If Only Priest Wrote Fanfic, I Would Totally Eat It Up 🥹

Wei Wuxian | Ep.11

Regarding May 12 Dracula Daily / Re: Dracula,

SO! Cloaks do not “spread out like great wings” when you’re crawling face-down the side of a building UNLESS you have arranged some hooks or clips or some such to keep the cloak in place.

I wanna see Dracula getting annoyed at his cloak, which keeps falling over his head when he’s climbing downward head-first, Until he finally devises some method to attach the cloak to his wrist and waist / thighs / ankles, which cleverly keeps the cloak spread out on his back despite the best efforts of gravity.

Can anyone here draw? Or has anyone already done this? Please point me to the right place!

This is most affirming thing I’ve ever read.

I am very grateful for this (amazingly funny and honest and raw and did I mention funny?) analysis of Why This Story Changed My Life.

okay love this tor dot com article exploring writing craft through the lens of the untamed fucking slaps and why 

the thing you need to realize about localization is that japanese and english are such vastly different languages that a straight translation is always going to be worse than the original script. nuance is going to be lost and, if you give a shit about your job, you should fill the gaps left with equivalent nuance in english. take ff6, my personal favorite localization of all time: in the original japanese cefca was memorable primarily for his manic, childish speaking style - but since english speaking styles arent nearly as expressive, woolsey adapted that by making the localized english kefka much more prone to making outright jokes. cefca/kefka is beloved in both regions as a result - hell, hes even more popular here

I watched that movie of Journey to the West! It was good. It didn’t register at the time that I was watching mpreg. But now I know, and knowing is half the battle.

Ah? What do you mean mpreg is built into the setting of MDZS?

I mean exactly what I said. It's part of the setting. Mpreg is part of MDZS setting.

Or rather, mpreg is part of any and all xianxia or Chinese fantasy settings. Mpreg is not impossible... or even truly rare... in xianxia setting. There are at least three different regular ways for men to get pregnant in this kind of setting, even for low xianxia like MDZS.

Xianxia is Chinese fantasy. Cultivators cultivate until immortality. The upper level of cultivation, an immortal becomes a facet of reality and bends the world to their will. Some can even create an entirely new world wholesale. What's getting pregnant compared to that?

Sure, the setting of MDZS is low xianxia. But we know at the very least a lot of MDZS cultivators are at the Jindan stage. Do you know which stage comes right after the Jindan stage?

元婴 Yuanying. The common English translation for this stage is Nascent Soul. But its real meaning is nascent / origin child/baby/infant.

How does yuanying come about? Well, a cultivator at the end of Jindan stage will go through tribulation. If they pass through tribulation successfully, the jindan (golden core) in their belly will collapse and out comes a baby. This baby then takes over the task of the jindan, circulating the cultivator's chi and feeding off of it. The baby will grow alongside the cultivator's progress, eventually maturing and potentially becoming a separate person should the parent allows it.

(Game interface from a Chinese cultivation game)

This stage is very well documented in actual real-world ancient texts by Wu Liupai, dating back to the 16th century. It's not a modern concept made up for entertainment. It's part of actual real-world Daoist practices and beliefs.

...And xianxia is the brought up to eleventh fantasy version of real-world Daoism. Think about it.

So in truth, every single high-level Jindan stage cultivator in MDZS is just one stage and one successful tribulation away from getting preggo whether they want to or not. (Yes. Every single one of them. Not just Wei Ying or Lan Wangji, but also Jiang Cheng, Lan Qiren, Lan Xichen, Xiu Xingchen, Song Lan, Nie Mingjue... if he didn't die, etc... Not Jin Guangyao, though. He's too weak to get pregnant. Jin Zixuan, maybe)

You don't even have to be a cultivator or in a xianxia setting to get pregnant (whether you are male or female or whatever). Artificially induced pregnancy has been a thing in Chinese folklore since the Summer and Autumn period (BCE). Several different classics mention a fruit called 孕果 yunguo (Lit. Pregnant Fruit). This fruit bestows the ability to get pregnant to anyone who eats it, regardless of gender. Sexual activity with a man is still required, though. Can't make something out of nothing.

And the most famous and widely known in Chinese folklore: water from the River of Mother and Child 子母河. Anyone who drinks this water becomes pregnant, regardless of gender (or even species, actually). You know the most famous person who drank it? The monk Tan Sanzang... and his disciple Zhu Bajie (a male pig), and Sha Wujing (a male fish). It's been made into several TV series and movies. In one of those movie adaptations, Tang Sanzang even carried the pregnancy to term as he wasn't willing to terminate a life and saw this as an opportunity to experience the female side of life.

In the same story, Journey to the West, a rock was pregnant with Son Wukong and gave birth to him.

You have to remember this. Ancient Chinese didn't really think of pregnancy as a biological process requiring sperm and eggs like we do today. They thought of it as a concentration and condensation of qi (breath of the world) until the 'mother body' was saturated with fetal qi and gave birth.

Real-world folklore texts are chockful of such instances where things got pregnant with the breath of the world and gave birth. And that's just regular folklore, not the brought-up-to-eleven version that is xianxia.

杀破狼： I’m up to chapter 98 on my Stars of Chaos Reread! And I must proclaim,

Poor Chang Geng! He’s a full-blooded healthy young man (except for the curse) (and the stab wounds) (but he’s fine, really!) and all he wants is a little sugar from his sweetie! But mean mean Gu Yun keeps (nervously) poking him full of acupuncture needles (doctor’s orders, sadly) or sending him away unkissed (ok, so Chang Geng almost got them killed a couple times there) or making him put his hands away and Sleep! (Because he’s bleeding from multiple wounds. Whoops.)

