#since HK's story has been carried by the art

[bbq-hawks-wings]

I think it’s hori being tired af and only drawing what he enjoys now (buff or curvy women) like hopefully mirko comes back as token waifu and it’s nobody new. He had to do manga, a movie, novels, and an art show in 2020 and he hasn’t had a sufficient break since. I’m now squinting at mirko’s “last words” during her nomu fight. And I agree it would have been so much more powerful for all might to die and start the path of saving tenko.

And a second ask:

The editor is partly at fault but HK’s weird pattern with the overhyped ladies are all his own.

And finally a third:

The editor showed himself with the Todoroki flashback chapters because he didn’t correct Hori about the timeline and there’s the uncomfortable implication that Endeavor unknowingly committed martial **** since Rei was pressured to consent by their contract. I know Hori likes to go dark for the Todofam but that’s a bit too dark for a weekly magazine.

I hope you all don't mind me lumping all three of these together. I do so because these are all in some way or other either speculation or commentary as to what's going on with the writing and who may or may not be at fault. I put this all here just because as much as I'm itching for answers, I don't have anywhere near enough facts to say any more or less than, "Yeah, maybe that's it." to anything, and I highly doubt anyone who comes to my blog is any different.

Because of that, I just don't want to dwell on the subject for too long, even if it feels like that's all we can talk about lately. No matter my theories or anyone else's, my conscience won't let me publicly muse about it for too long until I eventually have the truth, if ever.

Thanks for sticking with me through that. Now onto responses!

For first anon, I agree that Horikoshi has been working overtime with just how many enormous MHA events happened last year, and he needs a chance to actually rest. Even though his level of involvement for most of those projects varies wildly, it doesn't change the fact that he was still involved, and that's still a lot of mental energy and space for the author of a massive success of an ongoing weekly serial to carry regardless. Considering how much money his series makes for SJ, I wish they would just let him get a well-deserved long break.

Second anon, I also agree. I personally don't sense malicious intent in Horikoshi's writing of his female characters (and this trend with the female characters may have been happening as far back as Burnin' and Mirko for all anyone knows) and I do believe he wants to support women and all the forms they come in; but that doesn't give him a free pass for missing the mark in some very big ways. Just how quickly he cycles through these female character concepts and then drops them completely is one in and of itself.

It's already difficult to utilize as big a cast as MHA has to begin with, but the time and impact his female characters in particular have had is sorely lacking when compared to the male characters even before the issue of them lately getting spotlights only to be completely forgotten a few chapters later. The issue has always been there, it's just never really been as obvious unless there's something critical that we're missing. There could be plenty of non-malicious reasons for this to be happening, but it's an issue regardless - and this is coming from a woman who loves the representation of women in MHA more than most currently running series in SJ.

My only real motivation I have in voicing this criticism (aside that the problem is more evident now than ever) is that valid criticisms should be packaged in language that doesn't put people down but tells them that you believe they really can be better even if they really missed the mark in the past. I just want him to be the best author he can be and that includes being able to "prove" through his stories he does support women and gender equality as much as he says he does, even if he's still learning and needs more work - especially because he's made more of an overt effort (even when it's bungled) to try to do right by the women in his series (and by extension, the women in his audience) than I see most in his position doing and that's a trend that I want to see rewarded and continued.

Third anon, no matter if Endeavor and Rei's arrangement was completely Horikoshi's idea in the beginning; that as well as the timeline error is a big red flag for his editor because that's literally a huge part of an editor's job. That's why so many fanfiction authors have beta readers - to not only catch things like grammar mistakes and spelling errors but also continuity errors, taking the story off track, potential readers' reactions, etc. As much as the raw concept and most of the execution for the series falls on Horikoshi to perform, he does have an entire team to help him out specifically to avoid mistakes and missteps like this. Thanks to past interviews, we've heard from both Horikoshi and his editors that those kinds of decisions happened in production before, and blatant post-production retcons for the series like this are also rare, so by all counts it should have been caught this time as well. I hope the situation improves.

[atelier-dayz]

The Conception and History of AtaLao

This is just a post for me to ramble on about how Ata and Lao (and Asha but he’s like 1/2 not an OC) got started as OCs and recount some of their history leading up to their roles in Under the Desert Sky. So for the one or two of you interested in reading this: 

(GIF from awhiteshirt)

It’s long and convoluted so everything is under the ‘read more’ link.

Otherwise, just carry on scrolling through your dash! 8D

The Beginning

To talk about the start of AtaLao, I first need to talk (briefly) about Rogue One and The Lost Bladesman. 

