#I looked and I cannot find the source for this incorrect quote

[peach-sea]

Incorrect quote

[kaiserin-erzsebet]

Do you have any tips on doing accurate research for people without access to formal education

Sure! This can't be one size fits all for every field, but I can give some starting points for history.

If you're reading a book, here's what to consider:

1. Are there footnotes or endnotes? In academia this is our way of being transparent with each other about where you got information. If a book doesn't have them, they're more interested in telling a good story than being accountable to their peers. That's a red flag.

2. Don't trust claims that seem very specific but don't have a source. Broad claims can be the author's analysis. But specific things "so and so said this" "there was a rumor that (x)" should be coming from somewhere and it is the author's job to tell you where.

3. Look out for choppy quoting. Even if someone has a source, they may not be using it well. If someone is paraphrasing a lot and only uses bits and pieces of the text while also using a lot of ellipses, you will want to try to find the whole text to make sure it's being quoted fairly.

4. Look at the publication date. Knowledge changes with time and old books tend to be outdated. You don't have to stick to the academic rule of thumb of "25 years is the threshold for new scholarship" but do be aware that if something is over 50 years old, many many people have likely revisited and revised what it's saying. Not that new books can't also be bad and incorrect, but they tend to be working with better tools generally.

5. Look up the author. I cannot stress this one enough. The author's background and political convictions can matter a lot to how they interpret things. For example, one of the biographies people tend to pick up about my dissertation topic is from the late 1920s by a man who later applied to join the NSDAP. That fact really can't be separated from his interpretations no matter how hard people try.

6. Stop reading if someone is making a lot of moral or personal judgements on a historical figure. I'm talking about the "Elizabeth I was a frigid hag and men found her ugly"-esque takes, not things like calling historical atrocities morally bad. Does it feel like bitchy gossip? That sort of thing is unprofessional, uninformative, and means someone has an axe to grind. Spite can be motivation for research, but axe grinding shouldn't show up clearly in published work.

These are things to keep in mind to make sure you're getting better information. Others are free to add on for their field or if there's something I forgot.

One very important thing to add: professors and academics like people emailing them about their research. You can do that! You can ask for copies of pay walled articles. You just have to go through the mortifying ordeal of expressing interest in an email.

[evidence-based-activism]

https://www.tumblr.com/tmblrplsdonutbanme/779384214355345408/putting-the-information-from-the-fbi-the-un-and?source=share

This person claims that 3 billion women are raped in a year? And they seem very sure of it. Is there any truth to this? I don't want this to to around and make us look stupid when someone else proves it wrong

Hi! I've gotten a few asks about this same post, so I'm going to answer them all here.

No, this is not correct. There's a fairly easy sanity check here: there are approximately 4 billion women and girls currently alive [1]. If 3 billion female people account for 75% of the population. In other words, for this statistic to be accurate, three out of every four female people would have to be raped every year.

This is clearly inaccurate. Many of the other statistics are also incorrect and obviously exaggerated; several of the quotes appear to be entirely made up. Ultimately, I would not trust the information in this infographic: look for alternate sources for any of the topics you're specifically interested in.

---

I messaged the original poster, but am still not entirely sure how they arrived at that estimate as I cannot recreate it from their provided numbers.

Here is my attempt at a more accurate estimate:

I believe the main paper they used was a 2018 report by the World Health Organization, on behalf of the UN, which attempted to estimate the extent of (1) physical and sexual intimate partner violence and (2) non-partner sexual violence among women around the world [2]. They used representative, population-based surveys that used acts-based measures for violence. They also applied various statistical modeling and adjustments to improve their estimates.

In it, they found that ~10% of ever-partnered women experienced physical or sexual violence in the past year. In 2018, this translated to an estimated 245 million women. However, this measures both physical and sexual intimate partner violence, and they do not separate these out. That factor makes this a likely overestimate.

On the other hand, this only accounts for violence among ever-partnered women (leaving out all women and girls with no intimate partner), and it does not consider non-partner sexual violence. (And the report does not offer an estimate for past year non-partner sexual violence.) Further, this report could not find data for, and therefore did not include, several countries at high risk (based on other reports) for violence against women. Lastly, their estimates were frequently lower than other sources, such as this data on men's self-reported perpetration. All of these suggest a possible underestimate.

The CDC [3] estimated the 12-month prevalence of rape among adult women as 2.3% for an estimate of 2.9 million victims. They also estimated a 12-month prevalence of sexual coercion among adult women of 3.7% for an estimate of 4.6 million victims. However, they do not quantify the degree of overlap (i.e., how many women were both raped and sexually coerced), so simply combining the two estimates would result in an overestimate. On the other hand, this does not include girls and is likely not representative of high-risk populations of women (e.g., prostitutes, battered women, etc.), so these are likely underestimates.

We also cannot assume that the prevalence of rape in the USA is similar to the average prevalence worldwide. That being said, it is remarkably consistent with a recent paper [4] that estimated the worldwide 2017 prevalence of sexual violence against women as 2.7%. However, for reasons similar to the CDC data, this is likely an underestimate. In any case, for today's population, this would result in an estimated 82 million women who are raped each year.

As a note, the WHO has created a website with the purpose of collating studies on interpersonal violence worldwide [7]. While their methodology does not include the calculation of global prevalence estimates, the median past-year prevalence for sexual violence among the studies they collected was 9%, which would translate to 270 million victims. While this cannot be used as a true global prevalence rate, it does indicate that the above 2.7% estimate is a reasonable bare minimum estimate.

However, these estimates exclude the nearly 1 billion girls younger than age 15. Single-year prevalence rates for child sexual abuse are rare in the literature. From the same WHO site [7], the minimum annual sexual abuse prevalence among girls was a little over 1%. The median estimate among the identified studies was 8.5% and 13% for high-quality studies. Again, while these cannot be used as true global prevalence rates, they do indicate that 1% is a reasonable bare minimum estimate rate. This would account for an additional 10 million victims (with a higher end estimate of 130 million).

Together, this data provides a potential range of 92 million to 400 million women and girls who are sexually victimized each year. The frequency of issues lending itself towards underestimation for the lower end and overestimation for the upper end of this range suggests it is likely the true prevalence is somewhere between these two values.

---

Given the original poster mentioned this, I also looked for data that could estimate the number of women and girls in sex trafficking and forced marriage.

This 2022 report attempted to create global estimates for the number of people in forced labor and forced marriage. [5]

They estimated approximately 5 million women and girls are in sex trafficking in a given year. These individuals are extremely unlikely to be reached via the survey methods used in the previous reports, so it is likely they can be considered additional victims over the earlier estimate.

They also estimated that approximately 15 million women and girls are in forced marriages in a given year. They take care to note that this is likely an underestimate, as they only count marriages that are explicitly recognized as force; in other words, they do not include every instance of child marriage. That being said, they also indicate that only 8% of women and girls in these marriages explicitly indicate they are victims of forced sexual activity, despite 54% being physically or legally coerced into these marriages. (The remaining 46% indicate they were coerced via "emotional threats or verbal abuse.") There are many possible reasons for this, one of which is the simple cultural context around marriage (e.g., 60% of countries do not have legislation against marital rape [6]) that prevents a woman's recognition of rape by her husband. It is also possible some of these marriages no longer include sexual activity or some other similar exception. It is also unknown if the women who indicated sexual victimization overlap at all with the earlier reports on sexual violence.

Between the data on these higher-risk populations, the unknown figure of girls' sexual victimization, and the issues resulting in underestimation for these various sources, it is likely that at least 100 million women and girls are raped each year.

This would translate to at least 1 in every 40 women and girls being raped each year.

References under the cut:

UN, World Population Prospects (2024) – processed by Our World in Data. “Population, females, ages 0-4 – UN WPP” [dataset]. United Nations, “World Population Prospects” [original data].

Violence against women prevalence estimates, 2018: global, regional and national prevalence estimates for intimate partner violence against women and global and regional prevalence estimates for non-partnersexual violence against women. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2021. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO

Basile, K.C., Smith, S.G., Kresnow, M., Khatiwada S., & Leemis, R.W. (2022). The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey: 2016/2017 Report on Sexual Violence. Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Borumandnia, N., Khadembashi, N., Tabatabaei, M., & Alavi Majd, H. (2020). The prevalence rate of sexual violence worldwide: a trend analysis. BMC public health, 20, 1-7.

Free, W. (2022). Global estimates of modern slavery: Forced labour and forced marriage.

Progress of the world’s women 2019–2020: Families in a changing world. (2019). United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women).

Violence Info – A global knowledge platform for preventing violence. (2022). World Health Organization. http://apps.who.int/violence-info/

[edensvessel]

What’s the problem with endo systems? I am not a system and don’t know much about this but I vaguely know what endo systems are, I just don’t know why they’re bad/wrong /genq

hello anon!

i would like to start this by saying that none of this is to invalidate anybody's experiences, but to point out that while your experiences are valid, that does not make them right. i can have a trigger of spoons but i cannot force everyone in the globe to stop using spoons for my benefit. self diagnosis is valid when you put in the proper research, so i'd suggest looking into things before you start labeling yourself with them. i say this because that is what i find a majority of endo systems do, for reasons i will explain below along with the sources provided. i do not think they are inherently bad people, i just think they are misinformed people that are doing a bad thing. that does not make them morally corrupt or mean that they are doing anything on purpose, no matter my feelings on the topic.

that said, i'll begin. i have sources listed at the end of this post for you to look into it further if you'd like.

endo systems are people that claim to be systems without trauma. that's medically not even possible, since the way alters are formed in the first place is the trauma that happens before the identity can fully integrate.

i'll break it down, and i will include some sources at the end if you'd like to look into it further.

when you are a child, your identity is not fully formed. it's not very clear exactly when the identity fully forms, but the general consensus is that is usually happens by the ages of 6-10.

before those ages, your identity is categorized into neat little parts. there's a part that focuses on anger, a part that focuses on sadness, a part that focuses on confusion, etc.

for a non-system, as their child brain ages, it learns things and absorbs them like a sponge. the child is in a safe-enough environment to retain memories of things happening around them. this provides an environment for the 'parts' of the identity to integrate into each other and form one full identity.

this is why you see those memes where people joke about randomly coming into consciousness at a random point in their childhood. that's your identity integrating.

for systems, their parts could not integrate. they stayed as separate parts. why? because their environment was not safe enough. their brains were witness to repeated trauma that affected them so heavily that the brain essentially said, "I cannot function like a normal person if I were to remember any of this, I have to protect myself," and stopped the identity from integrating.

a quote from the first source listed below, "Instead of integrating into a core personality, people with DID experience prolonged trauma in early childhood which causes the original different "behavioral states" present from birth to become parts of the personality that are increasingly dissociated (disconnected) from each other, which prevents them from integrating to form a core personality. Over time, the early dissociated behavioral states, influenced by the trauma, develop into dissociative identities (also known as dissociative personality states,distinct personality states, alternate identities or alters). It is generally accepted that developing multiple identities protects the child psychologically by keeping trauma memories and emotions contained with specific identities, rather than overwhelming the child completely."

so when endogenic "systems" come along to say that they are systems without ever having experienced trauma, that is factually and medically incorrect.

and before anyone brings up systems that don't remember their trauma, i'd like to point out that not remembering your trauma as a system is the entire point of your brain forming alters. that does not make you endogenic. as well as that, saying "I just go by the term endogenic because I don't remember my trauma" is also contradictory to the endogenic term, because you're admitting that you do have trauma.

living as a system is very difficult. you cannot "become" a system just because you want to. you cannot "become" a system just as a symptom of neurodivergence. it's a trauma response. it's like when people say "omg, i'm so ocd" just because they're a perfectionist. that's also why many systems say that endos are ableist.

i understand that a lot of singlets want to accept endos because there's so many moral dilemmas in the modern age. i implore you to do your own research. no, that does not mean scroll the tumblr syscourse tag and observe fights between systems and endos. no, that does not mean send asks to endos or people who dislike them, including me. that means do your own research. look into the dsm-v. look into medical records. ensure your sources are unbiased. this is not me hammering the anon for sending me an ask, consider this a small nudge in a different direction.

a lot of this is me heavily summarising to make things easier to understand, but you can check these sources if you want to look into it deeper. i highly suggest that you do, even if you're not a system.

[randomthefox]

I don’t really get why so many interpretations of Sonic outside of the games make him such an angry guy. Sonic does get angry very much, and when does, he doesn’t turn into this ball of homicidal rage. He always maintains a level head for the most part. Especially when it comes to Tails, people seem to imagine Sonic being really protective of him when that’s not really true. Sure, Sonic tries to stay in front, but that’s mostly because that’s where the most action is and Sonic loves action, not because he’s demonstrating some kind of protective instinct. When Sonic protects Tails, he protects him like he would protect anyone.

Sonic is consistently stated to have a short temper. But because people AREN'T PLAYING THE GAMES and are simply finding that description on a wiki or something, they just fill in the blanks with "incorrect quotes" character archetypes instead of looking at how that character trait actually manifests in the way Sonic is depicted in the video games.

