#this is like the one historic thing I do not recall there being any super hugely popular modern adaptations of

[lastoneout]

why do people on the internet know so much about the epic of gilgamesh

[mcytblr-archive]

Early MCYTblr Interviews: wormweeb

our interviewee today is @wormweeb, author of the cowboy au, nominee in the 2020 MCYTblr election, and overall MCYTblr veteran. below is a transcript of the questions and answers!

Q: What do you remember most fondly about “Early MCYTblr”? (2020-2021)

A: I think early mcytblr had the perfect mix of being an insular, small community with enough people actually posting (whether it be shitposts, art, fix, etc.) to keep the community alive. Perfect reblogger-creator ratio, I think. I loved seeing the familiar notifications from blogs that frequently RBed my stuff and familiar Urls in the tags (which I probably checked daily lol). There was this infectious energy that made being in the fandom so fun, with all the inside jokes and interactions and inter-blog familiarity.

Q: Do you recall your experience in the first MCYTblr election? What was it like?

A: Honestly, there was a lot of anxiety. I didn’t have many friends in the fandom in the sense that I didn’t often DM with people or talk in discord servers. I was kind of reclusive, so having to reach out to find running mates was nerve-racking! And then being thrust into a huge discord server with a bunch of other people I didn’t really know at all… It was all bizarrely anxiety-inducing. I didn’t really care about the results that much, since it was kind just a popularity contest (no hate, just true). I think the elections were cute and fun, another sort of fandom activity that I think only could’ve worked in an insular but involved fandom.

Q: Building off the last question– in my time archiving, I’ve seen people both hold you in high regard and condemn your blog wholesale. Is it odd to be talked about as a pseudo-historical figure in MCYTblr culture? 

A: It’s mind-boggling! When I did all my posting as wormweeb, roughly July 2020 to august 2021, I was 16/17 and literally never left my house due to quarantine. It’s bizarre to think I was influential in that microcosm of a fandom, because I was truthfully just Some Guy irl. It was weird to see the extremes of how people treated me, with some users (much younger than me, I should add) treating me like a cc, with other people acting like I was a toxic supervillain.

At the time, I was deeply concerned with my image in the fandom. I reveled in the shocked reactions to some of my more… avant guard posts… but I was also really bothered when people talked badly about me. I wanted to be liked and popular, but I also wanted to be shocking and critical. I had contradictory motivations behind my posting, which I probably lead to such polarized reactions to my presence in the fandom.

Ultimately, I think it’s super interesting to see how people talk about me — whether they remember me as ‘that one crazy truthing blog’ or the cowboy au author or a proto-critblr poster or a toxic bad takes poster, etc. I don’t take any of it too personally any more, thankfully.

Q: Do you think that MCYTblr’s cultural shift away from crit and ‘truthing’ has been an overall good or bad thing? 

A: I can’t really say. I think it’s natural that as a fandom expands, the most palatable takes will become the dominant ones, and any unpopular criticism / trutherisms will be pushed to the fringe. I can see why some people thought criticism was toxic and truthing was intrusive, but truthfully, I don’t think it reflected any poster’s moral character. I’m not involved in mcytblr anymore, so I don’t know exactly what the state of the current fandom looks like.

Q: Do you ever find yourself missing 2020-2021 MCYTblr? If so, what do you miss the most?

A: I often do miss that era of my life. Truthfully, I miss the attention and (infinitesimally small, microcosmic) cultural import I had. There was an exciting thrill that came with getting notifications every second of the day — that’s not an exaggeration either. I liked having people leave deranged asks in my ask box, or ask my opinion on some random streamer micro controversy, or people asking me when the next chapter of my fanfic would come out (lol). I, of course, miss the other elements of being in an active fandom — the fanfics, the fan artists, the familiarity between blogs,

However… I also know I was mentally unhealthy during that time. I was isolated, so it was fun and exciting to be an ultra-micro celebrity, but at the same time, I took it way too seriously. Because I painted myself as some sort of moral guardian, the great Intellectual Critiquer of content creators, I was terrified to make any bad takes… which, ironically, I made a lot of. I had painted myself into a corner both being dteam critical and (unfortunately) a genuine dteam stan at the time.

Q: Several in-jokes have lost their context (jewge, ancap dream, tradwife george/dream, homophobic dream and sapnap, republican dream, mega milk sapnap/george, etc). Would you like to provide their context, for archival and media literacy purposes?

A: Here’s a rundown for all of them!

“Jewge” was actually sparked by warpedfungusonastick, which I helped popularized. There are a few old videos where George’s friends called him jewge, and that combined with his ashkenazi last name led me to speculate he was jewish — for what its worth, im also jewish. Unfortunately, I think those videos of baby jewge have been lost to time. But nonetheless, that spawned a mini-jewge fandom, which jewge fanart!

Tradwife George and dream… I don’t know even know. I think the idea of “male wives” was trending on general Tumblr at the time. There was already this fandom idea of Dream being a “needy top” and George being the sugar baby/bitchy/uninterested love interest, which I just transplanted onto the idea of tradwifery. Dream as the doting tradwife, George as the unloving tradwife, etc.

Republican/Anarcho-capitalist dream — Ah, this one is kind of embarrassing!! I was really into jreg, and I was, for the first time ever, exposed to political ideas outside of the generic democrat vs republican dichotomy. I was really fascinated by right-wing libertarian or “ancap” ideology, and I already saw dream as a kind of self-made capitalist success story. At least, that’s what he portrayed himself as. My critique of dream and calling him ancap/republican was kind of a baby’s first leftism moment for me… but I nonetheless think the jokes were mostly funny.

Homophobic dream / sapnap — They gave me republican vibes. Dream especially, with some of his older, unsavory tweets, reeked of edgy gamergate humor.

Megamilk sapnap — I didn’t really pioneer this one! I believe this was mostly a Tumblr user who I think was pandascanpvp, or it was Plates gayminecraftmen (or both).

I’ll use this opportunity to catalogue a few more obscure wormweeb-pioneered AUs.

Homestuck au! I think I imagined it as dream = dirk, George = Jake English. Colournotfound (rip gone but not forgotten) did so much of the sustaining of the au.

Scott Pilgrim au. Dream = Scott, George = Ramona. Fundy = envy. This one got fan art!

Q: What was your physical, mental, and emotional reaction when kaceytron pulled up your crit post on stream?

A: Baffled. Excited. God, I wish I had clipped it! I still have a screenshot. I desperately hoped she would read it to dream (who joined the stream later). That felt like I had peaked as a cc stan blog… having a C-list streamer pull up my post on stream. Literally google searching “dream queer baiting” because she didn’t even know what she was accusing him of, or how to support her argument.

Q: Is there anything else you particularly want to share or talk about? 

A: I was just want to say that although I don’t watch or support any member of the dteam any more, I still am proud of the cowboy au. It’s kind of a relic of the time (especially the gnf and Maya mxmtoon stuff). The general response to the fanfiction was… wow!! Everyone who commented on that fanfiction was so exceedingly kind. People even drew fan art. I am still happy to have written something that, despite the inherent cringeness of it, positively affected so many people.

[sad-endings-suck]

I have a theory why tradfems fester in the ASOIAF fandom, first one is that the fandom is filled with tradcels, so some are genuine pickmes who are into the series to get male attention. and others, the Stansas..i think they have a super shallow/self insert reading of their faves? aside from QITN/Jonsa/shitting on DanyArya nonsense they mostly like Sansa just because she's feminine. They praise stuff of her that is supposed to be seen in a negative light like her shallowness or lack of smarts and then make horrible takes about how she's revolutionary because she wears dresses unlike all other literature heroines cause they wear pants? nevermind they ignore the historical context for why Sansa would wear a dress in contrast to say a YA heroine living in modern day USA. it gets stupidier the more you think of it.

I definitely agree, and the whole situation is a lot more nuanced and understated than a lot of hardcore Stansas would have you believe.

I think the show can be blamed in part for depicting its female characters as archetypes of gender stereotypes. For example, Arya is often relegated to the role of the “not like other girls” female character. Dany is never allowed to be warm and caring like her book counterpart, and Sansa is made out to basically be a “damsel in distress” the first few seasons, and then a girl boss in the last few. The show runners really did not want these female characters to be multi-dimensional, they wanted to fit them into neat little gendered boxes.

The show would also rather have female characters r*ped than have consensual sex. As evidence by excluding female characters that do have a healthy relationship with sex (Asha, Val, Arianne) from the narrative.

In Westeros things like being intelligent, strong and independent are seen as masculine. Whereas traits like kindness, softness, and dependance on others are seen as feminine. But as the reader you are meant to know that traits like compassion or brutality are not feminine or masculine, and yet there are still readers that buy into the gender roles of Westeros without examining why they believe that adventuring for instance, is for men, and sitting in towers is for women. Gender is not as simple as “girls wear dresses and boys wear pants” and even though that is the general belief in Westeros, that is evidently not what the reader is meant to believe. And through characters like Daenerys, Arya, Sansa, Asha, Arianne, Val, Brienne and more, that could not be made any more clear to the reader.

Some people are selective readers, some people have only seen the show and not read the books, others read the books a long time ago and have forgotten things, others only re-read their favs chapters and allow their favourite character’s own biases to influence their view of other characters. Despite the fact it is made clear no character is entirely objective and they all have their own biases and version of events.

Aside from that, I don’t get the Jonsa ship. To each their own, but I don’t understand how such an obscure pairing can be so popular. Jon and Sansa have not interacted one on one at any point in the entire book series (that I recall). On top of that, they only think of one another when they think of all of their siblings combined. I don’t believe there is a single instance of Jon thinking about Sansa individually or vice versa at any point in all of ASOIAF to date. Jon does think about Arya very fondly a whole lot, and vice versa. In fact, there is way more evidence for Jon x Arya than there is for Jon x Sansa (though I don’t care at all for either ship). But then again, maybe that’s why some Sansa stans insist on the Jonsa ship? Because they hate the idea of their favourite male character being closer to their favourite female character’s “rival” (Arya) than their favourite female character in question (Sansa)? I also think some people watched the show and saw how close Sansa and Jon seemed to be in the last few seasons and conflated that with some unseen truth that must exist in the books, even though we all know that pretty much everything in season 6 of GOT and onwards was bullshit.

Which brings me to my final point, which is that a lot of hardcore Stansas and Arya stans insist on this character war, and push the extreme idea that Sansa and Arya are enemies instead of… sisters that don’t get along.

[yougobunny]

hello :) you probably won’t recall but it’s the “ace moves around purely by unnecessary flips” anon frommmmm last year I think….? It’s been a while lol, anyway I recently got back into LU and I was wondering if u had any language headcanons for the team? My own take on this is that Lexi is probably fluent in French or Spanish or something like that, bc I’d imagine her as the type to take a language course for the mental & cultural ~enrichment~, and Rev probably knows how to speak/understand/read/write like 23 different languages just bc he has so much spare time and gets so bored that he started learning a few to keep himself occupied. I also think Ace would know how to say so many completely random & useless phrases in a BUNCH of different languages solely bc of some multilingual roles he’s had to play, but he isn’t actually fluent in any of them. I can’t see slam or duck as being interested in that sort of stuff, and I feel like tech would be way too busy to pick up new dialects, but I’m curious to hear ur thoughts on it :)

Hiiiii I remember you!!

But yes in general my headcanons are in line with a lot of what you said. In my head I imagine that they're all at least (to some degree) bilingual because of the close cultural proximity of a 'city planet'. Lexi 100% has taken up language courses and is fluent in at least two other languages other than English.

Ace picked up a lot from being on movie sets and yes he knows a bunch of useless phrases but also could do things like order food or ask for directions in some of them. @intheyear2772 suggested that Ace is a huge anime fan (which I love) and so I imagine that he picked up Japanese from that.

Yes Rev does speak/understand/read/write like 23 languages and counting. Nothing can stop his search for enrichment. He's also a fan of historical linguistics and knows a lot about how languages evolved.

