#i think this is part of why classic literature is so important to study

[zorosdimples]

kae love this is more of a Life question, if that’s okay! how enjoyable was doing an english major and would you say that you have good career prospects from it? i’m highly considering switching my major but i also worry

of course life questions are okay!

i absolutely loved being an english major. i actually entered university as a journalism major, but after my first journalism class (on the first day of class as a freshman), i knew it wasn’t for me. i went to see my advisor the next day, changed to an english major, and the rest is history! i’ve always been interested in and good at reading and writing, so that’s why i gravitated to studying literature. i also took a creative writing class, which was equal parts nerve-wracking and enjoyable. where i went to school, the classes were small, and discussion-based. the format really helped alleviate some of my deep-rooted social anxiety and pushed me out of my shell. it was a wonderful experience, and i’m still close with a few of the professors i had!

career-wise, the most “traditional” routes for english majors—i.e. what people first think of or assume you will do after graduating—are teaching and publishing. also, a lot of law students have english majors. but those aren’t the only viable options! the huge emphasis on writing in the english major makes you a versatile hire, and you can write in many capacities, from creative to technical to marketing. i think a lot of college kids assume that once you pick a major and get a job post-grad, that you’ll never be able to change careers or leave your field. but that isn’t true. a lot of people don’t have jobs that directly correlate with their degrees. it’s important to remember that skills like reading comprehension, written and verbal communication, and critical thinking are used in pretty much any job you will ever have. and these are exactly the sorts of skills you learn as an english major.

a lot of people shy away from majors in the humanities because career paths are less concrete than they are in stem (unless you plan to go to graduate school, of course). but part of the beauty of growing up and getting older is figuring out what you want to do with your life. usually—nine times out of tem—what you think you want to do when you’re in school isn’t actually what you want to do. anyway, if i could go back and do everything over again, i wouldn’t change my english major; i probably would’ve added a classics or history major, if anything!

[dekusheroacademia]

Who is the deuteragonist of MHA (spoilers: Bakugou)

I have to be honest, I find most of these debates quite useless, so I wanted to explain why. I do think all three main answers (Bakugou, Shigaraki, All Might) are valid based on how much each reader weights different sides of the definition of deuteragonist.

I am going to explain here why I think the majority of people believe Bakugou to be the deuteragonist, and in general I do believe it too. I added the manga spoilers tag so that people can freely talk about recent plot points.

Now, it is been a while since I studied any literature, so I will cite definitions from different websites.

Deuteragonist, from the merriam webster dictionary, is the actor taking the part of second importance in a classical Greek drama or who serves as a foil to another. The word does come from the Greek theater world. Protagonist is the main character involved in the struggle given by the plot. https://literarydevices.net/deuteragonist/ defines it as:

So it CAN be an antagonist (someone can have both roles of antagonist and deuteragonist, by this definition), and the important part is "being the second main character". Wikipedia gives this definition (these are what they cite, in second pic):

Here are some examples from my personal favourite literature texts.

In Romeo and Juliet, Benvolio or Mercutio might be considered the deuteragonist. If you are not too familiar with the play, Benvolio is one of the Montagues, and Romeo's confidant, but also a friend of both Mercution and Romeo. Mercutio is the "neutral, non neutral" party, and definitely one of the protagonists, but his story is cut short when he is killed. I have seen Benvolio mainly chosen the the deuteragonist because he acts as a close companion to Romeo, but Mercutio is the one who emotionally changes the path of Romeo's story (his death leads to the whole revenge thing). Important note: you can have more than one deuteragonist. It is not a "only one prize for one character only". Furthermore, notice how Tybalt is not seen as the deuteragonist even if he is the one changing the course of the story (he acts as an antagonist, and ends up killing Mercutio, and then being killed by Romeo).

Another example is Watson in Sherlock Holmes. Watson is Holmes' companion and the deuteragonist for basically all the books. Here the deuteragonist is such because he acts as a companion, confidant and friend of Holmes, but also contrasts to Holmes (they sometimes disagree on stuff), not to mention the fact that he simply is the most present character after Holmes.

Another deuteragonist is Marius from Les Miserables, where he falls into the "second protagonist" role. I wanted to cite this in particular because Les Mis is a quite long narrative, and Marius only appears in the last part. The two only interacts briefly, and here the term deuteragonist is mainly used as second protagonist given that the story follows Marius too, after his appearance. Marius also partecipates in Valjean's character development (by getting him out of his shell, so to say). Notice how Javert (my favourite) appears multiple times in the story, is in conflict to Valjean, is the opposite and complementary to Valjean and the antagonist, but because he does not partecipate in Valjean's character arc (the opposite is true tho), and because he is not as present as Marius, he is not defined as the deuteragonist. (By the way, when I say that Valjean and Javert are complementary and in contrast I mean.... literally. Hugo created both of their characters by dividing the characteristics of a real existing person named Eugène François Vidocq). Yes, Valjean/Javert is my ultimate otp, but this is a discourse for another time.

Let's look now at more definitions. From: https://masterclass.com/articles/what-is-a-deuteragonist-in-literature… The deuteragonist can SOMETIMES assume different roles (ex. sidekick, lover, antagonist), so Shigaraki could be one ONLY if present in a story and playing a particular major role:

From the same source: an important part of being the deuteragonist is being a foil for the protagonist and the role they have in the protagonist's character development:

In the case of MHA, I think All Might and Bakugou could be deuteragonist, but I see a lot of people suggesting Shigaraki. Let's see all that is needed by pulling together these definitions:

Second main character (who struggle and overcomes)

Second main character (presence)

Confidant, companion, someone who helps the protagonist (but might switch to antagonist)

Act as a foil to the protagonist, embody similar qualities

Embody opposite qualities to contrast the protagonist

Has a role in the character development of the protagonist.

As I said up above, before we go point by point, keep in mind that everything has a certain level of subjectivity. There is only 1 point that has an objective measurement, and that is point 2. Let's start with point 1:

Now point (2): Second main character (presence). I determined this by counting number of panels of each character. Bakugou here is the one with the most presence after Deku, following we have Todoroki, very similar number to All Might. Shigaraki here is lower (almost half of Bkg presence):

Now, points 3 to 5:

And the final point, point (6), is about the role in the character development of the protagonist (Deku). This is particular important. For a more comprehensive descritption of Bakugou's role as a step ladder for Deku's character development, please read this before continuing:

Summarizing:

And here is a summary of all 6 points. The only character who not only fits all three but also fits the only point (2) that has objectivity in it, is Bakugou:

Keep in mind that there is always a level of subjectivity in interpreting this point. The only objective one is the panel count (which Bakugou has, given he is the most present character in the story). But I do think Bakugou is the only one who best fit the multi-faceted idea of the deuteragonist. I also added Shigaraki a yes to point 6, but I do think his role in aiding Deku's character development is much smaller, and much more secondary, than Bakugou and All Might's.

[wielsonf]

why qualitative research matters to teaching (mathematics)

the pioneer cohort of ed.d. and ph.d. educ at ateneo gbseald with dr. ma. assunta "achoot" cuyegkeng / screengrabs from markkie aribon and lavi subang of ed.d.

-----

i told the internet about why i am where i am now in a previous post. now, i am ready to share what invaluable knowledge i've got from one of my courses so far.

during my undergrad and graduate studies, just pen and paper is mostly sufficient to create new ideas, problems, and solutions, and do research in math, but that's not the only concern i have with life and work.

for the past half a decade or so, peers and i saw a decline in the perceived quality of students in calculus at the university of the philippines los banos. what was supposed to be tackled in senior high school, like algebra, trigonometry, and precalculus especially for those from stem track, wasn't adequately done so. when introduced to fundamental calculus concepts, they do understand the notion of limit, how lines and derivatives intertwine and entangle, and why area is an integral, but when it comes to crafting solutions and answering problems, this inadequacy becomes apparent.

in turn, it becomes necessary for us to ask why this is the case? how do teachers influence their students' calculus learning and what are they doing to adapt? has existing policies done us (dis)service in the philippine (math) education? and, why is everybody and nobody at fault here?

just thinking about possible solutions is not enough. we need to get our hands dirty, wreck some established norms, and possibly hurt some feelings in the process. qualitative research, i learned, has some of the answers.

as i mentioned in a previous post,

for this course, i posed this question: how do teachers facilitate collegiate calculus learning through creative interventions?

in an attempt to answer this question, i had to look back at what is happening and what research tells us about calculus learning.

for one, most mathematics learning theories are based on existing ones from classical learning theories, like constructivism, positivism, and behaviorism. since the start of the 21st century, one of the main motivations of mathematics education research is rationalizing a theory for mathematics in consideration of its unique nature as a subject matter.

next comes becoming aware of challenges and factors in teaching and learning calculus, how do teachers intervene, and how important their role is.

as of yet, i think the question can't be answered by a simple survey, answered using a likert scale. we have to go on the ground and diligently ask calculus teachers and instructors in college the existing literature still resonate with the challenges they face and what they do about them in order to help their students. the quality of administration and prestige of the institutions they serve affect their students, but in reality, educators are at the frontline facing the students and implementing interventions as they go along day by day. their experience is a vital part of understanding the problem.

we should break down such a complex question into easily digestible and directly answerable ones that help us understand sac (structures-agency-culture): ask where the teachers come from, what kind of pool do they dive in to teach calculus, what restrictions they are put in, what the students are like, what they do to help the children [sic], and in what way do their interventions affect the students.

with the pisa results just released, now more than ever, we need to act as fast as we can to implement changes from the ground up.

why are we, everyone at school, so miserable in one way or another? this, i can definitely say, is my magnum opus.

i will die on this hill.

[netherfeildren]

hiii, I wanted to ask you some advice if you don’t mind🥺

I’d really like to start writing (and maybe even posting on tumblr). Reading Joel’s fics gave me the motivation especially because of authors as good as you are. Also I was thinking of changing my bachelor’s degree in biology in a classics studies one and after that I’d really like to get into the publishing industry and also doing books translating (english is not my first language so I wanted to translate books from english to my first language and viceversa). In high school I studied greek and latin and I’m regretting abandoning them honestly. I wanted to get into literature’s world and starting to write and I’m really inspired by works like yours so I wanted to ask (if you don’t mind answering) did you take any writing course or did you have this passion by reading or I don’t know(?)❤️❤️❤️

hello hello, apologies that i sat on this so long but i wanted to be able to sit and give you a worthwhile response. first of all, if you’re feeling the inspiration and inclination you should most definitely take the leap and post your writing!!! the hardest part is that first go and not that it’s not hard or scary thereafter, but once the first step is done then it’s done, all that’s left after that is to keep going.

as for the schooling, i’m no expert by any means much less a voice of reason, but i think translation work sounds so interesting and if it’s what you’re so inclined to then you should definitely go for it! my path was not the norm, i started with a bio chemistry degree and halfway through my first year added the literature degree and it was all absolutely terrible. i didn’t only do the majors but the full degree plans so a minor in physics as well as a focus on romanticism for the lit. now that i find myself most regrettably in the real world, i don’t use my literature degree at all in my job but i’m eternally glad i did it even though the going was hell because i truly enjoyed it like nothing else. i was also heavily discouraged by one of my parents to not pursue the lit (this is why i was forced to do the full degree paths for both) so if that’s your dilemma or what’s holding you back all i’ll say is that where there’s a will there’s a way and if you’re thinking about it and asking for advice or input then it seems to me this is something you’re considering seriously and that it’s important to you and i’m sure you’ll find the right path and answer for what you probably already know it is you want to do.

and to answer your last question, yes, i took creative writing courses in university, and i’ve always been very bookish which i suppose contributed to the interest. prior to this now i’d never done much fiction writing but i’ve always kept journals so that was really the extent of my experience besides school work. i’d say, more than anything, this fervor we’ll call it really truly came from always being a big reader. v.e. schwab said something to the effect once that you can’t be a writer without being a reader, and i apply myself to that prodigiously lol the two go hand and hand, are one and the same etc etc

[the-vibes-are-off]

‘ The Stormlight Archives Volume One: The Way of Kings’ Review - Prelude + Prologue

So is the way when my partner buys me his favourite book and I study English Literature, so must I be overly thorough in reviewing it. Welcome to my scuffed part-by-part criticism and appreciation.

link to contents page - https://at.tumblr.com/the-vibes-are-off/hey-hey/96xd9ohihrzs

Now I’m busy today so I’m only doing the prelude and prologue for now as a way of introducing what I’m tabbing and why. Since I don’t know a lot about the series I’m tabbing it like I would most other non-focused tabbings mainly with just bits that I like over anything else and, since it’s an author I’m unfamiliar with in a genre I don’t read, I have included a ‘hate this’ tab in case this reaches anyone who is either interested in reading the series and wants honesty or for any particularly argumentative fans that want to debate.