Sonic Forces is probably the game where Sonic is at his most angry, the dude is REALLY fucking pissed off at Infinite. And how does this anger manifest? By him smack talking with his usual flippant attitude. By responding to Infinites threats of death in mind. By talking down to him about the power of friendship by calling him a loser. IN JAPANESE HE CALLS HIM FUCKING "kamen-yaro"!

I cannot get over the "kamen-yaro" one lol Sonic is so pissed off that he's being straight up CRASS and RUDE the audacity!

Sonic doesn't stop being Sonic when he's angry or upset or wants to fucking kill someone. He still acts like how he always acts, talks like he always talks, and treats people the same way he always treats them. His short temperedness isn't truly a flaw in the literary sense because it never becomes any kind of challenge or determent for his character. It's just a part of how he's always living in the moment.

But people don't bother to actually look at the source material and analyze Sonic's actions and behaviors to understand this. They just go "oh, short tempered, that's a thing that people are in stories i've seen. I know what that's like." And then they proceed to just write Sonic acting like any other character would when they're upset or angry. Instead of writing how SONIC acts when he's upset or angry.

[odaclan]

Nobukatsu's headship of the Oda family after Kiyosu Conference

The state of the Oda clan succession is kind of confusing, with various narratives flying around about what exactly came out of the "Kiyosu Conference". The latest research determined that the official heir is indeed Sanboushi, with Nobutaka and Nobukatsu intended to serve as guardians. The old fashioned narrative of Shibata Katsuie putting up Nobutaka as heir candidate while Hideyoshi supported Sanboushi against him is considered incorrect.

I have finally found more detailed info that seems to confirm the state of the affairs. This is a letter transcript from the 12th month of Tenshou 10 (approximately January 1583):

御状拝見候、よってこの表の儀、三介様御名代に相究め、若子様今日請け取り申し、供奉いたし候、当国不届の仁は曲事に相臥せ、ことごとく一篇に申し付け候条、その御心得あるべく候、はたまた委しき儀森勝申さるべく候、恐〻謹言、 　極月廿一日　 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　羽筑秀吉（花押） 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　惟五郎左長秀（花押） 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　池勝恒興（花押） 遠山佐渡守殿 　　　同　半左衛門尉殿 　　　　　　　　　御返報 I have read your letter. The Oda administration has decided to appoint Sansuke-sama (Nobukatsu) as the interim head, and as such he has assumed responsibility for Sanbōshi-sama today and joined the ranks of his vassals. Should there be anyone in Mino who does not accept this, we will bring to heel this individual for unlawfulness, and the whole province shall follow suit. Mori Nagayoshi will relay the further details. Respectfully submitted. 12th Month 21st Day Ha-Chiku Hideyoshi (signature) Kore-Goroza Nagahide (signature) Ike-Shou Tsuneoki (signature) In response to: Tooyama Sado no Kami-dono idem, Hanzaemon no Jou

The transcript is quoted from this post, and I unfortunately cannot find where the artifact is or what it looks like. Presumably this post's author took the transcript from a book.

At some point, I had found articles that claimed that Hideyoshi somehow flipped the Kiyosu Conference decision on a later date. He put up Nobukatsu as the actual new clan head, and sidelined Sanboushi. Wikipedia cites the source of this claim from papers from Aichi prefecture's historical archives.

However, we can see now that the claim is not entirely true. It is stated that clearly, the official head is Sanboushi. Nobukatsu is only serving as the interim head/temporary lord in his stead until he is of age. Still, even as just an interim head and not the actual new lord of the clan replacing Sanboushi, this would put him above Nobutaka. It does make sense why Katsuie and Nobutaka would be offended by this decision, and thus led to the Battle of Shizugatake.

Wikipedia claims that this decision to appoint Nobukatsu as the interim head was actually done in the tenth month, quite interestingly not very long after Hideyoshi wrote this exaggerated letter offering to commit seppuku and "follow Nobunaga to death". The cited paperwork (same as the above Aichi prefecture archive material) is unfortunately still paywalled and cannot be viewed online, so I cannot verify this.

Also, a note on the funny-seeming names in the signatures. It is common for people in this time to abbreviate their names and aliases or titles in that manner in letter signatures. "Ha-Chiku" is Hashiba Chikuzen, "Kore-Goroza" is Korezumi Gorozaemon, and "Ike-Shou" is Ikeda Shouzaburou.

Niwa Nagahide was granted the new surname "Korezumi" when he was promoted in 1575.

Tooyama Sado no Kami is Tooyama Toshikage 遠山利景, a lord who holds territory in Mino Province. Hanzaemon no Jou is his son. Notes in the article mentioned that Edo period chronicles from Iemitsu's reign claimed that the Tooyama family had already pledged to serve the Tokugawa at this time. However, since the original inquiry from the Tooyama side (to which this cited letter is a response) is nowhere to be found, we don't know for certain what's really happening here.

[historianroo]

my review of the movie "the lost king" and a formal request for more historian friends.

RIGHT SO: basically the movie starts with this iconic woman named Phillipa Langley relates to the fact that Shakespeare's portrayal of Richard the Third says that because he was disabled he was the worst of people, and she decides that she is going to set out and do research, because she feels like if he had been disabled he wouldn't have felt that poorly about himself

(That's a bit of a sum up, but it still hits the highlights)

AND IN THE MOVIE: All of these big fancy professional historians have come to these conclusions, without piecing it all together, which is a bit mad.

and this ameutur historian (Langley) proves that Richard the Third was not the usurper that history called him, but instead a true king who did not have his nephews killed in the tower

and it's just this further proof that history is seen through a very specific point of view, and that if there isn't enough research done in the First Place people will get history incorrect

because the king following richard chose to spread lies about him, and then Shakespeare made it worse with his play and so on and so on, History decided that Richard the Third was a usurper

And that happens in history!

OFTEN!

People decide that there are parts in histroy that they don't agree with:

and then they write it out

And then the historians that follow look at it and say "Hey this historian has a degree from such and such, so im going to trust them and just quote them without looking into it myself"

And so, Phillipa Langley had nothing to prove and yet she still went out and did it. Because she didn't have a degree to protect, or people she was required to listen to as to not upset anyone, she had a truth she wanted to share and find out so she did

and i KNOW

That it a very debated statement about whether or not "history is decided by the victors" and i do think it's not in every case, but there are many examples that say that it is in fact that it is something people do:

Like, Richard the Third

Or, like the freaking trail of tears, the civil war, the potato famine, the disability rights movement, i could literally keep listing!!!

Like, I get it if history isn't that important to some people, i do!!!

But it is there.

And it is such an important aspect of humans.

Even if they don't realize.

BECAUSE!!!

History may not be the here and now, but it is how we got here

And sure, there are shit parts about it, there are elements of history that no one wants to talk about, or acknowlede, or deal with ever again but there is beauty in there too!!!

History is so beautiful when you know how to read the sources right, and understand that you cannot put you're 2023 mindset into an event that happened 200 years ago.

History is beautiful!

[theshampyon]

I might have to look into the viability of a similar experiment for my classes. There's not a lot of essays in my courses, but I've already had too many students handing in work that I'm very sure was A.I. generated. I need to sign legally binding documents attesting that I have a reasonable belief the work was done by the student, and the A.I.'s inability to fully understand context and meaning results it factually incorrect answers regardless.

I'm already warning them against using it to reformat their words directly. Use it to suggest ways of phrasing answers you already wrote, but always check it and make it your own. If I find reason to doubt your work, I legally and ethically can't give you a passing grade.

Transcript of the OP screenshots: Tweets by C.W. Howell (username @cwhowell123; my formatting).

So I followed @GaryMarcus's suggestion and had my undergrad class use ChatGPT for a critical assignment. I had them generate an essay using a prompt I gave them, and their job was to "grade" it - look for hallucinated info and critique in its analysis. All 63 essays had hallucinated information.

Fake quotes, fake sources, or real sources misunderstood and mischaracterized. Every single assignment. I was stunned – I figured the rate would be high, but not that high.

The biggest takeaway from this was that the students all learned that it isn’t fully reliable. Before doing it, many of them were under the impression it was always right. Their feedback was largely focused on how shocked they were that it could mislead them.

Probably 50% of them were unaware that it could do this. All of them expressed fears and concerns about mental atrophy and the possibility for misinformation or fake news. One student was worried that their neural pathways formed from critical thinking would start to degrade or weaken.

One other student opined that AI both knew more than us but is dumber than we are since it cannot think critically. She wrote, “I’m not worried about AI getting to where we are now. I’m much more worried about the possibility of us reverting to where A.I. is.”

[aconstantstateofbladerunner]

Something I really appreciate about your writing is that you make the kids feel like actual teenagers. I have to ask, how do you get the characterization down when your writing? It's something I struggle to do, even when I go back to the original source.

Going back to the original source is a good start. Characterization goes deeper than simply ‘this character is nice’ or ‘this character is funny.’ Let’s look at Izuku for example. He’s kind and smart, but so are several other students. Something specific to him is that he doesn’t have much of a sense of humor; he doesn’t tell any jokes and rarely laughs at those made by others. Compare this to someone like Uraraka, who occasionally makes teasing comments about her friends, versus Sero or Mina who make jokes at the expense of their classmates pretty often. Back to Izuku, this fact about him contributes to a general sense of his social awkwardness, which my writing interprets in a few additional ways. I feel like his lack of humor and awkwardness would extend to trouble with nicknames, giving or receiving, further evidenced by his struggling in canon to call Tsuyu by the nicknames she wants to be called by. Kacchan on the other hand is out of habit, which combined with his issues visualizing One for All as a part of himself early on indicates he has a hard time breaking habits once he’s set on them. Even the fact that it took him so long to realize that he could adopt a kicking fight style is more evidence of this. And then a reoccurring feature in my fics is that Izuku isn’t a touchy-freely person. There’s not much evidence in canon for this, except that despite him and his Mom being close, they don’t touch often. This might not actually be the case, but that’s part of where my idea came from, and it fits back into that awkwardness. Little things like that can say a lot about a character and how they approach different situations.

As for writing teenagers in general, a common mistake i see in both fic and original content is the assumption that all you need to write believable teenagers is to throw in a bunch of modern slang and references. Think Riverdale, bad crack fics, and 90s anti-drug PSAs. Not only is this often handled poorly (incorrect slang use or misjudged references) it also quickly dates the writing. Memes can take years to reach big names in the entertainment industry, and then it takes another few years for a movie featuring those memes to come out. By then, the meme is dead and cringe. In this day and age, memes can have a much shorter shelf life, living and dying within a week. Even if you release an fic chapter during the peak of a meme’s life cycle, it’s only going to be funny to the people who read it then and there; everyone who jumps on the fic later will just cringe. And there’s no way to tell which ones with have the staying power of something like a rickroll or a classic vine.

The solution: don’t do this. Avoid overusing slang and meme speak, and instead implement more general/timeless dialogue. Slang like ‘dude’ has been in the lexicon long enough that it feels normal, and while ‘mood’ and ‘vibe’ are fairly new, they aren’t as obtrusive as ‘bae’ which is falling out of style, or ‘boomer’ which references a specific group of people. Basically, the more general and common, the better. And keep the time period of your story in mind; MHA for example takes place at least a century in the future, why would the kids of that era still be complaining about boomers? Teenagers still act immaturely sometimes and make jokes, but try and find the humor in the specific situation of the story rather than quoting something else. Teens are also more openly casual than adults. Teasing, touching, maybe saying something rude or inappropriate. One simple way to convey casual speech is to use more contractions; i.e. ‘can’t’ instead of ‘cannot’ or ‘we’re gonna’ instead of ‘we are going to.’ This is my advice for all dialogue: read it to yourself outloud and ask if it sounds like something a real person would actually say. Exaggeration is also good. ‘My life is over!’ when their crush doesn’t like them back, or a big group groan at a pop quiz.

As for the internal experience of being a teenager, the thing i remember most about being that age in the tension between suddenly being expected to be ready for things and take care of myself when i didn’t feel ready, but still being treated like a dumb child in other ways i thought i was ready for. You start understanding more things when you get older and want people to take you seriously as a result, but you’re also insecure about the things you don’t understand and maybe overcompensate. In short, being a teenager comes with a lot of confusing, frustrating changes, some of which are absolutely unfair, but there are a few you genuinely bring upon yourself.

Hope this helps you get started. If not, or you have other questions, the ask box is always open.

[somnianus]

On Chinese and Eastern Dramatic Acting vs Western

Part 1    Part 2

Mostly in ref to the Untamed/Word of Honor, but applies to a lot of East Asian works-

I’ve been getting the sense that people I know from the west (also being Asian-American myself) often interpret Chinese/Japanese/Korean drama and theatre to be too corny/cheesy/over-acted. A quick search on some internet forums confirms this. Maybe it’s because I used to watch a lot of C-dramas when I was a kid (Legend of the Condor Heroes/Return of C Heroes/Journey to the West/The Reincarnated Princess/etc), I personally did not notice that the acting was over the top. 