Duck!! Ok so another one of @intheyear2772's headcanons was that Duck did a lot of odd jobs pre-meteor and some of which took him out to sea on ships and stuff. So because of that I headcanon that yes he doesn't have much interest in languages but his time away from Acmetropolis sort of forced him to... well not learn lmao but understand super basic words/phrases. He doesn't retain much memory of it afterwards and tbh a lot of it was purely context clues, but some words last longer than others. Like this:

Languages aren't really Tech's thing although I think he probably can do conversational Spanish. You're right I think he's probably too busy and with too much on his plate to devote time to languages, and it would be interesting if Coyote Genius struggles with it, so when it comes to translating runes or anything on missions Rev gets to step up.

And yes I agree with you on Slam! I think that he could sign in more than one language though. Also that everyone on the team could sign ASL but with different levels of proficiency.

[blueiight]

i think one of the reasons people aren’t super interested in exploring the implications of louis being a pimp is because the show isn’t. not to pull a “as a former (brothel based) swer” card for a tv show about edwardian vampires but iwtv has a lot of very interesting thoughtful things to say about many many things and sex work is not one of them. real lazy trope-y red light district funny-madame (bricktop) and disposable girl with a heart of gold (lily) historical fiction red light district wenches with a lick of liberal choice ‘empowerment and business!’ because that’s what the well meaning lib zeitgeist is on SW currently and none of the implications or dynamics of exploitation are explored beyond louis’ confessional in ep1. louis “increasing the girl’s cut” ! ridiculous. love the show but don’t think this is something it’s thought about in any depth and viewers are matching that tone

i feel like im answering the same asks on this issue cuz somebody def did say dis 2 me b4 n i did reply i agree w/ u n ill elaborate bc u r a real person w these experiences. what u have to say is most important here n i respect u for even behind anon in telling me how that was sum u lived thru. id like u to recall what we have seen in the flashbacks for that particular section of the show is so far primarily told thru louis’s pov. a character who possibly had to lie to himself n reduce lily to just a disposable martyr w a heart of gold + brick as just the funny tropey madame to rationalize what he was actually doing here. n even then it couldnt stop him from spiraling off into a drunk confession to the paster about how he takes girls from homes + lies to them saying he’ll do them good but exploits them so. louis himself, even drunk n half out his mind in the 1910s, is willing to account this as one of his vices, his evils, so i dont think the show wants the viewers to give him a pass. its only rly a matter of concern in those first 3 eps bc after that, louis loses all his enterprises. the modern day situation in dubai w/ the blood farm + daniel’s crude comment in 1x07 about louis still being the pimp paying hoes to talk to him does suggest to me at least the showrunners r not falling in line w this line of thinking in telling louis’s story the way u think they do. my main thing w the pimp shit is moreso ‘why r ppl bitching at the show for tryna make louis a good guy when hes literally introduced to us as a pimp? why is that a line of criticism. do real ppl see nothing wrong w pimping?’ . i dont think the show needs to be like rgu black rose pointing symbols ‘this is bad!’ every second for viewers to understand that louis ‘increasing the girls a cut’ isnt bc hes mother mary oss. theyre expecting viewers to come in w/ a certain level of maturity + understanding of the real world to watch these batshit fictional characters. i hope im not sounding like im running apologetics for showrunners here

[djuvlipen]

Hi! I was reading some of your posts on the Holocaust (and early 20th century attitudes) and the interactions/perceptions/representations of Romani people by other groups (i.e., Jewish). I thought it was super interesting when reading German literature as you see similar reflections made about "Ostjuden" ("eastern Jews", generally less assimilated) to those made about Romani people, and were looked down on.

Your academic resources are phenomenal, and my curiosity is whether in Romani communities there was also an "internal orientalism", for those seen as more "Romani" vs those seen as more "passing". If so do you have any academic studies or other resources on that? I couldn't find a whole lot about its internal dynamics, as most of what I read has been about the external need to "pass" as a survival mechanism. So I don't see a lot how communities themselves view this

Also I adore your humour so much, but that's a side point 🤭

Hi! First of all, thank you🥰

So I'm not as well-versed in Jewish studies as I am in Romani studies. From what I understand when you're talking about "Ostjuden", some Jewish people being seen as more "Jewish" and some more assimilated than others, you're referring to the divide that existed in XIXth-XXth century Europe between Ashkenazi Jews, who were more likely to be impoverished, religiously conservative, to speak Yiddish in the East and to identify as being Jewish first, while in Western Europe they were more likely to be middle-class, religiously liberal, and to identify with their nationality than with their ethnicity. Do tell me if I'm wrong though!

If that's the case, then I think Romani dynamics don't fit that model. I was actually reading a book (Rain of Ash: Roma, Jews and the Holocaust by Ari Joskowicz) that said that prewar Romani people were way less unified than Jewish people. "Gypsies" referred to a wide array of population that varied as per their religion, their customs, their language, their lifestyle (nomadic or sedentary). Often times, Roma in one country weren't aware of other Romani groups living in other countries (for example, French Roma didn't have contact with Finnish Roma), because we weren't unified by paneuropean associations the way Jewish people were. The idea of Romani people as one large diaspora sharing a geographic, cultural and linguistic origin only emerged recently; prior to that, the only thing that united us was persecution and Gadje classifying us as "Gypsies". (That's why everyone is always arguing about who is Romani and who isn't)

For this reason, I've never seen in historical texts Western European Roma trying to pose as more assimilated (or more Romani) than Eastern European Roma. We couldn't define ourselves by comparison to other Romani groups because there weren't many contacts with those other Romani groups. When Western European officials talked about the Roma they met in Eastern Europe, I don't recall their saying "these are more/less Romani than ours", they usually say "these countries have Gypsies too, and these Gypsies are also thieves and pest, like ours".

When it comes to passing in general, a lot of Roma tried to give up Romani culture and to 'assimilate' (by settling, by refusing to pass down the language, etc). In my experience having grown up in a family that settled and lost the language, assimilation really doesn't work because we are still treated as Gypsies, we are still very working class, and we still share a lot of cultural elements with other Roma.

Nowadays, with the Internet, people feel the need to prove they are 'more Romani' than others, but this initiative is really limited to the Internet, people in real life usually don't do that.

I hope this answers your question!

[mermaidsirennikita]

Can you recommend any historical romances with rough/rougher sex? Thank you!

For sure and I got your other ask about HRs with dom/sub dynamics so I'll try that here too.

So the thing with historical romance is that, while the sex can be quite hot, I think the kink is ultimately in the historical nature quite often, versus the sex itself. And I feel like... if anything, that has become MORE of a thing, as HR has kind of become associated with like... softer romance? It doesn't blur as much with dark romance as PNR and contemporary do (a lot of dark romance IS contemporary, of course). There's the frequent virgin heroines, whose purity is often over-emphasized... And there's definitely this idea, especially in HR imo, that kinky or rough sex is separate from *loving* sex. When like--if it's good, consensual sex between two people who love each other, it's loving sex...?

I may also have a higher threshold and expectations than some lol. But I find that dom/sub dynamics are often more implied than explicit in HR, and sometimes you'll find kinkier sex in some older books, many of which are dubcon heavy as well.

ANYWAY ALL THAT BEING SAID... Try these on for size.

--The Duke I Tempted by Scarlett Peckham. The sex is (though very hot) kinda vanilla at first, it does eventually escalate to explicit femdom with restraints and light punishment. The hero is a total alpha hero in many ways (widower, rich duke, hot as fuck) but he prefers sexual submission and visits a whipping house to get caned, whipped, etc. He and the heroine enter into a marriage of convenience and he tries to keep that preference from her, but she eventually finds out and it turns out she is into domming him.

--The Earl I Ruined by Scarlett Peckham. Second book in the series, and also explores kink explicitly. This time, the hero has longed for the heroine from afar, and she fucks him over by ruining his name--then feels bad and offers a fake engagement to revive his rep. He's very uptight and proper, but it turns out that he's actually a dom; it's explicit, he knows this about himself, and eventually introduces her to submission. She's very bratty. There's a somewhat rough face-riding BJ from what I remember, some spanking, and he does make her masturbate with an apple, so that's fun.

--Passion by Lisa Valdez. I need to reread this, but from what I recall this one is an erotic romance and the sex gets rough, though from what I've read the second book, which I haven't read, has an explicit dom/sub thing. Passion literally begins with the hero and heroine having public sex as strangers behind like a screen, and he's just shocked and overjoyed that she can take his MASSIVE dick. Like, there's definitely some anatomically impossible shit in this, but it's fun.

--The Chief by Monica McCarty. Arranged marriage book; there's a lot of loooovemaking, but some mild warrior man roughness too. He has this fantasy of fucking her from behind that she fulfills and then he's like "fuck I can't actually enjoy this unless we make emotional eye contact I hate myself".

--How the Wallflower Was Won by Eva Leigh. The hero and heroine are very nice and sweet people, but they do have one sex scene that is definitely a little on the rougher side.

--When the Earl Met His Match by Stacy Reid. This is one where the hero is a deeeeeeply good guy, but they have an extremely angsty conflict and it turns into some rough fucking.

--To Beguile A Beast by Elizabeth Hoyt. The first sex scene is some roughish desk sex, I believe. He's her boss and she's his housekeeper lol.

--Forbidden by Elizabeth Lowell. Medieval Scottish warrior 90s era book. I would actually call one late stage extremely angsty sex scene in this book to be pretty femdom-coded. They're super upset with each other and he's basically like "I'm not gonna touch you" but he doesn't stop her from touching him and it turns into verrrry passionate sex.

--Any Duchess Will Do by Tessa Dare. This one has a scene that definitely leans towards dom/sub undertones and roughness. It's very hot, if also somewhat hilarious; he bends her over his desk and makes her recite his courtesy titles while he fucks her lmao.

--The Bride Goes Rogue by Joanna Shupe. The sex can be on the rough side at points, and the definitely play with some dom/sub games. He tells her what to do, she calls him her king and he calls her his reinette, etc. Fab book.

--Duke of Sin by Elizabeth Hoyt. Definitely has some wild sex because this hero is CRAAAAZY.

--Duke of Midnight by Elizabeth Hoyt. One of the rougher Elizabeth Hoyt heroes because he's also craaaazy, and though it's not explicit, I think there's a coded "stern dom/brat" vibe to their relationship because of its cat and mouse undertones, the way she defies him, his tightly coiled vibes.

--The Leopard Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt. I believe this one has some rougher sex, a big thing in the book is the hero being her bit o' rough, basically.

--The Highwayman by Kerrigan Byrne. This one has some pretty rough sex by HR standards; the second sex scene is borderline dubcon and HE definitely thinks it is because he's being pretty rough with her, but then she starts asking for more lmao. He does tie her up a couple times. The Highwayman in general has some kinky vibes.

--Her Night with The Duke by Diana Quincy. I'm not sure, but I think this one has some rough, angsty sex?

--Brazen and the Beast by Sarah MacLean. Again, femdom vibes here. The hero just can't help getting tied up all the time. At one point, she ties him up and gives him a BJ, it's great.

--One Good Earl Deserves A Lover by Sarah MacLean. This one is again more on the coding side, but the hero does a lot of telling her what to do, making her to do it in front of him, etc. Some light control.

And I would be remiss if I did not plug The Duke Gets Even by Joanna Shupe, out 1/24/23, but one of my favorite reads of the year... Because thaaaat shit gets more explicitly rough than most. He likes pain. Inflicting and receiving. A lot. She's about it. There's some fun scratching, biting, smacking, etc. He likes to see her draw blood on him, enjoys seeing her tits covered in his teethmarks, grabs her during sex to leave bruises very purposefully. It's GREAT.

I know Shadowheart by Laura Kinsale has some explicit femdom antics, but I've yet to read that.

And of course, you'll often get more with self-published books.

