#and i just love that homophobia didn't have to be the central plot point

[darklinaforever]

Well... People are aware that if some are not happy that Michael becomes Michaela and do not want Sophie to also become an individual of the opposite sex, therefore a man, for Benedict... well that's nothing have with homophobia ?

It's quite simply that we cared and care about these characters that are Michael Stirling and Sophie Beckett ?

Personally, I don't care if Benedict is bi. Who didn't suspect it after season 1 ? It didn't shock me at all.

But it's not because he is confirmed bi that some people should suddenly hope that Sophie becomes a man ?! For what ?! Sophie is a great female character ! And I don't want anyone to touch it ! At this point, I've been waiting for years for the Sophie in the book to meet the Benedict in the show (because I find the one in the book bland...). There is the potential for a great love story !

Look, I really understand the desire for representation, but there are other shows for that if you want !

Limit, if Bridgerton wanted queer characters, they could invent or take secondary characters for that ! Brimsley and Reynolds were excellent ! After all, they fill this show with a pretty unnecessary subplot ! They could have completely made up this type of plot which for the most part would have been much more interesting !

Moreover, Benedict could very well have had adventures with men during seasons 1 and 2 instead of always making him change female partners until making him have a threesome with another man, just before the season or he is supposed to marry a woman. No because if this is supposed to be a real arc of discovery and exploration for Benedict... well that's pretty damn botched.

It's almost like it's basically there to just confirm the suspicions about Benedict's bisexuality that have been there since the beginning of the show. There is no real discovery and really in-depth exploration. It's like it's there just to be there.

Again, it would have been much better, if the goal was really to have Benedict discover more about his sexuality, to see him explore it in previous seasons. Or simply from part 1 of season 3 and not just in part 2 ?

And obviously the people who are super happy about that (which is to their credit even if I don't think it was very well written) some want Sophie to become a man and... I clearly say no.

As much Michael we will say that I can accept it, because it makes (technically) sense since Francesca as a widow will not be obliged to marry again m, and I imagine that in this scenario she will surely succeed in having a son by John / fall pregnant shortly before he died so that she could continue to live peacefully in security and then experience her second romance with Michaela to represent the second chance in true love. On the other hand, I imagine that we will lose all this desire for motherhood that Francesca had in the book which had particularly touched me, but we will see what they will write to compensate. Until then I I really like Francesca from the show after all, so we'll see ! And then, I never deprive myself of a good romance between two women, so if it's done well I would surely appreciate it. But nothing will match Franchael's original story in my heart... They were objectively the best Bridgerton romance, as well as the best book. So it’s a real shame not to see it adapted for the screen.

But the central fact is ; Why touch on central romances for beginning ?

Once again, this has nothing to do with homophobia for the most part, but simply the fact of caring about these characters who basically come from the books.

My god, are you aware that some people who didn't want Michael to change sex or don't want the same thing to happen to Sophie are members of the queer community ?!

The thing is, I really hope Sophie doesn't get changed into a man. She is the best female character in the books for me and I don't want to lose her.

[clay-cuttlefish]

Finishing out post-Crisis continuity on all Renee's highest notes. I miss her (characterization that was outdated by more than a decade before I started reading)

The Question #37

I am going to eat this.

Shiva and Renee are great here, I love how they both work with the theme of rebirth, but it's Tot's driving emotion being greed that makes this issue so critical to me. He's so consistently restrained, the sensible one to Vic and Renee's burning curiosity, and that facade completely shattering to show that he's just as driven to find answers as they are? Chef's kiss.

Tot is the first person to ever shoot Shiva. David Cain has nothing on the power of old man lunacy.

"Charlie, son... Goodbye..." UNHINGED.

The absolute Question dream team on this one: Dennis O'Neil and Greg Rucka on writing, Denys Cowan on pencils, Bill Sienkiewicz on inks, even Cully Hamner doing the cover.

IT'S THE FIVE HUNDREDTH ISSUE TOO???

I don't have the words so please imagine me biting my hand because the normal chewing stim is not powerful enough to vent the feelings.

It helps/worsens the feelings that this is a single issue with no buildup that comes after a few bad minor appearances and Final Crisis, so I've let my guard down.

Pipeline Chapter One (Tec #854-858)

Into Pipeline now. It's not technically a Renee solo, but it's about miniseries length.

