that he was taking blew up in his face. and the first thing he does, maybe the only thing he can do, after trying to contain the problem (ljx), is go to jby.

so, the narrative explanation. jby is an ally but he's also very smart and seemingly good at dealing with people, very politically savvy. zzs has a potential threat to their shared mission which is hly's ascension, if ljx tells everyone how much blood is on the party's hands that's not going to happen. so logically zzs specifically needs his partner in crimes' help to mitigate that threat to their goal. additionally jby knows the situation, he knows ljx well and he also understands the relationship between zzs and ljx. all logical and true and as such it only makes sense that the first thing jby does is say okay hold on let me handle this.

aaa. okay. yeah no despite the fact that it's the middle of the night and theoretically ljx is imprisoned and could probably be kept at least until the morning. he just tells zzs to bring him to ljx. yes this is like mission critical politics, for sure, but i think also he's very driven to resolve things as soon as possible for emotional reasons.

what emotional reasons? well. there's the vividly fresh parallel to ji xiang, whose recent corpse is also in the courtyard. just for extra devastation zzs pulls back the sheet and says "you brought him along to go to the guangs, and you didn't keep him?" and jby says. "i wanted to keep him. but i couldn't." ji xiang was a good servant to jby for a decade, but when he tried to betray jby (and zzs) to su qingluan to save his girlfriend, he got himself killed. ji xiang is nowhere on the level of ljx who is both shidi and the only scrap of normalcy/link to zzs's past, but they're both young innocents who are pulled into the deadly political morass that jby and zzs are wading in by proximity (and crucially by exposing its corruption). jby is privately pretty depressed about the incident and explicitly states to wu xi (as explicit as he gets, anyway) that he hates seeing this happen, but can't do anything to stop it. i think, even so, he wants to do everything possible to try to keep ljx from the same fate.

there's also the question of favors and debts. after all this is over, zzs offers to take jby for a drink in exchange (understatement). jby replies that he owed zzs. now in the current timeline zzs has uncovered jby's estate purchasing property outside the capitol and it's not quite clear but i think zzs correctly surmises that this is some sort of backup plan or escape framework. in another scene that makes me !?!?!!? about them zzs confronts jby about this and jby can do nothing but ask zzs to cut him some slack. and. zzs. does. just shrugs and torches the evidence right there in the candle flame. jby certainly owes him for that. i think that's something of a smaller parallel to first life zzs warning jby about the plot against him. again, scene isn't perfectly clear, but i think zzs meant that conversation as a warning- cover your tracks better, people are watching. that's why he so easily acquiesces to letting jby off the hook. point made, he destroys the evidence to protect his friend, or even to gain a favor in the future. what im saying is that zzs has had jby's back before, in multiple lives, and jby doesn't take that lightly.

(on reread it's also pretty clear also that jby thinks the incident is his fault, having kept ljx at his estate overnight but no later- ljx still managed to slip out early enough to discover the bodies. so jby definitely views this as trying to fix his own mistake here, although zzs never seems to hold it against him. possibly this is what he means when he says he owed zzs, but i think there's a lot more there as well.)

and finally i have to get into a little more esoteric take but it's actually the way the scene really hit me the first time i read it. what came across from the way jby handles the situation was defensiveness. he correctly reads the situation as a threat and he storms into ljx's holding room and scolds him (violently! no relying on charm here) for his childish ideas of righteousness. ljx said that zzs should pay with his life for his crimes and jby says no, you don't understand the context. jby is defending zzs's actions to ljx and trying to get ljx to see zzs in a more understanding if not forgiving light. jby is doing this because 1. it's key to keeping ljx from exposing them and destabilizing the precarious political situation 2. zzs is his friend and he doesn't want to see him harmed 3. zzs and jby are the same. they are wrapped up together in this. they are in this so much deeper than anyone else and are bound together by it. when ji xiang spoke up to reveal their plot to su qingluan, which ljx overheard, he mentions them both in the same breath. jby defending why zzs has done the things he's done is jby defending his own actions. it's personal. he's defensive of zzs but he's really defending the both of them. because they are the same.

#my typical focus on murderbros here but also the ji xiang angle which kills me deader every time i reread it #priest was a master for that #its a bit lost in the rest of it here but the emotional read on this that i try to avoid leaning too far into is that we have never seen zz #this emotionally distraught and neither has jby and he responds by lashing out at ljx.#idk i just feel some type of way about that even with all the more rational coldhearted explanations ive laid out.#qi ye #qy meta

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stuckasmain · 4 months

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I’ve been thinking about how despite being a kind man and a good boss, Angelo is a passive figure. He is complacent.

This man who has done nothing but praise this boy and tell him what a good job he’s done, does nothing. He holds his hands and bows his head and becomes a bystander. He won’t stand up to his brother, who- having two assault charges- it makes a bit of sense why not.

Angelo probably knows full well that he didn’t steal from the company, he has no earnest reason to believe that. He apologizes but that’s just being polite. It’s in the vibes of protecting family, how cultural or socialist pressures keep people protecting crummy family members no matter what- even at the expense of their own conscious.

He’s also a good representation of the everyday person, keeping their head down and not speaking up despite fully knowing something is wrong. It’s not out of malice it’s simply status quo, some people get hurt but if you can stay in the safe zone then why fight? Don’t rock the boat.

#hoodlum priest #the hoodlum priest #hoodlum priest(1961)#billy Lee Jackson #angelo mazziotri #Mario mazziotri #meta #priest meta #character study #scene analysis #60s movies

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lesbi-lan · 2 years

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Hot take: Wu Xi and Jing Beiyuan are such an odd couple because they don't really understand eachother (like WenZhou do).

Hotter take: But like? They do? Wu Xi sees through Jing Beiyuan's affectations to his deepest motivations and understands how much he feels bound by duty and circumstance, and even accepts the 'worst' parts of him. While Jing Beiyuan knows exactly who Wu Xi is and later what Wu Xi wants (him) but just doesn’t necessarily approve because of said duty and circumstance. Superficially, yeah there are misunderstandings (planned and unplanned), but they are actually very connected past even all the karmic trappings of "life."

