January Manga TBR
Jan. 6th, 2026 05:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluapapilioI finished 10/10 on my last board! I even read them all in order! It was a mix of 'great' and 'okay'.
Avatar:
Tanjirou (Kimetsu no Yaiba)
Skill: Move 2 extra tiles 1 time (trap tile if roll Even)
Roll #1:
An 8 and the generate from TBR tile oh boy trap tile would've been better. #1349. Okay that wasn't too bad actually, removed one manga and 1349 is a BL oneshot, Peeping Tom .
Roll #2:
A 7, prompt: amnesia. BL Ake Nure Goyou ni Furu Yuki wa.
Roll #3:
A 9, prompt: award-winning work. Too many good options! But I do want to get ahead more in Dr. Stone before the next anime season!.
Roll #4:
An 11, prompt: featuring a group of friends. Okay...I haven't read this one in too long but I'm gonna read more Mairimashita! Iruma-kun.
Roll #5:
A 12. I had really high roles this challenge, dang! The physical manga reread this time is Lover's→Flat.
~Manga TBR List~
[BL/Smut] Peeping Tom ✔️
[BL/Romance] Ake Nure Goyou ni Furu Yuki wa ✔️
[Sci-Fi/Adventure] Dr. Stone ✔️
[School Life/Fantasy] Mairimashita! Iruma-kun ✔️
[BL/Romance Lover's→Flat
x josei, x2 shounen, seinen, x3 BL
December+ Manga Wrap-Up 3
Jan. 6th, 2026 03:03 pmbluapapilio
Read the BL Boku no Koe, rated it 6/10. 
I (re)read the first 8 episodes of Men of the Harem and had fun! Read the BL The Correlation Between Love and Heat, rated it a 7. I read the BL Hana wa Saku ka and rated it 8/10. Read Daydream ★ Nightmare, rated it 3.25/5. (Re)read ch. 90 (vol. 12) of Mob Psycho 100!! Read the BL 2-Week Summer Secret, rated it 6.5/10. Read ch. 8-14 of Twisted Wonderland, will post later! Read ch, 5 of Enidewi!. (Re(read Living For Tomorrow, 8/10 -> 6.8/10. 
Now Available: Our Anthology “Scholarly Pursuits”
Jan. 6th, 2026 11:52 amduckprintspress
Our most recent anthology, Scholarly Pursuits: A Queer Anthology of Cozy Academia Stories, is now available for general sales. Miss the Kickstarter and want to get a copy? Hearing about it now for the first time? You can buy Scholarly Pursuits from the Duck Prints Press webstore, request it from your library, order it at your local bookstore, or purchase it from one of the many retailers who sell our books!
Blurb:
Duck Prints Press presents 22 delightfully fluffy, happy, odd, snug, and cozy stories about queer characters pursuing academic excellence! From field research shenanigans to cooking adventures, from space station education departments to eldritch libraries, creators brought their vivid imaginings to life in these charming fantasy and science fiction stories. Settle into your favorite research carrel or prepare to read on the sly under your desk as you join us for “Scholarly Pursuits: A Queer Anthology of Cozy Academia Stories.”
Buy your copy, as an e-book or print book, today!
We also have limited quantities of leftover merchandise from the crowdfunding campaign! 
If there was any merch you wanted, there’s no time like the present to make sure you get it before supplies run out.
- Bird Skull Enamel Clip Bookmark (top row, left)
- Candlelit Library Lined Journal (top row, center left)
- Subtle Pride Cozy Academia Pencil Case (top row, center right)
- Goth Scholar Dux Die-Cut Sticker (center row, center right)
- Dux Prints Circle Tote Bag (bottom row, left; final bag look a little different than the mock-up – the prints are black with white lines instead of white with black lines!)
- Cover Art Postcard Print (bottom row, center left)
- Library Book Due Sticky Notes (bottom row, center right)
- Scholarly Pursuits Bookmark (right)
- Tiny Bats Die-Cut Sticker (not pictured – they’re the lil bats hanging from the counter on the cover!)
