#its a hooky reference btw

[windsaysmeow]

dark aesthetic 6996 with possessive mukuro and very beautiful chrome

word count: 406

tw: blood, mentions of death, maybe my bad english

Long hair of the color of distant space lies on the transparent surface of the water in patterns. Cold water envelops the same cold, pale, fragile body. The whiteness of the walls of the bath merges with the whiteness of thin skin. Chrome Dokuro looks like a formalin-drenched dead princess.

She lies motionless and almost breathless as the clear water slowly turns a sweet pink, washing the red blood from her snow-white body. Her black eyelashes tremble slightly, her eyes stare into nowhere, completely inanimate – purple darkness of an eye and blackness of an empty eye socket. Nothing is heard around, but that's what death sounds like. Not her own death, but the death of all living things that dared to touch her.

She emerges from water the color of withered roses, and cold drops run down her long hair. She leaves the bath and lies down on the black bed, as soft as a fresh grave. She sleeps, and her dreams also smell of death. She wakes up, and merges with death into one.

Chrome Dokuro has deathly pale lips and an inky black long dress. Chrome Dokuro has a night sky eyes and a blood scarlet necklace on a white chest. Chrome Dokuro has a silver trident in her hands and a snow-white owl on her shoulder. Chrome Dokuro is the strongest illusionist in the entire universe, and Chrome Dokuro has only one friend – death. Chrome Dokuro takes the lives of all who dare to live in her dying world. Chrome Dokuro creates her own kingdom, subject to her alone.

She lives alone in a cold, gloomy palace. She looks like a porcelain doll sitting on a black velvet chair. She looks into silence and listens to dreams. Dreams talk to her with the rustle of white feathers. White feathers call her queen and suggest new plans for building her ideal empire.

"With your hands I will create the world subject only the two of us in which you will be mine. I will wake you from sleep, and you will be alive and happy, becoming the queen of our universe." Chrome Dokuro is the most powerful illusionist in the world. Rokudo Mukuro made her like this and he loves her more than anything in his life. And she will reciprocate him, and they will be infinitely happy together in their own world. She only needs to be slightly pushed to the right direction.

[literaticat]

In a recent NYT Book review interview, Alice McDermott said she's worried about young adult fiction "invading the space where more challenging and difficult and rewarding novels, novels for adults, once dwelled." Do you know what she's referring to? Is the young adult market crowding out adult books?

I read that (because I googled it, because of this question).

Here's the thing: I don't know Alice McDermott except that I've SORT OF heard of her novel Charming Billy but have definitely never read it, or read anything else by her. That's fine, btw, there's no reason I *should* have heard of her, but it just means that I didn't have context per se.

Based on the rest of the interview, she seems very brilliant and with far more LiTeRaRy taste than I have - which again, is fine, it just means that she has her own biases as I have mine. Based on the complete answer to this question, which I pasted below, I would wager that she meant something like, "while YA fiction is great in its place -- for teenagers, in the YA section -- I don't like that so many adults enjoy reading YA or things that are, in my opinion, LIKE YA" -- and further, perhaps -- "I, a snob, think that adults should be reading serious lit'rature and not fun books; if you must have fun, don't pick up a genre book, rom-com or other commercial fare -- DO let yourself luxuriate in the wordplay in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, the ne plus ultra of LAFFS! And definitely most average American adults for sure have stacks of *checks notes* TOM STOPPARD PLAYS and Sophocles tomes on their bedside table."

How have your reading tastes changed over time?

I’ve grown more impatient with chattiness, smugness, the glib treatment of the subject du jour. In the past, I’ve always been on the writer’s side, hoping for every book’s success, cheering it on — a habit born of teaching young writers for so many years. But these days, I worry about the poor reader subsisting on clichés and foregone conclusions. I worry about young adult fiction — a worthy genre in and of itself — invading the space where more challenging and difficult and rewarding novels, novels for adults, once dwelled.

So like -- I think she means that she thinks adult books are becoming more and more like YA books (in the sense that they are, you know, fun to read, hooky, have immediacy and high stakes and big emotions, etc) -- and she, I guess.... would rather adults.... read boring books? IDK man. It doesn't quite track with her other statements -- like she's clearly enjoying Frankenstein, a genre book and definitely not a boring one -- it makes me feel like she was just using "young adult fiction" as some kind of shorthand for "light / easy / commercial books full of tropes and cliche" which makes me feel like she doesn't read enough YA fiction, because there are definitely highly literary and very NON-CLICHÉ examples in the category!

And of course, as she knows, tropes exist because people LIKE them, light fiction / genre fiction has always existed, and has always been both popular with readers and despised by the academy. Back in the day, her precious Shakespeare was the lurid and "easy" popular culture sensation that appealed to the masses. It's still read today because it's FUN and APPEALING and yes, sure, explores the human condition with beautiful prose or whatever, but also has 9 million sex jokes and scandal and murder and lust and fart-based humor and dogs! What's not to like?!