She's got a website! And takes cases!

It's nice to have a return to the classic Question staples of being nosy, fighting thugs, trying to help the vulnerable, and getting shot. Good to end up in the river sometimes, yknow? Not everything can be grand evils and crisis events.

The Eighth Deadly Sin (Batman Annual 27, Tec Annual 11)

Dick is way less uptight about getting help than Bruce, so he calls her in to help with a case.

Not important or anything but it's a good time.

GO (Tec #859-860)

Renee's first relationship with Kate, and their first breakup.

Pipeline Chapter Two (Tec #859-865)

Helena!

Renee and Helena reminiscing over Vic is very sweet. It's nice that he's still important to Helena despite how badly it ended.

Nobody tells either of them anything about the superhero community, apparently.

Love that Renee's broke. Charlie left her a lighthouse and Tot's fairly well off but she doesn't have private jet money.

I like that it calls back to 52 with Veronica Cale before following up on Revelations.

"I believe in friendship." I LOVE YOUUUU

The most powerful forces in the world are friendship and also gay longing.

All the Rage (Tec Annual #12, Batman Annual #28)

I don't like this plot at all, but this is important for Renee bearing the Mark of Cain - it doesn't get followed up on in anything else.

Paralleling the Mark with the double Venus scar Renee has from Gotham Central as two scars that provoke religious rejection.

It's wild to me that I didn't come across this the first time I did my Renee reading. I had interpreted the ending of Pipeline as ambiguous, and her appearance in Convergence without it to mean she never received it, but that's just not at all true.

Extending the metaphor here Dick is a kind of insensitive but generally well-meaning lesbian ally. That checks out.

Generally she's written fine in this. Not amazing but it's solid and it gets the point across.

Marked Woman (Tec Annual #12)

The real Mark of Cain was internalized homophobia the whole time, and the reason she's able to bear it is because she's learned to accept herself.

Adding transformative queer self-acceptance to the list of the most powerful forces in the world.

Hostile Takeover (Birds of Prey #12-13)

Important note: the Question that Helena calls Q as a cute pet name in the comics is Renee. IIRC the only person who calls Vic Q is Ted. Make of this what you will.

Slight variation on the drowning motif - Renee only ends up in the sewer for a moment, but Helena goes apeshit and tries to drown a guy in it, so it counts.

"Our first date." "*Snerk.* Shut up. Nerd." This is just fully gay. They are dating.

It actually pisses me off that this is such a promising setup. I'd be able to handle the New 52 more if Renee was left off right after the Mark of Cain arc, I might be able to convince myself it works as an open-ended "and the adventure continues" for her, but no I have to live with the knowledge she was going to be on the Birds of Prey and be adorable with Helena and then DC blew everyone up.

Guess I'll go fuck myself then.

Danger Drive (Batman 80-Page Giant 2011)

Sneaking in just under the reboot, it's... basically just that time Vic punched the Riddler, but with a different terrible Riddler outfit and a Jeopardy theme. Well. That's disappointing.

If I was less masochistic I'd end the project here, but if I was less masochistic I wouldn't have started it in the first place.

[mediaevalmusereads]

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous. By Ocean Vuong. Penguin, 2019.

Rating: 4/5 stars

Genre: literary fiction

Series: N/A

Summary: On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born — a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam — and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one's own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard.

***Full review below.***

CONTENT WARNINGS: child abuse, wartime PTSD, bullying, spousal abuse, animal cruelty, drug use, blood, sexual content, abortion, homophobia, racism, cancer

OVERVIEW: I always want to read more than one work by an author, so I decided to follow up some of Vuong's poetry with his novel. I didn't really know what to expect going in, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much enjoyed this. Perhaps it was the blend of memory and imagination that appealed to me, perhaps the meeting of memoir and lyricism. There was something captivating about this book, so it gets 4 stars from me.

WRITING: Vuong's prose is very lyrical to the point where I felt like I was reading more of Vuong's poetry. Sometimes, Vuong would be straightforward, but oftentimes, he would get lost in little details and abstraction, making the book feel somewhat dreamy and concrete at the same time. I thought this style worked well with exploring themes like memory and trauma, which themselves can produce a kind of haziness.

But if I'm being honest, there were also moments when I thought the lyricism got away from Vuong. This might be my personal preference, so take it with a grain of salt. I already struggle with modern poetry, so I have a bias.