This, and lots of other awesome anthologies, books, stories, and bookish and queer merch are available on the Duck Prints Press website!
Dry January
Jan. 6th, 2026 03:29 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
languagelog_feedUntil today, I had never heard of "Dry January". I learned about it this morning from an article in The Harvard Gazette: "How to think about not drinking: For starters, treat Dry January as an experiment, not a punishment, addiction specialist says."
Remember Prohibition (in history; in the United States)? It didn't work, did it?
Swarthmore, Pennsylvania was decidedly a dry town when I moved here half a century ago, but then a different sort of people than Quakers started to move in, until now the borough is decidedly wet.
Before Prohibition, there was teetoalism (which got mixed up with tea-drinking). and that didn't work well either. And before that was alcohol abstinence, and that was unsuccessful too. What with alcoholic beverages flooding our grocery stores, I don't think there's a ghost of a chance that Dry January will have a significant impact on alcohol consumption in the United States.
One thing that puzzles me is why anti-smoking legislation has been so successful. Which is more harmful to the human body and human society — booze or tobacco?
Apparently, Dry January goes back at least to 2008 (source). This year it coincides with my personal New Year's resolution to cut out the daily dose of pastry, ice cream, and dollop of whipped cream to which I have been addicted for decades, and for which I now have proof positive of its ill effects on my health. This is one resolution that I am going to keep in perpetuity.
Selected reading
- "Brew" (11/25/21)
- "Two brews" (1/6/10) — Mair and McGovern
- "Let the Beer-Divider Be Chief!" (8/5/09)
Are local accents doomed?
Jan. 6th, 2026 12:36 pmlanguagelog_feedAnnie Joy Williams, "The Last Days of the Southern Drawl", The Atlantic 1/4/2026:
By the end of my life, there may be no one left who speaks like my father outside the hollers and the one-horse towns.
On Sundays after church, my family would pile into our crank-window GMC truck and head to Kentucky Fried Chicken. “Can I get me some of them tater wedges?” my father would say into the speaker, while my sisters and I giggled in the back seat. My dad has always had a southern accent: His words fall out of his mouth the way molasses would sound if it could speak, thick and slow. But his “KFC voice,” as my sisters and I call it, is country. It’s watered-down on work calls and during debates with his West Coast relatives. But it comes out around fellow cattle farmers and old friends from Kentucky, where he grew up.
My mother’s accent isn’t quite as strong. She’s a therapist, and she can hide it when she speaks with her patients and calls in prescriptions. But you can always hear it in her church-pew greetings, and when she says goodnight: “See you in the a.m., Lawd willin’.”
I was always clear on one fact: I wasn’t going to have a southern accent when I grew up. I was raised in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, near Nashville, where the accents grow stronger with each mile you travel from the city. I watched people snicker at the redneck characters on television who always seemed to play the town idiot. I knew what the accent was supposed to convey: sweet but simpleminded. When I was 15 and my family went to New York for the first time, the bellhop at our hotel laughed when my mom and I spoke; he said he’d never met cowgirls before. That was when I decided: No one was going to know I was from the South from my voice alone.
The article sketches a conversation with Margaret Renwick, links to two of her studies ("Boomer Peak or Gen X Cliff? From SVS to LBMS in Georgia English" and "Demographic Change, Migration, and the African American Vowel System in Georgia"), and lays out some of the reasons for homogenization of local varieties, including migration and ethnocentric prejudice.
And then there's a series of (positively-evaluated) discussions about code-switching, offering hope that the future of American speech may be less homogeneous than the title suggests.
The whole article is well worth reading.
It doesn't discuss the process by which new varieties emerge and spread, but that would be a distraction from its nostalgic tone. Still, it's worth noting that a similar set of issues form the background of George Bernard Shaw's 1916 play Pygmalion, and in fact have been around, in one form or another, since the origins of spoken language. It's true that the internet and social media are a new source of change, just as in the past there were effects of agriculture, writing, empires, universal education, and broadcasting. But it's been hundreds of years since (for example) the Romance dialect continuum coalesced into a few national languages, with the associated gradual loss of tens of thousands of local varieties.