Hottest take: The grumpy one is soft for the sunshine one, but the grumpy one and the sunshine one aren't the ones you think they are.

#qi ye #wu xi #xiyuan #jing beiyuan #priest #like I usually don't meta but I love these two so much #and it's probably time to read qi ye again #I love them your honor #tian ya ke #word of honor

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ineffable-opinions · 1 month

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Unknown - Review

An adaptation that worked better for me than the source work, to an extent.

Priest is a highly regarded danmei author. When I discovered the author through fans, I really wanted to partake in all that awesomeness too. But time and time again, Priest’s writing style failed to resonate with me. I could never immerse myself in any of her works, truly get into them, be moved by characters and their action. Nothing Priest ever wrote seem to impact me. I always felt like I was at bus stop waiting for a bus that would take me to a destination that everyone else seemed to be able to reach and praise so highly about. I would board every bus that said it would take me to my destination but somehow, I couldn’t reach there.

When live-action adaptations came out, I chased them, in multiple languages (I tried Mandarin, Tamil, Hindi, Malayalam in that order; Indian language dubs can be found on MX player). But then even Malayalam dubbed version of Word of Honor was a chore and I gave up.

When I heard of Unknown based on 大哥 (da ge; Big Brother) (a work I found reprehensible at certain points due to pretty normalized racial and heterosexist psychological depictions) I had no interest in checking it out. Things couldn’t be so simple. I heard Huang HongXuan (Kurt) was going be in it. Now, I must watch it for he had rizz in spades in VIP Only and I wanted more of that. (Spoiler alert – I think the Unknown by focusing on Wei Qian missed out on cashing that sweet charisma except for glimpses of it in the last few episodes.)

That’s how I ended up watching Unknown in the first place. It is safe to say I am glad I did. I never thought Da Ge will become something like this. I am impressed by the meticulous cultivation that source material underwent. That little carp really crossed the gate to become a dragon.

Da Ge is a popular and critically-acclaimed work. IMHO, it was for most parts a classist, 金手指 (golden finger) plot with half-baked versions of then popular danmei tropes. For context (I don’t want to say comparison), 弟弟 (didi; younger brother) by 人体骨架 came out in 2011, two years before Da Ge. In BL, newer don’t necessarily mean better.

What Unknown managed to do was tone down the golden finger bits and keep things realistic to an extent.

Wei Qian got the funds he dearly needed not from killing and snitching on gangsters but from gang-boss Le ge who was Dr. Lin’s senior. Le ge defied some gang codes and sorta wronged his own underlings to that the plot can turn in favor of Wei Qian. The whole triad bit was decent enough that I didn’t mind the snitching part much – I chose to ignore it.

Removed three female characters who were there for man-pain purposes in the novel. Instead gave Wei Lili, pavam xiao baobao, time to shine.

Did not airlift Wei Qian into the waiting arms of a benefactor with sufficient connections in Mainland who would rescind everything in grief, right when Wei Qian could take over and reign. Instead, Unknown let Wei Qian build a company with San Pang and Lao Xiong which fits right into Taiwan’s SME-heavy capitalism.

Didn’t include anything that I found reprehensible in the novel.

Gave relatively explicit intimate scene.

Toned down novel Wei Qian’s Valliettan-aura to build a warmer, more sensible relationship between the Wei siblings.

Made passing mentions of novel events, in ways that was more connected and believable.

Didn’t make villains into caricatures who loose brain cells to benefit Wei Qian. Instead fleshed out Le ge and his relationship with both his underling and his junior. Made him interesting.

Got us a character with blacked out tattoos. I have listed this one at the last but this is the best thing about Unknown for me. Here’s why…

While organized crime is a popular setting in BL, it is rare for BL characters to have visible evidences of their criminal pasts after leaving it for a civilian life. Usually, they either hide it with full-sleeves and what-nots. But here’s a character in a BL with blacked out tattoos trying to make a living through street-vending. Tattoos are customary, ceremonial and meaningful in the context of organized crime, triad in this case. While involved in the triad, tattoos signal trust and loyalty, etched into skin. But it is a burden too. It is part of the cage that leaves no way out. As Le ge’s underling emphasizes, it is not easy to get away having once involved oneself with the triad. Moreover, the tattoos evoke fear among civilians – so ex-gangsters can forget prospects of finding jobs. Even if one is to be self-employed, tattoos doesn’t signal anything good and are effective in scaring customers away. In Unknown, the blacked-out tattoos signal a dark past he has shut door to; all symbolisms that meant something in the context of triad has been wiped out by ink.

There are points where I felt Unknown was rush through the plot, some others which I felt drag. But overall, it was a good BL and a surprisingly enjoyable adaptation of a source novel I didn’t enjoy at all.

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dykefever · 1 year

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okay in fleabag the fourth wall breaks are a metaphor for dissociation yes i will agree with that but i don’t see people talk about how it’s also her performing for an audience - she is using this imagined audience in order to feel seen and heard in a way she isn’t in her real life, a way for her to validate herself through the lens of others and when hot priest calls her out on it it’s because he is actually!!! seeing her!! and when they’re having sex it’s the first time she pushes that audience away and refuses to perform she is present in that real life moment and being seen etc by hot priest. i’d argue that the dissociation goes hand in hand with that performance like she dissociates in order to perform for an imagined audience and also i think that other interpretation of the fourth wall breaks are valid i don’t think there’s one complete and total explanation/answer as to what they mean. much like in real life our coping mechanisms are often used in response to a multitude of situations/traumas and can represent multiple things about our psyche !! anyway just wanted to share my thoughts

