The Writing Process

David of DBCII and Comparative Geeks nominated me for The Writing Process Blog Tour. Normally I’m a little shy about meta-blogging, but I think that this is a really interesting look at bloggers “behind the scenes,” and I enjoyed writing it. We’ve been geeking out together for 10 years now, and it’s always fun to compare notes.

The Rules

In the words of Gene’O:

The rules are very simple and, if I may say so, designed to not require a lot of work, which I truly appreciate:

1. Link to the blogger before,
2. answer 4 questions,
3. and nominate 3 bloggers to keep the hop going.

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The Inner Chambers of the Dog Shogun: Ôoku, Volumes 4-6, Part 3

New to Ôoku? Start here. Introduction to this arc here.

Major spoilers for the Iemitsu (vol 2-4) and Tsunayoshi arcs (vol. 4-6), including the drama and the Ôoku: Eien film. Warnings: the plot of this story arc contains sexual assault and abuse, dubious consent, murder, the death of a child, and back-stabbing, and is generally NSFW.

Tsunayoshi plays a game with her daughter Matsu-hime. Vol. 5, p. 16.

Hideous Beauty

One aspect of Tsunayoshi’s character that I found fascinating was her relationship to beauty ideals.

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Inside the Inner Chambers of the Dog Shogun: Ôoku, Volumes 4-6, Part 2

Introduction here. Spoilers for the Iemitsu (vol 2-4) and Tsunayoshi arcs (vol. 4-6), including the drama and the Ôoku: Eien film. Warnings: the plot of this story arc contains sexual assault and abuse, dubious consent, suicide, murder, and all the back-stabbing. I’ve kept the mostly images PG-13 (there’s a little gore in one) but the content is not safe for work.

“I’m not like the former Shogun, who agreed to anything.” Vol. 183.

Brought to you by the Bechdel test

Let’s start with the most obvious point: Tsunayoshi can be a morally reprehensible woman precisely because the Ôoku has equal gender representation, both in her story arc and the work at large.

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