#like the novel isn't at all from what I know

[beefcakekinard]

[<-<- part one] [<- part two] ~ ~ ~ [part four ->]

Buck makes it maybe five minutes before he gets the urge to look something up.

"Absolutely not," Tommy says, snatching Buck's phone out of his hands. Buck makes to grab it back, but Tommy pins him with one arm around his waist and holds it out of reach with the other. "You picked the movie, Evan, Google can wait."

"I was going to go on Wikipedia," Buck scoffs, because there's a difference. "Google-"

"Google is useless these days, I know." Tommy slips Buck's phone into the back pocket of his own sweats and rearranges them, spreading out more along the couch and pulling Buck on top of himself. "Enjoy the movie, Evan."

Buck sighs, loudly, pretending to be put-upon, but he really can't complain. It's still a little novel, being able to just spread himself out on top of Tommy like this. He settles more as Tommy starts dragging his fingertips up and down his spine, just like he had been when Buck woke up. It's so comfortable, so familiar, so Tommy. The movie continues on - background noise, almost, with the way Tommy always pulls his focus without even trying.

With a jolt, Buck pulls himself from the edge of consciousness. Tommy squeezes his shoulder and Buck just wishes he'd run his fingers along his back again. Buck opens his mouth to complain, but he stops short with a choked laugh when he notices what's happening on screen.

"Christ," he coughs out. "I wasn't expecting to see my parents in this movie."

Tommy laughs above him. "That WASP-y silence hits too close to home, huh?"

"Hey, you said it, not me." Buck says. He nuzzles at Tommy's belly and watches as the scene changes again. Tommy shifts under him, which for Tommy standards counts as restless. Buck doesn't want to commit the cardinal sin of asking him about it while the movie's still playing, but it turns out he doesn't have to wait.

"I always-" Tommy starts, a few minutes later. He clears his throat. A few too many awkward seconds pass.

"What's that?" Buck asks.

"I always..." Tommy sighs. "I wanted a family like this. They're loud and crazy, but they love each other. They have - in jokes, and they support each other, where it matters." Tommy's hand squeezes Buck's shoulder. "I really... I just always wondered what that was like."

Buck curls his hand around the dip in Tommy's waist, right above his hip. "Me too," he admits. "It - I know the way we grew up is, was different, but uh. Me too."

"Wonder what that says about us," Tommy says, and his tone is too bitter, too unkind, for Buck's liking, so he pulls himself up to sit and grabs one of Tommy's hands in both of his own.

"What that says to me," Buck starts, looking Tommy square in the eye, "is that two lonely kids survived a couple of fucked-up childhoods. And that they found each other, and- and things aren't so lonely, anymore."

Tommy's expression does something complicated, some dance Buck isn't yet privy to, but he knows what it lands on. It lands on that look he gets when he says things like how are you real and what am I gonna do with you. It's an expression that Buck kind of loves, but it also kind of breaks his heart all the same.

[<-<- part one] [<- part two] ~ ~ ~ [part four ->]

[alexanderwales]

I saw a post deriding some techbro talking about how cool it would be to have a story where you could talk to a chatbot version of the characters within it, and like ...

Yeah, okay, the chatbots suck, the current models suck, they have too many hallucinations and a lack of attention and produce bland results and there's all the ethical stuff that I'm not even going to touch on. And if it was meant to supplement books, then the chatbot would have to know not just everything that was in the book, but everything that was implied by the book, and it would have to know it exclusively from its own perspective. And the article quoted seemed to imply that people would do this instead of reading, which ... no.

So this isn't going to work anytime soon.

But if it did work? Sign me up.

Who among us hasn't had the urge to pull a character from a book and talk to them? To hold them by the shoulders and say "please, come on, why would you do that"? To give them a hug, or a slap, or to just talk to them and figure out what makes them tick beyond what's in the book?

It's an affront to literature, and to the craftsmanship of the author, but come on, it would be so cool! And you would definitely have authors who would write a novel with this in mind, who would put in breakpoints where they suggest you play the role of a friend sitting down to chat with the character over tea.

Except that odds on it working well enough to use it like that are, barring huge problems being overcome, extremely low in the near term, not even possible with any technology I know to be on the horizon. Any techbro talking about anything like this is huffing vaporware, and trying to convince you to huff the vaporware too.

But as a concept that I acknowledge is not anywhere close to being realized at a level that I would ever actually use it, I think this is awesome.

[sorcave]

Hating Calypso does not mean you don't understand morally grey characters and defending her does not mean you understand them.

