#and then the chinese members are obviously all only children as well???

[missxiumore]

Nothing has ever made exo's dynamic make sense more than finding out that apart from xiumin they were all the youngest sibling growing up...

[tofueggnoodles]

Saiyuki Noisy – Cinderella?

Note: As previously stated, I did not plan to translate stuff for which translations are already available. However, when I was translating the cast talk from Saiyuki Noisy, I came upon Gojyo’s voice actor (Hirata Hiroaki) talking about his effort to come up with a suitable ‘voice’ for Cinderella. I thought it was a pity that the currently available translation in English was far from adequate in conveying the hilarity in ‘Saiyuki Noisy – Cinderella?’.

At least three translations exist of ‘Saiyuki Noisy – Cinderella?’ that I’m aware of, in Chinese, Spanish and English. The last was derived from the Spanish translation. The Chinese translation is the best of the three. It was a great help for the translation of the last three minutes. I can only hope that my translation will improve my fellow Saiyuki fans’ enjoyment of this wonderful CD Drama.

Apologies for my rambling preamble. Now, on to the story!

Summary: In place of a missing theatrical troupe, the Ikkou performed a play based on a famous fairy tale, Cinderella. As expected, they ‘came up’ with a hilarious take of the original tale.

--------

Hakkai: This is a pretty bustling town, isn’t it?

Sanzo: Looks like it’s never been attacked by youkai. Not yet, anyway.

Goku: Hey, there are food stalls over there. I smell something good–

Gojyo (elbows him): Before food, we should get cigarettes. Cigarettes! Running out of them is no joke, I tell you.

Hakkai: No, let’s look for an inn first. It’s going to get dark soon.

Man: Ah, we’ve been waiting for you! Thank you very much for taking the trouble to come here to entertain the town’s children today.

Goku: Eh? Who are you, pops?

Man: Excuse me for not introducing myself first. I’m the mayor of this town. That’s right, honored members of the theatrical troupe, please come this way. The children are waiting for you.

Gojyo: Hah? Theatrical troupe?

Hakkai: I’m sorry, but haven’t you mistaken us for somebody else? We’re not a theatrical troupe.

Man: There you go with the jokes again. With such a conspicuous appearance, what else could you be but a theatrical troupe?

Sanzo: Oi, he's talking about you, red kappa.

Gojyo: He's probably talking about you, corrupt priest.

Goku: One's as bad as the other.

Sanzo and Gojyo: Don't lump us together!

Hakkai: Um, there's certainly one or two among us who stand out, but we’re really not a troupe of actors.

Man: Then, where have the real actors gone to?

Gojyo: Even if you were to ask us....

Sanzo: Now that you mention it, on our way here, there were a few guys who seemed to be at a loss in front of an overturned horse-drawn wagon.

Goku: Aah! If it’s those guys you’re talking about, they said they had to turn back because their costumes had been ruined or something.

Hakkai: Those are probably the real troupe of actors.

Man: No way! Then, does this mean that the theatrical troupe won’t be coming?

Goku: Uh, apparently, yeah.

Man: That puts me in a fix. The children are already waiting before the stage. They’re all looking forward to the play today.

Sanzo: As if I cared!

Hakkai: I'm sorry Mister Mayor, but since the misunderstanding has been cleared, we’ll be taking our leave of you.

Goku: Once we arrive at an inn, we’ll have dinner there, right?

Gojyo: Before that, we need to get cigarettes! Cigarettes!

Man: Please wait! You are travelers, aren’t you? Therefore, I’ll take care of your accommodation. In return, would you perform the play in place of the theatrical troupe?

Gojyo: Hah?

Sanzo: A joke that’s not funny at all.

Man: Please! There’s nothing else I can think of. If you take on this task, I’ll prepare dinner for you as well.

Goku: Ah? Really? You’ll treat us to dinner?

Man: Yes, of course!

Goku: Yay!

Hakkai: What should we do, Sanzo?

Sanzo: We’ll refuse him, obviously.

Gojyo: Yeah. No way we’d do such a bothersome thing.

Hakkai: I’m sorry, Mister Mayor. Won’t you please lift your head?

Man: Ah, woe is me!

Goku: Eh! Even though he’s generously offered to treat us to dinner....

Gojyo: In your case, anything would be fine as long as it can go into your stomach, wouldn’t it?

Goku: That’s not true! I’d definitely prefer something tasty.

Hakkai: Now, now, Goku. The meals at the inn will surely be delicious too.

Goku: Mm, that’s right. Ah, thinking about food has made me hungry!

Sanzo: Don’t make such a racket by the roadside. It’s unsightly!

Man (rushes to catch up with them): If– if you won’t perform the play, I can’t make any accommodation available to you.

Goku: Eh?

Gojyo: Hah?

Man: You’ll be forbidden from shopping in this town as well. I’ll make sure that none of the restaurants or groceries serve you. Would that be fine with you?

Sanzo: Oi, old geezer! (grabs the mayor) What are you trying to pull?

Man: I–it's useless to threaten me. If I say we won’t serve you, we won’t!

Hakkai: This puts us in a difficult position. Setting aside the matter of accommodation, being unable to shop for provisions is a bit–

Goku: Why?

Hakkai: See, we’ve run out of food, haven’t we? If we’re not able to replenish our food supply here, we’ll have to fast during the one week it’ll take to reach the next town.

Goku: Eh? There’s no way I’m gonna fast for one week! I’ll do it! I’ll perform the play!

Gojyo: Idiot! Don’t just promise something without due consideration, monkey! Try thinking about it carefully. Us, performing a play? That’s impossible, right? Impossible, impossible!

Sanzo: You can’t be serious.

Hakkai: Still, you both have run out of cigarettes too, you know.

(Sanzo and Gojyo let out gasps of shock and dismay.)

Hakkai: Never mind the fasting – can you both abstain from smoking for one week?

Gojyo: Ab–abstain.... P–please allow me to perform the play.

Hakkai: What about you, Sanzo?

Sanzo: Tch. Just get this over with as soon as we can.

Goku: Yay! I’ll get to eat!

Hakkai: Therefore, Mister Mayor, although I can’t guarantee what sort of play it’ll turn out to be, please let us perform it.

Man: Oh, thank you very much! Then, I’ll show you to the backstage dressing room at once. This way, please.

--------

Man (dumps something heavy on the floor): The play you’ll be performing is ‘Cinderella.’ I’ve prepared the costumes, so please change into them in this dressing room. Since the show will begin in five minutes’ time, please hurry and make sure you’re ready by then. (walks out of the room and closes the door)

Gojyo: Five minutes? Isn’t that a bit of a rush?

Hakkai: But it helps that the play we’re going to perform happens to be Cinderella. Even if we don’t have the time to read the script, it seems like we’ll be able to manage somehow or another.

Sanzo: I see. Is this ‘Cinderella’ such a simple play?

Hakkai: Eh? Don’t tell me that you’ve never even heard of Cinderella, Sanzo?

Sanzo: Never heard of it.

Goku: Me neither.

Gojyo: Ah. Me neither.

Hakkai: None of you three know of Cinderella? It’s a rather famous fairy tale, though.

Sanzo: Until now, I’ve not encountered any difficulty despite my ignorance of it.

Gojyo: I have no interest in stuff like fairy tales.

Hakkai: I’ve not expected this situation at all.

Goku: Well, as you said, we’ll manage somehow or another. It’s not that complicated of a play, is it?

Gojyo: Yeah! Besides, that old geezer said the audience is made up of kids. Even if we were to mess up a bit, it shouldn’t be a problem.

Hakkai (sighs): You’re right. There’s no point worrying about it. Let’s carry our copies of the scripts and read out our lines from them as we perform the play. Also, we’ll have to decide on our roles. Alright, everyone, please draw a lot. (fishes out a rattling can)

Sanzo: Oi, when did you make those things?

Hakkai: I made the right call to habitually prepare these in advance in anticipation of situations such as this one.

Gojyo: What sort of situations did you mean by ‘situations such as this one?’

Hakkai: Never mind that. Please hurry up and draw your lot. If we don’t change into our costumes soon, we won’t make it in time.

Goku: Then, I’ll pick this one.

Sanzo: Tch. (picks something from the can)

Gojyo: Here I go.

Hakkai: Everyone’s picked their lot, right? Then, each of you, please check the role written on your lot. Mine is – ah – the stepmother.

Goku: Mine’s the fairy godmother. What about you, Sanzo?

Sanzo: The prince.

Gojyo: Mine’s... (reads out from his lot) Cinderella. Oh! Is this the title role?

Hakkai: Yes, that’s right. Congratulations, Gojyo.

Goku: Eh? Gojyo gets to play the main character? I’m so envious!

Gojyo: Well, a worthy role will naturally go to a handsome man.

Sanzo: If that's the case, it can’t be a decent character.

Gojyo: Did you say something, Your Highness?

Sanzo: Hmmph.

Hakkai (claps twice): All right, everyone. We don’t have much time left. Please change into your costumes immediately. We’ll go on stage right away.

Goku: Okay!

Sanzo: Tch. How bothersome!

(They take the costumes out of the boxes.)

Gojyo: Hey Hakkai, which is the main character’s costume? I can’t find something that looks like it though.

Hakkai: Ah, here’s your costume. (flips the costume)

Gojyo: E–eh... th–this is my costume?

Hakkai: Yes.

Gojyo: Seriously?

Hakkai: Seriously.

--------

(A hubbub among the audience, interrupted by a loud buzzer. An applause ensues.)

Hakkai: Once upon a time, there was a very beautiful, but very pitiful girl. Her name was Cinderella. Day in and day out, under the tyranny of her stepmother, she was treated like a servant and made to toil at menial tasks.

(The stage light turns on.)

Gojyo (muttering to himself as he enters the stage): Really, what’s with this costume? Why do I have to do something like cross-dress for a play?

Hakkai (whispers): Your lines, Gojyo.

Gojyo: Mm? Huh? Aren’t you supposed to play the stepmother?

Hakkai: We don’t have enough people, so I’m serving concurrently as the narrator. More importantly, hurry up and say your lines.

Gojyo: Y–yeah. Uhh.... (gets in character) Mother, I have a favor to ask of you. Please take me with you to the ball tonight.

Hakkai (in character): Ah, an unkempt and useless girl like you wants to go to the ball? How about refraining from making such an annoying request, Cinderella?

Gojyo: Hey.... according to the script, you’re supposed to say nothing more than, “You go to the ball? Don’t say such a foolish thing, Cinderella.”

Hakkai (whispers): That’s just my adaptation of the stepmother’s line. Please don't worry about it.

Gojyo: But I don’t think that adaptation’s necessary.

Hakkai: Never mind that. I’ll go on, all right? (in character) Besides, Cinderella, you’ve done dismally at the cleaning tasks I’ve ordered you to perform today, haven’t you? Look! There’s still some dust left on the window frame here. Please perform the cleaning tasks over again.

Gojyo: This guy’s surely enjoying himself. (clears his throat and gets in character) I’ll redo the cleaning properly once I’ve returned from the ball.

Hakkai (in character): Are you still going on about that nonsense? I can’t allow you to do such an outrageous thing such as meeting the prince. Well, I’ll be going to the ball though. As for you, make sure you work hard on doing the cleaning.

Gojyo (in character): Ah, Mother!

Hakkai (as the narrator): Thus, poor Cinderella was not allowed to attend the ball and was made to stay at home alone.

Gojyo (in character): Ah! And I had so wanted to wear a lovely dress and meet the prince too.

Goku (rushes to the stage): I’ll make your wish come true.

Gojyo (in character): Eh? Who on earth are you?

Goku (in character): I’m a fairy godmother who happens to be passing by. Let me prepare a carriage and a dress for you, Cinderella. Uhh... and then, at the ball – (breaks character) Hey, what’s a ball? Is it some sort of a fight?

Gojyo: It’s not that kind of ball. That’s not it. Errr... how should I say it.... Well, to put it simply, it’s a party.

Goku: Eh, so it’s a party. Then, it’s a place where one gets to eat tasty stuff, isn’t it? I want to go too!

Gojyo: No, no, no.... There’s nothing in the script about the fairy godmother attending the ball too.

Goku: Why not, meanie?

Gojyo: Because that’s not what your character’s supposed to do! Anyway, never mind that. Just hurry up and say your next line.

Goku: Eh? Ah, what’s it again.... Let me see... ah, that’s it. The pumpkin! (in character) I’ll magic the pumpkin into a carriage. (breaks character) The pumpkin – was it the thing someone left at the end of the stage? I just ate it a while ago.

Gojyo: Hah?! That was a raw pumpkin!

Goku: But I was hungry. Hey, I want to go to the ball too. How about taking me to dinner there?

Gojyo: As for dinner, I’ll treat you to some food later. Hurry up and cast your spell on me already! If you don’t do that, the play can’t go on.

Goku: That’s a promise, okay? (gets back in character) Well then, Cinderella, I’ll cast a spell on you. But, it’ll only last until the stroke of midnight. You must not forget that! There, there!

(Sound effect denoting magical transformations at work.)

Hakkai (as the narrator): What an amazing thing! As soon as the fairy godmother finished her incantation, Cinderella’s shabby clothes turned into a lovely dress. The half-eaten pumpkin transformed into a splendid carriage.