I don’t really speak for the quality of acting of these actors because I barely follow them in their careers, but I do know that some of them are immature actors or don’t have much formal training (which may cause the cheesiness above). However, Eastern dramatic acting in general does seem like a common complaint, so I decided to look into it - this is all coming from someone who JUST recently got back into watching C-dramas btw, doing my own research so don’t mind me if there’s some incorrect things down here, I am by NO means at all an expert in drama and theater (lol):

^Villains are often depicted with very exaggerated facial expressions (Above, Xue Yang, The Untamed)

Part 1

1. Chinese concept of mo vs western equivalent of “mimesis” or “imitation”

From this, an excellent chapter on Chinese theatrical concepts vs Western concepts.

Mo plays a significant part in traditional Chinese theatre, usually held to be antithetical to the realism of Western theatre because of its emphasis on theatricality. 

Mo means mimesis or imitation, but in a very different sense from the Western concept. One of the first Chinese scholars to use this term, Fu Sinian, used it to compare Western theatre to Chinese theatre:

Presenting a real event and performing an entertaining show are not compatible. The former emphasizes imitation (yige zhong mofang^b); the latter stresses spontaneity and entertainment. The former performance produces a lifelike image; the latter has nothing to produce. The former puts emphasis on the plot; the latter puts emphasis on theatricality. Therefore they are completely contradictory to one another.

This guy actually goes onto critique Chinese theater, saying it should be more like Western realism, so that there will “be no singing, and the acting will imitate people’s real gestures.” However! Other Chinese critics tried to approach Western vs traditional Chinese drama as two DIFFERENT but still valid forms of art. For example, Yu Shangyuan (1927) said western performance is “writing realistically” (xie shi) and chinese performance as “writing suggestively” (xie yi). Western dramas really rely on an accurate/semi-accurate representation of life and realism. Traditional Chinese drama and acting relied on the “symbolic and imaginative.”

Then what is mo? It is the emotional display, the emotional revelation, that is shown on stage. Starting from the Yuan dynasty, the Chinese drama was thought to be a continuation of poetry rather than its own independent stage art.

Poetry is where the intent of the heart goes. Lying in the heart, it is “intent”; when uttered in words, it is “poetry.” When an emotion stirs inside, one expresses it in words; finding this inadequate, one sighs over it; not content with this, one sings it in poetry; still not satisfied, one unconsciously dances with one’s hands and feet. [anonymous, 1975, from Shi Daxu 200 BCE]

Chinese drama with dancing and singing, was the most expressive product of poetry. The importance of mo cannot be stressed enough - it is the measure by which traditional Chinese drama was judged, how well this drama make you feel? Love, pain, loss, guilt, happiness? Plot becomes something that doesn’t matter as much (more on that later).

^Beijing/Peking Opera - highly stylized, emotive, “unrealistic” performances

To emphasize how central and important this concept is, it’s thought that a good Chinese playwright never fails to “seize a highly dramatic scene to stage an elaborate presentation of an emotional state.”

Love is of source unknown, yet it grows ever deeper. The living may die of it, by its power the dead live again. [Peony Pavilion, Mu dan ting]

This quote really shows how important it was to show these emotions on stage, to inspire the audience to feel deeply. Chinese critics believed that the best part about drama was how efficient it is to display emotion. Playwrights should “depict extreme bitterness, extreme happiness, extreme silliness, and extreme sobriety; imitate these feelings to the utmost (miao mo jin xing^p).”

Such performances are not necessarily accurately mimicking reality, but they are obtained through the “revelation” of a character’s internal emotional world.

2. Mo vs the depiction of reality or theatrical truth

The Chinese concept of aesthetic truth relates a lot to theatrical truth. In a lot of traditional Chinese art, painting, poetry, etc, aesthetic truth is not empirical, and doesn’t have to be accurate to life, or realistic. It’s a “truth that lies beyond mere superficial likeness.”

To the Chinese artist, an accurate resemblance between art and reality is not only superficial but often distorting. Chinese artists hold a dialectical view on the “form” (xing) and the “spirit” or “content” (shen) of an artistic object. According to them, xing  and shen are not always complementary. On the contrary, they often stand in opposition to one another. (referenced in the chapter above)

Traditional Chinese artists would rather represent the object with the wish that their representation matches its spirit, or abstract identity, than its actual form because a “photographic image is a shallow image.” It’s easy to draw a picture of something realistically, but it’s much harder and more satisfying to depict its nature, its feeling, its spirit.

This also naturally affects theater and dramatic performances.

Dramatic writing can be divided into two types: “a painting-like work” or a “transformed work,” in which the latter has higher artistic value because it reaches more towards the essence of dramatic object. Realistic imitations are fine, but they’re not really enough to reveal the mo or true feelings of something.

In addition, traditional Chinese dramatists believe that “all dramas are nothing but allegories. One need not ask about their origins in actual life.” You might be able to see, then, that these older playwrights and critics really fancied the overdramatic depictions of emotions.

a. The Chinese notion of theatrical truth/aesthetic truth vs European

Onto what we, as part of the Western audience, are more used to:

For Italian neoclassical critics, the pleasure of a drama hinges  on how accurate, how realistic, the depiction is. Castelvetro, the leading Italian Neo-Classical critic and creator of the concept of “the three unities,” claims thus:

We cannot imagine a king who did not exist, nor attribute any action to him.

Another Italian critic, Robortellus, said that a creative/imaginative story with no “verisimilitude” (truthfulness, in this context, realism) is less appealing than one that imitates a real-life event:

Thus if a tragic plot contained an action which did not really take place and was not true, but was represented by the poet himself in accordance with verisimiltude, it would perhaps move the souls of the auditors, but certainly less.

So basically, it’s fundamentally the opposite of Chinese theater. Italian dramatic works prized being realistic, being properly adapted from reality and real events. Chinese dramatic works, however, enjoyed the emphasis on heartfelt emotional demonstrations, or mo. Even in critical writings, the word “truth” is used, but it is usually used to modify the word “heart” or “emotion.” It is very concerned with the internal, the truthfulness of heartfelt emotional expression.

Taken these contexts, you can see why the Chinese stage/dramas are wholly “unreal” as Tao-Ching Hsu puts it. Everything, the makeup, the costumes, the props, is expressive and suggestive rather than imitative.

b. Bejing/Peking Opera, jingju

A famous example is the Beijing/Peking Opera, jingju. The makeup and costumes themselves are fantastical representations. The colors and patterns suggest different moods, temperaments, characters, and even changes in emotions. Actors would make distinct movements to depict distinct emotions with varying levels of energy. The stage itself may be sparse, because it is not as important as the expression of emotion and drama. 

The stage is sparse not because of the lack of technology or funding, but because it leaves room for the actor themselves to fully express their internal thinking/feeling/emotions. Characters can cross hundreds of miles in a few steps or may take the whole stage to cross a supposed road. This representation looks “unreal” to a realistic-minded audience, but it is very genuine to a Chinese audience.

Summary (so far)

This crucial understanding of the concept of mo (the emotional revelation), and the way traditional Chinese drama depicts life and stories, informs how their modern works are also portrayed. Coming from a Western dramatic background, where realism and plot are the most important aspects of a work, it can be very confusing, right? Even Chinese scholars began to judge their own dramatic works through a Western lens.

How does this traditional background affect modern Chinese dramas and works? I think it still has a very large effect, even though much of Western ideals about dramatic works have been heavily integrated into modern Chinese dramas.

Part 2: On Theatricality and how it transfers into Chinese Cinema

[duskwood-legacies]

Motivation - My Guide for writing

After I saw this post by @duskwoodfanfic I've been thinking a about it myself🤔 Here I present you, a little collection of things I do to gather motivation for writing🌿

Please keep in mind, I'm not a "professional" writer, this is just a little summary of things I do to find some motivation to write💕

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1: Revisit screenshots (of Duskwood -/or any game/-)

Revisiting screenshots of Duskwood chats may help you capture the personality of a character easier! How do they speak? How do they react in certain situations? How is their relationship to each other?

2. Every day objects

You can find a great source of inspiration in the smallest every day things! Now, you can take those things, leave them as they are OR advance them! Or both🤭

A tree? Could write a story involving a treehouse. A mirror? Write about someone or a couple walking through a mirror maze and struggling to find their way out. A closet? Maybe someone's playing hide and seek.

I like to use this method, since it's the easiest way to get inspiration :)

For example, "Hues of Pink and Blue" was inspired by seeing an advertisement involving a cave and the favorite colors of me and my best friend :) Whilst "Summer Sunsets" was inspired by fairy lights and the currently setting sun😄

3. Listening to music

Listening to music is a great way to achieve a good word flow and boost your imagination! I personally love to listen to music while writing😄 At some point I just lean back and let unconnected words fill my mind, I have time to bind them together while writing🤭

If the lyrics distract you easily, you can simply throw on the instrumental of the song🎶 Sometimes that's even more beneficial!

4. Read Prompts

By reading prompts (or incorrect quotes) I usually get ideas more easily! They are a great way to imagine a conversation, scene or setting💭

Same goes for looking at pictures, by the way!

5. Clichés

Now, this goes two ways.

Take clichés, write clichés, write whatever you like :) Sometimes starting off with a cliché is a great way to get into a story!

Otherwise, take clichés and turn them around. Do the absolute opposite of what the cliché is meant to say, go wild!

6. Social Distancing - Writer Edition

If you have finished your story, leave it to rest and return a few days later and read it again. Keeping distance to your story and then re-reading it is a great way to spot things you may find yourself unsatisfied with and find sections you want to rephrase.

7. Don't write in chronological order

If you begin writing the plot points you are excited about, it's easier to actually get into your story. At least that's the way I feel about it🤭

Usually I section my work when I don't write the story from beginning to end with [...]. It helps me keep track of the things I am missing and most times I get ideas to fill the voids as I write!

For example:

Jake’s head turned to look at her. Her breath hitched, a warm sensation running over her body as MC looked into his mellow gaze. His eyes gleamed with admiration, void of all the saddened emotions she expected to see.

[...]/[note of what you want to happen in this section]

“I cannot believe I found someone like you.” A soft mutter ranked through Jake’s voice. MC chuckled, cheeks heating up with the bliss his words brought into her spirit.

I'm not lying when I say half of all my word documents look like this when I'm writing😝🌿

8. Write now, edit later

I often find that the fastest reason for my motivation dropping is through my own unsatisfaction. Here's what I think may be quite helpful:

Write anything that comes to your mind. Anything. Don't stop, write it now, edit it later. Your story is here to be progressed, not to be "perfect" through and through the moment words come to paper. Take it easy, you can do it💕🌿

9. Self Care

This point is what I consider the most important one in this list. Stay hydrated, eat when you need to, take a break when you need to. Take a shower or bath, clean your room, whatever you want or need to do to upkeep your comfort and well-being. Your writing is here to wait.

Your health is playing a critical point in motivation. Don't let it go.

(If you have days where your own mind's up against you, please know that this is also okay. Sometimes we're void of the strength needed for self care. Just know you can turn to me, I'll gladly listen to you, all your struggles and issues are valid💕💫)

10. Taking Breaks

Taking breaks is essential to recharge and rethink. I usually take a break every 15-20 minutes when writing (except I am in a word-flow), which I feel is quite helpful! Everyone has their own preferences and need though, so experiment around with your comfort zone here :)

If you don't feel the need to take breaks or feel like they may throw you off your stride then don't take them. Everyone is a unique individual with unique needs😄🤭

11. Brainstorming

Brainstorming with a friend or fellow writer can help you advance and develop your plot further!

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I hope this post has been beneficial to the person who just read it💕

Once more, those are the things I personally do, each individual has different preferences and work flows!😄🤭 What works for me may not work for you and that's okay :)

Also, sometimes a Writers Block is just that, there's no need to force it away. Sometimes there's a need for a break we shouldn't ignore.

Thanks for reading, have a great and healthy week!🌿💕💙

[plague-of-insomnia]

You’re free to believe whatever you want, but your information is completely unfounded.

As to your first point:

1° the human mind in most cases cannot differentiate fiction from reality, this is not something that applies to everyone, but people with tendencies can aggravate certain unhealthy fetishes.

The information about the mind not being able to interpret fiction from reality is based on the incorrect interpretation of MRI brain flow studies that showed the areas of the brain connected to smell or movement can be triggered by reading alone. This does not mean that the brain sees them as the exact same thing or that participants couldn’t distinguish reality from fiction. Distinguishing the two is something children learn at a young age (usually by age 4), and adults should definitely be able to do under most circumstances. (War of the Worlds scenarios and certain mental illness conditions aside.)

In fact, a recent study even evaluated how the brain might tell the two apart by something they call a “reality threshold” — in other words, the brain evaluates how vivid or real something is and decides if it’s reality or not.

Some various quotes from diff sources on the topic:

One of those alternative hypotheses says that the brain uses the same networks for reality and imagination, but that functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scans don’t have high enough resolution for neuroscientists to discern the differences in how the networks are used

We still don’t understand fully how the brain distinguishes the two but it absolutely does:

What is clear is that the brain must be able to accurately regulate how strong a mental image is to avoid confusion between fantasy and reality.