So I watched Rogue One and fell deep into Chirrut/Baze. That of course meant watching movies that Donnie Yen (DY) and Jiang Wen (JW) were in, which included The Lost Bladesman. 

The Lost Bladesman was set during China’s Three Kingdoms period and starred DY as Guan Yu (GY) and JW as Cao Cao (CC). And lemme just say, in this movie (and in several other Romance of the Three Kingdoms adaptations, including at least one of the Dynasty Warriors games), CC is HELLA THIRSTY for GY. Which kicked off an interest in CC/GY and led me and two friends to evocates’ phenomenal Romance of the Three Kingdoms/The Lost Bladesman series a guide to (dis)honouring your deities which had an interesting approach to A/B/O. 

Between that fic series and the many Hong Kong triad films and old “classic” HK films we watched, my friends and I ended up writing an A/B/O HK Triad AU in which CC was the head of a recently resurrected triad trying to protect/build up their home-city, while GY was one of the few good cops in a (obviously) corrupt system. 

Anyways, getting to the AtaLao part... 

On the left is General Zhang Liao, who acts as CC’s right-hand man in The Lost Bladesman. So naturally, he became CC’s second-in-command in our Triad AU! And look! He is, in fact, Asha! 8D Hence why I say Asha technically is and isn’t an OC LOL

As our Triad AU grew bigger, we added three “elders” to CC’s triad, people who had been important members of the triad before its collapse (due to the police) and were pulled back out of hiding when CC resurrected the triad. One of them, we decided, would be Elder (Ata) Zhang, Asha’s father. (Which was how CC also met Asha.) Elder Zhang had been The Accountant for the triad pre-collapse, knew where all the money in the triad was and went, highly trusted and held in high esteem. He was never arrested by the police, though they did pull him into interrogation once with...not great results for them. (Keeping this PG with minimal violence LOL I can talk about this another time if anyone is interested.)

I, on a whim, decided Elder Zhang’s facecast would be...

Tony Leung because it’s Tony Leung. 

CC had his work cut out convincing Elder Zhang and Asha to support his bid for lead of the triad. *nods*

But what happened to Elder Zhang’s mate? Asha’s other parent? (Lao?) 

(Aside: Andy Lau as his facecast because I LOVE HIM. And he and Tony Leung have SUCH AMAZING CHEMISTRY and ALL THE FODDER for me to use for inspiration, but I’ll stop myself here before I pic spam.)

WELL. 

He died when Asha was about 5 or 6. He was shot and killed by the police while he and Ata were out on a date under suspicion of being a triad member. (”He has the face of a gangster,” they said.) The irony is, he is actually a normal civilian, a low-level architect, and has nothing to do with the triad other than being Ata’s husband.

Thus, by the time our AU took place, Lao hadn’t been present for...over 30 years and was only rarely referenced as a near mythical figure. (;﹏;)

So there we have the beginnings of AtaLao. 

Their backstory makes me incredibly sad all the time. Especially when I think about their childhood/courtship and their dreams and plans for their future. I have lots of art drawn, content made, and thousands of words written for them so just say the word and I’ll share LOL

Proper AtaLao

What do I mean by ‘proper’ AtaLao? Well, when we were working on the Triad AU, none of the characters outside of the canon characters GY, CC, etc had names; we just abbreviated actors’ names. (Asha was just called Zhang. Ata was Elder Zhang. Lao was AL.)

Sooo that brings me back to Rogue One and....

The Ascension of the Lord of Imwe *jazz hands*

With so much inspiration material thanks to the movies DY and JW were in (and because I’m a martial arts nut), I started writing a Chirrut/Baze epic wuxia AU titled the above. It involved Chirrut inheriting the title of Lord (Baze as his right-hand / retainer), a power struggle between households to gain/hold the favor of the Emperor, and the Imwe household working to prove the murder of Chirrut’s father. (It is not posted anywhere. Don’t think it’ll ever see the light of day, but it exists. LOL) 

Since the story involved such a huge cast, I thought, why not pull in Zhang to help Baze with security. And if I’m gonna bring in Zhang, I should bring in Ata and Lao! And give them a happy ending. ;u;

And as it turned out, Ata worked perfectly to serve as a parallel for Chirrut (and AtaLao for Chirrut/Baze). 

(And this part, you’ll notice, I took to fill in his backstory in Under the Desert Sky.) Ata Zhang was the firstborn son of a prominent family, but he was born mute (a reference to an...incident in Triad AU) and treated poorly because of it. He would have been selected to inherit the family title, but was passed over for his “normal” younger brother. He took over the family’s bookkeeping (a reference to his role as The Accountant), and later, bowed to their wishes to an arranged marriage, from which he got Asha. 