[laviexenrose-a]

𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒷𝒶𝓈𝒾𝒸𝓈

NAME: isabelle marie allard NICKNAME(S): is, izzy, belle AGE: most verses - age 29 SPECIES: human

𝓅𝑒𝓇𝓈𝑜𝓃𝒶𝓁

MORALITY: lawful / neutral / chaotic || good /  gray / evil  RELIGIOUS BELIEF: born-again christian  VIRTUES: chastity / charity / diligence / humility / kindness / patience / justice (all of them lol) PRIMARY GOALS IN LIFE: spreading as much good and love to humanity as possible (through her wealth) but also getting married and having a family  LANGUAGES KNOWN: french, english, spanish, italian, some portuguese  SECRETS: not exactly a deep dark secret per say but isabelle won’t go around telling everybody she’s well-off; and if anything, it's more like there’s secrets being kept from her asdfdjf QUIRKS: doesn’t need lots of sleep, 5 hours is good. detail-oriented !! super organized with labels and everything. remembers important, significant dates but also the most random events in her life and some history ones too. i don’t want to say she has a photographic memory but she can read things pretty fast and then recall them, sometimes verbatim, later on. that helps/helped so much when she is/was doing her studies aka she’s a super nerd.  SAVVIES: knows probably way too much about plants, like the medicinal properties and which can be consumed or not - but i think based on that alone she has a pretty good chance of survival, if she were stranded in the woods or something. maybe not.

𝓅𝒽𝓎𝓈𝒾𝒸𝒶𝓁

BUILD: slender / scrawny / bony / fit / athletic / herculean / babyfat / pudgy / obese / other   HEIGHT: 5′4″ SCARS/BIRTHMARKS: no scars but she has a small, circular pigmented birthmark on her lower abdomen, left side, just above her hip. she has freckles too but they’re not very noticeable unless you’re up close and personal ABILITIES/POWERS: N/A RESTRICTIONS: trusts too easily. always patient, even when she’s frustrated. wants to believe everyone has good/can be good??

𝒻𝒶𝓋𝑜𝓊𝓇𝒾𝓉𝑒𝓈

FAVOURITE FOOD: bread, cheese, chocolate - what else do you need? FAVORITE DRINK: raspberry tea, lightly sweet FAVOURITE PIZZA TOPPING: cheese  FAVOURITE COLOR: technically pink but not bright or light, it’s like a rusty rose  FAVOURITE MUSIC GENRE: classical FAVOURITE BOOK GENRE:  historical and/or romance FAVOURITE MOVIE GENRE: doesn’t watch many movies but if i had to guess it’d be the same as the book genres  FAVOURITE SEASON: spring  FAVOURITE BUTT TYPE: doesn’t have one? haha i’m crying FAVOURITE CURSE WORD: does not curse, ever !! there was like one time in a thread, and it was in french but it's very very VERY rare if it happens  FAVOURITE SCENT: vanilla, honeysuckle or just anything floral 

𝒻𝓊𝓃 𝓈𝓉𝓊𝒻𝒻

BOTTOM OR TOP: this one’s too obvious  LOUD BURPER OR SOFT BURPER: okay but just imagine isabelle loudly burping? lol !! she’d still be rlly cute about it, but she does it softly when she does, of course  SINGS IN THE SHOWER: maybe not like full on, powerhouse singing but humming some words or lyrics that are stuck in her head LIKES BAD PUNS: yes! laughs at anything punny, whether it’s good or bad THEIR OPINION ON THE MUN: i probably remind her of her grandmother, for being a cruel and wicked woman. i’m horrible, especially to her. i can’t imagine why she would like me v much XD

TAGGED BY: @honorhearted

TAGGING: @xbless-this-broken-roadx , @ericbrandonrp  , @kit-just-kit  , @lavishbylaw , @marimelwrites ( do jameson pls + for any muse of yours you want ♡ ) , @richardxoliverxmayhew , @secretscost ( for ethan or zander! or anyone you feel like doing:) ) , @skyler-bane , @wintcrstcrfall ( tagged for matthew but honestly anyone you’d like to do! ♡ ) , @withinkandquill ( for anyone else you wanna do !! ), @wynterlanding​

[kuixotic]

tagged by @currentlycryingaboutlancelot for this!

Rules: answer the questions and tag fifteen mutuals

1. Are you named after anyone?

Technically yes, it’s more accurate that I inherited the first letter of my name from my abuela-but my name came from a perfume I think-

2. When was the last time you cried?

Uhhhhhhh- (has lost the ability to cry and can’t recall when the last time was)

3. Do you have kids?

Does my dog count-

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot?

Oh I breathe it, whenever I enter voice chats I’m already at everyone’s throats it’s so funny. I just...yeah

5. What’s the first thing you notice about people?

Hmmmmm, I guess the way they interact? How they hold themselves and greet someone or acknowledge another person 

6. What’s your eye colour?

Once green now brown

7. Scary movies or happy endings?

Thanks to a buddy of mine I’ve been enjoying classic slasher movies as of recent, but I think I enjoy my happy endings c: especially ones that come after a storyline of absolute hardships and completely dismal conditions-coming out fine in the end just Does Things to me

8. Any special talents?

Uhhhh, I can usually identify instruments in tracks really quickly especially if they’re considered a niche instrument. Does worldbuilding also count? Because apparently I give very good and useful ideas to friends on the fly when they need me to act as a rubber duck for their projects

9. Where were you born?

The North ™

10. What are your hobbies?

Art! And listening to music. Does making character playlists count? I don’t do that TOO too much but I like adding stuff to ones I already have. Just general thinking and worldbuilding in my head is a favorite pastime too

11. Have you any pets?

My dog! My little ol man Milo c:

12. What sports do you play/have played?

I’m counting marching band as a sport here-in which I did 4 years/all of high school in the drumline, being drum captain/section leader for junior and senior years

13. How tall are you?

I... am 5′0 😔

14. Favorite subject in school?

I really enjoyed music for obvious reasons, but my physics teacher in high school made his class fun c: I also greatly enjoy astronomy and anthropology, as well as humanities 

15. Dream job?

My MOST ideal would’ve been a music teacher, something the likes of charity work in teaching music to disenfranchised youth. Ethnomusicology is right up there too since it would combine my love of music with anthropology. While I can’t do that now(because music school terrifies me and I am VERY rusty as I haven’t played music seriously in over 6 years), history is my next passion. I (finally) got my associates so now it’s time to move on up and get a degree in Latin American and/or Caribbean history, maybe doing something like being a historical consultant for things in the arts-or just in general honestly 

iiiiii,,,, don’t think i have 15 people who i dont know super well SO anyone can take this tag meme off their hands wheeee-

[krawkpaladin]

Winning the Peace Dev Diary #2 - Characters and Communities (Pt 1.)

Another week, another dev diary! This one probably won't be as long though, as I spent a lot of time this week being distracted by the new Total War game.

Anyways: Representatives and Communities!

Representatives are our direct player characters, that is to say the way in which the players exercise agency in Winning the Peace by voting and by using moves to manipulate votes. I'll talk a little about voting when I get to communities, and go into it in further detail in a later dev diary.

I'm writing up four Representative playbooks (playsheets? they're pretty small), one to focus on each Representative Stat. There are also generic moves tied to each stat that all the playbooks will have access to. That said, the stats that each Representative has are as follows:

Prestige - Represents political clout, connections, and historical significance;

Eloquence - Represents rhetorical, debate, and oratory skills

Guile (I don't like this name as much) - Represents understanding the procedures of governance and how to manipulate them

and Conviction - Represents strength of personality and ability to resist social pressure.

(Since this is a game about people talking and doing politics, I wanted to make sure that each stat feels unique, even though they are all basically about talking.)

When you create a Representative, you will assign -1, 0, 0, 1 across your stats. Each playbook also has a signature move that is where you'll likely want to put your 1 in initially.

For example, The Elder Statesman's signature move is tied to Prestige:

Carthago Delenda Est: When you call on the Council to address an Event that was drawn in a previous year, roll +Prestige. On a hit, all Representatives must place (Resources+Size) votes on the event, in favor of any option. On a mixed success, the Councilors listen to your plea and vote with you. On a miss, the Council ignores your entreaty and no votes may be placed on the Event at all.

Before I go into explaining Communities, Votes, and Councilors, the last thing I want to go into is character advancement. Representatives advance whenever they roll a miss, and can choose to either add +1 to a stat (up to +3 max) or take another playbook's signature move. However, after 4 misses, they are recalled by their Community as the repeated failures turn public opinion against them. So in that case, you'll retire the Representative (which can always come back in the fiction as a citizen!) and create a new character.

You'll notice that this means that you can go through a lot of Representatives quickly, but while your Representatives are the tools with which you interact with the world, the story being told is ultimately one of a whole city and its Communities.

...which, in an effort to not make this one too long (and it is super late for me), I will get into next time. Maybe it will be in the middle of the week, like a 2.5 or something.

Anyways, for this week's cat photo, enjoy Baby helping me unify Bronze-Age Egypt when I probably had other important stuff to be doing.

[servin-up-surveys]

survey #121

What’s the most recent album you’ve been really into? Last year Rammstein released Zeit and it took over my life rip in absolute fucking pieces

Where did you go the last time you were on an airplane? Home from visiting Sara in Illinois.

Do you know anyone who has autism? Multiple people.

Do you have a cat? I sure do, he's my baby.

Do you enjoy riding carousels? I did, when I could actually go on them. Not saying adults can't if it can hold their weight, but yeah I would NEVER be allowed on one lmao and my legs couldn't get me up there anyway.

Do you like elephants? Yes, they're absolutely amazing animals.

Do you know anyone named Emily? I used to. I would still like to, but she understandably left my life when I was a bigoted, ignorant, close-minded teenager.

Do you know anyone who can speak French? Not fluently. My mom apparently took it in school though and she still knows a few words, but that's it.

Do you prefer gold or silver jewelry? Silver.

What was the last flavor of ice cream you ate? Uh, I think it was chocolate at my niece's bday party in February?

Do you use Instagram often? I don't post a lot, but I scroll through my personal one every day.

Have you ever had key lime pie? Yes, and I hated it.

Do you know anyone who is pregnant? Yes. Semi-recently I had a super old friend from like, the end of middle school announce she was having her second child, another boy. A woman I took pictures for a lot is expecting her daughter real soon, too.

Do you have a Pinterest account? Yes.

What is one question you don’t like being asked? My weight and my employment situation.

Who is someone you know who is talkative? My nephew lmao

Have you ever read the Warriors series? bitch I was OBSESSED

Do you prefer skimpy bathing suits or modest ones? For me, I'm covering up as much as I can. If I LIKED my body, I'd maybe be fine again in a bikini, and people can rock revealing clothing of whatever sort all they want, but I'm too self-conscious for that, really.

Do you like the sounds of cicadas in the summer? Okay so the noise itself doesn't bother me at all, I quite like nature sounds, however I associate the noise with when it's way too fucking hot so I have a negative association with it, haha.

Have you ever taken your dog swimming? No, no dog we've ever had... I think. I don't recall ever seeing if a dog we've owned wanted to come in the pool with us. I do know Teddy and Cali (or maybe Dale? idr) got loose outside a couple times when we lived in the woods, and not all too far from our house across the cotton fields was a pond; they'd run over there and would at least wade in the banks. I wouldn't be surprised if Cali truly swam some haha, but I don't remember. Man, I miss those dogs.

Do you drink iced coffee? I don't drink any sort of coffee.

What do you buy most often at a gas station convenience store? A soda.

Favorite food at a cookout? Either burgers or hotdogs. In general I prefer burgers, but I don't like angus beef and sometimes the people who make them use white cheese, which I also don't like, and in those cases I'll do a hotdog instead. OH THIS REMINDS ME WITH HOW I ANSWERED, story about my mom when she moved from NY to NC: she came here used to "cookouts" meaning things like burgers and hotdogs, and the first time she went to one here in the South, she was dumbfounded to find a full fucking pig in the cooker lmfao. I'm not a fan of Southern-style cookouts like these, with pulled pork barbecue and shit.

Most hated food at a cookout? ^ oh, the aforementioned pulled pork. It's just so gross to me, taste-wise and texture-wise. Honestly I will eat almost absolutely nothing at a Southern-styled cookout because I genuinely loathe everything.

