mycatwantstoeatpins

[mycatwantstoeatpins]

The Crown Prince And The Young Master, Attended By Appointed Steward - circ. 43rd year of 7th Mobei Jun’s reign

Fanart for the lovely @tossawary’s fic, Babe in the Woods (one of my absolute favorite moshang fics, easily). This is post-fic, maybe a few years down the line, when Airplane has unknowingly taken over like, every management task in our Mobei Jun’s faction, including taking care of Didi, but he still thinks he’s just the nanny. Mbj’s father ordered a royal portrait of the princes and mbj was like um my human wife will be joining. Airplane, frantically putting on the nicest clothes mbj has given him: why does the babysitter have to be in the photo?? Didi does not hold still for even a single second of the portrait sitting.

(I cannot lie to you, I started this portrait well over a full year ago, and in the last week finally finished the lines and colored the whole thing.)

[mycatwantstoeatpins]

Gosh I just love book Legolas. He's immortal. He's a teenager. Elrond picks him instead of Glorfindel because he's average and won't draw attention to the Fellowship. He's the comic relief guy and resident Little Shit, but he can also shoot a Nazgul out of the sky in the pitch black like a one-man elf anti-aircraft defense system. He wants everyone to know that he's, like, really old. He forgets the task at hand because he wants to look at trees. His greatest qualities are that he can become friends with anyone and his loyalty is unending. He shows up to Valinor a century late with Starbucks in hand and his dwarf bestie at his side. Iconic.

#lotr #legolas

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idk maybe a weird ask but any advice on how to enjoy romance books without being bummed out by discourse? i know they aren’t the pinnacle of literature or anything, but the recent stuff people have been saying about romance not counting as books has been kind of discouraging. have no idea why i’m asking this, i just wanna read my silly gay romance in peace without feeling guilty i’m not reading Super High Brow Literature. currently my main method is reading out of sheer spite, but any other advise is helpful. it’s not even just online, i get this irl too.

hey man in the most respectful way possible. who gives a shit. reading is for fun and guilt is for catholics. do whatever you want forever.

#yeah

[mycatwantstoeatpins]

[Description: screenshots of tags.

#poor binghe would be even crazier in this au

#this is luo binghe's blackening event

#ooooohhhohohoho op this has opened a marvelous door in my mind #what a wonderful concept #hes going to get RAILED

#poor Luo Binghe would have to watch his shizun actively be gay instead of in an oblivious way]

If Shen Yuan would have transmigrated after realizing his sexuality, SVSSS would have been even more unhinged.

Like, he already notices the beautiful men he is surrounded by, but now these beautiful men could be an option for him. Sure, not LBH because he is the protagonist of a stallion novel, he will get his harem of pretty flowers, but the others! After all, if all women belongs to the protagonist, maybe it wouldn't be frowned upon for the men to be cutsleeves. Right? His cute little white sheep will have all the peerless beauties, but the other men who also deserve love and appreciation and care will have no one and that would be a crime.

Now, he just has to figure out which one of his beautiful and handsome and reliable and strong martial brothers is open to have a... a closer relationship with him. I mean, one of them has to be at least a little bit queer, right?! That's just statistics!

#svsss #shen qingqiu #luo binghe

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Polk does her impression of a family Zoom call.

[ID: A photograph of Polk the tabby; in it only her head is visible from the nose up, slightly tilted with ears a little awry; the bottom half of her face is cut off and she is looking past the camera, appearing for all the world like an elderly relative who doesn't really understand she's on camera.]

#cats #dearborn and polk

[mycatwantstoeatpins]

[Image description: the meme showing a bewildered young Michael Scott shaking his boss's hand. The text over the boss is 'Me about to annihilate everyone's dash' and the text over Michael Scott is 'Anon just trying to figure out what the hell I'm talking about'.]

please help me- i used to be pretty smart but i’m having so much trouble grasping the concept of diegetic vs non-diegetic bdsm!

gfkjldghfd okay first of all I'm sorry for the confusion, if you're not finding anything on the phrase it's because I made it up and absolutely nobody but me ever uses it, but I haven't found a better way to express what I'm trying to say so I keep using it. but now you've given me an excuse to ramble on about some shit that is only relevant to me and my deeply inefficient way of talking and by god I'm going to take it.

