#I feel like it happens a lot with East Asian characters and like.

[summerhighlandfalls]

Illustration of an internet phenomenon I really hate, where a white artist learns how to draw exactly one type of person of color and then gives up:

[thesharktanksdriver]

Being a Magical Girl in Gotham (Platonic)

Part 1 Part 3 part 4

A continuation from the last part. I think I’m gonna later add stuff about y/n meeting other hero’s and villains plus some oneshots instead of just headcanon stories

Once again sorry/not sorry if characters are out of character . Also this is continuing y/n’a journey of continually getting more villains and hero’s to adopt them lol.

Y/n is literally becoming these Criminally insane villains’s emotional support child lol. And y’all can’t stop me from making that happen

Months within your friendship with Damien your a regular visit to the Wayne manor

And Damien is more than pleased with this since he now gets to brag to his older half-brothers

You can only giggle as the youngest Wayne drags you away before any of the others are able to talk to you

Damien at the manor enjoys spending time out in the garden with you

Having small picnics as Titus lounges beside the two of your in the grass near the expertly planted gardenias in full bloom

Turns out he likes helping Alfred with the garden quite a bit

Turns out he likes helping Alfred with the garden quite a bit

Turns out he likes helping Alfred with the garden quite a bit

Turns out he likes helping Alfred with the garden quite a bit

Turns out he likes helping Alfred with the garden quite a bit

Turns out he likes helping Alfred with the garden quite a bit

They even planted a small raspberry bush that only the two (now three) of them knew about

It’s rare to feel as if sunlight was a thing in Gotham but out here it’s almost rare that there wasn’t a beam of golden light hitting your face

If you make a flower crown for Damien he’ll wear it with a bit of bitching but the minute his brothers make a comment about it he’s pulling out his sword

Speaking of which, he shows you his sword collection!

An honour only you get to see without the threat of being stabbed as an extra bonus

He has a wide array of them, all from different areas of the world and different time periods

It’s actually really impressive

(Definitely asks if you want one and plans to get you one as a gift)

His room is bigger than your apartment and half the shit there would cover 4 months of rent

You don’t mention this though

He has a lot of imported furniture from what looks to be the Middle East and Asian descent

If you ask about it he’ll actually be really happy to explain their origin and history

He’s very passionate about history and seems to have a ton of knowledge on all arrays of most countries

Definitely gets worried when you mention have cup noodles for dinner 4 times in a row and demands you stay for dinner

You do and it ends up being really fun

At school after that he makes sure Alfred packs an extra lunch for you to have

Mr Wayne himself is actually really nice and much different from the Himbo he’s often portrayed as by the press

He’s extremely friendly to you, always offering a smile and small hello when Damien drags you off to wherever

He doesn’t seem to mind you being in his home infact he seems to encourage it

When Damien had chased his brother Dick around for trying to spy on you and him Bruce sat down and talked with you

He actually thanked you for making his son happy

Also asks if maybe he could speak to your parents sometime

You just say that their usually really busy abroad but you’d that get a letter from them since you don’t have a phone

You can tell by that alone he’s worried, like real worried at the thought of you basically living alone in a city like Gotham

A week later you forge a note from penguin lol. That man has good handwriting but definitely lost a few years on his life when you said it was for faking a note from your nonexistent parents

Bruce might be considering to adopt you and his sons are fully encouraging this

At some point in going to the manor you began sometimes helping Alfred with some small chores by delivering Bruce’s tea

He finds it to be a pleasant surprise and give him more opportunities to speak to you

Bruce finds you to be a impressive young lady. One who’s wise beyond their years and someone who has a unknown but similar weight on their shoulders

It worries him since he sees himself in your eyes

He begins connecting some dots about the rumours he’s heard about some young girl vigilante?, he’s not sure what exactly to label them as

But isn’t 100% sure it’s you since they apparently look 17 and your clearly 15

He puts a pin in it though

Anyways you can bet that he’s now inviting you to his gala’s so Damien more at ease plus give you a nice night to relax

He pays for clothes and even gifts them to you afterwards

The minute he finds out your an orphan you best bet he’s pulling out the papers-

Dick is super excited to meet you! Minus the fact that Damien is basically hissing at him and dragging you away

When he does get to speak to you he kinda reminds you of Nightwing with how pleasantly chatty he is

He asks about how your school is, if your enjoying your stay and what you think of lil Dami etc

Probably suggests to Damien about having you over for a sleepover and that he’ll take over his patrol for that night

Damien his heavily considering it

Probably calls you stuff like “kiddo!” And some alternation of your name

Has Alfred bring you and Damien snacks when y’all are hanging out

Listen he’s just really invested in the fact that Damien has a seemingly normal friend whom he cares for

It means he’s learning and adjusting to a relatively normal life outside of being Robin which was something he always worried about

Like Bruce he kinda gets worried about how your parents are apparently abroad and left you, a 15 year old child alone in Gotham of all places

Gets even more worried when you refuse to get a ride home

Sometimes spies but always gets caught and chased off by Damien who’s slightly annoyed

He means well

When you join for dinner he likes to tell a lot of stories and listen to your own

Basically already considers you a part of the family and is waiting for Bruce to slap out those papers

Might try to pry about who’s your favourite superhero just to see everyone at the table silently hope

His hope is crushed when you say it’s Wonder Woman

Then Everyone’s hood is crushed when you say your favourite male superhero is supermen

Clark probably hears their crushed souls from metropolis lol

Tim is just plain confused and wonders if your being paid or need help

He might love Damien as his little brother but he also has the scars to prove that little shit ain’t always a law abiding citizen

When he does realize though that Damien didn’t threaten you nor is paying you (why did he even jump to that conclusion?) he finds himself curious

Bruce forbids him from looking through your entire internet history and trying to find every possible trace of your existence

You notice early on how he’s addicted to coffee (just like Nightwing mentioned about red Robin)

Like with Bruce you help Alfred and deliver him some from time to time

This along with the limo rides with him and Damien give you the chance to actually talk to him

He’s really passionate about his goals, talking about his passions and plans in life

He seems to be hard working like you are, but to a worrying degree where he pushes himself to the limit (like you do)

It’s somewhat worrying to you as you find him lunched over his laptop with 6 empty mugs of coffee and bags under his eyes

You can’t say much since that would be hypocritical

But that doesn’t mean you can’t distract him for a bit as to give home a break he desperately needs!

You use Rigel to get his eyes away from his computer screen. The small white ferret making him pause as he scoops them up

Also riddles galore, some of which you might’ve borrowed from Riddler (he’d be so proud)

He’s pretty determined in getting to know you after a while, figuring out what you like and don’t, or what type of food you preferred

It might kinda seem a bit creepy at first but you realize that this is his way of trying to show his care. Odd but kinda amusing once you realize he told Alfred and now you have an entire menu catered to your taste

At some point he might’ve peaked at your records and is confused when he can’t find anything

He hasn’t told Bruce but he’s getting more worried when he digs deeper to see you seemingly live alone in a shit part of Gotham

Realllly wants to tell Bruce but also doesn’t cause that’ll mean he disobeyed him and might get another “friendly” visit from Damien’s batarangs

Whoops…oh the pain of being too smart

Jason shows up one day while your hanging out with Damien out of fucking nowhere

Like your just laying in the grass, petting Titus and then bam there’s a shadow looming over you

He seems kinda pleasantly surprised that “demonspawn” has a friend

Teases the shit out of Damien in front of you in a very big brother kinda way

Whenever he stops by he brings McDonald’s like a cool bring bother or uncle

Damien complains it’s bad for your health but stops when you mention that McDonald’s is something you can barely afford so you appreciate the free food

He may be a little shit but he’s not gonna be an asshole about that…at least not anymore compared to when he first arrived

He occasionally picks you and Damien up from school or drops by at lunch to deliver some special food from Alfred

One day when Damien was sick and it was raining hard when you didn’t have a proper jacket her gave you his leather one

He let you keep it, saying that he had plenty of other one’s and that you suit it better

Mentions literature a lot, even seems to have a small version of pride and prejudice tucked in his pocket

Jason likes to joke that his white streak in his hair is from learning about Damien having a BFF now

Damien in return calls him geezer and encourages you to do the same

He’s the person who immediately notices when you have any bruises other than Damien

Reallly tries to convince you to let them drive you home when you once mentioned the area you live in

He’s gonna get more white hair if you mention the fact that your apartment doesn’t have a proper lock on it and you have to prop a chair against the door