#obviously having lots of fleabag thoughts i had to get them out #i just think fleabag’s audience is a very very important part of her story and character #and how she is always performing for this imagine audience and for everyone in her life she is rarely being honest with the people she loves #because that is vulnerable terrifying too much etc !! She is Too much so she acts extroverted and funny and performs for everyone always #until the hot priest who cuts through it and sees her even when she’s still performing for him and she is forced to be honest #even when she is thinking only in terms of wanting to fuck him #and that is how she finds herself loving him abs also how their love/his love changes her for the better!!!!#anyway :-)#fleabag #fleabag meta #laura says some things

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deathbringer · 5 months

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hold on hold up. what if tenmartha and fleabag/hot priest thematic compare-contrast. it's about the what could have beens it's about chasing something that's already breaking apart as you try to hold it, it is about two people surviving entry into each others' lives at exactly the wrong time. fleabag and the priest avoid their attraction until they don't and can't and then they bare their souls. martha and the doctor start with a wink and a kiss and emotional vulnerability in very short order and then spend their time together silently at odds on whether it will ever mean mutual admittance of their desires (it won't, because it can't). the priest chooses stability and conviction; the doctor chooses the violence and chaos of unprocessed grief. "it'll pass" vs "this is me getting out" "don't make me an optimist you'll ruin my life" vs martha's unspoken obvious transformation into a soldier

ten and fleabag would rather jump out of a window than deal with the consequences of full sincerity and martha and the priest are so open to love that they can't help making the mistake of trying to climb the emotional wall.

they will never forget each other they will always be bittersweet and fond they mean so so so much to me they are starcrossed in the most ordinary way, not by death or opposing sides or fate itself but by mutually incompatible responses to the trauma of being alive.

#falls down and dies #doctor who #tenmartha #fleabag #fleabag x the priest #meta #trick talks tag

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eien-no-gakusha · 1 year

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Everyone should read Liu Yao

Liu Yao is great for otaku.

It is a well-written classic cultivation story that deconstructs cultivation/wuxia/xianxia (aka all the Chinese fantasy) tropes.

It’s also a modern story with refreshing elements and contemporary sensibilities. So if you’re finding the legendary greats like Crane-Iron Series or anything by Jing Young a bit dated, dry, or the fandom too dense to get into - Liu Yao is a good place to get back into the genre. This isn’t your daddy’s cultivation book (oh boy is it not).

Liu Yao is great for newbs.

It’s a good introduction to the cultivation genre. The story is straightforward and follows a classic structure of Chinese-y hero's journey regardless if you want to enjoy it through a solo protagonist or the power of friendship adventure. The major beats are all played straight: misfit or quirky apprentice gets initiated, loses mentor halfway through training, trains/studies their asses off to become the best cultivators (martial arts proficient wizards) ever, inherits heirloom super weapon along the way, and avenges whatever cause of their tragedy while saving the world from Evil.

Common tropes in the cultivation genre are explained in detail instead of dumping you in the deep end and expecting you to infer or to understand them like most cultivation novels. So if you have ever been confused why people in ancient Chinese movies can fly, why heavenly tribulations are always lightning strikes, how to immortal/golden core, or WTF is a primordial spirit; this novel will explain all.

(Jeez I sound like some geezer trying to scam kids into buying “cultivation” books...come to my mountain, drink my koolaid! :D)

#my thoughts #my meta #my ramblings #my rambles #liu yao #cultivation novels #wuxia #xianxia #六爻 #priest #old post forgotten on the slush pile #forgot what else I wanted to say about this??

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mejomonster · 1 year

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I’m relieved to find out when i finish case 3 in silent reading the translation still has a part 4 AND extras ToT

like god i admire priest SO much. i think in many ways the writing choices in silent reading are SO ballsy. especially now that i know what publishers push toward regarding standard/norms look like all other novels don't deviate dont be brave or unique. like i know priest self published online THEN gets a print deal but like. to decide you as a public commented on author with a HUGE following where ppl buy your chapters? is gonna write THIS?

its brave i think. its brave to trust an audience to read 77 chapters of truly fucked up crime story thats main point IS TO critique the world and justice and human nature. before you get into the romance danmei readers most wanted. to make readers both feel bad for and terrified of a little girl. to remind readers every poor immigrant with a bad life who dies is a TRAGEDY and a horrible loss that society has too much allowed. to remind readers that the justice system fails to bring many people closure or help.

(babes below the cut turned into a MEGA meta on zhoudu and their completely different views on the world)

and THEN of course the LEADS priest decides to write arcs for in this. its ballsy to write a lead the other lead thinks might be capable of being a killer. to write a man objectively with as many red flags as. fei du as THE lead. like? think of 2ha and the people who hate mo ran too much to try it even just hearing of mo ran lol. fei du objectively in some ways is HARDER to empathize with and view as 'an ordinary relatable man'. mo ran when you take that hes been abused is mainly just a kid who wanted to help people typical xianxia hero style and gain power for revenge on REALLY cruel people in a really cruel Fucked up world he lives in thats painted as so much worse than our real earth world.

fei du? well he outwardly is pretty so i guess like the strangers he meets people tolerate that. but the little we get of our past lets us know he killed animals with his hands (and again its as BRAVE a writing choice as the lead in kdrama Flower of Evil who’s raised by a serial killer and trained to be like him and unable to empathize with others and he fights so HARD to be a good person but he’s no one’s definition of a safe guy to trust - but somehow he met his wife and had a daughter and loves them so dearly and he IS and has always been a good man and good kid who went through awful stuff because people were afraid of his inability to emotionally connect and his abused background). Fei du is like HIM. Fei Du self harms to an intense degree, trying to curb impulses trained in him from a young age and a natural propensity mixed with a raising teaching him and Hammering into him that death is the only absolute to feel comfort in. He could’ve become a murderer, an abuser, in the sense of his father pushing him toward it and so many things could’ve affected it - like luo wenzhou simply being not there. Fei du is fighting before anything else, himself and his own fears about himself and who he is and who he even wants to be ultimately. Mo Ran gets cursed and becomes an evil emperor, and without that was a brute revenge okay-with man (and a black lotus trope so honestly more tolerable as a violent rage fest reading-norm wise). But fei du? is just an ordinary modern man working in an office who thinks it would be nice to choke someone and watch them break down hopeless. Who’s probably felt and thought everything su luozhan did (now i’m losing track... there’s things to be said for mo ran and his abuse making him cruel and lash out like fei du and su luozhan too...but moving on for now). fei du is a realistic ‘monster.’ or an almost one. he’s a man who if taken for all he is, much of society would want removed and taken away, or see as an inevitable evil of a rich man who can’t be stopped by most. he’s like Flower of Evil’s lead and the bad rich kid who lashed out and killed people, combined into one.