I’ve decided to split into spoiler free and spoiler filled sections in order to explain my tabbings to both read and unread readers - tab count for the current section and total read so far will be at the bottom.

Spoiler Free Zone:

The prelude definitely starts off the book with an interesting historical baseline and soft introducing what I assume is lore to be further revealed as time goes on. Very typical dark and gloomy fantasy setting I would say, definitely could probs be written better but is certainly interesting.

This follows in the prologue 100%. Brandon deffo has the imagination to be thinking up races/groups of people, characters, weapons, abilities etc and the scenes are descriptive and dynamic to an extent however I have beef with some of his basic writing technique. Clearly with it being 1007 pages long he has no qualms with book length but has a tendency to repeat paragraph openers (which whatever like that is admittedly minor) and tell rather than show (which is the bit that gets me).

*SPOILER BUFFER*

Spoiler Zone - Enter at your own risk:

Admittedly I can’t say the first page was initially gripping me, typical large scale beast fight. I think the desolation of the fight could definitely have been described better but from what I can gather the fight is more of just a precursor to the important lore so it isn’t that deep.

Naturally I tabbed cool swords yes yes yes cool swords gimme cool swords followed by torture (horror fan me very happy at any gruesome adjacent description). Tabbed a ‘WTF? Why?’ At furthering lore. Oathpact? Cycle of Desolations? Why is it ending? Gimme more pls pls pls but at the end of the day it is the prelude so I had to live.

Loved the quote at the start of the chapter, a lovely form feature I wasn’t expecting. 100% first slay quote I love when books have quotes at the start of chapters, usually allusions to other texts but an in world quote definitely still works.

First love this was at the description of the women. What can I say. I love women. I am biased.

My first beef (hate this) was with the explanation of a ‘lashing’. I get it needing context with lashing typically meaning something else but like maybe gloss it in the back or at the bottom of the page so that it doesn’t take you out of the fight and rather acts as like an optional contextualisation.

Tbf tho Brandon hit me with more cool swords for my first ‘WTF WOW’ tab bc sword that cuts someone’s soul? Come on man like that’s so sick.

We love a cheeky bit of lore too - I had to add a bonus tabby for lore insertions. Nice to have more context for the start (I assume?).

Our first named death too? Before chapter one? With a cryptic last wish. Classic set up that you can’t help but love.

Tab Count:

This Part -

Cute: 0

Fights/Violence*: 2

Sad :(: 0

Death**: 1

Cool: 2

Wtf why: 1

Wtf wow: 1

Slay Quotes: 1

Love this!: 1

Hate this >:/: 1

Cool lore insert: 1

Total-

Cute: 0

Fights/Violence: 2

Sad :(: 0

Death: 1

Cool: 2

Wtf why: 1

Wtf wow: 1

Slay quotes: 1

Love this!: 1

Hate this >:/: 1

* - fights are tabbed at a new enemy (ie in prologue when it changes from guards to the king)

* *- deaths include named character deaths only

[jeannereames]

Hey Dr Reames! I’ve been reading Anthony Everitt’s biography of Alexander and he seems obsessed with boosting the importance of Bagoas. Some time ago I read your post about Bagoas and the role he likely had historically, and I wondered why, in your opinion, do so many biographers feel compelled to discuss him with such certainty if the sources we have are contradictory?

First, I’m going to admit that I’ve not read this biography, nor do I intend to (not any time soon). My reason is simple: Everitt is not an Alexander/Macedonia specialist. He’s not even a trained historian, but seems to specialize in performance and the vision arts with a penchant for writing pop history. He read in English literature at Cambridge, so seems to have no formal historical training. There are SO many books chapters/articles/books written by my colleagues, published each year, I can’t even keep up with that tide of published scholarship, never mind pop history from non-specialists.

That may—probably does—sound haughty, but it’s just pragmatic. I want to write my OWN stuff (academic and fiction both), as well as read things I need to read…not to mention do my job (which includes a lot of class prep, grading, and service). Ergo, I must be very circumspect in what I do read.

Given your question, I strongly suspect I wouldn’t care much for his book. Given the full title of the book, I’m even more certain I wouldn’t. Every time “mysterious death” pops up related to Alexander, I can be about 98% sure it’s going to be sensationalist and used to sell books. As someone who’s written about Alexander’s death myself, as well as Hephaistion’s demise, and who’s actually read in bereavement studies and done bereavement counselling, I lack patience for the sort of crackpot stuff I find too often about ATG’s last 9-10 months. That’s part of why I wrote “The Mourning of Alexander.”

Having said that, I could be wrong and he does a fine treatment of ATG’s death. I’ve simply been burned too often to expect it. Looking at the titles of his other history/biographies, however, he seems to lean to the sensationalist. He knows how to sell books.

As for Bagoas, to be honest, when you see him overemphasized in a biography, you’re looking at the enormous influence of Renault. I’ve written about that before, as the asker indicated. Macedonian and Alexander specialists don’t give him a lot of space because he’s a minor figure, if he existed at all and isn’t pure Roman fiction. (Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if he did exist, but he most certainly didn’t have any sort of outsized impact on ATG.)

As noted, I think the tendency to give it to him really does owe to Renault. It may also owe to a need to find some new “angle” on Alexander that will sell books for him. 😉 Why write (or publish) Yet Another biography on Alexander unless there’s something new-ish to say?

Too bad the newish thing doesn’t involve all the cool stuff coming out of the ground at Archontiko, Sindos, or Vergina in Macedonia that’s making us rethink what we knew about Archaic and early Classical Macedonia….

[rapha-reads]

@stelly38 asked me:

ooooh, that's going to be fun, thank you!!! Here we go. [Edit: this is going to be long]

Top 10 worst moments in American History

Alright, I'm French and Moroccan. American bashing is like, encoded in my DNA, lmao. Also I've studied History but I'm a Literature specialist, so.

10. the Kardashians. Why are you making us suffer these guys? Please stop. 9. Reagan's administration, how AIDs was handled. 8. the assassination of John Lennon. What the hell, USA? What did Lennon eve do to you? 7. the assassination of MLK. That one is unforgivable. And obviously, George Floyd, Emmett Till... Remember their names. 6. the imperialism in Middle East. That one is not just on you guys, but dammit, you are digging your own grave. And taking the rest of the arabo-muslim world with you. 5. creating Ben Ladden, the war in Irak. Do you guys realize that if Bush hadn't gone to Afghanistan and tried to imperialize it, we wouldn't have the so-called "war on terror" now? 4. the entire Vietnam war. Napalm and senseless violence and the constant glorification of war ever since. 3. bombing Japan. What the hell was that about, Truman? (aka you watched Oppenheimer this summer) 2. Trump. That was like. Globally traumatizing. The whole thing. The heck were you guys thinking? Macron is horrible but Trump was like, majorly nightmarish. 1. the colonization and genocide of the Natives. I know Colombus is not your fault, but everything that happened and keeps happening now. As another indigenous people (North Africa's original people, the Amazighs), I feel a great kinship with the Native Americans. Though to be fair my people has not been as exterminated and pushed back to the recesses of history like you. But yeah, I really think the most important conversation the US should be having today is about the Natives, their lands, their rights, their history, their culture, their justice... I think your country can only progress if it faces its own history and this history starts and ends with its native people.

Oof, let's get into something a bit more light-hearted!

Top 5 favorite songs ever

List changes all the time. Let's see the ones that stay always, the classic ones that almost never make the list because they've been with me for so long.

5. Renaud, Société tu m'auras pas. A classic from my childhood. Anarchist French angry song, anti-society, anti-capitalism... Used to jump and shout the chorus with my brother when I was under 6, visiting my paternal grandfather in the house my father grew up. 4. U2, Magnificent. There was a period in my early teenage years where my mother, my middle sister and I would often drive from the city to the village and back every other week-end, a sort of mini road-trip (60kms only), and we'd listen with my mother this U2 album. 3. Dire Straits, Romeo and Juliet. At this point, everyone who knows me a little knows of my huge obsession for R&J, that started when I was barely 10. This song is everything to me. Also Dire Straits is a shared taste with a part of my maternal family. 2. Manu Chao, Clandestino. My mother is a Spanish teacher, Spain is on the way between France and Morocco. Spanish's always been one of the languages spoken in my house, despite none of us being actually, you know, Spanish. Been hearing this song for as long as I can remember. 1. Anne Sylvestre, Les grands migrateurs. Anne Sylvestre is a French singer (she died this year) who did feminist songs in the 60s-80s, and also various tapes of nursery rhyme (kinda) for kids. This one is about migratory birds. I used to listen to these K7 all the time as a child.

Top 5 favorite desserts

I have a huge sweet tooth!

5. Lemon pie. 4. Red fruit cheesecake. 3. Apple pie. 2. Chocolat mousse. 1. Chocolate cake (marble cake, brownie, classic gâteau... If it's chocolate, it goes in).

[ayliffe]

hey, just seen you do classics at the OU. I am thinking of signing up part-time while working - do you have any hints? I did Latin GCSE and muddled through some ancient greek in lockdown and i'm very interested in it all. cheers! got til March-ish to decide. planning to just pay myself if that helps

hey! i'm currently on hiatus from the ou (though starting again in january) but i can tell you about the first year or so! the first couple of modules are extremely broad -- it's basically humanities as a whole, with essays on comparing media, on english literature, on history, on religious studies, etc (though largely a focus on history).

it's only after the first two modules you start doing anything specifically classics oriented, for what it's worth. i'm sure you've done your research on it anyway but that was something that was a bit of a sticking point with me -- i understand why they give such a broad grounding, but it does mean you have to do some groundwork to get to the subject you actually signed up for.

i would say it's worth turning up to the in-person lectures they offer: obviously these aren't mandatory but they definitely helped me take the whole thing more seriously, and iirc i learned things that weren't just in the textbooks the provide. aside from that, i think probably the most important thing is time management -- because it's largely distance learning, i found it easy to kind of forget i was doing it until the last minute, so i ended up rushing all my essays on the last night before they were due, and although that was sort of fine-ish, it definitely wasn't ideal, haha. i think it's definitely worth talking to your tutor as well, if need be -- mine were always really helpful and clear with their comments.

in my experience, if you've done any latin or greek at all, you'll basically breeze through those particular modules (though i'm not sure if they're still offering greek), but there is a bunch of other stuff to get through first. i've enjoyed what little i've done so far, though! @punkst might have more information on it -- i know they're studying there as well. good luck, and i hope you enjoy it if you decide to pursue it!

[lawyeronabike]

Book Talk #3: A Clockwork Orange, Free Will, and Motives of Christian Ethos

Does motive matter in ethics? If you do the "right" thing for the wrong reason, is it still right? If you do the "wrong" thing for the "right" reasons, is it still "wrong"? Put your thinking cap on your gulliver, my droogies. Today, we're examining Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange as a case study in ethics, as well highlighting a major flaw in Christianity (a noble pastime if there ever was one).

Part I: The Plot of A Clockwork Orange

I'll include only what's needed for the analysis here. It's still a book worth reading.

The book can roughly be into three parts. The first third is Alex committing horrible, violent crimes so we understand who he is and why he gets treated the way he does later in the book. After a rape and burglary goes bad, the woman he raped dies, and he is incarcerated for murder.

The next third documents Alex's time in prison, including his volunteering and selection for a clinical trial called "the Ludovico Technique." It a fictional form of aversion therapy that involves Alex watching violent and pornographic films while being injected with drugs to make him nauseous. The technique is a "success." When he leaves the program he becomes violently ill when he gets horny or tries to engage in violence. Admittedly, he was previously a rapist, but this procedure closes off even the possibility of consensual sex. Alex is now also incapable of being violent, this includes an inability to use violence in self defense. Because of the background music that was used in the films, he can't even listen to classical music any more, which used to one of his greatest joys.

(To make sure he watches the film, his eyelids are pried open, with scientists administrating eye drops. It's the definition of a captive audience.)

The last third follows his journey back in the free world. Mostly, it involves him being down on his luck. People are cruel to him, and many of the people he brutalized before going to prison, now seeing his defenseless state, exact revenge on him, beating him senselessly. Many readers feel sympathy for Alex at this point. He's no longer the monster he once was. He literally cannot be. One of the last scenes of the book is him being locked in a room, subjected to the blasting of classical music. To save himself the agony of his conditioning, he autodefenestrates (jumps out the window) in an attempt to kill himself.

The music was still pouring in all brass and drums and the violins miles up through the wall. The window in the room where I had laid down was open. I ittied to it and viddied a fair drop to the autos and buses and walking chellovecks below. I creeched out to the world: ‘Goodbye, goodbye, may Bog forgive you for a ruined life.’ Then I got on to the sill, the music blasting away to my left, and I shut my glazzies and felt the cold wind on my litso, then I jumped.