If Damien doesn’t gift you that sword soon he’s gonna give you a pocket knife

He fucking adores Rigel, loves it when the interdimensional god ferret lays in his hair

Takes photos and jokes that their now his white streak

You caught him using a baby voice with Rigel and his brothers won’t let him live (hah) it down

Alfred is half convinced that your some type of universal sign by some god lol

Best grandpa

He secretly bakes you and Damien cookies just for you two and even leaves some that have chocolate chip smiley faces

As stated before by Damien’s request he begins making you a lunch as well for Damien to deliver since he wants you to have a good meal

God knows how much he has wanted another calm person in this household

Sometimes in your lunches you find little bundles of fresh lavender and notes saying “have a splendid day” and “do your best”

He really appreciates you helping him out even though he didn’t ask. He mostly lets it happen so you have the chance to spend time with other members of the family

He makes little treats for Rigel

Due to Tim he has your taste narrowed down and always makes sure to have your favourites when you visit

May or may not have thought of room decor if Bruce adopted you

He senses your an orphan. He just knows but wants the others to figure it out rather than saying it

If you’ll indulge him he loves talking about old films and classic literature like Dracula

He was actually the one who introduced Jason to it and would love to turn their two person book club into 3

Finds Rigel very cute and lets the small animal curl around his neck

He finds it really nice if you want to join him in cooking and would most definitely teach you new recipes

Except his cookie recipe cause that one is a pennyworth family secret

You once tried to lie about not being sick and he gave you a knowing look before giving you a care package of his chicken noodle soup and some medicine

Your half convinced he’s not human but not in a bad way, more of a “is he a god?” Or “is he like Rigel” sorta way

You get legal advice from Harvey about the entire ordeal. The past DA offering to do more than just legal advice if you’d like

You say that you want to handle this on your own so he and two-face relent

But not before saying that the offer stills stands

Both Harvey and Two-face enjoy your presence for various different reasons but the important one is that you treat them as their own separate people

With Harvey you talk to him about what it was like going to collage and being the DA

He often talks about his friendship with Bruce and their crazy times when they were younger

He often wonders how he’s doing

You want to tell him but know that doing so could reveal who you possibly are

Probably tells you if the time Bruce “accidentally” poured wine on an asshole professor in a white suit after harassing a few female students

Probably tells you legal loopholes that your not supposed to know but you appreciate it anyways

Two-face on the other hand is kinda more difficult to talk to but once you get past his walls he talks and talks

Most definitely tells you how to pick locks and evade taxes, I’m sorry but that’s what he’s gonna teach you

At some point he probably offers to “talk” to your landlord about why he illegally raised your rent

Tells you about how corrupt the world actually is

Teaches you to flip a coin

He and Harvey get a lot of bouts of pain due to the burns so there are times they’ll go quiet out of trying to deal with it

With maybe a little magic from Rigel you make a special burn cream that helps alleviate that pain

Listen…you get he’s a bad person and all but you don’t like seeing people in pain

It’s been that way ever since you were young and having to watch kids your age suffer

Maybe it was always in your nature to help others no matter how much it weighed on you

It’s probably the reason why Rigel had chosen you in the first place

Yeah, that makes sense

Mr freeze is kinda a sad grandpa that you find yourself visiting to check up on

You had fought his shadowmite when the anger from his wife’s condition rose up again

After that your welcomed to his small lab for as long as you can due to the cold

He often laments about Nora. How she would’ve loved to meet you

You always say that she will one day which gets a small melancholic smile

You can only spend up to maybe 30-45 minutes with him before your begin to freeze despite you changing your magical uniform to better suit the temperature

If you request it he’ll show you how to ice skate and finds it really amusing if you succeed and then slip into a pile of snow

Speaking of snow, you like to leave little snow men hidden around for him to find

He sometimes talks to Nora’s body about you when alone. He mentions how he’s been feeling a bit better as of late due to you popping by

You don’t know this but he and Nora always wanted a child. So having you around kinda helps fill a hole in his heart that he long thought was frozen over with grief

I like to think that in his spare time he’s taken up knitting and made you a pair of matching mittens, scarf and hat

Their a teal blue with little snowflakes designs on them with maybe a little hidden snowman

He sometimes sneaks in ice or snow puns to watch you process it for a minute and then laugh

It makes his day

Probably tells you that if you need a good murder weapon he can make you a good icicle that’ll melt away therefore removing evidence

It’s hard to think he’s a super villain until he brings up shit like that

If you literally give him anything as a gift he’ll end up cherishing it

You actually end up meeting Waylon by accident in the sewers since you use them as a kinda secret passageway across Gotham

Your surprised at meeting the literal giant man who looks like a crocodile but you don’t end up panicking much

Same shit different day in Gotham

He lets you pass and even guide you to where you needed to go

After that it kinda becomes a system of meeting him and talking as he guides you through the Sewers (even if you knew them by heart at this point)

You like giving him leftovers that you have even if you also need them

The two of you now have a small tradition of sitting and enjoying a cup of ramen once in awhile

He teaches you a few French phrases and tells you of New Orleans

Talking of the mixed French and American culture of the city

At some point he probably tells you to visit for him if you get the chance. You promise to do so and being back a souvenir for him

Of all villains you feel the most sympathy for him. Someone who was born with something that they couldn’t control and being ostracized by society for it

Eventually becoming what they feared in the first place to survive

At some point you trust him enough to tell him about how you live alone. Barely getting enough to scrape by and living in a shitty apartment after running away from an orphanage

He lets you sit on his shoulder despite the fact you can basically fly a few feet off the ground

Also likes to mess up your hair with his giant clawed hands

He always makes sure to be slow just in case cause he doesn’t want to accidentally hurt you. You tell him he doesn’t and that you felt with worse but that in turn makes him even more gentle in being near you

During the winter you buy him a heater incase his condition also leads him to being cold blooded (which he is)

He definitely appreciates it since winters are really rough for him

Definitely finds the contrast of cute, small innocent magical girl and then giant, hulking, scaled lizard man being friends to be hilarious

During this time you begin to notice the Shadowmites kinda begin to thin out

It makes you a bit more relaxed and off guard (big mistake)

What had initially started out as a small gathering of them soon evolved into them all attacking at once

Biting and clawing as you did your best to stop them

By the end of it your left barely conscious, their hosts left laying on the ground passed out from having their energy drained

You could only hope they’d be ok as you find yourself stumbling towards the only place you could think of

Library

You move purely out of instinct, your body moving on its own as your weakened abilities help you move from rooftop to rooftop

Today was luckily one of the days you’d meet up with Hood, at least meaning if you passed out there you’d be relatively safe since your apartment was too far away

When you get there you almost sob out of relief when seeing his red helmet that matched the colour leaking from your form

Dark blotches of red contrasting against the lighter colours of your uniform

[g0ldgauntlet]

Hilichurls and "Tribal" Portrayals.

While we're talking about Natlan, I also want to mention how awful it is that a section of the fandom tried to make us all out to be crazy years ago for pointing out how racist the portrayal of the Hilichurls are.

Quick content warning for mentions of slavery, colonization, genocide, and anti-Indigenous racism. (Image description is in alt text)

Hoyo used Indigenous people as references for these in-game enemies, which we literally have video proof of, provided by the company itself (Timestamp: 1:30).

The Hilichurls were constantly belittled by Teyvat's people, with an Inazuma npc likening them to demons. I remember Paimon acting like the items they collected were meaningless or pieces of junk during the earlier parts of the game.

They become a lot more sympathetic later due to their actual origins in-game (which I'm sure @phoenix-creates can confirm for me because I know you're farther ahead in Genshin than I am right now), sure, but I always found it strange that Hoyo used Indigenous cultures to portray these "monsters" who have lost their sense of selves (meanwhile their human forms are white), as if to imply that Indigenous cultures are more "wild" or "savage."

Genshin fans of color, since 2020, have pointed out the racist undertones that Teyvat's people were perpetuating against the Hilichurls due to them acting the same way that racists irl act towards non-White cultures, but they were told that they were overreacting and this was swept under the rug as a result. The very next year, it's brought up again with more people finding out about it, and we were still being told that we're overreacting.

So now that we're at Natlan, is it seriously that hard to believe that Hoyo straight up just doesn't respect Indigenous cultures? Black (and many brown) cultures too, because it's very telling that Iansan, the Natlan character with the darkest skin so far, is given a more stereotypically "tribal" look on her design with a bunch of bones used as her accessories despite that not being what her actual inspiration looks like.

