benevolenterrancy

[benevolenterrancy]

so I have just learnt that apparently danmei comes by this particular trope honestly...

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Keeping you posted again now that I've finished book four! Finally, fish book has drawn to a close, I'm already looking forward to rereading them all again in a few months when I'm less busy. Although I ended up knowing some spoilers there was still a lot happening in book 4 I didn't expect! (For one thing, my guess that pregnancy caused Li Yu's transformation abilities to go haywire was never true either time, and though I knew Prince Jing got a turn being the fish I never guessed how much of a role reversal he'd experience - the reverse transmigration vacation was very cute! I've seen that exact sort of experience happen in fanfic for SVSSS and seeing it as a canon part of the books for fish book was surprising and sweet 💖) One thing that was very funny for me was how the back-cover for book four was all "They have a family now, but there's still the sixth prince to worry about!" and then the sixth prince ate shit a handful of chapters in and was barely a patsy for the actual driving antagonist (and even they ate shit with almost half the book left to go! Truly the book's about Li Yu and Prince Jing's relationship more than the defeat of any villains, and it's great) xD One thing I feel vindicated about is I've been saying since book 1 that Li Yu could have been in university before he transmigrated and I was right! It's in the book itself that Li Yu was about to start university when he transmigrated! It's a very silly thing to be smug about "calling" but still I feel good about it. It's very silly they brought e-readers and condoms back from the modern world with them, good for them 😂💖

Prince Jing's role reversal totally took me off guard! I was not expecting to wind back up in the modern world, or what a ridiculous story it would be 😂 out of all the things to stock up on, we're doubling down on condoms?? Li Yu, you horny motherfucker, those have a shelf-life, they do expire!

It would have honestly been so cool to see his powers go haywire... or even just more transformation angst. After book 1/2, as soon as he got all day transformation there was really very little to do with it besides for his mad dash to save Prince Jing and the emperor (which is probably part of why I love that sequence, I love seeing the transformation mechanic used like that!)

And yeah, the pacing of book four was definitely interesting... I can't complain because I liked all the silliness post-villain defeat, and I enjoyed the extras included in the MXTX novels for similar reasons, but it still felt a bit odd to have the book end so abruptly but also not end.

THANK YOU for the updates, I get so much second hand joy from hearing about people reading the same books I've read >:3c

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I want you to know that I was reading the mpreg fish book last night when The Line by Twenty One Pilots started playing on my phone. There is a line in the song about a "final form," and I couldn't help but think of your fanart of li yu's fish head form. Now I can't listen to this song without it being li yu coded. And I CAN NOT stress enough the fact of how serious of a song it is for it to be li yu coded. Especially his fish head form.

But I'd rather you not be here for What could be my final form Stay your pretty eyes on course Keep the memories of who I was before

"how serious of a song it is for it to be li yu coded" um 🤨 what are you implying 🤨 manmer!Li Yu is SUCH serious business 🤨🤨🤨

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I've been reading Journey to the West and Calvin and Hobbes at the same time, so a crossover was really inevitable, considering who Monkey is as a person. Somehow it felt Very Right to draw him in this style...

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one is a respectable adult monk, the other is 500 years immortal being, and yet somehow they're both complete children...

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Roaring Twenties lounge singer Xie Lian?

I know you said lounge singer, anon, but my brain immediately went to Xie Lian's struggles with bodily autonomy and how nicely that would pair with the general flapper style, so enjoy some dancing hualesbians

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hello! I finally started dtbpf a few weeks ago (I've been marathoning it this month lol), and most of the fanart I saw of it before reading was yours! It's been so fun both getting the context for the art and getting excited to run onto the scenes with your art in my head as I do :3

tl;dr love your art, it's been a lovely companion as I read (halfway through the last volume!!), and thank you so much for sharing it <3

CHEERING! I'm so glad you decided to read the series, and that you've been enjoying these silly fish! Li Yu and Mu Tianchi are just! completely ridiculous and so important, I love them so much!! The entire story is such a hard sell but I just want to beg people to give it a go, it's the perfect light-hearted, low-stakes, feel-good series!