But even so, I found this book moving and melancholy and beautiful. It moved swiftly enough so I didn't feel bogged down, but also lingered on ideas and feelings long enough where I felt like they were explored fully.

PLOT: There's not really a plot to this book in the strictest sense. The "story" is that of a twenty-something year old Vietnamese-American man who sits down to write a letter to his mother. The letter contains memories of his youth and meditations on things such as family, trauma, memory, beauty, and so on, moving through the difficulties (and joys) of growing up as a queer immigrant.

I recall listening to a talk from Vuong in which he says part of this book (how large a part I cannot say) is taken from his own life experiences. There were moments that read more like memoir or autobiography than fiction, and in that way, some of the complicated emotions rang true. The complex relationship between Little Dog and his mother, for example, felt like it encapsulated so many facets of immigrant and queer family. There was real hurt, but also real understanding, making it an insightful exploration of cycles of abuse and how one finds moments of true connection.

TL;DR: On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a melancholy yet hopeful look at life as a young queer immigrant, exploring what it means to carry memories with you and to find beauty in the brief time we're alive.

CHARACTERS: Evaluating characters feels a little odd to me because I'm not sure to what degree this book is autobiographical. Little Dog seems to share a lot of traits and experiences with Vuong, but I don't want to assume they are the same or that they are completely different. The same is true of Little Dog's mother and various other family members and friends. I just don't want to potentially say anything that could come across as a comment on real people.

I will say, though, that I liked the way Vuong made characters feel complex. Little Dog's mother is at once hard working, caring, and hurtful, and though it's easy to think I'll of her, to Little Dog, she's a kind of anchor he's always reaching for. Trevor, Little Dog's first love, is similarly complex, being tender but also rough and American - shaped by his own struggles with an alcoholic father and drug addiction.

I guess what I appreciate most is that Vuong (and Little Dog) always approaches his characters with compassion and sees them for who they are. He sees the good, bad, and ugly, and though life isn't easy for Little Dog, there is a sense that it is precious and worth living.

[marley-manson]

Finished it and really enjoyed it. Normally I'd roll my eyes at a show with a majority female cast very pointedly in roles/archetypes that usually go to men also being all about misogyny and patriarchy, BUT the show was a) funny and irreverent enough that it wasn't a downer for me the way it usually is, and b) I really enjoyed the gender politics overall.

Like I feel like they did a good job keeping it non-essentialist and focused on social power dynamics (give or take like one detail that mildly annoyed me but is also a minor spoiler so I'll mention it below). Plus it was nuanced enough for me - it wasn't just about misogyny, racism/colonialism and homophobia were major issues as well, and women were also antagonists on those points.

Adored the dynamic between Eddie and Dulcie, it was almost HarryKim-esque lol, and god what a good dynamic for two women. They had great chemistry, sex jokes continued throughout, I adore Eddie's like, entire presence to pieces and even Dulcie was extremely likeable to me, much more than most straitlaced foils to epic energetic weirdos (Kim also being a notable exception lol.)

Also basically every single character on the show was great, from the protags to the antags to everyone in between. Just excellent fun character writing, not a single person on this show who detracted from my enjoyment.

And now a few spoilers, not for the central mystery but for one fairly early plot reveal, a few little details and scenes, and all the lesbian relationship stuff.

Tragically, the wives didn't divorce after all 😭 I absolutely did not buy their reconciliation. Even more tragic, Eddie like, fucking reveals that she's fucked women before and is potentially down to fuck more right after they get back together???? Like wow way to dig in the knife, show.

To be fair since it seems Dulcie and Cath have essentially just swapped which one's gonna be miserable with their lifestyle in season 2, I still have hope that their marriage is gonna end. What I really want is for Dulcie to cheat again - and speaking of holy shit did I love the reveal that she cheated with her last partner and quit her last job to appease Cath. And she clearly still has a crush on that woman as well, as seen when speaking to her on the phone?

Like I cannot emphasize enough how doomed this marriage is, I just hope the show knows it. Especially since I checked ao3 and there's only 3 pages of fic, and most of it is poly which I am not about. On the plus side the majority is actually explicit, which is wild for an f/f fandom, fucking nice.