And there's plenty of evidence that American regional varieties are diverging rather than converging — see Bill Labov's 2012 book Dialect Diversity in America, whose blurb says
The sociolinguist William Labov has worked for decades on change in progress in American dialects and on African American Vernacular English (AAVE). In Dialect Diversity in America, Labov examines the diversity among American dialects and presents the counterintuitive finding that geographically localized dialects of North American English are increasingly diverging from one another over time.
Contrary to the general expectation that mass culture would diminish regional differences, the dialects of Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago, Birmingham, Buffalo, Philadelphia, and New York are now more different from each other than they were a hundred years ago. Equally significant is Labov's finding that AAVE does not map with the geography and timing of changes in other dialects. The home dialect of most African American speakers has developed a grammar that is more and more different from that of the white mainstream dialects in the major cities studied and yet highly homogeneous throughout the United States.
Labov describes the political forces that drive these ongoing changes, as well as the political consequences in public debate. The author also considers the recent geographical reversal of political parties in the Blue States and the Red States and the parallels between dialect differences and the results of recent presidential elections. Finally, in attempting to account for the history and geography of linguistic change among whites, Labov highlights fascinating correlations between patterns of linguistic divergence and the politics of race and slavery, going back to the antebellum United States. Complemented by an online collection of audio files that illustrate key dialectical nuances, Dialect Diversity in America offers an unparalleled sociolinguistic study from a preeminent scholar in the field.
Increasing divergence doesn't imply stasis — on the contrary, obviously. But still…
Update — Williams' description of her father's speech ("His words fall out of his mouth the way molasses would sound if it could speak, thick and slow") is evocative, but may not be empirically accurate. See "Regional speech rates", 10/13/2007.
And for a striking example of inter-ethnic phonetic prejudice, see Michael Lewis (who's from New Orleans) ridiculing the pronunciation of a lawyer from southern Indiana, discussed in "Lazy mouths vs. lazy minds", 11/26/2003.
Update #2 — For those who aren't familiar with the way people from rural Tennessee speak, here's a clip of Trae Crowder:
Candy Hearts 2026 letter
Jan. 6th, 2026 08:45 pmeggsbenedictMy AO3 name is pirotess and I hope this letter gives you some inspiration! If you already have an idea in mind, just go for it.
( Complete letter )
Thank you! I hope you have a great exchange :D
🔊 Daily music
Jan. 5th, 2026 02:09 pmbluapapilioDoes time always stand still in the same place?
Would it be an adventure towards orbit?
Are there no stars because of light?🎤
Ekin Beril - Zaman [translation]
Fandom Snowflake Challenge #3
Jan. 5th, 2026 04:05 pmscribblemoose posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
snowflake_challengeMeet the Mods Post
Challenge #1 * Challenge #2
Remember that there is no official deadline, so feel free to join in at any time, or go back and do challenges you've missed.
( Challenge #3 )
And please do check out the comments for all the awesome participants of the challenge and visit their journals/challenge responses to comment on their posts and cheer them on.
And just as a reminder: this is a low pressure, fun challenge. If you aren't comfortable doing a particular challenge, then don't. We aren't keeping track of who does what.
Created Works Round-Up: December 2025
Jan. 5th, 2026 10:19 amduckprintspress
Duck Prints Press’s monthly “created works round-ups” are our opportunity to spotlight some of the amazing work that people working with us have done that ISN’T linked to their work with Duck Prints Press. We include fanworks, outside publications, and anything else that creators feel like sharing with y’all. Inclusion is voluntary and includes anything that they decided “hey, I want to put this on the created work’s round-up!”
Check out what they’ve shared with us this month…
Teen Titans: Wrath of the Ravager by Elias Strunck
art || teen titans || no ships || general audiences || no major warnings apply || complete
summary: Cover and sample pages in the style of the 2003 Teen Titans show
other tags: Ravager/Rose Wilson
When You’re Ready by Boomchick/Lucy K.R.
fiction || svsss/the scum villain’s self-saving system || m/m || luo binghe/shen yuan || teen & up || no major warnings apply || 15,673 || work in progress
summary: On the last season of The Bachelorette, host Shen Jiu went off the rails and attacked sweet, handsome contestant Luo Binghe, losing his place on the franchise and sullying the program’s quest for love.
