So... I found this and now it keeps coming to mind. You hear about "life-changing writing advice" all the time and usually its really notābut honestly this is it man.
I love the lawyer metaphor, because whenever I see āJohn knew that...ā in prose writing I immediately think āhow?Ā How does he know it?āĀ Interrogate your witnesses.Ā Cross-examine them.Ā Make them explain their reasoning.Ā It pays dividends.
OK IM SCREAMING BC OF THAT ENDING!!!! Holy shit!!! I can see why it would be so debated but tbh I think I agree with your assessment that itās overall thematically linked well enough with the story aaaa, Iām gonna miss these two so much *cries*
YEAH AAAAAAAAAH okay okay so, two main complaints I read about the Twist is, 1) doesnāt that make RNZ a deus ex machina and ruin all the stakes that came before, and 2) why bother with this kind of ending twist in the very last chapter plus an extra?? isnāt it cheap?
Re: #1, no, i donāt think thatās true! Satchan confirms that RNZās life truly was on the line the entire time, and RNZ is so fucking method that he gives himself a super long and detailed backstory. Yes, RNZ is an entity, but at no point does that give him an actual advantage to survival. Thatās what makes this revelation so interestingāheās more of a faux ex machina. Itās revealed by the same brushstroke that he both orchestrated everything and has no power over any of it slkdjnflskdjfnlsd which is simply WILD and AMAZING to me
Re: #2, i think that depends on what readers think the novel is about. To me, the question at the center of this novel is,Ā āwhat does it mean to live?ā In the very first door, RNZ offers an answerāthat survival may be filled with horror, but itās something to be grateful for nevertheless. To extrapolate outwards, humans are born to die, right? Everyone going through the doors are keenly reminded of their own mortality, and the choice is either embracing and confronting the horror, or hide. TZZ is LQSās thematic foil in this regardāshe is sympathetically portrayed as someone too frightened to take the doors head-on, and this is what kills her. She is not willing to give up her life as an actor! Which makes so much sense! But I think one point the novel makes is, even if youāre scared, the horror never goes away. Nanqiu say as much in flippant lines throughout the doorsāāIām scared!āĀ āSo what? Does you being scared mean itās not going to come for you??ā Time is always ticking on (which is the central motif of the last door, and all 12 doors), so itās actually more beneficial in the long-term to take the horror head-on.
LQS faces the horror. He gazes frankly into the abyss, and the abyss gazed back. The abyss gazed back and fucking fell in love, because the abyss gives what the abyss gets. This is a horror novel, but itās all about LQSās (and RNZās) ability to actually comprehend the needs of the ghosts/monsters in order to fulfill those needs. While so many other characters are terrified or scornful of the ghosts, LQS performs that emotional labor...and entity!RNZ falls in love with him for it. RNZ becomes a humanĀ for him because of this. I think thatās phenomenal.
(And it really informs the summary/preview, which seems completely out of left field until youāve finished the novel lmfao.)
Thereās also more to say about the fight to live, the agreement to NOT live between nanqiu, and entity!RNZās choice to come alive, I think, but this post is already long lololol
First of all, Iād like to thank you so much for your hard work getting these translations up so quickly! To the point I felt guilty wondering whether you might be losing sleep over them! I love this story to pieces! Aah, so sad now that itās over. But I especially want to thank you for uploading the last chapter and extra 1 together so I donāt have to go crazy waiting for them to come apiece!
That said, Iām so sorry for freeloading onto your post instead of sending an ask, but this turned out too long to put in one. I love hearing your thoughts on the twist! I find them really interesting! I think my initial reaction was similar to a lot of people in theĀ ā???ā department. I didnāt hate it but it left me wondering if the twist was actually necessary, and I think thatās actually the point.
Does it matter that RNZ is an entity from the door? No, because in the end, RNZ was human in all the ways that mattered, and thatās why the twist is in an āoh, by the wayā extra. As youāve said before in response to complaint #1, Sacchan had confirmed that if RNZ died in one of theĀ āfakeā doors, he dies for real. He doesnāt get special treatment or a special pass at death for being a door entity. He chose to be human and thus goes through all the trials that comes with being human, which is why his experiences with LQS isnāt invalidated just because he turned out to be a door entity. In a way, I think the 12th door was actually more of a test for RNZ himself.Ā In a lot of ways (LQSās negative EQ stats aside), the reason their relationship stalled for the longest time despite RNZ falling in love earlier was because of his own hesitations and doubts that he had to overcome. The trial of becoming, being, and staying humanā¦ isnāt that the biggest and hardest trial of all?