I've seen many takes from those defending Calypso in one way or another dismissing those who hate her as "not understanding morally gray characters" which is simply isn't true. Defending her as a poor victim who didn't know any better does not mean you understand the concept of morally gray characters either.

The main divide is whether intent, her actions, or both matters in defining her morality and by how much. Either side of that spectrum is missing the nuance of the situation- she's not a supervillain intent on making Odysseus' life horrible nor is she an innocent, naive girl who shouldn't be held accountable for her actions. To me, while I don't think she is evil, she is at the darker end of the "morally gray" spectrum as her actions are so egregious that her intent nearly doesn't matter.

Most defenders use the story that Calypso tells in "I'm Not Sorry For Loving You" as their evidence. She didn't INTEND to hurt Odysseus- she hasn't known anyone before so she didn't know! She was just lonely! She just loved him! If you were stuck on an island all alone for 100 years and finally someone came, wouldn't YOU want to make sure they didn't leave? Besides, she apologizes for her actions!

This is a trap that the song actively brings listeners into. It is meant (or at least easily interpreted as) as a plea for sympathy, to make the audience feel empathy for poor Calypso. It is not a simple explanation for her actions and it is definitely not an apology for them. The reason it feels like a "Youtuber Apology" is that they share many similar characteristics. She is intentionally vague about what she is apologizing about, to the point they are nearly irrelevant. "Coming on too strong" wasn't the issue- it was "Coming on too strong" AFTER Odysseus told her no ( "From here you're mine, all mine"/ "Hell No") was. It doesn't address her main crime, specifically keeping a man AGAINST HIS WILL for seven YEARS, even AFTER he became so desperate to leave that he was moments from committing suicide. Lastly, she doesn't take accountability but (intentionally or not) blames Odysseus . "I'm sorry if my love was too much for you" is a VERY common phrased used by abusers to shift the blame from themselves onto their victims.

The crux of the issue for me is while her rough experience up until she met Odysseus may explain her actions, too many people seem to use it to EXCUSE her actions (including, seemingly, the narrative itself). Why this rubs so many the wrong is because of how many real life victims have been told they have to "forgive" their abusers because their life was hard or "they didn't know better." Many who were bullied as a kid had at least one guidance counselor say they needed to "forgive/even befriend x because they are struggling/ \[Insert Bad Thing Here} happened to them." Many others see Calypso using the same tactics their own abusers used to hurt them, and justifiably hate her for it.

I am not saying someone is wrong or stupid for having a more forgiving perspective on Calypso. If you are one to put more weight into intent than actions, I could see why Calypso could be a much lighter gray ( I am not seeing many defenders saying she is an entirely innocent, "morally good" character"). It can be argued that her actions were not of an intentional abuser but of a goddess who haven't had much experience with relationships before, especially with mortals. If her idea of romance came from whatever the Ancient Greek version of romance novels were, it makes sense that her idea of romance may not be the healthiest. Heck, even reading the myths would explain or even excuse why she didn't see "She's my wife" as a sign to back off- for probably at least 90 percent of Greek Heroes, that would not matter.

In summary, Calypso is a morally gray character- but that doesn't mean there aren't valid reason to dislike or even hate her. Seeing her as dark gray bordering on black doesn't mean you don't see the nuance- many who are against her understand her intent may not have been evil- but that her actions make her intent almost irrelevant. So please stop dismissing those who dislike/hate her as simply misunderstanding/being naive with morally gray characters. Many are not (especially since the entire show is full of them) and simply put weight in her actions more than her intent.

[xvxblahhhxvx]

A ramble/analysis about the significance of the bar in The Day I Picked Up Dazai

Ok, so I just reread the day I picked up Dazai, and read side b for the first time, and man do I have many, many thoughts, but one thing in particular struck me, and that is the bar. More specifically, the reason why they go in the first place and why it is significant. (spoilers for the day i picked up dazai side a, obviously)

The first time the bar is mentioned is when Odasaku and Dazai are having a discussion about death and why Dazai desires it. Oda says that "he is a fool for wanting to die" and that anyone is fool for dying before going to "that place." He doesn't specify what it is though, and Dazai thinks he's making it up at first. The way Odasaku speaks about it, it's as if it's some magic place, a place that only some can see the true value of. This intrigues Dazai, because one important thing about him is the fact that he's always searching. Always looking for something interesting, some reason to keep living, some proof that life isn't the boring place he believes it to be.