Gojyo (in character): Oh! With this, I’ll make it in time for the prince’s ball!

Hakkai (as the narrator): Delighted, Cinderella hurriedly got on the carriage and headed to the ball being held at the castle.

(Orchestral music plays in the background.)

Gojyo (in character): So this is the castle. I wonder if it’s as marvelous as they say.

Hakkai (as the narrator): And then, Cinderella came face-to-face with the prince of this country. (whispers to Gojyo) By the way, Cinderella, despite your apparent discomfort, you’ve been showing a surprising amount of passion in your acting.

Gojyo: Shut up! (gets back in character) Well, where’s the prince?

(Sparkling sound effect followed by ominous music and heavy footsteps.)

Sanzo: Tch.

Gojyo (grumbles to himself): What a boorish-looking prince! Any woman would run away barefoot at the sight of that!

Sanzo: Hmmph!

Gojyo (in character): I wonder if that’s His Highness. What a lovely gentleman!

(Sanzo grunts.)

Gojyo (in character): Eh... errr.... I’d be so delighted if I could have a dance with such a gentleman.

Sanzo: Tch.

Gojyo: Hey, Sanzo.

Sanzo: Hah?

Gojyo: Don’t just click your tongue. Say your lines. Look, it’s written here in the script that the prince is to ask Cinderella to dance with him.

Sanzo: I'll pass on that.

Gojyo: What did you mean by ‘pass?’

Sanzo: How could anyone possibly ask such a loathsome creature for a dance? Just leave your shoe here and get out of my sight right away!

Gojyo: Why you.... It’s not like I’m wearing this costume because I wanted to!

Sanzo: Shut up, freak.

Gojyo: Who’re you calling a freak?

Sanzo: Who else is there aside from you? I’m getting a headache just by looking at you. Just get lost already!

Gojyo: You, you.... I can’t do this anymore! (takes off his shoe) Here, take the shoe! I’d refuse to dance with you even if it’d cost me my life!

Sanzo: What a coincidence. The feeling’s mutual.

Gojyo: Hah?

Sanzo: You’re an eyesore, damn kappa.

Gojyo: I’ll tell what an eyesore is. It’s that fluttering costume of yours.

Sanzo: What did you just say?

Gojyo: Lace does not suit you at all! What’s with those half-assed calf-length pumpkin pants? You sure don’t look like a supreme priest of Tougenkyou in them.

Sanzo: You bastard! (cocks his gun and shoots)

Gojyo: Whoa! That was a close call. Hey! What are you doing–

Sanzo: Be quiet! Die! (shoots again)

Gojyo: Watch it! The bullet just grazed me! Would a normal person shoot his gun in a crowded place like this? What would you do if you’d hit one of the kids?

Sanzo: Shut your mouth. If you keep still, it’ll be over with one shot! (shoots once more)

Gojyo: Whoa! (dodges yet another gunshot) Whoa!

(The children begin to laugh as more gunshots ring out.)

Goku: Hey Hakkai, this is somehow is no different from the usual us. Is it okay to perform ‘Cinderella’ this way?

Hakkai: It’s a major deviation from the script, but it seems to be well-received by the children. So why not just embrace it as an innovative take of the original tale?

Goku: I see! Then, as I thought, a ‘ball’ is a place where people fight, right? [a pun: the first two syllables the term for ball, butoukai, butou, sounds similar to the term for martial arts, budou]

Hakkai: It probably is, at least for those two.

Sanzo: Damn kappa! Die already! (shoots)

(Gojyo shouts as he evades yet another bullet.)

Sanzo: Shit! Tch! Stop dodging my shots, you freak of a kappa!

Gojyo: Whoa! That was close! Hold it! How many more shots will it take before you stop**?

Sanzo: Hey, wait!

Gojyo (shouts amidst more gunshots): Damn it! I’ll never perform a play again in my life! Crap, watch out!

(The stage collapses.)

--------

(Round brackets): actions and sound effects. [Square brackets]: translator’s notes or clarifications. Double asterisks **: Stuff I am not sure with. Suggestions for improvements and corrections are more than welcome.

[recordsfm]

╰   ☆  ◞  dylan minnette / cis man / he/him  ———  no way is that ASHLEY DIMARCO? you know they’re TWENTY-FOUR YEARS OLD and they’ve been in los angeles for THREE MONTHS. they’re chillin’ as a ASSISTANT MUSIC PRODUCER for PINNACLE RECORDS. oh and they’re notoriously known for being STUBBORN but there are some people who have seen them be CREATIVE. i heard they’re a part of a BAND called THE WALLETS, yeah they’re a SINGER/GUITARIST. to be honest they sound a lot like BRADEN BALES & WALLOWS. they’re actually A RISING STAR.

PART ONE: STATISTICS. 

basic information:

FULL NAME: Ashley Jett DiMarco

NICKNAME(S): Ash

AGE: 24

DATE OF BIRTH: June 3rd 1999

PLACE OF BIRTH: New York City

GENDER: Cismale

PRONOUNS: he/him

ORIENTATION: Bisexual

LANGUAGE(S) SPOKEN: English

NEIGHBOURHOOD: Los Angeles

LIVING ARRANGEMENTS: Roommates with twin sister.

family ties:

MOTHER: Natalie DiMarco

GRANDMOTHER: Abigail Anderson

FATHER: Elliott Anderson DiMarco

SIBLINGS: Amity DiMarco

SPOUSE / PARTNER: none

CHILDREN: none

PETS: 1 cat named Eevee

occupational information:

OCCUPATION: Assistant Music Producer at Pinnacle Records

answer only if your character is a musician:

NAME OF THEIR ACT: Wallets

SO THEY PLAY INSTRUMENTS? IF SO WHAT?: Keyboard and guitar

HOW LONG HAVE THEY BEEN A PART OF THE ACT?: 10 years

ARTIST INFLUENCES: Bob Dylan, Weezer, and too many to count

CURRENT MONTHLY SPOTIFY/APPLE MUSIC LISTENS ON AVERAGE: 510.2 K

personality:

WESTERN ZODIAC: Gemini

CHINESE ZODIAC: Rabbit

POSITIVE TRAITS: Creative, Thoughtful, Chivalrous

NEGATIVE TRAITS: Stubborn, Anxious, Shy

HOBBIES: Origami, video editing, playing guitar and keyboard, drinking

PART TWO: QUESTIONNAIRE. 

IF YOUR MUSE IS A MUSICIAN:

start at the beginning, who are you and why are you important?

"Hi, uh, my name is Ash DiMarco, and I'm one of the founding members of The Wallets."

how long have you been making music?

"Well music kinda runs in my family, so it's been a part of my life forever. I mean my mom literally was pregnant on tour. But uh, when I was about 13 I started to really take it seriously. It's around this time when I begged my older cousin to be in my band and well, that's how this kinda all started."

how would you describe the kind of music you make?

"It's definitely indie rock. A little bit of pop, a touch of singer- songwriter vibes."

who are some of your biggest musical influences?

"Well obviously my mom was a huge influence on me, considering how amazing she really is. And many of her influences too, for obvious reasons, but I really draw from like blackbear, Jeremy Zucker, Jon Bellion, the 1975, Wombats, you know very alt artists that are just extremely talented and lyrical geniuses. "

what is the first record you ever bought?

"Make believe by weezer"

what has working in the music industry meant to you thus far in your career?

"I haven't been as successful as some of the members of my family, but I really love this industry. There's so much that goes into making an album or doing a show that I dont think people realize, and that's kinda what I love about it. I love how much work it really takes."

what are some stand out moments from your career so far?

"Well out music videos are what I really love and are most proud of."

how would you describe your style of performance? what makes your shows worth seeing?

Awkward. The Wallets only did one tour in ten years. With local shows few and far between, and it was all because of him. The anxiety he felt on stage. "Well, we don't do a lot of shows, so..." He gave a small chuckle hoping they would move on.

what are you still hoping to achieve in your career, and what’s next for you?

Ash took a long pause, thinking about the future, what he wanted. And the truth was he didn't know. Wallets was crumbling, every member moving on in separate directions, and here he was. clinging to the music industry, cause it's all he really knew. "Sky's the limit."

[xi-off]

back in ye olde days of 2012ish when i was 12ish my friend and i were bronies. (this was shortly before the title broke into the mainstream proper and came to be associated with the fedora m'lady redditors, which is only an important detail because my friend still suffered from such blasphemous concepts as "shame" and "self consciousness" while i was doing homestuck whippets in the bathrooms.)

cannot for the life of me remember what the assignment was because it was for math class, of all things, but we got hit with one of those ~creative~ group projects ubiquitous in the No Child Left Behind era: we had to make up a song. (for math class.) obviously nobody wanted to write a song about the quadratic formula, but i had a vision*, and by all the usamerican gods, i was going to make it happen.

*yes i was the guy that took over group projects and did the entire thing because i wanted nothing to do with the group members. yes i am unemployed at present

anyway. presentation day rolls around. for the record i am and have always been terrible at public speaking (adrenaline rush + my unintelligible accent + i already talk too fast = really good public speaking) and also was class clown several years running , so i get up with my little loose leaf paper with illegible pencil chicken scratch on it and the teachers already digging through his drawers for xanax. the entire class is staring at me with equal parts interest and resignation. mei and alex chang are betting their erasers on whether or not im about to drop the world's most unintelligible chinese just to piss off the teacher.

so i clear my throat. and i sing exactly not very well but probably in english. and then we are done.

mild shock spreads through the crowd of half-awake twelve year olds. whispers and murmurs about the lack of fire department involvement. the teachers looking a little less like hes planning on retiring the second the bell rings.

and then. my friend, in a moment of shocking betrayal, calls me out on plagiarizing This Day Aria from the end of my little pony gen 4 season 2.

i was hurt. i couldnt believe this. was our friendship nothing to him, et cetera. i think i started crying (obviously not from shame because that was not an aspect of my religious beliefs at the time). i was a few years out of my "beating up children twice my size on the playground" phase but i was ready to reignite it for the sake of my honor.

unsurprisingly nobody else in this seventh grade algebra classroom actually cares about 1) copyright laws and/or their exceptions regarding quadratic formula mnemonic parody 2) my little pony gen 4 season 2. so as soon as the adrenaline wears off i sit down and vow to yell at my friend on the bus later. perhaps ban him and his massive french horn case from my seat. except i didnt do that because i stopped caring within ten minutes and on the bus he regaled me with his prep list for the imminent zombie apocalypse because it was 2012. the end.

tldr when i was 12 i didnt face legal persecution for my math-based parody of a my little pony song and thats why all of my writing assignments in high school were either twewy or yugioh fanfiction. god bless

In second grade I wrote an essay but actually copied the lyrics of a my little pony song then I got told off in front of the whole class

[sketching-shark]

LMK fandom: Oh, what do we do about this guy who has nothing but hurt Xiaotian, tried to replace Sun Wukong and his crew, hurt Tripitaka and ordered servants to cannibalize a monkey? Oh I know! We’ll turn him into our little meow meow~ he’s so innocent and Sun Wukong is obviously the villain!

What doesn’t help is this idea is perpetuated by multiple fan fic writers and artists for some reason. Especially some aus they make that turn SWK into a bastard for the sake of the story rather than considering cultural context and thinking they should be respectful.

And almost everyone lets them get away with it just because the art or fanfic is good and they get so popular that no one can point what is actually wrong without feeling like they’re going to get attacked.

I'm starting to feel like my blog is the one anons go to specifically to vent their frustrations about the Six Eared Macaque in his lego monkey show form & the associated fandom lmao. But I guess this makes sense, as I’ve had fun quasi-dragging him before & will in fact use this anon submission as an opportunity to have my own, to put it academically, bitch fest about not just this fandom's favorite protagonist-traumatizing meow meow, but about the way villains are often treated in not just fanon, but increasingly in canon works as well. But same policy as with the last anon; I'll post my opinions below the cut, and as fandoms love to say, don’t like don't read if you don't want to see me dunking on the six eared simian & common fandom tendencies towards villains.

Oh man I would say where would you even begin with this but anon you’ve pretty much started yourself with my main gripe with a lot of ways that the Six-Eared Macaque is portrayed in fandom; there seems to be this unspoken agreement that his acts of violence towards Sun Wukong, Qi Xioatian, and Qi Xioatian’s loved ones are either to be framed as somewhat or totally justified, to be immediately forgiven/excused, or to simply & completely be ignored. Like friends maybe this is just me not seeing the proper posts but while the fandom is inundated with art and fanfics of Macaque as a generally decent individual & a true member of team good guy, I have yet to see one person address the fact that this monkey literally kidnapped & mind-controlled Xiaotian’s best friend and father figures & forced them to brutalize Xiaotian while ol’ Six Ear looked on and laughed (X_X). Like this kind of fandom villain treatment is definitely not something that’s solely at work for Monkie Kid, but it is kind of nutty how fandoms will swing between yelling that people should be allowed to like villains without even mild critique, and then will just flat-out not address the villainous behavior, and will even bend over backwards to frame even characters who committed genocide as just poor innocent widdle victims who need a hug. At its worst, I’ve even seen tons of people in a fandom get really angry at other people who don’t like a villain, and will even start accusing those people of hating real-life mentally disabled or abused individuals all because they don’t like the fandom’s favorite literal war criminal. The Monkie Kid fandom is FAR more chill & better than a lot of other fandoms I’ve come across in that regard, but that is an exceedingly low bar, & the tendency to woobify certain kinds of villains-- as with Macaque and the extreme emphasis on his bad boy/sad boy thing--is very much at work.  