-A Clockwork Orange: Part 3, Chapter 5

Yes yes. I know left out many important plot points and symbolic details. The entire book is worth reading, and it's not that long either.

Part II: What A Clockwork Orange is Interpreted to Mean

Now that we have essential plot elements laid out, we can ask. Is Alex is now good? Most interpretations of the book at this point conclude that Alex is neither good nor evil. Take for example, an analysis by Thomas C. Foster, a professor emeritus of English at the University of Michigan-Flint. In his 2003 book, How to Read Literature Like a Professor, he states

When his capacity to choose is taken away, evil is replaced not with goodness but with a hollow simulacrum of goodness. Because he still wants to choose evil, he is in no way reformed. In acquiring the desired behavior through the “Ludovico Technique,” . . . society has not only failed to correct Alex but has committed a far worse crime against him by taking away his free will, which for Burgess is the hallmark of the human being.

Morality requires choice. We don't condemn hurricanes for their evil nature. Hurricanes are amoral, as hurricanes have no agency. People are understandably uncomfortable about thinking of human beings as being without free will. It would seem to undermine a core assumption on which society is built. And yet...

Part III: What Burgess Doesn't Get - The Problem of Free Will

For starters, it probably doesn't exist.

Perhaps the believers and the nonbelievers can be one day united in their skepticism of free will. For nonbelievers, there are deterministic arguments. But don't think that let's believers off of the hook.

Many Christians believe in an omniscient god. This appears to be directly incompatible with free will. I figured this out when I was about twelve or thirteen. If god knows I will choose A, then do I have free will to choose B? Not if god is omniscient.

(If "god's plan" is a real thing, then you can kiss free will goodbye)

Part IV: "Good" Things for "Bad" Reasons

So let's take a step back from that for a second and assume, for the sake of argument, that free will exists. Who actually has it in a meaningful sense. Believers? Or nonbelievers?

Many Christians believe that actions on this earth determine your eternal place in heaven or hell, and that your placement there depends on doing various "good works."

(I know it's a theological debate between protestants, who believe in Sola Fide, or faith alone as a ticket to heaven, and Catholics, who believe it requires faith and good works.)

As a further side note, the requirement of faith itself has troubling implications. You don't control your faith. If I asked you to change your religious beliefs, right now, you couldn't' do it. In many respects, your beliefs can better be described as something that happens to you, rather than something you choose.

So assuming there is, in fact, free will, and ignoring the troubling implications of a faith requirement, let's talk about the good works component. Let's say you have a believing Catholic who wants to go to heaven. They are as convinced of heaven and hell and the truth of the bible as they are of gravity. They volunteer to feed the homeless. Did they do so in any meaningful way?

Let's put this another way. Imagine I approach you with a shovel in my hand. I credibly threaten to beat you senseless unless you feed the homeless. You comply. Did you do good by feeding the homeless? Is it even possible to know? If you help other people for a a selfish reason, how should that be morally judged?

These two situations are not so different. If you truly believe in the fire and brimstone, there are only two key differences separating the above scenarios. One is the depth of punishment and reward. Christian hell is a far greater punishment than being beaten with a shovel. The other is immanency. Being sent to hell won't happen immediately, but the catholic still believes it will happen. It seems to me that the punishment being delayed does not actually change the moral calculus. Whether punishment and reward are served immediately or in fifty years, the people in the above scenarios are still acting pro-socaily for selfish reasons. In this way, such a person, like Alex, has become a Clockwork Orange. Organic on the outside, mechanical on the inside, and stripped of any meaningful choice.

The book itself seems to recognize the tension between being a christian and being a person with free will.

‘Choice,’ rumbled a rich deep goloss. I viddied it belonged to the prison charlie. ‘He has no real choice, has he? Self-interest, fear of physical pain, drove him to that grotesque act of self-abasement. Its insincerity was clearly to be seen. He ceases to be a wrongdoer. He ceases also to be a creature capable of moral choice.’

‘He will be your true Christian,’ Dr Brodsky was creeching out, ‘ready to turn the other cheek, ready to be crucified rather than crucify, sick to the very heart at the thought even of killing a fly.’ And that was right, brothers, because when he said that I thought of killing a fly and felt just that tiny bit sick, but I pushed the sickness and pain back by thinking of the fly being fed with bits of sugar and looked after like a bleeding pet and all that cal.

-A Clockwork Orange, Part 2, Chapter 7

Ironically, this means that atheists, who will be more likely than Christians to deny the existence of free will, are more likely to actually have it in any meaningful way. Should free will exist, the only people who are able to make meaningful choices are those who believe that life is unhindered by any cosmic balancing scales, or those that are willing tot defy god.

Part V: "Bad" things for "Good Reasons"

The bible is a mess of a book, and much of it justifies and supports slavery. Many people in the American antebellum south believed slavery was a righteous thing, permitted by god. Liberating slaves would be wrong, as it would be stealing. It is in this moral conundrum Mark Twain places his titular character in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Huck, believing it is dictated by his religion, writes a letter revealing the location of Jim, a runaway slave. But he hasn't sent it yet, he first reflects.

I saved him by telling the men we had small-pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one he’s got now; and then I happened to look around and see that paper.

It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:

“All right, then, I’ll go to hell” — and tore it up.

It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. I shoved the whole thing out of my head, and said I would take up wickedness again, which was in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn’t. And for a starter I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again; and if I could think up anything worse, I would do that, too; because as long as I was in, and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog.

-The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 31

Huck is willing to suffer eternal damnation, in a very literal sense, to help his friend. He believes he is doing the "wrong" thing, and is willing to do it anyway. What if Huck didn't believe it was wrong to protect Jim? Does that change the morality of his choice? Is Huck's good deed greater because he's willing to suffer enormous consequences for it? Is it less of a good deed because he believes he's doing the wrong thing?

(When in doubt, rely on the power of friendship)

Few people today would believe that freeing slaves is a wrong act, regardless of what the bible says. So to drive the message home, let's take a more controversial example.

Inhabit, once again, the world of religion, the dogma of heaven and hell. If you could kill somebody, and know they would go straight to heaven, should you do it? Let's say you already knew you were going to hell. What would you have to lose, spiritually speaking?

The Mormons make a particularly interesting example for this. They are a denomination that rejects the doctrine of original sin, meaning children are sinless when they enter the world. They also believe that children can't sin until the "age of accountability," which modern practice sets at eight years old.

For all men must repent and be baptized, and not only men, but women, and children who have arrived at the years of accountability.

-Doctrine and Covenants, Section 18 verse 42

And I also beheld that all children who die before they arrive at the years of accountability are saved in the celestial kingdom of heaven.

-Doctrine and Covenants, section 137 verse 10

One can imagine a mormon zealot serially killing as many children as possible under eight years old in order to secure them a place in heaven. After all, it's all downhill after eight. They may very well fall prey to temptation. From this perspective, it's best to give them a speedy trip to the afterlife. If you truly believed the same mormon doctrine as them, could you condemn them?

Part VI: Recap

Let's examine our characters again, and ask if any of them are truly good.

Alex: Does the "right" thing, given literally no choice in the matter

Catholic Zealot: Does the "right" thing, but is given no meaningful choice in the matter. They believe that failure to do do the "right" thing will be met with eternal torment, so their actions are selfishly motivated.

Huckleberry Finn: Does what he believes is the "wrong" thing, but for selfless reasons, and is willing to go to hell.

Mormon Zealot: Does the wrong thing, for selfless reasons. Willing to endure hell so others can make it to heaven.

Obviously, killing kids to send them to heaven should get you sent to an insane asylum. I feel I've waded in the waters of delusion land long enough that it may be helpful at this point to remind the reader that there is no god. There is no heaven. And the is no hell. And yet...

If you take the Clockwork Orange perspective, that being good requires moral choice, you need one of two things. You need to believe there is no god with any moral care what happens here, or you need to be willing to defy god. To cower at god's might, to do what god says to save your own skin, can not be considered moral. It is, at best, as our friend Thomas Foster puts it, merely a "simulacrum of goodness."

Part VII: Sacrifice-Off

I'm not the first to note that even according to the bible, Jesus's sacrifice doesn't seem so special. Crucifixion definitely seems painful (if you ever see me up on a cross, please mercy kill me), but Jesus was not alone. Crucifixion was not an uncommon method of execution in Roman times. Allegedly, Jesus rose from the grave after thee days, making it so he didn't even give up his life. Afterward, he went to heaven. In the grand scheme of things, even the most immense torture for a finite period pales in comparison to infinite reward.

Now let's take our Mormon zealot. They believe with 100% certainty that they are going to hell. They are willing to take infinite punishment to defy god's will and save as many souls as possible.

Jesus never believed he was going to hell. He didn't even believe he was going to stay dead. Who, in this case, is willing to sacrifice more? If mormon theology was true, could you condemn the zealot? Who would be more deserving of the title "Messiah?"

Part VIII: Conclusion

There's even more symbolism to talk about in A Clockwork Orange, and even a case to be made for Alex as a warped Christ figure (which Foster makes in his book). It will have to wait for another time.

A Clockwork Orange, in it's most mainstream interpretations, is about the value of free will. A reader is supposed to be horrified by the crimes Alex commits and subsequently even more horrified at the loss of his free will. I'd like to remind the christians that if free will is real and it is so important, you are not meaningfully using it. They've castrated themselves, letting their own judgment atrophy, all to adopt the appearance of good. At some point, you will have to use your own brain to figure out what what is right and wrong. As we've learned today, religion cannot teach ethics. It can only teach compliance.

Now I'm not in the business of playing hide the ball. I'll tell you what I think. There is no objective morality. Subjectively, I measure morality by utilitarian standards. Theoretically, the reason you do something doesn't change its moral impact on the world. But that's just my opinion.

[shadowsong26x]

So this is in response to a post I came across earlier that otherwise was making some very excellent points about anti-intellectualism and the importance of studying things like art and history, etc.

Except.

One of the points it was talking about was the idea of replacing classics with YA/fanfiction/etc. as the basis for the literature aspect of education. And the refutation of that was that we shouldn’t replace “thought provoking and stimulating media with media that’s just designed to entertain and sell“

And here’s where I have a problem.

Not because we should not study/stop studying classics. There are several reasons for doing that, many of which are good ones.

But because the idea that those two things are mutually exclusive really gets under my skin.

(As a note, most of what I’m going to discuss in detail comes from English and French literature, because that is where the majority of my reading/background is.)

First of all, let’s just jump right in and start with one of the first names that comes to mind when talking Classical Literature: what the hell do you think Shakespeare was doing? Theatre during the 16th and 17th century in England (and most of Europe) was not considered high/intellectual art. He was writing mass entertainment. Did he also put together things that were profound/thought-provoking/stimulating? Absolutely. And I would argue that the fact that he does both is part of why he has endured in a way that some of his contemporaries did not. Like, occasionally you’ll see one of Fletcher or Johnson or Marlowe’s plays done, but nowhere near the frequency or ubiquity of Shakespeare.

And the same can be said for Moliere. Theatre was not a respectable place to work or write; that’s why the great 17th-century French playwrights (Moliere, Corneille, Racine) wrote under stage names. And yet, Moliere wrote Tartuffe, which, among other things, got him into actual legal trouble. And then followed that with Dom Juan (one of my favorite works of his), which is, among other things, includes a prologue commenting on that censorship, and is largely making a Point about hypocrisy (as is Tartuffe; he was on a Theme for a while there).

And then you look at 19th-century writers, and Dickens runs the entire spectrum. He absolutely wrote to make a point and provoke thought, but there’s a reason  he wrote serially, and that was to keep interest/entertain an audience and earn a profit.

Alexandre Dumas (pere) who wrote The Three Musketeers (one of my absolute favorite novels) and The Count of Monte Cristo, was writing at least in part to entertain his audience. His work was also published serially, but he was paid by the line rather than the word (which makes him, imo, more accessible than Dickens, though admittedly some of that may be that I’ve read more modern translations rather than contemporary/19th-century ones).

Which brings me to my next point.

The advantage to working with the classics as text is not because they are high art, or because they were written with the intention of provoking thought as opposed to entertaining an audience. The advantage is that the things that have endured, regardless of why they were written, are the ones that balance those two fairly well. Being both entertaining and giving something for the audience to dig into if said audience so desires. The preachy moralistic philosophical treatises disguised as novels don’t really have the same impact as other classics; the absolute dreck (and there is absolute dreck in every period of popular literature, fight me) tends to not stand the test of time. (some of it does; sometimes because it’s important for genre reasons, sometimes because of other sociocultural factors, sometimes by sheer coincidence; but the majority of what lasts does so for a Reason).