The second time this place is brought up is when Odasaku and Dazai are in the cell, and Oda is trying to convince Dazai that he should escape with him. He mentions that the place is nearby, and that they should escape and go. Now, Dazai is truly curious about it, and it works. He says, "how long has it been, I wonder? To have somewhere I want to go...I have a feeling that even if there is nothing at that place, it will be fine as it is." He's excited, and looking forward to the place that Odasaku has been, for lack of a better term, hyping up the entire light novel. Even if it may not be so interesting after all, like Oda said it might not be.

Still, when they arrive at the bar, Dazai acts a little disappointed at first. The place Oda took him to was really just a bar after all. Odasaku even admits that he lied, that where could he take him to that he wouldn't already know, and that he was merely teasing him. Dazai is taken aback at first, but in the end, he finds value in the place. They sit for ages, talking about everything and nothing, playing poker, and drinking. And despite being disappointed in the beginning, it ends up being enough for Dazai.

And now, for the actual point of this ted talk, the reason why this is so significant is because to me, the bar represents Dazai's search. He is always looking for something interesting to keep him alive, but the fact of the matter is, there is nothing. Oda says as much to him when he dies; nothing in this world is going to fill the void of loneliness inside of Dazai. But the fact that he took Dazai to something as simple as a bar, a place he said he was a fool for not going, the place that intrigued Dazai so much signifies that Dazai would only find something in a place as simple as a bar. That for all his searching, the answer might just be playing a game of cards and talking to a friend while having a few drinks. Dazai feels so far removed from human connection, but in truth, that is the one thing that could even attempt to fill the void, even if just a little. He will keep searching, keep looking for some external factor that may allow life to interest him, the thing that he would be foolish for dying before seeing, but the answer might just lie in spending the night in a simple bar with a friend.

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching reading. Today's choice: 死亡万花筒 / Kaleidoscope of Death.

Kaleidoscope of Death is a 2018 Chinese webnovel about two young men who fall in love while basically playing a whole bunch of horror-themed escape rooms that can for-real kill you.

This novel was gripping. I could not put it down. It started out fun and ended up ripping out my heart several times. It does a good job getting the ball rolling with a series of adventures in weird worlds, then turns into a meditation about grief and loss and what it means to have something to lose in the first place.

This is the first time I've ever done a book rec! I'm doing it in conjunction with a rec post for the Spirealm, and originally I was just going to do this as a bonus section for that post. However, I felt they both deserve whole different posts, because they both have very different things to recommend them. I also think Kaleidoscope of Death a 100% necessary read if you've seen the show, because it provides some context that the show simply cannot include -- but it's not a necessary read before you see the show.

Therefore, I'm going to give you five reasons I think you should sit down with this one, and not a single one of these reasons is going to assume you've watched the Spirealm! The book is great and deserves to be read on its own merits, and then if you then start watching the drama afterwards, so much the better.

1. All the Cross-Dressing

(Yeah, I'm going to punctuate this one with screencaps from the Spirealm, because otherwise it's just a wall of text.)

I'm not going to tell you why the male characters frequently dress and pass as women, since the book explains the practicality of it better than I could. You just need to know that they often do, and it's never not kinda hot when it happens.

When you first meet Ruan Nanzhu, it is as Ruan Baijie, a stunningly beautiful and noticeably tall woman. Lin Qiushi, our POV character who is extremely confused for a number of reasons, spends the first whole arc talking and thinking about Baijie like she's a girl. In fact, one of the cutest things about sweet, earnest Qiushi is that he clocks Baijie several times, and every time he's just like, oh, she's so flat-chested, how unusual for a girl, anyway...

And this isn't even just dressing up! Stepping into the door worlds changes you physically based on your clothing and cosmetics. Nobody inside looks the same as they do outside, and nobody looks the same inside as they did last time they were inside. The rules that govern these transformations aren't even clear to the characters themselves! So, you know, have fun with that.

I'm going to say it's not an out-and-out trans thing, in that we're not dealing with an AMAB egg who will crack someday. Ruan Nanzhu is a very male-identified, penis-having man! He's just also pretty entertainingly comfortable with performing whatever gender makes him the most fuckable person in any given room. Lin Qiushi is not so inherently genderfluid, however, which means that when his gremlin sort-of-boyfriend makes him pretend to be a girl, it's a completely different kink.

Therefore: If you like it in any way when boys dress up like girls, you owe it to yourself to pick up this one. And if you like a fandom that likes it when boys dress up like girls, baby, welcome to the world inside the doors.

2. Those boys GAY

This is a textual romance. Lin Qiushi and Ruan Nanzhu are in love. This is a danmei novel about how they fall in love. There is kissing and there are fade-to-black scenes that explicitly acknowledge that the two of them have sex with one another. We even know that Ruan Nanzhu (usually) tops. This s not just me pointing at them and saying gaaaaaaaaaay. This is actual gay.