Now, Shen Yuan has taken his brother’s place as host for the new season of The Bachelor, starring the very same Luo Binghe who his brother hurt & derided–a handsome, friendly, charming young man who clearly deserves all the best in the world. Surely Shen Yuan can protect his brother AND help Luo Binghe find love among the charming women vying for his affection. Surely things won’t get any more complicated from here, right?
Right!?
other tags: Alternate Universe: Reality TV, The Bachelor, Ensemble Cast, Luo Binghe’s Harem as Bachelor Contestants, background f/f relationships, background implied qijiu, slow burn, light angst, romantic comedy, getting together
as a whetstone loves a blade by corduroyserpent
fiction || trigun (anime & manga 1995-2008) || m/m || legato bluesummers/millions knives || mature || no major warnings apply || 7,855 || complete
summary: Sometimes you have to bring your emotional support human back from the dead, and live in an abandoned house with him, and never talk about your feelings. Normal thing for Millions Knives to do.
other tags: Post-Trigun Maximum (Manga), Alternate Universe – Canon Divergence, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Chronic Pain, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Suicidal Thoughts, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Ambulatory Wheelchair User Legato Bluesummers, Millions Knives is on the Aromantic Asexual Spectrum, Demisexual Legato Bluesummers, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
The Way of House Sparrows by Vee Dragonmuse
fiction || ted lasso || poly (multiple genders) || roy kent/jamie tartt/keeley jones || explicit || no major warnings apply || 147,736 || complete
summary: In which, Jamie continues his journey to be a better man while still embracing his inner prick and Roy whenever he stands still long enough. Keeley finds that kind of personal growth very appealing.
other tags: Post S3, domestic life, discussion of past child abuse, PTSD
In the Heart of the Lake by Shadaras
art || original work || platonic or familial || teen & up || no major warnings apply || complete
summary: Any time he can skip out of work to hold his child, he does.
other tags: Father-Child Relationship, Underwater Setting, Non-Sexual Nudity
Long, long ago, in the faraway land of Deimos… by EvilToTheCore13
fiction || warframe || m/m || loid/albrecht || teen & up || no major warnings apply || 12,376 || work in progress
summary: A cursed sorcerer-prince. A clever and brave servant who becomes a prisoner in the beast’s enchanted castle.
Nothing is ever quite so clear or quite so easy as it is in fairytales. Can love truly break a curse? And even if it can–will Albrecht Entrati ever accept it?
other tags: Alternate Universe – Beauty and the Beast FusionAlternate Universe – FantasyAlternate Universe – Historical, Some Whump, Eventual Romance, Human/Monster Romance
After the Moon Rose Anew by Shadaras
fiction || the spear cuts through water – simon jimenez || m/m || jun ossa/keema of the daware tribe || teen & up || no major warnings apply || 1,048 || complete
summary: After the curtains close on the Inverted Theater, there are still moments of interest in the lives of these two young heroes who are no longer gods but mortals seeking contentment in their second lives.
This is one such moment.
other tags: Post-Canon, Established Relationship, Introspection
Mosaic Haiku (Art and Poetry), nine new paintings and a drawing by EliotQueliot
art || the magicians (lev grossman, syfy) || m/m || quentin coldwater/eliot waugh || general audiences || creator choses not to use warnings || work in progress
summary: Mosaic Haiku celebrates the lifetime of love between Eliot and Quentin that yielded the “key to greater magic” in “A Life in the Day.” For the Time Is an Illusion event held by Magicians Fanworks Extravaganza, I added nine paintings to Mosaic Haiku, in Chapters 5, 11, 12, 13, 15, and 16 on AO3 (specifics about which art are listed in the chapter notes). For links to the works of art as individual pieces, see @eliotqueliot on the creators list for the Time Is an Illusion event (the Tumblr link for this post) and click the titles of the artworks to see the individual Tumblr posts. Additionally, following the event, I added a drawing to Chapter 6. The Instagram link takes you to that drawing (with links in the post to the individual Tumblr post).
