#modu

[lunarriviera]

[mejomonster]

Modu by priest was truly such a good read. If you like romance? It has a sweeping romance, with a well done bisexual and gay lead (and straight best friend) all written in ways that manage to feel realistic, it's got features people likely found it for when looking for a danmei - rich manipulative younger man, older investigator who's got a hero streak, and yet those categories don't really do justice to them (and of course tao ran is the more grounded detective story lead who keeps his theories to himself and worries about dragging others into his mess).

They're so much more... Fei Du is a traumatized young man who's worried he's as monstrous as the people who scarred him, who is preparing to take the leap and cross the line to become an even more terrifying version of himself if it will destroy the corruption poisoning this city and harming so many, Luo Wenzhou is a cop that used to want to be a hero and learned he will fail people and be unable to save people and holds onto Fei Du as someone who reminds him he DOES fail but also reminds him why he wants so hard to keep Trying to help people even when it seems impossible... why trying and putting in effort to care and help Even when its too late to fix things is Worthwhile. Tao Ran is a contrast to them both, Fei Du living in a world where there's only monsters and victims and Luo Wenzhou desperately trying to force the world to be a place where justice CAN prevail and win even as he sees it fail over and over, trying so hard to believe all people have the capacity for everything and are worth trying to save. Even though Fei Du doesm't believe that, being around Luo Wenzhou makes him want to consider it. Tao Ran, their contrast? Believing the world can go either way, and its up to people like him to create any justice at all, any structure at all, or else everything is just meaningless suffering chaos. As characters, the three of them serve to explore how the world works and views on it in terms of a detective murder mystery encompassing the whole city, the small scale version of the world. Modu is a romance, but its also fully commited to being a murder mystery that wants to tackle the kind of themes that come up in the setting it's created. Its characters are so much more than Insert Character Ship types here. These characters were made this way to explore these ideas (just as the villains are all made to parallel and contrast Fei Du to explord these ideas in comparison to our point of view Fei Du moments, our impressions of Fei Du from Luo Wenzhou and Tao Rans varied perspectives, all of them are different lenses to view humanity and how it works, if the world is just or if we have to make it good, if we can be inherently good and if good people will reach out to us if we just keep treading water to survive, if its luck and chaos, and how much... and much more frankly).

Modu is like. If you want a story about a corrupt city and its victims, symbolizing a corrupt world and all of us at its mercy, and you want to see the heart of the people doing something about it. First the main trio, but also every victim Fei Du recruits to help, every murderer recruited to the corruption, all the people in the cases swayed to some side. Thats what Modu is about.

The romance is just one facet of exploring that, the personal debate about what these things mean about the world as told through two people who view this world incredibly differently. Yet find some way to exist in the same space, same mutual world, when together. It hooks you in and doesn't let you go and youre wondering right there with them, left to draw your own meaning in the end. Hopefully that its worth trying, that doing something is worth trying even when its just the trying you can do and not the succeeding, at least thats what I got from it (at least in regards to Fei Du and Luo Wenzhou meeting each other, unable to live up to the pillar they put each other on but trying anyway, is what I felt from them).

Then like? Modu gives you THAT story, which in its own right is enough to make you contemplate.

And if you're like me and care about people, about characters? Well it gives you, like I said, those big themes and a city's nightmares symbolizing the world, and brings them down to an individual level. You read from the mind of the little girl who grew up in this (one of my favorite scenes and when I felt this novel was going to not shy away from dark psychological moments and bringing them to you). You read from the mind of Fei Du when he knows himself, when he doesn't. You read from the minds of all kinds of people, and the heart of much of the investigation is peoples motives and things they'd gone through and how that shaped what they'd do next. Why they'd do it. Leaving you to wonder who's right. Jaded idealist Luo Wenzhou who wants to believe in the goodness of the people he loves, but also is willing to risk that strangers may have good intent? Fei Du who thinks theres only victims and perpetrators and everyone is going to fall into one in the right circumstance? Tao Ran, who feels the world is too messy to dare declare predictable, who thinks even your closest can betray you and even you can accidentally hurt them, nevermind strangers, and the only thing you can control and rely on is your own choices? Some mix? None of them? The side characters as they come up, grow and evolve, do they understand the world better or worse, and is the world they experience different than anothers and justify why their worldview is likewise different? Modu gives you that up close and personal, over and over. Im still thinking about it. And the way its done, they all get to feel like lived in people. Not structures to tell the themes only. But on their own, there's a personal struggle between Fei Du feeling like a monster who'll destroy Lup Wenzhou if he loves him, like his dad destroyed his mom, and Luo Wenzhou carrying the guilt he could never save Fei Du and desperate to believe in Fei Du (and keep trying to save him in that way if only that way) as person who can do good despite not being saved and despite Fei Du's fears. You could cut the entire city's plot away, all of the crimes and make the city calm, and still that core of their plot would be carrying a Lot of weight. Theyre playing a game of "enemies" to lovers sure, or whatever romance story structures they fit into. But they're also made to be deeply rooted into each other, their personal beliefs tied into the outcome of what they hope or fear happens if they are close together. Modu made me care about that. Its like the fears many people might have, abiut theur own flaws, about getting close to others, about trusting and being unsure if that trust is safe to give. Its that and magnified into bigger form, in this landscape of a fucked up city and the tragedy of Fei Du and Luo Wenzhou's meeting and former lives.

