straightforwardly (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
straightforwardly) wrote2018-03-03 05:03 pm
straightforwardly) wrote2018-03-03 05:03 pm
183
Reading: Set aside what I was previously reading in favor of making my way through the books I got for my birthday! ♥ I’ve already finished The Seventh Bride (Maria/Sylvie y/y? and/or mentor!Maria & Rhea+her hedgehog?) and Bryony and Roses (which, *_*). Now I’m working my way through the A Charm of Magpie books, which… are a bit too gruesome for me, but I’m determined to finish them since I own them now.
Listening: Still catching up on Buffering the Vampire Slayer. Technically. Progress has slowed.
Playing: Nothing! Not even phone games, outside of daily log-ins—I’ve been distracted by reading/writing.
Watching: See above.
Writing: Gotten a lot of outlining/a little bit of writing done on one of my original projects.
► I’ve been thinking about making a new fic masterlist. Not that I dislike my old one—I’m still surprisingly fond of it—but I’ve been itching for a change. This is getting to be something of a pattern with me—I can only stick with a masterpost style for 2-3 years before I start wanting to do something new.
To that end, I’ve been poking around table codes to see if there’s anything I like. I think I’m going to go with the other one I was tempted by the last time I switched things up. But that wasn’t the only contender. I was also intrigued by this one, and while this one probably wouldn’t work as well for a fic masterpost, I really do like it. I’m just not sure what I’d use it for. Finally, while I’m happy with the navigation post I have on my fic journal, this one’s pretty cute too.
► Sometimes when I’m reading, I’ll take pictures of passages which I want to remember for some reason or another—because I want to reference it later (recipes, mostly), or because I found some detail interesting and want to research it more (history, mostly), or whatever—with my phone. I'm bringing this up because when I was going through my pictures last night, I came across one which I’d completely forgotten about from when I read Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen” last April, and I wanted to talk about it.
Here’s the passage:
At first I was really confused about why I had this passage saved (because, like I said, I’d forgotten about this one completely), but then I actually read through it and remembered—it was because it reminded me of Utena. More specifically, Kay suddenly reminded me of Dios/Akio. Obviously, the “eternity” part plays a big role in why that comparison came to my mind at all, but the more I think about it, the more it fits? There’s something about this whole image—of Kay playing with his puzzle pieces and treating them so seriously—which makes me think of how Akio treated Ootori like his plaything, manipulating the various people within that sphere like pieces in a game in search of this large, amorphous concept. I keep picturing that scene between him and Anthy at the end, when she calls him out on how small he really is.
And then, of course, there are more shallow parallels—both start out as ostensibly good people who turn cold/unfeeling, and both have a young girl who cares about them and suffers mightily on their behalf.
I know that a lot of Utena’s world is built around fairy tale tropes and imagery, and so it shouldn’t be too surprising that I find parallels between it and one particular fairy tale, but still. I find it interesting.
Listening: Still catching up on Buffering the Vampire Slayer. Technically. Progress has slowed.
Playing: Nothing! Not even phone games, outside of daily log-ins—I’ve been distracted by reading/writing.
Watching: See above.
Writing: Gotten a lot of outlining/a little bit of writing done on one of my original projects.
► I’ve been thinking about making a new fic masterlist. Not that I dislike my old one—I’m still surprisingly fond of it—but I’ve been itching for a change. This is getting to be something of a pattern with me—I can only stick with a masterpost style for 2-3 years before I start wanting to do something new.
To that end, I’ve been poking around table codes to see if there’s anything I like. I think I’m going to go with the other one I was tempted by the last time I switched things up. But that wasn’t the only contender. I was also intrigued by this one, and while this one probably wouldn’t work as well for a fic masterpost, I really do like it. I’m just not sure what I’d use it for. Finally, while I’m happy with the navigation post I have on my fic journal, this one’s pretty cute too.
► Sometimes when I’m reading, I’ll take pictures of passages which I want to remember for some reason or another—because I want to reference it later (recipes, mostly), or because I found some detail interesting and want to research it more (history, mostly), or whatever—with my phone. I'm bringing this up because when I was going through my pictures last night, I came across one which I’d completely forgotten about from when I read Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen” last April, and I wanted to talk about it.
Here’s the passage:
He was shifting some sharp, flat pieces of ice to and fro, trying to fit them into every possible pattern, for he wanted to make something with them. It was like the Chinese puzzle game that we play at home, juggling little flat pieces of wood about into special designs. Kay was cleverly arranging his pieces in the game of ice-cold reason. To him the patterns were highly remarkable and of the utmost importance, for the chip of glass in his eye made him see them that way. He arranged his pieces to spell out many words; but he could never find the way to make the one word he was so eager to form. The word was “Eternity.”
At first I was really confused about why I had this passage saved (because, like I said, I’d forgotten about this one completely), but then I actually read through it and remembered—it was because it reminded me of Utena. More specifically, Kay suddenly reminded me of Dios/Akio. Obviously, the “eternity” part plays a big role in why that comparison came to my mind at all, but the more I think about it, the more it fits? There’s something about this whole image—of Kay playing with his puzzle pieces and treating them so seriously—which makes me think of how Akio treated Ootori like his plaything, manipulating the various people within that sphere like pieces in a game in search of this large, amorphous concept. I keep picturing that scene between him and Anthy at the end, when she calls him out on how small he really is.
And then, of course, there are more shallow parallels—both start out as ostensibly good people who turn cold/unfeeling, and both have a young girl who cares about them and suffers mightily on their behalf.
I know that a lot of Utena’s world is built around fairy tale tropes and imagery, and so it shouldn’t be too surprising that I find parallels between it and one particular fairy tale, but still. I find it interesting.