 I’ve also talked before about a kind of monoculturalization of certain character interpretations and story beats in fandoms, and one of the more popular ones that seems to be applied to Macaque a lot is the “hero actually bad, villain actually good” cliche, as observable from the general fandom assumption that Mr. Six-Ears he wasn’t even slightly lying or remembering things through a rose-tinted or skewed lens when he gave his version of his and Sun Wukong’s past. Like at this point it seems the possibility that people WILL NOT even consider is that Sun Wukong never did & still doesn't care that much about the Six Eared Macaque (in JTTW they weren’t sworn brothers & in Monkie Kid the only thing the monkey king really said to Macaque before attacking him was a pretty contemptuous "Aren't you ever going to get sick of living under my shadow?," & responds to his "beloved friend" getting blown up with "You did good, bud" to Qi Xiaotian, who did the exploding), or that their original fight may in fact have mostly been instigated by Macaque. After all, to repeat what this anon summarized & what I've said before about their original JTTW context (& in an example of the things that do feel like it's often lost in translation) is that the Six Ear Macaque was a villain not just because he beat up the Tang Monk, but because he wanted to take over Sun Wukong's entire life and identity so he could have all that glory, prestige, and power for himself. To quote the macaque himself from the Anthony C. Yu translation, "I struck the T'ang monk and I took the luggage...precisely because I want to go to the West all by myself to ask Buddha for the scriptures. When I deliver them to the Land of the East, it will be my success and no one else's. Those people of the South Jambudvipa Continent will honor me then as their patriarch and my fame will last for all posterity." And in order to do this, the Six Eared Macaque had apparently made Sun Wukong's "little ones," his monkey family, his captives through either trickery or force, and gotten a number of them to take on the appearance of Tang Sanzang and the other pilgrims. It's also made clear that in very direct contrast to Sun Wukong, he doesn't care about these monkeys beyond how they might serve him. In fact, after Sha Wujing kills the monkey posing as him the Six Eared Macaque not only all but immediately replaces him with another, but also "told his little ones to have the dead monkey skinned. Then his meat was taken to be fried and served as food along with coconut and grape wines." So this monkey is not only willing to risk the lives of a lot of other monkeys for his own personal benefit, but is also a literal cannibal. And yes yes, I know a lot of people have argued that Monkie Kid shouldn't be considered a direct sequel to JTTW & that's fair enough (for example, Sun Wukong probably shouldn't be smashing anyone into a meat patty in a children's cartoon lol). And of course, it needs to be noted that there are a buttload of really out there & really cursed pieces of media based on JTTW & that were created in China. Yet the above description is the oft-ignored in the west original facet of the Six Eared Macaque's character. And it is this selfishness, entitlement, and treatment of other individuals as tools for his own self-serving ends  that is, from where I’m standing, still very much present in Monkie Kid. Like besides repeatedly going out of his way to physically and psychologically traumatize Xioatian, with the last episode Macaque seemed to be going right back to his manipulative ways. I’ve seen people frame their last conversation as Macaque softening to Xioatian a little bit, but personally that read a lot more like that common tactic among abusers where even after they’ve hurt you they’ll dangle something you want or need over your head (in Macaque’s case, the promise of desperately needed training and information about a serious looming threat), with the implication that you’ll only get it if you do what they want you to, such as, in this case, Xioatian going back to Macaque as his student even after having been so terribly hurt by this monkey, which would give Macaque power over Xiaotian and probably Sun Wukong as a result. And it is this violence and manipulation that it seems the fandom at large has tacitly decided shouldn’t even be addressed, instead leaning more towards a (and this is an exaggeration) “Six-Eared Macaque my poor meow meow Sun Wukong has always been bad & has always been wrong about literally everything” reading. 

And while it is the case that I am not Chinese and feel that as such it would be best left to someone who actually comes from that background to provide more context into how common interpretations of the Six Eared Macaque from China may clash really badly with the stuff the western fandom creates, it also must be noted that, as much as we all want to have fun in fandom & in spite of all the out-there versions of JTTW from China, we westerners should recognize that there is a very long and very ugly history of western countries stripping other cultures’ important religious and literary works for parts & mashing them into their own thing while implying or even insisting that what they present provides a true understanding of the original piece. And while I trust most individuals in regards to Monkie Kid are able to step back and think “this is a lego cartoon and not a set guide for how I should understand JTTW” (especially given the insistence that JTTW and Monkie Kid should be considered there own separate works) there does nevertheless seem to be something of a tendency to take the conclusions people come to, for example, about Sun Wukong’s characteristic in his lego form & then assume that’s just reflective to Sun Wukong as a totality. I imagine a good portion of this is due to people not reading JTTW & especially to not having easy access to solid information or answers about JTTW’s many different facets (like geez awhile ago I was trying to get a clear answer on what is considered the most accurate translation of the names of Sun Wukong’s six sworn brothers & got like 5 different responses lmao), but that tendency to take a western fandom interpretation & run with it instead of doing any background research or questioning said interpretation is still very much at play. As such, & as made prominent in the way people have been interpreting the dynamic between Sun Wukong and the Six Eared Macaque in the lego monkey show, tbh it does seem kind of shitty for western creators & audience to sometimes go really out of their way to ignore all of this original cultural & narrative context for the sake of Angst (TM) in Macaque's favor, demonizing Sun Wukong, and shipping the monkey king with his evil twin (X_X).

And speaking of which, even beyond the potential inherent creepiness & revulsion that can be inspired by this specific ship given common interpretations of the og classic's original meaning (again, it's my understanding, given both summaries of translated Chinese academic texts I've been kindly provided with, my own reading of the Anthony C. Yu translation of JTTW, & vents from a number of Chinese people I've seen on this site, that the Six-Eared Macaque is commonly interpreted in China as having originated from Sun Wukong himself as a living embodiment of his worst traits, hence why only Buddha can tell the difference between them & why the monkey king is much more slow to violence after he kills the macaque), I'd argue that in the face of all the uwu poor widdle meow meow portrayals lego show Macaque is, especially if you include JTTW's events, still in the role of “Sun Wukong but worse” as he is very much a violent & selfish creep. Like he was basically running around in JTTW wearing a Sun Wukong fursuit, but there he had the sole reason of wanting to replace Sun Wukong wholesale so he could have all the good things in the monkey king's life without actually having to work as hard for them. But if you combine that with Macaque now claiming that he used to be best friend with Sun Wukong in his pre-journey days (something that's made funny from a JTTW context given that that status actually belongs to the Demon Bull King lol), his original violence has now blown into this centuries long and really unhealthy obsession with the monkey king. Like he's apparently gone from wanting to literally be Sun Wukong to being so obsessed with getting revenge on Sun Wukong that he's got basically nothing else going on in his life. Like he's only appeared in two episodes but...does he have any friends? Any family? A career or even a hobby that DOESN'T center the monkey king? Anything at all outside of his "get revenge on and/or kill Sun Wukong/use his successor as my personal punching bag” thing? Like dude! That is extremely creepy and extremely bad for everyone all around! As I’ve said before, this seeming refusal to see beyond the past or to do something that doesn’t involve Sun Wukong in some capacity is a trait that makes Macaque an interesting and somewhat tragic villain--he even seems to be working as Sun Wukong’s reflection in a mirror darkly, with lego show Sun Wukong pretty clearly not being able to heal from his own past which is hinted to be defined by one loss after another, and with Monkie Kid even kind of having these two characters somewhat follow their JTTW characterizations in that in the latter half of the journey Sun Wukong often gets sad & starts crying in the face of what seems insurmountable odds (& Monkie Kid Sun Wukong does seem to be hiding some serious depression behind a cheerful facade), whereas the Six-Eared Macaque retains a worse version of Sun Wukong’s pre-journey characteristic of getting pissed and lashing out if things don’t go his way--but it’s also what would make any current friendship or romantic relationship between these monkeys horrific. Although to be fair even the fandom seems to recognize this in an unconscious way, in that a lot of the art & fanfic seems to swing erratically between them kissing & screaming at each other in yet another example of bog-standard fandom adulation of romanticized toxic relationships lol.  

At the end of the day, of course, this is nothing new. You'll find versions of this dynamic across a ton of fandoms and now even canonical work. And as such, I can only look at this kind of popularized relationship dynamic with a kind of resigned weariness whenever it pops up, & my frustrated question with the popularity of this kind of pairing is the exact same one that I have for a multitude of blatantly toxic villain/hero ships, given common fandom discourse & the tendency to either ignore or justify the villain's actions & demonize the hero: if you're THAT convinced that everything is the hero's fault, if you believe THAT much that the hero is the one in the wrong for the villain's pain and their subsequent actions, then why are you so set on them not only becoming a romantic pair, but framing this get-together as a good thing? Like I know we contain multitudes but that's waaay too many contradictions for me to wrap my head around. And it definitely doesn’t help that one branch of underlying reasoning behind this kind of pairing seems to be the ever-present “you break it, you fix it” mentality, where the assumption is that if you’re in a failing, abusive, and/or generally toxic relationship (platonically or romantically), if you put in enough time and effort & attempts to compromise, you’ll be able to restore/have the relationship you dreamed of, even with someone who hurt you really badly. And this assumption isn’t limited to fandom: I’d even argue that it’s everywhere in the culture, hence why a lot of people feel like they “failed” if they have to get a divorce or make the choice to leave an unhealthy friendship. Personally, I feel like people could really benefit from more stories about how it is not only the case that the people you hurt don’t owe you their forgiveness & you can still become a better and happier person without the one you hurt in your life, & that while it can be really hard it can also be a good thing to leave a relationship, even if it’s one that once meant a lot to you. 

  But in all honestly, from my own perspective this kind of pairing is starting to read far less like enemies to lovers and far more like a horrible fantasy where you can pull whatever shit you want, even on the people you "love," & never be held accountable for your terrible behavior or even have to consider that maybe you were in the wrong. It's another facet that makes me larf every time I see people insist that fandom is an inherently "transformative" or "progressive" form of storytelling like friends you are literally just taking status quo toxic monogamy & rebranding it as somehow beneficial & romantic (X_X).

But as to anon’s last frustration, it is hard to know what is the appropriate response with this kind of thing...like for my own part I’m keeping my frustrations to my blog & now increasingly to posts that you would have to click on the “read more” button to see what I have to say, but I totally get the hesitation to give even a mild critique to big names in a fandom. Like I've now seen it happen repeatedly where someone who has a big name in a fandom will make something that's kind of shitty for one reason or another, someone will message them with some version of "hey, that's kind of shitty, you shouldn't do that," and the typical response is either to blatantly ignore the issue completely, or more popularly to make a giant crying circus that seems deliberately geared towards stoking emotions on both sides of the, for example, fiction does/doesn't affect reality issue so that something that didn't even have to be that big a deal gets blown out of all proportion, with the big name often framing what often started out as a very mild critique into a long crying jag about how the initial response to their kind of shitty thing was so mean/cruel and they're just a poor innocent & that YOU'RE the true racist/sexist/bigot etc. if you don't agree with their opinion. It must of course be noted that there have also been numerous instances of people taking it too far the other way & sending not just big names but smaller creators literal deaths threats over stuff like innocuous ships which like holy hell bells people that’s a horrible thing to do. But for the big names at least, the end result of all this fighting is usually that once the dust has settled they have more attention/fame/money/power in the fandom than before, and with anyone who might have a problem with their stuff feeling afraid to voice their opinion lest they be swarmed by that person's fans. In that way fandom does often seem to increasingly be geared towards presenting an “official” fandom perspective about various facets of a piece of media instead of allowing for a multitude of interpretations, and with criticism, no matter its shape or form or how genuinely warranted it may be, being hounded out of existence. I feel like a lot of this could be made less bad if there wasn’t this constant assumption & even drive to think that a different interpretation of or criticism of your favorite work of fiction or your fanwork isn’t a direct claim that you are a thoroughly loathsome individual (& maybe also if people cultivated an enjoyment of learning things about important works from a culture outside their own, even if what you learn clashes with your own initial understandings), but I guess we’ll see if that ever happens. 

So these are my general thinks about the Six Eared Macaque’s current fandom meow meow status & some of my bigger gripes with fandom tendencies as a whole. I stand by my idea that the most interesting & beneficial route for Macaque moving forward would be a kind of “redemption without forgiveness from the ones you hurt” arc--as I think was done pretty excellently with the character Grace in Infinity Train--and if for no other reason than gosh dern this monkey really needs to cultivate some sort of identity beyond his “Sun Wukong but worse” persona. 

[guzhuangheaven]

Hello! I've seen many posts here on traditional clothing, but also on other topics, so I hope this is an appropriate question to ask. Could you please explain about different diminutives and terms of endearment in Chinese, like Xiao- (小), A-/Ah- (阿), -Er (兒), Lao (老), Lang (郎), and -Ge/-Jie/-Di/-Mei (哥/姐/弟/妹) (between non-biological relatives)? When would you use these, what is the difference between them and why would you use one over another, and how do you know which part of the name to pair?