The advantage to working with modern literature (yes, including things like YA and blockbusters) is accessibility. And there’s also variance in writers working in the same period, of course. Like I mentioned before, look at Dumas vs. Dickens. You can also examine Shakespeare vs. Marlowe.

Look, anti-intellectualism is absolutely a problem. I’m not denying that. And we study the classics for a lot of reasons, and one of them is the idea that there should be common cultural touchstones/reference points. But the idea that entertainment and depth are mutually exclusive; the implication that studying modern popular literature can’t provide some of the same thought-provoking and/or stimulating discussion is limited and, frankly, a little elitist/gatekeepy. It also often adds extra layers of difficulty in approaching the literature in question. And, yes, there is value in probing those layers and learning about the context/the way language and morality and ideals shift over time. Ideally, there should be room for both. Honestly, I think there’s value in looking at things side-by-side; the Classic and then a modern piece that addresses some of the same issues/themes. One of my high school English teachers did that; looking at a couple of Star Trek Borg episodes when reading...I think it was 1984? That sounds right.

There’s just a lot more modern dreck to wade through, because it hasn’t had time to be winnowed away and leave the ‘good’ pieces to stand the test of time.

tl;dr: the high-art low-art dichotomy is BS and approaching media, especially literature, that way is an incredibly flawed take.

[retroyousei]

Female characters in retro shojo [70s edition, part 1]

Ah, the 1970s (and early 80s), where a majority of the shojo manga stories took place in a distant European country or in America, surrounding either orphan girls from the 19th or early 20th century, who remain cheerful and have adventures, trying to find out who they are, making friends and falling in love, or epic historical stories filled with war, scandals and larger than life characters. If the manga was taking place in Japan, the plot was somehow more down to earth -though most of the time it restrained the same amount of unrealism- and it was either about following the journey of a girl who pursues the career of her dreams and evolves into a notable person, or a high school story filled either with melodrama and angst or a more heartwarming romantic comedy. But in this two-part article I won’t talk about plot tropes of the shojo manga of that era -as this topic deserves an exclusive article-, but about the female characters (I will dedicate an article on male characters some other time). Those characters are very important, as they set the standards of today’s manga and anime. But it should be noted that back then the formula of their design and characteristics are different from today’s. Those are the categories that I’ve noticed, regarding the appearance and personality.

The “average” protagonists

They are the most common category. Usually, they come from middle class and they are presented either as cheerful and a little dense schoolgirls, or plain looking and unrefined, as oppose to their antagonists or rivals who are well educated, beautiful and more talented, but this may serve as a determination for them to improve. Other times they are presented as headstrong heroines, ahead of their time, who refuse to compromise and for this they are a pain to their old-fashion society. Either way, they are kind, good, well-intentioned and want to help the others, that’s why they make friends easily. The thing that really works with these characters and makes them much more interesting than they may seem, is that they are independent and built their future on their own and they never give up, no matter what happens and what someone might say about them. Even when they are not sure of themselves, they always keep trying, until they reach to their dream. They use their obstacles as strength and determination to go on, proving that they are not average at all.

Maya, the protagonist of “Glass Mask” is a great example of this. She starts as a good-for-nothing daughter of a poor family, who isn’t particularly accomplished, but has a hidden passion for acting which she hadn’t realise it herself at that point. But when she is discovered by Tsukigake, a former legendary actress, she realises how much she wants to be an actress to a point that she lied saying that her mother allowed her to study to sensei’s acting school and ran away from home. Not even when her mother told her that she doesn’t consider her as her daughter anymore, she didn’t gave up, in spite of being very hurt by this. Her path towards acting wasn’t easy. Many times she has to face many who say that she doesn’t belong to that industry, or who are jealous of her talent and means her harm, but with her faith in herself, she always overcomes those obstacles. An admirable thing about her is that she dislikes fame, being shy, as she just wants to act and that she does not gives up, no matter what and even when she does, she quickly stands up. The most interesting dynamic of the story is her worthy rivalry with Ayumi, that is clearly a case of the trope “technician vs performer”, with Maya as the performer, as her standard method to learn how to play a character is to become that character. As the story progresses, Maya evolves from a girl with a hidden talent, to a young actress who portraits an original take to classic characters, but who still had much to learn, to one of the greatest actresses of her generation.

In “Yokohama Monogatari”, Uno starts as a plain, poor, orphan girl, who is ignorant about the world, as she hasn’t even seen the sea before and she believed that westerners were vampires who could drink people’s blood, that’s why they had blonde hair and blue eyes. She starts to work as a companion in a rich family to their daughter Mariko, who is the same age as her. Besides their differences, they become quickly best friends. While Mariko is a little spoiled, Uno, despite of her ignorance of world, can be more considerate and responsible in some matters. She also has a lust for learning and soon her and Mariko pursuade her family to go to school. There, she meets many people, among them there are a few foreigners too, she makes a lot of friends, and she excels at all of her studies, being hardworking. As the years passed by, Japan changes and allows exchange of ideas from many cultures -it’s Meiji era we are taking about, that means the last quarter of the 19th century- and Uno evolves from a poor, -many would say- hopeless for her situation, clueless of the world girl, to an open minded, educated and refined woman, surrounded by many people she loves.

In “Tokimeki Tonight”, Ranze -well except of being the daughter of Dracula and warewolf and having her own vampire powers as well- is an average girl who is friendly, sweet and little quirky girl who goes to school and falls in love with Shuun. Some may say that she is pretty basic, but in fact, she knows her self worth well, so even when her parents were disappointed with her not having any power yet, at the beginning of the story, she wasn’t particularly bothered by it. Also she is very headstrong that she falls in love with a human boy, while she knows well that a creature from the demon world and a human cannot be together. But in spite of all of that, she decides to stay true to her own feelings and even though she’s not so sure about Shuun’s feelings for her either, she doesn’t give up and waits for him, because she hopes and deep down knows that he likes her too and she is right. And even when her parents want her to marry prince Aaron of the demon world and even the king- learn that she likes a human, in spite of that being against the rules, she isn’t afraid to stand up for her beliefs. Later though, we learn that Shuun is the lost prince of the demon world, so he is not a human after all, but that’s another story.

In “Aim For The Ace”, Hiromi is a typical schoolgirl who struggles to get better in tennis, when she gets selected as one of the club’s main players in school by the new coach, as he saw potential in her. Some of her seniors are jealous of her because of that and at first she thinks that she is not worth such a discrimination, but soon she improves and realises how much she loves tennis. There’s also a very similar rivalry dynamic with “glass mask” between Hiromi and Reika who grow to be worthy opponents.

In “Haikara San Ga Toru”, Benio is a headstrong young woman who studies Kendo, drinks sake and prefers reading literature and feminist ideas, rather than being interested in housework. She also likes to dress in western clothes, rather than the traditional kimono and strongly believes that women should have the right to decide for their future on their own and they should marry for love. But her world turns upside down when her father announces that he has arranged a marriage for her. The one that he indends for her is someone she knew before, very briefly and accidentally, a lieutenant named Shinobu. Of course, she refuses, being loyal to her ideals and she goes out of her way to avoid him, just to satisfy her pride, in spite of actually starting developing feelings for him. When she moves to his grandparents’ house to get prepared as his wife, she purposely fails in all of her duties as a housewife and constantly argues with his grandparents, but all of that only makes Shinobu fall for her even more. It’s only when he leaves to go to the war, when she realises her feelings for him and during at that time when everyone thought that he was dead, she matured and became even stronger, remaining loyal to him and determined to work as a journalist to support his family, but also tracking him down, hoping that he’s still alive. Of course, at the very end, they live happily ever after together. Benio’s character development is admirable; starting as a clever, but headstrong girl, to an independent and wise woman, proving that you don’t have to disagree with everyone in order to prove that you are the one who chooses how to live your own life.

The villains

Their extreme pride and vain is their common nature. Most of the times they come from a wealthy family, so they are either oujo-sans who are always dressed elegantly, are seemingly refined and they tend to have curly, blonde hair -as blonde hair seem to be associated with wealth and sophistication in Japan-, or they are just spoiled brats that demand that everyone will do as they say. They are the main antagonist of the story for different reasons. The most common one is that they are jealous of the heroine, either because they are their love rivals and they are jealous of the heroine’s relationship with the love interest of the story, or because they are just pathologically jealous of the heroine because of her looks, her happiness, her luck and her loving nature. Another reason they act the way they do is because they want power and success, or they just want to secure all of that. The worse and least complex reason of all is that they are just mean for no particular reason.

Eliza, from “Candy Candy” is the typical alpha b*tch who is pathologically jealous of Candy. At first, she along with her brother, makes her life miserable, by blaming her for the bad things they do, such as hurting the horses in the stables, provoking her and then telling to their mother that she’s wild and leaving her alone in a town she doesn’t know and locking her in dark rooms. After that, during their time in London, Eliza says to everyone that Candy is an orphan who made her life miserable, even blaming her for Antony’s death. Later, having the habit of falling in love with the one that Candy likes too, school, she falls for Terry and constantly tries to turn him against her, failing miserably. She also writes a fake letter to her that it was supposedly from Terry and to Terry too, to meet each other in the stables at night and with this, she blabs them to the teachers and Candy, having no choice, leaves school. Later, when Candy was pursuing a career as a nurse, she continues her cruel ways and her mother also threats the director of the hospital where she was working, that if they won’t fire her, the Leagan family will withdraw their funds for the hospital and she also made sure that no hospital from Chicago will hire her, leaving Candy in a difficult situation. Those are only of few of the things that Leagan family did to Candy. The worst part is that they don’t pay for what they did at the end.

Fukiko from “Oniisama e” fits well this image; She is a refined lady from a rich family, the president of the sorority and very educated, that’s why she is admired by everyone. However, in reality she is manipulative, proud and very possessive. She wants to control everyone and she’s even willing to go out of her way to achieve what she wants. For instanse, she’s jealous of Nanako because she is close to Henmi Takehito, the one that she (Fukiko) is in love with, so to control her, she chooses her to be a member of the sorority and demands that she will stay away from him, even by pulling her into the lake and attempt to drown her . She also makes Rei’s life miserable, by stepping into her weakness, refuse to accept her as a member of their family and constantly manipulating her with the cruelest of ways. Also, it’s revealed that her friends from the sorority are feeling pressured because of her. Later, with the death of Rei, along with her realisation that Henmi and Kaoru No Kimi are truly in love, surprisingly, she regrets, gives up on her cruel ways and matures, growing even more beautiful for all of that.

Yoko from “Tokimeki Tonight” is a different case. She is the love rival of the story and the have loved Shuun ever since they were little. Being the only daughter of a rich businessman, she is spoiled and when something doesn’t go as she wants, she is is angry and demands that everything will go the way she wants. She envies Ranze for her close relationship with Makabe and ever since she accidentally saw her transforming, she tried desperately to prove others that she (Ranze) is a vampire. Her character is less dramatic and more comedic, as she is often grumpy and clumsy. But she isn’t really a bad person and she doesn’t really cause an awful lot of trouble.

In “The Rose of Versailles”, Madam Du Barry, the king’s mistress, wants to sustain her place in the court and demands that Marie Antoinette, who was at that time the dauphine, will speak to her. She also have tried to poison one of the court ladies. Countess De polignag becomes the queen’s best friend, for her own benefits and manipulates her without her (Marie Antoinette) knowing, like telling her to lie about being pregnant and also persuade her to start gambling in the court, which was illegal. She’s also Rosalie’s biological mother and accidentally kills the woman which raised her daughter and she’s the reason that her other daughter suicides, because she cannot handle the marriage the she arranged for her. Besides of her daughter’s death, she doesn’t seem to regret for any of her actions as she tries to make Rosalie merry the same man. Luckily Rosalie escapes. Also, she tried to sabotage Oscar many times and all this was just for the sake of power and money.

In “Glass Mask”, Norie Otobe, befriends Maya and she is supposedly her assistant, but in reality she just waits for the right moment to strike and steal Maya’s role and career. Unfortunately, she succeeds and it costs a lot for Maya, for a while. Luckily Ayumi discovers this and punishes her with the best way ever.

The tomboys

They are either mysterious, or lively, but one thing is for sure; they are dressed in clothes that are considered to be “manly”, they are handsome and they are constantly mistaken for a boy. They are also very elegant and educated and their image is that of a prince. That’s why they are admired by both women and men. Some may say that even though they are trying to be like a man, they are still weak, but they point out that just because they dress more “tomboyish”, doesn’t mean that it makes them less of a woman. After all, when they want to, they can transform into the most feminine girl of all. They also prove that their sexuality is not associated with their looks, as a “masculine” girl has the same possibilities of being heterosexual or homosexual, with a more “feminine” one. So, they break all the stereotypes regarding women. Many times, they are portrayed as headstrong heroines who stand up for their beliefs and their friends.