Its like. Id love to to read another danmei (Ive got a lot on my to read list). But what's going to give me roo

[keupastel]

priest novels shitposts compilation

[brazilian-whalien52]

Novels I personally think Wei Zhi Yuan would read

[shijiujun]

GUYS MODU LA IS OUT?!?!?!

光渊 Guang Yuan | Prest’s 默读 Silent Reading Live Action - First 8 episodes surprise drop on Youku with seemingly quite significant plot changes, it’s almost a sci-fi piece now.

[liberty-or-death]

There was no one at the ferry in the wilderness; save for a small boat that lies on the water leisurely. "野渡无人舟自横" - The meaning of Fei Du 费渡 and Luo Wenzhou 骆闻舟's Name. (Wei Yingwu 韦应物- Chuzhou’s Xijian 滁州西涧）

I’ve never analysed a priest related meta so here’s a first for me I guess.

It’s a known fact that Fei Du and Luo Wenzhou’s names were censored when the Modu adaptation was released.  The names just stuck out to me so I did some research and WOW, their names were from the same line in a poem (OBVIOUSLY).

And it's a very famous poem too, which is probably why their names were changed because everyone knows what Priest was trying to imply.

So anyway here it goes ~

Their names arise from from Chuzhou’s Xijian 滁州西涧 written by the Tang Dynasty Poet Wei Yingwu 韦应物 (lmao this dude's courtesy name was Yibo XD) .  Chuzhou’s a city located in the Anhui Province. 西涧 Xijian refers to a river located west of Chunzhou. When the poet was the governor of Chunzhou, he frequently visited Xijian and thus, it inspired him to write this poem.  Wei Yingwu has a reputation for writing poetry based on scenery so here's one of them!

独怜幽草涧边生，上有黄鹂深树鸣。 

The only thing I like is the lonely grass that grows by the stream that runs through the valley, and the orioles that cry out in the deep undergrowth.

T/N: 独怜 is a very interesting word. 😍. It can be broken down to 独 (unique, alone) and 怜 (pity, love).  So in this case, most people would interpret this as something was so unique and the poet loved it, or it could also mean something that was  lonely and pitiful 🥲

春潮带雨晚来急，野渡(DU)无人舟(ZHOU)自横。

In the evening, when the spring tide rises and the rain drizzles, the water in the Xijian river becomes increasingly turbulent.  There was no one at the ferry in the wilderness; save for a small boat that lies on the water leisurely. 

"野渡无人舟自横" is a very famous line (Tang 300!) and it has inspired many to draw based on this line alone.

Drawn by Zhang Pin in 1963.

And another painting by Pan Tianshou in 1964

To fully understand this poem, we have to start from the poet’s background. Wei Yingwu came from a rich family, and when he was 15 years old, he was the aide of Emperor Xuanzhong.  In the early days, he was unruly and the villagers under him suffered.  During the An Lushan Rebellion, Xuanzhong fled and Wei Yingwu lost his job. Wei Yingwu then put his mind to studying and eventually, he became an official.  It was said that his past turbulent experiences in his life (the An Lushan Rebellion in particular) inspired his poem. 

As a bonus point, you’re absolutely right  if you’ve read modu and found the vibe of this poem to be very familiar.  Because Priest has used similar imagery throughout the novel.  For example, in Chapter 95:

He was like a traveler walking through the desert, his body utterly broken. And Luo Wenzhou and this tiny house was like a bottle half filled with water that fell from the sky.  Even if it contained arsenic, or if the cold broke apart his fingers one by one ... he could not give it up. - Translation by yours truly. 