The easy bit to tackle is the ge/jie/di/mei which when used socially are just an indicator of your relative age to the person you are addressing. So you would call a social acquaintance/friend who is slightly older than you ge/xiong or jie, and someone slightly younger than you di or mei. Ge/xiong and jie can also be used for someone around the same age as you as a sign of respect. I would say these honorifics imply a more informal relationship, but it is not such a close relationship that allows a more intimate diminutive or nickname like Lao X. If on an English-speaking scale of formality between calling someone Mr/Miss X, their name, or calling them dude or bro or some other affectionate insulting nickname, you’re somewhere in the middle. It’s basically the equivalent to being on a first name basis with someone, it’s just that the cultural values requires an honorific like ge/jie/di/mei to clarify the social relationship.

Regarding other terms like xiao/ah/er/lao/lang, it’s important to be aware that there are no hard set rules about how to use any of them. Most of the time diminutives of names evolve organically through social interactions. There isn’t any rule that X name has to be paired with xiao or er, any more than there are rules that a person named Robert can only be nicknamed Rob instead of Bob or whatever. Whether you’re called Rob or Bob or Bobby, or whether only your mum calls you Bobby and everyone else calls you Rob, entirely depends on whatever arbitrary reason you chose that name as your preferred name or what those around you decided to call you.

That said, of course there are certain connotations to be read when certain diminutives are used in certain contexts.

Diminutives like xiao and er are often given to children by older generations of their family, and can stick around until adulthood. If you’re a man, and unless your name is actually Xiao X, if you are still called xiao and er into adulthood, this is likely because these diminutives were childhood nicknames that stuck around, and would only be used by those very close to you anyway. An example of this is in Nirvana in Fire, where you have people from Lin Shu’s childhood calling him Xiao Shu because that was his family nickname when he was young. It’s probably also meant to emphasise that Lin Shu as an identity is perpetually stuck at age 19. In any case, cute diminutives like xiao and er may be used for a grown man by members from older generations of his family such as parents or grandparents, but would unlikely be used between peers or those from the same generation. Between peers, grown men would be more likely to use each other’s courtesy names rather than diminutives.

Xiao and er can be more often used between those of the same generation/peers as diminutives for women but even then, it often also implies a close relationship. Of course, I would say the spectrum of formality for addressing women is a lot narrower than men, as historically women would have more limited avenues of social interaction. You’re probably working with two extremes of “very formal title” and “intimate nickname/diminutive” with very little in between. Between two women, it’s probably easier to move into using the intimate nickname. But for a man to address a woman he is unrelated to with a diminutive such as xiao and er would probably imply they have either known each other all their lives or otherwise have a very intimate relationship. The exception would only be if everyone called her by those diminutives and there’s no other more formal option.

Ah is usually used to tack on to the given name of people who have a one-character given name, and you don’t want to call them by their full surname + given name, because that would be too formal. It can be used as a diminutive for people who have two-character given names as well, but I think that’s less usual.

I would equate lao to something like the modern English dude or bro, in that it has that back-slapping male vibe to it. As a nickname, it certainly is more often used between men and paired with the surname or the numbering position you hold within your family.

(Not to be confused with lao when used as a term of respect for older people, which is another story.)

Lang is an interesting one, because it can be very social or very intimate depending on the context. I personally tend to associate lang with a certain period around the Tang and Song dynasties, though I’m sure it was used in other times as well. Lang can be paired with your surname and/or your numbering within the family and used by people when talking about you or to you, simply to denote that you are a male member of that family. So for example, in The Story of Ming Lan, Gu Ting Ye is often referred to socially as Gu Er Lang, which basically is just a way to indicate that the person is referring to the second son of the Gu family without saying his full name (which is rude) or calling him by some more formal title (which might sound stuffy in a close social context and/or not quite appropriate if the person talking is a social/generational superior). So there’s nothing special about someone like the emperor or Gu Ting Ye’s stepmother calling him Er Lang, because it’s just a mode of address.  But at the same time, there’s a whole plot point of Gu Ting Ye trying to get Ming Lan to call him Er Lang after they are married, because between a couple, lang is a much more intimate term of endearment.  

In terms which part of the name you would pair with any/all of these pre/suffixes, that also highly depends on your name. If you share a generational name with your brothers/sisters/cousins, usually your diminutive would most likely be paired with the other name that is unique to you. Alternatively, some people’s diminutive name might derive from the first character of their given name, others might be from the second character, simply because whichever character it is flows better with the diminutive term, or because it’s just randomly chosen. Since if you have a two-character name, both are your names it doesn’t really matter which you turn into a diminutive.

These are just some points that come to mind, but again, these terms can be extremely fluid, so there are no rules about how they must be used, which also means that their usage is often open to interpretation. A term of endearment might also become special because only X person uses it, not because the name per se is special. If everyone calls you Tonks and there’s that one person who’s allowed to call you Dora then obviously you have a different relationship with that person.  -H

[morimakesfanart]

whats you're favourite magi arc? and why

Alright so I took a while to answer this because I wasn't sure how direct I wanted to be... You'll understand when you get to the end

My Favorite arc in the Magi anime:

The Sindria arc (obviously). I am a Simpbad after all. My favorite scene is when Kou delegates arrive. I hate what happened to Kougyoku; she was betrayed by a trusted advisor and spent at least a month thinking she had been assaulted in her sleep. What I do like is how these mimics Chinese historical dramas, and in general I like seeing Sinbad squirm under the consequences of his own actions. He might not have committed this crime, but his reputation is so bad with his own Household members that they didn't even question it. The voice acting in the anime really elevates the whole thing.

My Favorite arc in the Magi manga: (SPOILER WARNING)

Of course I love the Sinbad arcs, but after a bunch of rereads I noticed that I keep really looking forward to the arc of Alibaba and Judar trying to make their way through the Dark Continent. Alibaba is condensed into his most friendshaped form, and Judar is forced to face a bunch of things he had been denying and using to runaway emotionally. There was no one for him to force his toxic habits on, so he calmed down like a feral cat being tamed.

My Favorite arc in the Adventures anime:

It's almost a tie between the Valefor Dungeon and Artemyra arc, but the later wins for 2 reasons. 1. The whole thing about being kicked into a pit naked as a punishment and getting out by tricking gaint birds into carrying him is from the original Sinbad the Sailor stories. I really love when a character lives through a arc based on their name sake. 2. There's a fourth wall break.

I'm not a fan of how the Queen was treated tho. Would have preferred not having the non-con moment.

My Favorite arc in the Adventures manga: (SPOILERS WARNING) Also, TRIGGER WARNINGS for: emotional and physical child abuse mentioned but no direct details are given. Cults mentioned.

It's hands down the Slave arc. I like how well the emotions are shown for all of the characters, and how the children being brainwashed are portrayed. I also really like how Sinbad responds to the decisions he made in that environment, and that he has (what I can only view as) a PTSD flashback to it later. Ohtaka has stated that Sinbad has an inhuman level of mental and emotional stability, but we can still see how what he went through was traumatic and affects the rest of his life.

But more than that, this arc is my favorite in the whole franchise for a very personal reason. It helped me with part of my recovery with CPTSD and PTSD. It's something that I know I will end up talking about in the fanfic eventually but I'm not sure how much.

One of my therapists had said that what my sibling and I went through was akin to the brainwashing in cults to make worshippers basically slaves to the leader. I knew what our parents did was bad, but I struggled to believe it was as bad as she said until I read this arc and related to the slaves, and brainwashing, and punishments Sinbad goes through. I had seen slavery depicted in other things, but those all focused on brutal physical punishments; this focused on mental and emotional manipulation, and Maadar didn't want to give Sinbad scars or injuries that would make him unpresentable -just like my mom was with me. I have since watched a lot on cults and gosh is it chilling to see something so horrible that I relate to so completely.

For anyone who read the little about my ex-fiancée: I couldn't recognize the red flags because he was so much better than my parents.

I will be going into some detail with all of this in the fic, so I'll stop here for now.

[revenge-of-the-shit]

Racism, antisemitism, and anti-Jedi sentiment in Star Wars (Part 3/4)

Part 3: Antisemitism and Anti-Asian racism

via @shadowaccio6181 :

There is also an article here regarding more current stereotyped perceptions of both Asians and Jewish people that I’ll quote larger sections from, because I think context is important:

This type of “faulty and inflexible generalization” that associates an individual with the perceived wrongs of an entire ethnic/racial group is almost the textbook definition of prejudice. Princeton University psychologist Susan Fiske and her collaborators published a series of articles examining stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination. They show people usually assess a group along two dimensions: warmth (are they sincere and sociable?) and competence (are they capable and intelligent?). For example, her work finds the elderly are stereotypically perceived as warm but incompetent; middle-class white Americans as warm and competent; Asians and Jews as cold but competent, and homeless people as cold and incompetent.

People who are not friendly are more dangerous to others than are people who are not competent, who are more dangerous to themselves. When majority-group members with high levels of bias encounter members of minority groups they perceive as cold, biased individuals can feel they must react by verbally harassing, bullying or attacking them. That’s especially true if that minority group is being touted or perceived as threatening — the way some leaders are painting Asian Americans as responsible for spreading the pandemic.

Using a nationally representative, random-sample telephone survey that interviewed 571 respondents in the United States in 2003, Fiske’s research found Asians, along with Jews, are consistently stereotyped as competent but cold. Biased individuals, confronted with people stereotyped as competent-cold, often feel envy and resentful admiration. Envied groups are often scapegoated during periods of widespread social instability, because biased majority-group members perceive those groups as having both the ability and intention to disrupt society.

We also shouldn’t ignore the stereotype of Asian parenting: “the notion that the Asian American parenting style is authoritarian—devoid of warmth, controlling, unfeeling, and undemocratic—versus Western parenting, which is viewed as the more positive authoritative style—firm, but warm, highlighted by intimate parent-child relations… our perceptions of parental warmth are culturally concocted and notes that what is often perceived as “strict parenting” in non-Western or non-Caucasian families is often misunderstood.” Obviously, not all parents are perfect, but this is very much a racist stereotype.

Commentary from Annessarose:

Exactly this.

It is indeed true that some Asian parents are undeniably strict to the point of toxic helicopter parent. I know this for a fact, because I have so many (Chinese) friends who experience it. It is also true that there are Asian parents who are not like this, and that there are many parents who are not toxic, who are supportive of their children.

Ultimately, it's important to note that for many parents, their actions come from good intentions even when it manifests itself in decidedly toxic ways. They are human. This does not excuse toxic parenting in any ways, but painting Asian parents with one brush and portraying all of them as harsh and unfeeling and authoritarian does a disservice to the many parents who are supportive, who listen, who try their best to help their kids. Ultimately, people are complex. Reducing them to stereotypes is dangerous and toxic.

To Jewish Star Wars fans: please please please feel free to add to this conversation! I don't feel qualified to speak on this but I would love to hear & amplify your voice on this.

We also shouldn’t ignore the common stereotypes of Asians in film (source):

I really feel I need to point this out, but as an Asian American, I’m actually thankful Obi-Wan is played by Ewan McGregor, because if he were played by an Asian actor, it would make so much of fandom’s characterizations of him Significantly More Yikes.

Ewan McGregor is known for being naked on-screen and having sexually suggestive scenes. However, there's a stereotype of "the Asian man as effeminate and asexual", or if sexualized, they're "categorized as exotic and different... foreign." This stereotyping "both feminizes Asian-American men and simultaneously constructs alternative gender and sexuality as aberrant." And "it seems as if Asian men are also victim to extremes: In some portrayals, they are cold-hearted villains and ruthless Kung Fu masters, while in other films, are portrayed as “losers” who have all the brains but no social skills or clueless immigrants fresh off the boat." "...men were portrayed more negatively than women; Asian men are perceived as less socially skilled or seen as the enemy." And Asians are often paraded about “as an example for people, showing them to be intelligent, overachieving" but "Asians were more likely to also be perceived as antisocial, awkward, and lacking proper communication skills."

Annessarose's commentary:

Oh, boy. Do I have thoughts on this.

I grew up in a an Asian diaspora. And. Despite living in a primarily Chinese area of that community, these stereotypes still wormed their way into us. At school, many (Chinese) girls would talk about how none of the (Chinese) men were attractive, and how they were dreaming about the white boys they saw on television instead. As we grew older, I had several in-depth discussions with several of my close female friends, and we'd end up talking about how the reason we thought the white guys were more attractive was because the media we watched told us that that was what the beauty standard was.

On top of that, we also had that stereotype of Asians being intelligent overachievers internalized as well. Do you know how many people would cry over an 85%? Do you know how many people would complain about a 92%? Many people ended up placing their self-worth into their academic marks, and it was disastrous. Mental health was all over the place. Bullying based on marks abounded. Granted, this stereotype was not the only reason this happened; it's true that there are indeed parents who take nothing less than 100%, and let me tell you, it really fucked some of my classmates up. It was horrendous. But many parents were not like that, but the constant peer pressure + societal pressure to be perfect in academics and extra-curriculars and everything just so we could feel like what society told us Asians were like was tremendous even in an Asian diaspora.

I remember being assigned to a group of white classmates in elementary school. I remember them saying, "Oh, cool, you're in here!" and I was like "Why me?" They told me "You're Asian, you're smart, so we're gonna do well in this project." Similar stories abounded with my East Asian friends all across elementary school, and shaped how we felt when we entered our high school.

