chromemuffin

• reviews and book ramblings • spoilers galore

[bsd-bibliophile]

A new, updated version of the Online Library

The Online Library has been moved and updated. 

Check out the new look. Books and videos should be easier to find and all the files  are still easy to access and download. 

If you had the previous link then please update your records with this new link. 

[chromemuffin]

There’s this (new?) novel coming out that’s getting advertised by Book of the Month and it’s called Untamed by Glennon Doyle and every time I read that title my brain gets confused and thinks “The Untamed?? Wait that makes no sense- oh right not that one.”

[chromemuffin]

Thousand Autumns Impressions Chapters 1-5

Read up to chapter 20 a while back and remember absolutely nothing, but I like the writing so I thought I’d give it another try.

Thousand Autumns is interesting because its two main leads are literally complete opposites of each other in morals and values. Unapologetic villains that aren’t cartoonishly bad and characters who stick to their values are kinda rare, and Thousand Autumns made me realize why I gravitate towards danmei and cnovels. That’s a long topic probably better suited to my rarely used dreamwidth journal, so I’ll save it for another time...

Suffice to say, I normally wouldn’t like Shen Qiao’s character. At all. Young me would’ve hated him, because young me liked edgy and grey morality in my fiction, while older me is a salt mountain who wants a happy ending at the end of the tragedy conga line and some hope in humanity.

That’s where TA seems intriguing. It shows two opposite sides of humanity in its two characters. The story will have to put a little more work in for me to really love Shen Qiao, but the plot and writing are engaging enough (putting aside the massive amounts of political relations here that is boggling my mind).

Since I’m also slowly making my way through Heaven Official’s Blessing, I also started comparing Shen Qiao with Xie Lian in my head, and they’re actually pretty interesting to look at side by side. They’re similar on the surface, both those sorts of white lotus characters who want to do what’s right according to their values rather than what is convenient or what society’s values dictate they should do. But they do seem to go in two different directions with that, once they encounter hardships in life. And I think that’s...interesting. And telling. Not everyone’s experiences are the same, even if they seem similar in the surface, because we all react to life’s circumstances differently.

There’s one reason why I didn’t drop it entirely the first time I read it, though, and that’s probably Shen Qiao’s self-awareness. We have Yu Shengyan to bounce arguments off him, that taking the moral high road won’t earn him any thanks and may even harm him, and who’d fault him for not adhering to all that when he is in such a disadvantaged state?

But Shen Qiao is stubborn. He knows his moral code and he will stick to it, for no one but himself. But importantly, he doesn’t talk down to Yu Shengyan even though it would be easy for him to scold the younger guy for his villainy. He knows other people don’t have the same values as himself. And in the end, he can only control his own actions. I’ll have to read and see if any of this changes, but upon a second read, I can say it’s definitely a factor in why I didn’t drop the novel or get super annoyed with Shen Qiao.

A note on the politics: ultra realistic, even throws in all three religions/belief systems and sects splitting due to internal arguments, but it is A Lot. I really like the complexity though. I don’t like fantasy that has, like, two-three nations with neat dividing lines and alliances/enemies that haven’t changed for hundreds of years. When is the world ever so simple?

[chromemuffin]

I’ve finally restarted Thousand Autumns...again. I like this story, but I always forget what happens and have to reread it. I like how the world is alive in that there are so many other players up to their own thing aside from the main cast, but that also makes for a lot of names, allegiances, and relations to remember. being a complete noob at Chinese history doesn’t help either.

[chromemuffin]

I have a sudden urge to rewatch Baccano. It’s been so long since I’ve seen it, but I have such fond memories of that (almost literal) rollercoaster ride of a show. I’ve wanted to read the light novels for years, too, but they’re (relatively) expensive considering I’m used to buying books used nowadays lol. I could get them for Kindle where they’re the cheapest (and instant gratification in this climate lol), but I hate ebooks so...

[chromemuffin]

I like how the description of this blog claims its a review blog yet I never once posted a review of anything Lolol

Since Quarantine happened, I’ve been playing some games and catching up on dramas, so I might actually attempt to live up to this thing’s original purpose...

[ripweiying]

HHHHH DID YOU HEAR GUYS??? NIRVANA IN FIRE HAS A MANHUA IM SCREAMING

[extrapenguin]

YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS. MY FAVORITE FIC FROM YOU EVER. I've reread it, like, three times now. Babbling Brook, Silent Sea is a close second, but.

Have you (re)read Heaven and Earth a fourth time? :D

[chromemuffin]

not since new year’s, no. which means it’s about time for a fourth read. xD

[azolitmin]

[neni-has-ascended]

Whenever I see people talking about “Pronouns” in the context of the Japanese Language, I cringe a bit.