Anyway despite hating their relationship I do like Cath as a character lol, she's shitty which is a good thing for endearing her to me, and also really funny, and I think she should have a gf who like, has similar interests and also wants to live on a farm and raise animals for a living, while Dulcie plows Eddie into next week in the big city.

The one detail that jumped out to me as irritatingly gender essentialist, btw, and this is the minor early spoiler, is the recurring discussion of male vs female serial killers and how they used that to help solve the case. Like to be fair even that seemed largely grounded in social dynamics, but like the poison thing??? Can a man not drug murder victims just to make things easier for him? Does it have to be a girl thing? Come on. I will say though that they at least made a joke about those male vs female profiles being outdated, even if they're still annoyingly relevant. So yk, some self awareness is shown. (this is not a spoiler, they go back and forth several times wrt the killer's gender but the drugging is always framed as a girl killer thing regardless of their current theory)

Also since I've spoiled that it's about a serial killer, I want to add that I loooooved the narrative's attitude towards a spree of murders with cis white male victims. It felt like an ideal balance of like, rote condemnation (yeah murder is bad, the protags are dedicated to finding the murderer even if it turns out to be a man-hating lesbian, it makes things worse for everyone in the town, the whole final episode, etc) while also indulging in the visceral satisfaction of men being the victims instead of women. The irreverence towards the victims, the scene where the mayor loses her filter in a panic and is like, 'hey maybe this town is actually the safest place for everyone who isn't a white cis dude, ever think of that?' lmao, or even just the scene in the first episode where Dulcie mentions finding a naked body over the phone to her superior and he automatically assumes the victim is a woman and has to be corrected.

The reactionary, perfectly pathetic response from the conservative men of the town was also pitch perfect. The fucking reclaim the night march lmao? There's such an air of awareness that their demographic being specifically targeted by a serial killer is a major anomaly and their reaction is disproportionate and silly, and basically just an excuse to try to reclaim power in the town. Felt very of the moment.

There are definitely a few nitpicks to be made about the politics, especially wrt some of the cop show elements but like, it is a cop show, you set your expectations accordingly. Point is I had a good time with what it had to say and how entertainingly it said it.

So yeah, basically loved the show, hope season 2 is good too and if Dulcie and Cath don't break up, they at least keep teasing Dulcie/Eddie and making graphic gay sex jokes about them.

decided to watch Deadloch on a whim after seeing like 2 gifsets of Eddie looking like a fun character, knowing absolutely nothing about the show, and was instantly rewarded with surprise lesbian sex 👍

(Between the main character and her wife, not the buddy cops, buuuut they're having marriage issues and there's fun chemistry and many sex jokes between her and Eddie so the vibes are excellent and i'm having a great time so far)

[stacydenovo]

Why does every show have to be big and complex? Why does every show have to be realistic, AND relatable to everyone? Why does every show have to have tragedy and angst and endless heartache? Why does every show have to have endless sex? Is it not enough for the show to be sweet and kind and optimistic and bright and cheerful and cute?

[winxwannabe]

why do you hate the netflix show? i'm genuinely curious, as my wife adores it and was also a huge fan of the animated series growing up.

I mean the TL:DR of it is I just think it's a bad show. I found the pacing strange, I didn't like half the characters so it was hard to root for them, Season 1's plot was so awkwardly paced it was boring, but in Season 2 there were like 3 different plot points per episode and I found them hard to get invested in. The LONG answer: my 3 biggest problems with the show were (!):

The blatant racism/whitewashing

This is pretty self-explanatory and I've gone over it before , so I'll keep it brief; the show's whitewashing was the biggest turnoff for me. Musa and the fake out Flora (because Eliot Sal WAS originally Flora, hope whoever made that change got a bonus) were awful, and then the treatment of Dane and Aisha's characters sucked (being taken advantage of by Riven and turning into a huge asshole, and Aisha being turned into Bloom's life coach). We got a little more diversity in Season 2, but by then it read more as a response to backlash than anything else. Same with Dane and Aisha; Aisha gives a little speech in Season 2's first episode where she says she's done being Bloom's life coach, and then proceeds to get a boyfriend who's secretly evil and lies to her all season. And Dane acts like an asshole for 2 scenes before he's shoved to the side as a supporting character.