Even in diaspora, western stereotypes & racism can be destructive and toxic.

This is Part 3!

[Part 1] | [Part 2] | [Part 4]

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed - Episode 02

Warning: Spoilers for all 50 episodes!

(Masterpost ) (Previous Episode) (Next Episode)

Donkey Riding

way ho and away we go, donkey riding donkey riding way ho and away we go, riding on a donkey

Wei Wuxian and Apple are doing their best for the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. 

Xiao Zhan had trouble riding the donkey sitting side-saddle, so the Department of Questionable Practical Effects made him a fake leg to wear while riding regular style. 

Can you spot it? It’s very hard to spot. It is very convincing.

Simple Pleasures

Wei Wuxian takes his time wandering up the nearest mountain, and half of the cultivators in the land also wander up this mountain because...Night Hunting! The cultivators are hot and thirsty from walking because they forgot that they all know how to fly. 

Wei Wuxian relaxes by a well and listens to people stanning him. 

Also

I’m going to say it: Wei Wuxian never met a drinking vessel he couldn’t blow.

Everything is Beautiful at the Ballet

The actress who plays A-Yan is named Zhang Linran. She probably has studied dance since she was 4 and now she gets her big break which turns out to be feeding an apple to a donkey. So let’s pause for a second to look at how beautifully she moves.  

Reunions are Awkward, Part 1

Wei Wuxian meets up with one of his family members and it goes super well. 

I...like Jin Ling? He’s much less of a douchebag than his dad, his uncles Jin, Jiang, and Mo (the three stooges), and every damn one of his Jin cousins. He’s genuinely brave (his Dad’s primary good quality) and his hair is on fleek. He’s still a whiny diaper baby, but I like him. 

(much more after the cut!)

Then Jiang Cheng shows up, looking fine as hell and radiating peak arrogant-prick energy.

When he discovers that ‘Mo Xuanyu” stuck a piece of paper to Jin Ling, he tells the child to literally murder him. Excellent uncleing! A+++++ would recommend.  

“In fact, literally murder anyone who uses Yiling Laozu’s tools, like talismans, lure flags, or spirit compasses - basically murder everyone in the Lan Clan plus those other fanboys we saw coming up the hill. Then get out there and make some friends, goddamn it!”

These nets full of cultivators on this daytime night hunt are the only time we ever see anything in a net during a night hunt.  In fact dudes constantly go night hunting and the only prey we ever see is rock lady, murder turtle, and a couple of rag mops in the lake. 

You Are Not Qualified to Speak to Me

Also radiating arrogant-prick energy on this occasion is Lan Wangji. He has been using pettiness as a weapon since long before he met this Jiang Cheng turkey, and he *brings it* when Jiang Cheng tries to have a conversation with him.

Letting your eyes wander everywhere except to his punchable face while you ignore his passive-aggressive questions? Quality work. 

Dropping a silence spell on his child and then letting your own child explain it to him? Golden. 

Lan Wangji is never ever going to forgive Jiang Cheng for what he did on cliff day, and his silence here is as pointed as an ice pick. I suspect the last words Lan Wangji actually spoke to him were “Jiang Wanyin, stop it,” sixteen years ago. 

Jiang Cheng is actually the bigger person in this particular interaction, visibly mastering his temper and telling Jin Ling to take his medicine. 

Reflecting

Wei Wuxian hangs out by a beautiful river and hallucinates for a while. River Jiang Yanli is nurturing and River Jiang Cheng is pissed off, so there are no surprises there.  River Jiang Cheng thinks that Wei Wuxian is a promise-breaking douchebag. He’s not exactly wrong. 

Courtesy of convenient gossiping cultivators, Wei Wuxian discovers that the 16 year old arrogant kid from the Jin clan who his brother from the Jiang clan has custody of is actually and quite obviously Jin Rulan.

Well fuck I guess now I care about something, that’s inconvenient. 

Needing to help parent the child of the sister who parented him is what draws Wei Wuxian fully into his new life. 

As soon as he has this realization, Apple comes back from roaming around, and never gives him any trouble after this for the rest of the story. Which...probably doesn’t mean anything. 

Wen Gravesite

Does Wen Ning hang out here because it’s where he and his (dead) people came from? Oh great, now I am sad. 

Judging by all the leaves on this grave thingy I’m going to say that this grave tender dude is, ah, not very good at his job. 

Get him, Jingyi!

I feel like maybe we all focus too much on how Lan Jingyi is so hilarious and sardonic and not enough on how he is a such a biscuit. 

Soul Grass

As mentioned in the previous post, Chinese spiritual concepts don’t always translate well into English. Soul grass? Sure, why not. 

This is where Wei Wuxian’s Sherlock Holmes brain starts to work, although he still doesn’t remember really basic stuff about Dafan Mountain. Dying and changing bodies is rough on the old neurochemistry. This creates more opportunities for flashbacks, however, and if there’s one thing The Untamed deffo needs more of, it’s kissing flashbacks.

Temple Statue

Presumably grave-tender dude is also in charge of clearing away spiderwebs at the temple, because it’s not getting done. 

Jin Ling walks into the temple blaspheming at full volume. 

Since this isn’t a Greek story, he isn’t immediately struck blind for this. Then when he wishes for the statue to come alive, it obligingly does.  Everything’s coming up Rulan!

Wei Wuxian shows up to rescue all the kids by throwing talismans at the monster which does not tip anyone off to who he is. 

Baby Cultivator Babysitting

Lan Wangji chills out in the cultivators’ pavilion with Jiang Cheng and their mutual hate boners.

Meanwhile, Wei Wuxian forgets all about his nephew and turns into cool professor guy, explaining the basics of soul-eating to the baby cultivators and gleefully encouraging their fear of Hanguang-Jun’s punishments. 

Because the Lan babies are good filial children they are super respectful and engaged with this random adult who is lecturing them. They also - like their own Hanguang-Jun at their age - see and admire Wei Wuxian’s intellect. It’s easy to forget how extremely smart Wei Wuxian is, because of how extremely dumb Wei Wuxian is.

Lan Jingyi suddenly figures out Wei Wuxian is not crazy. 

Bis. Kit. 

Then Rock Lady shows up and Jin Ling sticks 6 arrows into her while Lans Jingyi and Sizhui stand around not bothering to draw their swords.

I see a lot of comments about the bad effects in the statue sequences but I think Rock Lady is all right. The figure animation is decent and the lighting is no worse on her than on everything else in the scene. Her hair is nice, for a rock person.

Admittedly I just finished watching Guardian which has CGI monsters so bad they may have injured my retinas and possibly also my DNA, so the bar, for me, is pretty low. Rock lady clears it with room to spare.   

Note: Wei Wuxian’s flute playing does zippity towards controlling the statue. Not sure what his plan was here.

Wen Ning Kicks Ass

Now we get to meet Wen Ning, who appears to be a stone-cold badass. Later we will discover how hilariously inaccurate that assessment is. 

While all versions of Wen Ning are delightful, this version of Wen Ning is also...strangely attractive? He’s got a Patti-Smith-Horses-Era vibe here, instead of his more usual lost-baby-dork vibe. And his dreamy “I have nails in my head” expression is intriguing. 

I mean, he’s not a total snack like zombie Song Lan or pre-zombie Song Lan or blind Song Lan or post-zombie Song Lan, but this look is a good one for Wen Ning, is what I’m saying.

Reunions are Awkward, Part 2

Lan Wangji, who has 99% already recognized Wei Wuxian because of the haunted sword and the fierce jawline and beautiful neck and tiny tiny waist, is summoned by his flute playing as inexorably as the Ghost General was. 

Jiang Cheng also recognizes Wei Wuxian and goes into full beatdown mode, thwarted (silently) by Lan Wangji. Wei Wuxian attempts to preserve his incognito by sassing Jiang Cheng in as sibling-like a manner as possible. 

Hanguang-Jun’s Pro-Ghost Agenda Has Been Clear for Some Time

This Jiang/Lan fight is hilarious when you consider the implications.

Macroexpression vs. Microexpression

Mo Xuanyu brought Wei Wuxian back using sacrifice summons, a dark ritual invented by Wei Wuxian that he, most likely, did NOT show to Lan Wangji back in the day. So it’s a pretty safe bet that Lan Wangji doesn’t know that Wei Wuxian was gifted a body, rather than stealing one.

when your brother turns around, you must whip him you will never live it down unless you whip him

When Jiang Cheng lets loose with Zidian, it’s not just because he’s angry. He’s using purple power to force Wei Wuxian’s ghost out of the body he’s apparently possessed. And Lan Wangji instantly STOPS him from doing that.

Clan Leader Jiang: this person has been possessed, against their will, by an evil ghost

Future Chief Cultivator Lan: Counterpoint: I am banging the ghost

Flashback Time

Welcome to your 30-episode flashback!

Once I used to join in Every boy and girl was my friend Now there's revolution, but they don't know What they're fighting

Let us close our eyes Outside their lives go on much faster Oh, we won't give in We'll keep living in the past

Road Tripping to Summer School

Gosh I’m looking forward to younger, kinder, more relatable Jiang Cheng.

...prick. 

Incidentally, until now this episode didn’t know that Jiang Cheng has smile muscles, and neither did the person who glued his wig on for him.

I Like Rabbits

Here we have our first rabbit in a large collection of rabbit iconography that appears in The Untamed. 

Instead of sending everyone to the Wikipedia page for Tu'er Shen I’m going to take this opportunity to rec the short film Kiss of the Rabbit God by Andrew Thomas Huang (tw: blood, tw:body-mod cutting) which you can read about and watch over at  Nowness.com 

Particularly if you are a queer person of Chinese heritage, check it out. 

So. What the fuck are these? Are they food? 

Are they made from wax? Or corn starch? or pig intestines? 

Wei Wuxian runs off to get laid drunk and Jiang Cheng grumps about it. Jiang Yanli reminds him that being free is a Jiang Clan Rule, so really Wei Wuxian is following the rules by not following the rules. Does that mean he’s not free? My head hurts. 

Jiang Cheng: yes but grump grump grump

Jiang Yanli: Nothing bad will ever happen because of A-Xian’s choices, trust me

Outro

Wei Wuxian faint tally: one  Caught by: the cold hard ground

Soundtrack: 1. Donkey Riding by Great Big Sea 2. Living in the Past by Jethro Tull 3. Whip It by Devo

Fic prompt:  Lan Wangji’s internal monologue while he sits in the pavilion with Jiang Cheng 

If you write a fic from this prompt and want to share, please post a link in comments!

Bonus: Wang Zuocheng, macro-expression king

Episode 03 Restless Rewatch coming soon!

[mangamushi]

Thoughts on Panorama of Hell

 (HINO Hideshi, 1 volume, 1984)

(warning for spoilers and disturbing topics)

In Panorama from Hell, a painter obsessed with depicting hell takes the reader on a journey to discover his life. His work, his neighborhood, his family members and family history are presented to paint a bleak and violent picture of hell on earth.

Hideshi Hino is a very big name of horror manga. Panorama of Hell is one of Hino’s most famous and acclaimed manga, and represents in many ways the quintessence of his style. When he draw Panorama, he thought it would possibly be his last horror manga (he didnt actually stop after that, though).

It displays all his favorite themes and even blatantly recycles ideas from his previous works. It is therefore is a very good entry point for anyone interested in Hino’s stuff. One the other hand, it feels a bit redundant when you are already familiar with his work, especially if you have read Lullaby from Hell, as both manga are very similar. 

As the title suggests, Panorama takes place in a hellish setting, described in great details by the main character.  He is a painter who uses his own blood to paint, and the world he lives is horrible in many ways: from his window he sees an execution platform operating non-stop, a stream full off trash and corpses runs next to his house, he lives in the smell of burning bodies because of the next-door crematorium... 

These first few chapters are so insistent on being as abhorrent as possible that I found it hard to take seriously. In the beginning it felt so exaggerated and lacking any subtlety  that it almost felt a bit comical at times, like the author was just stacking awful things on more awful things for shock value.

“his daily routine”

And it keeps escalating from there. Next, his family is introduced: cruel children with a dark sense of curiosity, a beautiful wife who seems straight out of a classic japanese horror tale (pale skin and long black hair, wearing traditional clothes...), until we go back in time to witness the story of his grand-parents and parents. 

It gradually becomes more interesting, especially the part about his family which shows deeply ingrained violence and insanity getting passed down from a generation to the next. It culminates when historical events (WWII and its aftermath, the atomic bombings) are shown, intertwining with the painter’s personal story.

Different kinds of hells complete each other (ambient with initial setting and scenery of desolation, a more personal hell with the intra-familial violence, and the wider-scale historical hell of war).

Overall, I find Hino less imaginative than  fellow “horror masters” Junji ito and Kazuo Umezu. Those two can come up with the craziest ideas, whereas Hino’s scenarios and imagery are somewhat more expected/conventional for horror. 

But perhaps the most interesting part of Panorama is the way it blurs the borders between reality and fiction. First of all, the main character, an artist who specializes in depicting horror, acts as a stand-in for Hino himself. This is fairly common in his work, his other manga Lullaby from hell even has an extremely similar character overtly present himself as Hino: 

The artist from Panorama is making his last, best painting, just like Hino who was thinking of ending his mangaka career with his strongest work.  Both the painting and the manga share the same title, “Panorama of Hell”. 

