Jared @ Xue Yang vs. A Kink Club

Time to go to the seafood restaurant and watch my husband absolutely fuck up a lobster. 🦞

Okay the exchange is listed as a notable fandom resource on the page for Songxuexiao, just without my name attached, I'm satisfied with this.

I'm also listed as the originator of the dwarf-related exchange I ran for one (1) event in DA fandom back in 2018. SURELY the Songxuexiao Exchange merits greater mention than Children of the Stone.

Poll on tumblr: Searching your url (or past urls), are you mentioned on fanlore.org?
Me, merrily searching myself: Surely there will be nothing, I don't think I am significant enough for—
Me:
Me: Why the fuck is there a page for Ariane/Finn and why the FUCK am I listed as a notable fanwork for it.

Immediately below this on my tl is two other people complaining about discord going down lmao.

RIGHT lmao like no I don’t hate any of my OCs, not even the villains/antagonists. Characters are just one piece of the toolbox of narrative. Do you hate the hammer because it strikes the nail? No, we’re ACCOMPLISHING something here that we wouldn’t be able to do without those tools!

Yeah exactly and I do think this style of interaction with the text comes out of superhero/comics fandom. Fully and sincerely: I blame the rise of the MCU and superheroes going mainstream for the proliferation of this attitude into other fandoms where it completely doesn’t apply.

I feel like both of these are permutations of the idea that there’s a True version of the character that is Real in some way—that anything done to them (or that they’re “forced” into) constitutes actual harm, that there’s a real version of them that the reader can intuit from the author’s fumblings.

Like, “[character] could have been great if the writer didn’t hate him.” Or “[character] it’s not your fault your author doesn’t understand you, they could never make me hate you” and then the things the author “doesn’t understand” are like. Directly contradicted by the events of canon.

Interesting interaction here with a phenomenon I’ve observed where some people sincerely seem to believe (whether they PROFESS to believe this is another question but this is how they act) that there’s a metaphysical “true” version of characters outside of canon and authors are merely interpreters.

I am sorry to tell you all this but merely counting syllables is not enough to make a poem scan. You also have to count stresses.

This has been bothering me to an irrational degree for several days. Yes I am aware that I am an extremely specific person. I assure you it is just as annoying for me.

Poem going around tumblr which a user has specifically re-translated in order to better preserve the scansion, tone, and rhyme scheme of the original, except the new translation they did fucks up the scansion in a really jarring way in one of the lines and kills me instantly.

Alex is showing me True Grit (2010). Mattie Ross you are perfect to me. Mattie Ross you are the girl of all time. Mattie Ross I would die for you.

Round double layer cake with a pale peach buttercream, dotted all over with blueberries and a few sprigs of rosemary.

Cooling rack of twelve cupcakes with a brownish blue colour. They are decorated modestly with pale peach buttercream and one peach slice and three blueberries each.

A close up of three of the cupcakes, to show them off.

A closer shot of the cake from a more side-on angle, showing the frosting around the side as well as the top.

Happy birthday (early) to Alex, I spent literally all afternoon in the kitchen. 🍽️

16. It's a standalone piece! It leads pretty directly out of canon, and disappears into myth at the end. No plans for a sequel or continuation.

It's the usual Songxuexiao codependency/existence in their own world slightly removed from those around them, dialled up to the extreme and given free rein with animalistic instinct and violence. The ways in which the world can corrupt you.

15. Imagery/themes: The body horror and brutality of a physical transformation is a big one. The ways in which being changed or having unique traumatic experiences can isolate you, such that the only other people you feel understood by are the other people who experienced it with you.

YouTube video by KylaLaGrangeVEVO Kyla La Grange - Vampire Smile

14. I have a whole playlist of vibes for it, but the primary one is the song the title is from, Vampire Smile by Kyla La Grange.

13. Research: Mostly on the specifics of animal traits they’ll be developing with the monstrous transformation, and a bit of body stuff, but otherwise it’s mostly all things I already knew. I’m also using some research I’d done previously on dual cultivation and human cauldrons.

12. I’m most excited to write the scene where Xingchen figures out who Xue Yang is, the scene where Xue Yang tells him about the fake night hunts, and the scene where Song Lan arrives in Yi City. I just love to write emotionally fucked up confrontations. 🥰

Who exactly do you propose I tell that to and what reason would they have to listen to me, a nobody, who is not Irish and doesn't have any professional connection to historical manuscripts? Because, like, I'm game to try, but I doubt it would be all that productive.

🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖

Omg PACIFIC RIM AU!!!

11. Tropes I'm playing with... this isn't really a particularly tropey one but there's definitely a kind of corruption arc going on, there's the body horror and transformation kink and animal instinct tropes of it all. And the general codependent fucked-uppedness of your typical gothic romance.

Song Lan’s chapter from either of Xuexiao’s POV would mean missing out on him grappling with how he can accept what Xingchen has become. But the really big change would be if we got any of it from A-Qing’s POV. Through her eyes, the whole story is a horror, and there’s no real happy ending.

Getting Xingchen’s chapter from Xue Yang’s POV would change the emotional arc a lot—Xingchen’s chapter is the one where he figures out who Xue Yang is, so a lot of what’s going on there involves an inside view into him tearing himself apart between moral revulsion and justification.

10. The Xue Yang chapter from Xingchen’s POV would be VERY different, since he would be in the dark, so to speak, about a lot of what’s happening (which would also leave the reader in the dark, since part of what’s going on is the non-canonical element of the story).

9. POV: It’s one chapter each from each of sxx. I like Xue Yang for his viciousness and unreliability as a narrator. I like Xingchen for how intensely, sincerely, and wholeheartedly he feels everything. I like Song Lan for the violence of emotion beneath his restrained exterior.

Also applies in Canada.