Yet even when we are completely immersed and emotionally engaged within these worlds, we have little difficulty in leaving the fictional landscapes and getting back to the day-to-day of our own world.

There HAVE been studies that show people who are incredibly lonely and obsessed with fictional worlds can see the line between fiction and reality blur (this would represent quite a few people active in fandom), and perhaps this is also what you may be thinking of in your completely unsourced statements above.

“When we analyzed brain patterns in the MPFC [region of the brain], real people were represented very distinctly from fictional people in the non-lonely participants,” Wagner said.

“But among the lonelier people, the boundary starts breaking down. You don’t see the stark lines between the two groups.”

The findings suggest that lonely people may turn to fictional characters for a sense of belonging that is lacking in their real life, and that the results can be seen in brain, Wagner said.

While this study might explain why so many people in fandom seem to conflate reality and fiction, or why they defend fictional characters as if they were real, this still does not mean that brain cannot distinguish reality and fiction. Especially when the resolution of MRI imaging is so poor and all we’re looking at is nerve activity/blood flow and trying to interpret what it might mean.

I’m also pretty sure most of the “articles” claiming the brain cannot distinguish reality from fiction are not scientific but rather inflammatory, but you’re welcome to forward legitimate sources to the contrary.

I could continue on this but I’ve gone on long enough and haven’t even addressed the second part of your statement, that “people with certain tendencies can aggravate them through fiction” or your second point.

Some studies (though I couldn’t find any primary sources for this) found that some people with paraphilias could be led to offend if they consumed too much related material. But other studies have shown people can actually avoid offending by turning to fiction. This is probably just like how many survivors find fiction therapeutic and a safe way to work out their trauma, but for some people it can actually be more harmful for them to do this than it is for others.

Still, you would essentially argue that because some people might have a worsening of their … let’s say, shopping addiction by reading about shopping, others may be able to avoid the compulsion by focusing instead on fiction instead. And banning online shopping isn’t going to magically cure or stop anyone with a shopping addiction, who already make up a very tiny part of the population. Nor is it the stores’ responsibility to make sure that this very niche group isn’t harmed by their content that is fine for most people to be exposed to.

[ x • x • x • x • x ]

Now for your second point:

2° Many real pedophiles introduce themselves into fandoms that involve this precisely because they feel comfortable, which makes everything worse and unfortunately it happens because I saw it.

I doubt there have been any scientific studies on this, and it feels like a very personal and hyperbolic conclusion. I have seen far more antis being charged with sexual crimes in my time in fandom than I have non antis (I think I’ve only seen one, CielStar, in fact). And I would argue that anti communities create an environment ripe for grooming and abuse by predators than most non anti ones.

Antis often have “safe” adults and openly invite minors to participate; most non-anti communities are 18+ and strictly avoid interaction with minors. I’m not trying to belittle your own experience, but your statement is inflammatory and without any real basis.

(For example, I have heard multiple cases of antis sharing actual CSEM with one another, and have never once heard of this happening in non-anti spaces.)

I’ve had dealt with some abusive assholes in my time in fandom, including ones who tried to push me out by spreading false rumors about me and my motivations, but I wouldn’t say fandom is made up of, or exclusively attracts assholes looking to abuse people.

In the end, censoring fiction is not going to protect or save anyone. Abusers and predators can always find ways to target and groom their prey.

Trigger warning: mention of CP (child porn)

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[starsgivemehp]

The Argument Against and Defense of Hetalia

Let me preface this by saying that I have not watched the show or read the manga in a few years now, and thus I am working mostly off of memory and what fan content I see these days, which is not a lot. Also, I am a gentile, and I don’t claim to know a lot about the Jewish community or traditions. I am, however, a writer and I have plenty of practice analyzing and criticizing works of fiction from multiple angles. With that in mind, this essay is an attempt to explain everything that is wrong and not wrong with the show, the comic strips, and the fandom.

I’m putting this under a read more for sheer length, this was 11 pages on Google docs.

Let us start with the list of grievances assembled largely from one post, the majority of which I had to go digging for as the original person in this post who mentioned Hetalia said, and I quote, “i dont feel the need to link a source for [hetalia] because…” and then listed two things, one of which is incorrect entirely. But I digress, I will address each one at a time. The list of grievances is as follows:

It is called ‘Axis Powers’ Hetalia

One of the main characters is a personification of Nazi Germany

The entire point of the series is:

Advocating for eugenics

Racial fetishization

Advocating for fascism

Nazi sympathizing/propaganda

The entire franchise is terrible due to rape jokes, racism, and Holocaust jokes

Hetalia fans are all terrible due to rape jokes and other issues

Death of the author cannot apply to this fandom

There may be more that are in other reblogs of the post in question, and I may add addendums further in this essay, but for the time being, I will address each of these grievances and explain the validity or non-validity of each, from a position understanding of both fans and of non-fans. Thus, in order:

‘Axis Powers’ Hetalia

When people talk about Hetalia, they usually are referring to the anime due to its widespread popularity. However, Hetalia began as a series of strip comics posted on a forum by Hidekaz Himaruya (and I spent a while trying to actually find the original comics, but I can’t, there are links to his blogs there in what I’ve provided). It later was formatted into a manga, and then later became an anime. While it was originally titled Axis Powers: Hetalia and the first two seasons of the show are named as such, it usually is only referred to as Hetalia. The anime seasons after said first two seasons have all been ‘world’ focused: Seasons three and four were titled World Series, season five was titled Beautiful World, season six was titled World Twinkle, and the upcoming season seven is titled World Stars.

For the purposes of tagging everything, I tend to see the tags ‘hetalia’ and ‘hws,’ which is short for Hetalia: World Series. This name of the third and fourth anime seasons is the most widely accepted and used name for the series as a whole. While it is true that, years ago, people referred to it as ‘aph’ for Axis Powers Hetalia, the fans and the series have put that behind them, for good reason. It is understandable, even righteous, to not accept the title ‘Axis Powers.’ It does draw focus to the WW2 era, and place the fascists and nazis as the ‘main characters,’ or even, ‘the good guys,’ which is not the case. Obviously, the Nazis were terrible and the entirety of the Axis Powers did horrible, unspeakable things during the war.

It must be noted, to anybody who has not seen the show or read the manga, that the first one to two seasons do have a ‘focus’ on the WW2 era, per se, but it largely talks about interactions between countries, as they are the personified party, and makes extremely few allusions to the war itself, and none to the Holocaust. I will address that in a later section. For now, the point to make is that after these original two seasons, Hetalia branches out into a much wider worldview, adds several more characters, and focuses more on said characters in individual arcs and offerings of historical facts - as generalized as they may be. Nobody claimed that Hetalia was correct in everything it said, but it aims to play out some historical information in a simplified and humorous way. This is due to the fact that the characters are all singular people meant to personify entire countries, which leads us to point two.

The Personification of Nazi Germany

This is the second complaint of the strand of the post in question that I was presented with, quoted as “one of the main characters is a personification of nazi germany.” This is an entirely incorrect statement. ‘Nazi Germany,’ as people call it, is the state of Germany during the era leading up to and of World War 2. The country is still Germany, the people were still German, the Nazi part comes from the political regime in power, a real world nightmare. In the Hetalia series, the characters are called by their country names, because that is who they personify. This may change at times. For example, the character now known as Turkey was previously called Ottoman Empire. They come to be when civilization starts or a colony is introduced to a place. This can be seen in the strip or episode where China ‘finds’ Japan as a small boy and begins to teach him reading and writing - and Japan thereafter invents hiragana. It can also be seen in the comic where a young child, Iceland, questions who he is and why he knows his people are “different beings” than him. The country that speaks to him (I only have the comic here in my likes in that list, the name isn’t mentioned and it’s been a while, but it might be another of the Scandinavian countries) explains that he is Mr. Iceland, they don’t know why he is Mr. Iceland, but they know he is.

What I am attempting to explain with all of these other examples is that there is no ‘Nazi Germany’ character. There is a character called Germany (or Mr. Germany), and all of his adult life, he has been called Germany. He is never addressed by anything else. He does, however, look remarkably similar to a childhood friend of Italy’s, Holy Roman Empire (or just Holy Rome), but as far as it has been explained in canon, Holy Rome went off somewhere and, later on Germany and Italy met as strangers. The general consensus is, due to the area where the Holy Roman Empire used to be is around-ish Germany, the characters are the same. But never, in any of the comics, anime, or movie, is Germany referred to as Nazi Germany. I don’t believe the word ‘Nazi’ appears at any point in time, even, though I cannot claim I have seen every shred of content, so I may be wrong. But I doubt that very much, as it is not in the nature of the series to do such a thing. Moving on.

Advocating for Eugenics

I will start and end this section by saying that Hetalia was, in the original post, roped in with Attack on Titan, of which (as far as I know) the author advocates for eugenics - or the idea that certain people should not be allowed to produce offspring due to their race or other factors. There is no example of Hetalia content wherein this disgusting opinion is ever mentioned or supported in any way. This is at worst a flat-out lie, and at best lumping Hetalia in with a much worse show that does do this (but I won’t get into that, I have never seen more than a few episodes of Attack on Titan and I don’t care to see any more of it. Throw your opinions or defenses elsewhere, I care 0% about it entirely). I have no more need to prepare a more detailed response to this accusation. It simply is not true.

Racial Fetishization

This particular accusation is a difficult one. Fetishization may be a strong word, as the series is largely a comedy. Everyone gets their turn in the spotlight, so to speak, so I find it hard to plainly state that any one character is fetishized or displayed as the most powerful. There is, of course, Rome, who only appears in small segments as Italy’s grandfather and is, in the series, touted as an amazing empire who had it all. I do not believe this is what the accusation is referring to. This accusation seems to be some sort of insistence that the show and creator believe that white people (or possibly just Germans/Nazis/the Aryan race?) are touted as the most powerful and nobody else can compare. I can confidently say that while that is never said anywhere, there are a few issues. Hetalia, particularly the animated series, had (and may still have) a longstanding issue of whitewashing countries that should not be white. This includes Egypt and Seychelles (who both later got a darker skin tone, probably still not dark enough though) as the worst offenders, and even Spain, Turkey, Greece, and Romano (southern Italy), and so on. Yes, this is a big problem. There is no defense against that. It should not be the case. These characters obviously should have darker skin. I will note, however, that many fans are already completely aware of this, have been complaining about it since the beginning, and tend to draw these characters with more correct skin tones in their fanart. This is a case where yes, the original content is not good, but the fans make their own fixes. If you are angry at Hetalia for whitewashing, good. You should be. But I do not believe this should reflect on the entirety of the content and the fandom (And note that I am not linking any particular fanart here, because I want nobody to go attack any fans).

It is also important to note that yes, a large majority of the series builds upon stereotypes. No, stereotypes are not good. No, you should not assume that the personifications of the countries encompass all citizens of said countries. The entire premise of the show is one person = the embodiment of a country, and that person changes and adapts with the times in terms of uniform and personality. It is extremely hard to do this without stereotyping. Most serious fans are aware of this, and do not in any way believe that these characters represent everyone from these countries. It may be true that much younger fans used to, and it may be true that people do not want to watch the show because stereotypes are, arguably, bad. But do remember that this is a comedy, and every character is picked on. Every one. And it is understandable if this branch of humor is not for you. I, personally, don’t like Family Guy or South Park or any shows like that for their humor. I also don’t attack the people who do. I ignore it.

Advocating for Fascism

This is another area wherein I believe the accuser is simply lumping Hetalia in with the original poster’s subject, Attack on Titan. Again, I will not defend or attack that show, as I do not care about it at all. However, regarding Hetalia, I can confidently say that it does not advocate for fascism. While the first two seasons are (sort of) set in WW2 era, as previously mentioned, the fighting is not really a big part, and nobody is touted as correct - only struggling in the conflict. For example, there is a scene where Germany, post WW1, is shown making cuckoo clocks by hand and lamenting the fact that he has to make so many thousands in order to pay back France. This is by no means painting fascism as a good thing, or explaining anything about how poverty and other struggles lead to the formation and rise of the Nazi party. It is simply a scene where we see a man frustratedly making cuckoo clocks and complaining while France’s big head jeers at him in his imagination. The surrounding scenes and the end of this one are making note of how Italy keeps coming over to his house to try and be friends and Germany keeps kicking him out because Italy is annoying and whiny. The episode further goes on to mention that Germany is attacking France again, and Italy has suddenly become his ally, and he is not happy about it for the aforementioned reasons. Again, this does not in any way paint Germany as being ‘right.’ The purpose of the segment(s) is/are to show him disliking the annoying Italy (whom the show is named for) and trying to get him out of his house before eventually giving up and accepting that they can be friends. Is it all 100% historically accurate? No, not by a long shot. Does it paint him as sympathetic? Sort of, you feel bad for the guy making a thousand cuckoo clocks, but only in the sense that he is one person doing a lot of work, a completely fictional situation. But Italy - and the audience - obviously know that attacking France again is not a good thing, so does it advocate the Nazis or fascism? Also no.