You and your SO’s dream vacation? Haha Girt actually doesn't really like vacations, he is such a homebody. We touched on this topic in this fun couples book we have, and I remember him saying he thinks he'd have the most fun at like, historical landmarks, which I'd also love to visit.

Do you go on family vacations? No.

Do you know anyone who legitimately is mentally ill? Yes? You're either mentally ill or you're not. I'm hoping by the use of "legitimately" (still a bad usage though honestly) you mean like, more on the severe end of mentally ill, in which case I think so. Girt's mother suffers with schizophrenia and has been hospitalized in the past for her mental wellbeing, but I don't know how regularly this happened/the last time it did, and she still deals with what's absolutely trauma over her husband dying super fucking suddenly. I don't ask Girt many questions about her mental health because I mean it's not my business and I also don't like making him talk about a topic that ties so heavily into his dad being gone. I just know enough to know she's been through a lot and still struggles.

Right now, would you rather be single or in a relationship? I have zero interest in leaving Girt, so in a relationship.

Boyfriend’s mom asks you to go to church with their family, do you go? Christ this might actually happen one day with how religious Shelia is, but my answer would be no, even if I'd be uncomfortable telling her that. I will never, ever, ever, ever give a church my service. Call it an overreaction, I just have so much hatred built up towards religion because of my own history with it from immediate childhood up through very early adulthood. It was full of nothing but crises of self, denial of my own sexuality, becoming a total shit asshole who couldn't accept people different from her... There's just so much pain and remorse that religion has caused me.

Do you say “love you” to any of your friends (not boyfriend)? Yeah, of course. I am so heavy on expressing platonic love.

Is your SO comfortable around your parents? I know he is around Mom, and I mean, I think he is around Dad. They barely ever, ever see each other, though, so have had few chances to interact since my parents split; he did come over when we were teenagers before the divorce, but that was SO many years ago.

How did you meet your newest friend? She was one of Girt's gaming buds and she learned that we both held a colossal adoration for Silent Hill 2 so she wanted to talk to me, haha. I was really super shy about it at first, but finally decided I needed to actually welcome when new, friendly people want to talk to me so reached out to her. She's lovely.

Have you ever been talked into doing something really uncomfortable? Maybe, I don't remember.

What do you lie about liking? Nothing, that's an awful idea.

What do you lie about DISliking? I also don't think there's anything.

Have you ever lied about something sexual you did or didn't do? No.

What states have you been to in the past year? I haven't left NC in that timeframe.

What year was your house built? I don't know the exact year, but Mom mentioned literally today in a conversation with my physical therapist that this house was built shortly after Hurricane Floyd, which happened in 1999.

Where were you the last time you kissed someone? My bed.

Do you have any uncommon interests or hobbies? Yeah, vulture culture art-type stuff.

What did you have for breakfast this morning? A meal replacement shake that I regularly have.

What is the last song you listened to in a car? It was Rammstein's "Armee der Tristen" this morning.

Do you know anyone who is terrified of dogs? I don’t think so.

What’s something that excites you about the future? The feeling that I'm going to get to spend it with Girt.

Are you going to be getting any new pets soon? Very unlikely.

Would you rather be a panda or grizzly bear? I think grizzly bear. They impress me more and their lives seem more interesting.

Do you like BBQ sauce? No, I actually hate it.

What were you doing at 9 AM this morning? I was at PT.

Do you hang out with your sibling's friends? No.

Do you like to eat cornbread? No, it's gross imo.

When was the last time you saw a deer? Been a long time, idk.

Do you eat turkey on Thanksgiving? No, turkey is just so dry and bland to me. I go for the ham.

Baked macaroni and cheese or regular? Regular, I don't like the texture of baked. I feel like I have put my pickiness with food in the spotlight throughout this survey lmao

Name one of your friends' children: Persephone. CHAMPION parents for picking that name, haha.

What was the name of your 5th grade teacher? Mrs. Whitley, who also taught me in the 2nd grade. It's insane, now her very own daughter, a bit younger than me, is another teacher in the same school literally down the hall from her. She's retiring this year and I'm hoping to visit her one day during like, a school workday or something, because she was my favorite teacher that I've ever had and I want to see her before she leaves. Will almost CERTAINLY cry lmao. No other teacher was more like a mom to me, I love her so much.

Have you ever been to a casino? No, and I don't want to go to one. It's not an environment I want to be in.

Who wrote the last book you read? Tui T. Sutherland.

What’s the middle name of your best friend? He doesn't have one, I'm assuming because he's already a junior. His sister has one, so it's not like his parents were against middle names.

Who in your family has a birthday in January? Off the very top of my head, I don't know anyone. I was supposed to be born in January, but I wasn't coming out for ANYTHING lmao, Mom had to be induced.

What’s your favorite flower? Orchids if we're talking just any flower in any color, but I also really like pink tulips.

Do you use any food delivery services such as UberEats, DoorDash, etc? No, that's not extra money we're willing to spend.

How far away is the closest Walmart? It's barely even like, two minutes from here.

Chick-fil-A, Taco Bell or McDonald’s? I feel like the whole of the world will crucify me for this, but I genuinely really like McDonald's lmfao

Do you know the capital of your state? Well yeah, Raleigh.

When’s the last time you ate any type of sweet? I had some Sour Patch yesterday, actually.

Pizza rolls or bagel bites? The former, I've never liked bagel bites all that much.

What kind of flooring is in the room you’re in? Carpet.

What’s your favorite scent? Cinnamon rolls, fresh baked bread, other baked goods, coffee, lilacs, yada yada.

What kind of pets does your grandmother have? My maternal grandmother had an insanely intelligent maltese named CC for a super long time; his passing was devastating for her. I'm pretty sure that's all that she had; she was insanely allergic to cats and most dogs, so she could only have hypoallergenic dogs. As much as I did NOT like that woman, it's a comforting thought that she really didn't have to live that many years without him. Now I have absolutely zero idea what pets Dad's mom had.

What’s the last show you really got into that you have to wait for the next season of? Extraordinary Attorney Woo!!! Fucking wonderful show that just made my heart SO damn warm, but Season 2 isn't coming for a while.

Have you ever witnessed a car accident? Yes; technically we were supposed to pull over, being witnesses, but the amount of traffic and also being on a highway made it impossible.

Sprinkles or frosting? Frosting, I hate sprinkles on literally anything.

Do you like mushrooms? Visually, absolutely. As food, hell no.

How old is your youngest sibling? She's going to be 25 in less than two weeks, EW.

Have you ever been swimming with dolphins? No, but I'd like to one day. Before meerkats, they were my favorite animal, and I still love them... even if they can be literal assholes haha.

What’s the last thing you ordered from a Mexican restaurant? I get the same thing everywhere: shrimp and cheese quesadilla with a side of cheesy rice. FUCK my period is due and I have been so insanely hungry leading up to it and now all I want is this. 😭

Do you carry a purse or a backpack? A purse.

What kind of soda is your favorite? Mountain Dew Voltage and strawberry Sunkist. I almost positively never drink the latter though because I will drink that shit so absurdly fast that I just don't let myself have it.

Have you ever cut yourself shaving? Oh for sure, on my legs anyway. I don't miss that shit.

What’s your Chick-fil-A order? I will literally only eat at Chick-fil-A if the people I'm with decide to go there, and it'd be an inconvenience to get me something elsewhere, and in that case I'll just always get a regular chicken sandwich with fries.

Regular or pink lemonade? Pink, but both are great.

Do you know anyone who’s lost their house in a natural disaster? In middle school, a classmate's house burned down.

Pizza or nacho Lunchables? Oh, the nachos one reigned SUPREME. I'd eat the pizza one, but it was so underwhelming.

Have you ever been inside of a courtroom? Yes.

Did you ever participate in any pageants when you were younger? Hell fucking no.

What kind of cheese is your favorite? American.

Have you ever had a professional massage? No, don't want one; that seems way too fuckin awkward for me.

What’s your Panera Bread order? I haven't tried that much from there, but what I've had hasn't impressed me? The bread is too hard and the taste is nothing special.

Who in your family has a birthday in April? My aforementioned younger sister Nicole as well as my brother Bobby. His bday is actually Earth Day.

Have you ever had your nails done professionally? Yeah, a few times Colleen would have me tag along to a salon she liked just to hang out and chat. I remember doing it once with my sisters, too.

What color Christmas tree do you use? Green... but when I move out I plan on getting a black one.

Have you ever been published in a magazine? At my last college, I became the school newspaper's official photographer, and there was one play I shot that they loved so much they dedicated multiple full pages to some pictures I took, and of course I was credited. ;_; That was one of the most exciting moments of my entire life, and it was prooooobably a career-building opportunity that I threw away by dropping out...

Is anyone in your family in law enforcement? No.

[matwalerian]

Perfect Sound Forever - Matthew Shipp about saxophone duets - Rob Brown, Roscoe Mitchell, David S. Ware, Sabir Mateen, Daniel Carter, Darius Jones, and Mat Walerian

"... I get excited by a sax player that has an authentic jazz phraseology and language ... consider myself a specialist in duets, especially with sax players … I have duets out with Roscoe Mitchell, David S. Ware, Sabir Mateen, Daniel Carter, Darius Jones, and Mat Walerian… "

"I consider that a specialty that I've honed over the years by doing it so much. It's a form of communication, a mode of communication that I think has not been explored a lot in jazz history, but I'm kind of become a specialist at it."

"I think there's an intimacy in that language that gets at a very specific thing that a lot of other jazz rhythm sections do not exactly get you in the way that format gets you to it."

I kind of consider myself a specialist in duets, especially with sax players, I have a whole history of that. I have a bunch with Rob Brown, alto player, and I've been doing a lot with Ivo Perlman, the tenor player. Plus, I have duets out with Roscoe Mitchell, David S. Ware, Sabir Mateen, Daniel Carter, Darius Jones, and Mat Walerian. It's a format that I kind of specialize in. I get excited by a sax player that has an authentic jazz phraseology and language. I fancy myself as really being able to kind of enter their soul and flesh out the details and give them a bed to bounce off of. I consider that a specialty that I've honed over the years by doing it so much. It's a form of communication, a mode of communication that I think has not been explored a lot in jazz history, but I'm kind of become a specialist at it. I think there's an intimacy in that language that gets at a very specific thing that a lot of other jazz rhythm sections do not exactly get you in the way that format gets you to it.

I would say if you want to answer that, listen to my records, the duets with sax players. It's hard to quantify in words. Sure. I know that like the whole idea of I'm trying to be a vortex and suck the sax into the core of your sound, and the way you generate kind of the rhythmic background without drums and bass in that setting, that just creates a different music. You know, it's a whole different kind of premise and a whole different music. Then if you have a rhythm section and you are taking your allotted role, or even if you're being rebellious against the allotted role of a piano in the rhythm section in a jazz quartet, it's just a different kind of universe that comes into being. I don't really know historically- I mean, growing up, I was actually just thinking about this the other day. Since I've done so many piano-sax duets, did I listen to them a lot?

I couldn't remember any albums. I remember having a record as a kid that was a sax-piano duet was a Braxton and Muhal Richard Abrams album [Duets 76]. I remember really liking it. There was a version of "Maple Leaf Rag" by Scott Joplin, which is really fun the way they do it. And I really liked that. There was one ballad on the album I really liked- it was a version of "Miss Ann" by Eric Dolphy on that album. But you know, I don't recall like thinking that they defined this super hyper rarified space. I liked those cuts and a few other things about the album, but I don't recall like listening to many piano-sax duets growing up. I just don't. I mean, again, that's the only record in my album collection (and I have quite a few albums) that I recall being a piano-sax duet.

So listening-wise, growing up, it was not a focus of mine but I think I ended up playing with the sax players. Like I played with Rob Brown before I moved to New York. I met him in Boston. And there was another sax player named Gary Joynes who lived in Boston at the time. And I used to play with him and we just started, we were playing every day and it just ended up being piano-sax duos. So, you know, it kind of was happenstance. That was a situation that I worked in a lot.