For your response to complaint #2, I also want to add that one other theme of this story is karma. Itās stated as early as the first arc. You canāt murder in the doors because if you do, the victimās ghost will kill you. Be kind when you can and you will be treated kindly in turn. LQS was not only sympathetic and cordial to some of the monsters in the doors, but he was even willing to help them. Of course such feelings would be reflected right back at him in the end.
Iāve also frequently seen complaints that after the first several doors, the author got lazy, and I think itās because the horror/gore kind of tapers off a bit. But in my opinion, the horror is not the ends to the mean. In the first place, the story isnāt horror for the sake of horror but to emphasize the transience of life, and the choices we make in the face of death. So while some people think the 11th door was lazy, I liked it because it was very much in the spirit of the theme ofĀ āwhat goes around comes aroundā introduced in the very first arc.
P.S. By the way, Iām so, so sad that Chen Qianli doesnāt make one more appearance before the end. I kind of wanted to see him help out LQS and/or RNZ :(
Again, sorry for hijacking this post. Thank you so much again for finishing this lovely piece of work to a wider audience!
I love Great Pretender. The art is spectacular, beautiful, and unique; the characters are interesting with well-defined personalities and pasts; itās funny; it has a lot of heart while not shying away from the darker stuff; and seeing the villains get their just desserts in the end satisfies that timeless desire to see rich assholes eat dirt for the sins they always get away with.
Then Case 4 waltzes along andā¦ there are a lot of mixed feelings in me for this one.
On one hand, it has many of the attributes of the previous arcs but on the other, thereās a sense of non-satisfaction at the end for several reasons.
The first one is that every character an arc focuses on finds peace with themselves at the end, but the emotional payoff for Edamura simply isnāt there.
Edamuraās hang-up is twofold: one is his relationship with Laurent and the other, bigger one (and the main focus for Edamura) is his relationship with his father.
In the relationship between Laurent and Edamura, no matter how Edamura expresses his desire to live an honest life, Laurent keeps ignoring his wishes. No matter what Edamura decides to do or where he goes, Laurent will set up a scheme to rope him back in. He can never know if Laurent has really let him go and the life he leads is truly peaceful or if itās another one of Laurentās plans to loop him back. Iām personally surprised Edamura didnāt develop paranoia from this kind of behavior.
In the relationship between Ozaki and Edamura, we have this charged atmosphere between them that the show does beautifully to illustrate. It shows Ozakiās side and what really happened, and then we see Edamuraās anger, his reluctance to forgive, and his attempts to do so.
Case 4 is supposed to be a culmination of all the frustration Edamura feels towards Laurent and his hatred towards his father. And it does culminate towards the end when he pours his heart out about how he feels being constantly left in the dark and jerked around by Laurent for his selfish grudge con and Ozaki for fucking up and leaving behind his family without thought to the emotional toll it took on them or how it could ruin them. For fuckās sake, his reputation followed Edamura and prevented him from getting a job. That moment Edamura held that blade to his father with all that emotion on his face, I truly felt that.
And then Laurent goes, āglad you aired that out!ā and that was the end of that. No proper conversation or scenes between father and son afterwards showing how they may have begun to patch their relationship, neither Ozaki or Laurent acknowledges how their actions hurt Edamura, and Edamura just lets everything go. I think the show was trying to depict how Edamura took Abbyās reminder to heart and just forgave butā¦ for all the show does a good job illustrating the tension, it doesnāt do a good job illustrating the forgiveness part. Nothing is addressed.
Even as I write this, thereās a very uncomfortable knot in my heart. It doesnāt feel like thereās a resolution. Edamura sets off to try coffee from around the country seemingly in preparation for a coffee shop and Ozaki is there doing whatever and their relationship is just left up in the air. Did they patch up? How? What did they do together since? Did they do anything at all? The thread dangles. But maybe itās just that I hold grudges. I donāt know.