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Hey friend! If you want a non-abridged, audio version of the Journey to the West, may I recommend the audio drama by the Fifth Monkey? They're doing their own translation of the original text (with production notes and historical context for patrons!), and the narrator is Chinese so you get the correct pronunciations too. They're doing an amazing work! (Also I personally love the voice the narrator does for Wukong)

Just bear in mind it's a work in progress, they're currently on chapter 26, and putting out a new episode every 2 or 3 weeks.

https://open.spotify.com/show/5tNkEI7tYMlfawg2nrFZXI?si=zfD7r3fET0eoUIgYIyRk6g

OH MY GOSH THANK YOU, THAT'S AMAZING! 人´∀｀)

That's exactly what I need to go start filling in all the gaps from the abridged version I've been listening to! It's been killing me a bit -- I settled on the abridged when I figured that, eh, it's easy to get and should be good enough to introduce me to Classical Literature. But now that I've fallen in love with the stories and characters I've been kicking myself over missing out on so many adventures 😭 What do you mean my new blorbos have been going on fun little quests that I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT??? plus learning the proper pronunciation would be very nice since they currently exist in my brain as a jumble of anglicized names and my own awkward attempts at sounding the chinese names out...

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@fluffypurpleglitterdemon "Literally Himself" was really a highlight for me, love when mistaken identity / miscommunication gets to the point that the love rival is oneself, absolutely peak hilarity imho. They really are both just completely ridiculous and more than a little pathetic... love that in a man u.u

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I remembered you asked me to keep you posted as I read fish book three and four and then I wasn't able to read them for nearly a month and I forgot for a bit, but it's happened! Real fish pregnancy! The babies are cute, very funny that Li Yu was like "Which parent is Sibao taking after!" and then it was established that Sibao looks like Li Yu and has a carp form like Li Yu xD Also Prince Jing continues to be A Dork and I love him 💖 An incomplete list of things Prince Jing has gotten jealous of: Literally Himself, the enemy Li Yu was trying to warn him about, A Dog... Prince Jing 🤝 Luo Binghe for being ridiculous xD

(Also I have pet ducks and I love Li Yu and his ducks 💖 They really are useful!)

THE REAL FISH PREGNANCY! Reading Li Yu slowly but surely descend into panic about it was a treat, though he certainly came out the other side of that one xD

Yeah, but it's also established that Li Yu is a bit of a dingus u.u of course he looks at the one that's most obviously Him, which everyone else looks at and is like "wow that looks SO MUCH like him that it conclusively proves the possibility of MALE PREGNANCY" and he's like hmmmm i wonder 🤔 absolutely love this man, fucking moron

Yess! I also love the pet ducks! Such a silly detail but I'm completely enamoured by them and I'm so glad he gets to keep his little, hard working duck army!

Thanks for the update >:3 I get so much second hand joy from hearing about people reading these books

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How do you feel about a/b/o? Or just pregnancy as a trope in general?

Let's see, for a/b/o I find it totally depends on the direction the author chooses to take it. Pure smut isn't really my thing, so if it's that sort of fic I'm fairly indifferent, but if it's being used for a backdrop for a more elaborate story I can quite enjoy it!

I think it can be a really excellent vehicle for exploring themes related to sex, gender, societal prejudices, and power dynamics without actually needing to delve into real world homophobia/misogyny/transphobia/etc, and that sort of stuff tends to interest me. I think it can open some excellent avenues to explore different character aspects, just based on how you choose to shake up the standard a/b/o roles which you might not be able to do in outside that sort of au.

I also really enjoy speculative biology stuff, so I really like a/b/o fics that explore how this difference in biological genders would change the power dynamics and societal make up of the world at large. Plus it's a trope that can easily lend itself into being either comedy, angst, or a healthy mix of both, which makes it nice and versatile.