And it is gay that takes its fucking time. They do not actually hook up until well over halfway through the book, but they are physically affectionate from almost the get-go. Ruan Nanzhu is such a trickster and a liar that Lin Quishi finds it hard to believe that anything he does is sincere, which leads to nearly lesbian levels of wondering if it means anything when a guy demands you kiss him on the mouth when he's pretending to be your girlfriend. Meanwhile, Ruan Nanzhu is over here being the Kate Beaton comic about sitting here consumed with lust all evening.

Even once they both acknowledge what they're feeling for one another, they don't get together right away. After all, they're playing a game of life and death where they lose friends left and right. Every time someone goes inside the door, there's a real chance they won't come out again. Is giving your heart to someone worth how much it will destroy your entire life when you lose them?

(Yes, says the book. Yes, it is worth it.)

The slow burn of their relationship is delicious, in part because the physical (though not sexual) aspects of it predate the romantic ones. It also has the fun hot-and-cold aspect where Ruan Nanzhu is incredibly affectionate inside the doors, then icy outside of them. Poor completely inexperienced, never-been-kissed Lin Qiushi does not know what to make of any of this. He can barely manage parenting a cat. He does not know how to handle a boyfriend who is also a girlfriend who is also (spiritually) a cat.

I also find it charming how much the gay part of it both is and isn't an issue. It's not that Lin Qiushi has a problem being in love with a man; however, the fact that Ruan Nanzhu is a man does mean the heteronormally indoctrinated and relationship-inexperienced Lin Qiushi takes much longer to realize what exactly those feelings he's having are. The book's world is one where heterosexuality is the assumed default, while queerness is unexpected but everybody's still pretty cool with it. Besides, no one's going to judge Lin Qiushi's gay yearnings, because who doesn't want to fuck Ruan Nanzhu?

3. HAKO ONNA HAKO ONNA HAKO ONNA

So as I was reading through @zintranslations' earlier chapters, I kept seeing translators' notes down at the bottom about being so excited to finally get to the Hako Onna arc. Okay, I thought, this is a lot of hype; I hope it doesn't disappoint.

Friends, it does not. This is the arc I was reading while screaming into a pillow. It's thirteen chapters long, tied for the longest arc in the book with the first door. It is a fucking nail-biter. It does the clever thing of taking all the things you've learned about what can happen inside the doors and combining them for a worst-case scenario.

The setup is pretty simple: There's a bunch of boxes. One has the exit. Most are empty. Some have things that help you. Some have things that hurt you. The more things you find that hurt you, the more things there are to hurt you. And you have to open the boxes.

All the door arcs are pretty well-written, so that you can more or less play along with their various adventures. Hako Onna, however, is exceptional. It's so complicated, but you can actually follow it. And you need to be able to follow it, because the multiple emotional gut-punches that happen in this arc all depend on understanding how the rules of the game have just been leveraged to fuck someone over.

Now I really want to play the board game -- which I was pleased to discover is a real board game! And speaking of board games...

sidebar: Betrayal at House on the Hill

I know this isn't technically related to the novel at all, but if you like board games, horror, and being incredibly dramatic, you owe it to yourself to try out Betrayal at House on the Hill.

It goes like this: You and several other horror-movie archetypes wander through a mansion, "building" it as you explore it, so the game layout is different every time. At some point (and it's based on so many random factors that you never know when it'll be) someone triggers a condition, and the haunting begins. All the players then get the rules of haunting explained to them -- except for one player, the one picked to do the titular betrayal, who gets a different set of instructions and becomes the antagonist. From that point on, the game is about either surviving or completing the haunting, depending on which side you're on.

I have played this game before with normal board game people, and they were like, eh, this is fine. I have also played this game before with theatre kids who RP and LARP, and we all had a fucking blast. So I'm going to warn you that you have to choose your crowd carefully. This is a game for people who do improv and voices.

4. The art of losing isn't hard to master

The book has a high body count -- higher than the show's, in fact, though that's related to how the book also has more characters than the show does. When you meet someone who can go into the doors, be careful how much money you'd lay on their survival.

Death after the doors comes so quickly, too. There's barely any time to say goodbye, if there's even any time at all. Often there's just a phone call telling our main characters that one of their friends or allies or enemies is gone.

Everyone who gets the chance to go through the door worlds is only able to do so because they're dying already. The more doors they pass, the more they get to kick that death further down the road -- but the more doors they enter, the more chances they take that they might die inside one. So really, none of the players can be that resentful of being forced to play a game that can kill them, since they're already playing it on borrowed time.