Matthew Shipp Perfect Sound Forever interview available here :

http://www.furious.com/perfect/matthewshipp2022.html

[shijiujun]

[END 2020] My Top 9 Danmei Novel Picks of the Year

As a part of my Round Up post for the year, here’s my pick of favourite danmei novels, that I’ve read! This is sort of an accompaniment to my previous danmei rec list over HERE, so there may be one or two overlaps, but I’ve read WAY MORE after that and am prepared to like give more options here 

Note: There should be English translations for all via novel updates if you do a search of the English name, but I don’t think most of them are completed.

If you wanna see my full reading and queue list (it’s all in Chinese tho, for my own records), it’s here.

I’m leaving out the usual MXTX and Priest ones, because they’re already good and we all know that and there’re many carrds and posts dedicated to them.

I am also a sucker for fainting but smart men, and not too overly angsty/complicated storylines, just putting it out there first, which is why I haven’t read a lot of some of the ones on my queue list.

-------

1. 一剑霜寒 | A Sword of Frost by 语笑阑珊

Summary: Jing Yan Ran is the Emperor’s brother and wields military power in the novel, and it starts with an object being stolen from the palace. Jing Yan Ran has to retrieve the item secretly, and so enlists the help of Feng Yu Sect’s Sect Master, Yun Yi Feng, who heads the martial arts world’s one and only information trading post. Yun Yi Feng does not deal in business that involves any royalty, but Jing Yan Ran offers him something he cannot refuse - the Blood Red Lingzhi, a rare and mystical herb that is rumoured to be able to treat his life-threatening condition. 

Yun Yi Feng was used by his shifu when he was younger to test out all kinds of poisons and cures, and since then, his body flushes dangerously hot and cold frequently, with bouts of severe coughing fits in between. Throughout the first mission where he spends time with Jing Yan Ran searching for the stolen object, he allows Jing Yan Ran to take care of him, and they fall in LURVE pretty much like 10 chapters in.

Of course, they have to uncover a plot and conspiracy against their enemies who are plotting to dethrone the Emperor, and also reveal the secrets of Yun Yi Feng’s birth.

My Thoughts: AN ABSOLUTE FAVE AND GEM, I’d say this is my favourite danmei novel ever. This is both hilarious and tears-inducing, to be honest, because for most of the novel YYF knows he doesn’t have long to live and so in the beginning he knows of his own feelings for JYR and JYR also shows him that he loves him, but he is unable to officially reciprocate because he knows his body is like weakening day by day. Halfway through the fear that he’s literally about to die as they are JUST about to find the cure is real, and damn I cried so much at that. Some highlights:

YYF falls asleep very easily in baths and everywhere actually, and pretty much within the first 10 chapters he gets used to JYR carrying him around (even naked from the bath, he’s like oh well, okay cool) and taking care of him, and JYR ALWAYS makes sure he is warm and toasty under his cape

YYF LOVESSSS RICHES, PLAYING THE ZITHER AND COOKING - He’s good at gathering the first one, but he FUCKING SUCKS AS THE LAST TWO - It’s so funny because he’s so beautiful and handsome right, and when he sits down at the zither everyone is like OH DAMN WHAT A DREAM- and then he plays, and everyone’s fantasies is shattered, he’s ABYSMAL at it, and the same goes for cooking

JYR doesn’t actually have the Blood Red Lingzhi, and throughout the first arc, he feels SO DAMN GUILTY because YYF even carved out a pendant that looks like what he thinks the herb looks like, and like carries it with him everywhere LMAO

Available: Novel Online and Manhua on Bilibili

2. 高能二维码 | High Energy QR Code by 青色羽翼

Summary: CEO Xing Ye’s brother Xing Shuo has just passed away at the age of 24, and nothing will make him believe that Xing Shuo died of natural causes despite autopsies and experts telling him that he really died simply of a heart failure. Xing Ye, who has impeccable memory, suddenly recalls the last time he saw Xing Shuo. His brother called out to him just before Xing Ye left for a business trip, and looked as if he had something to say, but ended up just wishing him a safe trip.

At that moment, there was a QR code on Xing Shuo’s phone, and the phone screen was strangely turned out towards Xing Ye, and Xing Ye, with his incredibly high IQ and memory, realizes that Xing Shuo wanted him to see the QR code. Quickly, he reproduces the QR code by pen and then scans it, and finds himself in a game world.

There he meets a narcissistic but also cute mirror which can speak, and finds out later that his name is Lu Ming Ze. Xing Ye’s mission is to clear the game missions in each round that is set by the black and white cubic game system, a system that continuously tempts its players into giving in to committing sins such as killing someone else, stealing and other things. He soon realizes that if he cannot stay on a path clear of these sins, he will never be able to triumph over the game system and return Lu Ming Ze back to his body in the real world. 

At the same time, he gains new teammates and friends for life, and also finds out what role his brother played in this game. 

My Thoughts: MY GOD I LOVE THIS. I LITERALLY JUST FINISHED READING THIS YESTERDAY, and honestly it’s one of my faves. I don’t like game systems very often (I’ve read three others so far, and this, and KOD are the only ones I’ve liked) but this one is *chef’s kiss*. So LMZ was born like with a really handsome face, like SUPER HANDSOME, and that’s why he’s like a harmless narcissist that cannot bear to look at ugly things LMAO, but he’s not spoilt, he makes sure that Xing Ye stays true to himself, and help him keep his head clear. 

THE ONLY THING ABOUT THIS FRICKIN NOVEL IS THAT LU MING ZE STAYS A MIRROR, LIKE DIFFERENT KINDS OF MIRRORS, in the first TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY CHAPTERS. I KID YOU NOT. I FRICKIN KID YOU NOT. I swear I was sooo touched starved at the end of the novel, because they couldn’t even kiss?!! Like Xing Ye kisses the mirror, and then uses his thumbs to like hi-five mini LMZ in the mirror back, they can’t even hug. Do you know how empty my arms felt when I read this book?!! And my arms have never been filled!!!!!!

I really like this one because each game world is set up in such a brilliant way, but it’s not so unnecessarily complex that you literally don’t know what the fuck is going on. Xing Ye’s intelligence as he outmanoeuvres every single one of his enemies and convinces his would-be loyal teammates to trust him is so satisfying, world after world, victory after victory.

Humour is also absolutely ON POINT. A lot of it is centred on Xing Ye getting caught in the real world kissing his handheld mirror (LMZ) by LMZ’s parents (who cannot see him in the mirror) and LMZ’s parents going like ???!!!!!!!! 

Available: Novel Online | Physical Novel is coming out on 10 Dec (freebies are, you guessed it, a mirror)

3. 妻为上 | The Wife is First by 绿野千鹤

Summary: This is set in a historical setting where men can marry other men, but it’s usually reserved for sons who were not borne by the official main first wife of the patriarch of the family, i.e. a son born by a concubine in a family may be forced to marry a man to keep him from being able to become the next family’s patriarch for example. This is because any family’s next leader needs to be able to have children with a wife who married in as a zheng shi (lawful wife), and not a ce shi (second wife) or any other concubines/mistresses etc. Most of these men who marry other men have to take them as their zheng shi and lawful spouse in a sense, and the same goes for the royal family.

The story starts with third prince Jing Shao, who was forced to marry Mu Han Zhang, a Marquis’ second son, by the Empress and Emperor, thereby officially and effectively cutting him out of the race for the throne. He’s mocked by the public as everyone knows what this means, and for the next 10 years, he neglects Mu Han Zhang, blaming him for his predicament, and deliberately showers his three other concubines with affection in front of him, but 10 years later, when Jing Shao is accused of treason, everyone leaves him except for Mu Han Zhang. They are chased to the edge of the cliff by soldiers, and Mu Han Zhang dies in his arms having taken an arrow meant for him earlier, and Jing Shao jumps off the cliff with his dead body, and promises that if there’s a next life, he will do everything Han Zhang says, and love him.

He wakes up immediately on the night of his marriage with Han Zhang, and realizes that he’s been given a second chance to make everything right. Han Zhang is definitely afraid of him, humiliated and angry when he first wakes up after how rough Jing Shao was with him earlier on their wedding night, and he has no memories of their past life. Jing Shao then sets to SHOWER HAN ZHANG with affection, love and basically everything, because he realized that this is the only person who stayed by his side until the end, and then he falls in love with Han Zhang properly this time, and also deals with every single person who maligned and schemed against him in his previous life, with Han Zhang by his side.

My Thoughts: OKAY BEFORE YALL GO INTO THE ‘WIFE’ terminology discourse and everything, in this case they do use the term ‘wife’ literally, and it’s a position, that while men frequently fall into (there are a lot of male ‘wives’ in this story), is also used to cut off like sons from inheriting the family and the fortune, and even titles. Male ‘wives’ aren’t looked down upon in this setting, in fact, Han Zhang gets a lot of leeway as one, and in his case he was also able to rise up the ranks to be an actual official later on, but the sad thing comes from sons who are most of the time forced to marry a male ‘wife’ for whatever reason, and then they are neglected as the son goes and find concubines, women he actually wants to sleep with - this is sad af yall. I don’t know, on one hand, yay for equality in marriage in this setting, but on the other hand like, damn, must you use same-sex marriage like that argh.

ANYWAY THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVES TOO?!!! I mean, especially when Jing Shao literally just goes into doting mode 200% and Han Zhang is totally like wtf why is he so nice to me is he scheming or something? And then he realizes that Jing Shao is really, really gentle towards him despite his reputation as a cruel, dark military commander, and Jing Shao always smiles at him. In any situation, especially in the beginning, when Han Zhang thought Jing Shao would not stand with him, Jing Shao literally just protects him no matter what, gives him everything, and cries, I love it. 

Especially because Han Zhang is the son of a concubine and he was bullied a lot in the Mu family, and the official Lady Mu married him off to Jing Shao in hopes that he would be unhappy for the rest of his life, and I suppose that came true in the first life, but in the second, Han Zhang gets all the love, respect and support he never got before in this family with Jing Shao and that makes me WEEP.

Available: Novel Online and Manhua on Kuaikan

4. 死亡万花筒 Kaleidoscope of Death by 西子绪

OOOH I intro-ed KOD here in my previous rec list. Still one of my faves and all-time re-reads, especially under the covers in the dark hehehe.

5. 你的距离 | Your Distance by 公子优 

Summary: Ting Shuang is a student at a German university, and has this handsome professor Bai Chang Yi who he swears kind of hates him. He’s just broken up with his longtime boyfriend, and then goes on this dating app that matches a profile with him based on distance. The app can also show the matched profile’s distance from him once they enter the same area, and Ting Shuang starts chatting with this Chinese guy on the app, who he finds out later, is 36 years old, 187cm in height and wears glasses. 

The guy is a little aloof and cool, very mature in his replies on the app, and somehow Bai Chang Yi finds out who he is later, as Ting Shuang starts complaining to him about his professor to Bai Chang Yi. Instead of getting angry and offended, BCY is pretty much amused and finds Ting Shuang cute. A few days later Ting Shuang finally realizes who it is he’s been texting, and after getting past the initial embarrassment and fear, they start dating for real, and they really fall in love!!!!! 

My Thoughts: This is sweet and also hilarious af, if you need to like satisfy your sweet tooth, this is definitely one for you. It’s really funny because Bai Chang Yi runs in the same circles as Ting Shuang’s dad, who he’s estranged from because the dad doesn’t want to recognize a son who is gay, and then BCY convinces him later in the funniest of ways, and there’s a small subplot at the end in which Ting Shuang is pretty cool, and yep, short and sweet! BCY in the manhua is handsome af too guys ;-;

Available: Novel Online, Audio Drama on Maoer FM and Manhua on Bilibili, 

6. 神木挠不尽 The White Cat’s Divine Scratching Post by 绿野千鹤

Summary: Mo Tian Liao, a weapons forger and master who ruled the Demon Tribe, was hunted down and killed by other righteous sects in the region when he managed to forge an incredibly destructive weapon that could end the world. Before he died, he placed the only thing he loved, a white cat, into a hole in the tree behind him to protect it. The only thing he was grateful for was that he did not create a blood pact with the cat, Xiao Mao, because if he had done so, when he died, Xiao Mao would have died along with him as well.