SO. the way diegetic and non-diegetic are normally used is to talk about music and sound design in movies/tv shows. in case you aren't familiar with that concept, here's a rundown:

diegetic sound is sound that happens within the world of the movie/show and can be acknowledged by the characters, like a song playing on the stereo during a driving scene, or sung on stage in Phantom of the Opera. it's also most other sounds that happen in a movie, like the sounds of traffic in a city scene, or a thunderclap, or a marching band passing by. or one of the three stock horse sounds they use in every movie with a horse in it even though horses don't really vocalize much in real life, but that's beside the point, the horse is supposed to be actually making that noise within the movie's world and the characters can hear it whinnying.

non-diegetic sound is any sound that doesn't exist in the world of the movie/show and can't be perceived by the characters. this includes things like laugh tracks and most soundtrack music. when Duel of Fates plays in Star Wars during the lightsaber fight for dramatic effect, that's non-diegetic. it exists to the audience, but the characters don't know their fight is being backed by sick ass music and, sadly, can't hear it.

the lines can get blurry between the two, you've probably seen the film trope where the clearly non-diegetic music in the title sequence fades out to the same music, now diegetic and playing from the character's car stereo. and then there are things like Phantom of the Opera as mentioned above, where the soundtrack is also part of the plot, but Phantom of the Opera does also have segments of non-diegetic music: the Phantom probably does not have an entire orchestra and some guy with an electric guitar hiding down in his sewer just waiting for someone to break into song, but both of those show up in the songs they sing down there.

now, on to how I apply this to bdsm in fiction.

if I'm referring to diegetic bdsm what I mean is that the bdsm is acknowledged for what it is in-world. the characters themselves are roleplaying whatever scenarios their scenes involve and are operating with knowledge of real life rules/safety practices. if there's cnc depicted, it will be apparent at some point, usually right away, that both characters actually are fully consenting and it's all just a planned scene, and you'll often see on-screen negotiation and aftercare, and elements of the story may involve the kink community wherever the characters are. Love and Leashes is a great example of this, 50 Shades and Bonding are terrible examples of this, but they all feature characters that know they're doing bdsm and are intentional about it.

if I'm talking about non-diegetic bdsm, I'm referring to a story that portrays certain kinks without the direct acknowledgement that the characters are doing bdsm. this would be something like Captive Prince, or Phantom of the Opera again, or the vast majority of bodice ripper type stories where an innocent woman is kidnapped by a pirate king or something and totally doesn't want to be ravished but then it turns out he's so cool and sexy and good at ravishing that she decides she's into it and becomes his pirate consort or whatever it is that happens at the end of those books. the characters don't know they're playing out a cnc or D/s fantasy, and in-universe it's often straight up noncon or dubcon rather than cnc at all. the thing about entirely non-diegetic bdsm is that it's almost always Problematic™ in some way if you're not willing to meet the story where it's at, but as long as you're not judging it by the standards of diegetic bdsm, it's just providing the reader the same thing that a partner in a scene would: the illusion of whatever risk or taboo floats your boat, sometimes to extremes that can't be replicated in real life due to safety, practicality, physics, the law, vampires not being real, etc. it's consensual by default because it's already pretend; the characters are vehicles for the story and not actually people who can be hurt, and the reader chose to pick up the book and is aware that nothing in it is real, so it's all good.

this difference is where people tend to get hung up in the discourse, from what I've observed. which is why I started using this phrasing, because I think it's very crucial to be able to differentiate which one you're talking about if you try to have a conversation with someone about the portrayal of bdsm in media. it would also, frankly, be useful for tagging, because sometimes when you're in the mood for non-diegetic bodice ripper shit you'd call the police over in real life, it can get really annoying to read paragraphs of negotiation and check-ins that break the illusion of the scene and so on, and the opposite can be jarring too.

it's very possible to blur these together the same way Phantom of the Opera blurs its diegetic and non-diegetic music as well. this leaves you even more open to being misunderstood by people reading in bad faith, but it can also be really fun to play with. @not-poignant writes fantastic fanfic, novels, and original serials on ao3 that pull this off really well, if you're okay with some dark shit in your fiction I would highly recommend their work. some of it does get really fucking dark in places though, just like. be advised. read the tags and all that.

but yeah, spontaneous writer plug aside, that's what I mean.