 The similarities between Hino and his main character don’t end here, and many elements of the story are actually taken from Hino’s own life: his grandfather really was a yakuza, his brother went into a coma, his father was pig farmer with a tattoo on his back...

Just like the painter, Hino grew up in the context of the direct aftermath of WWII. Both the character and the author were born in Japanese-occupied China, and were nearly killed when their family fled back to Mainland-Japan after the country’s loss. He takes inspiration from his own life and in the traumatizing things he witnessed and lived through to draw his manga. It is hard to discern what is fiction or not in the painter’s story. Many elements are obviously fantastical and folklore-ish, like the beheaded ghosts visiting the wife’s bar (this chapter feel like a tone-shift, it is much more whimsical, with the corpses happily eating their own body parts), yet the references to real historic events like the war and Hiroshima bombing still links Panorama of Hell to reality, to our world. 

The painter’s insanity makes him an unreliable narrator. Indeed, at the end of the story, the current members of the painter’s family (his wife, his daughter and son, his brother...) are revealed to have been fake all along : the wife and children are a mannequin and puppets, the brother is a pig’s corpse...

Moreover, by having the painter address the reader directly (”let me show you...”) Hino breaks the fourth wall that should separate the world of fiction from reality.

 This culminates at the very end of the book, where the painter throws an axe at the reader to kill them.

Hino’s art style is really simple and easily recognizable. The way he draws body horror and wounds isn’t very realistic, which makes the gore parts less shocking. His character’s simple, soft, deformed appearance reminds me of modeling clay or perhaps melting plastic toys.

I am even tempted to describe his style as cute. The big eyes, round features, and the way his characters are often miserable and mistreated by others...it is cute in a pitiful way.

Hino draws lots of babies, children, and baby animals which adds to both the cuteness and the horror. It also helps that I share Hino’s fondness for insects, worms and other similar crawling creatures...

There are figures based on his works that are just too cute! 

Hino often puts animals in his stories and even merges animals and humans. He writes stories where people transform into animals (Bug Boy) or give birth to inhuman creatures ( Unusual Fetus -My Baby ). Human bodies are more often than not hosts to parasites and maggots (Mermaid in a manhole...).

In Panorama of Hell, humans are executed one after the other like livestock in a slaughterhouse, and their bodies get dumped in a stream where they mix with other dead animals. Beheaded bodies try to put animal heads on to feel complete again, and the painter’s daughter is obsessed with animal corpses that she collects and dissects.

He doesn’t use any screen tones, nor does he use a lot of crosshatching as a mean to create different shades of grey, so the jet black ink creates a stark contrast against  the white of the paper. Some pages are beautiful and esthetically pleasing in spite of the repulsive contents. Especially towards the end of the book, which depict strange surrealist imagery as the world is falling apart.

His frequent use of pitch black silhouettes reminds me of shadow play theater  (which originates from China where Hino was born), as well as of Kamishibai (street theater using paper, which was very popular in post-war Japan). 

Kamishibai originates from buddhist temples and was often used to spread buddhist teachings.

Hino makes uses of buddhist concepts and imagery in his depiction of hell. Panorama of Hell could be compared to the Hell Scroll, a famous scroll describing the Chinese Buddhist conception of hell with text and pictures. 

↑ The “Blood Lake” and “Needle Moutain” in this panel refers to two of the different kinds of hells depicted in the Hell Scroll. The blood lake is exclusively for women.

Young women are only thing that are drawn in a conventionaly beautiful way.  However, finding beauty and fascination in the most horrendous things is a central point of Hino’s body of work. His characters are either artists or collectors obsessed with what fits their strange idea of beauty (cf. Flower of Flesh and Blood, where a woman’s dismemberment is an act of creation and a research of ideal beauty in the perpetrator’s eyes).

The contrast between the solid black shadows and the untouched white of the paper can give the impression that a strong, blinding light is hitting the world. The violent light emitted from an explosion, for example. Which is fitting, giving the importance of the Hiroshima atomic bomb in the story and its repercussions that still dawn on the characters years later. It’s like the characters are constantly bathed in the harsh light of the bombings. 

The Hiroshima bomb is called a “gigantic emperor from hell”, it rules over the character’s lives, even years after it was dropped. As a child, the painters created a replica of the mushroom cloud that he worships like a god.

Panorama of Hell is a very dark and pessimistic work, displaying a world where there is no hope and nothing is spared (not even the reader, who receives the painter’s axe!). In fact, the main character was already doomed before he was even born. Indeed, he is the child of the Hiroshima bomb itself: his mother got pregnant as she was hit by a beam from the explosion. 

[historic-old-guard-lover]

What are your thoughts on the old guards and literacy ( past and present ) ?

I've reblogged some posts here (on why anything goes for literacy in medieval Europe), here (which touches upon oral history), here (a heartwarming take on reading aloud), and here (a humorous take), but I'd love to go in depth for you! As usual, the mega-post with pictures and more detailed explanations is below the cut-off.

TL;DR Summary of Literacy for Each Member:

Lykon: never needed to read or write, probably did neither

Andy: we see her read in the film, but might have only picked up reading in the last few centuries; doesn’t necessarily know how to write but would also be a fairly recent skill*

Quynh: may read or write, but similar to Andy would have been “recent” in the terms of her lifespan*

Yusuf: likely can read and write Arabic before his death, values literacy

Nicolo: total wild-card for either reading or writing, but we see him reading silently in the film so he has learned to read at some point; unclear whether he values it

Booker: very background-dependent for reading and writing, but values literacy as a social status symbol and clearly enjoys books from the film

Nile: can read and write and views it as an essential skill, but likely knows people who are illiterate and understands the socio-economics behind US literacy

*This is based on the fact that they never needed literacy to go about their lives, but they could have learned to read and write by the time that Yusuf and Nicolo die if they enjoyed it.

First off, what is literacy? If you ask someone or google it, chances are you’ll encounter the definition along the lines of “you can read and write.” This is a definition of literacy. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) defines it as “ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate and compute, using printed and written materials associated with varying contexts.” To summarize academic arguments, “literacy” could mean anything from “is able to read a newspaper” to “understands internet meme language” to “understands the doctor’s write-up after a visit.” For this post, I’ll broadly address the ability to read and the ability to write in an character system since that is what I imagine you are asking.

You can’t have someone read something if you don’t have someone to write in a mutually-intelligible language, so let’s start with the history of writing. The invention of writing has been awarded to Sumerian Cuneiform in ~3,100 BCE in southern Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq and Iran near the Persian Gulf). It was done on clay tablets by trained scribes, primarily for boring things like business and government. Below is a picture of a tablet so you can see what cuneiform looked like. They eventually settled on writing left-to-right and didn’t have any punctuation (not even spaces between words!).

[ID: “Sumerian cuneiform tablet, probably from Erech (Uruk), Mesopotamia, c. 3100–2900 BCE; in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City” from here. The Met attributes it as “administrative account of barley distribution with cylinder seal impression of a male figure, hunting dogs, and boars.”]

Another notable old language is (Old) Egyptian. The first complete sentence dates back to 2690 BCE and was done using hieroglyphs (shown below). This language was used throughout Egypt and Nubia, which translates to modern-day Egypt and Sudan. The language didn’t really pick up, from what archaeologists can tell, until around 2600 BCE where writing starts proliferating...and then is soon replaced with Middle Egyptian. Fun fact: the word “hieroglyphs” comes from the Greeks, but the Egyptians referred to their script as (transliterated) “medu-netjer” or “the god's words” because it was a gift from Thoth (yes, that guy with the falcon head who may also be accredited as Thot).

[ID: picture of a seal impression from the tomb of Seth-Peribsen. It reads “The Ombite (i.e. Set) has given the Two Lands to his son, Dual King Peribsen.”]

Skipping over a few more writing systems developed in the Middle East and surrounding regions, we finally get to the first records of Old Chinese in 1250 BCE with the inscription on oracle bones shown below. From the get-go, there were at least three different scripts of Old Chinese: oracle bone, bronze, and seal. I’ve also added a bronze script so that you can see the differences.

[ID: ox scapula oracle bone from the reign of King Wu Din. The fragments read “ ...divined: in the next ten days there will be no disasters...  (day 40) Zheng divined: in the next ten days there will be no disasters. (day 41) ... cleaved to (day 42) ... fifth month, in Dun...  (day 50) Zheng divined: in the next ten days there will be no disasters. ...   (day 50) Zheng divined: in the next ten days there will be no disasters. Third day, (day 52) ... (day 54) ... The Gui will also have sickness ...” ]

[ID: Rubbing of an engraving found on multiple objects which notes the appointment of a man named Song as supervisor of the storehouses in Chengzhou.]

As you can see, early writing would not have interested the earliest members of the Old Guard. The things that were being written down were things that were important to those governing and those in business. I really don’t think that Lykon, Andy, or Quynh would have cared much about the barely distribution or who’s in charge of the storehouse, and they wouldn’t have been important enough to keep their own oracle on retainer. If we use the timeline I developed for my history of language asks (~8,000BCE - 7,000BCE Horn of Africa Lykon, ~5,000BCE - 4,000BCE Caucauses Andy, and ~3,500BCE - 2,500BCE Southeast Asia Quynh), then they all predate the invention of writing excluding the younger range of Quynh’s possible birth which places her after the invention but still culturally separated from it. Lykon could have died without ever having to learn how to read or write, Andy was old before it was invented let alone became popular, and Quynh is from a time where writing was not common. This is a hot take, but there is a non-zero chance that if Quynh disliked reading/writing and resisted learning it, she could have been locked in the coffin without being solidly literate. Imagine the first language you really have to read after 500 years now that literacy is a requisite for society is French, which doesn’t even sound how it looks (I’m looking at you, silent -ent at the end of most present-tense verbs). Painful.

This brings us to the next question we should answer for these older members: when would reading or writing have become useful and important to them? This is obviously much more difficult to answer. Because of oral history traditions, they wouldn’t need to read for entertainment (that whole concept must be mind-boggling). Because they probably didn’t do much large-scale trade coordination, they wouldn’t need to write for business. I can’t see any of them working for the government. As much as I love the joke about Quynh recognizing wanted posters, that wasn’t a thing until right before the 19th century in Europe. Quite frankly, I don’t think Andy or Quynh has a compelling interest in learning to read until the 1700s at the earliest unless they want to and enjoy the idea of writing (perhaps introduced by the younger immortal couple?).

Yusuf and Nicolo are a different story altogether, as they were both born after the invention of writing had become fairly common (ie. books were a thing and people used them, though they were rare and expensive). A longer and far better post than I could write explains that literacy in medieval Italy was in no way uniform: Nicolo is a total toss-up. He might have only known how to write, only known how to read, done both, or done neither even if he was a monastic priest or even a scribe who copied manuscripts. As a member of a merchant family, this still holds because 1) he might not have been the child raised to take over the business; and 2) you could pay people to do that pesky writing thing for you if it was absolutely necessary.

Yusuf came from a society which valued reading, especially in religious contexts. It’s called the Islamic Golden Age for a reason! Young children were schooled in Arabic and the Quran, though it might have been memorization-based. Older students would be taught to read and possibly to write as well in order to engage in scholarship around their sacred texts. He is from the beginning of the creation and popularity of madrasa (literally just “place of study”) as institutions of learning. He probably had an entire curriculum he studied, like modern schooling. Given that we can all agree that Yusuf comes from a wealthy background, it is a safe assumption that Yusuf can read Arabic and it is probably also safe to assume that he can write in it. I’d say that, if you are writing him as particularly wealthy or scholarly, he is probably even trained in the art of calligraphy (see an example below) which is to say he can write BEAUTIFULLY. The example picture is simply words on paper like we’d expect of a modern book, but calligraphy would be integrated into architecture and pictures. Don’t tempt me to make another post on this beautiful art form.

[ID: Maghrebi script from a 13th-century northern African Quran, thanks to Wikipedia.]

Moving on to 1770s France, literacy was becoming common but still varied with social class (especially before the Revolution) and it’s not clear whether Booker would have learned to read and write. It’s ironic that many areas of the country did not have had more than 40% MEN’S literacy while at the same time the country was considered a hub of the Enlightenment with it’s institutions of higher learning. The North/South cultural divide that I’ve hinted at here and here, shows up in the literacy rates as well. As a Southern sharecropper or laborer, he would be very likely illiterate. As a Southern peasant, we approach a 50/50 chance as he becomes more wealthy. As an artisan (if anyone headcannons this), he most likely is literate though the extent varies with wealth. Whether Booker knows how to read and write before his death is closely linked to class and wealth, but he would value literacy as a major social status signifier and be motivated to learn if he didn’t already.

[ID: four maps depicting “men” and “women” literacy rates for the period of 1686-1690 versus the period of 1786-1790. Adapted from "Reading and Writing: Literacy in France from Calvin to Jules Ferry, 1982."]

This brings us to modern history for Nile. Compulsory schooling for children is present in the US and being illiterate is (unfairly) associated with being unlearned. She was definitely taught to read and write in school, and literacy has been an essential skill throughout her entire life. This doesn’t mean that she is necessarily disrespectful of any illiteracy, because thirty percent of Chicago adults would “benefit” from literacy instruction. Literacy is still tied to class (and thus race) for a lot of Americans, though less strikingly for 1770s France. Nile probably knows some adults in her life who are illiterate or struggle with literacy and would understand that this is tied to socio-economics.