Right before he dies, unbeknownst to him, Xiao Mao who is no simple demonic cat, wraps part of his consciousness around Mo Tian Liao, and MTL’s spirit ends up floating about for 300 years, until he finds a suitable time to return with a body made out of a special tree and its wood. The first thing he does, of course, is to find his white cat, but he’s poor, and the body he has isn’t powerful, so he joins Wo Yun Sect, the only sect that did not hunt him down that day hundreds of years ago.

There, he is chosen by Qing Tong shizun to be his direct disciple, much to the astonishment of other shizuns in the sect, and Qing Tong’s shixiongs. MTL has never seen a person as beautiful and gorgeous as his shizun, and if only he could find that cat (who’s actually his shizun, who recognizes him and protects him, even if MTL doesn’t actually need much protection).

My Thoughts: This was hilarious as well, and so romantic?!!! Qing Tong/Xiao Mao waited for MTL to come back, and the moment he came back, Qing Tong was there ready to grab him, and then before he went to sleep that night, Qing Tong thought to himself, “I’ve gotten my person back, I can sleep well now” and AHHHHH at this point they weren’t even like a couple yet? MTL ‘kidnapped’ Qing Tong when he was a young demon cat by accident because he likes pretty things (like his shizun lmao) and Qing Tong is attached to him because MTL never forced a blood pact on him, and gave him everything he wanted as a younger cat before MTL died. Gosh, a mirror in #2 and then a cat now with this one. XD

Available: Novel Online

7. 破云 | Breaking the Clouds by 淮上

Summary: Three years ago, Captain Jiang Ting and his team of the Narcotics division perished in an explosion due to a wrong call of his, and he returns three years later under a new identity ready to deal with the people who set him and his team up. He’s caught in what seems to be a simple murder case almost immediately and meets Yan Xie, who’s Vice Captain and in charge of this case. Yan Xie realizes who Jiang Ting is shortly after, and begins to unravel the huge mystery surrounding the events of three years ago, and falls in love with Jiang Ting along the way as well.

My Thoughts: Okay out of the FOUR crime/detective/thriller danmei novels I’ve read, the poyun and tunhai (below) series is the one that MIRRORS actual narcotics division and undercovers the best. It has the complexity and depth of the drugs/narcotics world, and both this one and its sequel focuses a lot on the position of an undercover and mole. I liked this one a lot because there are SOOOO many twists especially in the last arc, like you honestly won’t see any of them coming until it hits you? And Yan Xie is such a confident, rich-ass narcissist, and he keeps asking Jiang Ting if he can “just touch” him ONCE lmao, he’s thick-skinned af, but that’s why he and Jiang Ting are so compatible ;-;.

Available: Novel Online, Novel Print, Audio Drama and Manhua on Bilibili

8. ���海 | Swallowing the Sea by 淮上

Summary: Sequel to Po Yun. Yu Wu is a young-looking new detective under Captain Bu Chong Hua’s narcotics team. Bu Chong Hua is Yan Xie’s cousin by actual relation, but brother in relationship because BCH’s parents died early and Yan Xie’s parents have been taking care of him mostly. He cannot stand Yu Wu, who seems to want to coast through at work and keep to a 9-5 work schedule. 

It’s only after an altercation and Yu Wu dumping his nonchalant facade to snarl at BCH that he realizes that YW is actually more interesting and mysterious than he thought, and he begins to try to get close to him, understand him. It turns out that Yu Wu is a famous undercover who nearly died a year ago during an operation, and due to various reasons, he was assigned to BCH’s team by higher ups so he can peacefully live the rest of his life out there. However, his past catches up with him quickly, and his enemies turning up forces him to rely on BCH. 

With BCH, Yu Wu’s resentment of having to be an undercover in the past and being so easily discarded by his team’s leaders, and of him being forced to be in the shadows while others can announce their achievements to the world, is slowly erased, because BCH sees him, knows him, and understands him more than anyone else.

My Thoughts: I actually liked this one better than the first one - Yu Wu is such a pouty, angry little thing?! And for good reason (there’s a bit of cannibalism in the book, not by choice when he was younger and in a poor village in Cambodia, where some militants forced survivors in the village to eat the meat of boiled corpses of other villagers, so YW is a vegetarian, like if he eats meat he gets really sick) and the twists here are even more amazing?! BCH really, really, devotes himself to YW the moment he realizes how much he likes him, doing a 180 degree turn. Instead of Yan Xie’s flamboyance, BCH is much steadier, grouchy, like an old uncle, but also looks at things even more clearly than Yan Xie does sometimes. Yu Wu is understandably bitter about what he had to go through, and BCH is the ONLY person who can calm him down, whom he listens to, which I LOVE. Some highlights:

Yu Wu grew up in a poor village and thus loves money, and he fights in underground betting rings to earn more money - The stash of hidden money he collects I think is half for his escape money, but if he happens to never need it, his dream is to donate the money to his village so they can open up a school there - ANYWAY because Yan Xie’s parents, and technically BCH’s ‘parents’ are soooooo rich right, Yan Xie’s mom shows her approval to her son-in-laws (Jiang Ting first, then Yu Wu), by giving them winter pants. It’s kind of like inside warmers, and usually meant for older ladies to wear LOLOL so Yu Wu was like staring at the pants when he finally got them and looked soooo reluctant until Jiang Ting told him it costs $6,000 AND HE WAS LIKE :333333 okie

He acts a lot like a kid?!! He likes eating like some snack but it’s really unhealthy for him, and BCH the mother hen keeps catching him in weird places like the toilet, where he’s hiding from BCH so he can eat his fave snack?! And the whole police station knows not to give YW what he wants in terms of snacks and smokes because once BCH finds out, he makes life very difficult for them HAHAHAHA

9. 穿成反派如何活命 | How to Survive as A Villain by 伊依以翼

Summary: Rich and handsome CEO Xiao Yu An finds out he has a terminal illness (cancer), and dies while he’s reading this online novel, where a king mistreats the crown prince from a neighbouring state which sent him over as hostage after losing a war, and ends up being killed by the crown prince years later (SVSSS much?!). He wakes up AS THE KING, and afraid of dying, he immediately goes about befriending the prince, Yan He Qing. Yan He Qing falls in love with Xiao Yu An while being his friend/hostage/bodyguard, and Xiao Yu An tries to avoid all the deaths he read in the book, while making sure Yan He Qing manages to find his three/four wives, including Xiao Yu An’s sister.

Of course, because Xiao Yu An showed him warmth and kindness, Yan He Qing ends up falling for him instead, and Xiao Yu An is an absolute oblivious idiot because he REALLY doesn’t realize until much later. Yan He Qing ends up declaring war on Xiao Yu An’s kingdom because he is duty bound to do so, but doesn’t hurt Xiao Yu An, wanting to keep him by his side, but YHQ’s scheming uncle drives a wedge between them, and XYA leaves, breaking YHQ’s heart.

They meet again a few years later, where XYA is training to be a physician in a small village and chances upon a severely injured YHQ. There, he realizes that it was all a misunderstanding, and that YHQ actually LIKES, LIKES him, but before they can enjoy this short period of happiness, disaster strikes again.

My Thoughts: THIS WAS really enjoyable, and with the manhua visuals, it is *chef’s kiss*. I think this transmigration version actually delved into the part where XYA is unable to change everything, and if he saves one person, someone else is destined to die, and that moral dilemma devastates him a lot. In this novel he actually transmigrates TWICE, once into the king’s body, and the second time into a neighbouring state’s prince/king’s body, who looks exactly like his modern self after. YHQ is real sweet to him istg, and I like that the epilogues are SUPER EXTENSIVE, including an arc where YHQ and XYA transmigrate back to the real world and everyone who died is alive and close to them, and gets their happy ending ;-;

Available: Novel Online and Manhua on Bilibili

[airplanned]

Hello.  In this Ted Talk, I will discuss how the Barbarian Armor in Breath of the Wild is problematic AF.

Let's start with the word "Barbarian."  This is a term invented by the ancient Greeks to describe anyone who didn't speak Greek or was not a Greek citizen.  It was a dichotomy: you were either Greek or a barbarian.  It seemed, to them, that every non-Greek speaker was just saying, "Bar bar bar bar."  So, it's super offensive.  I'm sure you can think of at least one modern equivalent of a term based on how a caricature of a culture speaks their native language. 

When the Roman Empire came along, they started using the term pretty specifically to mean non-Roman tribes.  Big stand outs here are the Imazighen (who you might know as the Berbers with the same root as barbarian), along with the Gauls and the Celts, all of whom gave the Romans a lot of grief.  Julius Caesar himself wrote a whole book about his war against the Barbarian Gauls.  (It's usually assigned as reading in Latin 2.)

In modern usage, the term has expanded out again to any group that is "other" or "barbaric," but it still focuses in on tribal and indigenous groups and has the connotation of being overly violent, cruel, or merciless.  It is an offensive term equating difference to cruelty.

So let's get back to this armor.  From the neck down, it's Celtic inspired.  They were known for their body paint and furs.  This tracks with the word "barbarian" used as the Romans would use it.  So just with the name and the look of two pieces, this armor is already othering an indigenous tribe with a connotation of cruelty.

The color text for the chest armor and leg wrappings reads, "once worn by the warriors of an ancient warlike tribe from the Faron region. The war paint bolsters your fighting spirit and raises your attack power."

Yiiikes.

Let's dig into why that's a yikes from me.  "An ancient warlike tribe."  1. This moves it from subtext and coding to textual.  This armor belonged to an indigenous group in Hyrule. 

2. "Warlike."  This is the start of the dehumanizing language we're going to see.  It's a common tool of oppressive, colonialist regimes.  "Warlike" implies that they are more violent than even the colonizers coming into their homeland and oppressing them.  It implies that they are more focused on battle than art and science.  It leads to "They are dangerous and need to be reigned in for the colonizer's safety," because they might kill our proper young men or assault our proper young women or steal our proper young children.  And/or "They are uncivilized and the colonizers will teach them how to better themselves."  There’s a level of implied naivete there--that they just don’t know how to do better. If we go back to our Celtic example, historically multiple oppressive groups had epic battles with them, and they were described as "warlike."  In fact, the Celts fought so hard that Caesar was pushed back, and later, after his death, Hadrian gave up and built a wall, saying that that was as far as the empire went and there was just no possible way to push further into their territory.  But now we (enlightened people of the 21st century) think of Celtic culture as having intricate art and music and language.  We know this "warlike" moniker is propoganda born of fear and frustration and propagated throughout the empire.  Think of the cultures that you've heard described as "warlike."  Do you believe they really are?  Or do you think this is a narrative constructed by an oppressor for the purpose of villainizing them?

Other examples of dehumanizing language: "feral," "primitive," "crude," "savage," "wild."  Also things like "child-like" can infantalize and deny the maturity, intelligence, and decision making skills of an adult.  This ties back to the naivete again--the idea that these children need to be guided.

3. "from the Faron region."  Now, you may recall that the three pieces of the armor set are found in the three labyrinths.  Weirdly, none of these are in Faron.  This is where we learn the name of the "warlike culture from Faron": the Zonai.  (Why is it called the Barbarian armor and not the Zonai armor?  Hmmmmmmm.) Zonai ruins are found all over the map, in all sorts of environments.  So why is Nintendo saying they're specifically from Faron?  It's because cultures who live in rainforests are typically indigenous and typically people of color.  There's a common thing here where colonizers judge forest-dwelling groups for not colonizing the forest.  Tear it down and build houses out of bricks! Tear it down and have a field of wheat!  Tear it down and have a field of cattle!  The colonizers’ idea was that if they weren’t “working” the land in the way the Europeans could identify, then they didn’t “own” the land and it was up for taking. Dove-tailing with this, we have colonizers’ constant judgements that their way of doing things is the only "proper" way, and all others ways are wrong.  So where does Nintendo say this fictional indigenous tribe is from?  Clearly, the jungle even though they have a labyrinth next to a snow field and in the middle of the sea, and they have ruins in a forest right next to the Lost Woods.  But no.  They're indigenous, and Nintendo really needs that to hit home.