other tags: Haiku, Poetry, Mosaic, Beauty Of All Life, Episode: s03e05 A Life in the Day, Mosaic Timeline (The Magicians: A Life in the Day), Watercolors, Drawings
The First Duty of All Magicians Is to Save Their Friends, Chapter 7: Soulmate Cards by EliotQueliot
fiction || the magicians (lev grossman, syfy) || m/m || quentin coldwater/eliot waugh || explicit || creator choses not to use warnings || 4,113 || work in progress
summary: In Quentin’s room, Eliot does his best to move the mission along (specifically: to bang one Quentin Coldwater). But he doesn’t want to hurt Quentin, and he actually has feelings for the boy that make him wish that other life Margo told him about could be real again. So the route proves more circuitous than one might expect from one Eliot Waugh.
other tags: Horomancy, Post-Mosaic Timeline (The Magicians: A Life in the Day), Fix-It, POV Eliot Waugh, Character Death Fix, Alternate Universe – Canon Divergence, Time Shenanigans, Episode: s03e05 A Life in the Day, Physical Kids Cottage (The Magicians), Rescues, Eliot Waugh Is Smart, Margo Hanson is a Good Friend
The First Duty of All Magicians Is to Save Their Friends, Chapter 8: Soulmate Cards (Part 2) by EliotQueliot
fiction || the magicians (lev grossman, syfy) || m/m || quentin coldwater/eliot waugh || explicit || creator choses not to use warnings || 2,629 || work in progress
summary: Eliot and Quentin choose to talk this time, and things go better.
Part of that may be due to Eliot realizing how important it is to share his feelings…
…and to a tiny, beautiful magic that lives in Quentin now.
The magic which made the soulmate cards…
other tags: Horomancy, Post-Mosaic Timeline (The Magicians: A Life in the Day), Fix-It, POV Eliot Waugh, Character Death Fix, Alternate Universe – Canon Divergence, Time Shenanigans, Episode: s03e05 A Life in the Day, Physical Kids Cottage (The Magicians), Rescues, Eliot Waugh Is Smart, Margo Hanson is a Good Friend
The First Duty of All Magicians Is to Save Their Friends, Chapter 9: Striptease or Fashion Fight? (Or, Cats and Kittens) by EliotQueliot
fiction || the magicians (lev grossman, syfy) || m/m || quentin coldwater/eliot waugh || explicit || creator choses not to use warnings || 2,738 || work in progress
summary: Eliot’s mission: seduce one Quentin Coldwater to save his life. But really, who’s seducing whom?
other tags: Horomancy, Post-Mosaic Timeline (The Magicians: A Life in the Day), Fix-It, POV Eliot Waugh, Character Death Fix, Alternate Universe – Canon Divergence, Time Shenanigans, Episode: s03e05 A Life in the Day, Physical Kids Cottage (The Magicians), Rescues, Eliot Waugh Is Smart, Margo Hanson is a Good Friend
…Baby One More Time, Chapter 12 by EliotQueliot
fiction || the magicians (lev grossman, syfy) || m/m || quentin coldwater/eliot waugh || mature || creator choses not to use warnings || 5603 || work in progress
summary: “If at first you don’t succeed, try and try until you give up the ghost, because I’m not giving up on Quentin.”
(This fic started as a May Trope Mayhem 2024 entry, and a few additional chapters entered May Trope Mayhem 2025!)
other tags: Time Loop, Alternate Universe – Canon Divergence, Quentin Coldwater Lives, Time Travel Fix-It, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Memories, horomancy, Mosaic Timeline (The Magicians: A Life in the Day), Age Difference, The Clock Barrens (Fillory), the mosaic, Post-Mosaic Timeline (The Magicians: A Life in the Day)
…Baby One More Time, Chapter 13 by EliotQueliot
fiction || the magicians (lev grossman, syfy) || m/m || quentin coldwater/eliot waugh || mature || creator choses not to use warnings || 5,537 || work in progress
summary: Quentin meets Quentin.