I will say, somewhat cryptically, that the book has a positive ending that leaves open the possibility for other positive things. The path to that positive ending, though, leads through some pretty wrenching takes on living through grief. It's not even all rah-rah and it-gets-better, either -- the text acknowledges many times over what it means to have someone that life isn't worth living without.

And that's maybe not what you expected from a BL horror adventure webnovel, but it's what you're gonna get! Ha ha!

5. What He Is

Which is the title of the first extra chapter, which is not extra at all, but is in fact a necessary explanatory piece that whacks you upside the head like a two-by-four and recontextualizes the entire story.

...Yeah, that's all you're going to get from me about that. You'll understand when you get there.

Have you put it on your reading list yet?

The way you have to read it is a little convoluted: @zintranslations has chapters 1-17 and 63-end + extras. Taida Translations has chapters 1-62. So no matter where you start reading, you're going to have to switch sites at least once.

There are also apparently Portuguese, Indonesian, Russian, and Spanish translations too? And the original Chinese webnovel, of course. And some audio dramas and subs linked to from this Carrd, which helpfully has other information, like content warnings for specific chapters, in case the horror aspect of the story gives you pause.

Anyway, once you're done reading it -- or even before you're done! -- you should absolutely go watch the Spirealm. I think it's clear from both rec posts that I definitely like the book better, but I appreciate having the drama to bring so many scenes to life, and I think the casting is great. Also, I don't think reading the book makes you like the drama less! Rather, I think reading the book gives you insight into the awkward and sometimes terrible choices the drama had to make to survive -- which in turn gives you the ability to see through those choices, on to what the show always wanted in its heart to be.

I do find it funny how "Kaleidoscope of Death" and "Death's Kaleidoscope" technically mean the same thing, but they sure read different, don't they?

[crypticpuffin]

personally I would be distressed if someone yelled "barracuda" in my immediate vicinity

[fallloverfic]

I love singNsong again reminding people in Side Story that Dokja wanted other people to read TWSA (he wrote reviews and comments! It was his first wish), and he only stopped bothering because people harassed him for it. He didn't gate-keep the story. When he's avoiding talking to Sangah about it at the beginning of ORV, it's because he knows what happens when he tells people about the story, not because he's gate-keeping it from her. He notes he's not proud of his hobby (likely because he's been bullied all through his life, including for reading the thing he loves): he finds it embarrassing to talk about, and better respects her studying Spanish in her free time (learning another language is a generally accepted thing in society). He assumes she won't care or will look at him funny (or worse) for when she learns about the novel he's into.

Basically anyone writing "let's gatekeep ORV" posts because of the anime announcement or because they dislike the manhwa or some other weirdness, y'all are the villains in the scenario.

The literal climax of the story is about sharing ORV with as many people as possible. What story were y'all reading?

[hunxi-after-hours]

ORV question! I started reading the webtoon and it mentioned KDJ having his face censored; was this in the novel too and I just forgot somehow? Why censor my beautiful baby boy :(

hey! yes, without getting too into it, kim dokja's face, to a certain extent, cannot be properly perceived. why is this? what's going on? well wouldn't we all like to know

[lebrookestore]

oh girl what the fuck

[siena-sevenwits]

:-)

[ardenigh]

last one for the night!

also under the cut for those who would rather only experience helmeted lucky: the man himself, or at the very least, his template

[beauzos]

the more i think about Nahyuta and my interpretation of him, the more i see the Claus Mother 3 parallels and idk how to feel about that because they're so different personality-wise lol

but like, c'mon on now. having an emotionally distant (but ultimately deeply loving) father who inadvertently creates unhealthy expectations of masculinity in his trans child, and then said kid winding up working for the big bad, having been rendered utterly unrecognizable to his loved ones, and having to be saved by his little brother. come onnnnn

[phoebe-ofthe-cosmos]

instagram algorithm serving me so many reels lately of people reading sjm books and then complaining about the characters like "when you're trying to finish acosf but nesta keeps getting in the way" or "acotar5 is coming next 😁 but it's going to be about elain 😔" (side note NOT EVEN CONFIRMED!) why are you even reading the books if you hate the characters so much. do you guys know you don't have to read them?

[leatherbookmark]

actually i have discovered the only true and correct reading of md/zs: wgxn are the true Evil Men of mdzs. just look at how they’re dealing with lxc post-guanyin

[debleb]

americans try not to immediately turn anything irish into magical mystical uwu pagan faeries challenge (100% IMPOSSIBLE)

[imwritesometimes]

lmfao what if I just start over entirely holy fckn shit