#love this explanation #on writing #kink #long post

[mycatwantstoeatpins]

Exposing SVSSS Fanon: 25/∞

VIOLENCE AS COURTSHIP IS A PART OF DEMON CULTURE

Rating: CANON

A nearly universal trope, especially in Moshang fics, is the fact that courtship is performed through violence in demon culture, and that the misunderstandings between the pair are because of cultural differences. The fact that demons mistreat the targets of their affection is canon, however, it is important for fans to note that this sort of characterization and worldbuilding is rooted in racial and ethnic stereotypes.

This is one of the most-requested topics I've ever written on this blog, and I took a long time to think about how best to approach the subject in a way that both keeps to the intention of this blog (referencing canon & providing quotes) as well as raising awareness to the very real problematic aspects of what is a well-loved and often-used trope in fanon that I don't think most western fans are aware of.

First, the canon analysis:

“If you hold unique feelings for a certain person, how can you make them understand your intentions?” Luo Binghe asked. Obviously, no one dared to tear down Luo Binghe’s facade and expose him directly, but this question was really very…unsuited to the demonic approach. After a long moment, not a single person had answered. In fact, the answer was so simple that any normal human could have given it to you. If you liked someone, you should just tell them. Unfortunately, there was not a single “normal” person on the scene—and aside from Shang Qinghua, there also were no “humans” either. Mobei-Jun thought about it. With the paths his mind was given to take, there was no telling how he had interpreted “unique” feelings. “Beat them up three times a day?” (7 Seas, Ch. 26)

Most of the fandom remembers this passage, and some may think that this is where the interpretation of violence as courtship comes from-- however, that is not the case. This passage might actually not refer to courtship at all-- while that is one possible interpretation, Mobei-jun could also be interpreting "unique feelings" to mean something different than "romantic feelings," since Luo Binghe didn't specify romance directly.

The "violent demonic courtship" idea actually originates much earlier in the novel, just after the invasion of Qiong Ding Peak:

In truth, Shen Qingqiu didn’t intend to tease; he thought himself very straightforward. The one who’d tampered with Luo Binghe’s dream realm was Sha Hualing. Though she did have some harmful intentions, her underlying motive was obvious. Naturally, she was driven by a young girl’s secret yearning for love. Otherwise, she would have directed her aggressions toward others, not specifically Luo Binghe. Demons were compelled to viciously bully the person they liked. Only if the object of their affections failed to die would the demon accept them. If their target died, that meant they were useless and not worth nursing any lingering affections for. (7 Seas, Ch. 3)

This, in fact, has somewhat more serious connotations than the way I have often seen it interpreted in fanworks-- it is not merely beating up a potential partner, but pushing them to their limits, nearly driving them to death, and it is certainly implied that it is not uncommon for the object of a demon's affections to actually die.

Now that the canonical basis of the idea has been established, let us move on to the second, and arguably more important part of this post: the racism.

I would like to add a disclaimer here-- I am going to discuss this in hopes of raising more awareness in the fandom, but I am not North/West/Central Asian myself, so I will only mention things in brief and somewhat generally-- if anyone who belongs to the affected cultures would like to make corrections, or more detailed explanations, or any other additions to this post on this topic, I greatly welcome that, as I feel it is an important issue that should be addressed.

In Chinese fiction, particularly fantasy genres like xianxia/xuanhuan/xiuzhen, but also in historical and wuxia fiction, there is a pervasive, prevalent tendency for authors to use racial and ethnic stereotypes against Central, Northern, and Western Asian cultures such as Mongolian & Arab cultures in their worldbuilding. These stereotypes are most typically applied to villains and villainous groups, and are so widespread as to be ubiquitous within the genre. While I cannot say whether or not the authors are aware of the racist origins of these tropes, I can say that all of MXTX's works contain similar stereotypes as well (the Qinghe Nie in MDZS and the Banyue people in TGCF).