(Chirrut is the firstborn son of the Imwe family, fully expected not to inherit the title because of his originally sickly constitution and failing eyesight. To the surprise and consternation of many, he did in fact inherit the title.)

As for Lao, he was an orphan taken in by the Zhang family and initially raised to be a servant, before they switched him to security. He met Ata when they were tiny children, and he accidentally found Ata crying over the way people were treating him. Lao ended up promising to always protect Ata, and eventually becomes Ata’s personal bodyguard. 

Please know there’s a LOT of PINING, and longing looks, and knowing they have feelings for each other but never acting on them, and then there’s Ata’s marriage, and baby Asha imprinting like a duckling on Lao, and-- aaaaaaaaah (　ﾟДﾟ)＜!!!!!!!!!!!

Eventually though, as I reference in Under the Desert Sky, Ata’s wife leaves, causing a scandal, and the family takes their displeasure out on Asha, which is the last straw for Ata. He takes Asha and leaves, but of course Lao goes with him. They finally work things out, and when we see them in the fic, they’re an old(ish) married couple who joined the Imwe household along with Asha to protect Ata from his younger brother, who is trying to assasinate him to secure his leadership in the family. 

That is AtaLao. 

(Please look at this picture of them that my dear friend Kei / kannibal on here and twitter drew for me and that has been my phone wallpaper ever since. ♡ฅ(ᐤˊ꒳ฅˋᐤ♪))

And since they already were in a fic with Chirrut and Baze, I figured, why not include them in Under the Desert Sky, an actual SW divergent AU and not just something wildly AU LOL And it works out perfectly as a pseud-parallel(?) with Ata as a Guardian, Lao as a Mando vs Obi as a Jedi, Jango the Mando. d(￣◇￣)b

Other Existing Iterations of AtaLao

I will keep this brief in the form of bullet points:

Infernal Affairs AU - After watching Infernal Affairs, I had to, had to write a mash up of it and our Triad AU. In it, Ata is still an accountant for the Triad, but was planted by the police. Lao is the mole the triad places among the police. Ata and Lao have a sort of missed connection history when they meet in the fic. I do want to finish it someday because I love what I have written so far. Maybe for the zine I’m hypothetically making one day...

In addition to Triad AU, we also ended up creating an epic high fantasy/Three Kingdoms AU and made two additional variations on top of it. The Main AU involved Lao as a High Priest and healer who ends up mentoring one of the Emperors’ daughters in the healing arts, while Ata is a major in the Emperor’s army who ends up leading a lot of supernatural investigations alongside Lao. 

Modern AU is a urban fantasy version of the high fantasy AUs, with everyone in similar roles, just updated for the modern age. 

AAAAND THAT’S IT. I’ll do a post on AtaLao in Under the Desert Sky sometimes since I know their backstory won’t be much of a focus in the fic. :)

PS I ended up making a little diagram to make sense of the AUs that ended up popping up in what order and from what influence. Not sure it’s actually helpful to anyone but here is it: 

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: Artist Omer Fast Compares Protesters to Alt-Right, Chinatown Art Brigade Responds

Chinatown Art Brigade and allies pasting up the protest placard with their letter to the gallery and artist. (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic)

After Sunday’s protests at James Cohan Gallery in Manhattan’s Chinatown, artist Omer Fast released a statement comparing the Chinatown Art Brigade (CAB) and their activist allies to “right-wing trolls carrying tiki-torches and howling for walls to be built.”

According to the protesters, Sunday’s rally came after CAB received no response to their letter to the gallery and artist. The artist has declined to speak directly to the protesters or the media. He released a statement through his gallery yesterday.

Fast writes:

The actual gallery is being used as an immigrant surrogate: a transplant that tries to affect an appearance and blend in, even while its essence is undeniably foreign. I suspect many of the critical reactions to my work have a lot to do with this tension between appearance and essence.

The Chinese have been part of the US for centuries and their presence in Chinatown specifically dates to the late 19th century at the very least, so it’s not clear what exactly the artist sees as “foreign.”

The artist is “surprised and distressed by the vitriol and name-calling” without citing specific terms, but then compares the mostly Asian-American protesters to white supremacists by writing, “I expect this sort of characterization from right-wing trolls carrying tiki-torches and howling for walls to be built. I don’t expect it from left-wing activists in lower Manhattan.”