Nazi Sympathizing/Propaganda

I pretty well covered this in the previous section, but I will expand. I have alluded to the first two seasons as “focusing” on WW2, in a way, and also mentioned that this is a generalization of sorts, so here I will attempt to clarify. The first few episodes do, indeed, touch on ‘the way they all met’ in a sense; Germany is starting a war and he reluctantly becomes allies with Italy, and less reluctantly becomes allies with Japan, who examines both of them and decides he is content with this situation. However, none of it is very serious, and these ‘formalities’ give way easily to more humorous personable interactions, such as Italy hugging Japan without warning and the touch-anxious Japan pushing him off and getting flustered, Italy petting a cat and then freaking out when he is licked because a cat’s tongue is rough, the two of them ‘training’ by doing your regular old exercising and jogging and Italy being late, etc etc. Stupid, personable jokes.

On the flip side, the show covers the Allied Powers quite a bit too. A lot of this is the five big ones - America, Britain (/England/UK), France, Russia, and China - all meeting around one table and squabbling about various things. I fondly recall one scene where China arrives late and has a bunch of workers suddenly building a Chinatown in the meeting room because he was hungry and wanted his own food, and the others protesting. They are then offered food and become okay with it, because food. Other such nonsense plays out in other, similar meetings. There is also a segment where the Axis powers are all stranded on an island for… some unknown reason… and they set about attempting to survive via campfire and fishing and such. Twice (three times?) the Allied powers ‘attack’ them on this island via China whacking them each with a wok and, as the three of them are in a sad heap, something interrupts the scene to make the Allies retreat. One time, it is Rome’s sudden and also unexplained entrance across the sky singing a song, and another time, it is England’s preoccupation with a cursed chair. Also, at one point, Austria is playing a piano. Does any of this magic logical, real life sense? No. It’s stupid and funny and has nothing to do with war. These are just personable characters thrown into weird situations so they can be funny, with some extremely mild historical context along the way.

I will note again that WW2 is pretty much completely dropped after these two seasons, with the war hardly addressed at all, and future seasons focus more on other characters. The Scandinavians get to all have fun together, the Baltic trio is mentioned, there is a lot about Switzerland taking care of Liechtenstein (wow I spelled it right after all these years, go me) and being stiff and formal with Austria. There is also plenty about people mistaking Canada for America, and England and France squabbling throughout the years, and Spain finding Romano cute but also very grumpy, etc etc… This series is largely Eurasia-focused, yes, and it can be criticized for not being as diverse as it should be. But boiling it down to ‘Nazi propaganda’ is outright, obliviously false.

I don’t know if this is the best place to put this particular note, but I couldn’t think of anywhere else to place it, so here it will go. I would like to mention that in the series, some characters, like Germany and Russia, express outright fear of their ‘bosses’ in certain points in history. It is important to realize that Germany, Japan, America, etc… these characters are not the actual, real-life humans in charge of these countries, but people of a fictional, separate species than humans who grow up as the nation grows and have lives that are affected by these world leaders (we even watch in the show America shooting up from child to young adult as the colonies expand, and England comments on how quickly he grew up - but not as quickly as his people, of course. We’ll get to Davie later). The president of the United States is America’s ‘boss,’ and naturally, that boss changes every time the president changes. The emperor of China is China’s ‘boss.’ It follows, thusly, that at one point, Hitler was Germany’s ‘boss.’ The terrible person himself was alluded to, as far as I know, exactly one time, not by name, and no face was shown. In a very brief scene, Germany laments that his new boss is scary and he was just ordered to go force Austria to come live with him. Said boss is shown as, I believe, an evilly laughing shadowy figure. That’s it. That’s the scene. There is no other mention of Hitler, nor is there any mention of the Holocaust anywhere. One could argue that the show is then trying to say that the Holocaust didn’t happen, but I think such an accusation is frankly absurd. It’s a comedy, it was always a comedy, and what in the fuck would be comedic about a mass genocide in any way? Nothing. None of it is funny. Of course it is not brought up in a comedy.

Rape Jokes, Racism, and Holocaust Jokes

While I did somewhat address racism already in the section about whitewashing and racial fetishization, I have another clarification to make, especially regarding the jokes. A lot of people complain that there are rape jokes throughout the series, and that there are two Holocaust jokes. I will begin by saying yes, this is all true, those things did happen during the course of the show. However, it is important to note that all of those things happened in the English dub of the animated show, and none of these terrible jokes exist in the Japanese/subbed version, or the original comic strips.

The English dub is, on all accounts, pretty terrible. Everyone has an over exaggerated accent, there are the aforementioned jokes, there are name changes (England referred to as Britain, among them, very confusing), and the voice actors themselves make mention in commentaries that their goal in this job was, to paraphrase because I haven’t listened in a while, ‘to be as offensive as possible to absolutely everyone’ (and one of the English dub voice actors is even a convicted sex offender, but that’s it’s own mess).  Not the most glamorous or noble of goals. One could say ‘at least if it’s everyone, it’s not really racism, is it? Just humor?’ There is a case for that. Many comedians will say that they poke fun at everyone to avoid singling anybody out as inherently superior. It cannot be said to be the best way to make humor, but it cannot be said to be the worst way, also. Overall, I don’t like the English dub, I don’t watch it, I prefer the subs. And yes, the subbed version has a few issues of its own, but I can say that at least, no, it does not make any Holocaust or rape jokes. Are those kinds of jokes excusable? Fuck no. They’re completely inappropriate. Should you judge the whole series and fandom based on the grossness of the English dubs? Also no, the people who did the English dubs have zero to do with the original creator, the animators, and the fans. Screw them.

The Fandom Being Terrible

I must again preface by saying I was never super active in the fandom at large. I had my own little niche of friends and I stuck to them and I didn’t often branch out. I did, however, go to cons back in those days, and saw plenty of cosplayers. The main complaint I see regarding the fandom is that most of the fans are completely rabid, make a bunch of rape jokes, and even dress up as ‘Nazi Germany’ (iron cross and red armband and all) and pretend to shoot up synagogues. Now, I have not seen cosplayers do the nazi solute or do such photoshoots, but I can believe that people have done it. I have seen plenty of rabid fans, and some of the OCs created for Hetalia, especially many interpretations of individual states (or Antarctica), were extremely cringey, racist, and overall just not good. And yes, these things are undeniably bad. They are very bad things! Those people should be ashamed. They should know better, regardless of their ages or anything, for fuck’s sake. The nazi salute is not a thing you do jokingly, pretending to shoot people is not a joke. Everyone is aware of this. The people who did, or maybe even still do, those things need a serious sit-down and to be woken the fuck up, because they are acting terrible.

However, it is extremely unfair to paint all Hetalia fans in the same light. That is a very stereotypical thing to do, no? As I mentioned earlier, I stuck to my little niche friend group of fans, and while we all had our own flaws and were younger and kinda dumber, we never did things like that. I never did things like that. Rape jokes were never funny, I never liked them, I never accepted them. I have people I still know who still like Hetalia and they never made those kinds of jokes either. I think, as the years have gone by, a lot of the more rabid fans have died out of the fandom. They’ve either grown the fuck up or they’ve went off to pollute some other fandom. Recognize that, especially in the beginning, the anime was low-budget and had a lot of that old and gross queerbaiting and stuff like that, so it was undeniably a magnet for crazy yaoi fans. But the majority of fanart, fanfics, and just overall fan stuff that I see these days are nothing like that. Overall, the fandom has seriously calmed down. A lot of the focus is much more on taking these characters and applying them to other historical events with more accuracy than the show might give. The history in these fanfics and fanarts may also be of questionable accuracy at times. I personally once wrote a fic where I made allusions to the death of Joan d’Arc and, later, the death of Elizabeth I, but did I add much historic fact? No, do I look like a history major spilling all this? The point of the fic was England - the character - maturing through starting to love one of his rulers and recognizing a terrible thing that he did before. It’s not the best piece of work out there, and maybe someone could point out a few things I did wrong with it, but for what it’s meant to be, it’s harmless. Takes on characters not actually in the series, like Ireland, Scotland, etc etc are generally pretty mature from what I see, fanart tends to just be the characters in various poses and styles. The overall love the fandom has, I think, is in the better character designs and in the very concept of the countries as people who laugh and cry and live through war and peace for thousands of years. And here is where I address the final grievance that I personally saw in the notes of the post which started this whole thought process and essay.

The Death of the Author

A lot of people might not fully understand what ‘The Death of the Author’ means. The death of the author is a belief rooted in the 20th century that the personal intentions, beliefs, and prejudices of the authors of certain works can have no bearing on their produced content, because once it is out in the public, every reader may then have their own interpretation and belief system. By publicizing the content, the author ‘dies’ and the reader is born.

There are some scenarios where this cannot apply. One example is JK Rowling, a very special case of a very problematic woman who happens to be so powerful, and so rich, that consuming any type of official (or even unofficial) Harry Potter anything can and will give her that much more power to spread her TERF bullshit. Let me be frank: Any time that consuming a product is allowing a bigoted or problematic person to gain extra money or extra power that they then use for evil, the death of the author cannot apply. You cannot use it as a moral justification. You might perhaps use it as the reason why you struggle to let go of a fandom near and dear to you, as Harry Potter is to so many people, but you absolutely must recognize that purchasing the books, the movies, or any other official content is outright supporting a TERF.

That in mind, there are dozens of other cases where the death of the author absolutely can apply. The easiest, of course, is with authors who are actually dead, such as Lovecraft. Lovecraft was a complete bigot and racist, an overall terrible person, and his works are saturated in that racism. But he is dead, and his work is very popular, and there are ways to take and use his work that do not contribute further to racism and bigotry. All you have to do is slap a non-racist cthulhu on a page. Make that cthulhu eat everyone equally. That’s a good cthulhu right there, a nice, safe cthulhu.

So where does Hetalia fall in this spectrum of can or cannot have death of the author? I believe it leans more to the side of yes, you can apply it. For one thing, you can definitely find the show for free in some places, and watch it without giving Himaruya a single cent. The comics are also available online for free, and while you might be giving your ‘support’ by being a viewer, I think overall, that’s not only negligible, but does not contribute anything bad? The author of Attack on Titan has many charges levied against him in the post which prompted this, and arguably, giving him any money is bad. But as far as I have seen, while Himaruya might have started out with a flawed premise and may have some whitewashing issues, I have seen nowhere that he funds any kind of racist, nationalistic, fascist, etc anything of any kind. This is not like Chick-Fil-A, where offering any kind of patronage is (or maybe used to be) sinking funds into terrible organizations. This is not supporting literal Nazis, as the complaints claim. This is a largely mediocre series with good parts and bad parts and zero ties to horrific organizations or ideals. Consuming good fan content does not make someone a racist or a bigot or a nazi sympathizer. Even rewatching some old favorite scenes or checking out the new season doesn’t make someone that. By all accounts, the show is flawed but not a means to fund nazis.

The Bad Anything Else

I will now take some time to talk about some other problems Hetalia has, because no, it is by no means flawless. I already discussed the whitewashing and stereotypes and the mess of the English dub, but there is more. I made mention of the fact that battles and seriously bad events such as the Holocaust are not mentioned, and this holds true throughout pretty much all of the series. There are certain points where ‘battles’ of a sort are seen, but only flash moments. One scene in particular that I really enjoyed as a tween and can now see the problems with is the whole revolutionary war scene. This was a scene split into two episodes (for some weird reason, even an unrelated episode in between, like, what? Why??) about a particular (unnamed) battle in the American Revolution where England faced down America, they each had a gun with a bayonet, and England charged America and his bayonet deeply scratched America’s gun, and America declared he was no longer England’s little brother, and the whole thing was played out as an extremely emotional scene. England is lost in the past of seeing America as a cute little kid he took care of, who has now grown up and is being reckless and stupid, and America is all righteous and independent and proving he’s a grown up, it’s all very emotional, I cried, other fans cried, there was much fanart.

This scene is problematic in a way. Boiling down an extremely nasty conflict following lots of really bad laws and protests to this one scene doesn’t do history any justice. It says nothing about the struggles of the American colonists, the struggles of the British empire, the awful things the colonists did to the natives, etc etc. It is one small scene and it focuses on these characters as humanoid, with feelings, and completely ignores the complexities of history. And yes, in a way, that is bad. But it is bad in the sense that nobody can - or at least should - take this show to be the end-all be-all of history. It is not. It is not often entirely correct, and it picks and chooses what points in the past several thousand years to play with, and trying to use it as a map for history is a bad idea. However, this focus on the countries as human-like and struggling can also be a good thing.