[unforth]

So I got a fairly steep ShanGo shipping bill and had no idea which of my outstanding orders it'd contain...and the answer is...most of them. Including one so old I'd forgotten about it. 🤣 I think the only things NOT here are 2ha Vol. 4 and Global Examination Vol. 2.

Includes:

My wife's anniversary present (not pictured, for obvious reasons)

TGCF coaster and Xie Lian (who is enormous??)

Very very naked Yanshen (I didn't pay for their clothes 🤣). I ordered these well over a year ago, I'd almost forgotten! (Lookit Shen Qiao's beautiful eyes 😭)

TGCF manhua vol. 3

Legend of Exorcism manhua vol. 1 (it came with SO MUCH STUFF?!?! man I hope they release Dinghai Fusheng Records in print too...)

Copper Coins manhua vol. 1, which I haven't read the manhua or the book of yet, but I find manhua much easier to read at my current skill level so I'm gonna give it a go...

...aaaaand lastly, my thank you gifts for leaving feedback on my previous orders.

I'm not positive who is on the right (Chu Wanning, Shen Qiao, and Shen Qingqiu seem most likely? I'm inclined toward Shen Qiao) but I love the adorable Yanshen pin, and I'm completely obsessed with the Fei Du and Luo Wenzhou.

Anyway, all in all a really wonderful ShanGo haul, this is WAY more than I was expecting. My wife brought the box in and I was like...oh. it's enormous. 🤣

Thank you @shandian-go !!

[drawulan]

I don't have a new art for Fei Du's birthday so here's last year's! (which I forgot to post yesterday)

[trololous]

[lunarriviera]

rip jitd, 2023-2024.

a year ago today, youku streamed the first 8 episodes of justice in the dark, a dangai based on priest's danmei mo du (silent reading). a few days later, the episodes were taken down again. they're pirated now and you can find them all over the distributed network, but at this point i don't think we'll ever get to see the other ≈30+ episodes, and that absolutely crushes me. there are so many ways it's hard to be a queer person anywhere, but in china it's also difficult to be a fan of queer media—not least because the industry won't let you have very much. rip, justice in the dark. you were perfect to me—based on a magnificently literary novel; an insanely complicated police procedural, and an overwhelmingly romantic queer love story; as well as dealing with powerful issues of healing from unspeakable trauma. i'll always be sad i never got to see where you and your characters were headed.

[mejomonster]

I got potential news (not happy, but I mean not sad). Latest justice in the dark (rumor) updates: was taken down due to legal issues (likely copyright) and they do plan to re air from the beginning at a later date once issue is taken care of and cdrama airing timing is right. Rumor is actors were requested to rake down their farewell letters. Meaning... the show is back in hiatus. Like the past several months. Except now the 8 episodes can only be watched on unofficial sites in the meantime.

Schrodingers cat isn't probably the right comparison but like. It's the potentially perpetual unknown status show. ToT

Anyway I saw 2 posts on weibo which were rumor only, mentioning airing later, and one post on weibo mentioning the reason for taking the show off was copyright issues.

On mydramalist comments someone mentioned a Twitter thread on why it was taken down, but I can't see shit on Twitter right now so im just going by what the comment said. The Twitter thing they quoted: Cao5903 (@cao5903) Staff Youku said: "Due to some unexpected reasons that could not be controlled in time, we had to take down #JusticeInTheDark to handle it. Wait for it to be okay and then replay it from the beginning."

[murderedbyhomework]

Why you should read modu/silent reading

An unhinged essay by me

1.It's by priest

Like okay maybe I'm biased but priest really just is an amazing author, and she can write complex charscters and intriguing romances so well.

2.There is an official English translation online for free

E. Danglar's translations has translated the entirety of the novel, and it's available for free on his website, and the link is on the Silent Reading carrd website. Speaking as someone who's fluent in both Chinese and English, he did an amazing job translating and managed to carry over a lot of the subtle meanings and undercurrents. He also has notes at the bottom explaining some cultural references. I think the Chinese novel is also available to read online free.

3.Realistic portrayal of trauma

The novel is a detective novel first and a BL second, and priest honestly ties together all the threads really well. There are 5 main cases, and all of them are extremely well written, with an underlying theme of trauma and surviving it. One thing I love about the novel is that it shows how trauma isn't pretty, and different people deal with it in different ways, which brings me to my next point.