2. Homophobia

Again, recap from my last rant; Season 1 was very straight. The Bloom/Sky/Stella love triangle took center stage, the only non-straight character was Dane, who I'm 90% sure was bisexual but we'll never know because not once in Fate: The Winx Saga does anyone say the word 'bisexual.' The closest we get is Dane saying he finds both Riven and Stormy Beatrix hot. But Dane, Riven, and Beatrix turn into this awful polyamory thing that goes on for like an episode and a half before it breaks up, and it's never spoken of again. Season 2 gives up an openly lesbian character, Terra, but her love interest (a female specialist whose name I don't remember) is in her own on-again-off-again relationship. Terra and the girl do get together, but last the audience knew the relationship was on! So Terra gets a girlfriend, but said girlfriend is a cheater. Gay rights? oh, and #JusticeforFrancesa

Those are the serious reasons, and with those out of the way I would argue the other really big reason I didn't like Fate was

3. THERE IS NO FRIENDSHIP

At the end of the day you can take away magic, the Specialists, and a lot of supporting characters from the show because the core of it - the reason Winx Club works so well - is because these six girls are best friends. The show is about them going through school and breakups and universe-saving together, and kicking ass at it because they have each others back. It is the show's central theme, it's where the best writing is, and where some of its best moments come from (for me at least).

Fate...does not do that. They started the series out making Sky the one to show Bloom around Alfea and introduce her to things instead of Stella, sidelining one of the strongest friendships in the series for the sake of a love triangle. And it only goes downhill from there! I get the whole 'take an episode or two to figure out where we stand as friends' but by the end of the 1st season these bitches are still fighting over the dumbest shit! We start out Season 2 with Stella using invisibility spells again so she's not seen with the other girls - I don't even think Stella likes any of them by the end of the series! Sure everyone goes to classes and plans dangerous missions to save the world together, but outside of that it doesn't seem like they even like each other. There are moments sprinkled throughout where they're supposed to be genuine friends, and they're easily some of fate's best stuff (the car scene in 2x01 is an example). But they're also awkward, because 20 minutes ago they were sulking in their rooms and yelling at each other about their lack of communication. They aren't deserved is the point I'm trying to get at here, and the only way they do feel deserved is if you a) already know their friendship dynamic because you watched the animated series, or b) you follow the actors on social media, where they actually talk and hang out like best friends.

The strongest friendship in this entire series isn't any of the girls - it's fucking Sky and Riven. Because they were pre-established best friends, had arguments throughout season 1, but by the end of season 2 had come back together because the world was in danger, and they both knew despite everything, that they would have each other's backs. Do you know how badly you have to fuck up, where one half of your best friendship is the queerphobic, predatory asshole character, and the other half is a slice of untoasted Wonder Bread?

Do you know how mad Riven would have been if Sky went to not-Omega with Bloom in the season 2 finale? He would have been fucking pissed and ordering everyone to a classroom to give his 30-slide power point on how to get them back within 3 days. Meanwhile Bloom doesn't actually say goodbye to the Winx girls, she just writes them letters and says goodbye to Sky in person (because it is well established that Bloom and Sky's romance is more important than the girl's friendship, let's be honest). And then girls are all hugging and Stella's crying that Bloom's gone and I just thought 'you spent more time with Beatrix than Bloom this season Stella, why the fuck are you sad.'

This is all a longwinded way to say the central theme of friendship was pushed aside for CW-style romance, which made the core cast of girls unable to connect, which made the show bad.

Fate had the same overall runtime as a single season of Winx Club. Later seasons are bad, don't get me wrong, but those original 2004-2007 seasons had twice the character moments, more concise plots, and felt way more fun than anything I saw Brian Young put out these last few years. I would watch an original season (and even season 4! sue me!) any day over Fate the W inx Saga.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk, and probably don't show your wife this.

[whetstonefires]

*Pokemon trainer voice* P&P/MDZS fusion, I choose you! Hope you are having lovely days 😊💜

Halsdsadf the triangle is complete.

Okay, now, honestly this one is not so much fun as the Naruto nonsense.

I already went through Jiang Fengmian and Mr. Bennett, so we've got that. Though Yu Ziyuan's many differences from Mrs. Bennett would change a lot right out the gate.

Now, Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan already have their own little fairly normal period romance, complete with the Essential Darcy Element where he realizes he's been a dick and works on himself.