The most famous character that supports this image is Oscar from “the Rose of Versailles”. Oscar is one of the daughters of the Jerjeyes household. Not having any son, her father decided to raise her as a boy so that one day she will succeed him. Oscar dresses in boys’ clothes and learns activities like fencing and archery. When she was fourteen, she was tasked to serve as Marie Antoinette’s bodyguard. The manga often pointed out how different those two were regarding appearance and character, even if they were in the same age. Oscar has a strong sense of justice and she always protects the weak and is not afraid to challenge someone that she believes that isn’t right. Of course, she is admired by men and women alike and she is also a great and loyal friend. At one point she falls in love with Fersen, who loves Marie Antoinette. But because of her respect for the queen and her love of Fersen, she helps them, despite being heartbroken. At the end, she realises that she loves her childhood friend, Andre. She loves medieval combat, drinking heavy drinks, talking about politics and playing violin. Many pointed out that being a woman she was weaker but she always proved them wrong, pointing out that women can do anything and that it doesn’t matter if you are a man or a woman, only how skilful you are. She was hiding her femininity not because she wanted to be a man, but because that if she acted like a woman, the society might think that she was weak and she wouldn’t be able to have the access and the freedom to do what women normally wouldn’t do back then, because women were alowed to limited things. In the early 1970s, by the time this manga was ongoing, the second wave of feminism had already started and women started fighting for equal legal and social rights, so Oscar’s character was influenced by all this.

Rei from “Oniisama e”, is admired by her fellow classmates and is also called “saint Juste”, named after one of the leaders from French Revolution, due to her physical resemblance to him. She is very charismatic, excelling to sports, piano, guitar and theatre, she is very elegant and dresses often in a black suit. Unfortunately she is drug-addict, she smokes and can be suicidal, carrying always pills and a sharp object with her. She is also obsessed with Fukiko, the sorority’s president, for many reasons, causing her to be controlled and abused by her. She also lives alone in a depressing house filled with mirrors and this also causes to be depressed. Her best friend is Kaoru no Kimi, who’s also a tomboy, but they are entirely different and she befriends Nanako and her friends. In the end she suicides, taking too many sleeping pills, having everyone, especially Nanako, left devastated.

Also from “Oniisama e”, Kaoru, is a tomboy who is strong and energetic. She is athletic and excels at basketball, but she is also very cool and doesn’t seem to care that she is the best at something that she’s doing, that’s why she is admired by her fellow classmates who gave her the nickname “Kaoru no Kimi”, from a Japanese classical novel; “the tale of Genji”. She also has a great sense of justice, as when she sees classmates being bullied, she defends them and put the bullies on their place. She is also very loyal and supportive and cares deeply about her friends, helping them when they are in need, especially her best friend, Rei, for whom she is very concerned. But in spite of her energetic appearance, she suffers from breast cancer and tries to keep it a secret, pretending that she is healthy and that everything is under control. But in fact, she pushes away her beloved, Henmi Takehito, concealing her true feelings, in order for him to be happy without her and not suffer anymore, showing how selfless she is and how much she loves him to a point of sacrificing her own feelings. At the end, it pays off and they end up together, living happily.

Another honourable mention is Rei, from “Glass Mask”. Rei is the older student of Tsukikage sensei’s company and one of Maya’s best friends. She is a tomboy who wears those characteristic 70s jeans and for some reason is mistaken by a boy -much to her dislike-, despite of being obvious that she is a girl. Being an actress, she can transform into a beautiful princess in no time, but she also portraits very well a prince. In the first volumes, she portrayed Jo, from “little women” which was a role very suited for her. As a sister figure for Maya, she is loyal, friendly and the responsible one who helps the theatre company stay organised and is a very strict teacher to Maya, helping her because she knows her potential. Also from “Glass Mask”, Keiko from the “Ikkakuju group” is also mistaken as boy, but she can transform into a pretty princess in no time.

Note: At the first half of the 20th century “Little Women” were very popular in Japan, particularly Jo, who was tomboyish and outspoken and her character had inspired the first female mangakas of the 60s for their stories and characters.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: As a beginner in Classics I love your Classicist themed posts. I find your caption perfect posts a lot to think upon. I suppose it’s been more than a few years since you read Classics at Cambridge but my question is do you still bother to read any Classic texts and if so what are you currently reading?

I don’t know whether to be flattered or get depressed by your (sincere) remarks. Thank you so much for reminding me how old I must come across as my youngish Millennial bones are already starting to creak from all my sins of past sport injuries and physical exertions. I’m reminded of what J.R.R Tolkien wrote, “I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.” I know the feeling (sigh).

But pay heed, dear follower, to what Menander said of old age, Τίμα το γήρας, ου γαρ έρχεται μόνον (respect old age, for it does not come alone). Presumably he means we all carry baggage. One hopes that will be wisdom which is often in the form of experience, suffering, and regret. So I’m not ready to trade in my high heels and hiking boots for a walking stick and granny glasses just yet.

To answer your question, yes, I still to read Classical literature and poetry in their original text alongside trustworthy translations. Every day in fact. 

I learned Latin when I was around 8 or 9 years old and Greek came later - my father and grandfather are Classicists - and so it would be hard to shake it off even if I tried.

So why ‘bother’ to read Classics? There are several reasons. First, the Classics are the Swiss Army knife to unpick my understanding other European languages that I grew up with learning. Second, it increases my cultural literacy out of which you can form informed aesthetic judgements about any art form from art, music, and literature. Third, Classical history is our shared history which is so important to fathom one’s roots and traditions. Fourth, spending time with the Classics - poetry, myth, literature, history - inspires moral insight and virtue. Fifth, grappling with classical literature informs the mind by developing intellectual discipline, reason, and logic.

And finally, and perhaps one I find especially important, is that engaging with Classical literature, poetry, or history, is incredibly humbling; for the classical world first codified the great virtues of prudence, temperance, justice, loyalty, sacrifice, and courage. These are qualities that we all painfully fall short of in our every day lives and yet we still aspire to such heights.

I’m quite eclectic in my reading. I don’t really have a method other than what my mood happens to be. I have my trusty battered note book and pen and I sit my arse down to translate passages wherever I can carve out a place to think. It’s my answer to staving off premature dementia when I really get old because quite frankly I’m useless at Soduku. We spend so much time staring at screens and passively texting that we don’t allow ourselves to slow down and think that physically writing gives you that luxury of slow motion time and space. In writing things out you are taking the time to reflect on thoughts behind the written word.

I do make a point of reading Homer’s The Odyssey every year because it’s just one of my favourite stories of all time. Herodotus and Thucydides were authors I used to read almost every day when I was in the military and especially when I went out to war in Afghanistan. Not so much these days. Of the Greek poets, I still read Euripides for weighty stuff and Aristophanes for toilet humour. Aeschylus, Archilochus and Alcman, Sappho, Hesiod, and Mimnermus, Anacreon, Simonides, and others I read sporadically.

I read more Latin than Greek if I am honest. From Seneca, Caesar, Cicero, Sallust, Tacitus, Livy, Apuleius, Virgil, Ovid, the younger Pliny to Augustine (yes, that Saint Augustine of Hippo). Again, there is no method. I pull out a copy from my book shelves and put it in my tote bag when I know I’m going on a plane trip for work reasons.

At the moment I am spending time with Horace. More precisely, his famous odes.

Of all the Greek and Latin poets, I feel spiritually comfortable with Horace. He praises a simple life of moderation in a much gentler tone than other Roman writers. Although Horace’s odes were written in imitation of Greek writers like Sappho, I like his take on friendship, love, alcohol, Roman politics and poetry itself. With the arguable exception of Virgil, there is no more celebrated Roman poet than Horace. His Odes set a fashion among English speakers that come to bear on poets to this day. His Ars Poetica, a rumination on the art of poetry in the form of a letter, is one of the seminal works of literary criticism. Ben Jonson, Pope, Auden, and Frost are but a few of the major poets of the English language who owe a debt to the Roman.

We owe to Horace the phrases, “carpe diem” or “seize the day” and the “golden mean” for his beloved moderation. Victorian poet Alfred Lord Tennyson, of Ancient Mariner fame, praised the odes in verse and Wilfred Owen’s great World War I poem, Dulce et Decorum est, is a response to Horace’s oft-quoted belief that it is “sweet and fitting” to die for one’s country.

Unlike many poets, Horace lived a full life. And not always a happy one. Horace was born in Venusia, a small town in southern Italy, to a formerly enslaved mother. He was fortunate to have been the recipient of intense parental direction. His father spent a comparable fortune on his education, sending him to Rome to study. He later studied in Athens amidst the Stoics and Epicurean philosophers, immersing himself in Greek poetry. While led a life of scholarly idyll in Athens, a revolution came to Rome. Julius Caesar was murdered, and Horace fatefully lined up behind Brutus in the conflicts that would ensue. His learning enabled him to become a commander during the Battle of Philippi, but Horace saw his forces routed by those of Octavian and Mark Antony, another stop on the former’s road to becoming Emperor Augustus.

When he returned to Italy, Horace found that his family’s estate had been expropriated by Rome, and Horace was, according to his writings, left destitute. In 39 B.C., after Augustus granted amnesty, Horace became a secretary in the Roman treasury by buying the position of questor's scribe. In 38, Horace met and became the client of the artists' patron Maecenas, a close lieutenant to Augustus, who provided Horace with a villa in the Sabine Hills. From there he began to write his satires. Horace became the major lyric Latin poet of the era of the Augustus age. He is famed for his Odes as well as his caustic satires, and his book on writing, the Ars Poetica. His life and career were owed to Augustus, who was close to his patron, Maecenas. From this lofty, if tenuous, position, Horace became the voice of the new Roman Empire. When Horace died at age 59, he left his estate to Augustus and was buried near the tomb of his patron Maecenas.

Horace’s simple diction and exquisite arrangement give the odes an inevitable quality; the expression makes familiar thoughts new. While the language of the odes may be simple, their structure is complex. The odes can be seen as rhetorical arguments with a kind of logic that leads the reader to sometimes unexpected places. His odes speak of a love of the countryside that dedicates a farmer to his ancestral lands; exposes the ambition that drives one man to Olympic glory, another to political acclaim, and a third to wealth; the greed that compels the merchant to brave dangerous seas again and again rather than live modestly but safely; and even the tensions between the sexes that are at the root of the odes about relationships with women.

What I like then about Horace is his sense of moderation and he shows the gap between what we think we want and what we actually need. Horace has a preference for the small and simple over the grandiose. He’s all for independence and self-reliance.

If there is one thing I would nit pick Horace upon is his flippancy to the value of the religious and spiritual. The gods are often on his lips, but, in defiance of much contemporary feeling, he absolutely denied an afterlife - which as a Christian I would disagree with. So inevitably “gather ye rosebuds while ye may” is an ever recurrent theme, though Horace insists on a Golden Mean of moderation - deploring excess and always refusing, deprecating, dissuading.

All in all he champions the quiet life, a prayer I think many men and women pray to the gods to grant them when they are caught in the open Aegean, and a dark cloud has blotted out the moon, and the sailors no longer have the bright stars to guide them. A quiet life is the prayer of Thrace when madness leads to war. A quiet life is the prayer of the Medes when fighting with painted quivers: a commodity, Grosphus, that cannot be bought by jewels or purple or gold? For no riches, no consul’s lictor, can move on the disorders of an unhappy mind and the anxieties that flutter around coffered ceilings.

Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt (they change their sky, not their soul, who rush across the sea.)

Part of Horace’s persona - lack of political ambition, satisfaction with his life, gratitude for his land, and pride in his craft and the recognition it wins him - is an expression of an intricate web of awareness of place. Reading Horace will centre you and get you to focus on what is most important in life. In Horace’s discussion of what people in his society value, and where they place their energy and time, we can find something familiar. Horace brings his reader to the question - what do we value?  

Much like many of our own societies, Rome was bustling with trade and commerce, ambition, and an area of vast, diverse civilisation. People there faced similar decisions as we do today, in what we pursue and why. As many of us debate our place and purpose in our world, our poet reassures us all. We have been coursing through Mondays for thousands of years. Horace beckons us: take a brief moment from the day’s busy hours. Stretch a little, close your eyes while facing the warm sun, and hear the birds and the quiet stream. The mind that is happy for the present should refuse to worry about what is further ahead; it should dilute bitter things with a mild smile.

I would encourage anyone to read these treasures in translations. For you though, as a budding Classicist, read the texts in Latin and Greek if you can. Wrestle with the word. The struggle is its own reward. Whether one reads from the original or from a worthy translation, the moral virtue (one hopes) is wisdom and enlightenment.