It’s something that comes up again and again, and every time it does, I can’t help but remember how difficult it can be for people to think outside the box of their own culture. I understand that fact. Still, I would like to try and explain a bit.

I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s highly, highly debatable if “pronouns” in the western sense even exist in the Japanese language. Personally, I am on the side that says that, no. They don’t. What we understand as “pronouns” is a concept entirely alien to the Japanese language. They do have nouns that fulfill similar purposes, yes, but those nouns are not used in the same way. They don’t count as their own, grammatical category of words, like pronouns do, and they are far, far, FAR less frequent in usage, as Japanese has different ways of indicating who or what the speaker is referring to when talking about a previously named subject or object. Japanese is very context sensitive like that.

What people also don’t realize is that the concept of “gendered pronouns” is partially not the same thing in Japanese as it is in English at all, and partially something WE forced onto Japan, rather than something that comes natural to the language. 

The many different words for “I” and “You” that exist in the Japanese language evolved out of different dialects, rather than being inherent to how the language uses gender, and who uses what word for “I” or “You” is extremely fluent and dependent on era, place, upbringing, social situation, and many, many more factors, rather than just gender or age. Women who use “Boku” and even “Ore” exist. Men who use “Watashi” are very common. Reducing those words down to our narrow concept of “gendered pronouns” is reductive and just flat out wrong. 

As for “Kare” (”He”) and “Kanojo” (”She”), a little known fact is that, until about a 100 years ago, the word “Kanojo” did not exist. “Kare”, until that point, was a fully gender-neutral term, which literally meant “That person in my field of sight”. You know how “Kanojo” came into being? It was invented in order to translate the word “She” in American novels when all other ways of translation would have resulted in too much confusion! That’s all! The only reason the term exists is to translate the western concept of gendered pronouns, which was so alien to the Japanese language, they needed to make up a whole new word for it!

That’s why things like people asking “what gender pronouns characters in Anime/J-Games” use, or people debating the “correct pronouns” for the gems in Houseki no Kuni really, really annoys me. “Pronouns” say almost nothing about a character’s gender in Japanese, and as for the Houseki no Kuni thing, this is a post-apocalyptic world without gender, where the Japanese language had absolutely no reason to maintain the artificial, western-ish gender structures that were forced onto it. Yes, the gems use masculine kinship terms and “Kare” for one another, but they also call each other “ano ko”, a term that traditionally has a lot more feminine connotation than “Kare” originally had masculine connotation. The use of “Kare” is clearly it’s original use as a gender neutral term, and the use of masculine kinship terms is out of a lack of gender neutral kinship terms. Japanese does that. When you don’t know the gender of a sibling, you refer to them as “Kyôdai”, which is technically also a masculine kinship term, but in absence of gender, it becomes neutral. As long as you don’t know the gender of the sibling, they’re “kyôdai”. As soon as you learn the gender, they either stay “kyôdai” (masculine) or become “shimai” (feminine). That’s just how Japanese works. 

I know it’s a problem born of ignorance rather than malice, but people really, really need to stop trying to apply western grammatical concepts to the Japanese language. It doesn’t work and just leads to misinformation.

[mirrorofthelost]

On legends, and its mutability:

Slight spoilers, I mean very slight, maybe gives away the punchline to a joke or two. Nothing plotty.

One of my favorite details in Heaven Official’s Blessing is how sometimes a god’s reputation and legend can get a bit away from them. Because aside from being hilarious (Exhibit A: Feng Xin’s title change), this happens quite a bit in real life. The name of a deity can vary quite a bit from region to region and across time. There’s also the Shi brothers relationship being distorted from familial to romantic (to their shared horror), the relationships in real life pantheons can be an absolute mess that differs from version to version. The entire mid-autumn banquet is an absolutely side splitting example of all this, and it really stuck with me.

I suppose I really like these details because it makes the whole thing feel so much more real, and feels like something that would happen in the setting.

[extrapenguin]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 1/5 Fandom: 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù Rating: Mature Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage Relationships: Jiāng Fēngmián/Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn, Lan Qiren & Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian, Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn/Original Character(s) Characters: Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn, Lán Qǐrén, Jiāng Chéng | Jiāng Wǎnyín, Original Characters Additional Tags: Childhood Sexual Abuse, Rape Recovery, bildungsroman, Self-Discovery Summary:

When Wei Wuxian was 13, Jiang Fengmian invited him to his rooms to ‘help him on his journey to adulthood’. When Wei Wuxian was 15, he was sent to the Cloud Recesses to learn from the esteemed teacher Lan Qiren. When Lan Qiren found out how the Jiang sect treated its head disciple, he arranged to keep him at the Cloud Recesses for longer – and Wei Wuxian is left with the hard part of trying to fix himself and grow up at the same time.