If you moved this to an Austen setting, though, it wouldn't be P&P it'd be a Regency AU of them, as they are, with their own particular characters, and if you made them less themselves to hit the beats of Pride & Prejudice then what literally is the point. Yanli is, after all, as is the entire way we wound up in this situation, more like Jane. Jin Zixuan is even kind of like if Bingley were way richer and a dick!

Admittedly the image of Jin Guangyao and Mo Xuanyu sabotaging Jiang Yanli's chances and scheming to marry Lan Wangji (and Lan Xichen?) is very funny, so let's move on to main character is main character and try to imagine Wangxian P&P.

It's been done. I don't think I've read it, it's not...very interesting? To me. Because the central dramas of each are so character and culture dependent that it would be a lot of work to meaningfully mash them up.

The obstacles the Wangxian romance faces are 1) homophobia 2) the plot and 3) their personalities; there is of course a lot of fic based on the entertainment value of dismissing points 1 and 2 in favor of elaborating further on 3, which is what you'd have to be doing in a P&P AU.

And they do have the right basic character setup, if you just make the Jiang nobodies, with the sunshine/aloof snob pairing, and Lan Zhan looking down on Wei Wuxian and making a hostile first impression but falling in love anyway but having to go through character development to have a chance, etc., but like....

Pride and Prejudice is intensely gendered, and while you can to an extent detach the gender roles from gender itself for narrative purposes I'm just not that inspired by positing a Wei Wuxian who's under immense sociological pressure to marry well.

That's such a major character point, it's like--god, I can deal with it in characters who are built into that box to begin with, but into it cramming someone whose canonical situation is already being bad at remaining inside even the far more generous and exciting boxes he was adopted into puts me into a state of severe anxiety. What is the overall worldstate that Wei Wuxian is in Elizabeth Bennett's situation? Don't like that.

And the thing is, as soon as he isn't under those constraints, the plot of P&P collapses. If he has the option of going off and becoming a rogue cultivator, or selling talismans, or becoming an inventor--

The dynamic between Elizabeth and Darcy hinges upon the fact of her enforced dependency.

This isn't a condemnation of the relationship, it's a fact of the historical context and one of Austen's key recurring themes in her careful realism. Elizabeth is legally and practically defined as a financial dependent.

Darcy's presumption that she'll accept the Proposal That Manages To Be Worse Than Collins' Somehow isn't based just on his high self-opinion and misunderstanding of their time together recently but on the known fact that she needs to marry, and marry well, and the idea that even if she didn't like him (which he thinks she does, at least a little) he is strategically irresistible.

Lan Wangji believing himself strategically irresistible to Wei Wuxian and being wrong is very funny, but the setup....

Like, Lizzie isn't not tackling problems like 'money' and 'lydia' head-on because she's too stupid or shy to think of it, but because within the constraints of her society anything overt she does will make the overall situation worse. Without her reputation she has nothing to trade on; she owes it to herself and her family to behave appropriately.

Wei Wuxian for all his headstrong urge to provoke and despite where he ends up also only truly steps outside the acceptable norms of his society at points of crisis and breakdown, at least in his first lifetime, but due to either character or socialization he does punch Jin Zixuan in a moment where a verbal evisceration would have been more appropriate and useful. His tendency toward outbursts of impropriety in fits of anger is load-bearing in his original canon and can't be readily divorced from his character, and Elizabeth does not really share it.

So even if we somehow construct a universe where Wei Wuxian owes it to the Jiangs to make no waves and find a good husband and has no other practical avenues open to him, which as I've covered makes my skin crawl, he's still almost definitely going to not just walk over to Netherfield alone to look after Yanli but wind up fighting the Bingley/Jins.

He does prioritize the needs of his sect and family over abstract righteousness and his personal satisfaction, as a default. He would try to be good.

A Wei Wuxian who had not already secretly ruined himself and destroyed his reputation would not have made the same choices at the Qiongqi Path prison camp, within the mdzs canon, although I think he'd still have acted recklessly in some way.

But like. Assuming Jiang Cheng is the one in a Lydia situation. (The only candidate for Wickham is Su She since he was expelled from the Lan for conduct unbecoming, but I cannot see him successfully seducing Jiang Cheng so you'd already need to make adjustments.) I do not think that even a very heavily gentlewoman-socialized Wei Wuxian would not go tearing off to involve himself in that, no matter how much he shouldn't.