He also adds: “A group of protestors hanged a large poster outside the show, which accuses the gallery of representing ‘a non-US and non-New York artist.’” The artist understands it as a form of xenophobia. It appears the artist may be referring to the original letter that was enlarged and taped to the front of the gallery.

Alicia Grullon, who was a speaker representing Mothers on the Move (MOM) at Sunday’s protest, was disappointed by the artist’s response.

“Since Fast completely missed the point of Sunday’s protest, here’s perhaps a critique he might understand,” she wrote to Hyperallergic in a long email reflecting on Fast’s video piece also on display at the James Cohan Gallery. The video is inspired by the life of August Sander, the German photographer. She believes Sander’s work may touch on a few things that Fast may be missing.

“As noted on the Tate Museum’s website, ‘Five Things to Know About August Sander‘:  ‘Sander once said ‘The portrait is your mirror. It’s you.’ He believed that, through photography, he could reveal the characteristic traits of people. He used these images to tell each person’s story; their profession, politics, social situation and background.’

“Beyond superficial observation, the depth of Sanders’s relationship is in the exchange occurring in the lens — the comfort in the space allowing what needs to be said about a very specific place and time. This level of connection is one for which many documentary photographers aim. If Omer Fast (and on that note the curatorial team at James Cohan as well) had dedicated research, thought, and care in understanding Sanders’s portraits as testaments of successful relationships between artist and subject, Fast’s rather empty installation of a Chinatown shop before gentrification, as noted in his artist statement, could have been avoided. Yet perhaps the installation is a portrait of Fast — shallow and blinded by the colonized gaze.”

Today, CAB released an extensive statement in response to Omer Fast, and it is published at the bottom of this post is full. CAB suggests there may be a contradiction in the gallery claiming both censorship and that “our protest was exactly what their artist intended.”

They wrote that they “are not interested in responding to these comments by the gallery or engaging in any future dialogue with the artist and his apologists.”

And they explained that “We prefer to speak about who we are, our work and about the community that the artist and gallery felt free to ‘transform’ and appropriate.”

Both statements are reproduced below.

This is the artist’s statement, posted on the James Cohan Gallery website, in full:

OMER FAST STATEMENT, 10-18-2017:

As part of my first exhibition at James Cohan’s Chinatown gallery, I decided to transform the facade and interior in a symbolic and temporary act of erasure. I wanted to erase the passage of time and to recreate what the space looked like before the gallery moved in almost two years ago. The tall glass facade and white-cube interior would disappear and the space would lose its more recent identity as an upscale gallery. The back spaces, where the gallery’s business takes place, were left untouched. No one working there was asked to perform or do anything different. As such, there was nothing radically transformative about this intervention since it was neither disruptive nor permanent. I’m aware how superficial such a formal transformation might seem, but I was precisely interested in this conflict between appearance and essence.

As a teenage immigrant to the United States and a naturalized American, I’ve long felt the tension between appearance and essence. I know many first- and second-generation immigrants experience the same challenge: how to reconcile a foreign identity with a local one, how to connect old and new, outward facade and inner space. In the case of the intervention at James Cohan, the actual gallery is being used as an immigrant surrogate: a transplant that tries to affect an appearance and blend in, even while its essence is undeniably foreign. I suspect many of the critical reactions to my work have a lot to do with this tension between appearance and essence.

I’m not surprised there have been critical reactions. I completely understand people’s need to push back. We all have unseemly baggage, racist and otherwise, that needs to be sorted through. We all overstep bounds and must shine a light on our darker hypocrisies, myself included. For good and for bad, artists do this in public. But I am surprised and distressed by the vitriol and name-calling. A group of protestors hanged a large poster outside the show, which accuses the gallery of representing “a non-US and non-New York artist.” I expect this sort of characterization from right-wing trolls carrying tiki-torches and howling for walls to be built. I don’t expect it from left-wing activists in lower Manhattan.

This doesn’t mean that displacement and gentrification are not happening, nor that artists and galleries do not contribute to these processes, nor that I’m somehow magically free from prejudiced thinking and above all that. I’m truly sorry that some persons find the installation insensitive or offensive. The point of this work was never to insult or incite but to talk about identity and immigrant experience – my immigrant experience – warts and all, in its complexity and in its contradictions, pitting essence against appearance. For what it’s worth, I think this is what this work does. I’ve asked the gallery not to take down the protesters’ posters. I disagree with their statements about me and my work but I think they’re important to consider as part of a larger picture.

