gloriousmonsters

[gloriousmonsters]

Please. Write it. Write the thing. Even if you feel like it's shit. Even if you think no one will read it. Even if no one reads it. Even if you think the words make no sense. Even if it breaks your heart. Especially if it breaks your heart.

Please. Write it.

[gloriousmonsters]

Me when I see the word beaʃte

In my head: ah! The archaic form of the letter s! Being a casual scholar of linguistics myself I am well aware that though it resembles the letter f in modern typography in fact it is phonetically identical to s! How foolish it would be to stumble into such a simple lexiconical pitfall!

Me aloud to myself every time: beeft

[gloriousmonsters]

the funniest part of the jason x sex scene post is actually watching jason x and finding out that the sex scene was plot relevant because jason revives at the very same time they were having sex in the room next door and it's implied that jason could sense them having sex while he was cryogenically frozen and it pissed him so much (because he hates sex) that it revived him. if you removed it you would make the movie less funny.

[gloriousmonsters]

Nobody tells you how hard it is to rewire your brain so you can allow amazing things to happen to you after so much trauma or hurt. Blessings exist, good people exist, a softer life exists. Let it happen.

[gloriousmonsters]

[COVERED IN BLOOD, EYES LARGE] i have been working. On my resume

[gloriousmonsters]

The eternal question - is it worse to read the words of someone who hates a character you love but is accurate/respectful in their points/portrayal, or someone who loves them more than you do but strips them of all nuance and greyness to legit "they did nothing wrong" when they did SO MUCH WRONG?

[gloriousmonsters]

I was going to actually write some tags about this but my queue spat the post out before I got to it, lol. The most obvious parallels - and therefore contrasts - he has are that of (a) extremely skilled person from the Lan sect who comes in conflict with its traditions and rules and (b) someone whose exceedingly strong loyalty and faithfulness to one person (who for reason of a lower-class origin, at least in part, is considered not worthy or that kind of treatment by some) makes them willing to sacrifice and suffer for that person's sake.

wrt the first, there's the fact that while LWJ comes out on top it's notable that SMS is insanely strong. He twice holds his own against LWJ for a while while retaining enough qi for teleportation (in the first encounter with 'the gravedigger', it's noted that he's 1. carrying a body, 2. directing his sword to fight LWJ, 3. using a spell to mask his face and sword, 4. burning qi by pushing it out of his body to repel corpses - mxtx wants you to notice this guy is incredibly strong!)

And this strength and talent is explicitly tied to LWJ, not by comparison to him directly but by WWX noting that even he, who can't tell the whole scope of what's going on, can tell from the first moment they cross swords that SMS is so intimately familiar with LWJ's fighting style and skilled at using Lan technique in response that WWX's two guesses as to who he is are Lan Xichen or Lan Qiren. Conservation of characters wrt the only powerful Lan we (or WWX, lol) know, but also... It posits SMS as someone who, taken without his identity and only by ability, could belong to LWJ's immediate family.

And that faceless, nameless closeness in mastery and power really invites you to look at the contrast that their identities introduce - LWJ, as an actual member of the inner family, being pre-judged as worthy of respect and entitled to arrogance or coldness, tied to his family even when he directly defies or harms them, his transgressions kept secret and punished secretly because they absolutely cannot let him go - and SMS, who is pre-judged to be unable to approach LWJ's level of power or ability, as being essentially unworthy of arrogance ('who has the right to be arrogant but the protagonist?' to crib a half-remembered SVSSS quote), who either leaves or is dismissed from the Lan sect without fanfare, let go without any effort to retain him, because he's so very nearly LWJ's doppelganger or brother with his face obscured, but he and LWJ are both forcibly assigned to roles that don't necessarily match up with reality through the perception of others.

Also wrt a blend of the first and second, there's something in how the Lan sect was formed by a romantic whose life revolved around one person, and how LWJ and SMS both fulfill that ancient narrative while coming in conflict with the sect's current rules, prejudices and failings. Aaaand I might be back to write more later but my lunch just arrived so. that's all for now

Being like "I don't think Su She is meant to be a foil for Lan Wangji" as if he's not *defined* in the story by being compared to Lan Wangji. Like how obvious can it get?

What more do you want him to do? Show up in a shadow mask wearing all black like he's the very concept of persona, the shadow self, literally predicting and mirroring all of lwj's moves to the point he's honestly unnerved by it but disappearing like he was never there the moment he's close enough to catch?

i mean that'd be a bit much don't you think?

[gloriousmonsters]

Being like "I don't think Su She is meant to be a foil for Lan Wangji" as if he's not *defined* in the story by being compared to Lan Wangji. Like how obvious can it get?

What more do you want him to do? Show up in a shadow mask wearing all black like he's the very concept of persona, the shadow self, literally predicting and mirroring all of lwj's moves to the point he's honestly unnerved by it but disappearing like he was never there the moment he's close enough to catch?

i mean that'd be a bit much don't you think?

[gloriousmonsters]

meet you at the blossom is possibly the closest i've ever come to a wonderfully trashy erotic romance tailored to me specifically because the first third is like 'what if incredibly problematic sex every five minutes' and the rest consists of 'what if you developed fibromyalgia and beautiful men were devastated to learn this and regretted ever being mean to you and scoured the land to find you a cure'.

[gloriousmonsters]

What Art We Sticker by GrandpasSwamp

[gloriousmonsters]

guy who wins at poker not by being stoic but by bursting into tears every time he looks at his cards, just full hysterical breakdown every round and you gotta peer through the void of theatre kid problems to figure it out

[gloriousmonsters]

i am once again thinking about the genuine ease and earnest sincerity with which xue yang claims su she as his friend in cql

[gloriousmonsters]

2024 is a terrible year to be a henchman. The word "minion" is barely usable and you can't even say "goon" anymore.

[gloriousmonsters]

SU SHE

[gloriousmonsters]

the most annoying stage of burnout is when i want to write, and i have the urge to write, and somewhere in my skull are the words that want to be written, but they have to get through the cursed minotaur maze first and nobody remembered to bring string

[gloriousmonsters]

I like to think that the Moling Su sect was actually reasonably well-regarded among the commoners, and that's why the Lans were so salty about it, lol

Despite his poor reputation among the gentry, Su She sure didn't seem to have any difficulty recruiting non-gentry to join his sect. He's always surrounded by a bunch of disciples who are all very loyal to him! The Lan Sect's party line that the Su Sect was just a second-rate knockoff certainly wasn't deterring commoners from signing up! If the Su Sect had just been an obscure flop sect that nobody else wanted to join, do you really think the Lans would have bothered to hassle Su She about it?

But despite everything Su She had going against him, the sect he built up was actually successful, and that's why the Lans were so mad.