I feel like Edamuraās resolution got a bit tangled up in the threads the show began to weave about his relationship with Suzaku.
The show keeps hinting that Edamura will betray the group to help her instead and despite being an unforgivably despicable person for running a human trafficking ring, the moments of humanity she shows towards him really sells that theyāve gotten close. Edamura even gives her a little cat figurine which is monumental considering what it represents to him. But the show never delivers on anything at all with their relationship in emotional terms. We know Edamura got close to her for the con but I keep expecting the show to connect that relationship with Miki and reveal another aspect of Edamuraās feelings about her or the circumstances surrounding her which would then somehow connect to Edamuraās present relationship with Ozaki.
Instead, none of it connects with Edamura coming to terms with his feelings about Ozaki, and I think thatās why it feels so messy towards the end. Edamura releases everything in one burst towards the end, leaving almost no room for the show to do anything about it.
What wouldāve sold Edamura being at least okay with his dad are little snippets of them working towards an emotional compromise throughout the episodes but since they canāt do that or else itād ruin theĀ āclever revealā, they simply set it aside and said,Ā āwell, everything is forgiven somehowā and move on.
Edamuraās resentment towards his father is so baked into the scheme of the plan that the show is forced to forego the emotional character arc in favor of their reveal. That... isnāt too good.Ā It isnāt bad writing, necessarily. Maybe bad outlining.
Compounding the endingās messiness is the second issue I have with the arcās ending: the reveal that Cassano, Sam, and Coleman arenāt in fact rotting in jail like they deserve but are justā¦ chilling together???
When I first saw this scene, I thought āoh, some character must be hallucinating or itās a dream!ā but no. The show was entirely serious about having them suddenly be buddy-buddy with the main cast who ruined their lives and tricked them out of all their money.
Team Confidence and Dorothyās team before them is all about bringing down rich, influential scum but now we have these three assholes who has undoubtedly hurt many people with their bullshit just hanging out together. It takes away their entire shtick of being something like modern day Robin Hoods who serve a kind of justice to people who are normally untouchable.
You canāt tell me that those three were part of Laurentās ridiculous fucking network all along either because Coleman had history with Cynthia so unless youāre suggesting Coleman was under Laurentās thumb aaaaall the way back then, as far as Iām concerned, everybody is suddenly somehow okay with each other.
Snow of London is undoubtedly my favorite arc, so seeing Coleman casually there on the same boat as Cynthia set me off. I felt betrayed. That emotional moment at the auction when Cynthia remembered Thomas and how Coleman took that away from herā¦ was all some kind of what? Hoax? Lie? It didnāt matter after all? What the fuck is this supposed to mean? DidĀ anyĀ of their cons mean anything? What the fuck was the point then?
When I read how people hated the post-credit scene, I grew extremely nervous. With great anxiety, I watched it and just went, āoh. This old hat.ā Honestly, with all the other unbelievable bullshit that the previous episodes pulled (really? Building an entire skyscraper and replicating the rooms? Thatās really going off the deep end of suspension of disbelief even for this show), the only thing I felt was exhaustion and the thought, āyeah, this might as well happen too.ā
Iām not as upset about it as other people seem to be although yes, itās cheap and always will be, and yes, itās unnecessary. But hell, the way the whole show was going and resolved was also cheap so itās just another thing to add to the pile to the point itās almost unmemorable to me. I can even pretend it didnāt happen.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 2/?
Fandom: ęč±Ŗć¹ćć¬ć¤ććć°ć¹ | Bungou Stray Dogs
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Dazai Osamu/Oda Sakunosuke (Bungou Stray Dogs), Dazai Osamu & Oda Sakunosuke (Bungou Stray Dogs), Akutagawa Ryuunosuke & Dazai Osamu (Bungou Stray Dogs)
Characters: Dazai Osamu (Bungou Stray Dogs), Oda Sakunosuke (Bungou Stray Dogs), Original Characters, Akutagawa Ryuunosuke (Bungou Stray Dogs)
Additional Tags: Dazai-Typical Suicide Mentions (Bungou Stray Dogs), Dark Era (Bungou Stray Dogs), Violence, Demon Oda Sakunosuke, Dazai is NOT nice, Existential Angst, Additional tags/relationships/characters to be added as story progresses, Interrogation, Implied/Referenced Drug Use
Summary:
After a tough night capturing one of the culprits responsible for kidnapping Port Mafia's men, Dazai only wanted a drink from the vending machine. Was that too much to ask for? He hadn't meant to summon a demon and he definitely hadn't meant to sell his soul for a hundred yen.