(Artist for picture on the right: vieirapx on Instagram)

Sucrose has confirmed in her "Something to Share" voiceline that she collects Hilichurl bones, which is similar to colonizers taking the bones of dead Indigenous people with this added context.

Also, please read or reread the Teyvat Travel Guide Vol. 1. Alice basically confirms that she wants to enslave the Hilichurls for labor and also feed the weaker ones to the stronger ones.

That latter point is cannibalism. I know that many people are fans of Alice, but a lot of what she talks about in the first guide is why I don't like her.

Yes, it can be argued that Indigenous cultures are not the only inspiration for the Hilichurls, as it's been said that they may take inspiration from goblins, Bokoblins from the Zelda franchise, and the Amanojuku from Japanese mythology. Answer me this question, though.

Why is Hoyo capable of referencing a creature and not a human being when it comes to the Japanese inspiration for the Hilichurls, but this does not apply to the Indigenous references? It's dehumanizing, and it feels like another double-standard that needs to be addressed.

Hoyo has casually made black and brown cultures in Genshin appear to be less civilized and more "tribal" compared to our White and East Asian peers, both with the human characters and the non-human ones. Sumeru's quests and enemy npcs had multiple examples of this, with the Traveler and Jeht even destroying almost the entire Tanit tribe with the narrative justification being that, conveniently, most or all of them were selfish, bloodthirsty, and manipulative (Jeht's profile on the wiki page goes into what happened with more depth). They had to die because the tribe was dangerous - even though the main problem seems to be Babel - and Jeht's white, blonde companion needed to help save everyone from these evil, power-hungry savages.

(Sidenote: I think this is the second time overall that Hoyo has come up with an excuse to justify Traveler committing genocide on an entire group of people, with the first being the Iwakura Clan.)

I'm sure that the same thing is going to happen with Natlan's quests and npcs because Hoyo has always been weird about the portrayal of black and brown-inspired characters. The question is not whether any of the creatures or humans from specific groups are bad, suspicious, or designed to fit a specific image. We know the answer to that. The real question is why they are portrayed like this, and why it keeps happening more commonly to the black and brown cast members compared to our lighter peers.

[heartrender6]

most of the kuwei hate in this fandom is absolutely racially motivated and most of it is probably subconscious but i NEED to talk about this.

and not because i think people r thinking "i hate kuwei!! he's asian and i hate asians!!" tbh most anti asian racism on the internet goes way deeper than that.

basically, what i believe to be the most prominent type of racism against asians, especially on the internet, is stereotyping. specifically "uwu-ification." the east asian entertainment industry likes to paint asian people as cute, submissive and sweet because it markets disturbingly well to american audiences, and whether people mean to or not, they internalize it and it affects the way they think of asian people as a whole. This mostly happens to east and southeast asian women, but definitely a lot with men too, especially in more recent years with the whole yaoi culture thing (i fucking hated typing that) becoming more popular. simply put, it's fetishization.

so how does this relate to kuwei? well, when kuwei is introduced to us, and im not gonna dance around it— he is pretty stereotypically asian. he's shy, innocent, small, good at math/science and— you guessed it— no speaka engrish. leigh bardugo lays the perfect trap for fandom white girl weeaboos to gush over this guy. once i came across a modern au where kuwei's whole northern chinese-mongolian ass is a "shy japanese transfer student." i really wish i was making this up.

but then we find out that kuwei is actually a conniving little shit who is really quite terrible at science and spends all day making shitty drawings of his crush instead of doing math or wtv. The turning point where we are told this is the jesper kiss. This is the point where we find out kuwei is not the yaoi uwu baby we thought he was. and how does fuckin 2/3 of the fandom react?? hate. instant hate. If you search "i hate kuwei" on twitter there are tweets both defending and attacking him, but there is significantly more of the latter.

most of them claim to hate him for kissing jesper but like... jesper kissed him. He doesn't say anything because, in his own words, "we're all probably going to die anyway." does no one see how tragic that is?? he let his first (probably) kiss be taken by someone who he knew didn't even like him because he thought it would be the only one he'd ever get.

and yet the only thing people see is that he "got in the way" of wesper and he's evil. throughout the series kuwei is given no agency, and that's the point of his character. everyone on the planet treats him as a weapon or a bargaining chip. he gets tossed around like a rag doll and to white (or otherwise not asian) audiences, that makes him the perfect picture of a little asian cutie i almost vomited typing that holy shit. but the moments where he takes something for himself— insisting on going to ravka, kissing jesper back— that's what makes people hate him. and don't even get me started on the way people project their hatred onto the other crows, especially wylan. yall will act like wylan loathes kuwei with all his being. he doesn't!! wylan is not a hateful person and he always defends kuwei!! but nooo, kuwei sucks and he deserves it for daring to be a person instead of an idea.

and hey?? guess what?? kuwei was NEVER in the way of wesper. there was no love triangle. narratively speaking, there was never any threat that kuwei would end up with jesper instead of wylan. never ever. the kiss was literally only put there to create drama for wylan and jesper. we never even hear how kuwei feels about it. stop using that as an excuse to hate on kuwei when we can all see it's because you're subconsciously mad at an asian person not being nice.

also disliking kuwei does not automatically make you racist, im just saying a lot of hatred towards kuwei is rooted in racism.

tagging my fellow aapi moots (that i know of) because i wanna hear yalls thoughts on this! @hauntedacousticversiontv @dramaqueentruther

[ql-of-all-time-bracket]

#1 QL of All Time

So I used to run the @ doyouknowthisql blog, but tumblr nerfed that blog a few months back, made it so that none of my posts would ever show up in the tags, which is rough when you're trying to run a blog with the goal of seeing how well a show is known amongst a community of people. long story short, tumblr never got back to me and I have made peace with that blog never returning. BUT!!!!!!! I was sitting here thinking "wow I have all these ql posters still downloaded, what can I do with them?" and the idea then occurred to me:

Tournament for the Best QL of all time!!!

This is going to be a massive 256 contestant tournament, in which qls of all shapes and sizes battle for dominance and only 1 will be the winner! But I need to define some stuff first!

What does QL mean?

QLs for the purposes of this competition are any live action tv shows, mini series, movies, or short films in which the main character is some flavor of queer and has an important plotline around the main character engaging in a queer relationship (romantic, sexual, queerplatonic, etc) with another important character. The relationship must be part of the overall story, not something that only shows up in like the last episode or is only implied/word of god to have happened (the exception being shows from countries where queer content is banned, like China. in those cases, censored shows that are adaptions of explicitly queer texts are allowed or shows in which the creators have stated explicitly that it is meant to be queer).

Country Masterlist

If you are looking for stuff from a specific country, you can click on one of these links for all the polls featuring qls from that country (and then further divided by bl and gl.)

Cambodia

BL

China

BL & GL

Japan

BL & GL

Philippines

BL & GL

South Korea

BL & GL

Taiwan

BL & GL

Thailand

BL & GL

Vietnam

BL & GL

What types of things can be submitted?

Any live action tv show, mini series, movie, or short film that fulfills the above requirement AND comes from an East Asian country is eligible. Examples of countries based on what was on the last blog: South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, China, Japan, The Philippines, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia. Any other countries or territories from this general region can be submitted. Only live action because I feel like things like animes and donghuas are communities of their own beyond the typical ql fandom.

How long will submissions be opened?

Submissions will be open until I fill the 256 spots. Trust me, there's way more than that many out there these days. When submissions start to slow down a lot, I'll supplement the list with others from all the stuff downloaded on my computer

Submit QLs here!!!

@bl-bracket @tournament-announcer @haveyouseenthisseries-poll (looking for my own bl-georg lol)

[aeternallis]

High-Context Culture at Play and Kim's Mode of Communicating // a rant

So, something I notice once in awhile when I go through the tags on Ao3 for KPTS fics are commentary on the lack of communication in the show—specifically, how Kim doesn't communicate. Tags such as, "Kim communicates, it's a miracle", "OOC because they actually communicate", "Kim uses his words", "Healthy Communication, so it's OOC", etc etc.

This isn't meant to call anyone out and mind you, this isn't something I've only seen in the KPTS fandom; tags like these are also used in a lot of danmei fics I see, as well as the sheer variety of anime/manga fics I've read in my time.

And ngl, when I see those tags...my gut reaction is often to feel that they sound very much tongue-in-cheek and somewhat mocking. Not just to the character himself, but to the narrative itself. It's a bit uncomfortable at times, reading those kinds of tags, even if I know to myself that there's likely no malicious intent behind it.