Eliot confronts his truth.
(This fic started as a May Trope Mayhem 2024 entry, and a few additional chapters entered May Trope Mayhem 2025!)
other tags: Time Loop, Alternate Universe – Canon Divergence, Quentin Coldwater Lives, Time Travel Fix-It, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Memories, horomancy, Mosaic Timeline (The Magicians: A Life in the Day), Age Difference, The Clock Barrens (Fillory), the mosaic, Post-Mosaic Timeline (The Magicians: A Life in the Day)
Mosaic Haiku, Ch. 20: Snow Days at the Mosaic by EliotQueliot
poetry || the magicians (lev grossman, syfy) || m/m || quentin coldwater/eliot waugh || general audiences || creator choses not to use warnings || 227 || work in progress
summary: Have fun playing in the snow
other tags: Haiku, Poetry, Mosaic, Beauty Of All Life, Episode: s03e05 A Life in the Day, Mosaic Timeline (The Magicians: A Life in the Day), Watercolors, Drawings
Mosaic Haiku, Chapter 21: Time Is an Illusion by EliotQueliot
poetry || the magicians (lev grossman, syfy) || m/m || quentin coldwater/eliot waugh || general audiences || creator choses not to use warnings || 1,293 || work in progress
summary: In this episode of Mosaic Haiku, Eliot and Quentin reflect on the very first smoldering days of their friendship. These moments are both their past—and their future, somewhere, since they’ve time-traveled to the past of Fillory.
The events we see in Season 1, Episode 1, include some of their favorite moments from their first days together, and they reflect on these and remember them to one another over the years at the Mosaic. (Being armchair time-travelers has become a favorite pastime.)
Please note: The Tumblr post has the photoscenes from the show in place. The AO3 chapter has some of the art (there will be more added over time).
other tags: Haiku, Poetry, Mosaic, Beauty Of All Life, Episode: s03e05 A Life in the Day, Mosaic Timeline (The Magicians: A Life in the Day), Watercolors, Drawings
Need by ShannonXL
fiction || the vampire diaries (tv) || f/m || elena gilbert/damon salvatore || explicit || creator choses not to use warnings || 4,373 || complete
summary:
Elena gets hit by a curse and Damon is the one who’s there.
other tags: fuck or die
Merry Christmas to my Dog by ShannonXL
video || original work || no ships || teen & up || no major warnings apply || 00:00:39 || complete
summary: Did you know that animals can talk on midnight on Christmas eve? Something about Jesus dying for capitalism makes them chatty.
If You Don’t Have Your Own Deathworlder, Homegrown Is Fine by Pherryt
fiction || witcher || no ships || teen & up || no major warnings apply || 22,317 || complete
summary:
Lambert’s gone missing and Geralt’s not going to let that go without an investigation. While chances are slim, there’s always hope his brother is still alive.
Meanwhile, Lambert wakes up in a strange metal cage, face to face with the largest cat he’s ever seen – and it’s wearing clothes!
—–
Aka: Witchers in space – brought to you by the author getting inspired by multiple Deathworlder fics and all those humans are space orcs posts from Tumblr.
other tags: blood and injury (non graphic), imprisoned, impled past torture, nothing graphic
Weltarsch
Jan. 5th, 2026 12:39 pmlanguagelog_feedThe first six panels of today's SMBC:
And the last two:
The mouse-over title: "It's a beautiful-ass concept."
The aftercomic:
Interestingly, the Wiktionary entry lists the literal meaning in third place, presumably because current frequency of use is the ordering principle?
In contrast, the OED puts the literal meaning first, since it orders senses by age —
to attack or harm (a person) physically, esp. in order to punish or subdue; to beat up. Hence: to defeat or humiliate; to exhaust or tire out.
…with citations back to 1741:
1741 Yes (says he) you are a d——d, impudent, stinking, cursed, confounded Jade, and I have a great mind to kick your A——. (H. Fielding, Shamela vi. 13)
1855 I don't care a damn; if the adjutant comes near me I'll kick his arse. (Allen's Indian Mail 29 January 41/1)
The metaphorical sense "to act roughly or aggressively; to be powerful or assertive" is only traced back to 1977, and is not distinguished from the (even more abstract) sense that Wiktionary glosses as "To be very impressive".