The cruelty!!

On the flip side, Poor Gu Yun! Everyone thinks Gu Yun is a lecher and a libertine, but he’s the one who has to keep a straight face when Chang Geng sneaks in a dirty suggestion or licks him in public (ok, it was at night and it was raining and chaotic, but, still). And every time he’s left alone with little (not so little) Chang Geng, he gets attacked (romantically) and Chang Geng tries to (amorously) eat him!

Sigh 🥰

Stars of Chaos 杀破狼

Vol 5, pages 153 - 237.

Another ten...

Just in case you can't remember from way back when, A-Yan was the youngest of the previous emperor's sons (youngest brother of the current emperor). He was a friend of Gu Yun's, and he died in childhood.

And, in case you don't already know, and I can't remember if Priest ever actually told us, "Hanshi" is the courtesy name of Jiang Chong.

I think Priest thinks that all of her readers are really smart, 'cuz she keeps assuming that we just Remember or can Infer things.

No one purposefully touches ash. It sometimes falls on the ground, and then we accidentally step on it. (And the Chinese word used here is 踩 = step on.)

白龙鱼服 white dragon fish clothes, as in Chang Geng was out there incognito and none of the commoners around him knew his high status.

此人也不知道是胸怀山川，还是真没心没肺...

胸怀山川 = his chest contains mountains and rivers = very broad-minded and open. "Tolerant of his circumstances" is a good translation; I just like the imagery of mountains and rivers.

没心没肺 = no heart, no lungs = (among other meanings) totally heartless. Immune to emotion.

Probably Working Off Different Versions again! But I like my old pirated online version (-pout-). Here is the pirated online version and my lame translation of it:

长庚当然不是要哭，Of course Chang Geng was not on the verge of tears,

他正强压着心里掺杂着幻觉的杀意，he was currently forcefully suppressing the mixture of killing intent and hallucinations in his heart (he was very very mad at the emperor),

整个人都快炸了。 his entire person was about to explode.

I like the imagery of the sky being soft and whole, like a blanket falling upon you, rather than fragments.

(I really love the imagery of 天塌下来当被子卷 = sky falls down, treat it as a blanket and wrap yourself up in it :)

"还有钟老将军没教过我的"

OK. I am here to share my confusion. The translation is totally true and valid, but I feel (sigh. feelings again.) like this sentence can carry more than one meaning, or maybe should imply something more (in the version I read, anyway).

So: my idea is that Chang Geng is crazy smart and he's giving Gu Yun all sorts of good ideas, so Gu Yun is all "Wow, you learned a lot from old General Zhang," and Chang Geng replies with "And I also have lots of original ideas that did not come from old General Zhong, I am way smarter than anyone you have ever met, you had better listen to me and do what I recommend."

That is my interpretation of those 11 little characters, anyway, which I think makes slightly more sense in this context.

Top: in case you aren't keeping a list of all the characters as they are introduced, Emperor Wu was the emperor two emperors ago, also Gu Yun's mom's dad = Gu Yun's maternal grandfather. He is the one who overthrew the previous dynasty, but he had no surviving male heirs and so gave the throne to the previous emperor, who was the dad of the current emperor. (I got so confused on my first read-through that I started a Character List on my second read-through.）

Bottom: 鸟尽弓藏. From mdbg.net: "lit. the birds are over, the bow is put away (idiom); fig. to get rid of sb once he has served his purpose"

浑水摸鱼。 Mdbg.net again: "to fish in troubled water (idiom); to take advantage of a crisis for personal gain"

Chinese has lots of cool idioms <3

And another ten are done!

My DanMei Literary Adventure Masterpost

Stars of Chaos - All Notes Links

Chinese 🤦🏻‍♀️

Just this once, I wish they had not simplified a character. I keep mixing up the words for “old friend” vs “enemy”.

Like, really? One stroke difference?

Friends are old 古 but you want to…lick your enemy 舌?

I’m rereading 杀破狼 by Priest (Sha Po Lang) (“Stars of Chaos”). It took me forever to read it the first time, but I don’t really want to leave this universe, so….

I love how in the first 5 chapters, Priest perfectly conveys how Chang Geng is terribly in love with Shen Shiliu, completely against his own better judgement. Chang Geng is just entering adolescence and is having his usual nightmares, but now some of them are wet dreams, and he just doesn’t know what to do about all these feelings and Shiliu is not making it easy on him.

Shiliu is blind and deaf (or pretending to be) and lazy (not pretending there) and constantly trying to distract Chang Geng from his studies. He’s always calling Chang Geng over to play and waste time. He’s always throwing his arms around Chang Geng and giving him childish presents. He’s infuriating! And so, so handsome.

But Chang Geng is already building his life around Shen Shiliu. He has to become smart so that he can earn enough money to support Shiliu. He has to become strong so that he can protect poor blind, deaf Shiliu. He will be a good godson and take care of godfather, Yes.

Chang Geng is frustrated and confused out of his mind, and Shiliu keeps grabbing him as if one of them were a child!, but, even at this tender age, he knows who he wants to be with. Even if that person makes him mad in every sense of the word.

drunk lan zhan being a cutie in every adaptation (x)