It is also important to note that there have been other problems. The portrayal of South Korea, for example, is extremely controversial, and while I do not know all of the specifics, I believe that it was banned in Korea due to this, and the character was entirely removed from the anime, among other things. Obviously, a bad take, a bad character. There are also just straight up not great characterizations in certain cases. I don’t, for example, like anything about how Belarus is portrayed as a crazy psycho constantly begging Russia (her big brother) to marry her? I think that that is ridiculous, and I know nothing about Belarus as a country but I am pretty darn sure that that is not how one ought to go about portraying the country. There are a few other examples, but my purpose here was not to pull up a list of every country and explain what is correct or incorrect about each characterization. It is enough to say that some characters were not portrayed perfectly. But with that in mind...

The Good Anything Else

It is the most important to remember that this, all of this, is fiction. This is a silly, silly fantasy series. The countries are not humans, they are some weird semi-immortal species that share a universal language and know they are not human and are referenced by humans as ‘those people.’ They are fictional constructs. But the good out of all of this is that they explore human emotions. The American Revolution scene should not be taken as how the revolution was, and who might have been right or wrong. But it is a very emotional story of a big brother unable to accept that his little brother has grown up and wants to make his own choices. That, right there, is a heartfelt scene that I’m sure plenty of real people can feel something about. And there are plenty of other scenes that really grab you by the heartstrings, especially given how crazy, stupid, and humor-oriented the rest of the show is. And I will take a moment and enthuse about some of the more popular scenes that I think are, in fact, pretty good.

There is one episode in season 5, Beautiful World, where an American woman visits France (the place). This woman, Lisa, is blond and bears a striking resemblance to Joan d’Arc. While visiting some historical place somewhere or another in Paris, France (the person) spots her and rushes up with an odd look. When she questions him, he apologizes and offers to give her a tour of the area, which she accepts. He then proceeds to lead her around and explain some history and show off some beautiful sights, and he mentions some stuff about Joan d’Arc. She butts in and lists off some stuff she knows, he beams and looks proud and says yes, she’s right. The end of the scene has the two of them standing alone somewhere and him commenting how young Joan was when she was killed, and that he always wished she could have had a better, nicer life. He then states that he is very happy that she got it, while giving this American tourist a gentle smile. She looks away for a moment, distracted by something perhaps, and when she looks back to ask just who the heck he really is, talking about a historical figure like he knew her, he is gone. It’s a very emotional scene in a quiet sort of way, because the watcher/reader understands that he took one look at this woman and instantly believed that she was, in fact, Joan d’Arc reincarnated into a totally different and totally average life, and he is so genuinely happy that a woman he saw as a hero gets this chance to live normally. Whether or not you may personally believe in reincarnation, and regardless of how often other times in the show France is shown as an obnoxious sexaholic, this is an extremely tender scene that lots of fans seriously love. It is very ‘human.’ And I feel like this is what the series as a whole strives to offer. These human moments. They may be peppered in a sort of lackadaisical style in the anime, but they are far more prominent in the comic strips, so it is important to realize that that kind of scene is more of what the creator likes to focus on.

Another very popular and touted scene is the Davie scene. I don’t remember if it was put in the anime or not, I read it as a comic. It was a scene set in colonial America, where the man himself was just a very small child. Little baby America was hanging out in a field with a rabbit and sees this boy, who introduces himself as Davie. Davie brings America to his house and opens up a botany book and points out a blue flower (possibly a forget-me-not) that he wants to see but that isn’t in the New World. America assures Davie that he will find him one of those flowers, and goes off to do so. He fails his search and goes back to Davie, who is older now, but Davie looks embarrassed and turns and walks away. Distressed, America runs to England and explains about the flower, and England says the flower is not there, but they do grow at home, and he will bring some the next time he leaves and comes back. America happily waits, and when England returns with a bouquet of the blue flowers, America takes them and runs off to Davie’s house. He is let in by a boy who looks just like Davie and presents the flowers, and the boy then puts them on (or maybe in) a coffin of an elderly man. America, smiling, does not seem to understand what is going on, and hopefully calls the boy Davie.

This entire scene, in the comic, has very few words. Davie’s name is repeated a few times, but most of the rest of the ‘dialogue’ is in images. The flower, England saying it is not there, etc. This makes the scene extremely poignant, and when we reach the end, we, the audience, realize suddenly that while baby America was fixated on finding a special flower for his new friend, years and years went by, and that friend grew up and got married and had children and eventually died, all while America remained looking the exact same age and understanding the exact same things. Look, folks, I don’t know about you, but that is some angsty stuff right there. I cried. We all cried. We all miss Davie. Mention the name to fans and you will get sobs. We love you, Davie.

Which brings me to my penultimate point, that this series is heartfelt and, while it avoids a lot of the bad of history, can be very poignant about what human nature is like. Human lives are long, very long, but also so very short, they fly by. Some lives end in tragedy, others are mostly peaceful, and maybe we get second chances if you believe in reincarnation, maybe not. Maybe it’s good that our lives are so short, maybe the fate of living forever and watching people you connect with die is tragic. Or maybe it would actually be really fun, having friends for thousands of years that you may squabble with at times but ultimately care for. Maybe nothing is simple and life is about finding joy where you can, and everyone needs to sometimes take a step back and realize that everyone is flawed, and there might be good and evil but the vast majority of people are in a grey area, trying to live their own lives and do what good they can for whatever reason they might give. I want to end with one last topic, one I have not yet addressed this whole time. The big white alien in the room, if you will.

Paint it: White!

There is a Hetalia movie, folks, if you didn’t know it, and it’s called Paint It White. This movie has just as many silly parts as any other Hetalia thing, but it also has a plot! In this movie, strange, all-white aliens are starting to invade the Earth. They arrive and anything they touch, they turn into completely identical white humanoid blobs, even the country personifications. With this scary and seemingly-unstoppable threat, the main eight - America, England, Russia, China, France, Japan, Germany, and Italy - all try to infiltrate the alien spaceship in frankly hideous uniforms to find out more and figure out a way to defeat them. Hijinks and disaster ensues, and at the end, each of them is fighting a mob and gradually being defeated. Italy is the last one standing, and as Germany is slowly being transformed into a blob along with the others, he tells Italy to smile. Italy then finds (or has? the plot isn’t great, it’s just there) a black marker and he suddenly starts going around drawing ridiculous faces on everyone. He draws fitting faces on each of his friend blobs, like a stern face on Germany-blob, a deadpan face on Japan-blob, etc etc. The invaders suddenly stop. They look at each other, marker-faced, and start to laugh. Then their leader of sorts comes out and is basically like “wow, we thought you were all stupid and you have wars and stuff, but this? This is beautiful. Wow. We all look exactly identical on our world, and these faces are cool and new and unique. We’ll turn everyone on your planet back if we can have this magical thingie you’re holding.” And of course Italy hands the marker right over, and everyone is put back to normal, and crybaby, scaredy-cat, useless Italy saves the world.

The plot is, obviously, not super great. It’s not going to win anybody any awards. But it has a very poetic premise. The strength of humans is that they are all unique. Every human has a different face, a different body, a different life. Our differences may cause conflict, but they are also something to celebrate. At the end of the day, Hetalia is an okay show that can get you hooked on history and tries its best to teach you that we’re all only human and there might be war and conflict and bad things, but you have to reach for the good things and find yourself good friends and have stupid laughs and enjoy life, however long or short it may be. I think that that’s a pretty decent message to send out to people.

The Bottom Line

In the end, this is a fandom like many others. Hetalia has its flaws and its cringe moments, and it certainly had its fair share of awful fans. But I truly believe that painting it overall as nazi propoganda and one of the most problematic and harmful shows out there is a blatant lie and disregards… just about everything of the actual content. I think it is difficult for someone to concretely say anything is super good or super bad without seeing at least some of it, or doing some research, and this business of blithely going along with what everyone else says just because they use big danger words does not do anybody any favors. Spreading misinformation is, I’m sure, the exact opposite of what most people want to do. And make no mistake, I am definitely not saying that everyone needs to like, or even watch, the show. If you never ever want to watch this show in your life, that is absolutely fine. Go forth and never watch it. But mindlessly following the herd and yelling overgeneralized, unsupported opinions about it is not a good thing. I beg of you, do research on the things you want to form or share an opinion on, think critically, and for the love of God, do not swipe a giant paintbrush to forsake every single individual fan of a show as a terrible, awful person. By all means, hate nazis, they are pieces of shit. Boycott things that support genocide and fascism, yes, fight for equality, yes. But do not go accusing without thinking, and do not overgeneralize. I leave you with the words of my old laptop bag that I bought years ago at a convention:

Make pasta, not war.

Thank you for reading.

[slightlyaggressiveaffirmations]

SOCIAL MEDIA, MISINFORMATION AND CORONA VIRUS ANXIETY

Some advice on how to figure out if frightening news and information is accurate

Hey hey fronds!

What’s great about now is that while I’m stuck in my house hoping no one brings the virus home with them, I have access to all the social media and news apps to keep me informed about what’s going on. BUT social media can be both a source of stress increase and stress reduction.

A lot of people are taking a break from their social media, because seeing all the updates is making them anxious, and that’s a valid choice. Personally, I like to have all the information, as much of it as possible, and for me that means more social media use, not less. But it’s really important in a time of crisis to mediate WHAT information you’re getting and I’m seeing a lot of misinformation on my Facebook timeline.

Having incorrect information is not helpful - it could increase your anxiety, it could put your health at risk by giving you innaccurate information and some of it is put out there maliciously and is actually very dangerous. It’s so important, and helpful to your mental health, to get your information from a reputable, verifiable source. Here’s a few tips for how to do that.

If you see an image about COVID-19 / Corona Virus on social media, whether it’s about recognising symptoms, or what to do if you think you have it, how to self isolate, what the infection rate is in your country, anything like that, take a close look at it:

Who posted the image originally? Does it come from a Facebook page with a pretty good reputation like BBC News or even the World Health Organisation (WHO) themselves? Or was the original poster a meme page, or the personal page of someone you don’t know? If it was posted originally by the verified page of the WHO then it’s much more likely to be legit. 

Is there a logo or credit note anywhere? The image posted by the meme page might well be real, and if it has the WHO logo on it, for example, that’s a pretty good sign. But remember that images can easily be changed. If you think it seems suspicious, go directly to the social media or website of that organisation, or do a reverse image search. If it’s legit, you should be able to find the original.

Check if there is a date. Information about COVID-19 is rapidly changing. They still don’t know that much about it and there’s been details that change daily. If an image is a week old, the information may not be reliable anymore. Can you find something more recent on their website?

If you see a news story about COVID-19, then you can do a few things to check on its accuracy too:

Look for where the story is published. I won’t get into media bias and my personal opinion on what organisations are trustworthy and what aren’t - we could do that all day. BUT (as a general rule) you want your story to be on the site of an organisation whose primary function is the reporting of news. So, let’s take the imaginary website funnycatstories dot com - it might publish a story about cats being able to get the virus and give it to you. I would not trust that. If they have linked to a news site, follow the link and read the story there. If they have not linked to where they got this information, try a search engine or searching a news app.

What are the sources? Where did the journalist get their information? Are they quoting a doctor who is an expert? Are they reporting what the WHO have said in a press release? A press release is something that is sent out to all the media, with the key information in it that they can then use in their reporting. If that’s what they’re using then it’s probably pretty accurate.

You can always try verifying it by looking for other sources. If I want to say something in an essay, I usually look for at least two academic sources that have written it. Preferably three. You can do that with the news. Is it in three newspapers, with basically the same facts just written down a little different? Then that’s reliable.

Official information: Look... not every Government is going to give you accurate, reliable information. There are some that don’t want their citizens to know the truth. Others are quite open. I don’t really trust my country’s Government but I find my local Government to be pretty reliable and proactive about health information. My university is also very good, and they’ve built up my trust over the last few months by being informative and up front. So, that’s something you have to judge for yourself. But, if you are lucky enough to live somewhere with a Government that does the right thing by its citizens, then one really good mental health strategy is to ONLY look at official advice. That way all the scary rumours and uncertainty isn’t an issue and there’s only what you need to know. That works for a lot of people.

Personally - I follow a medical reporter/doctor who I trust on twitter. I also follow the local health department, and I regularly check emails from my university to see if there’s new information about what’s happening there. Those are my deliberate information sources. If I see something on social media, I do the things I suggested above - look at who publishes them, who writes them and try to verify them.

Having access to the most accurate information reduces my anxiety because then I know what is happening and I have a plan. Knowing how to verify that a story is accurate can help prevent anxiety because many of these fake stories are designed to be as alarming as possible - because they are clickbait and if they are scary, people click on them - so I never get anxious until after I check the accuracy of what I’m seeing/reading.

Also - one of the fake stories going round says you can kill the virus if you gargle bleach and NO YOU CANNOT THAT IS VERY DANGEROUS PLEASE DO NOT DO THAT.

If misinformation is making you anxious, I hope this has helped you some.

- The Slightly Aggressive Affirmer

[orangerosebush]

“How does one describe Artemis Fowl?” Artemis Fowl, Book 1, Page 1.

Although this quote from the first series sets the tone of Artemis being a character who is loath to be understood, what with how he “delights in not talking” about how it is he perceives himself to truly be, I want to attempt to answer this rhetorical question. After all, the quote serves as a bookend for the series — both the first and final book contain it.