Pulvis et umbra sumus

(We are but dust and shadow.)

Thanks for your question.

[x0401x]

Jeweler Richard Fanbook Short Story #6

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Moonstone’s Charity

“The moon is beautiful, huh!”

By the time that we exited the Shiseido Parlor, it was already completely dark outside. The moon loomed a faint blue, as if overlooking the night view of Ginza. Putting his coat back on, Richard silently averted his eyes when I looked back at him with an “isn’t it”. At any rate, I had gotten wholly used to eating out with this guy on Saturdays after work. It was worth making him puddings as payback, I thought.

“Speaking of which, the stone you sold to today’s customers was a ‘stone of the moon’, wasn’t it?”

“Please call it ‘moonstone’. There are other rock specimens that are referred to as ‘stones of the moon’. Confusing the meaning of the words is deplorable.”

“Is that so?! Aight, I’ll take it to heart.”

Today’s customers were the parents of a naïve young lady, and the goods they bought were a moonstone jewelry set for her. It seemed that the young lady, who still had childish facial traits, was going to get married, so her parents ordered a necklace from Etranger for her to take along when the time came. Bearing a rainbow light over a milky blue color, the cabochon-cut moonstone was combined with white diamonds for the necklace and bracelet. It overflowed with a soulful beauty, almost as if it had borrowed the glow of an aurora from a Scandinavian sky.

Apparently, the moonstone, which was also one of the June birthstones, had been familiarized as a power stone since the distant past, and was renowned especially as a stone that celebrated the well-being and fortune of women. Having the commemorative jewelry delivered to her as a surprise, the young lady had cried until her eyes were bright red, but she recovered by way of a sweet royal milk tea, expressing gratitude to her parents with a sniffling nose. I believed that there were several forms of joy depending on each person, and what I had witnessed today was unmistakably one of them.

Even as we headed to the parking lot where Richard’s jaguar was, the moon followed us from the gaps between the buildings. As I walked while looking up and repeating, “It’s really pretty, so pretty”, Richard seemed exasperated.

“‘The moon is beautiful’, huh. Are college students not familiar with anecdotes of their own country’s literary figures nowadays?”

“Don’t they read that stuff? I’m in the faculty of economics, so there’s lots of people with names written in horizontal characters on our textbooks. Like Marx Weber or Mankiw.”

“What about Futabatei Shimei or Natsume Souseki?”

“I’ll ask you back: have you read them?”

“Yes.”

Uwah. As I cried out, the gorgeous jeweler sighed. “Honestly, today’s youths,” he said.

I ended up laughing at him without thinking.

“What is it?”

“You say ‘youths’ but you’re pretty young yourself.”

“I merely disagree with the worldwide trend of thinking that classical literature is an enjoyment for old age. The world, matured by the various interpretations of our ancestors, is deep and wide-ranging, as well as something that envelopes our hearts, just like stones.”

“Feels like the part where stones come up is ‘just as expected of Richard-san’.”

“I will take that as a compliment.”

“I am complimenting you. I have the feeling that I get smarter when we talk.”

“For you to be the kind who is satisfied with just ‘having a feeling’, my existence must be a harmful one.”

“I shall take this to heart... Aah, by the way, in sociology or some other class, I heard that the phrase ‘had a feeling’ has increased too much in pop music. Why is that? I guess it’s because, when they assert, ‘I can be strong!’ instead of, ‘I have the feeling I can be strong, I find myself inwardly wanting to retort with a, ‘Nope, nope, it’s not like that’ and the mood cools off.”

“Unfortunately, I have not studied the trends of modern Japan’s younglings. But if we are to speak of such things, even the power invoked by stones is a matter of ‘having a feeling’.”

“Is it okay for a jeweler to be saying that?”

“We are already out of business hours. Besides, this is not a negative subject in particular.”

Having arrived at the parking lot, Richard glanced at me and folded his arms lightly. He was a beautiful man from the top of his head to the tips of his toenails, like a doll made of moonlight. I was used to looking at his figure, but beautiful things will be beautiful. I could look at him without ever getting tired and it would put me in a good mood, just like the moon.

“W-What? What’s up?”

“I mean that people can become strong just from ‘having a feeling’. The power of belief is namely the force of human beings who seek hope even in a small gleam. Is that not a wonderful thing? On nights like these, when we ‘have the feeling’ that we are being protected by the light of the moon, people are sure to be in some sort of calm mood.” Saying this, as if to copy me or something, Richard looked up at the night sky above the buildings of Ginza and murmured, “The moon is truly beautiful.” He then smoothly got on the jaguar’s driver seat. I followed him on the passenger seat.

Still, this car’s seat base did an exquisite inclination no matter how many times I sat on it. It felt like a chair sticking to your body.

“Well, are you okay with dropping off at Takadanobaba?”

“Thank you. By the way, should I reply with the ‘I could die now’ already?”

Richard’s face at that moment was a spectacle. His mouth and beautiful eyebrows distorted as if to say, “Haah?”. His eyes stared dangerously at me.

“I mean, isn’t that the context? Futabate Shimei and Natsume Souseki, right?”

“I love you”.

Apparently, the literary masters of the Meiji Era had racked their brains about to how to translate a sentence that didn’t originally exist in the Japanese language. This would be a standard drinking party talk. Well, I didn’t know if there was a standard for all kinds of drinking parties, but just recently, during a drinking party we held with a group of men from the Department of Letter’s Faculty of Japanese Literature, we got fired-up over that topic. “Girls like this kind of talk, so you guys from the Faculty of Economics should also keep it in mind every once in a while,” they told us. Futabate Shimei used “I could die now” as a code for “I am yours” and Natsume Souseki used the anecdote “the moon is beautiful, isn’t it” as what was claimed to be a good anecdote for “I love you”. We were thankful for the trivia. That being said, none of the members who attended the drinking party had girlfriends, so I had thought there would be no opportunity to use this trivia, but to my surprise...

Richard, who had been stiff for a moment, exhaled with a loud “haaah” and turned the engine key. The body of the iron machine shuddered.

“That was terrifying.”

“So even you got freaked out! I can say some Japanese-like things too.”

“I will proceed to kick you if you say the same thing again. Be quiet for the time being.” Richard pulled the car out of the parking lot from backward, and as he stepped onto the accelerator and we got out into the street, the car trundled on with us in silence for a while. After we had passed four or five buildings, the beautiful jeweler opened his mouth again, “These words are not meant to be spoken lightly. A sentence taken out of context is like a lonely stone removed from a bracelet. In what kind of situation did people say, ‘The moon is beautiful’ or under what circumstances did they think, ‘I could die now’? What matters is the process until things arrived to that point, and not scraps of words. In the past, during the times when the people of this country were not as filled with imported mentalities as they are now, they probably understood this very well.”

“Hey, why’d you think of reading Natsume Souseki?”

Richard didn’t respond. I’d known for a while now that there were lots of things this guy didn’t want to answer, but his silence at the question was unexpected. Was something up?

Something related to moments when he might feel like saying things such as “the moon is beautiful” or “I could die now”.

It was clearly not a topic that I should pry too much about. Pretending to have found something interesting out the window, I put on a smile with no particular connotation. Leaning my body against the window, I looked up at the sky. “Ah, I can still see the moon.”

“You do not say. Is it beautiful?”

“Yup, but you’re more beautiful.”

Richard’s hand instantaneously glided in a swift motion. He pressed the car stereo switch. What played at an explosively loud volume wasn’t the Finnish rock that I had listened to before. It was a sutra in an ethnic-sounding female voice. That was all I could say. What was this? As I asked in a loud voice what language that song was in, he said it was Bengali. Was it an Indian song then? I couldn’t talk to him unless I shouted in one breath.

“HEY! IF I PISSED YOU OFF, SERIOUSLY, I’M SORRY!”

Richard’s mouth moved in the form of an “I cannot hear you”. It seemed he wasn’t in the mood for conversation. But he didn’t look angry. The corners of his lips were smiling just slightly. Like he wanted to say that this was so stupid it made him laugh. He appeared a lot more relaxed than when listing up the names of those literary figures, so I became kinda happy.

When I got out of the car, the southern country atmosphere was gone at once. At the roundabout in Takadanobaba, Richard took off with the jaguar as soon as he said goodbye. As the same old habit, for whatever reason, I ended up watching him off until I couldn’t see him anymore.

As I looked up the blue moon was floating in the black sky, unchanged. This was also a matter of “having a feeling”, but this emotion I was feeling today at this moment was a definite form of happiness too.

Honestly, the moon was beautiful tonight.

[kayzume]

Pairing: Bokuto x Reader

Genre: a tiny, tiny bit of angst, but mostly fluff:>

wc: 4.1k, who knew i can pull of something this long😃

Note: This fic is my gift to @jayeray for our server secret santa, Happy Holidays to you I hope you had a great Christmas and I hope we get to talk more (timezone is sht, I must be asleep when yer online🥲)I hope this piece makes you smile:>. Also sorry for shamelessly asking three people to beta this bec im not sure about how it turned out, also bec my grammar is sht(T ^ T)—also lemme thank the internet by helping me with them vows, only edited some parts of it to fit the story better..

Beta: @thirstyforthem2dmen , @india-katsuki , @prismaintales kithes to all of u

Back to Masterlist

Life is filled with fluttering moments, these events mark something within us that would either make us...or break us. You guessed that most of your story has made you what you are today. You were walking in the park hand in hand with Koutaro and your daughter, playing with his hair while she sat on his shoulders.

“Momma can I ask something?” your daughter spoke breaking silence.

“What is it baby?” you responded

“How’d you meet dad?” she asked cocking her head to the side, much like her father when he’s curious. You smiled at her,

“Well…”

￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣

‘The Meeting’

“Hey, Hey” you ignored whatever that was and whoever was making those annoying calls. Your face remained buried on the textbook required for your literature elective. Lost in your own thoughts and the flow of music through your earbuds, you missed the exasperated sigh that left the lips of the one and only Bokuto Kutaro, star player of the volleyball team.

“Hey miss!” tap tap the loud tapping burst your train of thoughts pulling one of your buds out, you glared at the man in front of you.

“What? You got nothing better to do buddy?!” you spat in utter annoyance.

“You’re in my seat” he replied grimly, lowkey telling you to scoot over. You, in return, refused to leave your spot; checking every nook and cranny to try and look for names or scribblings.

“Doesn’t have your name on it, you can’t stake a claim and this is school property” you argue pettily. He looked at you in disbelief.

“B-but Akaashi sits right here” he whispered, albeit to himself. You stifled a scoff, he looked so upset at the fact that he can’t sit beside this ‘Akaashi’ person. You cleared your throat and offered him the other side of your spot, which is free.

“Why don’t you sit here instead, you’d still be near your friend. I wouldn’t hinder any chatter that you decide to make” is what you told him. There’s no particular reason as to why you wouldn’t move instead, just that your pride isn’t letting you, besides his reactions are very much worth the trouble. The classroom doors creaked open, students pouring in and occupying the seats. A man with dark hair approached you, or rather the seat beside you. He eyed the person you were conversing with just now. He didn’t utter a word and took his seat beside you. A few minutes later the bells started ringing signaling the start of lectures, your professor walked in clutching big old dusty books of classic literature, your not so favorite. The only reason you were even taking this class is for the extra credits, that you most definitely do not need. You were bored and needed a new source of entertainment. For normal students this must seem ridiculous, because studying isn’t counted as a source of fun. Take note ‘normal’ you were far from normal. You’re friendless, you were having a hard time mingling with others your age. It's not that you were getting bullied, it's just you and your foreboding trust issues. You hated the feeling of betrayal and refused to remember what it was like, so as a coping mechanism you refused to make friends, or even open up to anyone.

Bokuto was upset that he didn’t get to sit beside Akaashi, he was a year ahead but the volleyball coaches as much as they hate to prevent him from playing official games, he was failing english literature and needed to keep up his grades in order to enter the court again. Easier said than done, his literature class held him back from moving further. His professor sponsored his letter so that he will only be held back by one subject and not the whole year, all he had to do now is pass the semester with flying colors, and so far he was having a hard time. That’s the reason he needed to sit near Akaashi so the later can help him with his studies, then this woman came out of nowhere and taking his seat is not helping the least bit and he hates it.

“L/N-san we would like to request your assistance” your professor spoke in a low voice. Assistance in what matter, it seems important that it looks almost impossible to refuse.

“I’d be glad to lend a hand, but with what, sensei you rarely ask for favors it feels new” you replied

“Please tutor Bokuto Kotarou, he’s an oncoming senior but has been held back by this subject. If he fails one more time he’d have to repeat the whole year, and this might also put a bad name for his sports scholarship” She explained, you looked at the profile of the student you need to tutor, it was him, the guy with condiments hair.

￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣

“Condiments hair?” your daughter asked in confusion

“Mom was so mean right?? She called dad condiments, do I look like a bottle of ketchup baby?” Koutaro countered on your daughter with faux pity.

“Oh please, your hair is literally salt and pepper, and yeah you looked like a bottle of ketchup when you blush” you chuckled responding to them.

￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣

‘The Courtship’

It’s been five months since you started teaching Kotarou, and the two of you were past the last name formalities. He was still the same as when you first met, loud and annoying. But you’d never tell him that, because as you’ve observed he has times where he just suddenly drops his attitude and becomes sort of gloomy head in the clouds type of persona. It was confusing and downright weird.

You were at the library looking for articles that can support your paper. It was 6pm, you were hungry and sleepy from studying the whole day, and you were starting to get bored. But since your paperwork is nowhere near done you just couldn't leave.

You heaved a deep sigh and rubbed your now strained eyes, feeling the drowsiness trying to pull you into passing out.

BAM.

You suddenly jolted in your seat, you looked at your side where the loud thump came from. Koutaro was pulling the seat beside you.

“What are you doing here? Don’t you have practice” you asked him, he rarely— almost never skips his volleyball practices.

He sat down properly and jingled a bag in your face.“I had a feeling you’d be hungry by now, I heard from Akaashi that you’re pulling all nighters for your class paper, besides we didn't have session today too, and yes, I have practice today” He replied so calmly it weirded you out a bit.

“Then what—” you started asking again when he rudely pressed his pointing finger at your lips. You were so tempted to bite him.

“I ditched, because of our session” he told you, “and also because I want to bring you some food” he continued.

“Kou, we don’t have sessions during Fridays. You specifically asked me to skip tutoring you on Fridays because you said you want to spend this day hanging out with your friends” you replied to his nonsense. You’re grateful that he thought of you and brought you food, but also you didn’t want to take away his personal time with his friends.

“Uhh y/n, you are my friend too so technically I’m still hanging out and spending my time wisely” he told you while opening a bag of pretzels for the two of you to share. You were thankful you picked the most isolated wing of the library to study or else you two would’ve been kicked out from munching loudly.

You blushed a shade of pink not because he said he sees you as a friend, your cherry blossom cheeks represent the embarrassment and lowkey disappointment that you felt knowing that a friend is all that you will be to him.

“I meant special. You’re a very special friend y/n, and that I hope you’ll allow me to offer you more than a special friendship…” he trailed off looking deeply in the depths of your pooling eyes. You can’t help but feel overwhelmed at the butterflies that started storming from within you. If you were a cherry blossom before, you’d definitely be a red rose now.

“Whatever do you mean by that?” you asked him sheepishly, lowering your head to shield him from seeing you in such an unsightly state. You fiddled with your hands whilst waiting for him to give you an answer.

“Y/n, C-can I court you?” He replied with a sweet smile.

‘The Answer’

It’s been a couple of months since Bokuto’s confession and up to this day you still feel giddy about it. Who would’ve thought that you’ll attract someone the complete opposite of you.

Whenever he visits your dorm or whenever you accompany each other somewhere he doesn’t fail to do something sweet to show his affection towards you. You were having mixed feelings whether to give him a chance or not. ‘Relationships are scary’ you thought, but the idea of him doing those sweet things for others gives a painful churn within you. He invited you to attend a game of his and cheer for him.

“Cheers for goodluck” is what he said the last time you met, which was the day before. You entered the gym, the bright lights blinding your sight. Lightly covering up you headed for the bleachers.

The place was already packed from students and other volleyball patrons. You see some free seats, only to be disappointed when they were actually reserved, you turn to leave for a new place when,

“Y/n!! where are you going? Your seat is right here!!” you craned your neck to where the voice came from only to see Koutaro waving at you. He walked to where you were.

“Sit here and cheer for me as loud as you can” he told cracking a beautiful smile. He wasn’t even doing anything special but you could feel the hotness creeping it’s way from your neck to your cheeks.

“O-okay, do your best out there” without even thinking your body moved on its own to give him a peck on his cheeks. His face contorted in surprise, you thought you did something wrong that it made you a little bit conscious, as you we’re pulling away he held your hand and you stared at his blushing face.

“Do it again” he almost sounds commanding if not for his hands slightly shaking in yours

“W-what...I’m sorry my body moved on it’s own” you started,

“Do it again...to double the luck” is what his reply was, you looked down feeling the loud thumping of your heart in your chest you quickly gave his other cheek a peck.

“G-go now, I think the game is about to start” you shoo him away as you try to calm yourself down. You can’t believe you kissed someone. And in public too. For other people it may not be a big thing but for you, that kiss felt special.

(Game goes, 4th Set)

They were at match point and as the game goes, Koutaro suddenly went on his ‘emo mode’, he was dumbfounded just standing there. You looked worried, there was no way they’re going to lose.

“Just one more point” you whispered to yourself, the ball was set and it looks like Koutaro will go for a shot, he still looked out of it. He needs to get out of his slump. An idea came to mind, it was so unlike you to do something like that but you closed your eyes and just goes for it.

“Take that shot and win!!” you screamed the loudest that you can. You saw him stiffen and slowly he ran and jumped, he spiked the ball so hard it bounced with a hard thud, you almost thought it left a mark on the floor. You heard the loud cheers and a loud buzz, signaling that the game comes to a close.

You sighed in relief to see that your little stunt helped him. You were about to go to and congratulate him when he meets you somewhere in the middle.

“Did I do great y/n-chan?” he asked, his eyes sparkling in anticipation almost as if waiting for a praise.

“You did absolutely great, I had fun watching you,I’m sorry I barely cheered loud, I’m not used to public gatherings like this” you shook your head in embarrassment

“Thank you for cheering me on, uhh y/n since we won, don’t you think it’s fitting that i get a gift from you” he told you. You were a bit puzzled, you didn’t get him anything.

“I- I didn’t get you anythi—” you started only to be cut off by him asking,

“Can I please date you now?”

You smiled at him, “Yea sure”

￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣

“I don’t get it, what was the gift that you gave him, if you didn’t buy him one” she asked again tilting her head

“I gave him my answer” you only smiled on her more evident confusion

￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣

‘The Veil and The Bow’

“Calm down Bokuto-san, everything is perfect” Akaashi told Bokuto as they waited for the large wooden doors to open. It has been 5 years since the two of you started going out and 6 months since he proposed. When you said ‘yes’ to his impromptu proposal he couldn’t believe his ears, at first he was worried and ready to pass it off as a joke but then…

“LET'S GO FOR A DRIVE!!” Koutaro screamed out of nowhere, you gave him a look. Raising an eyebrow in confusion you asked,

“Right now?” he must be joking you thought

“Why not?” he asked dumbly, cocking his head to the side

“Uhh..Kou, it’s 11pm.” you told him nonchalantly, you continued filing on your laptop when you felt him tug at your shirt.

“What?” you asked him without looking, he tugged again. This time as you take on his face, he bit his pouty lips and looked at you straight in the eyes as if begging.

“Really? Where are we even going?” you asked him again whilst standing up and slipping on your warmer.

He looked so excited he rushed to get his keys when he came back to you. He engulfed you in a big hug, snuggling his face in the crook of your neck.

He let out a small “Thank you”

Feeling his hot breath tickling your neck, you gently pushed him off.

“Are we just gonna stand and hug here?” you jabbed him jokingly as if to hide your reddening cheeks. He held your hand and guided you to his awaiting car. You’ve been driving for quite a while, just seeing where the night takes the two of you.

It took you the beach

You walked on the cold sand hand in hand. It was dark and chilly, you shuddered and Koutaro held you close to him, you heard him squeak,

“What was that? Did you say something?” you asked him just to make sure.

“We’re here” he announced, you looked at your surroundings only to see a gazebo all set up with candles, a picnic blanket and plush pillows. You looked at Koutaro stunned

“T-this is all planned?” you asked him stunned at the effort he pulled. No wonder he badly wants to go. You felt warm through the cold on how sweet he was

“You looked so stressed with work I thought that a date will cheer you up even a little” he told you as he fiddled with his hands, even though he was slightly looking down you can clearly see his reddish ears. You couldn’t contain yourself so you tiptoed and kissed him.

“Thank you Kou, having you around is already calming to me, but you did all this too, you’re so sweet, i love you you’re the best thing I could ever ask for” you told him while caressing his cheeks.

He moved his hands to engulf yours, he slowly pushed your hands of to his mouth, giving your palms a peck.

“No, thank you y/n for giving me a chance to be with someone like you,” he told you as he stared at you lovingly.

The night goes by and the two of you ate, laughed, and told each other stories. You two were lying quietly staring at the stars glittering in the night sky.

Sigh.

You looked at Koutaro after he heaved that deep sigh.

“Hey, something wrong” you nudged him a little.

“Nothing...it’s just that I want us to stay like this forever, happy and contented, say y/n, can I ask you something?” he replied, you were curious as to what he was going to ask it seems like a big deal to him.

“Hmm?” you hummed in response

“Y/n...will you stay with me for as long as you can..i mean forever..i mean as long as we can, Can we stay with each other” he asked you in almost a whisper

“Are you—” you were about to ask when he looked at you in all seriousness.

“Y/n L/n, will you marry me?” you can’t keep the surprise in your face, you blushed deeply, it was weird for him to be this serious, but you’re not gonna lie you like this side of him too, you stared at him for a hot minute and cracked your sweetest smile.

“I thought you’d never ask”

The big doors cracked open, the music flowing, Bokuto stared as you walk to where he was, at the altar, waiting.

As the wedding goes on, it was finally time to say your vows, you looked at Koutaro who is now holding a microphone on his left hand and his right gripping into yours,

“Since the day I met you, I knew you were a special woman. And even though I suck at Literature,it will forever be my favorite subject that I ever enrolled in. From that day forward that I met you in that god forsaken class, I became a true believer that you do not find true love, but true love finds you.

You, more than anyone else, know my insecurities and weaknesses and still never make me feel inadequate. You have always loved me without reservations. You praise me in a way I never thought was possible and because of you, I am the best man I can be.

I cannot promise I will always be the perfect husband, but I promise to love you through the good times and bad. To choose our love every single day. I promise to always fight with you and for you, never against you. I promise to always be your biggest fan, confidant and best friend. I promise to remember we are not perfect—only perfect for each other. I promise to love you without hesitation or boundaries from this day forward, for the rest of my life.

Thank you for being the woman of my dreams and the best partner I could ever ask for. Thank you for being the pillar that my wacky soul has always needed and I will forever be your wings. Everything in me recognizes your heart as my home and your arms, my shelter.

You are my better half and very best friend. I will love you, honor you, respect and cherish you in sickness and health, through sorrows and success, for all the days of my life. I am forever yours."

You bit your lip to calm yourself from sobbing into his heartfelt words. You felt his love from every single thing that he spewed out. You were thankful to where you are now, you were thankful to god that gave you a man like Bokuto Koutaro to love you. As you dab away the heavy tears on your face and as clear your throat you tell him your vows in return.

“I want so badly to be able to explain all the love I have for you. Not the love of butterflies and stomach knots—but more the blurring of self and the entanglement with another soul. Love is a word that is much too soft and used far too often to ever describe the fierce, infinite and blazing passion that I have in my heart for you. You are a million dreams and a million prayers of a little girl come true. You are kind. You are silly. You are intelligent—in your own way. Your laugh is contagious and you can put away an entire ice cream cake in one sitting like nobody else can. You acknowledge my strengths and accept my faults. You make me want to be a better person every day. I take you as you are now, tomorrow and for eternity to come, to be my husband.

Even when the day comes that we're old and gray, I promise to always see you with the same eyes and the same heart that I see you with at this exact moment. So today, I vow to honor you and respect you, support you and encourage you. I promise to dream with you, celebrate with you, and walk beside you through whatever life brings. I vow to laugh with you and comfort you during times of joy and times of sorrow. I promise to always pursue you, to fight for you, and love you unconditionally and wholeheartedly for the rest of my life. You are my best friend and I'm the luckiest person on Earth to call you mine."

As you finished your vows you couldn’t help the cracking of your voice, you felt hot tears flow from your eyes, you looked at him as he wipes all of them away.

“Shhh..don’t cry, everyone might get the wrong idea” Koutaro told you as he dabbed on your face. You only chuckled at him, he’s far too precious and you’re lucky to be able to witness it.

“You’re the one getting the wrong idea Kou, these are happy tears. Finally we’re binded forever and always.” you smiled at him as the priest continues on the ceremony

“Forever and always” he whispered back at you as the two of you we’re slipping on your wedding rings.

The priest announced “I pronounce you man and wife, may you live long and build a happy life together.”