[mistymark]

VIGILANTE/S V

part five // 4.0k words // superpowered!au // (sort of) gang!au // series masterlist

summary; in which you consider yourself somewhat of a vigilante.

warnings; swearing, mentions of death, weapons and killing, gang shit really

notes; this is just a filler bc the whole thing ended up being way too long but !! hope u like anyway <33

One week into living in the warehouse, you’ve got your own routine. You know what times to avoid the bathrooms, you know not to eat Chenle’s cereal – a tip from Donghyuck, who informed you that Chenle once set him on fire for doing just that – you know that Jaemin is the only one who cooks breakfast, and most of the meals eaten in the warehouse are from local takeout stores with shifty delivery guys. You know that 15 pizzas are ordered for one meal – because Jaemin eats at least 5 of them.

“My metabolism is crazy,” he explains to you on your third day there. “I’ll be hungry again in, like, 2 hours.” Mark had laughed and said that was normal for anyone here.

Donghyuck had whispered to you, “Jaemin carries around jellybeans all the time for his blood sugar. If you want to piss him off, call him Jelly Baby.”

You know that every time Jaemin is given an assignment, he brings a girl back to the warehouse, something you’d discovered when you saw Jeno sleeping on the couch in the main room the next day. You know the boy named Renjun doesn’t train, and hardly leaves his room. You know that Donghyuck sometimes snores in his sleep, now that you’re sharing his room, which actually hasn’t been so bad.

Jaehyun had you move in together the day after you met him, and he’d been really nice about it, moving half of his clothes from his wardrobe so you had space, and boxing up most of his stuff to allow more space for your things. He’d even offered to take down his sketches and drawings so you had some wall space. It was a sweet gesture, but you found his posters interesting, so you told him to keep them up.

Doyoung had gone with you to empty out your apartment – not that it had much in it – and convince your landlord to break your lease. “Your landlord has a very weak mind,” he’d said in a monotonous tone, when he was carrying a box to his car, a flashy black thing that certainly did not belong in your neighbourhood at all. The dilapidated, crumbling buildings surrounding you were brown and dirty, the streets grey and filled with potholes, the people who inhabited the area looking just as worn. Doyoung, on the other hand, was clean and sharp, wearing fitted black jeans and a clean white tee. His shoes were almost as shiny as his car, which made you feel slightly self-conscious when you noticed how much he stood out here.

“He’s pretty much given up on life,” you’d agreed, which earned you a smirk from him. It was true, your landlord was a chubby, pot-bellied man who wore nothing but baggy, ill-fitting jeans and old t-shirts with various food stains on them. You’ve never seen him leave the building, and you often wonder if he knows what a shithole the place is.

“I can���t believe you actually lived here,” he looked up at the building, at the brickwork that was being held together by mould rather than concrete, at the wooden window frames that were rotten and splitting apart, at a window that was recently broken, now being blocked by a curtain taped across the panel – at the place you once called home.

Well, not necessarily. It hadn’t felt like home since your dad had died, if you were being truthful.

“You live in a warehouse with criminals,” you reminded him.

“We live in a warehouse with criminals,” he cracked a smile at you, taking the box from your hands and placing it in the boot of his car.

“At least my roommate only kills himself,” you mumbled on the drive back.

“Donghyuck wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Doyoung laughed. “He’d probably kill himself if a fly started a fight with him, just so he wouldn’t have to fight it and win.”

You watched the buildings go by – Doyoung drove slower than the elderly, you were sure – and all the industrial warehouses with cute, bright signs advertising children’s toys and courier services, wondering how many of them were a front for another operation, like Jaehyun’s. “Do you think Donghyuck can die? For real?”

Doyoung was silent for a moment, then, slowly, he said, “We have our speculations. We can’t know for sure, though. And none of us really want to.” You gave a small smile to him, though he was too focused on the road ahead to see it. When you’d first come to the warehouse, you were sure no one liked him, since no one seemed devastated by the fact that he was dead. Now, you knew he was family to them.

“You have a cassette player?” Donghyuck was supposed to be helping you unload your stuff into your now shared room, but he was mostly just being nosy, going through your boxes and not actually putting anything away.

“Uh, yeah,” you throw a glance over your shoulder, seeing Donghyuck sitting on his bed, rifling through one of your boxes. “It was my dad’s.”

He nods, gently putting it on the bed. He doesn’t ask any questions about it, or your family, which you’re grateful for, but it makes you think he doesn’t have any family of his own.

You know Donghyuck is the most open out of all of the team, but you also know not to ask any personal questions.

You know a lot of things after living in the warehouse for a week. You know that Jaehyun drinks tea in the mornings and coffee at night, that Doyoung cannot access Chenle’s mind. You know that Donghyuck is definitely not a morning person, and that he exclusively wears black, as if he’s always ready for a funeral. Maybe that’s exactly the reason; some kind of sick joke surrounding his immortality.

Most importantly, you now know how to survive Johnny’s training sessions. You’ve trained with most of the team, mostly the Shields – Jeno, Jaemin, Mark and Chenle – as their powers manifest physically, and are easier to control, but Johnny has also been helping you use his ability. “You’re smaller and weaker than the rest of the team, and most Shields in general,” he’d said, eyes roaming your body. It was the first time anyone’s ever looked at you like that without making you feel objectified. “If I’m around, my ability may be the difference in whether you win or lose a fight. Try again, and focus on me.” As if you already weren’t.

He’d hunkered down and gestured for you to begin. With the other members around, you could take Johnny down in less than a minute now. Alone, it took you upwards of 10 minutes.

The day you officially move into the warehouse, you’re exempt from training with the Shields, but Donghyuck takes the opportunity to teach you gunmanship.

“I’ve used a gun before, you know,” you say, but after 10 shots you still haven’t managed to hit the target. The firing range isn’t small, located in the basement of the warehouse, which you didn’t even know existed, but you should have been able to at least hit the target once.

He laughs, picks up the gun and nails the target’s centre 5 times in a row, “So have I. Do you want to be able to actually hit your target, though?” The hole in the centre of the target looks about twice the width of the bullet, made from the bullets hitting basically in the same spot each time.

He puts a hand on your shoulder, adjusting the position of your shoulders, then places one on your lower back, adjusting your posture. You’re stiff, and you know it. He clears his throat and steps back, “Go.”

You brace yourself and shoot, the bullet going straight through the target’s stomach.

“Not too bad,” he nods in approval, holding his hand out for the gun and easily changing the clip in three quick motions. He offers the gun back to you, “Again.”

“You sound like Johnny,” you say when you take it from him. You deepen your voice as low as possible to mimic your trainer and the short, efficient way he speaks, “Again. Stop. Go. Try again. Up.”

Donghyuck lets out a loud laugh that immediately brings a smile to your face. “That was amazing.” He sits down and leans back, a hand pressed against his stomach as he laughs, mimicking your imitation. You join him on the floor, resting your back against the wall and leaning over to grab the bag of potato chips he’d brought down with you. “Have you ever shot someone?”

He reaches over and steals a few chips, as if it was the most normal question in the world. But, there’s a slight shake in his voice when he speaks, “Shot? Yes. Killed? No.”

“Who?” He shoots you a sideways glance and you lower your head, “Sorry.” No personal questions.

The heavy stench of awkward silence settles over you. He breaks it, “Johnny.”

You don’t know what to say except, “Shit.”

“Yeah,” he swallows thickly. “It was an accident. Obviously.”

You’re about to ask what happened when you’re interrupted by someone coming down the stairs. Neither of you had bothered to shut the door to the firing range, giving anyone going up or down the stairs a full view of what you were doing. Jaehyun stops when he sees you both, sitting on the floor of the firing range, sharing a bag of potato chips. He doesn’t look at you, focusing on Donghyuck. He clears his throat, “Are you training, Hyuck?”

Donghyuck’s eyes are wide and innocent when he answers, “Teaching Y/n how to shoot.”

Jaehyun’s eyes move from the two of you to the target and back again, but he doesn’t say anything about the lack of holes in it. “Johnny’s ordering Chinese – if you want anything, let him know. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

He continues and you turn to Donghyuck, “Where’s he going?”

“Garage,” Donghyuck says, through a handful of chips. “Do you want the rest of these?” He offers the bag to you. You shake your head.

“What else is down here?”

“Weapons vault, garage, the range,” he answers distractedly, too focused on getting the last of the flavouring from the bag. “The gym…” his voice trails off.

When he’s satisfied that the bag is indeed empty, he stands up, offering his hand out to you to pull you up, “Jaemin takes ten minutes to pick what he wants to eat, so if you have a preference, we should probably tell Johnny now.”

You take his hand and let him pull you up, reaching for the gun that lays on the ground, “Where-?”

“I’ll take it,” he takes it, quickly turning the safety on and reaches around to his back, tucking the weapon into the back of his black jeans.

Your second day of training was with Chenle, in the gym, which looked more like the inside of an asylum than anything. Everything was clean and a pale, almost-white shade of grey, and the entire ceiling was a cloudy glass panel that illuminated the room, giving the room a bright and energetic yet sterile feel. The equipment was state-of-the-art, a dark contrast to the overall lightness to the room, and floor to ceiling mirrors took up two of the walls. There was a stack of clean towels in the corner, and a few televisions across the room, visible from each machine. A smaller version of the Super fight ring was situated at one end of the long room. Yet, the thing that shocked you the most was the bright blue flooring, an odd design choice.

Chenle was the least helpful out of the Shields in the team, watching you train with his ability, critiquing your control and your movements with a stern eye. “Wrong. Try again. Make it hotter this time, or you’ll do no damage.” As if to gloat, he held a hand up, and a dangerous blue flame engulfed it. Your own flame, a measly bright orange, wavered.

The entire time you’d trained with him, he’d done nothing but glare and criticise you. You were sure he hated you, or maybe it was just the fact that he wasn’t the only one who had his ability anymore.

Yet, as he was leaving to eat, he’d nodded in approval at you, “Good. We’ll train together again soon, I’m sure.” It was the most he’d said to you. Actually, if you added up everything he has said to you, it would still be less words than were in that sentence.

Basically, he hadn’t spoken to you much all week.

Jaemin, however, was the opposite, and the person you’d trained with the day after Chenle. If anything, he was too kind and too understanding - he barely helped you.

“It’s okay if you can’t run as fast as me, yet,” he’d assured you with a smile, his hands on your shoulders. His smile was wide and encouraging, his eyes kind, and you instinctively knew he was a heartbreaker. No one with a smile like that has ever been heartbroken, you’d thought. His flirtatious manner was also a dead giveaway.

Your suspicions were only confirmed when he’d been sent on an assignment at the Den, and entered the kitchen the day after looking a little too happy. A girl had snuck out a few minutes later, looking only slightly embarrassed as she tried to pull her shoes on and find the exit at the same time. Jaemin had just stood in the kitchen and smiled at her as he ate his toast, not even bothering to show her out.

“You’ll have to eat a lot tonight,” he informed you at the end of your training. “And make sure you don’t have any training tomorrow morning, because you’ll be out for a while since this is your first time testing your stamina with my ability.”

He was right; you were exhausted after only two hours with him. When you’d told him just that, his smile widened and he winked at you. You laughed and shook your head at him, throwing your towel at him, “I’m going to shower.” He opened his mouth but you shot him a stern look, “Do not ask to join me.”

His easy-going smile remained on his face as he shrugged nonchalantly, “Worth a shot.” He bent down to pick up his drink bottle and began tidying up the gym as you left.

The person that surprised you the most was Jeno. His ability was easy enough to control, since you could control when you wanted the super strength, but he was happy to train you in preparation for your own training with Johnny.

“I guess it’s easy if you can control when you want to use someone’s ability, since your emotions don’t get in the way,” he’d said, as he wound his fist up with tape and gauze. “But if we’re not around, you need to be able to defend yourself with just your, uh, body.”

You nodded, but didn’t say anything.

“Keep a clear head and be logical. Johnny is the only one that can see what you’re about to do, so unless you’re fighting him, think about what you’re doing.” The intense look is back in his eyes when he looks up from his wrapped hands, checking to see if you’re listening, as you haven’t said anything. You can easily see why the others would hate fighting him – he’s smart and he’s dangerous. “If you don’t think, you’ll… you’ll get hurt.” Something in his voice has changed, but it’s gone when he speaks again, “You’re no use if you’re dead.” You quirk an eyebrow at him and he juts his chin up at you, “Hold out your hand.”

You do as he says and he steps forward and begins wrapping your hand delicately. It’s far neater than you’d expected.

“Were you a boxer?”

He lets out a humourless laugh, “No. I’ve just been in a fair few fights.” You try not to react, but he can see what you’re thinking when he looks up. “Relax, most of them walked away just fine.”

“Most?” He doesn’t respond, and you take the hint that he does not want to talk about it.

He’s actually quite a good trainer, you discover, and teaches you the strongest ways to take someone down. He’s less talkative than Jaemin, but his instructions are clear and easy to follow, and at the end of your session, you’re able to do basic sparring with him.

“It’s 6,” he says, looking up at the wall of the gym. Without even a goodbye, he grabs his drink bottle and gym bag, lightly jogging up the steps to head to his room.