For what it's worth, I won't apply bad faith arguments on works of art and creativity, and I'm certainly not looking to police fic on Ao3, yknow?

Having said that though and just because I have yet to see a post talking about this topic explicitly, I also feel that it's important to some degree to understand how people communicate in Thailand, and Asia in general.

Mind you, I’m no expert in Thai culture, lemme repeat that yet again. They have unspoken social rules that I myself wouldn't understand because I'm not Thai, nor do I speak Thai. Asia at large, though sharing a unique set of many similar values, is not a homologous region; each country has a rich tapestry of history and culture and very much different from one another.

Yet, as someone who grew up in an Asian household who shares many of said values, I often feel like—when it comes to East Asian/Southeast Asian fictional characters at large—there has always been an unconscious, almost knee-jerk habit I often see in fanfiction to reshape their style of communication to a more western context, if that makes sense. As someone who used to translate doujinshi and Pixiv 小説 for fun, it was always noticeable and a bit jarring, once I moved over to read my fanfic of choice, yknow.

This isn't inherently or purposefully malicious in any way, but it can feel very dismissive, even if it's unconsciously done.

Thailand and most if not all of SE Asia operate in a high-context culture. High-context culture means that when we communicate, it’s not always so much the words themselves that matter, but the context surrounding those words: body language, tone, eye contact, a person’s social status, etc etc. The words sometimes only convey part of the intent, but it doesn’t convey everything. In some situations, the words themselves can even mean the exact opposite of what they’re trying to convey.

It's why so many misunderstandings happen between international fans on platforms like X, because the nuance is often lost in Google Translate.

On the other end of that, we can use Tumblr as the example: since this is mostly an English-speaking website, for the most part, this hellsite operates on a low-context culture, but is easily ignited with outrage based on seemingly high-context traits. LOLOL

This type of communication is not always easily translated into the subtitles, nor is it remotely perfect in any way. It can be quite complex, and hell, even in the context of its own culture, misunderstandings can and do happen all the time. And, as we've seen from the recent popularity boom of East Asian media from the past two or three decades to the American and western audience at large, some of the most compelling drama can come from these sorts of human error.

Besides that, if I’m being perfectly honest, almost always (one of) the source(s) of fandom drama when it comes to character interpretation is due to the nuances of the high-context culture the story takes place in that can have the loudest enthusiasts arguing back and forth.

This is particularly true for characters like Kim Theerapanyakul, who are meant to be portrayed as mysterious and unreadable.

(Lan Wangji and Hyakuya Mika are also a few that comes to mind in my personal experience, uh huh)

To be quite frank, it's why I personally avoid getting into any nitty gritty discussion when it comes to characters like Kim and LWJ, because they mean so much to many different people, as well as simply for the fact that I do not know everyone's emotional tolerance when it comes to disagreements. Lol What I'm saying right now can be taken to be hard-hitting fandom policing, when I'm really trying hard not for it to sound like that, nor is it even my intent. I'm not telling anyone that they're wrong or that they've misinterpreted the characters, but what I am saying, is that people in fandoms, especially for the English-Only Speakers at large, need to be more consciously aware of their cultural biases.

And before I go on, mind you, it’s perfectly okay to have cultural biases—we all have them, myself included, that's just a fact of life. No one is exempt from this, if anyone is itching to point fingers.

I don't think it's an unreasonable thing to say that if one is engaging in media that's not from their cultural context, it's good to be more aware of the surrounding cultural norms and values of that said piece of media when you apply your own interpretation to it, and especially when you may not be the intended audience.

It’s why “your headcanons are not my headcanons” is, I will always believe, a very good rule to adhere to, especially when peeps disagree with popular headcanons, so fandoms can be more respectful and tolerant of each otherrrrrrr when disagreements inevitably crop upppppp, but anywayyyyyy~

I’ve met enough expats who’ve lived abroad in my current line of work to say that trying to understand the unspoken social rules, norms, values, etc. of the foreign country they choose to live in is most often one of their biggest sources of frustration. Alas.

And, as a side-note: high-context cultures are in no way superior to low-context cultures. Both modes of communication have their pros and cons, and molds society in various different ways.

But I digress! An example of the high-context culture at play is the break-up scene in front of Kim's apartment, which I've seen a number of fic authors portray as a genuine apology from Kim:

Which—in terms of what was spoken, Kim did say he was sorry.

But let’s think about the context of the apology: he said the words as he was walking away, before pulling his arm from Chay’s grasp. He looks back at Chay coldly, and overall, his behavior is dismissive; from his body language alone, he portrays a picture of aloofness and treats Chay as an annoyance.

What he says is an apology, yes—but it's an apology with no sincerity whatsoever. It's why Chay broke down as hard as he did, because it's not just Kim's lies that had him reeling, it was the fact that in the context of how Kim dismissed Chay during that scene, it also heavily implies that nothing between them had ever been sincere. Kim completely reverses the understanding that Chay had of their friend/relation-ship and cuts it off completely.

And although what I'm saying may come across as "Duh, that's freakin' obvious," I also want to add another point: Kim would know the implications of what this non-apology is. He would understand the context in which he'd said those words. Whether he chose to regret them or not later on is up for debate, but it's interesting to see whenever fic authors use this scene as an excuse that Kim genuinely thought he apologized, just because he said the words out loud.

Do you see what I mean? In that scene, the canon's context is what matters, but I've seen enough fic where that scene is turned on its head and fic!Kim thinks and excuses himself, portraying the scene to somehow mean that it's the words that matter. The nuance is thus lost, so in turn, the emotional weight of that scene is also disregarded.

This is what I mean when I say that there is an unconscious habit some fic authors have in changing the communication style that the show is set in.

Because the reality is, Kim didn't apologize. He knew he didn't, and Chay most certainly knew he didn't. What he was communicating in that scene was entirely different from what an actual apology entails.

Be that as it may, the audience knows that the non-apology doesn't negate what he and Chay went through together in the show. He may have been lying to Chay for the majority of the story in regards to his involvement in the mafia, but it doesn't mean that the love and adoration he feels for Chay through his actions didn't come through. Kim may not have said much to Chay besides singing for him a (stolen) refurbished version of his own song, but it doesn’t mean that his intent wasn’t conveyed. It's why Chay cried the way he did, in that in some way or another, the song Kim sang is a reminder of everything that happened between them did have truth to it.

Just because they communicate in the way one may not be used to or unfamiliar with (especially in the low-context culture that countries like the US, Canada, Australia, etc. operate in), doesn't mean that they're not communicating to one another.

Healthy communication doesn’t always have to just mean “straightforward meaning in the words.”

When tags like the ones I mentioned earlier in this rant inevitably crop up, especially when it comes to characters who are non-American/British, one can't help but feel that their canon mode of communication is being mocked and made to be seen as inferior.

In which case, TL;DR, when one writes tags like these about certain characters, I sincerely hope that their cultural biases are in the forefront of their mind, and they're aware and humble enough to admit that there are some things that they may not understand in terms of the cultural context. And due to the fact that they do not understand it, hopefully not mock it in response.

[loud-sound]

(part 1 of part 2!!)

for shits n giggles, i tried my hand at redesigning dr stone characters (read: three)

i have too many emotions when it comes to this show's character design lmao. a vicious hate-love of the century

a couple of my process notes if anyone's interested: (vague spoilers up to season 3 of the anime)

there's a criminal lack of skin tones that i immediately wanted to take advantage of; and before Certain People start saying race-swapping; none is happening here, it's all just taking account of tanning and sunburns. sunscreen is a thing of the past here and a lot of time is spent outdoors in order to gather food

dramatic shifts in skin tones from what's given at birth happen pretty frequently in real life even with A/C and sunscreen; a huge missed opportunity to play with this in the color department methinks, but here we are (don't even get me started on the massive range of skin tones in east asian genetics alone)

so i played around a bit with contrast, nothing outlandish aside from giving Kohaku noticeable sunburns and freckles from (1) having caucasian blood in her to begin with and (2) not having access to any of the skin products our moderners would have

that being said, realism in the clothing color department was just about entirely thrown out the window. the blue dyes we know about are nowhere (naturally) near Japan, and here Ishigami village is in canon with deep navy on every villager; Inagaki and Boichi decided realism specifically here wasn't as important as color symbolism (which i personally think was a good creative decision), so cut me some slack-

so for colors it was just my personal taste on streamlining the palettes-

Gen in particular i thought would benefit from exposed shoulders without taking away how he needs bigger sleeves to hide shit up there. a lot of the guys have plain shirts and sleeves or just go shirtless entirely and i felt like it'd be fun to have him wear something in between to really push the magician/entertainer vibe

hairstyles were changed mostly to be easier to draw and to make their silhouettes just a bit easier to distinguish from each other. (hair colors were untouched except for Kohaku, purely because i have a personal preference for the more natural blonde color than any actual design significance lmao)

partial exception for Kohaku, cuz it annoyed me that the other characters say she has super thick, unruly hair...but then her hair is drawn no differently from everyone else's 💀

didn't wanna play into the stereotype of naturally curly hair being seen as something to be fixed (especially within the context of a makeover-), so i tried to imply chronically unbrushed hairdsjfsdf

can you tell from how many bullets are here about Kohaku how i feel about her design? last thing: body types.