Following up on the "beautiful-ass" modifier in the mouse-over title:
"New intensifiers", 8/16/2004
"The intensified crack of dawn", 6/7/2005
"Is is a prosodic-ass constraint?", 8/25/2011
"Can "[adjective]-ass" occur predicatively?", 11/18/2013
"Ignoble-ass citation practices", 11/12/2014
"A productive-ass suffix", 1/29/2018
"Compound intensifier of the week", 10/20/2024
A Dunhuang transformation text minutely examined and revised
Jan. 4th, 2026 11:45 pmlanguagelog_feedSino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-seventy-eighth issue:
“A Study of Dunhuang Manuscript S.2614V, Mahāmaudgalyāyana Rescuing His Mother from the Underworld: Revisions and Textual Transmission,” by Ryu Takai.
ABSTRACT
The Transformation Text on Maudgalyāyana (Mulian bianwen 目連變文) narrates the story of the Buddhist disciple Maudgalyāyana (Mulian 目連) rescuing his mother, who had fallen into hell. This tale, revealed through the Dunhuang 敦煌 manuscripts, is a work of Chinese popular literature from the tenth century, with multiple extant manuscripts. This paper aims to elucidate how the story of Maudgalyāyana was received during that period by analyzing one such manuscript, S.2614V. Specifically, it focuses on three aspects: (1) revisions to the manuscript’s content, particularly through the pasting of a new sheet; (2) changes in manuscript ownership; and (3) the relationship between the text and the picture storytelling performance tradition. My discussion of these aspects is based on insights from directly examining the manuscript. The study not only provides a fresh understanding of the Transformation Text on Maudgalyāyana and Dunhuang manuscripts but also is significant in that it sheds light on textual transmission through a specific tenth-century manuscript.
Keywords: Dunhuang manuscripts, S.2614V, Transformation Text on Maudgalyāyana (Mulian bianwen), tenth century, manuscripts, textual transmission
—–
All issues of Sino-Platonic Papers are available in full for no charge.
To view our catalog, visit http://www.sino-platonic.org/
VHM: The medieval genre of biànwén 變文 ("transformation texts") are of special significance for the history of Chinese literature because they are the first vernacular narratives in Chinese and to me personally because I spent the first twenty years of my career working on them.
Selected readings
- Ryu Takai, "A Study of Li Yuan’s 'Zhuanbian Ren'”, Sino-Platonic Papers, 299 (October, 2019), 1-18.
- "Dunhuang mania nominum" (1/3/26)
- "Transformational manifestation: an Indo-Sinitic ontological puzzle in Chinese literature" (8/20/25)
- "Texts and Transformations" (4/3/18)
- VICTOR H. MAIR, ON "TRANSFORMATIONISTS" (BIAN]IA) AND "JUMBLED TRANSFORMATIONS" (LAZA BIAN): TWO NEW SOURCES FOR THE STUDY OF "TRANSFORMATION TEXTS" (BIANWEN), WITH AN APPENDIX ON THE PHONOTACTICS OF THE SINOGRAPHIC SCRIPT AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF OLD SINITIC (free pdf) 70 pages
- A Medieval, Central Asian Buddhist Theme in a Late Ming Taoist Tale by Feng Meng-Iung
Sino-Platonic Papers, 95 (December 10, 1997; rev. April 30, 1999), 1-36.
For Patrick Hanan, Meistergelehrte of Ming-Ch'ing fiction.
Monographs on Middle Vernacular Sinitic (MVS) by VHM:
- Tun-huang Popular Narratives (Cambridge University Press, 1983)
- Painting and Performance: Chinese Picture Recitation and Its Indian Genesis (University of Hawai'i Press, 1989)
- T'ang Transformation Texts: A Study of the Buddhist Contribution to the Rise of Vernacular Fiction and Drama in China (Harvard University Asia Center, 1989)