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The CCuwei company Slack must be off the rails. I can only assume the whole company is aware of the drama and spends half their day spilling the tea.

WSW walking funny today, looks like Lan Su wins the office pool

All hands alert from Li Gang, do not engage Chi Cheng today. There was 'a spat'.

Chi Cheng returns from his business trip at 4:45 today! If you see him heading to WSW's office, clear the floor.

New client tried flirting with WSW. He was totally oblivious, but damn, now I know what you mean by the Chi Cheng murder eyes.

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i don't know how to explain it, but i need more of whatever they have going on

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Yue Yue: I like you now that you’re hot and successful

Chi Cheng: your cringefail ways have bewitched me body and soul

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Incredible. What a line to hear and read with my own two eyes and ears

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it's been shown that people important to the plot can't leave the plot area--assassins for her and later she predicted that nan heng wouldn't leave (there was a scene where they were like "the 7th prince is going to leave the city" and she was like "he won't be able to" and was right about it). as for wanting to just lay around, that might be some missed opportunities--maybe it's the meta power of the plot? inception style? at the end of the day she's still a fictional character being led around by the scriptwriter. maybe it's because the whole point is that the plot would happen anyway and there are already pacing issues with the show. could you imagine the irl scriptwriters magically forcing the iconic plot points around xiaoyu sitting around the house eating grapes? that would be a tough watch

Watching 27 and I am not even annoyed, I am bored and that’s the true kiss of death.

1. Ep 27 of 40 is where we first learn that the reason FL wants to protect Song fam is because her birth parents died saving her from a fire in rl and she doesn’t want anyone else to die for her. Umm it would have been helpful information way earlier. The pacing!!!

2. Speaking of pacing, we are 27 eps in and are still trapped in her viewing everything as predetermined to a degree that appears inconsistent with self preservation. NH points out that the hordes of assassins that were after her must have been sent by someone who wants her dead and her reaction is “naw it’s just because the assassins scene was predetermined by the script” (implication I have no enemy.) how does it feel to have solid ivory between the ears? Clearly someone is trying to kill her - script driven or otherwise - either she believes she can change nothing and script would literally randomly send unconnected invited assassins (in which case once again why bother do anything!) or script/world/whoever created a new enemy for her and it might be helpful to figure it out. She is utterly brain dead.

3. But LVP award goes to NH who annoys me by now. Look she was evil to you and told you she didn’t want you. Now she is being decent and believes you and w/e but nonetheless is making crystal clear she does not want to be with you. Take a hint!!! She’s just not that into you. In the immortal words of Elsa, let is gooooo! That’s not romantic it’s annoying. Maybe he loves her because neither of them is capable of taking in new information.

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i agree with your first point entirely and your third point in spirit (i want my romances to have happy endings but i agree nh needs to get a move on but he's a pretty crier and ficitonal so i forgive him and his idiocy)

but tbf on point two she literally hasn't been proven wrong yet, by virtue of the iconic plot points actually happening to her and the power of plot armor preventing her from ever being in true danger even if she suffers throughout the plot. she's not worried about it because in a meta sense the plot doesn't call for her to me worried about it. like if she had been actually able to change literally any single iconic plot point so far or if she'd ever been in any (perceived) real danger then maybe she'd be more concerned about the assassins. she knows she's going to live (and suffer) at least until the end of the plot. this show is pretty honest about it's tropes (literally the basis of the show) so it makes sense to me that the actions are kind of irrational--it tracks for the tropes.

Watching 27 and I am not even annoyed, I am bored and that’s the true kiss of death.

1. Ep 27 of 40 is where we first learn that the reason FL wants to protect Song fam is because her birth parents died saving her from a fire in rl and she doesn’t want anyone else to die for her. Umm it would have been helpful information way earlier. The pacing!!!

2. Speaking of pacing, we are 27 eps in and are still trapped in her viewing everything as predetermined to a degree that appears inconsistent with self preservation. NH points out that the hordes of assassins that were after her must have been sent by someone who wants her dead and her reaction is “naw it’s just because the assassins scene was predetermined by the script” (implication I have no enemy.) how does it feel to have solid ivory between the ears? Clearly someone is trying to kill her - script driven or otherwise - either she believes she can change nothing and script would literally randomly send unconnected invited assassins (in which case once again why bother do anything!) or script/world/whoever created a new enemy for her and it might be helpful to figure it out. She is utterly brain dead.

3. But LVP award goes to NH who annoys me by now. Look she was evil to you and told you she didn’t want you. Now she is being decent and believes you and w/e but nonetheless is making crystal clear she does not want to be with you. Take a hint!!! She’s just not that into you. In the immortal words of Elsa, let is gooooo! That’s not romantic it’s annoying. Maybe he loves her because neither of them is capable of taking in new information.