So do we roughly follow the P&P plot up to that point? Do we let Elizabeth!Wwx somehow get Jiang Cheng away from whatever weird shit Su She has dragged him into and thereby save Yanli's marriage to Jin Zixuan but, like...fake his own death and wind up living in squalor in a bad part of London???

With, as we've discussed, no marketable skills unless we want the whole lead-up to be fundamentally different from P&P itself.

He kind of needs to have the Oliver Twist backstory template still to be him, so at least he unlike Elizabeth has survival experience to draw on, but that too would have changed the marriage-market energies, although in this case potentially for the more interesting because it would up the emotional stakes on 'not getting homeless.'

Not that I can see him accepting Mr. Collins ever lol. Who is that? Wen Chao is too dangerous despite his buffoonery to feel correct, but they're such different narratives...someone from the Mo family, maybe. Madam Mo lol. I'd say Jin Zixun but the Jins are already the Bingleys...

Anyway! And then Lan Zhan is fundamentally going to react in different ways than Darcy despite some similarities because Darcy's anxieties about his family and parents consist of 1) living up to his father's generally recognized excellence 2) living up to his general responsibilities to his lineage and dependents 3) Lady Catherine's expectations 4) Georgianna's wellbeing.

Older brother Lan Zhan is already a major character change, and younger brother Darcy is just not going to work; his position as sole inheritor of a vast estate is story-critical.

Lan Xichen might have to be Colonel Fitzwilliam because his being Georgianna is weird af, but of course making Georgianna Sizhui means losing the A-Yuan element from Wei Wuxian's end of the story, assuming we do just break from the plot and have him go Burial Mounds in London.

Jin Zixun and Wen Chao are probably involved in the inciting incident as well, somehow. I suppose he could kill them both?? A valid reason to fake your death but of course no one can know, if the scandal was in fact avoided.

This is getting so far away from Pride and Prejudice lol.

...probably Jin Zixun should be one of the Bingley sisters, freeing Meng Yao and his great personal charm up to share Wickham's role with Su She.

(Meaning Darcy's letting-the-dangerous-person-go-to-strike-again regret is shared over to whoever Nie Mingjue is in this scenario. He is the other Colonel Fitzwilliam candidate. I suppose we could just have 2 Fitzwilliam? Obviously Lan Qiren is Lady Catherine.)

Meng Yao seducing Jiang Cheng is less improbable than Su She doing it, though jc's just not silly enough for the actual Lydia plot to fly so there needs to be something more complicated going on and ofc Wen Chao should really be part of the problem. Also Wen Zhuliu.

ANYWAY it's not Lan Wangji if he doesn't have a complex about forced marriage, confinement, and taking after his father. Which means that even if we set up Dependent Gentlewoman Wei Wuxian with no major story deviations, he's not going to hit the exact same notes about marriage and family, and if he does hit the major beats he'll angst about it.

I like him writing the apology letter though. Lan Wangji's 'shit you're right I'm a bitch' letter would be something to read.

Now! Wangxian already has some of this gender and status shit. Despite being gay. Wei Wuxian is assigned bottom by the text. He winds up married into Lan Zhan's family, more or less. The issue of being dependent on unacceptable terms comes up. Wwx starts out as a dependent of the Jiang and intensely conscious of it, and this drives a number of interactions.

These period drama aspects are present in the book! Some of them are elements I don't like and influence my preference for some of the storytelling decisions in The Untamed even though I know those are largely censorship-driven, but they're very much there.

But you can't use them the same way as in Pride and Prejudice when the characters are not the same, even if you reshape the world to be closer to it.

P&P has had such an impact on the development of the entire romance genre and especially the modern 'period romance' (which has absolutely had extensive trope exchange between the Anglosphere and the Sinosphere) that Lizzie and Darcy almost certainly influenced Wangxian, though I've no notion how directly. Mxtx could have read all of Austen or have no idea who she is. In conclusion, P&P themed erotica would be much easier to compose than a proper P&P AU. I don't want it tho. ...the Pride and Prejudice cast in a sweeping cultivation drama was technically a direction I could have taken this prompt. This is another matter altogether and rather beyond my capabilities in this moment.

Lizzie's instrument is canonically the piano, which presents certain difficulties re: mobility of her zombie army.

[sotorubio]

Thank you so much for answering in depth but omg I totally forgot that Alexia and Arthur were a main couple. I completely repressed that. Yeah also not a good couple because of the cheating. I didn't left them out intentionally.