In answering this question, I want to not answer “how does one describe Artemis Fowl?” but rather, “what is Artemis Fowl?” — the series, that is. I think now is a good time to answer this question, what with the first cycle of the series, the Artemis Fowl saga, being complete and the second cycle, the Fowl twins saga, beginning. In short, I want to ask: what context surrounds the book series being published? What are some important themes to the series? And what gives the book series its spark?

I first have to start this video essay by admitting that I was wrong in another essay: “A look into the role of Irish mythology as inspiration for Colfer's depiction of the People: an essay”. You can find this on fanfiction.net or on archive of our own under works by mentosmorii, by the way. The synopsis I provided for the essay is as follows: “Although Colfer has stated before that he has drawn from his knowledge of Irish mythology, he has never stated specifically which myths informed his writing. As someone with a bit of a background in Irish mythology, I have made a guess at some of the sources of inspiration, explained a couple of references within the series, and analyzed a few characters as having connections to Irish history/mythology.”

A lot of the content in that essay is correct, I feel I should say. However, an area where I misstep is here: “ Eoin Colfer has been asked about the influence of Irish mythology on his writing during various interviews, and his response is usually a sort of permutation of the above answer — ‘I grew up reading Irish myths and legends, [and] I… put… a spin on them’ (Colfer). He admits that he was influenced by Irish mythology, and this admission of influence is usually enough to get interviewers to move along to the next question. I’ve looked through many of the interviews that he’s done, and I think I can say with confidence that there is not currently any interview available in which an interviewer presses him to be more specific and point to the myths and legends in question by which he was influenced. In all likelihood, I think that this is because once Colfer confirms that he did, in fact, take inspiration from Irish mythology, the interviewers think of pop culture Celtic mythology and move on”.

The assertion that I made that was incorrect is about the interviewer moving on due to a lack of visibility of Irish myths. However, you also have to look at when the first book was published, which was in 2001. During the 90s to the early 2000s, Ireland was going through something called the “Celtic tiger”, which essentially means that there was an international market that was becoming quite interested in Irish culture, leading to the development of a new, commercially successful Celticism. Cormac MacRaois (pronounced: cormick Mccreesh) estimated, at the time of writing in 1997, that there were at least thirty books dedicated to the retellings of mythological tales on the children’s shelves of Irish bookshops, alongside a burgeoning quantity of contemporary fantasy drawing upon mythological sources for its characters and themes” (Irish Children’s Literature and Culture: New perspectives). Furthermore, in Mary Donohue’s unpublished 2003 MA thesis entitled “From Wexford to the arctic circle, a cultural journey”, she remarks that in a video interview, Colfer mentions that he had initially planned to publish a collection of Irish myths and legends, but that he abandoned this plan when he realized how many good collections were already in print (Donohoe, 2003, p. 24).

What I want to point out is that although the series was published at a time when there was increased interest in Irish mythology, it is interesting that Colfer deviates from the fairy tale and leans into the futuristic. What do I mean by this?

In many ways, the Artemis Fowl series, at least up until book 8, is more of a sci-fi than it is a fantasy. Which is a bold claim for me to make, I know!

However, a quote from book one in which Root is talking to Foaly as the LEP tries to plan how to get Holly back summarizes this seemingly paradoxical analysis of the series quite nicely: Science is taking the magic out of everything.

As Anna Bugajska (pronounced: ah-na boo-guy-ska) states in her essay "Human Magic", "Fairy Technology" : The Place of the Supernatural in the Age of Cyberculture, which is about the Artemis Fowl series: “Fairies deprived of natural wings use their artificial counterparts. Dwarves are practically walking machines. Invisibility is achieved by ‘shielding’. Artemis uses ‘human magic’ to heal a fairy [the sprite in Ho Chi Minh whom he gives a serum to help her alcohol dependence], but must rack his brains to escape ‘fairy technology’. The convergence point comes at the search for a Booke of Magick and at a failed Ritual performance…  In the world where fairies rely on blasters and bio-bombs to take out their enemies, is there any place for good ol’ magic? Or is it by any chance homogenous with “man-made magic”, that is technology?”.

The fact that the people seem to rely more on technology than on magic is important to the parallels that the series establishes between humanity and the fae — in many ways, the two societies are two sides of the same coin. In many ways, you could even take Root’s comment about “Science taking the magic out of everything” as the same sort of thing your boss, or teacher, or any older person, really, might say when presented with new technology that they don’t quite yet understand. It seems like their society also suffers from the same anxieties older humans have about technology progressing and leaving previous generations in the dust.

The fact that the book series seems to be more of a sci-fi than a fantasy is important for two reasons, the first one of which is discussed in Elizabeth Parsons’ essay “Fowl Play: Artemis Fowl, Sitting Ducks, and politics for children” and the second of which is discussed in Patricia Kennan’s essay “Contemplating Otherness, imagining the future” . The first perspective, Parsons’, which I do agree with, is that the book brings up parallels between the People and humanity that suggest that the fairies are just as guilty of the environmental issues and social injustice that they like to critique humans for. The second perspective, which I do not necessarily fully agree with but that I find interesting, Kennan’s perspective, is on whether or not Artemis Fowl series “feels” Irish because of this emphasis on the sci-fi over the myth.

Let’s first address Parsons’ argument. Parsons argues that there is no real, discernible difference between the two worlds that share the planet — “Technological advances drive humanity’s destruction of the earth’s surface as much as they [drive] the spread of fairy civilization underground” (Parsons). In fact, Parsons points to the enormous sum of gold at the center of the conflict in book one as evidence that the People are not as innocent of this kind of environmental destruction as they would like to think. After all, you cannot mine gold from the earth without having some kind of negative impact on the planet. Whether it’s from how you might destabilize the ground as you mine, or the pollutants you may release, or even the effect that comes with removing the gold from its natural place in the earth, you cannot escape the fact that Faeries likely also have a history of troubling environmental impacts to answer for. There is also the fact that fairy society is *extremely* developed and industrialized. Just as how the presence of gold presents the question of how the People acquired that wealth, the technology the people have presents the question of how did they develop said tech. You can’t go from a building the wheel to building a neutrino gun — there was likely an industrial revolution in which the People engaged in unclean energy practices as they developed their understanding of how to engineer. And this concern is supported by the text!

In book one, Holly is talking about two mechanical wing types that the LEP uses — the older models called the Dragonflies and the newer models called the Hummingbirds. The book says the following: “Holly unhooked a set of wings from their bracket... Dragonflies. She hated that model. Gas engine, if you believe it... Now the Hummingbird Z7, that was transport. Whisper silent, with a satellite-bounced solar battery that would fly you twice around the world. But there were budget cuts again.” (pp. 50-51).

Perhaps the People may like to argue that they are more environmentally evolved than humanity, and sure, they are, but they’re far from being as innocent in the exploitation of earth than they’d like to think — they still use gas engines, after all!

But that’s just from an environmental point of view. Socially, there is also little difference between the progress of the People and humanity. Honestly, in some aspects, the people are farther behind, what with how Holly mentions being the first woman to be hired to her position even though the book opens at the start of the 21st century. And although Holly understands that others assuming she is less capable on the basis of her gender is both illogical and prejudiced, she herself falls into similar lines of thinking in books 1 and 2. She certainly makes some unkind assumptions regarding how she thinks her coworker Lilli, an attractive woman, was hired because the recruiter fancied Lili. Which, knowing the rather old-fashioned beliefs the LEP higher-ups have regarding women, could be the case! Yet the way she specifically talks about Lili makes it clear she does not see a potential ally against mistreatment in the office — Lili is someone who, in unkind moments, Holly privately kind of sees as an acceptable target of workplace gossip. And Holly, to be fair, grows out of this mindset by the final book — she still doesn’t like Lili, but she’s matured past the point of engaging in making harmful assumptions about her coworker.

And beyond this, Holly also in book one falls into patterns of making assumptions about the various different groups of fairies in Haven. For example, she implies in her first encounter with Mulch that his rapscallion behavior and petty crimes are kind of linked to the fact he’s dwarf. And she certainly doesn’t treat him well in book 1 — she zaps him when he makes a move to pick-pocket despite the fact the situation could have been de-escalated with initial action other than violence. Again, she moves beyond this way thinking by the final book. Yet the society the society she lived in, no matter how much she values things like justice and equality, still influenced her to make judgment calls that either are solely about another person’s identity, such as her comments about Lili, or that tie someone’s behavior to their identity, such as how she links Mulch’s behavior to the fact he is a dwarf. Holly isn’t the problem — the society is.

This is why you have Mulch’s later quote that “I’d rather trust a bunch of humans not to hunt a species to extinction than trust an LEP consultant” (177). Here, the first book kind of hits you over the head with the message: both of the societies, human and fairy, have issues of inequality and environmental abuse built into them. They both suck!

Holly, I think wakes up to this fact at the end of book 4 following the fact that Sool and the council valued money and power over bringing Opal to justice for her murder of Root. After this, she has a more nuanced perspective on ideas of justice and what means to want justice. A line that sticks out to me is from book 8 when she’s thinking about what she wants for Opal. She brings up the fact that at one point, she would have wanted Opal to suffer as she had. However, what Holly wants by the 8th book is for the suffering to stop, period. She doesn’t want to seek justice by humiliating or hurting Opal, what she wants is Opal to no longer be capable of hurting others. And this doesn’t mean that Holly no longer hates Opal, because she unequivocally does. But the cycle of Opal hurting others, the LEP hurting Opal, and then Opal coming back to enact vengeance again, and again, and again, is something that Holly wants to end. She no longer wants to engage in this cycle.

To circle back to my original point, this is why the series relying on sci-fi more than the more magical elements of fairy society is important: by showing us fairies that evolved past the role they would fill in myths, which is more nature-based, Colfer is able to talk about technology in human society, both good and bad, and human society itself, both good and bad. This different depiction of fairies and a more sci-fi plot was what made the story stand when it was being marketed, but it is also interestingly a point of criticism that is invoked when talking about whether or not the story “feel” Irish.

This is the second point of criticism that I discussed earlier is in Patricia Kennan’s essay “Contemplating Otherness, imagining the future”. She doesn’t think blending sci-fi and fantasy is negative — that would be an uncharitable reading of her essay. She even states in the essay that, “the most successful writers of science fantasy, however, have been able to stretch the parameters of both kinds of minds [the fantasy and technological], a feat to be admired”.

She talks about the blending of both mythic and realistic narratives, as well as that mixture’s popularity in recent Irish children’s science fiction. This idea of hybrid forces, the fantasy and the realistic, is attractive, she suggests, because of the chaos contained in their tension in the narrative. It’s for the same reason, perhaps, that fiction containing elements like vampires, that straddle the boundary between night and day, alive and dead, animal and human, is popular, as they contain interesting and allure characteristics while also being horrifying and repulsive.

(Side note: the idea of “otherness” and the human and the magical intersecting is very interesting as an aesthetic when one considers that one of the most influential vampire novels, Dracula, was written by an Irish author and that many of the aesthetics associated with Dracula also fit neatly with Artemis — this further underlines that he straddles the line between good and bad, human and magical, technology and fantasy in the way he seems to be a hybrid of gothic literature aesthetics dressed up in a modern, sci-fi package. I’m gonna end my sidenote here).

However, Kennan points to the plot and setting of the story as perhaps being why the series does feel very grounded in its Irish roots. The essay quotes Celia Keenan, saying: “all sense of the national and local have been eradicated [from the series]. Speech rhythms are entirely mid-Atlantic. No Hiberno-English or Wexford uses are evident. Landscape has become virtual”.

In some ways, I can see her point. Artemis Fowl is a very James Bond-type series in that it tries to invent settings rather than borrowing from existing reference points to place itself. A good example of this would be the fact that Fowl manor and Artemis’ school, Saint Bartleby’s, never are placed concretely within specific locations in Ireland. There might be a sense that Saint Bartleby’s is near Wexford or that the manor is near Dublin, but what proximity might mean (such as showing neighbors, classmates, and descriptions of the setting) is often avoided: the main characters and settings that are explored are often more international, such as Minerva and Spiro being French and American respectively, and the series often taking place in Haven or locations related to it. However, I think that there are at least some references that make the book still feel grounded as being Irish —  I go into this in my other essay, but I can recap. There are specific references to Irish mythology and history, even if things like modern Irish history, side characters beyond the Butlers and Fowls that are Irish, and slang or dialect specific to different parts of Ireland aren’t referenced frequently.