But there's more to Oda than meets the eye and certainly, more to their intertwined futures than either could've predicted.
Honestly the biggest disappointment I had researching ABC was that medieval authors did not, in fact, see the creatures they were describing and were trying their best to describe them with their limited knowledge while going āwhat the fuckā¦ what the fuckā¦ā
Instead all those creatures you know came about from transcription and translation errors from copying Greco-Roman sources (who themselves got them from travelersā tales from Persia and India - rhino -> unicorn, tiger -> manticore, python -> dragon, and so on).
I always thought animals in medieval manuscripts looked like the result of having to draw say. A Tree Kangaroo, but your only source for what it looked like was your friend who heard it from a fellow who knows a man who swears he saw one once, whilst very drunk and lost, and I am SO PLEASEDĀ to find out this is, in fact, the case.
donāt forget that some of the legendary creatures they were describing were from other peopleās mythos which were passed down in the oral tradition for gods know how long. You know what existed in Eurasia right around the time we were domesticating wolves into dogs?
these beasties. For a long time, science had them down as going extinct 200 thousand years ago, but then we found some bones from 36 thousand years ago. Which, yāknow, is quite a difference. Since you can bet that any skeleton we find is not literally the last one of its kind to live, many creatures have date ranges unknowably far outside the evidence.
In South Asia there were cultures that described a man-beast/troll forrest giantĀ whoās knuckles dragged the ground, and everybody from the west was sure it was superstitious mumbo jumbo, but you know what used to live there?
And did you know that some of the earliest white colonizers of the Americas heard accounts that there were natives still alive who had seen and hunted and eaten a great hairy beast, shaggy like the buffalo but much bigger, with a long thin nose like a snake and two giant fangsā¦ so, like, mammoths, you know? but they were totally discounted because europeans of the time were like, elephants live in Africa and arenāt hairy, you canāt fool us, pranksters!
Anyway, the point is between the early writing game of telephone description thing talked about by OP, and the discounting of native cultural accuracy, Iām pretty sure most legendary creatures are in fact real animals one way or anotherĀ
It canāt explain every single legendary creature, but yes, this is super important. Because History relies on written sources, it tends to sweep oral tradition under the rug, even if thereās a lot of interesting informations in it.
And itās not just living animals that were badly described, or which descriptions got exaggerated over the course of centuries or through translation errors. Sometimes, people finding fossil bones of extinct animals might have also influenced some myths!
By now this is pretty well-known but it has been theorised that the Greek myth of the cyclops was started when people found Deinotherium skulls. Now you might say, uh, how is it possible to think a cousin of the elephant is a huge human dude with one eye?
Well-
- the big nasal opening kinda looks like an eye if you have no idea what kind of animal had this kind of skull (you can read more about this theory in this old National Geographic article if you like).
Hereās a less well-known one; the griffin is a mythological hybrid with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle. The earliest traces of this myth come from ancient Iranian and ancient Egyptian art, from more than 3000 BC. In Iranian mythology, itās called Ų“ŪŲ±ŲÆŲ§Łā (shirdal, ālion eagleā). Now, itās been the subject of some debate and itās not confirmed, but thereās a theory that people might have seen some Protoceratops and Psittacosaurus fossils in Asia and might have interpreted it as āa lion with an eagleās headā:
Check the āoriginā part of the wikipedia page for āgriffinā if you want to find more sources for this theory and for the arguments against it! Again, itās just a theory, but I think itās super cool.
This is a pretty well accepted theory for why dragons (or animals we group as like dragons, eg wyverns and drakes) are seen in mythos almost worldwide - because people found dinosaur bones, looked at them, and wentĀ āoh fuck whatās that? some bigā¦. lizardy thing?ā and then created dragons.
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