It’s that fic I talked about in the Discord that one time! Updates about once a week. More about the rebuilding and healing after the discovery than any “omg when will people discover the sexual abuse” tension.

[chromemuffin]

I, with my limited psychology experience, acted as consultant on this fic. :3 The author explores the complexities of the emotional and social adjustment in the aftermath of abuse very nicely!

[callanthea]

Liu Yao [Six Trigrams] Review!

I wrote up quite a few reviews on novelupdates.com for various Chinese BL novels I enjoyed, so I decided to post them over here as well!

Next up is Liu Yao: The Revitalization of Fu Yao Sect, by the famous Priest! This is very much a high cultivation/Xianxia novel, but one with a more somber/serious take on the genre.

Here is the novelupdates page with access to the ongoing English translation: https://www.novelupdates.com/series/liu-yao-the-revitalization-of-fuyao-sect/

And I purchased the raws on JJWXC here: http://www.jjwxc.net/onebook.php?novelid=2134415

———————–

First and foremost, Liu Yao is a heartwarming story of found family and blossoming romance. Despite everything I’m going to say below, it has a genuinely happy ending.

But beneath that surface layer, Liu Yao is also a wonderful deconstruction/exploration of the usual themes and messages in the extremely popular cultivation/Xianxia genre.

What does it mean to pursue immortality? Why does one walk down the path of a cultivator? What makes a “good” cultivator? What makes a “good” person?

What happens when we–we utterly foolish, puny, insignificant humans–attempt to defy the will of the heavens? What happens when you attempt to push the limits of what should be possible?

What does it mean to be only human, yet yearn to become something beyond humanity?

Liu Yao forces us to ask ourselves these ephemeral yet timeless questions. Its characters represent humanity’s possible answers to these questions.

Some of these answers have better intentions than others, some have better outcomes than others. An answer can be foolish from one perspective, wise from another. Each person who has ever existed will answer them differently. But there is one common thread–in the end, what could be more human than trying to transcend one’s own powerlessness?

Keep reading

[callanthea]

Thousand Autumns Review!

I wrote up quite a few reviews on novelupdates.com for various Chinese BL novels I enjoyed, so I decided to post them over here as well!

Next up is Thousand Autumns by Meng Xi Shi, a Wuxia adventure story and character study!

Here is the novelupdates page with access to the ongoing English translation: https://www.novelupdates.com/series/thousand-autumns/

And I purchased the raws on JJWXC here: http://www.jjwxc.net/onebook.php?novelid=2423737

———————–

Thousand Autumns is a fantastic analysis of what makes a strong man. 

A man isn’t strong because he can shatter mountains with a single strike, or make a nation bow with a wave of his hand.

A strong man is one relentlessly betrayed and beaten down by everyone he holds dear, who can still take every blow and stand back up even straighter than before.

A strong man is one who can go through hell and emerge on the other side with the same warm and gentle heart he started out with.

A strong man is one who brings out the best of every person who surrounds him.

Shen Qiao is one such strong man. And luckily for us readers, a wonderful character like him is the MC of this novel.

1) Story

The story starts with Shen Qiao as a martial artist at the very peak of the world, until disaster strikes and he finds himself falling to the same level as the dust and mud. At this vulnerable time in his life, he finds himself aided by another martial arts master, Yan Wushi. The only problem is, Yan Wushi is definitely not a benevolent person–in fact, he wants to see how far a good man can be pushed before finally succumbing to the same evils of human nature that plague all of humanity.

It’s the classic Boy Meets Girl, except, you know, for the part where it’s actually “Righteous gentle Taoist cultivator becomes complex frenemies with an amoral trolling Demonic sect master.”

Keep reading

[jay-eddy]

If you write a strong character, let them fail.

If you write a selfless hero, let them get mad at people.

If you write a cold-heated villain, let them cry.

If you write a brokenhearted victim, let them smile again.

If you write a bold leader, let them seek guidance.

If you write a confident genius, let them be wrong, or get stumped once in a while.

If you write a fighter or a warrior, let them lose a battle, but let them win the war.

If you write a character who loses everything, let them find something.

If you write a reluctant hero, give them a reason to join the fight.

If you write a gentle-hearted character who never stops smiling, let that smile fade and tears fall in shadows.

If you write a no one, make them a someone.

If you write a sibling, let them fight and bicker, but know that at the end of the day they’ll always have each other’s back.

If you write a character, make them more than just a character; give them depth, give them flaws and secrets, and give them life.

[fwoopersongs]

相思十诫 - how to avoid pining (in ten steps)

Keep reading

[victortortor]

early morning thoughts

let wei wuxian top, you cowards