Gen is supposed to be significantly tall, Kohaku is one of the strongest characters while being one of the shortest; it is very hard to tell that from their designs alone. it's mostly just the limitations of Boichi's art style,,,proportions that's i'm aware is nitpicky, but i wanted to show it here anyway 💀💀💀

smth smth disclaimer about subjectivitydsfsdfsd-

uhhhh, congrats for reading all that, have some silhouettes!

[yuseirra]

I really love your kamiai comics. The warm stories about their communication and interaction completely make up for my regret of not being able to see how they get along in the original work. btw, your analysis is also very good. I like it very much.Can't wait for your next update!❤️

(A small something before I start typing)

Thank you so, so much dear anon!! This really lifts my spirits up so much, you're very kind to expend your time to send me positivity. I appreciate it because I'm the shy type. I know how hard it can be to muster up the courage to talk to someone sometimes. So when I receive messages like this, I get really happy... it'd be nice if the people who were able to send me some kindness felt it was paid back :) I may not be able to reply fast but I try to get back so please be patient with me 'v')9!

HHngh thanks! I'm rereading your ask every word and savoring it! These two don't get that much screen time but what's been shown is really significant, they did have their moments! I'm so glad you feel the way you do after reading my comics and interpretations of them, that's the best reaction I could ever want from someone!! There are still things that are left ambiguous and are yet to be unfolded(I hope it does get explained more) so I'm worried as I draw them out sometimes... but reading this makes me feel empowered!! I feel like I've been doing pretty well, that's what your comment does for me. I'll do my best to think up something good to share with you, thanks for sharing your feelings with me!

Speaking of which, I have another analysis!! I'd like to share it with you here, I'd been writing it up earlier and it's not entirely unrelated to the hikaai situation:

I think it might have been Nino who's sent Ryosuke to Ai. Based on the behavioral patterns, Nino is the type who'd impulsively do something extreme in a fit of anger and later regret it. Even Nino might not have anticipated things would unfold this way, however. The phrase, "I only meant to scare them, I never thought they'd actually die," seems more like how Nino would feel about the situation, rather than Kamiki to be honest? That's a very absurd thing to say, but considering Nino's relationship with Ai, Nino might have been in a blinded, irrational state because she almost worships Ai. So, it's possible that she genuinely didn't think it would turn out this way somehow... she's a teenage girl with a lot of mood swings.

There’s a common scenario in horror movies where a second-place person, driven by jealousy, does something reckless, thinking, "If only the top person were gone, I could..." but not truly realizing the consequences. (It happens a lot as an east-asian trope) Jealousy has the power to paralyze rational thinking. Nino not only hated Ai, but she likely had a twisted affection for her as well. When Ai disappeared, she probably fell apart.

It's hard to imagine Kamiki acting this way, right? He wouldn’t have been unaware of the danger of sending someone like Ryosuke to his girlfriend. If this character did something like that, it would have to be out of serious malice or murderous intent, but Kamiki doesn't seem like the type to harbor such cruel emotions toward Ai. (Or just anyone at all, actually; we never really see him lashing out towards people. Even when he brings Ryosuke, or Airi up... he.. actually talks in a pretty soft sense despite they're absolutely horrible individuals. Even adds a -san and -kun to their names; I was surprised.) In Nino's case, on the other hand, it might have been something done without much thought, as her actions suggest she has that kind of streak. She’s the type who can say, "I wish you'd just die!" to someone but then cry if it actually happens. Her emotions fluctuate a lot.

We also have to note that Hikaru is just as good of a liar as Ai is. He's really used to lying, and that's what's brought him and Ai to relate to each other, bring them together and a crucial characteristic that's had Ai deem "he's the same as her". When he says he's the one who sent Ryosuke as he mentions "he wanted Ai to feel the same despair he's felt", we don't see his face and we only see him from the back. This is similar to the panel where Ai says "I can't love you", which was a well-meant but a really hurtful lie. Hikaru believed Ai and Aqua wants revenge on him. I think he may have tried to save Aqua of feeling even a slight sense of pity towards him as a person, making sure he really isn't worth feeling that way about. In fact, we don't see his expressions at all in that entire sequence, and what he says feels so off and ridiculous for a person with common sense to say. I feel like a lot of it could be a lie. AND I feel like he was putting on a facade for most of the scenes he's been in before the final arc- before he came to meet the twins. He's probably always been pretending to be okay with a smile on his face but he probably was pretty despairing and dead inside (his eyes turn black when he's in despair, you know)

At least so far in the story, Kamiki has never shown much interest in Ai's idol activities in the scenes he's been in. Instead, it was Ai who learned something from Kamiki. The fact that Ai is an idol, a star who attracts attention, was never portrayed as particularly important to Kamiki during their relationship. Ryosuke is a big fan of Ai as an idol, but there’s no clear reason why Kamiki would connect with someone related to Ai in that way. To Kamiki, Ai was like a light—a single, unique person he deeply depended on and loved, as if he could live with just her by his side, yeah, but it's a little different from viewing her as a idol. He probably depended on her a lot, but it seems he loved her not because she was an idol or someone shiny and valuable, but because she was someone who could understand and care for him. He doesn’t have the mentality of "I can't forgive an imperfect Ai." That kind of anger, resentment, or desire to make Ai suffer seems more likely to come from Nino. Kamiki even seems to think it’s natural that Ai wouldn’t like him back. He’s too accustomed to that feeling.

Kamiki’s actions suggest a certain helplessness. He seems to accept everything without resistance, always at a loss for words. This has been consistent from the moment he was introduced. When he asked Ai, "You love me, right? You won’t leave me, right?" and her response was something like, "I don’t know," he ended up going outside and crying in the rain. When he was gaslit by Airi in an absurd way, he despaired and stood there, frozen in panic. Even when Ai said something harsh and broke up with him, he couldn’t say anything back. Even 15 years later, he watches a video and is rendered speechless, reaches out to Ai, and curls up. This sort of behavior is so consistent that I realize this character doesn’t have any self-defense. He just accepts everything as his fault and internalizes it. It’s like he’s been so used to terrible things happening to him from a very young age that he doesn’t even think "I hate this" but rather, "People like it when I do this, so this must be right." With that kind of mentality, he gets pushed around. He seems to accept every negative judgment about himself and engages in self-destructive behavior.

The likelihood of this character doing something aggressive like sending Ryosuke to Ai is, in my opinion, less than 2%. Suddenly lashing out four whole years after the breakup? He probably went to cry after he got the phone call. Didn't he just reach his drinking age? Maybe he went to drink for the first time because he was so distressed after receiving the call… and somehow, in that state, he met Ryosuke and accidentally let the address slip, which led to Ai’s death, and now he feels like he has to save her with all he's got. Ai's the one who saved him, and it's kind of natural for him to feel like "Now I should save her in return, I don't care what happens to me!" That would make sense, right? The lyrics, the character’s personality—it all fits if you take it this way. And his personality doesn’t seem to have changed all so much actually. While reading the manga, I thought, "What’s with his way of speaking? He has such low self-esteem." Now, reading it again, it feels like he’s deeply immersed in self-blame.

The song Fatal starts with the lyrics being:

Waking up from another dream, I open my wet eyelids I curse my helplessness from those far days which dreadfully remain Will this despair that burns my body feed me someday? I keep burning myself from it as I crave adoration

This is totally how Kamiki would feel after he learns about Ai's death, if that's not what he's ever expected to happen. He'd be in utter despair and feel so helpless about not having been able to do anything as the only love of his life die like that. That's why he's so desperate in the entire song,

Without you, I cannot live anymore I would sacrifice anything for you I can’t get enough of your love What should I use to fill in what’s missing?

These sets of lyric's too intense for it to be Aqua's, but it fits his dad's mentality perfectly. Kamiki's life's been so miserable.

