#4Kingdoms

[four-kingdom-em]

Here is Leonardo! A main character of this story! The destined King of Hykoo!

So glad to get the ball rolling in actually getting all the main characters drawn ^^

[misdre]

me, who barely gets any writing done these days to begin with: [compiles a huge list of prompts/tropes to write as reimax oneshots] this is SO gonna happen

[misiwrites]

i should be in bed already but had to stick to my word (to myself) of updating today also so here i am

max is not having a good day. again. in fact his days are becoming worse

Chapter 89: Genbu-ou XXIII A spasm startled me awake. I blinked, vision blurry, mind in a haze. I was on the carpet, on my stomach, and it took a good minute of racking my brain to remember why. Beside me sat two computers with their screens propped up, one with the unfinished notes for a report due tomorrow, the other with a newsfeed filled with headlines about all the weather abnormalities – excessive flooding, record summer snowfalls, the world had gone all kinds of crazy lately. I considered continuing the report, then slammed the computer flat against the floor, my interest waning – with a headache building, I could hardly process a single word. I rolled over to my back and stared at the night sky in the ceiling, deep and dark, shrouded in clouds with the yellow sickle of the crescent Moon. It was spinning anticlockwise ever so slowly.

[misireads]

Sang by Elina Pitkäkangas

[ physical book, read in finnish ]

a story set in a fictional rendition of east asia that follows an orphan boy who, together with his brother, works as a bianfu -- a sort of black market ninja courier who's also able to use qi powers to create a "bridge", a psychic connection with other living creatures.

in the relentless post-apocalyptic world they live in, every person gets a smartwatch permanently attached to their wrist at young age, and the watch not only embodies a person's value as a human being but also records their every movement to the government internet (or skynet, literally) plus comes with the delightful feature of burdening every citizen with a national debt that they have to pay off before turning 20 or they'll be sent to this world's equivalent of gulags.

unable to pay his debt, the story starts off with the main character's brother going into hiding and forcing the little brother to partner with a stranger for some work errand instead. the stranger ends up taking him on a personal vengeance trip where she murders some merchant guy, then gets caught and proceeds to rat him out as a partner in crime almost immediately. for punishment, he's sold to be trained as an elite soldier to protect the royal family of a foreign country, led by a cruel matriarch who doesn't give a shit about human lives and loves torturing the soldiers for entertainment.

the main character decides to endure the training in order to eventually reunite with his brother, who has at this point been sent off to the slave camp. he ends up befriending one of the princesses and gets caught up in crazy court drama.

🦅🐯🌩️

➕ SIGHS what a difficult book to assess again. i'll go with the obvious pluses: it's fantasy with a lot of worldbuilding, love that. and a lot of the fantasy worldbuilding draws from the real world mixed with mythology, fantastic. it includes several fictional countries with their own cultures and languages, wow tell me more. and though the main influence is china, the main character is clearly from a fictional version of tibet (edit: actually in the acknowledgments the author mentions nepal so maybe it wasn't tibet like i thought.), and other characters are from other east asian countries if you pay enough attention. though i would have preferred if the story were a bit more explicit about whether this is like a post-apocalyptic version of our world far in the future, or if it's just an alternate fantasy version altogether. it seems to hint that a world war and an environmental disaster in the past destroyed the old version of the world, but then there aren't enough references to a place named china ever having existed instead of fusang, so.

➕ there's queer romance. or more like just queer drama but anyway, i respect any fantasy story where things other than heteronormativity exist

➕ i guess i'll give this a plus for being unpredictable. truly i never could tell where the fuck any of the events were leading me

➖ aaand now i'm gonna be a sack of pessimistic shit for a bit again. i have two main reasons for not liking this book very much; one is 100% petty, one is more sensible i think. starting with the petty thing: this fucking book reminds me way too much of my 4kingdoms and renders it impossible for me to like, because i don't in fact enjoy reading something that feels like it's been copied from my fic even though i don't actually think it's copied because that's frankly impossible. the PoV is obviously different, but this takes place in a world ruled by four royal families named and designed after the four symbols of chinese mythology. i'm aware it's not that rare a source to draw inspiration from in any fiction related to china but that doesn't make me like it any more. there's just no way for me to look at this objectively and in any way feel good about it. i'm aware i maybe should? like yaay a real ass finnish fantasy novel that uses all these elements i like so much that i use them in my own fanfic!!! but i'm not that kind of good-hearted person. i'm an annoyed kind of petty person who hated reading it all. also by the way, in addition to this being a shounen-ass story in general, the main characer's name is kong dawei and he has thunder magic powers. like. you know. a certain kon rei i know

➖ second reason i don't like this: it's just not written very well. even though this book is heavy on visceral violence, the writing is flat and straightforward enough to give it a juvenile sound fitting a book for teens. it's not bad or anything, just that it reads like a script for a television show, it's not exactly a work of finnish word art. the writing is also extremely exposition-heavy, very light on the "show, don't tell" department. but in addition to all that, it took me almost the whole book to put my finger on why exactly the story wasn't resonating with me -- i mean apart from the aforementioned 4kingdoms reason because there are many good things in here too, and it is entirely possible for me to also look at it while ignoring the fic-related discomfort, and yet i still didn't like it. the plot meanders a lot and with it comes the problem of there really being no story arc to speak of. starting from the beginning, it was really difficult for me to think of a summary of what this is exactly about. because it's about the main character ending up in situations against his will and. ending up in some more situations. a lot is happening, but i think too MUCH is happening, actually. something is happening too much, all the time, without the main character having much agency over it. there are points in the story that you think will be the pivotal moment that spurs the rest of the story in motion… and then another moment comes that you again think is the pivotal moment, and another. and ultimately most turn out to be inconsequential, because these things just happen and you could take probably half of them out and it wouldn't affect the progression of the story all that much, except that the MC maybe wouldn't end up in the next situation where he has no agency again. it's just a whumping fest where we break break break the character so that he can angst and angst some more. it's exhausting and makes the story difficult to wrap your head around. the author is probably a shounen anime fan and packed the book full of those tropes, because shounen is so full of hard battles that leave the characters gravely injured but then they just heal like it's nothing and continue on to the next fight and stuff. i'm probably being too harsh here but that's how i felt reading this honestly