priest makes him understandable, because priest is amazing at writing very good characters and depicting them and showing their nuances and evolution. and also because luo wenzhou loves him unconditionally. luo wenzhou chooses to love the hurting child, and in doing so comes to see fei du for all the multitudes of value he has as a person, for the treasure he is in ALL of himself with the bad and the good as a whole. (sort of like Flower of Evil main characters sister always loved him and saw him as her little brother needlessly hurt by the world, or the wife who eventually realized the man she loved was part of it and is real its just hes more than she knew before - luo wenzhou is both in one). and because luo wenzhou can see him, all of him, and love and appreciate all of it even EVEN when it horrifies him? even when he thinks and knows its beyond the scope of acceptable or normal, even when he’s hearing fei du lose himself in a viewpoint of the world that is so FAR from luo wenzhous ability to understand or view it. luo wenzhou STILL thinks - how do i reach out so we connect and meet halfway, even if i have to wade into that dark and try to understand, even if i have to explain the regular world like its fantastically rare and incomprehensible to him until he gets how other people like me feel. luo wenzhou thinks: no matter who he is, in fact with ALL of who he is, i’m going to go up to fei du and connect to him, we are going to eat and be okay, we are going to carve out a life together and feel whole and safe and connected there. and so for all fei du is, when we are given luo wenzhou’s fathomless endless care for him it’s impossible not to also open our hearts to fei du. to assume no matter how different he is from us or feels things, or how inhuman or whatever, he’s a an amazing individual and worthy of being understood and accepted into our care too. because luo wenzhou’s viewpoint is hard to fight. even if we think luo wenzhou were wrong, if we didn’t get sucked in, we can’t fight the fact luo wenzhou unconditionally feels this and it won’t change, it will drive the story.

there’s the choice priest made, to make an ‘ordinary’ enough hero of a story (a policeman - legal official solving crimes - who is almost superhero like in his original desire to help people and bring justice, who still ignores wounds and tries to be Larger than Life and do More than the average man, trying to save even with his very real human faults of a nepotism parentage and a short temper in his youth and a naivety he had to lose). he’s old but not jaded, he’s realistic and skilled now but still driven to give out justice, still hurts in his heart when he can’t help someone enough. and it all kicks off with a kid named fei du, and luo wenzhou wanting to heroically bring him justice and closure and save him like Superhero savior of the Cosmos young luo wenzhou did... and failing. failing. failing and having the realization he WILL fail people, legal justice is sometimes impossible or has dead ends and horrible things happen with no resolution and no one saved, and still wanting to care about fei du, wanting to do his best to help him even when it will Never ever be enough. Fei du will NEVER be saved. can not be saved. the damage has already been done (and after the basement scene, luo wenzhou realizes even into adulthood, even once fei du’s dad was in a coma, luo wenzhou still couldn’t even protect fei du from Himself, yet another way luo wenzhou can never be that Cosmic Superhero, not even that local guardian to one single boy, he loves fei du unconditionally and that does NOT mean he’ll ever be enough to protect him or undo the damage).

but luo wenzhou tries anyway. and its in that trying, that is so worth it. it’s not the outcome, its the act of trying, the ‘ceremony’ and how it means he cares. how it means he views fei du as worthy of it (and he really views by extension so MANY worthy of it who he also can or can’t help to varying degrees, and it rubbed off on fei du, because now hes the kind of man who also finds it awful a poor young man named He zhongyi dies and is willing to go to any lengths to try and get justice for him, for any particular person). Anyway, the point is luo wenzhou is an understandable hero typical of his story type. His heroics are the super-detectives who want to save everyone, his failings are the cops like Lee Dong Sik in Beyond Evil who take their small tasks seriously and are aware they may never save their world or Do Enough and justice can fail but they’re still making Their Choices every day, their baggage and damage and aged lessons coming along. He is an ordinary enough choice for a lead. His most remarkable trait in my mind, that makes him stand out, is his decision once upon a time to care about fei du unconditionally. its a choice a parent makes when they adopt, a bodyguard makes in a fantasy tale when they decide to dedicate their life to their ruler, in a realism grounded story like Silent Reading real life red flags just usually keep such a decision from being made.

Take Flower of Evil - its normal for the wife to be suspicious her husband is a killer and investigate it before ultimately picking his side. Take Beyond Evil - Juwon is younger and has fucked up, but Lee Dong Sik makes fucked decisions he doesn’t expect of the younger, makes the choice to cross lines he feels the younger shouldn’t and maybe no one should but he’s too far gone to quit his path now. Luo Wenzhou sees fei du, the teenager, making death threats and you can’t abandon your own kid. But it’s not his kid, its a stranger like su luozhan who’s killed something, lashing out and feeling unlike other humans and without any real parent who gave them unconditional love (maybe fei du had his mom once a week when she was alive but with health issues and spousal issues and dad’s nonstop threat of a presence on them, fei du was not getting that secure unconditional love environment). its a stranger completely, and luo wenzhou just decides to love him anyway.