These stereotypes include but are not limited to barbaric and brutish cultural traits, association with animals/having animal features, dark or corrupt magical/spiritual practices, certain types of braided hairstyles & fashion choices, and originating from the north. Much of this prejudice and stereotyping likely originates from the fact that in the past, China was invaded and subjugated by peoples from the north (under Mongolian rule during the Yuan dynasty, and under Manchurian rule during the Qing dynasty) as well as having many conflicts with these peoples throughout history. In fact, the Qing dynasty only ended in the early 1900s, so some of this oppression is still in recent memory-- nonetheless, people belonging to ethnic minorities in China are still affected by this negative stereotyping today, so regardless of the origin, racism is still racism and should be addressed, and China today is a majority Han Chinese nation-- even if Han Chinese are considered a minority and affected by systemic racism in other places in the world.

All of those stereotypes listed above apply to SVSSS' demon culture. Even in Mobei-jun's name-- 漠北 meaning "northern desert," which is the real-world name for a region in the north of the Gobi desert in Mongolia. Therefore, it is important to remember that though violence-as-courtship in demon culture is canonical within SVSSS' setting, it nonetheless originates from harmful racial and ethnic stereotypes. It would be a good idea for fans to keep this in mind when creating their fanworks, and to treat the topic with sensitivity-- but I will leave any direct suggestions on how to handle this to those who are actually part of the affected groups.

#svsss #svsss meta

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My solution for bloatware is this: by law you should hire in every programming team someone who is Like, A Guy who has a crappy laptop with 4GB and an integrated graphics card, no scratch that, 2 GB of RAM, and a rural internet connection. And every time someone in your team proposes to add shit like NPCs with visible pores or ray tracing or all the bloatware that Windows, Adobe, etc. are doing now, they have to come back and try your project in the Guy's laptop and answer to him. He is allowed to insult you and humilliate you if it doesn't work in his laptop, and you should by law apologize and optimize it for him. If you try to put any kind of DRM or permanent internet connection, he is legally allowed to shoot you.

With about 5 or 10 years of that, we will fix the world.

#yeah

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SVSSS would work so well in a theatre! It could be made so interestingly.

I just imagine so many fourth wall breaks. Transmigrators are the only ones aware of the audience and Shen Yuan (Shen Qingqiu) constantly steps aside, makes comments and asks the audience for advice.

In canon Shen Yuan somewhat aware that he is in a story that people read and it means he is constantly "watched", but here this feeling that he is watched and all his actions are judged would be even more obvious and stronger.

And him not really seeing others as real people becomes even more understandable. They don't see the audience, they don't realize they are in a story, they are just characters, not actors.

I just feel like this format could really ameliorate some of the elements of the story

#svsss

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If Luo Binghe had died at the end of PIDW (and Airplane had properly finished the story before his own sudden and unexpected demise), how much do you think that would change Shen Yuan's attitude after losing his shit over it and then transmigrating into Shen Qingqiu?

So much of SV only really happens because Shen Yuan is comfortable in his certainty that the world at least won't let Luo Binghe, even if he suffers. Eventually he realizes that he can't really stand letting Luo Binghe suffering either, but part of how he compartmentalizes his no-win scenarios with the System (like the Abyss) is that, well, Binghe will be fine in the long run. He'll conquer the world, win all the ladies, live in sprawling palaces, ascend to untold heights of power, and reach a point where no one can ever threaten him again because he's just too strong to be threatened.

But if the story ended with Luo Binghe's destruction, all that would go out of the window, wouldn't it?

The idea that the world would ultimately see Luo Binghe safe would vanish. Now, it's just that Luo Binghe gets to live until his death is deemed poignant enough. What if something Shen Qingqiu does makes that point arrive sooner? But also, it's gotta be possible for him to thwart Luo Binghe's canonical death, and he wouldn't accept otherwise.

He'd be so stressed out.

#svsss

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Xiao Shunyao 肖顺尧's performance of his original work, 《山 (Mountain)》

Look, I'm not kidding when I say this song changed my entire brain chemistry. It's such a perfect fusion of old and new, both in terms of musical style and lyrics.

So the lyrics first. Co-written by Yang Haolong and Xiao Shunyao, it also incorporates two poems: 《满江红·怒发冲冠》 (often attributed to legendary Song Dynasty general Yue Fei, although the authorship has been contested) and 《七律·长征》 ...which was written by Mao Zedong 💀 so I'm not really going to talk about that bit lol other than that it's an interesting juxtaposition of poems since the Mao Zedong poem is about the Long March (military retreat by the CCP).