4.Fei Du

The main character is a police officer called Luo Wenzhou, who first meets his future love interest Fei Du during the first murder case he's in charge of. Fei Du's mom had died by apparent suicide, but Fei Du was convinced that it was his father who killed her. Her death is eventually ruled as a suicide, but Luo Wenzhou never forgets Fei Du's conviction and determination.

Honestly Fei Du is just so fun. We very rarely get parts of the novel from his point of view, but any and all of those parts are devastating. In a way, he's kind of Wen Kexing coded. He's a gremlin, he's a cheeky arsehole, and you can tell that he's traumatized, there's something deeply and extremely wrong with him, but at first you don't know what exactly is his damage and you just fixate on him so hard.

5.It is a slow burn ppl

Given that Luo Wenzhou and Fei Du meet at 21-22 and 14 respectively, the romance is slow. It takes ages for them to even kiss, but honestly I like that decision because you get such fleshed out characters and plotlines and cases before the romance even starts. Luo Wenzhou and his police partner Tao Ran (my beautiful token straight puppy) get attached to Fei Du even after the case of his mom closes, and because they're concerned about his mental state after his mom's death, they take it upon themselves to babysit him a little and essentially give him a safe place. Fei Du actually prefered Tao Ran over Luo Wenzhou, who he constantly butted heads with, and the feeling was low key mutual. Then Fei Du leaves for uni, and around 3 years later they meet again and Luo Wenzhou realizes ah shit we both have a crush on Tao Ran, who is literally said to be "as straight as Sun Wukong's staff". That's when they realise they can't go for their straight crush and instead have to go for the gay rival.

Honestly though Modu/Silent reading is genuinely so good and underappreciated.

So like, please read the novel, 隨我入坑(深淵), 一起成為淵種(淵魂)唄.

[glumarkoj]

[brazilian-whalien52]

In another universe I imagine the Modu couple and the beyond evil meeting

[shijiujun]

光渊 Justice in the Dark | Silent Reading / Abyss / Modu 默读 LA Review

Summary:

Luo Weizhao (in the novel Luo Wenzhou) is a seasoned police officer together with his partner Tao Ze (in the novel Tao Ran), and they get entangled in several cases that seemingly have nothing to do with each other, together with a younger man they’ve known for seven years, Pei Su (in the novel Fei Du). 

Total Episodes: 

30 in total, each around 50-55 min long. Pacing is not very tight though, which might make the drama a tad bittt boring for those not committed to it lols.

Where to Watch:

Subs are up on Youku international already so go go go.

Novel - Drama Differences:

The plot in terms of cases FOLLOWS for now (in the first 8 episodes from what I can see) with the novel. There are a few setting differences which I have no idea what for, but whatever right, and I don’t think it really affects the plot or the gay itself, but if you’re a real lover idk if you guys got a pet peeve with this:

Set in the future: Like idek why it’s set in the future in a new era cuz there’s nothing different about this era in terms of look or technology, if i had to make a comment it’d probably be that they REGRESSED in time cuz they’re using fucking blackberry and like PSP 

Genetic/Eugenics: There’s now a new category of people who are prone to crimes because they got this gene thing or some mutation argh whatever the hell because they cannot decide how they want to explain this or weave this in properly?? LIKE IDGI and it’s never been a genes vs. nurturing kind of thing ya know, so they’re making it super clear cut for some reason i.e. genetics has been an underlying theme that was reserved for Fei Du and his dad, but suddenly it’s like a whole new race of people like wtf

Everyone’s names are different including the cat’s, BLASPHEMY

CGI Effects: OH SWEET JESUS they green screened RAIN and a CAKE splattering in a fight and BUILDINGS from the top of a building AND THEY DID NOT DO IT WELL we are back at Guardian era CGI and green screen

Gaymeter:

I’d say it’s still there, all the cute moments between Zhoudu and Tao Ran + Fei Du are still there. I assume they’ll continue to adhere to some of it.

How are the actors:

ZXC: He’s great but no one is happy with his wardrobe like as someone on weibo put it, he’s basically like... a young master who’s choosing to dress like his butler, cannot unsee - but he’s pretty as fuck, and he’s very Fei Du, except for the fact that he agrees that people commit crimes because of that gene which is sort of different from what the underlying message of Modu has always been

FXB: He’s okay looking tbh but LWZ in my head was like super fit, a bit older but also like a young DILF type, the current LWZ steps a tad bit into uncledom

Tao Ran: ABSOLUTELY spot on and he’s damn cute too