So why’s he a brave writing choice? to use a character like luo wenzhou who does decide to love someone like that unconditionally. before the romance even starts. he’s not fei du’s family, he’s not fei du’s mentor until he Chooses to be, he’s not fei du’s lover when he makes the decision or long time spouse (like in Flower of Evil), he’s not a man who’s got enough shared experiences to understand fei du’s perspective (in fact it terrifies luo wenzhou the gulf there is between each other’s experience and view of the world). but luo wenzhou, the man that he is, chooses to love fei du unconditionally.

it makes sense for his character of course, because priest is good at writing characters. while luo wenzhou fits the relative norm for his genre, it also makes sense his particular life leads him to a choice i rarely see in these stories. He’s an idealistic naive rash ‘hero’ rookie cop. He sees a child cope with the death of his mom and his world shatter, look at him with an intense resolve that BEGS Luo Wenzhou to BE the hero that can give fei du justice. Luo Wenzhou, the rookie who think himself Hero of the Galaxy, has been dealing with petty crime and this is one of (or possibly the FIRST) time anyone has given him the responsibility and Ability to attempt to serve justice on this scale. This is his first opportunity to SOLVE a possible murder, GIVE someone closure, and truly change their life on such a scale. Of course heroic-dreaming Luo Wenzhou, thinking himself important and inhumanly capable of anything to help someone, takes up that look fei du gives him and decides “then I will give you the justice you need. I will resolve this for you.” A character like him? what other choice would he make.

And fei du is both the first time the world gives him the chance to be the Big Hero Savior he wanted to be, and the reality check that he can NOT be that Hero. That such a heroic feat is impossible, is unreasonable, is not something anyone will be able to live up to forever without fail - especially him, who turns out is lacking much of what he needs to succeed. But even if he had ALL the tools to succeed: even if Luo Wenzhou had ALREADY been a Captain, with rich influential and politically powerful allies, and had been able to legally adopt fei du and take actual political action against fei du’s dad? Even if he HAD all that, luo wenzhou would not have been able to save fei du - from the pain of his childhood, from the loss of his mom, the mystery was too hard to be solved at the time (or luo wenzhou of stubbornness i believe would’ve found a way to solve it), or from fei du’s own self hatred and self harm (just given how privately fei du keeps part of himself - he kept so much from luo wenzhou and probably always would’ve).

So even with everything, Luo Wenzhou would’ve failed. And at least failing then, as a rookie, he learned he WASN’T superman, he wasn’t infailable and Enough to save people inherently, and took the experience that he’d have to WORK and struggle and fight every single TIME to truly try and save people with him as he was promoted and gained power. That failure made him a better savior for future victims he’d help: because he’d be self aware that failure was possible, and helping others was going to be a struggle and require All his dedication every time, and is never a guarantee.

Luo Wenzhou picking fei du changed their lives. He failed fei du (and always would have) and in doing so it made him a better person to help people moving forward. and in the moment he chose to try and save fei du, an impossible thing with no Real Guarantee (as Luo Wenzhou would learn later and not ever promise so freely with certainty again), fei du DID see him as a savior. As a hope. As the first guardian angel in his life, the first belief that ANYONE outside of himself could help him. Could fix anything in his life - could explain why his mom who loved him would choose to leave him, could explain if it was his own fault for not loving her ‘enough’ or being too monstrous or if it was someone else’s fault, who could take his father to justice for the awful things he’d done when to fei du his father was the god of his world able to kill and do anything and make fei du do Anything no matter how awful. For the first time, fei du truly had a hope in something able to HELP him. And Luo Wenzhou failed. And fei du experienced both a temporary believe in the kind of “justice is served to the evil, help is provided to the innocent” that children usually simplistically learn at first but he never did (because his father didn’t teach him that but that the predators do what they want). and then experienced a cold harsh horrible shock that it WAS a lie, that the person telling him to believe it - luo wenzhou - was wrong. that fei du’s view of the world was “correct” and the false hero he’d believed in, luo wenzhou, was a fool who believed falsehoods and couldn’t do anything real. that no one Could help fei du.

and yet. despite all that. despite that failure shaping them both. it also tied them together. for all luo wenzhou failed, he still decided Inexplicably to be responsible for it. Instead of taking the loss, he went on to keep helping fei du. Caring. With Tao Ran as a contrast, its clear how excessive those actions were compared to the norm. Luo Wenzhou dragged Tao Ran into helping him take Fei Du after school, so fei du was rarely left alone in an empty house, into taking him out for food so he’d eat when the help at his house didn’t cook, these are all the acts of a godfather or a makeshift caretaker. They’re more than a responsible police officer should’ve ever gotten involved in a victim’s life - the most luo wenzhou should’ve appropriately done, was maybe call child services and insist and fight that no matter ‘how rich older master fei was’ the child still was in an enviornment that needs either an after school program for some socialization and social support, or a caretaker to move in, or if at all possible to get to live with a different guardian. But Luo wenzhou, knowing what’s appropriate, couldn’t abandon that ‘idealic heroic’ persona he learned failed and was unrealistic, still trying adamantly to be it for fei du. Even failure after failure. He would’ve adopted fei du probably, possibly, if the person he’d been fighting for custody against hadn’t been so filthy rich he’d have never had a chance. (never mind the legal issues im sure would keep him from getting custody, but the intent was there). He took fei du in as much as possible for their circumstances, then expanded that to full on parenting. To checking fei du’s report cards, to making sure he ate right, to checking on his healthcare, to commenting on his dating life as he grew up into a playboy partier, to insisting he pick a career, to worrying how he adjusted when his dad died and he had to take the business, to giving him gifts for birthdays and just cause (both secretly and also full on remembering his birthday when others didn’t), to the simpleness of scolding fei du like a regular teen caught cursing when he’d threaten violent, the simpleness of taking the Extreme-ness of fei du’s worse personality moments and simply saying ‘well whatever fucked up stuff you did or want to do, come sit down and have dinner, come on and join me.’ i care about you. lets eat. i accept you into our little family of two no matter what, and every meal is a ceremony reminding you this is permanent and secure and always here for you.

luo wenzhou can’t save fei du as a child, can’t save him as an adult from himsel, can’t save him throughout of a great many deal awful things. but he can give him a safe stable eternal home in the both of them, that is always ALWAYS there. always opening it’s doors, always mobile and coming to fei du when he feels isolated and abandoned and like he doesn’t even belong to the same world, it exists everywhere. it’s his. its a thing he never had before luo wenzhou. but it exists now. and it is THAT which luo wenzhou can provide.