Ai is an exceptionally well-crafted character. When you consider the details, like the story of her trauma from the glass shards in her white rice (which broke my heart when I read it), you can see how much thought the author put into crafting her psychology.

Why write a story where she asks a favor to her own dear children to help out the person who's the very cause of her death? How could that character be portrayed as if they truly, desperately loved Ai? Isn’t that incredibly cruel to Ai, the victim? If it were me, I wouldn’t write the story that way. I don't think the writer would have either. I really feel that Hikaru isn’t the type of character who would do something like that. And since Ai’s affection for that character aligns with that sort of interpretation, with it being really consistent, I think… it's a lie and a misunderstanding.

I think that, unable to forgive himself for unintentionally leaking the address and thus contributing to Ai’s death, Hikaru wanted to be punished and ended up telling Aqua a ridiculous lie. If someone could open Ai’s heart to that extent, it could only mean that this person was genuinely beloved by her. For someone as wounded as Ai, finding a person she wanted to love that deeply isn’t easy. But if that character had committed such a terrible act, what would it mean? It would feel so unsettling. It would conclude that Ai failed to find someone to love, that she trusted the wrong person, and that the protagonists’ father was someone who harmed their mother. When you consider what the manga is ultimately trying to say, the less responsible the character Ai loved is for her death, and the more genuine their feelings for Ai, the greater the impact would be. It would also make sense in the context of Ai, who wanted to give love, finally finding someone deserving of it.

I couldn’t form a solid opinion until Chapter 154 and Fatal came out. I wasn’t sure how things would turn out and just watched. But after those chapters, I felt that this interpretation was correct. When you interpret it this way, it aligns with the psychological depictions throughout the story. It’s not that I deliberately interpreted it favorably because I liked this couple, but rather that as I analyzed it, this interpretation made sense, which made me more favorable towards them. There's certainly a difference between the two.

I was really happy when I received your message and a few other ones saying that my interpretation was warm, persuasive, and made you appreciate this ship ;v;.. Oh, I really want to get this right too... thanks guys, I very appreciate your kind words, sorry if what I say turns out to be wrong but I am trying my best!!

I take psychology very seriously, so if this turns out to be right, I’d be thrilled! This is what makes the most sense for me at this point, so I'll hold onto it until things clear up~

Again, super long reply! I hope you're okay with it, anon! Lots of love, thanks for the cheers and kind words!!

[nerves-nebula]

chelloooo the tmnt getting more racist thing is actually rlly interesting to me because I don’t think it’s getting more racist , I just think that as more and more pieces of media with good Asian representation come out (eeao, amphibia, and even elemental are the first things I can think of) there’s more stuff to compare it to and realize that tmnt is just… not it. And that although it’s gotten less blatantly stereotypical, it just hasn’t followed the curve of good Asian representation in media. It continues to be lacking. It improves in small ways. It’s just slow 

and I also think it’s because how tmnt handles japanese and east asian culture in general took such a fucking nosedive with mutant mayhem. Look at splinters entire character and the fact they learned to be ninjas from mostly popular chinese movies. Like almost everything about this movie shows how much the creators were looking through it with an orientalist lens

Like. I don’t think tmnt is getting more racist, I think the amount of racist shit is staying relatively the same.* So as western culture and pop culture starts to be less racist, tmnt starts to look more racist as a result. And also because socially and culturally speaking, tmntmm is Rlly Bad. Like look at it once with ANY IDEA of racist stereotypes and it’s Bad. It would have been fine like any year before 2023. But compare it to any popular piece of media that’s come out in the past 1-3 years and its…. Lord. It’s not it ………

(I like tmntmm etc. I just have to ignore a lot of the racist stuff in it, as I have to do with most pieces of media. But for something that came out in the 20s it’s so much harder to turn a blind eye to it than other stuff.)

*imo it improves the most with rottmnt. But that show was also racist in other ways, just not towards japenese culture. It handled being asian american and an immigrant surprisingly well

(also for judas’ followers who don’t know me I’m asian 👍) -angie and jonah

OHHH YOU PUT IT PERFECTLY INTO WORDS. Tmnt isn’t really getting more racist it’s just improving very very slowly compared to a lot of modern media.

Like it feels weird when racist stuff happen in old media but you kind of expect it in old movies & tv- but when it’s still present in modern day it’s kinda more noticeable.

And yea I feel a similar way about mutant mayhem, it’s very good in a lot of ways! Racially isn’t one of them!

Not even just with Asian stuff either- which I think you’ve covered pretty well here- but from a black perspective it’s not great either. superfly is kind of weird to me cuz he’s clearly black and his coding is clearly pulling from black culture and he’s all macho and chains and I love that for him. I think he’s so cool.

But he’s basically just another one of those villains who’s an oppressed person who’s faced violent discrimination and fought back- and that in itself is framed as explicitly evil. Him telling the story of how he was being chased by a mob and faught back is when we’re supposed to start thinking he might be evil.

and so he’s like, coded as an activist or civil rights leader, but instead of fighting for equality rights he wants to kill all white people (in a metaphorical sense) and it’s like oh ok cool. This again. Greatttt.

Anyway point is: ur so right

[catesartworks]

hi! i just wanted to say, i'm a huge fan of this isekai maid is forming a union, especially the way you handle real-world issues like classism and racism through the fantasy worldbuilding in the comic

i know it's been a while since it was the focus of the story, but i really loved the dynamic between anette/iseul and bridgette irt their different experiences as isekai-ers. especially because i feel like i can see a lot of my own experiences as a (specifically east) asian american with relative privilege and discrimination in that dynamic

i don't know my reading of that dynamic is something that was intentional or not, but it makes it especially satisfying to read parts of the story like iseul wanting to reconnect with/return to her home world (something which i feel like is often underrepresented in isekai stories like these, especially through the lens of culture/cultural differences!), and to see characters like lady soo and post-character-development anette acknowledging their privilege in this world and using it to be better allies to the people around them

whew that was a long message. anyway i hope you are having a good day and thank you for putting such a well-thought-out story into the world

Thank you so much! It's great that you like Isekai Maid, it makes happy to know that you related to it. As someone who is black, I am also light skinned, and there are privileges that I have too in regards to how I am treated compared to black people who have darker skin than me.

This experience played a big part in how I approached Isekai Maid's racial dynamics in universe and how reincarnators who come as themselves are treated, vs. those who are reincarnated or possess people in this world.

I've read a lot of Otome Isekai, and the differences between characters isekai'd as themselves and those who reincarnate into the bodies of the people who already live in that world is so interesting to me. In a way, Isekai is metaphor for displacement and the immigrant experience, and how people from different backgrounds are treated based on how well they pass or don't pass within that world.

I noticed that characters Isekai'd as themselves, such as protagonists' like Jieun from Abandoned Empress (who is meant to be a deconstruction of protagonists like Empress of Another World) tend to have a much more difficult experience than say characters like Melissa Foddbrat/Prodbrat from Beware the Villainess, who are instead reincarnated into and possessing an already existing person. They have different challenges.

Personally, I think people should be allowed to be connected with their homelands without being forced to sever ties and forget their homes like what happens in Otome Isekai. They should be able to miss their friends, want to see their loved ones, grieve for what they lost, and go freely back and forth between their homes. It doesn't have to be the end, or just one or the other.

Thank you again for reading This Isekai Maid! :D

[watermelinoe]

this is somewhat of a niche complaint but eastern fandom getting merged with western fandom is what makes the gender shit even more unbearable imo. the easterners are generally homophobic in the sense that they're where you get uke/seme "woman in the relationship" dynamics from in M/M pairings (chinese and korean fandoms have their own terms but share this concept, the name that goes first in the pairing is the top and most people HATE switch dynamics) and when that bleeds into the uwu boypussy western crowd, who hetbend M/M pairings rather than just weirdly fetishising the two male characters, they get to be weebs or otherwise wannabe east asians by following the easterners' fandom rules of "respect fixed dynamics" and "there's always a woman in the relationship" even if that second one is an unspoken rule. but obviously this is fucking stupid even when the non-gay accepting skewed eastern populace believes it, so it's dumber because the westerners claim not to be homophobes. this is deranged sorry but because i can understand the languages used in western and eastern fandoms + the recent rise of BL, danmei, and yaoi into the perception of the public eye/mainstream fandom that were previously enamored with shit like steven universe, i have been able to observe this happening. it all circles back to fetishisation as per usual. no mention of lesbians/GL, baihe, and yuri in this one because that's a whole other essay. sorry you had to read this .

no this is fascinating actually, i know next to nothing about bl because it never really interested me but i get the appeal of m/m in general, it is inherently voyeuristic, it's very removed from your own female body. i don't care for a lot of gl because it feels like it's not for me or about me at all, none of the women look like me and the smut is either too pretty or it's porn-brained. and i don't care for piv unless i'm imagining myself as the male character lol. so m/m theoretically has the appeal of being free of the misogyny that burdens female characters... except everyone is apparently committed to recreating it on purpose and that's fascinating to me

[mononokehunters]

As annoyed as I am that we don't actually get any more details about Kusu himself (how was he chosen to bear the sword, did he have a life before this, does he have any hobbies in between slaying mononoke, DOES HE HAVE A THING FOR KAYO (actually I'm not taking no for an answer on this one), how does he feel about his job, what happens if he's "decommissioned" and he's no longer needed as the medicine seller?) I do love that we get a better idea of the logic informing the worldbuilding now.