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part of it is expectation i think--tarzzan came out the gate appropriating so it falls within people's expectation of him. kiof just had some rnb songs then blammo black themed live and people weren't expecting that, and got angry because they had moral expectations of kiof that were failed. no one had moral expectations of tsrzzan bc no one knew who he was.

also probably some misogyny.

I don’t understand why Tarzzan is allowed to base his persona on black people but kiof get dragged for doing the same thing? And before anyone says Tarzzan ‘grew up’ in the culture, Julie also grew up in America and claimed she loved the culture and she was still in the wrong. Why does Tarzzan get a pass?

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duality is ahn hyo seop being in both the best and worst movies of the year

jinu in kpop demon hunters

kim dokja in the orv live action

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this is my take on tarzzan of allday project and cultural appropriation:

first off, let's start with some disclaimers. I am not black, and would never pretend to know about black cultural appropriation from a personal standpoint, but i have some thoughts and i wanna see if people agree with me--if i say something wrong or inapropriate feel free to call me out, i always want to learn.

(long ass post warning)

the first thing i want to say is that tarzzan is free to do whatever he wants, i guess??? but just because he can do something of his own free will doesn't exempt him from criticism or wrongdoing. just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

the second thing is i've seen a lot of people talk about allday project's documentary and how "he just really loves black culture! he appreciates not appropriates!" but this is flawed reasoning. i love a lot of black culture as well but you would not find me wearing grills or durags or anything else deemed culturally significant because i am not part of the culture. you can easily admire cultures without having to copy appearances. i similarly love powwows but you're not gonna find me in a headdress or a ribbon skirt. i love mexico but you wouldn't have found me giving myself a quince when i was 15. just because something isn't outwardly racist and intentionally appropriating culture doesn't mean that it can't be accidentally racist or a microaggression.

like i personally would love to wear waist beads and i do see people selling them for anybody's use, but i've also seen a couple people discuss waist beads' cultural importance and how they don't want to see outsiders wearing it. so despite how much i love waist beads and love seeing them on people, and despite how i've been reassured by other people that's it's not appropriation, i would not get any because i want to avoid offending people, even if those people are few in number.

on the other hand, some people don't care when stuff like this happens and their culture is, in their eyes, being appreciated. that's their prerogative, i of all people am not going to tell them they're wrong. people don't have to be offended by everything they see because of perceived moral obligation. however, some people do feel aggrieved when things like this happen, and is it not easier to respect the will of the few, especially when you don't get labelled racist as a result? despite what people may say, being "PC" or "woke" is not inherently annoying or difficult, and i am okay being disappointed with being unable to do something if it means i'm not hurting someone by doing it.

there's also a lot (nearly everything) in kpop that's either inspired or directly stolen from black culture, from the fashion to the aesthetics to the sound itself. but just because something like that is commonplace a doesn't mean that it has to keep being commonplace. from what i've seen, people don't generally care if kpop uses something like afrobeats or amapiano as long as it's respectful to the sound and is credited to the areas of west africa or south africa where it originated, or if the producer/beatmaker is of that culture--that isn't to say that people aren't critical of the use of african sounds in kpop, because that would be an insane thing to claim, but it's kind of like the difference between how tinnitus by txt was received (generally well, minor criticisms but if there was major discourse i didn't see it) and how smart by le sserafim was received (also generally well, but had some backlash over pronunciation of "smarter" -- which was perceived, whether truthfully or not, to have been sung with an african accent, as well as some backlash over the styling choices)

but because of kpop's historic appropriation of black aesthetics and sounds, people can be a bit more sensitive to appropriation when it happens now, especially since kpop globalized in recent years. just because there's sensitivity doesn't mean that it's not happening, so there's no reason to downplay people's adverse reactions to things like this when it happens over and over again.

it's hard to tell when someone is malicious or just ill-informed simply by looking at a picture of them.

obviously, no matter what somebody does, there will be someone else telling them how everything they're doing is wrong--there's no winning when you're in the public eye. for every person in the world there's a different opinion on what appropriation is or isn't. however, genuinely educating yourself on why someone may be protective of their culture, even if you want to appreciate it, can reduce how much one gets vilified by the public eye.