➖ what in turn was TOO "show, don't tell" was the system of magic powers in this world. dawei can go on and on describing some detail in the universe but how and why exactly he and some other people here have supernatural powers is just "and then i channeled my qi and it flowed in my meridians". or he sees a god in his dream and is suddenly able to summon thunder. dude WHAT? what is the framework for this??? bro.

➖ actually i have a third major problem and that's the main character. it's not that he's unlikable, but he's just a bit too perfect in that shounen protag way where he can be hurt and hurt and hurt and yet he comes out being this perfect warrior who again out-does himself in the next scene, and all the good guys like him and all the bad guys dislike him. also, the author has given him way too many people to care about/be his main motivation in the story. there's the brother who's like super duper important, but then there's the boyfriend (and later, a new crush) who is super duper important. but then there's the orphanage that's super duper important, but oh there's the hawk that's super duper uber important to him. when you have too many of those things fighting for the character's attention, you end up with me not resonating with any of it much. absolutely the author should have stuck to just one thing, two things max that are most important to him. also^2, unlike most shounen heroes, dawei is already skilled at the beginning of the story. there's no real sense of payoff in his soldier training at the royal castle because he's just great at fighting already. i think this story would have benefited if it started earlier on the timeline and introduced us to how dawei learned to fight, how he worked as a bianfu, his everyday life with his brother (but the book is already 500 pages long so clearly it's already stretching it as is). oh also he randomly gets even more powerful because some fucking god randomly connects with him for no real reason other than that he's just somehow special for suffering so much and so very talented and good without doing anything for it as far as i know

➖ way too many drops of random chinese words all the time. extremely weeaboo and leaves most readers scratching their heads

⭐ score: 3½ -- i thought i would like this more than i did, but it's still a three and a half because i did go on a 500-page journey with this book and it rewarded me with a rich world full of interesting details, and i liked that the main character returned to his home at the end because i really love stories that close a loop like that. the end is a cliffhanger because there's a sequel. i don't think i want to bully myself more by reading it

[cosplayandcorsets]

A couple photos of the Christmas immersive costumes during production. As well as quite possiblely my favourite 4 seconds of the entire 2 hour experience. Totally not what I thought the hoods would be used for while I was making them!! . In other news I have 2 new cosplays that I am currently making and cant wait to share them soon!! . . . .#costumier #costume #costumedesigner #costumeproduction #patterndrafting #patterncutting #rainbowdress #candyswirl #plastazote #plastazoteprops #plastazotefoam #props #art #costumedesign #christmasimmersive #christmas #4kingdomsadventurepark #4kingdoms #artistsoninstagram #artist #cosplay #cosplayer #cosplaysofinstagram #petticoat #elf #elfcostume #actors #inproduction #acting #toyfactory (at 4 Kingdoms Adventure Park) https://www.instagram.com/p/B63nyJwhOhi/?igshid=1aexp1g1yevr5

[luxmoogle]

Lux I'm gonna need more info here lol what trailer?

KINGDOM HEARTS 4 KINGDOM HEARTS 4 KINGDOM HEARTS 4 KINGDOM HEARTS 4 KINGDOM HEARTS 4 KINGDOM HEARTS 4KINGDOM HEARTS 4 KINGDOM HEARTS 4 KINGDOM HEARTS 4KINGDOM HEARTS 4 KINGDOM HEARTS 4 KINGDOM HEARTS 4

(Trailer on the official KH YouTube:)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2DSEkYFRh8

[kuroinana]

used this picrew to make the BBA team in Genshin Impact and all of sudden it was giving major 4kingdoms (by @misdre) vibes

[yngrid-py-blog]

Deus é o grande Juiz, que tem todo direito de julgar, porque Ele é sempre justo. Mas nós devemos tomar cuidado com julgamentos, porque podemos errar. Quem condena outra pessoa pode estar condenando a si mesmo! Prefira a empatia e o amor, para esses atributos não há condenação. #4kingdom #labels #rotulos https://www.instagram.com/p/BwYQLn0Bctb/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=l06h8jgyoq6a

[lookhack]

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[four-kingdom-em]

I figured out the gist of the ruling crown last week? How about I put them on the actual rulers of Dagenhold 💀

I can say that the perspective and dimension of the crown on the head was so much harder than I thought 💀

Regardless, here’s three generations of the Ruler of Dagenhold! King Adonis 🦚, Queen Astrid 🎶, and Queen Rosetta 🌹 :)

[misdre]

hmm....... the relationship tags for kyouju on AO3.......

i have some... questions.. (and i was looking for a takao & kyouju friendship tag but there's only one for kai & kyouju...?!?!?)

[misiwrites]

i said i would do another update this week, so here it is. a shortie about kai. (it's for building up the suspense, y'all)

Chapter 85: Suzaku-ou IX I stared at the ocean, at the never-ending crimson march of the waves below. I counted the rhythm of their foaming crests that rose and fell like a beating heart, kept staring until I realised I was chewing on the nib of my pen. I tasted metal and the salt of the ocean on my dry tongue.

[mosthack]

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[fewhack]

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[helphack]

New Video Games Trick Updates March 30, 2021 at 03:10PM

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[jailhack]

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