Now at this point, we need to get into how the helm piece with a skull is not a Celtic thing.  And the Zonai ruins are not Celtic inspired at all.  They're inspired more by Aztec ruins.  This matches a bit better with the jungle habitat.  But now we've gained a level of problematic issues, because suddenly we're not talking about a white indigenous group and Link doing some Braveheart cosplay.  Now we're talking about people of color.  We're talking about demonizing people with the the dual identities of being indigenous and non-white.  Think of it this way: a lot of people have an easier time accepting "the Celts weren't warlike," than accepting "the Aztecs weren't warlike."  My saying this isn’t a judgement against people who struggle here.  We inhabit a colonialst society where this narrative that indigenous people deserve their oppression is pressed more heavily on non-white groups.

So let's look at the color text for the Barbarian Helm, because it's slightly different from the other two: "A helmet once worn by the warriors of an ancient warlike tribe from the Faron region. Wearing it draws out your inner animal, increasing your strength and battle prowess."

4. "Inner Animal."  (big sigh) Now we're comparing indigenous people to animals.  This tactic has been used to oppress and belittle since colonization began. Nothing is more dehumanizing than implying that someone is not a human.  To this day, you can hear groups compared to apes and monkeys.  It's absurdly offensive.

This instance is explicit. But there are subtler ways that equating an oppressed culture to an animal sneaks into language.  Words describing someone's features as ape-like or rat-like.  Words describing someone's movements as cat-like or dog-like.  Words describing the way people talk as grunting or barking or howling.

So I guess Nintendo didn't consider that indigenous people who encounter this oppressive language every day until it grinds and wears would play their game and have to hear it yet again.  I guess they didn't think about how by using this language, they were perpetuating a dehumanizing narrative that unknowing people would pick up and continue to use. 

Language has meaning.

*

Edit: I am a white dude.  I speak from no authority.  I just spend a lot of time thinking about language and connotations and hating on colonialism (and I took a lot of Latin, if you can’t tell).  It’s not my intention to talk over anyone.

[audreydoeskaren]

History of Chinese standing collars (part 3: post republican era)

Quick recap: I was debating with myself whether “Mandarin collar” should be a thing because standing collars throughout Chinese history looked different. I went through the Ming and Qing dynasties in part 1 and the republican era in part 2, now I’ll look at what comes after that. I numbered the styles in parts 1 and 2 but they’re only guidelines so you don’t have to remember anything.

So in this post we’ve kind of reached the end of the era where fashion consisted of a single silhouette in any given year and all hell ran loose. I’m having a lot of difficulties classifying things as Chinese or Western because the distinction is really blurred, and I also ran into problems explaining why certain historical European things looked so similar to Chinese ones so there will also be a lot of confusion. 

1950s & 60s Chinese application

Summary of 1950s fashion, mainland and others.

Because of the communist victory in the Civil War, fashion in the mainland was different to other (capitalist) areas populated by the Chinese diaspora such as Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan etc.. Let’s look at capitalist area fashion first; I’ll be referring to Hong Kong because Hong Kong was the center of cheongsam making at the time.

Collars on 50s Hong Kong cheongsam grew taller on the basis of collar style 10 but retained the rounded, tapering edge, resulting in a v shape gap down the middle that weirdly recalls collar style 6 from part 1 and part 2. It’s basically completely identical to collar style 6 but stiffened and extremely form fitting. It’s usually closed with one pankou at the base but because of westernization, 50s cheongsam often had no visible pankou----everything is closed with snap buttons, zippers or hooks and eyes/bars. An important aspect of collars of 50s and 60s Hong Kong cheongsam is that they left out the binding around the neck. All cheongsam prior to this point were bound around the exterior edge, the side closure, the slits and the collar seam (on the bodice not the collar), 50s cheongsam collars purposefully neglected the binding at the collar seam for some reasons. This makes the collar look like it’s one continuous piece of fabric with the bodice, which it isn’t. A lot of modern representation of cheongsam or any Chinese inspired clothing (in video games, books and anime etc.) do this, even if the character is from before the 1950s. It REALLY bugs me. If you are an artist or writer and designing costumes for Chinese characters prior to the 50s, please include binding/trimmings on all three seams, it’s an easy way to bump up historical accuracy. With that said, completely plain collars without any binding or trim was actually the most common. Let’s call this collar style 13.

Source here

1954 photograph of Li Lihua and Clark Gable. Collar style 13 with stiffening and no collar seam binding. You can see how firm and neck hugging the collar is, contrary to a lot of modern cheongsam collars which are saggy and loose.

The popularity of collar style 13 continued into the 60s. When the cheongsam fell out of popularity, it ceased to exist as well.

Source here

60s cheongsam with collar style 13. I’m really not a fan of the nude/light lipstick trend of the 60s, like, as a person with no lip color definition it makes me look like a potato.

Now moving on to mainland collars. In the 1950s, cheongsam with the 40s collar style 12 were still occasionally seen, but the fashionable collar shape also became taller and was similar to the Hong Kong collar style 13. Interestingly, some 50s mainland cheongsam retained the binding around the collar seam, making them look more “traditional” in a sense. However, collars both with and without collar seam binding existed and it was just a matter of personal preference.

Source here

1950s photograph of a mainland lady in cheongsam. The collar is taller and closes with one button, much like Hong Kong collars of the era, but the neck binding is present.

Aoku robe collars from the 1940s onward mostly had the 40s style low collar, although in the 50s and 60s they rose in height very slightly.

Source here

1964 poster showing a girl in aoku, the robe has a low, rounded collar.

However, garments with a standing collar became worn a lot less frequently in the 50s and 60s in both mainland and non-mainland areas, since a lot of people adopted Western fashion.

Source here

1950s photograph of a group of mainland people wearing jackets of Western construction. Some of them seem to be wearing informal military jackets, commonly known as “Mao suit” or “Zhongshan suit” nowadays, with folded collars.

Source here

1950s photograph of some women in Malaysia, some in cheongsam and some in Western New Look dresses.

Western application

I think it’s also quite important to discuss how Chinese standing collars were perceived by Western designers, because the Western fashion industry does hold a lot more power globally and also reverse influenced Chinese collar designs in the post 1960s era. So, in the 1950s and 60s Western designers thought cheongsam was really cool and produced a lot of affordable sewing patterns for their versions of cheongsam. I think this is also because pre-1950s cheongsam didn’t use the Western construction method and patterns needed to be individually drafted so it was difficult to make mass produced sewing patterns. From all the sewing patterns I have seen personally, the super tall standing collar popular in Hong Kong was not really appreciated by Western designers at all?? Western cheongsam sewing patterns all had the very low 1940s style collar, combined with an hourglass silhouette New Look bodice and skirt, looking rather anachronistic. These collars also didn’t have binding/trim around the collar seam, in line with fashionable Hong Kong cheongsam of the day. 

Source here

1950s Advance sewing pattern for cheongsam. The collar is low and has rectangular edges, something about a decade out of fashion in Hong Kong and Shanghai. No collar seam binding.

Source here

1950s Simplicity sewing pattern for cheongsam. Likewise with super low 1940s collars. Collarless cheongsam died in China in the mid 1920s, yet it lives on in the imagination of Western designers. By the way, the frog closures with a quatrefoil shape are not Chinese, I’m gonna write another post about this. I love the look in the middle it’s very glam.

1970s and later

The post 1960s era is what ultimately created the confusion around standing collars nowadays. Around this time Western and Chinese fashions started to merge and become one, and garments made completely in the historical Chinese method were more and more difficult to come by; Western construction techniques reigned supreme. 

From the 70s onward, most “Chinese collars” had the 40s rounded edge shape but were either medium low or medium height. The lack of collar seam binding persisted into the current day, which is something I kind of lament because without this binding collars easily read as Renaissance doublet... (more on that later)

I usually avoid calling any standing collars from the 1970s onward Chinese/Mandarin because 1) standing collars were never a uniquely Chinese thing to begin with 2) since cheongsam was no longer fashionable among actual Chinese people, designers who made cheongsam pulled all kinds of shenanigans without any historical precedent whatsoever. Also, since clothes with structured/stiffened standing collars stopped being a staple in the average Western person’s wardrobe, white people started calling everything with the most remote hint of a standing collar Chinese to further stir the pot, emboldened by the cultural appropriation craze of the 60s and 70s. Ok that’s very loaded, but it’s true that in the 60s and 70s there was a lot of Western clothing designs that took inspiration from other cultures without permission. Westerners could totally design and wear Chinese style clothing given that the intention is respectful and they know about the garment in question, but a lot of times the accuracy of the designs leaves much to be desired. There was also a lot of Orientalist inspiration in the 10s and 20s but the borrowing back then wasn’t so... literal. When I look at so called cheongsam sewing patterns from the 70s onward, I sometimes seriously have trouble identifying if something is meant to be Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Polynesian or any other region/culture...

I’ll just find pictures of Chinese inspired clothing from the 70s onward with a “Mandarin collar” label and point out their source of inspiration.

Source here

1972 Simplicity sewing pattern for cheongsam. It’s the same Western collar from the 50s and 60s just slightly taller. Oh and the closures used on the two designs in the middle are again likely not pankou. After the 60s, this neck design with a oval shape keyhole cutout became quite common and that persisted to the current day. Don’t know what the purpose of that was, just because you show 5 square centimeters more skin doesn’t mean your cheongsam is sexier?

Source here

The description of this 70s Simplicity pattern says “Mandarin collar” but the source of inspiration is obviously Japanese military/school uniforms, AGAIN. The collar’s height and rectangular edges, combined with the placement of buttons above the waist on the bodice, everything about this reads as Japanese. The frog closures on the left are once again European and not Chinese pankou (sheesh I really need to make this other post). The original designer probably meant for it to be Japanese but the seller mistakenly labelled it a Mandarin collar design. 

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70s Teresa Teng (rest in power legend) in a theatrical cheongsam with a similar collar, either a stretched version of the 40s collar or a shrunk version of the 50s/60s one.

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Google search result for “Mandarin collar dress”. Same Western low collar from the 70s. A new problem with modern mass produced cheongsam is that the collar oftentimes doesn’t fit the wearer and appears too baggy. Or maybe it’s not mass production, just that people nowadays are very unaccustomed to wearing tight fitting standing collars so they assume there needs to be some extra space? As someone who wears stiff standing collars on a regular basis I have to say it actually isn’t uncomfortable at all and elongates your neck a lot better. This is what most cheongsam collars nowadays look like, even the self proclaimed “traditional” ones, they literally originated from 1950s/60s Western sewing pattern companies’ interpretation of contemporary Chinese cheongsam collars.

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Baidu search result for “Mandarin collar suit”. This, is, literally, almost a replica Japanese uniform. The seller is also using the tag Zhongshan suit lmao (I’ve explained in my 1950s mainland post what a Zhongshan suit is not supposed to look like), delusion is not a fragrance I guess. Why is it so hard to let Japan be Japan and China be China??

Conclusion & afterthought

Another thing I need to mention is that standing collars are by no means unique to Chinese historical dress; they were also widely used in European historical fashion, long before standing collars became worn with uniforms of “Mandarins” or Chinese officials, which further proves my point that “Mandarin collar” is not a valid term. Also, standing collars in Europe have always been stiffened/structured, whereas Chinese collars only started to become stiffened around the 1890s, possibly due to European influence as well. For example, the 1950s collar with rounded edges and no collar seam binding reads as European Renaissance doublet very easily. To be fair though, a lot of the collar shapes seen in early 20th century Chinese womenswear had been done before in European Renaissance fashion and during that time period in China only the OG Ming Dynasty collar mentioned in part 1 was used sooooooo

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1630-40 English doublet. The collar looks mighty similar to 1930s Chinese women’s ones. I know next to nothing about Renaissance fashion so I’m not sure how it’s constructed, but it proves the point that collars like these were not a uniquely Chinese phenomenon.