Pregnancy/childbirth, on the other hand, is super not my thing when it comes to fics. I tend to range from being profoundly indifferent to actively squicked out. Don't ask me why, it's just very much not something I'm into. A pregnancy tag is one of the very few that will make me back out of a fic immediately.

(so let me tell you, my experience of going into Disabled Tyrant's Beloved Pet Fish blind without knowing about the coming fish mpreg was. an experience. Ended up enjoying it just fine, but it was definitely the exception that proved the rules ahahaha)

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The monster spurted a mouthful of water over the Tang Priest and shouted "Change!" Sanzang's real body was hidden away and he was turned into a striped tiger to their mortal eyes. All fled in terror except a handful of gallant generals who charged the tiger, hacking wildly with every kind of weapon. After a turmoil that continued until evening they finally caught the tiger, chained it, and put it in an iron cage.

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tripitaka, please try to be even the slightest bit less gullible here man i beg you

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I am enjoying your Journey to the West comics! As for Sanzang being a bit of a useless scaredy-cat, well, I guess that's why they sent the other three along! 😂

I am reminded of when I was living in Japan and went to see a JTTW based movie. While I didn't necessarily clock all the details (no subtitles) I was a bit surprised at first to see that the role of Sanzang was played by a female actor. Apparently this is pretty common in JTTW adaptations. I am *pretty* sure that the shippy vibes between Wukong and Sanzang were in there intentionally -- there were definitely more than a few moments of Sanzang being knocked ass over teakettle and being caught up against the chest of a strong monkey king...

Anyway in short JTTW has accumulated some wild adaptational lore over the years and there's always room for more

"Sanzang being knocked ass over teakettle and being caught up against the chest of a strong monkey king" absolutely ENTRANCED by this mental image, I am not far enough in yet to have encountered this per se but now I am now eagerly anticipating this development xD very excited to see what comes of that, got to love old stories that just get adapted and adapted and adapted again and pick up their own strange quirks

so far it's mostly been them both driving each other absolutely and completely insane as far as I can tell, but we've only juuuust gotten the full party together. Sanzang has banished Wukong (for killing demons innocent human bystanders!) and I'm foreseeing some Serious Problems on the horizons given that Wukong seems to be the primary line of defense for the squad of dinguses...

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Do you ship someone with NHS?

Not particularly, but I also don't mind any of them either. I wouldn't go out of my way to read a shipping fic for him, but I have read fics that have him paired with various characters and I didn't mind them as a background thing or a B-plot. I'll never close my heart to a good writer or artist who might be able to convince me u.u

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...what crimes did the horse commit

he's actually a dragon prince that accidentally destroyed a special pearl, which is apparently a capital offense (he also ate Tripitaka's horse, but given that he immediately had to contend with a very annoyed Sun Wukong I think he sufficiently paid the price for that one)

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The goat art is so cute awwwww lol. I said you're my g.o.a.t because I really enjoy both your writing and your drawings. I do draw and write too (barely, because of how busy life gets) but it seeing your work inspires me to take a few moments out of my day to hone my craft. I'm pretty mediocre when it comes to both but I'm planning to take some time in the future to have fun and work on everything I want to work on. Anyways thanks for being you and putting your work out there!! Sending you love and positive energy always!! You'll always have a fan watching you from afar 💞

aaah, anon, shush, that's so sweet! I'm thrilled to hear that I inspire you to do your own art (♡ˊ͈ ꒳ ˋ͈) ...and don't talk down about what you're doing! Our own work always looks "mediocre" because we know what it's supposed to look like in our heads, but the audience doesn't! No matter what you're creating, it will be something new and exciting to the people who are stoked to see someone writing for their favourite character/trope/ship/fandom!

I'm cheering your on, I hope you get lots of time to play around with your own art, a perfectly relaxing day to just sit and write or draw or whatever else speaks to you!