Japanese culture is influenced by an inseparable amalgamation of Buddhism, Shintoism, Taoism and Confucianism, all of which are twisted cultural knots of their own, but it's interesting how they're being specifically synthesized here. It seems to be a primarily Buddhist/Taoist base with some Confucian principles influencing Shinto aspects with a healthy dose of imagery from LITERALLY EVERYTHING (the hieroglyphs on the exorcism swords box??) to create a unique mythology schema. In the interview Nakajima-san uses a lot of terms I couldn't find any information on but he does describe the basic logic as "Mukyoku gives rise to Taiji, Taiji is divided into Yin and Yang, and both sides give birth to both sides". Mukyoku is the Chinese philosophical concept of Wuji (pole/infinity) and Taiji is the concept of basically Life, The Universe, Everything, including how all the aspects of yin and Yang influence each other. Big stuff!

Tbh I'm not a huge fan of manga or anime having this kind of rigid numerical/hierarchical structure. I get that it's how a lot of east Asian philosophies and religions are organized but explaining that hierarchy often becomes the focus of the story instead of exploring the characters within it. Fortunately it seems like Nakamura-San is still interested in those personal stories (EXCEPT FOR KUSU'S DAMN IT) so I think he just felt it was necessary to explain this so that all the discrepancies between media made more sense.

Anyways I'm praying we get a story bible released someday.

[belle-keys]

My Hogwarts House book recs

Okay, ever since some of my favorite booktubers made posts like these many a year ago, I always wanted to make a book rec list like this because I still genuinely do like the Hogwarts Houses. Enjoy!

Gryffindor

Graceling by Kristen Cashore - she walked so these new fantasy girlies could run, fantasy kingdom with assassin main character, the original ya high fantasy killer girlboss imo

A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin - all of the sympathetic leads are classic heroes (dany, jon, arya), adventure and politics and battle and dragons, nuanced outlooks on honor

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah - ww2 novel, deals with the french resistance during the occupation, hit every spot in my cold black heart, emphasis on sisterhood and endurance

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - what is bravery if not a broke woman telling a rich man to get a grip, og strong female lead overcoming many challenges, criticisms of polite society

Hufflepuff

Crave by Tracy Wolff - big on found family, paranormal romance shenanigans in a boarding school, somewhat satire, unserious and just very wholesome, steeped in nostalgia uwu

All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir - unapologetically written to heal and explore trauma, cathartic, wholesome and pure relationships, emphasis on self-growth and overcoming abuse and pain

The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali - historical, about the value of relationships in war and hardship, themes of growth and acceptance and promises, beautiful story

The Foxhole Court by Nora Sakavic - what happens when you let a bunch of mentally ill kids play a made up sport, angsty but feels like a big hug, contemporary fiction, just genius ok

Ravenclaw

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake - very slytherclaw, philosophy and physics as the basis, dark academia urban fantasy, character-driven, multiple POVs, morally grey academics

Babel by RF Kuang - this book has been likened to a history textbook, by a nerd girlie for the nerd girlies, linguistics and languages, super well-researched, condemns colonization

Disorientation by Elain Hsieh Chou - witty and sharp narration and dialogue, set in academia and deals with east asian literature, satire and black comedy, explores racial fetishization

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov - only a ravenclaw could appreciation its complexity, so many literary references, stylistically immaculate, lots of room to debate its message and themes

Slytherin

Vicious by VE Schwab - perfect moral quandaries demonstrated here, everyone is morally dark grey, supervillains, very angsty and also profound at times, dark academia

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde - my man makes a deal with the devil for eternal youth and beauty, everyone here is morally dubious, murder and orgies and philosophy

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn - exhausted woman does what she needs to do, female rage book, does some interesting things with pov, justified evil, amy dunne is insane and it's great

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao - tired chinese woman does what she needs to do and kills men, very unhinged queen behavior, ambition and god complexes, pacific rim but in china

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

There is 58 years between the first plane flight, and a human going to space.

Technological advancements happen very quickly, so yeah that argument is mute. Even if you believe Santos Dumant was the first person to do it, that's still 63 years between his flight and a human going to space.

Also I'm not sure in which universe is democracy a widely American concept.

Even before Ancient Greece in the Vajjika Republic in 6th century bce India is widely considered to be the first example of a democratic Republic.

Also democracy is literally only in Republic City, which didn't have real democracy until the end of Book 1, and the earth kingdom who was suffering under a bad case of fascism. And Queen Hou-Ting, what ever godamm name was, sucked dick and was a terrible ruler.

The water tribes kept their chiefs, they just get to vote on it. The northern water tribe chiefdom is hereditary. The fire nation kept their firelord

Korra did not spread democracy everywhere, unlike where you claim they forced it.

Poor earth kingdom citizens, they must miss being a selfish queen who never did anything to help them, and let theives go wild, and then the facist dictator, who put people into concentration camps.

In HISTORY leaps in technology have happened fast. In a STORY you need to be careful not to make the whole thing feel like it's set in a different universe - and when we go from rudimentary industrialization, some of which is openly treated as a PROBLEM by the original's shows narrative because nature's worth and it's key role in keeping balance are a central theme in several episodes, all the way to Ford 1s everywhere, big ass factories that would obviously cause a lot of polution, lightningbending going from rare to something common that is used to give everyone electricity, all because the writers wanted to change the aesthetic from Meiji Era Japan to Prohibition Era New York, I'm gonna say that shit went a bit too far.

I didn't say americans invented democracy, I'm saying it's very common for american writers to push their own way of life as the only correct one, because there's literally over a century of the government spreading propaganda about "The american dream" and "the american way of life" to EVERYONE, including people in the USA, where the writers were raised - which is why the city that is supposed to represent the all four nations suddenly goes from "Very obviously east asian" to "Very obviously USA stuff that was never present in the old show." The character of Korra isn't running around saying "The US is inherently better", but the show very much is by making the symbol of balance and harmony so PAINFULLY american.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Bryke or anyone involved in the making of Korra was actively trying to make propaganda, they were just influenced by it and repeated some of it without even realizing it - and so did you with the bizarre leap in logic of "If you criticize the way americans, knowingly and unknowingly, tend to push their way of life as the default/superior one in stories, that means you think the fascist villain had a point/is not that bad"

If you like Korra as a show, including the whole concept of Republic City, that's fine. It's none of my business. But as someone who literally had to study American propaganda pieces and the long lasting influence it had in media, there is NOTHING you or anyone can say to me that will convince me that is not a reflex of propaganda that breaks the world-building that had been very coherent and consistent in the previous show. Either deal with that, or block the tags/my blog.

[hornyhermitry]

Professional translations & public witch hunts

For starters: If you think "TL;DR, who cares, I ain't reading all that" and are incapable of processing words for a prolonged amount of time beyond 240 character clickbait, you are not entitled to an opinion on translation to begin with.

I will take sufficient time for this one.

General:

In recent weeks I've repeatedly had the misfortune of coming across public harassment and incited hate mobs towards Jujutsu Kaisen's manga translator.

There's hordes of anti-social harassers pushing for someone to get fired from a professional job - in which he works because he is equipped with the necessary qualifications - purely due to disliking occasional translation choices in a comic.

This behavior has reached levels of exaggeration and reality disconnect, it'd be funny if it wasn't so sad due to a real person's livelihood being attacked.

This is not normal and tolerable behavior. It is equal to drumming up a hate mob in front of a café and threatening some employee inside, throwing rocks at the window and demanding for a barista to get fired because you didn't like the coffee beans they chose, or sure, maybe because they put actual sugar instead of sweetener into your coffee.