But since 《满江红》 is in 词 cí form, it's meant to be sung. Instead, he does the first verse of the poem as a lyrical recitation (0:23 to 0:37) and the second verse (1:55 to 2:25) in the 高拨子 gāo bō zǐ singing style of Beijing Opera, which is usually used by warrior characters. Honestly my favourite part of the whole song because the resonance and clarity of his voice is just *chef's kiss*.

And the combination of Beijing Opera, rap, lyrical recitation, and that rockstar growl?! Insane, what a vision. I also love that he used the 韵白 yùn bái style of narrative speech for the beginning because it reminds me of 说书人 or storytellers you see in c-dramas (used for the backstory exposition in the beginning of both The Untamed and Mysterious Lotus Casebook).

#xiao shunyao #music #video #flashing

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I know we all wish Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao were having beautiful loving sex for 13+ years, but unfortunately JGY refuses to be like his father in any way so he would never cheat on his wife, and LXC would never let himself be a homewrecker. Very tragic circumstances

#xiyao

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on the one hand Moshang is considered a incredibly romantic and wholesome love story by demon standards is funny and I love it I also do think the idea that for an ice demon specifically Mobei-jun is a cringe sap and overly expressive and romantic to the point of being a freak to other demons is just much chucklery. I mean, this man out here looking like an emotionally constipated rock is actually on so many laxatives he's been shitting a stream of emotional pebbles for the past decade is just so silly. In general, I just think Mobei-jun is funniest when he is in fact just weird by virtually all metrics but nobody can or will say anything.

#yeah #moshang

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who’s left- Mariame/Prison Abolition

by Flynn Nicholls

#prison abolition #prison industrial complex #long post

[mycatwantstoeatpins]

like I'm gonna read svsss eventually but trying to piece together what happens via out of context spoilers on my dashboard is just so entertaining. Things I have learned so far:

The main character straight up dies bc he thinks faking your own death is tacky (it seems like he gets resurrected eventually??)

His love interest is a demon lord/puppy dog who's absolutely insane (sleeps next to a dead body for five years & makes his crush drink his blood???)

I have no idea what Mobei Jun's role in the story is but I know he's the hottest man in the world (& god's specialest little boy)

There are (allegedly) female characters who uhhh. Exist?

The main villain (??) of the story is the author, whose name seems to just be "Airplane"

Today I learned there is a sexy snake man. What wonders shall tomorrow bring

#svsss

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it's kind of bullshit that people will react with horror to me discussing my fantasies/kinks until i clarify I'm the sub in them. like even my therapist was all like "ohhh it's ok to want to hold power so long as it's consensual" and then clearly relaxed when I clarified I wanted to be the sub.

i love you everyone and with rape kinks, those who want to roleplay kidnapping and abusing someone, i love you i love you i love you. this ain't me fishing for a dom/me to be clear---you are VALUED as a person, outside of your sexual fantasies. I care about you and appreciate you, and there is nothing wrong or bad about you!!!!

#kink

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We still talk about the British conquering India, but that phrase disguises a more sinister reality. It was not the British government that began seizing great chunks of India in the mid-eighteenth century, but a dangerously unregulated private company headquartered in one small office, five windows wide, in London, and managed in India by a violent, utterly ruthless and intermittently mentally unstable corporate predator - Clive. India's transition to colonialism took place under a for-profit corporation, which existed entirely for the purpose of enriching its investors. At the height of the Victorian period in the mid-nineteenth century there was a strong sense of embarrassment about the shady, brutal and mercantile way the British had founded the Raj. The Victorians thought the real stuff of history was the politics of the nation state. This, not the economics of corrupt corporations, they believed was the fundamental unit of study and the real driver of transformation in human affairs. Moreover, they liked to think of the empire as a mission civilisatrice, a benign national transfer of knowledge, railways and the arts of civilisation from West to East, and there was a calculated and deliberate amnesia about the corporate looting that opened British rule in India.

William Dalrymple, The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and The Pillage of An Empire

#colonialism #british history #east india company #further reading: https://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/hero-and-villain-robert-clive-the-east-india-company