He can’t save fei du from the many horrors of the world, from the monsters within himself. But he can give fei du a home that exists no matter what horrors exist or happen, a home that fei du will always belong IN no matter how monstrous he is, no matter what he’s done or what happens.

Maybe once upon a time the end of the week with his mom, had been the closest fei du had to that kind of ‘home.’ Some safe place where he was loved even with everything different about him, with the fucked up views his dad pressed on him, with the way he felt different from others and uncomprehending of the world. His mom, fleetingly, would be there with the house made ready for him, would be happy to see him and simply be with him.

Luo Wenzhou carved out a home for him after that, when he lost that, and made it permanent. It exists nonstop, always, whenever fei du is with luo wenzhou. waiting for fei du when they’re apart, always open for him to return.

wow i got distracted in zhoudu dynamic stuff lol. back to whatever the point was... priest writing brave. so. while i love all of zhoudu’s very grey area roles filled up and overlapping dynamic. i think the above portion explains well WHY it makes sense for them. Why their dynamic makes sense it would happen, from luo wenzhou’s perspective. why luo wenzhou would choose to do it, and how it would end with him and fei du connecting deeply.

Because that’s the kind of man luo wenzhou is and that’s where he was in his life, in the perfect place to make 1 single heroic Ideal decision and fail, but still feel too attached to actually quit and cut his losses. He could never cut the loss that was ‘failing fei du.’ he had to keep providing the only consolation he could, a home for fei du, even if he could provide nothing more. To Luo Wenzhou he will always be Fei Du’s very mortal and flawed Guardian Angel who couldn’t move heaven to save him or help him, but still took the job as his life’s work. And to Fei Du he will always be that very mortal Guardian Angel who lied that he was Strong enough when he wasn’t, when angels don’t exist and he was just a man, when justice doesn’t exist only this lying flawed incapable Luo Wenzhou trying to act like there is still justice. But to Fei Du, flaws and all, it’s still his Guardian Angel despite it all. In his world there are no angels, no true heroes. But this person is trying to be one, in Fei Du’s fucked up world where none exist, anyway. Luo Wenzhou is still trying to be one for him. And that’s worth something because it has MEANING, the choice to try to be an angel in a world with NONE means something, its the effort that counts. It’s the ceremony of doing it, the act, that means everything. (As luo wenzhou’s final lines in i think chapter ~79 hammer home).

Their dynamic makes sense, for them. Of course it’s where they’d end up, how they’d develop. How they’d get so enmeshed and close and Bigger Than People to each other (both symbolic Roles to each other while being gravely aware their symbol is actually just a flawed human who will never live up to it). To Fei Du, Luo Wenzhou will always be a Guardian Angel and that IS just a weak human who will fail the job. To Luo Wenzhou, Fei Du will always be his charge to Save, even though saving him is impossible, even though he’s failed for 7 years, even though fei du will never let him and both of them are More Than Aware this mission is impossible. Luo Wenzhou knows fei du is not a charge, was never one - or only one for the first time until Luo Wenzhou first failed.

Fei Du is a grown man who has done bad things, horrible things to himself, who views the world so differently from Luo Wenzhou his morality might not even be able to compare with his, who is a man he can’t fully understand but tries to reach out any try to anyway. Every single time. What a brave choice. To be commited to unconditionally loving someone and trying to understand them, even painfully knowing you never will. We may truly never be able to understand another person completely. But in these two’s case, they truly have such different internal worlds, it is a painful point for them both that they really never will exist in the other’s world and grasp it fully.

Fei Du is brave too. He knows Luo Wenzhou is an ordinary man, who belongs to the world most people understand and accept as reality. He knows he’ll never understand Luo Wenzhou, will always see some of Luo Wenzhou’s beliefs as lies or falsehoods most people seem to believe or assume or operate based on that Fei Du will never ever understand or connect to or operate under unless he tries very hard to force himself to act unnaturally. In a way, it is like an Angel loving a Demon. In reality they both realize they’re not an angel and devil - Luo Wenzhou realizes he’s painfully human and incapable, Fei Du doesn’t see himself as a demon he just thinks all humans are truly this way or walking-corpses unaware of it and Luo Wenzhou is another deluded soul lying to himself or simply way too uncomprehending to ever see the ‘truth’ of the world the way Fei Du is Only capable of seeing it. But Fei Du sees his own awareness as monstrous, in that it makes him a monster to those ordinary people and their entire world framework. And yet to Luo Wenzhou, he’s not a monster for it, just another flawed imperfect person like Luo Wenzhou is. They put themselves into the Roles of Angel and Demon, while knowing its partly untrue but unable to stop living that way when it comes to each other. Fei Du can’t help seeing Luo Wenzhou as an angel, in the warped way he’d view one in his world - a deluded hero who’s incapable, but still the closest thing to any angel in Fei Du’s world could exist. Fei Du can’t help seeing himself as a Demon, even though it’s normal to him he can’t shake the awareness its how he’d be in Luo Wenzhou (ordinary people’s) framework of the world. And then they meet in the middle somehow. And somehow even existing in different realities cause they perceive the world SO differently, Fei Du somehow catches a glimpse of himself in Luo Wenzhou’s worldviews: an innocent. An ordinary man. Not a demon, not even different from others. But someone who could and DOES exist in Luo Wenzhou’s world where people who are hurt deserve justice and people attempt to give them it, where cruelty is not the norm and not comprehensible to the masses. Fei Du isn’t compatible with that world - he’s not comprehensible to them. But somehow Luo Wenzhou can look at him, and place fei du into that world. And for the moment they’re together Fei Du EXISTS in both worlds. Is brought into the world outside his, that he can’t be part of or relate to or understand, and see as if he’s like Luo Wenzhou almost. And he wants to be one of the people providing justice to those who are harmed, one of the people who views cruelty outside of the norm and combats it. Could he do this, view things this way, if Luo Wenzhou didn’t connect their worlds by being connected to Fei Du?