I definitely understand all the points you mention and agree!

I don't even remember much of elus conflict in later seasons (haven't watched watched the seasons, just kept an eye on it). I remember there was a lot of drama and a kiss? And misscommunication I think. Have the grown from it?

And I am also not that on the Basile Hype train. But he is a good bf to Daphne.

You probably have talked about it before but do you think the other skams manage their romance better? Like davenzi, crisana..? Especially in concern to if they are a healthy couple etc.

Would you consider all evaks instalove? Because their relationship is very fast moving forward?

OMG ANON RELATABLE we should all repress the hell out of alexia & arthur lbr smdjskjd n don't worry i didn't think they were intentionally left out i just assumed they weren't worth mentioning smhflshdkd

understandable! the main conflict w elu esp in s6 was lucas being a bit hostile toward lola while eliott was friends w her, he was "jealous" & afraid lola n eliott would "drag each other down" bc they're both mentally ill, that was a looot of drama (which is a whole another convo abt the ableism of the situation...) also lucas was self conscious in arthur's season bc "eliott has more options" & eliott had a weird speech abt ✨acceptable cheating✨ which was kind of a inner conflict for Lucas but we never saw eliott's reaction to that as far as i know. which was actually the main problem all these would've been great talking points but they were all "solved" (aka everything was suddenly fine n it was never mentioned again) off-screen, so have they grown from it? well that's the message the show wanted to send but we literally never saw them grow or even solve these things so.. also somehow the kiss did in fact exist but was a none issue bc i guess eliott kissing underage girls is just fine by lucas 😗

i definitely think the other remakes (at least españa w viri x hugo, norandro & crisana and druck's couples especially davenzi) have much better development on that part & most importantly they maintain those relationships well! my favorite example is the problems cris n joana have continued to have irt joana's MI bc they show that it's not always easy n they r a complex couple but they present it so healthy! cris never blames joana or tries to baby her but is still rightfully frustrated when things r hard. we see their relationship on the side but it isn't reduced to that lovey dovey utopia where nothing is never wrong + when things r wrong we get all the necessary information via the main character that cris is friends with (amira or nora depending on the season) or through the social media, which means the conflict solving is clear n thorough. we don't have to guess if they're still fighting or how they managed to make up! this is mostly bc the conflicts r kept realistic n down to earth instead of drama seeking "spectacles" for example: joana isn't relapsing out there partying when she shouldn't be n cris doesn't have to pick her up from a police station, instead she just has worse days w her MI which is much more sensible to work through as a couple off screen in a "tell, don't show" kinda way. that doesn't work w bigger, more surprising issues. the healthiness there comes from the fact that the show explicitly states that they have sorted out their problems n alludes to how they did it & when it happened whereas France did. virtually none of that

also for davenzi i might be biased bc they're my fave evak but they definitely seem to have a similarly healthy n developed relationship!! david doesn't have an (established) MI so there aren't as many conflicts related to that but they're both v distinct characters that have a developed personality outside of the relationship. also they r just the perfect example of best-friends-in-love + a realistic teens-experiencing-first-love trope. their season had other issues but i think that the relationship itself definitely wasn't one. it wasn't so much of a ✨soul mates that will endure anything by the force of destiny✨ but more like They're teens who caught feelings for each other n they're a bit confused in their first relationship but they're making it work via communication n care!

also for if all evaks r instalove i think to an extent they r. for example most of them say "i love u" SO early which i don't vibe with at all. and a lot of them have this "meant to be" trope around them from the start instead of just a naturally developing romance. but since the evak season is mainly a romance plot (yes there r other important themes such as internalized homophobia & mental illness but the plot line follows the progress of a romance n it's a central part of the season) it's more understandable to move faster bc u have the time to expand on the relationship n kinda explain the feelings aka the relationship still grows on the audience along the way. but compared to smth like lola's seasons where the central theme is loss of a loved one & addiction, instalove just comes out of nowhere n has no chance to be expanded on since it's not a main theme of the season n has little screen time. this is what usually makes it boring or one dimensional at least for me! but also i'm not trying to rly defend the evak instalove either altho i think there is this difference. like it still pushes me away from og evak & elu a little bit + even crisana at the start of their season even tho i think it's more tolerable & understandable than in other seasons