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Meanwhile the Mandarins in China. He’s wearing a crossover collar robe underneath a round collar robe, no standing collar here.

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1780s French men’s coat with a standing collar.

Standing collars were also commonly used in Victorian and Edwardian women’s everyday fashion without any connection to China whatsoever.

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1860s fashion plate for a gown with a low standing shirt collar peeking underneath. 

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1887 fashion plate from the Journal des Demoiselles. Bustle gowns with standing collars.  

Bonus rant

I have come to the actual point of this series of posts, to answer the question: should “Mandarin collar” be a thing? In which case I’m gonna have to go with no. In the three posts I made on the topic I categorized a total of 13 collar styles, each distinct from each other and some being inspired by Western clothing, and showed that the use of the term “Mandarin collar” nowadays is very vague and ambiguous. I don’t understand why people in the fashion industry give my ancestors all the credits for a design feature as basic and common as a standing collar... Maybe it’s a marketing gimmick like how Sternhalma (a German board game) is advertised in the US as “Chinese checkers”?? Or maybe it shows that a lot of fashion designers lack a basic understanding of historical fashion? Either way it makes no sense. I think the concept is also slightly offensive since it simply ignores the diversity of actual historical Chinese standing collar designs, kind of reinforcing the racist stereotype that non-white fashion histories are static and never changing.

If I do have to pick a most traditional/iconic style of Chinese standing collar, I would go with either the original Ming Dynasty soft collar with metal buttons or the 1940s short collar with collar seam binding used on aoku, cheongsam, changshan and magua. In the mainland Chinese countryside, the 1940s style collar was preserved and actually still made today, but in the post-Mao era it became increasingly seen by the mainland population as 土 (a derogatory term for Chinese folk stuff meaning tacky or cringy) compared to the exciting new Western fashions being imported at the time. As a result, more traditional items of clothing like aoku for women, changshan and magua for men were neglected in favor of more westernized cheongsam designs, leading to some cursed contraptions.

Maybe this is a hot take, I personally really don’t vibe with the concept of 土 because it’s very loaded and usually the gateway drug to massive internalized racism. I’ve heard so many people bash aoku and magua constructed in the historical method and put post-60s Western inspired cheongsam on a pedestal even though the former is grounded in history and the latter is an Orientalist mess. There is nothing wrong with making aoqun, aoku, magua, changshan, cheongsam or any other historical item of clothing in the historically accurate method, they’re charming in their own ways and don’t need to be “modified”. In my opinion, the puckering under the armpits caused by the lack of a shoulder seam and the rounded shoulders are what makes historical Chinese clothing beautiful to begin with :3 I think there’s something inherently modern and authentic in the pedantic, antiquarian pursuit of historical clothing, like you know how whenever a revival happens it actually brings something new to the table? It’s not problematic to wear modern cheongsam designs per se, it’s just important to keep in mind that it doesn’t have much to do with actual Chinese history and represents more of the status quo of Chinese fashion nowadays.

Ok I’m going off the collar track but it’s time to finish this post. Thank you for reading, and as I mentioned, the next post will be about Chinese pankou. I’m almost finished with that one as well and I’m really excited with what I have planned next :D

[citrina-posts]

Avatar: Cultural Appreciation or Appropriation?

I love Avatar: the Last Airbender. Obviously I do, because I run a fan blog on it. But make no mistake: it is a show built upon cultural appropriation. And you know what? For the longest time, as an Asian-American kid, I never saw it that way.

There are plenty of reasons why I never realized this as a kid, but I’ve narrowed it down to a few reasons. One is that I was desperate to watch a show with characters that looked like me in it that wasn’t anime (nothing wrong with anime, it’s just not my thing). Another is that I am East Asian (I have Taiwanese and Korean ancestry) and in general, despite being the outward “bad guys”, the East Asian cultural aspects of Avatar are respected far more than South Asian, Middle Eastern, and other influences. A third is that it’s easy to dismiss the negative parts of a show you really like, so I kind of ignored the issue for a while. I’m going to explain my own perspective on these reasons, and why I think we need to have a nuanced discussion about it. This is pretty long, so if you want to keep reading, it’s under the cut.

Obviously, the leadership behind ATLA was mostly white. We all know the co-creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino (colloquially known as Bryke) are white. So were most of the other episodic directors and writers, like Aaron Ehasz, Lauren Montgomery, and Joaquim Dos Santos. This does not mean they were unable to treat Asian cultures with respect, and I honestly do believe that they tried their best! But it does mean they have certain blinders, certain perceptions of what is interesting and enjoyable to watch. Avatar was applauded in its time for being based mostly on Asian and Native American cultures, but one has to wonder: how much of that choice was based on actual respect for these people, and how much was based on what they considered to be “interesting”, “quirky”, or “exotic”?

The aesthetic of the show, with its bending styles based on various martial arts forms, written language all in Chinese text, and characters all decked out in the latest Han dynasty fashions, is obviously directly derivative of Asian cultures. Fine. That’s great! They hired real martial artists to copy the bending styles accurately, had an actual Chinese calligrapher do all the lettering, and clearly did their research on what clothing, hair, and makeup looked like. The animation studios were in South Korea, so Korean animators were the ones who did the work. Overall, this is looking more like appreciation for a beautiful culture, and that’s exactly what we want in a rapidly diversifying world of media.

But there’s always going to be some cherry-picking, because it’s inevitable. What’s easy to animate, what appeals to modern American audiences, and what is practical for the world all come to mind as reasons. It’s just that… they kinda lump cultures together weirdly. Song from Book 2 (that girl whose ostrich-horse Zuko steals) wears a hanbok, a traditionally Korean outfit. It’s immediately recognizable as a hanbok, and these dresses are exclusive to Korea. Are we meant to assume that this little corner of the mostly Chinese Earth Kingdom is Korea? Because otherwise, it’s just treated as another little corner of the Earth Kingdom. Korea isn’t part of China. It’s its own country with its own culture, history, and language. Other aspects of Korean culture are ignored, possibly because there wasn’t time for it, but also probably because the creators thought the hanbok was cute and therefore they could just stick it in somewhere. But this is a pretty minor issue in the grand scheme of things (super minor, compared to some other things which I will discuss later on).

It’s not the lack of research that’s the issue. It’s not even the lack of consideration. But any Asian-American can tell you: it’s all too easy for the Asian kids to get lumped together, to become pan-Asian. To become the equivalent of the Earth Kingdom, a mass of Asians without specific borders or national identities. It’s just sort of uncomfortable for someone with that experience to watch a show that does that and then gets praised for being so sensitive about it. I don’t want you to think I’m from China or Vietnam or Japan; not because there’s anything wrong with them, but because I’m not! How would a French person like to be called British? It would really piss them off. Yet this happens all the time to Asian-Americans and we are expected to go along with it. And… we kind of do, because we’ve been taught to.

1. Growing Up Asian-American

I grew up in the early to mid-2000s, the era of High School Musical and Hannah Montana and iCarly, the era of Spongebob and The Amazing World of Gumball and Fairly Odd Parents. So I didn’t really see a ton of Asian characters onscreen in popular shows (not anime) that I could talk about with my white friends at school. One exception I recall was London from Suite Life, who was hardly a role model and was mostly played up for laughs more than actual nuance. Shows for adults weren’t exactly up to par back then either, with characters like the painfully stereotypical Raj from Big Bang Theory being one of the era that comes to mind.

So I was so grateful, so happy, to see characters that looked like me in Avatar when I first watched it. Look! I could dress up as Azula for Halloween and not Mulan for the third time! Nice! I didn’t question it. These were Asian characters who actually looked Asian and did cool stuff like shoot fireballs and throw knives and were allowed to have depth and character development. This was the first reason why I never questioned this cultural appropriation. I was simply happy to get any representation at all. This is not the same for others, though.

2. My Own Biases

Obviously, one can only truly speak for what they experience in their own life. I am East Asian and that is arguably the only culture that is treated with great depth in Avatar.

I don’t speak for South Asians, but I’ve certainly seen many people criticize Guru Pathik, the only character who is explicitly South Asian (and rightly so. He’s a stereotype played up for laughs and the whole thing with chakras is in my opinion one of the biggest plotholes in the show). They’ve also discussed how Avatar: The Last Airbender lifts heavily from Hinduism (with chakras, the word Avatar itself, and the Eye of Shiva used by Combustion Man to blow things up). Others have expressed how they feel the sandbenders, who are portrayed as immoral thieves who deviously kidnap Appa for money, are a direct insult to Middle Eastern and North African cultures. People have noted that it makes no sense that a culture based on Inuit and other Native groups like the Water Tribe would become industrialized as they did in the North & South comics, since these are people that historically (and in modern day!) opposed extreme industrialization. The Air Nomads, based on the Tibetan people, are weirdly homogeneous in their Buddhist-inspired orange robes and hyperspiritual lifestyle. So too have Southeast Asians commented on the Foggy Swamp characters, whose lifestyles are made fun of as being dirty and somehow inferior. The list goes on.

These things, unlike the elaborate and highly researched elements of East Asian culture, were not treated with respect and are therefore cultural appropriation. As a kid, I had the privilege of not noticing these things. Now I do.

White privilege is real, but every person has privileges of some kind, and in this case, I was in the wrong for not realizing that. Yes, I was a kid; but it took a long time for me to see that not everyone’s culture was respected the way mine was. They weren’t considered *aesthetic* enough, and therefore weren’t worth researching and accurately portraying to the creators. It’s easy for a lot of East Asians to argue, “No! I’ve experienced racism! I’m not privileged!” News flash: I’ve experienced racism too. But I’ve also experienced privilege. If white people can take their privilege for granted, so too can other races. Shocking, I know. And I know now how my privilege blinded me to the fact that not everybody felt the same euphoria I did seeing characters that looked like them onscreen. Not if they were a narrow and offensive portrayal of their race. There are enough good-guy Asian characters that Fire Lord Ozai is allowed to be evil; but can you imagine if he was the only one?

3. What It Does Right

This is sounding really down on Avatar, which I don’t want to do. It’s a great show with a lot of fantastic themes that don’t show up a lot in kids’ media. It isn’t superficial or sugarcoating in its portrayal of the impacts of war, imperialism, colonialism, disability, and sexism, just to name a few. There are characters like Katara, a brown girl allowed to get angry but is not defined by it. There are characters like Aang, who is the complete opposite of toxic masculinity. There are characters like Toph, who is widely known as a great example of how to write a disabled character.

But all of these good things sort of masked the issues with the show. It’s easy to sweep an issue under the rug when there’s so many great things to stack on top and keep it down. Alternatively, one little problem in a show seems to make-or-break media for some people. Cancel culture is the most obvious example of this gone too far. Celebrity says one ignorant thing? Boom, cancelled. But… kind of not really, and also, they’re now terrified of saying anything at all because their apologies are mocked and their future decisions are scrutinized. It encourages a closed system of creators writing only what they know for fear of straying too far out of their lane. Avatar does do a lot of great things, and I think it would be silly and immature to say that its cultural appropriation invalidates all of these things. At the same time, this issue is an issue that should be addressed. Criticizing one part of the show doesn’t mean that the other parts of it aren’t good, or that you shouldn’t be a fan.

If Avatar’s cultural appropriation does make you uncomfortable enough to stop watching, go for it. Stop watching. No single show appeals to every single person. At the same time, if you’re a massive fan, take a sec (honestly, if you’ve made it this far, you’ve taken many secs) to check your own privilege, and think about how the blurred line between cultural appreciation (of East Asia) and appropriation (basically everybody else) formed. Is it because we as viewers were also captivated by the aesthetic and overall story, and so forgive the more problematic aspects? Is it because we’ve been conditioned so fully into never expecting rep that when we get it, we cling to it?

I’m no media critic or expert on race, cultural appropriation, or anything of the sort. I’m just an Asian-American teenager who hopes that her own opinion can be put out there into the world, and maybe resonate with someone else. I hope that it’s given you new insight into why Avatar: The Last Airbender is a show with both cultural appropriation and appreciation, and why these things coexist. Thank you for reading!