And in contrast, in Fei Du’s world the cruelty is the norm, there is no one innocent only those harmed and those self aware enough they also cause it. There is no justice, only an attempt of power and control until the inevitable death. People like Luo Wenzhou cannot exist. In Fei Du’s mind, people like Luo Wenzhou can at most only be struggling helplessly against nature, hurting themselves by prodding other violent people, giving no justice because there’s no way to give it, just struggling to fight for an outcome that is impossible to provide. But because its Luo Wenzhou, Fei Du’s worldview shifts to accomodate him: Luo Wenzhou is a pathetic man fighting for an outcome that can never occur... but he keeps trying anyway. And because he’s Fei Du’s personal angel, even though angels can’t exist here in fei du’s view of the world? Fei Du almost wants to believe maybe there’s worthiness in someone trying anyway. To be like an angel. To do what nothing in his world does, want what can’t be achieved in his view of the world. And that’s where their worlds connect. Where Fei Du’s world connects to Luo Wenzhou’s and lets a sliver of Luo Wenzhou into his as something Possible. And is that why Fei Du wades into the water of doing work like Luo Wenzhou? Is that why he cares when a son dies and leaves a mom behind. In his world to care is illogical and pointless and has no use. But Luo Wenzhou IS in Fei Du’s world, and he cares. So Fei Du feels like... maybe he’ll care too, even if it is useless. He’ll let himself care still, like Luo Wenzhou cares.

There is use in the ACT of caring. Even if it changes nothing. There is worth in the act of caring, even if it fails to save anyone or stop harm. Is that one of the themes of Silent Reading I wonder... its certainly a theme of these two’s relationship.

It’s the point of Luo Wenzhou trying to explain to Fei Du what their connection is. It’s the connection of their worlds - Luo Wenzhou in our usually normally accepted one, and Fei Du in his hopeless one. It’s also the connecting point of their personalities - through knowing each other they’ve both developed a level of caring. Caring despite finding it cannot save, cannot stop the awful things that have happened and will later.

And so we get to a point where Fei Du cares about Luo Wenzhou, even though Wenzhou failed him and still does. Even though Luo Wenzhou will never fully understand him or the world he exists in.

I never realized just how wholly separate their concepts of the worlds they exist in were till I wrote this damn.

>>I keep losing the point in zhoudu meta lmao. Anyway back to priest. What I am impressed by (among many things), is priest writes that kind of dynamic as mentioned above. The ‘normal ordinary hero’ type Luo Wenzhou who can never connect to the kind of person/world Fei Du exists in, and vice versa. But somehow they meet halfway and see through the keyhole of the other person’s world anyway. Take one step in, while still being unable to enter the other’s world and abandon their own. It’s impossible. But it is. Because they choose to do it, no matter how impossible it is.

And its this relationship that outside on paper on some novel summary is the tags idk older/younger, rich/gruff, cruel/heroic whatever. When I walked in once upon a time, with the impression from a tagged summary it was going to be a cold genuis with a fascination for analysing cruelty, and a heroic gruff type combatting him and helping him ‘grow a heart’ I did not expect this kind of deep relationship dynamic i actually got. I didn’t expect a relationship that’s part caretaker/child, part opponents striving to fight yet it’s to connect their irreconcilable worlds, part lovers who were already closer than usual lovers before the romance even enters the picture. I didn’t expect 7 years of failing each other, but still being unconditional care there. Fei Du is not just a ‘cold genius’ he’s given the traits of a man from a world where he sees himself as the ordinary monster of it, and he will never ‘grow a heart’ and come to see the world like Luo Wenzhou (I’m 70% through the novel but i don’t think he will). And Luo Wenzhou for all his physical actions is not a gruff man with a ‘warm heart’ a la some sweetie pie emotional warm hero. He was an idealistic idiot who got a reality shock he wasn’t Superman, who grew into a realist. He is a guardian angel who is not actually an angel and KNOWS he isn’t but can’t stop himself from trying to be for Fei Du, the first and only time he tried to be one, refusing to quit this mission even though it’s been lost a million times and it’s painful for both of them for him to keep pretending he’s an angel instead of a man. Luo Wenzhou’s warm emotional ‘hopes and ideals’ don’t touch Fei Du and ‘change him’ (although Fei Du trying to understand Luo Wenzhou’s pov at least does open him up to witnessing Tao Ran’s idealism and kindness even though he finds it naive).

While their failures with each other certainly change them, they don’t actually change the core of each other - they are permanently too distinctly different people who see the world in an incompatibly different way. Growing up with Luo Wenzhou certainly influenced Fei Du’s behaviors, and gave him a peek into seeing the world differently, but he still ultimately exists mainly in his own world. Even with shared experiences together now, working together, it’s not shifting Luo Wenzhou into a person who sees the world as inherently cruel and monstrous like Fei Du, and its not shifting Fei Du into seeing justice as natural and possible. In some couple stories the worldviews would gradually mesh as the shared experiences grew - but no, not with these two.

