Probably not doing NaNo this year
Wednesday, October 30th, 2024 12:25![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cashewSo first, NaNo Scandal.
Second, will be busy hosting family.
Third, I'm kind of on the wrong fandom kick for generating fic. Right now I'm bouncing between HSR (although technically only running around in the 景枫/景恒 stuff), 《君子盟》 (兰砚知己), and 敖李敖 RPS. None of these things are inspiring me to write long fic. (Yes, I do intend to finish that one 凤求凤 effort...I'm just...building my vocabulary. Ahem.)
Fourth, I want the golden age of mysteries to come back again.
Meanwhile, as I'm ever so slowly slogging through the last quarter of 《少年歌行》, I'm seeing a lot of elements that also show up in HSR. 飞剑, sword nerds, elemental power associations, 药师 as the evil cult, evil cults existing, 剑首/剑魁, 以身为剑, five-man band... I know some of these are more generic storytelling tropes, but some stuff, like 药师, feels a little narrow and are possibly plagiarized ideas. Or just repeatedly copied to the point of meaninglessness. I don't know; clearly I haven't read enough modern Wuxia to figure out which are tropes and which are over-plagiarized proper nouns. Point is, I'm guessing 《少年歌行》 (the novel, which was initially published in 2017) was probably fairly influential (both in the ideas it invented and ideas it revitalized). There was a while when Wuxia was a bit of a dead genre, but then now it's everywhere again, which may be due to the novel's popularity.
(Or CGI is finally good enough that people can enjoy the power up eye candy instead of cringing at the really cheesy special effects.)
Again, I don't follow the genre evolution close enough to say one way or another. I'm just noticing a lot of repeating tropes/themes/ideas and it's like...who's copying whom?
And on a completely different note again, I've given up on reading web novels. Like, it's technically good writing, 100 points for style, but the content is so bland. Also, it's utterly baffling to me (and many viewers) why the production company bought the IP for 《张公案》 when the final product (《君子盟》) has nothing to do with the original work. Other than the names, nothing is the same. Backstory, personality, inter-personal dynamics, plot...pretty much everything is original. At this point, why still call it an adaptation and not just sell it as an original work? I'm so, so confused.
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Date: 2024-10-30 05:49 (UTC)Elemental power associations, assuming you're talking about 金木水火土 spirit roots and such, that's a generic CN fiction trope.
Evil cults in general are a wuxia trope (and a historical fact)... is there some specific evil cult trait you're focusing on?
Five man band...I automatically think Power Rangers, lol. Or maybe Sailor Moon?
> Also, it's utterly baffling to me (and many viewers) why the production company bought the IP for 《张公案》 when the final product (《君子盟》) has nothing to do with the original work.
Yeah, I have seen the same to with romcom adaptations. I feel like they buy the IP and call it adaption purely to use the existing character names to attract the book audience of a popular work to watch the show.
no subject
Date: 2024-10-30 06:17 (UTC)雷... The electricity element is everywhere these days. (萧瑟, MC in the show I'm watching, is also associated with the lightning element. Meanwhile, despite 雷无桀's name having lightning, he's associated with fire because...sense.)
It's more the political power of the evil (or sometimes not even evil) cult, often with resurrection powers. I mean, I know it stems from cults promising longevity to people being a thing, but like...they aren't usually successful at influencing the government. Is that old or new? My impression is that in classic Wuxia, the evil cult is usually written as a thing to be crushed, not something that has wormed its way into the fabric of the government, as it's portrayed in HSR and 《少年歌行》.
Modern Wuxia seems to have incorporated a lot of Sentai and Anime influence. The 90's kids are all grown up!
Surely the readership can't possibly be large enough to sustain this business model? Like, aren't fans going to just stop wanting to watch these things since it has nothing to do with the original work? And from what I can tell, the majority of the TV audience (at least when it comes to fic stuff) don't even bother with reading the original web novel.
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Date: 2024-10-30 15:31 (UTC)> I know it stems from cults promising longevity to people being a thing, but like...they aren't usually successful at influencing the government. Is that old or new?
I dunno... all the daoists making their pills for the emperors, that one Ming emperor who spent more time making pills than holding court and was nearly killed by his servant girls... I would say this stuff comes from history.
> Surely the readership can't possibly be large enough to sustain this business model?
I mean, I can't think of any other reason for spending money to buy an existing IP and then mutilating it beyond recognition. *shrug*
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Date: 2024-10-30 23:21 (UTC)But which doaist was actually ever influencing court politics? I mean most of these guys focused on their pills, not running around fomenting a power grab by whatever disloyal court official/prince/aristocrat. The politicking by evil cult seems to be a newish development. In the past it's usually just eunuchs in that role.
The sad part is the mutilation is often for the better. When I check out the original works these shows are based on, they're without exception a complete mess, both from a plot and pacing perspective, and from a character motivation perspective. Makes me despair over the taste of the masses...
no subject
Date: 2024-10-31 03:50 (UTC)姜子牙？:p The recent 封神榜 movie trilogy (in the works) immediately comes to mind...
> The sad part is the mutilation is often for the better.
Well sure. Ultimately the point of change from book to screenplay wouldn't be to make it *worse* on purpose. That would be even more crazy.
no subject
Date: 2024-10-31 14:19 (UTC):p Historically he served under 周文公, so he preceded the Daoist religion. Although I concede he became a retroactive daoist.😋
"On purpose" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Seeing as so many adaptations make changes for the worse.😭 In my experience adaptation changes tend towards making things worse rather than better, with only a pitiful handful of exceptions that improves the original. So I'm always caught off guard when the adaptation makes things better. Hence when the c-drama improves on the original as a rule, it's like...how is the original so bad?
no subject
Date: 2024-11-01 01:46 (UTC)Well, if we're just talking fictional works, his novel was written during Ming.
For that matter, Journey to the West fits the bill too. How many kingdoms along the route were manipulated or outright usurped by supernatural forces? That one place where the king ordered 100 children to be prepped for sacrifice based on a lie of achieving immortality comes to mind.
In that respect, this trope goes back to pretty far in the history of novels, at least.
no subject
Date: 2024-11-01 04:00 (UTC)Fair enough, the evil cult (or evil supernatural power) is pretty old trope wise. (Although I feel weird calling Ming stuff old. Ming dynasty Chinese is basically the same as modern Chinese. It's like 99% understandable by anyone with a middle school education. We're closer to the start of Ming, 1368, than the start of Ming was to the end of Han, 220. So like...Ming is practically modern.)
But, back to the point of evil cults, how many of them are called 药师? That one I think is a plagiarized idea.