This is the complete statement by the Chinatown Art Brigade:

October 19, 2017

The Chinatown Art Brigade is not surprised that James Cohan gallery’s immediate reaction to Sunday’s organized action would be to cry censorship, and also simultaneously claim that our protest was exactly what their artist intended. In an attempt to avert any substantive dialogue, both the gallery and artist have chosen to ignore our concerns and assert that they are the victims in a debate about artistic freedom. For this reason, we are not interested in responding to these comments by the gallery or engaging in any future dialogue with the artist and his apologists.

We prefer to speak about who we are, our work and about the community that the artist and gallery felt free to ‘transform’ and appropriate.

The Chinatown Art Brigade is a cultural collective of artists and activists with roots in Chinatown and New York City. Our members have lived, worked and organized in this neighborhood for several decades. Our work is driven by a deep love for our community and the fundamental belief that fighting against racial and economic inequity is central to our cultural and art making process. The Brigade has partnered with CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities, a 30-year old grassroots Pan-Asian organization. CAAAV’s Chinatown Tenants Union (CTU) has fought for tenant’s rights in Lower Manhattan for over 10 years. CAAAV’s offices are located only 4 blocks from James Cohan gallery. By partnering with CAAAV’s CTU, we are working to amplify awareness of the life-threatening issues of displacement that long-time tenants and residents of Chinatown are now facing.

In the last fifteen years, Chinatown and the Lower East Side have lost more than 50% of affordable housing units, a loss of 15,000 affordable homes. Developers and landlords have made many of these into market rate and luxury units through predatory tactics such as forced evictions, cheap buyouts, illegal construction and harassment. At the same time the Chinese population of Chinatown has decreased more than 30% and these residents have been replaced by higher-income, predominantly white gentrifiers.

Galleries and luxury condos have a direct hand in raising rents and displacing low income rent-subsidized tenants. More than 130 galleries have opened in Chinatown in the last ten years, replacing small businesses and organizations that have served the Chinatown community for generations. Before James Cohan gallery moved into its space at 291 Grand St, it was HK Manpolo Market, a local supermarket that served the needs of Chinatown’s low-income immigrant tenants.

These days, real estate developers and landlords are likely to keep storefronts unoccupied for months on end, waiting to rent to the next gallery, hipster bar or high-end restaurant that comes along. Some landlords will now only rent exclusively to galleries. These spaces are often the Trojan horses needed to raise the value of property and neighborhood. With over 80% of the people in Chinatown renting, not owning, their apartments, the rise of luxury housing and galleries is fueling a housing crisis in the neighborhood. This displacement crisis is happening in communities of color across the city.

The faceless immigrants the artist claims to identify with, who live and work in the neighborhood, are actually families and residents who are deeply offended by this depiction of the community as derelict and foreign. The people who showed up to protest this installation care about the Chinatown community — its rich history, its culture and the traditions that are an integral part of our quality of life. Our lives and livelihoods are facing erasure because of galleries like James Cohan and artists who believe that their privilege and entitlement gives them the right to occupy the spaces we call home.

Gentrification is not inevitable, and gentrifying businesses can choose not to degrade and insult Chinatown residents, but instead take action to support the grassroots organizing that is helping to keep families in their homes. One way a gentrifier can step up is by supporting the Chinatown Working Group community-led rezoning plan that has been nearly ten years in the making. This community plan will provide concrete protections for existing low-income residents by limiting and regulating the type of development that can happen in the neighborhood, and various other protective measures.

By celebrating resilience and resistance, we believe that the Chinatown Art Brigade is just one of many new and powerful organizing models for change. Our creative process is women-led, community driven and guided by the core belief that self-determination should be a leading principle in our work. Our close collaborations with grassroots organizations bring us closer to understanding the ways in which art and culture can have a significant and lasting impact on the communities in which we live.

As Asian Americans, we have been the targets of policy decisions — from the Chinese Exclusion Act to Executive Order 9066 — that were designed to deny us citizenship and discriminate against us on the basis of race. We believe we have a responsibility to show the world that we will not let America’s racist history repeat itself. Our goal is to show, through actions and protests, that Chinatown and Asians in America stand united with all groups who are on the front lines fighting for their civil and human rights.

We would like to conclude by expressing our deep appreciation for the many groups and individuals who have offered us solidarity and emotional support. We are all dedicated to elevating the struggles of low-income communities of color in this country and around the world. We will move forward, united in solidarity, as we continue this crucial work that binds all of our struggles together.

The post Artist Omer Fast Compares Protesters to Alt-Right, Chinatown Art Brigade Responds appeared first on Hyperallergic.

from Hyperallergic http://ift.tt/2yurO9d via IFTTT