The beauty of their relationship is they Will exist in their separate worlds, their incompatible worldviews and interpretations of it. But they still connect. They still carved out this space of a home together, that exists in both worlds. That has a window to each other’s worlds where they ask the other to explain what that unimaginable window’s view means, how the hell the other person is interpreting it because they don’t see it the same way. This shared home, that lets them concieve of a world where the other person can and DOES exist in their world. Fei Du sees himself as a monster in a world where it’s natural, and where angels don’t exist let alone just heroes - but Luo Wenzhou is in his world. Impossibly. He’s there, he’s part of it, he’s relentless, and he always will be. In Luo Wenzhou’s world, Fei Du exists and is just as inevitably part of it as Luo Wenzhou is. Even though Fei Du can’t conceive of existing in Luo Wenzhou’s kind of world - luo wenzhou sees Fei Du WITH him there, dragging him in by refusing to accept that Fei Du couldn’t be there.

Fei Du’s heart (in my prediction anyway lol) is not going to grow 3 sizes and decide justice is possible, is expected, and he’s an ordinary person who thinks like the others and feels wronged when he’s not given help and doesn’t instinctively think cold things. But Fei Du’s heart, despite himself and knowing Luo Wenzhou lied about being an angel in Fei Du’s world where none exists and failing him, holds a permanent space for Luo Wenzhou. A permanent part of him lets itself open the window to what Luo Wenzhou sees, and even though Fei Du simply can’t understand it, he lets the wind come in. Lets the idea drift through his own world: that for all justice is impossible, try to fight to do justice anyway. Try to conceive that people deserve it anyway, even if there is no way they do. Just humor the idea. Try anyway. It’s okay to try, even if the result will fail. Luo Wenzhou tries anyway, so you Fei Du can indulge in trying too despite it all. Fei Du’s heart has Luo Wenzhou in it, broken through the window and bringing the breeze, residing warmly in it and bringing all the ‘idealistic-fictional’ warmth from the world ‘other ordinary society thinks’ and decorates. Brings warm cooked noodles, shrimp, sweet candy so sweet its better than Fei Du’s world but here IT IS. Brings hope and determination and belief that doesn’t exist in Fei Du’s world, but here it is, in residence in his heart, with good smells that make him hungry, that taste like nothing that’s supposed to exist. And Fei Du thinks: its a lie, it can’t exist, it can’t be this good, it can’t be permanent... it must be an illusion or something that will crumble later. But its Luo Wenzhou... so Fei Du tries indulging the temporary goodness anyway, even if it WILL crumble. Like how Luo Wenzhou will still fail. Even so, even though this is nicer than any dinner in his world with his mom and dad had been, so much nicer he believes it impossible and a lie and just as hard to rely on as trying to grab the wind. He’ll still sit down and accept it for the experience it is. Because Luo Wenzhou brought it and said it was their home. And even if it makes no sense, somehow in their shared point of connection - this place where their worlds can almost overlap? It’s worth it to try. It’s the act of trying that’s important, not the outcome later. Not what’s possible or impossible. But that here, they can coexist somehow. That they tried very hard to carve out this home right here. They can be brave enough to believe the other sometimes about their other worlds, even if they can never move into the other’s. Try to go on faith on the other person, and try out the other person’s way of living in their very different world, even though it makes no sense.

It’s a love story about yes, being seen as all of who you are and still loved unconditionally (something often appealing in fiction romance). But also like. Its this heavy reality of No, actually, you will NOT ever be seen completely and understood completely by another person. We are not Fei Du and we are not usually seeing the world and it’s ‘laws’ as so drastically different as him. But like him, when we meet people even as close as we may become, as much as we share, another person will truly never see and feel exactly as we do. Words are imperfect, people’s past experiences and personalities are all different, people can’t read your mind and see your history and feel your emotions. There is no perfect fullproof way to get someone to truly understand you completely. And that’s okay. You can be loved, you can connect, even when that’s true. There is worth in making connections, even if we will ever only be understood imperfectly, only partly be able to view the world or something the same way. Even if someone can’t understand why X is that way about you or why you can’t believe Y the same way they do (even when you try your best to). There is space in all of us to find a way to still love whole heartedly, to choose to Try to understand. There is power in choosing to try, and keep choosing to, even though it’s an impossible endeavor to ever fully accomplish. Like Luo Wenzhou, we choose anyway. Like Fei Du, we realize there’s worth in just the act of trying. Even if we are never fully seen, can never fully grasp the other, there’s care there. The care builds a space for us to connect. A space for us to feel close enough, safe and loved.

#silent reading #lb #meta #zhoudu #zhoufei #WELL this turned into a mega zhoudu meta and character analysis #character analysis #i will say though. damn.#i think this is true of many (possibly all of priests works but i havent read all) of priests novels #is that they really CAN be delved into analysis wise as works of literature #Silent Reading alone? It has a LOT to say about society and justice and our expectations we're raised on #versus how society really acts. versus the unique ways individuals VARY WILDLY in their perception of it #which i didnt even go into in this meta. but in a Literature Class that'd probably be the main theme.#but then also? fei du and luo wenzhou really ARE doing something so unique with their dynamic that's worth discussing #the fact that like they DO put each other on pillars. while also being self aware those pillars are LIES. and then yet they keep #functioning as if both aware the other are only human AND still putting faith in the pillars they put them on #the fact that in this story the two NEVER reconcile their worldviews into one shared one more or less. which usually happens in these #stories of different ppl. think Goodbye My Princess or Love and Redemption or The Untamed - those different ppl #end up experiencing things that help them come to understand each others pov and perspective of the world.#but the thing is lwz and fd will NOT compromise or change their core world view understandings. lwz just CANT see the world #as inherently monstrous and cruel and kindness as so fleeting and impotent. its against his entire belief system and experiences and #against who he IS. and fei du just Cannot see the world like the ordinary masses. let alone like luo wenzhou who #when young saw himself as the pure idealistic super Hero. to fei du a man like luo wenzhou just Cannot exist and succeed or and just IS #wrong. but their choice to connect anyway is a bridge between worlds. they cant even see eye to eye. but they can choose to connect anyway #despite it.#and internally grow hope and awareness and motivation. even if their worlds remain the same

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