petronia

After a decent night's sleep it returns to being Just A Book, and the reader returns to mentally relating said book to the 18th-century Gothic novel tradition - Matthew Gregory Lewis and such - I mean, like I said on AMLA the other time indignation and/or passing third-party judgment is a great part of the expected readerly response to certain shoujo/BL-manga excesses, witness the way Mirage went from "Why are you so stupid?" to "Why are you such a reprobate lacking in human decency?" I've always figured that was what you were supposed to feel when reading The Monk (or Don Juan say), the fascinated horror of oh-no-how-low-can-he-possibly-go followed by a round of applause as Hell maws at the end and said reprobate's soul is torn to pieces by demons (come to think of it Mirage contains a lot of that sort of thing - insert placeholder for clever commentary re esoteric Buddhism versus the superheated Roman Catholicism of such exotic locales as Spain/Portugal - exotic that is to both Nobunaga's Japan and Lewis's England), moral order restored to the universe. Except it didn't really work on me because uhhh Yuki Kaori and all. Jaded palate. ^^; But in the eighteenth century it must have worked a charm.

I've also got this long thing relating the moral-victory-guilt-resentment-victimization-ploy complex in Mirage to the post-WWII Japanese psyche (there's a lot of WWII-related hauntings in Book 10, is what triggered it). But uh, let's just pretend I wrote it all down and move on. XD

Aki: looks better HOW?
Aki: kagetora apologized?
Sabina:Oh, I read the afterword.
Sabina:And I realised what the point of all that was.
Aki: which was that? kagetora deserves what's coming to him?
Sabina:By my calculations all this should've been published in December-January or so.
Sabina:Two words for you:
Sabina:pity chocolates.
Aki: ...................
Aki: what?
Aki: she set up all that misery
Sabina:*is convinced*
Aki: so people would send her chocolates? so naoe would eat chocolate?
Sabina:Not only chocolate.
Sabina:Apparently a lot of people sent in, you know those little mini bottles of booze?
Sabina:The ones that are about good for two shots per bottle?
Aki: yes.
Aki: ....what.
Aki: people are sending her ALCOHOL
Aki: to what, make her feel better? write faster?
Sabina:Come on.
Sabina:You can't tell me you didn't want to buy Naoe a drink after that. XD
Aki: NAOE, yes.
Aki: THE PERSON WHO'S PUPPETEERING THE WHOLE DAMN SHOW, NO.
Sabina:Well, it's a Japanese reader thing, yanno. XD
Sabina:I mean they'd send chocolates anyway.
Sabina:In one of the earlier books Kuwabara was like,
Sabina:Uhhh as long as you people are sending these in, Naoe likes the liqueur bonbon ones. >_>

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After a decent night's sleep it returns to being Just A Book, and the reader returns to mentally relating said book to the 18th-century Gothic novel tradition - Matthew Gregory Lewis and such - I mean, like I said on AMLA the other time indignation and/or passing third-party judgment is a great part of the expected readerly response to certain shoujo/BL-manga excesses, witness the way Mirage went from "Why are you so stupid?" to "Why are you such a reprobate lacking in human decency?" I've always figured that was what you were supposed to feel when reading <i>The Monk</i> (or <i>Don Juan</i> say), the fascinated horror of oh-no-how-low-can-he-possibly-go followed by a round of applause as Hell maws at the end and said reprobate's soul is torn to pieces by demons (come to think of it Mirage contains a lot of that sort of thing - insert placeholder for clever commentary re esoteric Buddhism versus the superheated Roman Catholicism of such exotic locales as Spain/Portugal - exotic that is to both Nobunaga's Japan and Lewis's England), moral order restored to the universe. Except it didn't really work on me because uhhh Yuki Kaori and all. Jaded palate. ^^; But in the eighteenth century it must have worked a charm.

I've also got this long thing relating the moral-victory-guilt-resentment-victimization-ploy complex in Mirage to the post-WWII Japanese psyche (there's a lot of WWII-related hauntings in Book 10, is what triggered it). But uh, let's just pretend I wrote it all down and move on. XD

<lj-cut text="Choco Love">Aki: looks better HOW?
Aki: kagetora apologized?
Sabina:Oh, I read the afterword.
Sabina:And I realised what the point of all that was.
Aki: which was that? kagetora deserves what's coming to him?
Sabina:By my calculations all this should've been published in December-January or so.
Sabina:Two words for you:
Sabina:pity chocolates.
Aki: ...................
Aki: what?
Aki: she set up all that misery
Sabina:*is convinced*
Aki: so people would send her chocolates? so naoe would eat chocolate?
Sabina:Not only chocolate.
Sabina:Apparently a lot of people sent in, you know those little mini bottles of booze?
Sabina:The ones that are about good for two shots per bottle?
Aki: yes.
Aki: ....what.
Aki: people are sending her ALCOHOL
Aki: to what, make her feel better? write faster?
Sabina:Come on.
Sabina:You can't tell me you didn't want to buy Naoe a drink after that. XD
Aki: NAOE, yes.
Aki: THE PERSON WHO'S PUPPETEERING THE WHOLE DAMN SHOW, NO.
Sabina:Well, it's a Japanese reader thing, yanno. XD
Sabina:I mean they'd send chocolates anyway.
Sabina:In one of the earlier books Kuwabara was like,
Sabina:Uhhh as long as you people are sending these in, Naoe likes the liqueur bonbon ones. >_> <_<
Aki: XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
Sabina:So this time she was like, Wow uh,
Sabina:LOTS of liqueur bonbons
Sabina:actually lots of liquor in general
Sabina:for which I um I mean Naoe thanks you,
Sabina:(apparently he got like four times as much chocolate as anyone else)
Sabina:also thanks to whoever it was who sent underwear for Takaya YOU FREAK,
Sabina:and Kousaka appreciates the Testimo lipstick set he really does.
Aki: .................
Aki: ok
Aki: does this tell you anything
Aki: about the MoB readership
Sabina:It does, doesn't it?
Aki: and their collective associative tendencies?
Sabina:Like I said, book 5.5 or so got rid of all the sane people.
Aki: *regrets not jumping ship*
Sabina:XDXD
Sabina:*ties Aki to mast*
Aki: *WHERE'S MY WAX FOR THE EARS?*</lj-cut>