He kissed you as the cheers filled the room.

‘The Life’

“Kou!! Go and chase Kaori!!” you instructed your husband to follow your daughter as she ran around away from you. She’s so much like her father, in personality and in looks. You had her 3years ago, and now you would’ve chased her yourself if not for your heavy bulging stomach. You were 7 months in your second pregnancy and everything was hard to do. Thank god for Koutaro, even though he was busy because of his job as a professional athlete he always make sure to make time for you, he always comes home early and makes sure throughout the day that you’re feeling fine. At times he will bring your daughter along to work to lessen the things that you have to think about for the day.

Today was special, he took a day off to take the threeof you to the park. You were tired from playing with the two of them the whole day. So you decided that the three of you should rest a bit, but your child has other plans of her own as soon as you situated yourself on a bench she hopped off and ran. That was why you asked your husband to chase her off to bring her back. The two of them was now in your line of sight, you didn’t want to scold your daughter but, she was extremely hyper and you didn’t want her to trip and fall then hurt herself.

“Bokuto Kaori, you do not just go and run away, against mom’s request, what if you hurt yourself?” you asked her as gentle as you can, even so she still whimpered at you scolding her. She looked at you with big teary eyes.

“I’m so sowwy momma, I only went to go pick these flowers for you” she answered you as she took out three wildflowers from her back, you cooed at how sweet she was. You waved at her to come close and she did, you engulfed her in a loving embrace kissing her temples lightly,

“Aww thank you baby,” you looked up to see Koutaro surprisingly quiet. He was staring at the two of you, he was filled with love and he was grateful for the family you two built together.

“Can I join that hug?” he asked, you opened your arms as he rushed into them almost crushing your daughter in between. The three of you laughed while coddled like that. You looked up at the sky, thankfully smiling.

Gen Taglist open: @kitayawa @aruhappy

[dionysus-and-the-bacchantes]

tips for classics majors

from a second-year classics major. i’ve acquired these tips from my seven years of being a latin student and one year of ancient greek. 

this post can be helpful for classics majors or people interested in self-teaching the classics. my concentration within my major is language and literature, so my tips will revolve around latin and greek. but if you’re studying any other ancient or modern language, my tips may still apply to you :)

~ make word associations. this is a BIG one. there are many nuances to this tip, so to start, i’ll explain why associations are useful, and then i’ll give several examples with different variations to cover the nuances. 

since many english words, prefixes, and suffixes are derived from both latin and greek, take the time to figure out one or two english words that come from each new word you learn - these can either be normal everyday english words or pop culture references. (also, latin is semi-derived from greek, so you can make associations between the two languages as well). if you learn any kind of word association, it will make remembering the word so much easier.

examples: 

pop culture: pane, which means bread in latin, is related to The Hunger Game’s city of Panem (panem is the accusative singular of pane). food insecurity is a big theme in The Hunger Games, therefore Panem is an appropriate name for the city that the series takes place in. 

latin/greek to english: in latin, vicina is an adjective meaning “close, neighboring,” and its english derivative is “vicinity.” in greek, παιδευω means “i teach” and its english derivative is “pedagogy” - aka “a method/practice of teaching.” κριτης means “judge” and its english derivatives are “critic, criticize” and “critical.” 

greek to latin to greek: sometimes it’s tricky to find out which word came from which language first, but usually it’s greek to latin. example: dea (“goddess” in latin) comes from θεα in greek.

think of those word associations as you learn your ancient language vocab. it will make recalling a word’s meaning so much easier. 

anD DON’T FORGET TO LEARN THE GENDER AND THE GENITIVE SINGULAR OF EACH NOUN YOU LEARN BECAUSE IT HELPS WHEN DECLINING THE NOUN AND MATCHING IT UP WITH ADJECTIVES LATER ON OH MY GOD thiS IS SO IMPORTANT

~ make a concentrated effort to remember lots of different sentence constructions. there are so many i literally don’t remember them all and i’ve been doing this for years. the major categories i can think of off the top of my head are subordinate clauses, conditionals, and indirect discourse, and, more generally, learn the difference between the primary and secondary verb tenses.

~ every so often, brush up on as much grammar and vocab as you can. i’m saying this because i’ve procrastinated reviewing greek all summer and i barely remember anything beyond the basics :/ pls don’t tell my professor. 

~ learn authors’ common themes and literary/rhetorical devices. for example: in the elegies of propertius, a roman poet, he used emptiness and unfulfilled wishes as motifs. learning words associated with emptiness and learning how to recognize the introduction of a wish made translating faster. i’ll confess though that i never really brushed up on the use of the optative subjunctive (the device used in wish statements), so i couldn’t recognize how exactly to translate certain sentence constructions. if i did review, it would have made translating in class a breeze. but hey, it was my first semester in college and i had no idea what i was doing at that level. please learn from my mistake! 

~ learn the political, cultural, and historical context of each piece of literature you read. it will make the experience richer. if you know the context of a fiction piece, whether its poetry or prose, you will understand so much more about it. for example: the aeneid, vergil’s masterpiece (and arguably one of the best works in latin literature), is an ode to augustus. augustus commissioned vergil to write the aeneid and to make comparisons between himself and the protagonist aeneas. he wanted people to see him like they saw aeneas - kind, pious, loyal, determined, and in charge. knowing that bit of information makes many parts of the aeneid clearer. you can apply this tip to any piece of literature, no matter the language.

this is also important in terms of non-fiction writing. i took a class on roman letter writers and i would’ve been completely lost if my professor didn’t share anything historical with us. these letter writers typically vaguely referenced local gossip because messengers often read letters that were meant only for the recipient’s eyes. my professor filled in a lot of what was missing from the letters themselves.

~ have fun with it. learning languages is supposed to be fun!! of course languages enrich your mind and bring you into close contact with other cultures and ways of life, but it is supposed to be fun too. example: propertius once wrote a whole poem about knocking on his lover Cynthia’s closed door while she sat inside... and the door was a metaphor for her vagina.... which means propertius was h0rny on main!! and he published that in a poem!!1! for people all over rome to read!!!! 

in terms of plays, my friend read one in latin by plautus about a prostitute who subverts the traditional roles associated with customer-prostitute relationships. he absolutely loved it bc the main character was a bad b!tch... and bc it was a comedic play. 

there are lots of metaphors and jokes written within latin and greek literature, so don’t be afraid to laugh :) it makes learning that much more enjoyable

~ when reading a work of literature, ask yourself what this reveals about the author’s culture. (suicide tw: mentions of su*cide as a plot point in tragedy) this tip is kinda related to the cultural context one, but different in that it looks for culture within literature, rather than looking at literature as a product of culture. and like the previous tip, you can apply this to any piece of literature no matter the language it is in. it’s important to think deeply a piece of literature as well as enjoy it for what it is. example: i’ve read most of sophocles’ plays and i can tell you that the greeks were very comfortable with suicide as a plot point. while murder is also common, suicide is much more common no matter the tragedy. the fact that this theme occurs throughout so many plays tells me that greeks viewed suicide as a tragic occurrence that affects people deeply, but also as a common way to die. it raises questions: what percentage of deaths were attributed to suicide in ancient greece? was it viewed as honorable or shameful? etc. 

and going back to vergil yet again (he’s my homeboy fr), when writing about dido and her people building the city of carthage, he specifically mentions that they are building the theaters first before almost any other building - and these few lines implicitly state that the arts were very important to carthage’s culture as a whole.

~ to sum it up: as a classics major, if you are intentional about learning the languages and truly engaged with the literature, the process will be that much more fun and you will gain that much more out of it. (<- and that sentence has a future-more-vivid construction by the way hehe)

[antidotefortheawkward-art]

Hey there! In regards to your post about white people adapting JTTW, how do you feel about Overly Sarcastic Productions' JTTW Videos?

Oh man I have a lot to say about this so I’m putting it under a cut, but 

TLDR: OSP’s stuff is mostly harmless and I don’t think they’re being actively malicious or anything but like- they’re white and there is a loaded history behind white people using the stories from POC’s cultures, especially when the story seems to be made more “digestible” from an outside lens. Sometimes it feels like they don’t research enough, or even put in enough effort sometimes, and it sort of sucks to see when they’re profitting off it. It’s fine if you enjoy their adaptation and I’m not attacking OSP or anything, but I want people to recognize the experience they’re in for is a Chinese story through a white lens. 

Also, tbh, just support Chinese people telling Chinese stories when you can. I know there’s no Chinese-made easily digestible mythology channel when you can watch JTTW right now, but that’s just a general rule of thumb. Support creators of color, please.

OSP’s stuff is mostly harmless and I don’t think they’re being actively malicious or anything but like- they’re white. As a POC, I’m never going to feel completely okay with white people adapting the stories of my culture without consulting some people from said culture. There’s a long history of POC’s religions being brushed off as “myth” and “fairytale” and although OSP don’t do that, the history of white people doing that is still there and thus as a POC, I’m not 100% comfortable with white people profitting off my culture’s stories. I think it’s great to introduce JTTW to more people, but honestly, I sort of wish they left that space to the people this story is important to. (Also, I get that their channel style is very light-hearted and humorous, and JTTW is only getting the same treatment as their other adaptations, but look-  a white person poking fun at POC’s gods is going to feel off no matter what.)

Also, the fact that they ended up using the Arthur Waley names really rubs me the wrong way. You’re gonna call them by their correct names for a while and then default to what’s “easier” for you? Literally, there’s no reason for them to use the whitewashed 4kids names and given their platform, they’re influencing a lot of people’s first interactions with JTTW so I just really hate that decision. I’d honestly sit through them mispronouncing the actual names because that’d mean they tried. And if I’m being completely honest, it doesn’t sit right with me that white people profitting off JTTW (both in terms of video monetization and channel merch), don’t put in the effort to learn how to say names correctly.

I also really dislike it when people take what OSP say as gospel because there’s a lot they get wrong in a lot of little ways. (OSP saying they’re “nothing if not faithful to the source material” in the first ep is quite a bold statement from some gweilo ngl)  I’m not really sure where they got “Sanzang is the main character” from, but most Chinese sources I know of don’t really say that? So? Hrm. Also small stuff like “studying the Dao! [shows drawing of Buddhist monks and not Daoist priests],” “I don’t know why they call him Sandy [if you google translate the first character, his surname is sand],” “the name Zhu Wuneng [shows characters for ‘Zhu Bajie”],’ “[makes the artistic choice to paint the Jade Emperor entirely green including his hat and therefore branding him a cuckold as per Chinese culture and THAT IS QUITE DISRESPECTFUL NGL]”, “[calls Taishang Laojun “Lao Tzu”]” make me feel like they’re not putting enough effort in doing their research? Like, yes, JTTW is a long story but stuff like mixing up Daoism and Buddhism and using the wrong characters for a name is stuff that’s really easily avoided. 

And smaller detail but I don’t think they really get just how ubiquitous JTTW is in Chinese culture so I personally don’t find it as enjoyable an adaptation. Like, JTTW is an important story, but also it doesn’t occupy the space of a holy book where very few people actually go read it, and it doesn’t occupy the space of classical novels like Shakespearean literature where very few people actually go read it. As arguably the most approachable book out of the Four Great Classical Novels, JTTW is very common knowledge in people’s minds cuz everyone grows up hearing the story (some people even have it as summer reading). There are a few title chapters that people can instantly recognize, there are a few villains that people can grow up naming, and most people have a specific set of imagery that associate with each character. Stuff like this is humorously apparent when you do stuff like compare the English dub of Monkie Kid to the original Mandarin and discover just how much more added exposition there is. Small details in OSP’s adaptation, like Red Boy’s character design being a fully grown man instead of a baby, just bring you out of the story and remind you you’re not getting the full experience. It makes me feel like they just didn’t know Red Boy is traditionally a child with a huadian, whereas if I saw a Chinese adaptation with a fully grown Red Boy, I’d assume they were making a conscious choice to change it up. 

Honestly a lot of their adaptation just feels very.... made digestible for non-Chinese audience, and not in a particularly faithful way? Like yeah you can make a story more easily accessible to people not originally from a culture, but don’t strip away parts of the culture, you can explain the parts of the culture and that’ll be infinitely more productive.

I understand a lot of people became interested in JTTW because of OSP’s work and I think that’s great! It’s cool to see JTTW gain more recognition in the western world! This isn’t an attack on OSP’s work and you’re totally able to enjoy watching it. I just want people to recognize OSP’s version of JTTW is a Chinese story told through a white lens.

And while i’m here, I just wanna say- tbh, just try to give the same support to Chinese people telling Chinese stories. I know there’s no Chinese-made easily digestible mythology channel when you can watch JTTW right now, but that’s just a general rule of thumb. Support creators of color, please.