So to summarize this point, the series does play with the trappings of a James Bond series in the sense that the setting bounces around enough that perhaps Ireland isn’t at the center always, and I think that this is a function of how Colfer writes sci-fi instead of something that destabilizes the sense of the where and when of the series. For instance, a big example of pop culture that Colfer references is the Matrix, albeit in a sneaky way. Celia Keenan (who is also quoted Kennon’s essay) wrote the article “Who’s afraid of the bad little Fowl?” which serves as a book review and a look into whether or not one could call the series ‘art’. When talking about references the book makes to pop culture, she writes: “It is possible that the film which has most influenced the ‘‘Fowl’’ books is The Matrix (1999). It depicts two worlds, the computer-controlled world of the matrix itself in which humans function as duped slaves, and the world of human resistance fighters who, like Colfer’s fairies, have been forced to create an alternative home called Zion, in the bowels of the earth. The term ‘‘recon unit’’, echoed in Colfer’s LEPrecon, figures in the Matrix. Colfer actually parodies quotations from The Matrix on a few occasions. For example, in The Matrix one of the characters says to the hero, ‘‘Buckle your seat belt, Dorothy, because Kansas is going ‘bye bye’’’; likewise, Root says to Artemis, ‘‘Hate to tell you this, Dorothy, but you ain’t in Kansas anymore’, in Artemis Fowl: the Arctic Incident (p. 63). Another Matrix quip—‘‘never send a human to do a machine’s job’’ (Wachowski, 1999), is parodied by Mulch: ‘‘Tell Foaly not to send a Mud Man to do a fairy’s job’’. In this instance, the narrator emphasizes the cinematic origins of the quotation: ‘‘‘Oh dear,’ thought Artemis, rubbing his brow, ‘Hollywood had a lot to answer for’’’(Colfer, 2002, p. 208).”

The creators of the Matrix, the Wachowski sisters, were pretty influenced by a philosopher named Jean Baudrillard (pronounced: Bow-dree-ard), even if Baudrillard didn’t particularly think their work was grounded in his theory. Baudrillard was undeniably a smart man, but he was also kind of a prick. Make of that what you will. But for those who aren’t familiar with his work or the Matrix itself, these works deal with themes of technology, reality, and the future of our society. To go back to Artemis Fowl, I think the series engages with these themes through both the allusion to Matrix and through the themes of the series itself. Although the series of Artemis Fowl many not engage specifically with many of Baudrillard’s theories, it does engage with similar philosophical concepts about sci-fi and the self.

One particular example of this is how the series (maybe unintentionally) engages with Gilbert Ryle, who was a British philosopher, and his concept of ‘mind-body-dualism’; Ryle came up with the idea of human existence being the tale of ‘a ghost within a machine’, or our sense of self-existing in a separate, physical shell. To simplify, this essentially points out the fact that what we view as being our “us”, our personalities, our inner thoughts, our perception of ourselves, is often separate from our bodies — when I think of who “I” am, I think of my “mind” rather than “body”, and this is exactly what the dualism Ryle pointed out gets at.  Often, sci-fi seeks to explore what if this barrier dissolved — such as what if with the evolution of the mind, there was also an evolution of the body, and whether this could be achieved through things like AI, cyborgs, and so on. To go back to Anna Bugajska’s work, she wrote an essay entitled “Artemis Fowl: Posthumanism for teens” that tackles this within the series.

Which admittedly is a bit of a mouthful of a title! It sounds complicated — and it is, it definitely is.  

But it is interesting. To go back to the idea of transformation and Artemis Fowl, the series deals with this theme quite a bit. To quote Bugajska: “What naturally could develop into a coming-of-age cycle, swerves into the direction of a transformation, calling into question human nature and individual identity in the age of the morphological freedom, mind uploads, bioengineering, and hybronauts…[the series explores ideas of transformation as a result of a desire to seek previously unaccessible power, but it also explores the idea in the context of the mind and body becoming one in how an impact one must result in an impact of the other].

A prominent example of those who went too far in their quest for [transformative] perfection are Briar Cudgeon, an LEP officer, and Opal Koboi, a genius pixie inventor. Cudgeon, embittered by professional conflict, sought the cognitive enhancement through the use of drugs. As a result, “the tranquilizer had reacted badly with some banned mind- accelerating substances the former acting-commander had been experimenting with. Cudgeon was left with a forehead like melted tar... Ugly and demoted, not a great combination” (Colfer 2003a: 77). [In this case, his desire for power causes his downfall, such as how he tried to enhance his abilities past his limit with the mind-accelerating drug that ended up reacting with the tranquilizer. However, this is also an example of the barrier between the body and the mind dissolving, as Cudgeon’s internal ‘ugliness’, such as his hunger for power, deceitfulness, and disregard for others’, is reflected in his physical form through his overindulgence in substances he uses to try to get around his natural limits.]

In the case of Opal Koboi, we can observe a conscious attempt to transform from one being to another. She has her pointy ears operated upon to give them human shape. What is more, she implants in her brain a human pituitary gland to provoke the secretion of the growth hormone (Colfer 2005: 173–174). She even goes as far as extracting substances from various animals to enhance her magic (Colfer 2011a: 263, 270). All these attempts in the end cost her her sanity (Colfer 2012: 36) and her magic powers, which is especially well visible in the fourth book of the cycle, Opal Deception (Colfer 2005: 329).

On the other hand, the changes in identity must necessarily be reflected in the alterations of at least some parts of the body. Thus, Artemis’s father, a former criminal boss, loses his leg [as he undergoes a sort of transformation after the deal Artemis holds in order to rescue his father from a hostage situation. Beforehand, he might have been a cruel, distant father, but now he has changed. He has become a new man, and in doing so, his body has been altered as well in the loss of a leg and the gaining of a prosthesis] (Colfer 2003b: 80–81). Artemis himself, as he grows from a calculating rationalist to a globally-responsible, empathic man, earns a few body modifications. And although he does not seek them, he does not attempt to get rid of them, instinctively hoarding as much of the “fairness” as he can get. For instance, in The Lost Colony, where Artemis and his friend Holly Short of the LEP travel through a time-tunnel, first his fingers are switched, then he swaps an eye with Holly, and finally he steals some of the fairy magic, which grants him limited healing and regeneration powers. He also gains three years during the travel: in his own time he has to pose as a seventeen-year-old (Colfer 2007: 371)”.

In essence, you have both people seeking to perfect the body in order to match the goals of mind, such as Opal trying to steal new types of magic, and then you have Artemis switching eyes with Holly, representing a more benign example of the body changing to match the mind, as switching eyes represents that he has literally switched perspectives and can see things through her eyes as a result of their friendship. And in the end of the series, you also have Artemis being reborn into a clone — he has changed so much from his self at the beginning of the series, it is like his past self is dead, and his moral rebirth is reflected literally in him being given a new body free of the constraints of the mistakes he made before his passing, such as kidnapping Holly or endangering Butler on multiple occasions.

This I suppose covers most of the grounds that I wanted to in this essay. I talked about the context of the book series being published, the themes, the characters, and the philosophical questions posed by the text.

I don’t know if answered my original question of “what is Artemis Fowl?” — I think I’ll always have something to say about the series. But this puts words to a lot of thoughts I’ve had, and it’s nice to at least have it all there, I suppose. Thanks for listening, and if you have questions, leave me a comment here on on the ao3 version of the essay [x]-- or send me an ask!

[daeva-agas]

I hope nobody hires Lockley as consultant on ANYTHING about Yasuke

I didn’t include this in my Yasuke reblog the other day because I wanted that one to just be nice and informative. This is more grouchy and whiney, feel free to skip.

I kind of distrusted Thomas Lockley’s Yasuke knowledge because in his interviews about his book, he was spouting bizarre claims that makes no sense or factually incorrect in relation to existing accounts about Nobunaga’s court. I can forgive a person for not having 100% knowledge and memory of everything, especially in a non-scripted situation, but I was wary regardless.

Those fears were proved correct when I browsed the preview of Lockley’s book.

For example, see here is something about Iga in his book:

I’ll be generous and forgive the storytelling segment. This sounds like a novel excerpt, but I’m not looking at a full text, so context is lost. However, there is a glaring error here in why Nobunaga is even fighting Iga “ninjas” at all. I object to calling Iga warriors ninja because THEY ARE NOT, but leaving that aside, Nobunaga did not go to war against Iga. 

1579, his son Nobukatsu marched into Iga without permission. Nobunaga scolded him for it. 1581, two Iga defectors offered to guide the Oda army through the dangerous terrain of Iga. Nobunaga sent Nobukatsu to “avenge” his defeat, with a number of his senior generals to accompany him, but did not himself participate. After Iga fell, Nobunaga then came in for inspection. It is possible that at this time Yasuke accompanied him, but all of that babble about Yasuke fighting ninjas in battle is a load of bull. Even if I allow the possibility that maybe, for some bizarre reason, Nobunaga sent Yasuke to guard his son, that was not what Lockley said. Lockley clearly meant to portray Yasuke guarding Nobunaga in the “Iga battle”. 

I’m wary about this because the whole thing sounds like fanciful storytelling based on the assumption that Nobunaga was even at the Iga war at all, and not based on a single shred of evidence. I had thought that when Lockley mentioned Iga in his interview, he was confusing Iga with the battle against the Takeda in 1582. I confuse years and battle names too sometimes, so that happens. But clearly in his book he really did mean Iga, and where is the source of this? 

Again, I do not own the book, so if this actually has a good explanation/citation, be my guest, correct me. As of now, it looks rather appalling that this man bought into crock tales that are not actually true at all. 

Lockley assuming the black man in the sumo byoubu to be Yasuke without citation. Here’s some more quotes from the book: 

Lockley said “60 years later”, as he had assumed the painting was made in 1640. The date written in Wikimedia Commons was 1605. This isn’t important, though, for all I know Wikimedia was the one who got it wrong. I tried searching the website for the museum that hosted the painting, and they did not have entries for it.

“Almost definitely” Yasuke? Based on... what, exactly? Do you have the artist’s personal quotes about it? No, we don’t even know who the artist is. Was there a written account by some lord who had owned this painting back in the day, describing the subject of the painting? Then why do you not mention it? When I make my informative posts, I usually do my best to cite the source of texts when applicable. If it’s just a weird story floating around with unverifiable origin, I will say that I cannot find the source. I only wave off technicalities when I shitpost headcanons. This is a NON-FICTION BOOK, why isn’t it curated better?  

“Nobunaga is keenly adjudicating”, where? How do you know who is who? Just because the painting featured bearded samurai in green attire, reminiscent of Nobunaga’s famous painting, doesn’t mean that they are Nobunaga. There are many people wearing green across various Japanese paintings and screens.

Aera, a branch of Asahi News, mentioned that “among many theories” some said that the screen depicts Nobunaga and Yasuke. However, it is an article that cites Lockley himself. The “theory” was presented by Lockley, and as you can see the article didn’t dare to proclaim this to be fact. They just identified it as a “possibility”. 

This summary of a TV show about Yasuke also only identifies the black wrestler as a “black man”, and does not say it’s Yasuke. 

This article from Rekijin, an online history magazine, cites the Ietada record of Yasuke participating in the Takeda battle and the Shinchoukouki prototype mentioning that Yasuke received a sword and a mansion. Nothing about Iga,and the reference to the sumo painting only says “a black man is present”. The wrestler is not identified as Yasuke. 

Another Japanese culture magazine, Japaaan, identifies Yasuke as one of the pages/ attendants in the castle (matching my observation that Yasuke’s rank is approximately equal to that of Ranmaru), and also says that “it cannot be said for certain” that the man in the painting is Yasuke.

The only article that mentioned Yasuke doing sumo at all was this travel blog/website, where they said that Yasuke might have been a highlight during sumo tournaments because the Shinchoukouki says “he has the strength of ten men”. 

So, tell me, Mr Lockley, what source do you have that these Japanese news media people do not? 

I criticize this because while the interest on Yasuke is good, it’s NOT good to hyperfixate on him. Surely it’s not that weird to consider that there might be other black men who found a new life in Japanese society? 

As I mentioned in the nice reblog, Luis Frois wrote in his History of Japan that in the Battle of Okitanawate 沖田畷 in 1584, a black man is seen handling guns among the Arima warriors. This is all the way in Hizen province, Kyushu (modern Saga prefecture). Was this Yasuke, who travelled with the Europeans again, and found a new home in another territory? Valignano, Yasuke’s former master, had been to visit the Arima clan before. 

Or was this another black man taken in from the Europeans by the local clans, completely irrelevant to Yasuke at all? It’s hard to say, with minimal accounts. 

---------------------------------------------

Extra tidbits: Not to say that Japanese people are not also rather weird about Yasuke. The above travel blog said that there was a TV show saying that the Makua people have a tribal attire called キマウ (”kimau”) that resembles kimono. The article’s author then wonders if Yasuke eventually made it back to Africa, and shared Japanese culture with his people. 

I have no idea what “kimau” actually is, since they did not provide the alphabetical spelling. I tried searching if this was true, and I couldn’t verify it because I can’t properly search for the clothing. The closest thing I could find was quimão, which was one of the Portuguese attempts to transcribe “kimono” in the olden days, back before they quite figured out how to write it. 

The article also said that the Makua women’s tradition of Musiro face painting might also have been inspired by how Japanese aristocratic women paint their faces white. “Musiro”, after all, somewhat sounds like Oshiroi 白粉. 

^ Makua woman with musiro