there are a lot of great resources explaining exactly how black people and other ethnic groups in the US were denied their culture, only to turn around and watch white people co-opt it for profit or further oppression. this article and this essay are easily discoverable through googling "black cultural appropriation" and may be a good place to start, and i also recommend "a different mirror" by ronald takaki which isn't about appropriation specifically but is a good look into the specific racism different ethnic groups experienced in the us which can inform about race-related interactions. i also need to remember the name of a documentary i watched last year and i will edit this post to add the title because i cannot for the life of me find it [ETHNIC NOTIONS BY MARLON RIGGS (1987) IT'S ACTUALLY A VIDEO ESSAY] but it was mostly about minstrelism and black stereotypes in the us and was excruciatingly informative about some really awful racism. but you can also ask people online who know more than me about this about other, better resources, as these are just simple google searches and info off the top of my head, which is about as reliable as a car that needs to have it's doors duct-taped shut. there's also some interesting thoughts online about black appropriation of asian culture and the asian appropriation of black culture, but i don't have specific resources about it since it's mostly just personal experiences i've seen people talk about.

again i don't have personal experience and can't claim to be an expert but i've seen many different opinions over the past 8 or so years.

generally appropriation is considered to be the use of aesthetics of a culture without due respect or acknowledgment. appropriation is having an indian-themed wedding without ackowledgment of indian cultural practices or being of indian culture. appreciation would be wearing indian cultural clothing to an actual indian wedding you've been invited to, since you've been invited into the space.

i think what tarzzan lacks is invitation and immersion. he obviously acknowledges the ways in which black culture inspires him, but it comes off as shallow when he does not interact with people of the culture (although i cannot pretend like i know every single person that tarzzan knows). for all his intentions, he appears to be wearing cultural aspects as a costume for it's aesthetic. having a black-themed aesthetic is exactly what got kiss of life in trouble. just because tarzzan isn't directly mocking black culture, doesn't mean that his actions aren't perceived and received as mocking or disingenuous.

while perhaps cringe or otherwise peculiar in hindsight, BTS going to LA for "american hustle life" and learning from coolio was actually so important for them to develop their identities as korean rappers and to learn about rap and rnb culture directly by people immersed in it--and that's where it became appreciation. not to say that bts is free of appropriation because that would be a wild thing to claim but they have something going for them that a lot of other korean musical artists don't because of things bts did like that.

i don't think tarzzan is evil, malicious, or even ill-intended. i do think he would benefit greatly from something like american hustle life, and perhaps a rundown on the history of black cultural appropriation in the US especially. i also think producers in the Black Label would also benefit from such things. i also think he's a full grown adult and can handle the consequences of his actions.

you don't have to try to be black to appreciate all the things that black cultures around the world have created, and you don't have to try to look black to be deemed as "cool" or "hiphop" (there's a whole other post on why using "hiphop" in this way is also weird but i digress for the purposes of this post and hope people will understand why i used it here)

at the end of the day i did like allday project's debut single, and i liked it's latin influence on the backtrack. i do personally love when cultures mix to create new and interesting things, but there's no harm in being careful. there are ways to be creative without being harmful, and generally it surrounds simply just asking and being curious of the influences around you. and while you won't make everyone happy, there are definitely ways to minimize harm.

if i've forgotten something, said something that was downright wrong, or was offensive myself, please let me know. this is just my opinion, and not only is it my opinion it's my opinion as an outsider, so take it with a grain of salt. i'm not trying to be a paragon of morality or the leading expert on cultural appropriation. this is just a long-winded post.

edit: yall i only knew about the braids what is up with the way he talks online someone needs to smack him upside the head. like one aggression is already too much why are you actively trying to be black

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we need to stop interpreting ship names, especially queer ship names, as topbottom. why are there still arguments about whose name goes first in a ship. also why are you doing this when it's about real life people who aren't dating (eg actor pairs). what is wrong with y'all

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Me with my Sang Yan collection: After all these years I finally have them all

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Oh, to love like Sang Yan.

To be loved by Sang Yan.

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I need to see SAD, PATHETIC longing again, I want to see them YEARN. But it's just sad, like it's a need atp. They want this person so much and yet they can't have them, not every single piece of them.

They only love the other person in fragments, in pieces

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sang yan the yearner that you are

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Sang Yan, the man you are.

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lee jun is such a fucking dork hes so stupid i want him so bad

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just watched the first frost with only the knowledge that it was a hidden love spin-off and—

YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHH DIFFERENT CHARACTER TYPE AND I LOVE HER AND I CANT BELIEVE THE SECOND PAIRING IS THIS GOOD

they need to give my girl zhang miao yi a different character type because she’s so great at her roles but her dramas blend together fr fr

at least, the two that i’ve seen she was a similar character with almost the exact same character arc and the exact same ending

don’t typecast my talented girl