This is not a normal and acceptable way to behave.

If you think it is, there is something deeply wrong with your perception of society and what's respectful conduct towards another human being. When you encounter another person, you act respectfully at the very least. Kind, ideally.

Feel free to imagine yourself at work, making a mistake and thousands of people starting to call, email, shitpost online and harass you over it, dragging you publicly, shouting on the parking lot for you to be fired. Please reflect on yourself.

Now:

This dude does comic translations.

He did not authorize biochemical weapons in a war. He did not pass a law to deport all migrants and close the borders. He did not accidentally kill someone during a surgery. He did not hack & rob the annual employee bonus' account.

He wrote a word you don't like in a comic.

Planet Earth to Werry hater: Please come back down to reality and dial it back a few notches. This is a non-issue. Whether he makes mistakes or not, this level of hate and harassment is ENTIRELY out of pocket.

Moving on to translations.

Translations/criticizing translations:

Opinions on translations are like assholes - everyone got one. But that doesn't mean you need to pull them out in public. And especially not that you have to shit into random people's lives with them.

I've been reading manga and playing games in private for 27 years. I speak 4 Western languages and A2.2 Japanese. I've been working in the international entertainment industry with a focus on Asian to Western markets for over a decade, including Chinese, Japanese & Korean.

A lot of my time at work is filled with liaising between East and West, internally as well as externally. In my career, I've spent a lot of years supporting and later on consulting on localization.

I know what it is like to be a fan, and I am fully aware of the work reality behind translation.

I'm also intricately aware of the difficulties one faces when interpreting (!) from a source language as abstract and contextual as Japanese to a spelled out language such as English, French, Spanish, German, etc.

You cannot do a 1:1 translation. The nature of these languages is so different, you have to decide on one of many ways to translate something. And oftentimes, the content is so vague with so few indicators, the only thing you can do is guess and hope for the best - unless you happen to hit a rare jackpot of a person who has a guide with additional info and is able to provide this within the short deadline you are left with.

Even the most basic words already illustrate this difference.

Look at the example of

元気ですか / げんきですか = Genki desu ka

Genki is an adjective, "desu ka" is a question particle similar to "is it".

Genki already has many similar variants in meaning: "lively; full of spirit; energetic; vigorous; vital; spirited"

It is commonly translated as "How are you?" but that is not what it literally means.

Since "Genki desu ka?" is commonly used after the initial greeting when meeting someone, "How are you" is the closest equivalent to it in EN, due to it's function and usual placement within a dialogue.

The literal translation would be "Energetic is it?", or "Lively is it?"

That is obviously is no proper English.

Adjusting for grammar, it could be changed to "Are you lively?" - but the "you" is already a "fictional addition" to the sentence, as the original JP has no adress like this.

And asking someone if they are "lively" is also out of place. So more changes are needed.

Further adjusted for "natural sounding" would be "Are you doing good?" which now has 2 additional made up words, to transfer the question from JP to EN - "you" and "good".

This sentence does not necessarily have to mean "Are you good/How are you?". If I tell you my aunt Emma sends her regards, and you reply "Ah. Genki desu ka?" the translation would be "Oh. How is (Emma) doing?/Is Emma doing good?" JP's grammar works without these precise indicators who is talking about whom and is highly contextual whereas - Western languages need those.

Concluding, depending on who is talking to one another, who was mentioned on a page before, etc. a simple "Genki desu ka?" can be anything from "How are you?" to "Is (Panda) doing good?".

There is no literal 1:1 translation possible. The languages are too different.

The reality of translation is unclear source material open to multiple interpretations, once you settle on an interpretation having another dozen options to decide on for the specific wording, then having to adjust that to character and spacing limitations and doing all that with little turnover time.

On top of that, official translations work with styleguides and glossaries.

There could e.g. be a kind of character bible with notes about all characters and their peculiar ways of talking and what character traits those convey and an instruction to use approach XYZ to convey that.

"Speaks in a very poetic way, very roundabout and meandering" which could e.g. lead to overhauling the literal translation to add "personality" based on that.

Going by "(O) genki desu ka?" suddenly "How are you?"for the "poetic trait" becomes "How has life been treating you?"

Again - at the end overhauled again to make room for character limits and such, so maybe it becomes "How fare you?"

This change could have been added not because this particular line offers the exact context, but it is rooted in a style instruction to work with a certain speech pattern/type for a character - since the JP indicators at another spot might not offer satisfactory EN translations, so you have to add the "personality" elsewhere.

Translations of ongoing works utilize glossaries and you cannot use new terms if there is already a term established and submitted. Else it would be a mess of e.g. Cursed Energy in Chapter 2, Jinxed Force in Chapter 25, Hex Flow in Chapter 112, Curse Power in Chapter 156, Hex Energy in Chapter 287, etc.

Even if some months or years in you think another translation would be better suited, you are obliged to keep consistency with previous mentions and cannot just change these.

This also means if you take over translation work started by someone else, you have to work with their groundwork and established rules and terms and cannot change them.

Official translations commonly aim to make a foreign work accessible to local readers. If there is a bunch of teenage characters going to school, they should be relatable to local teenagers. As a result, regional and current slang might be added to make it sound more natural whereas the JP might just have "informal" indicators but less variance in vocabulary. The goal of a translation is to make a work accessible to a whole new language audience, hence the focus lies on making it readable without a prior 8 year degree in cultural studies. Things get simplified or changed for that reason.

Usually translators for a work consult with each other what the difficulties translating are, what possible options are, and what each language will run with. These considerations take a lot of time.

Having fans work out occurences deviating from the OG and explaining the specifics behind is it AMAZING community content and something for the people passionate about a story and about learning more about a culture. But it's not needed for the average joe buying a comic at a gas station.

This kind of deep dive is fandom! Enjoy and share and get excited! Enrich each others lives and understanding of a story! It's one of the best things there is.

Finally, a translation has to be timely & approved. There are multiple people involved in this.

It is not on poor John alone to make all decisions as he fancies and send it straight to print after going rogue, but he works within the guidelines & constraints this jobs brings with it. It's his name on the page but there are a lot more people involved in the final result.

Publicly claiming things like a translator "brutally butchers" a story or "is incapable of doing a job" because in a sea of solid translations of a very vague source language, every few chapters there's a specific word deep fandom who spends all their free-time on this particular story would have translated differently, is wildly inappropriate.

Interpreting differently is not doing a wrong job.

People on social media love attention and shitstorms. You get one narcissist with a following pointing out a debatable translation in a snarky smartass way and everyone wants a piece of the smartass cake.

What I struggle with is how people who don't speak a second language & often barely speak their own language with literacy above elementary school, feel entitled to an opinion here. What makes you an expert on cross-cultural art interpretation? What makes you think your opinion holds any weight here? Oh you read a Tweet by s/o else? *clap*

What makes you think you have the right to go after another person's job for no reason other than spite and some internet gotcha over a comic?

If you really value the creation of near perfect translations that much, be the change you want to see in the world.

Learn another language. Get that degree. Get that job in animanga and do your best.

Or for a start, send a polite mail about your concerns to VIZ instead of starting a personal witch hunt for some guy doing his job.

[confessmau]

To be honest, I’m neutral on jess & jason as individuals, and as a couple, only because it feels like a lot of anti-jesson fanatics are looking for deep information on their personal lives outside of the mainstream media. It just feels too stalkerish and a bit creepy to psychoanalyze these content creators like that.

HOWEVERRRR I do agree with them about the workplace abuse allegations that you can easily find on glassdoor AND also twitter documents about the blujay studios twitter drama back in 2017 when jesson decided to randomly let go their longtime friends / co workers for whatever reason. And it all seems like this crazy verbal & emotional abuse is always linked back to the ceo of cat face which also happens to be jason….hmmm interesting.

not only that the multiple incidents of lazy writing of east asian culture, the romanticization of toxic couple tropes, and playing into the horrible narrative that an abused child should just forgive their abusers just for the sake of family. There’s so many small things that just piled up to the hot dumpster fire that was caused by those two or the people they decided to have on their team.

I think the day jesson stop trying to overly self-insert themselves onto their characters, and allow them to be their own people is the day the world goes back to normal again. Mys! Aaron lore went south so quick once the ultima arc was revealed (I KNOW ITS BEEN HINTED SINCE PDH S1) and it kinda just felt like a lazy way to excuse whatever abuse derek and rachel put aaron through. I can ramble more about the lycan fam lore as someone who adores each family member, while also hating their development as characters —but that would just overlapped with my previous intention writing this confession.

~~