That night, you ate dinner with Mark and Jaemin. Well, you ate while they played video games. Jaemin shared a room with Jeno, but you hadn’t seen him since your training session. Empty pizza boxes were stacked by the door, and you counted at least 5. Your own box was sitting beside you on Jeno’s bed, while Jaemin and Mark sat side by side on Jaemin’s bed, their eyes glued to the TV screen that hung on one wall. Their room was a lot more… normal than you’d expected. Donghyuck’s was a giveaway that he was a Super – or a psychopath, either worked – with the blood and the diagrams and the journals and the weapons stacked in boxes around the room.

Jeno and Jaemin’s room was fitted out with their beds, desks, wardrobes, bean bag chairs, an old gaming console and a flatscreen TV. A few movie posters and celebrities were on the wall, and old photos. Only Jaemin had photos, and even so, there were only a few taped to the wall above his bed’s headboard. You couldn’t make out any details from where you were sitting.

Mark’s reflexes were no match for Jaemin’s, and he lost almost every round, making you wonder why he still agreed to play.

“Hey, should I save some of this for Jeno?” You asked, staring at the pizza still remaining in the box. There were only three left, and part of you wondered if it would even be enough. The other part of you thought it would at least be polite to offer.

“Nah, he won’t be back til tomorrow,” Jaemin doesn’t even turn around in his seat, his eyes frantically following his character as it moves across the screen.

“Huh. Okay,” you pick up another slice just as the game ends and Jaemin turns to throw another wide grin at you.

“That means my room’s free for the night, if that’s what you’re wondering.” He laughs at the look of exasperation on your face.

When his attention is away from you again, you say, “Jaehyun sure keeps you guys busy.” There’s only a little bit of bitterness in your voice; you’d been with the team for four days and the only time you’d left was to sort out your apartment. Apparently, you weren’t ready for any assignments yet.

“Huh? Jaehyun has him on an assignment?” Mark’s confusion gets your attention, as he turns to look at Jaemin with a furrowed brow. This was clearly unusual – or, at least, news to him.

Jaemin barely glances at you as he responds, “Nah, he’s visiting his girlfriend.”

“Jeno has a girlfriend?” You ask, only slightly shocked. It wasn’t like you’d thought about their love lives, but you’d just assumed everyone was single. It went with the job description.

“Yeah,” Jaemin nods. “She lives on the other side of the city somewhere. At one of the colleges. He normally goes after trainings on Fridays, since it’s the only night she’s not studying.”

Even without seeing your face, he can sense your surprise.

“Don’t ask him about it, though. He’s very reserved when it comes to her. Doesn’t want any of us to know much about her. I don’t even know her n-”

Mark laughs when he finally manages to kill Jaemin, and Jaemin pouts and rolls his eyes, insisting he was too focused on you to play. “You’re such a baby,” Mark laughs louder, and Jaemin swats at him. His hand moves so fast you barely even see it hit Mark’s arm. “Ow! Dude!”

“One more game, come on,” Jaemin insists, turning back to the screen. Then he raises his voice, “Anyway, Y/n, he won’t even tell us her name, let alone anything else about her. So don’t bring it up.”

“Or he’ll literally chokeslam you,” Mark adds, which, for some reason, makes them both laugh loudly.

You nod, despite the fact they can’t see you, and go back to eating your pizza, “I’ve got next game!”

Mark sighs in relief, “Gladly.” Jaemin’s competitiveness was beginning to wear him out.

The following day, Mark taught you the basics of shape shifting. He was the latest addition to the team – other than you – and his control was even worse than yours. “Shape shifting is really difficult,” he giggled, nervously. “If you’re not 100% imagining what you want to be, you’ll turn into something way different. But don’t panic, it will restrict your ability to change back.”

Over the course of the day, you’d shifted into birds, mice, elephants, leopards, any creature you could think of. Though, you had humiliated yourself when he went to get snacks during your break, greeting and talking to the large dog that came trotting down the stairs, as if it were Mark.

“What are you doing?” He’d laughed when he walked back into the gym, snacks in hand.

You’d been at a loss for words, your cheeks immediately becoming inflamed. “I- I thought that was you,” you pointed at the dog, which was panting as it sat down on the stack of towels in the corner of the room.

“That’s Bruce, Renjun’s dog,” Mark explained, tossing you a can of iced coffee. “Don’t tell Jaemin you drank his coffee.”

You paused, the opened can raised to your lips. You lowered it, slightly, “Why does Jaemin need coffee if he already operates at like 10 times the speed we do?”

“For after he crashes,” Mark shrugs. “Sometimes speed isn’t everything.” He laughs at his own joke, “If he doesn’t sleep enough, he’ll still be exhausted. Sometimes he can’t afford to sleep more than 12 hours, so he relies on coffee.” He cocks his head to the side as he examines his can.

Later, when you’re sitting on the floor after successfully shapeshifting into cockroaches, you ask, “Have you ever tried turning into other people? Can you do that?”

“Yes, but – I really have to know what the person looks like. Like, I can imagine a dog and turn into a dog because any small details that I remember incorrectly will go unnoticed by a human,” he gulps down his cola. “Humans are more complex – one small detail could make me look totally different to the person I’m trying to copy.”

“Change into me, then,” you sit up straighter. “If you can see me, surely you won’t have to rely on your memory, right?”

He shrugs and locks his eyes onto you. You’d seen him transfer from human to horse, from sheep to frog, but somehow seeing him change from himself to you was more disturbing. His skin ripples and his bones make disturbing popping noises as they change, and you wonder if it hurts, even though you had shape shifted multiple times and knew it didn’t hurt at all.

Within a few seconds, right before your eyes… is you. “Hello,” he says in your voice.

“Okay, fuck that, change back,” you tell him, looking away. “That’s so creepy. Brilliant, but creepy.”

When he laughs, it sounds like him again, and you let your eyes drift back to where was sitting. He smiles, and his eyes crinkle at the corners. His eyes, not your own.

You could have so much fun with this ability, reminding yourself to try it on Donghyuck later.

You tell Mark this as he tosses a piece of popcorn into his mouth, and you both stretch out on the gym floor, laughing at all the pranks you could easily pull on the other members of the team.

[swanlake1998]

Article: Why I Left My Classical Ballet Job to Explore My Roots in Javanese Dance

Date: February 6, 2021

By: Cat Woods

At the peak of her career, dancer Juliet Burnett left the Australian Ballet to explore her Javanese roots. Now, the Indonesian-Australian ballerina is drawing on her heritage to expand the often narrow world of performing arts.

When Juliet Burnett smiles, the full gloriousness of her high-cheekbones and angular face are both feline and balletic, not dissimilar to the finely boned, regal faces of Javanese dancers. Her facial expressions, like her body — sculpted by almost two decades of professional dance — are deliberate and refined.

It's been five years since Burnett left The Australian Ballet at the peak of her career, having been steadily promoted, over 13 years, to the role of senior artist within the Melbourne-based company.

From her family home in Sydney, where she is temporarily living while borders are closed for travel due to COVID-19, Burnett is fired up about the attitudes of classical dance. She has memories of feeling like an outsider amongst a largely middle-class, white company that espoused creative adventurism but failed to appeal to — or recruit — more than a couple of Indigenous dancers, nor to make the Asian-Australian dancers in the company feel that their cultural heritage was encouraged in the imperial values of classical ballet. "Black dancers, Asian dancers, and dancers of color aren't made to feel like their cultural provenance is celebrated," she tells Allure.

"I felt like the role of women in classical ballet is to be subservient," she says now, reflective and thoughtful in her wording, though not cautious. Burnett is not one for tip-toeing about. "Not just the roles for women, but the very system of classical ballet.”

The Australian Ballet encountered backlash in June this year after it published a black square on social media. The national ballet company was accused by its Instagram followers of being "lazy," doing the bare minimum in its response to Black Lives Matter.

In 2019, in a review of the Australian Ballet’s version of The Nutcracker for Australian arts publication Limelight Magazine, the critic viewed the production as perpetuating "racialised stereotypes of Chinese characters." The lack of diversity in the ballet industry as a whole has been brought to public conversation by numerous dancers over recent years, including Misty Copeland, who, via a  2019 Instagram post, called out dancers who were in blackface during a rehearsal for a performance for the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow. (Following the post and media coverage, the New York Times reported that the general director for the Bolshoi said in a statement at the time that the ballet company "will not comment on the absurd allegation" of racism.)

A statement provided to Allure from The Australian Ballet says: "The Australian Ballet aims to reflect the diverse Australian community that we operate in and foster an inclusive environment for all. We’re continuing to learn and we are working on longer-term strategies to increase participation in dance across all communities, and provide more access to The Australian Ballet for all Australians, it may take time, but we are committed to working on the bigger picture."

The statement continues: "The Australian Ballet recruited its first Indigenous dancer [Ella Havelka] in 2012, and since then has recruited a second First Nations dancer."

While Burnett would eventually become an outspoken advocate for diversity in ballet, her experience with dance began without an agenda towards a career, nor even the intention to practice classical ballet.

"My grandmother, Raden Ayu Catherine Ismadillah Brataatmaja, was a professional Javanese dancer," she says. "As soon as I was five, my mother was curious about whether dance was in my blood too, so she enrolled me in ballet with the idea that I could follow in her footsteps. She was totally not a pushy dance mum."

Brataatmaja was the star palace dancer of the Surakarta Sultanate (Javanese monarchy in Indonesia), performing the royal court dance Bedhaya Ketawang for Indonesian royalty. Widyas Burnett, while also fully encouraging her daughter to embrace classical ballet, endeavored to make the costume for 14-year-old Juliet's first school choreographic effort, "Campursari." The final number combined classical ballet moves with Javanese dance positions, set to the soundtrack of traditional gamelan music.

Like many young dancers who are recruited to train endless hours through their pre-teen and teenage years to be auditioned for international ballet schools, her talent was spotted by her dance teachers, Valerie Jenkins and Christine Keith. Her graduation from The Australian Ballet School led to the beginnings of her career in 2003. As a dancer with The Australian Ballet, she embodied Odette in Swan Lake, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Giselle, and La Sylphide.

In 2011, Burnett was awarded the Khitercs Hirai International Scholarship, intended to allow members of The Australian Ballet companies to travel internationally. She used the scholarship to visit Indonesia to study her grandmother's art of Javanese dance and to initiate workshops for Indonesian kids — particularly those in underprivileged "slums" along the Ciliwung riverbank in Java. Burnett also trained in the theatrical, dance, and meditation techniques as pioneered by her uncle, the actor, poet, and activist, W.S. Rendra.

"When visiting my Mum's side of the family in Indonesia, we'd arrive in Jakarta and there's this big fly road that was built during Suharto's time, and you go across this modern freeway and you peer down the side and there are all these shanty towns," she recalls. At a young age, Burnett was struck by the financial inequity in such a big, prosperous city. Her parents were very open about the fact that many children didn’t have access to clean drinking water, but "then I'd go to my aunt's place and have a beautiful home-cooked meal and watch their big screen TV and everything’s clean and they���ve got their maid cooking for us." Once her dance career started taking off, she "wanted to go back and try and reconnect and bring something back to [those children]."

"Ballet dancers can live in a bubble," she says. "The level of training, rehearsal and performance becomes more than work, it's a lifestyle. I knew, from early on, that I would have to work to maintain my curiosity for other cultures, other forms of dance, to ensure I was not losing my own spirit."

There was no sudden event that resulted in Burnett's choice to leave The Australian Ballet. In fact, Burnett says she had been open with the Ballet from the beginning of her tenure about the fact that she found the hierarchical structure to be outdated and felt that it clashed with her values, and saw the system of promoting dancers destroy careers. Since leaving The Australian Ballet, Burnett has been more creative and vocal in demonstrating how dance can be a political and social statement, and provocation to limited perspectives on culture, poverty, justice, and gender. She created and shared “Injustice: a short film” on her website last year. To get the clips seen in the film, Burnett made a call out on Instagram, inviting people to submit videos of themselves following her choreographic instructions.

In pre-pandemic times, Burnett resided in Belgium, where she is a dancer for The Royal Ballet of Flanders. Burnett has also just launched her own company, A-Part. "It's purely online for now," she explains, "but obviously, once the travel restrictions allow and it is safe to do so, it will be a real-world dance company that travels and performs."

For Burnett, working with the Pina Bausch Company and alongside Akram Khan as a first soloist dancer with The Royal Ballet of Flanders allowed her to shake off the shackles of rigid, classical training and methodology in favor of the liberation, the sometimes feral and primitive nature of contemporary dance and to finally indulge her need to journey into her own Indonesian roots.

"What's wonderful about the Royal Ballet of Flanders is that it's enabled me to dance the choreography of Pina Bausch, Akram Khan, and Édouard Lock, all these contemporary choreographers who I'd never have had access to in Australia," she says. "After I left The Australian Ballet, I wanted to delve into my artistic identity."

Burnett's activism has been creative, positive, and aligned with her belief that education and collaboration are the only ways to provide inclusive, safe environments for those in the dance world. She has presented master classes in collaboration with Ballet.id (Yayasan Bina Ballet Indonesia), which is a non-profit foundation enabling partnerships between Indonesian and international dancers and academics.

In an essay for Pointe in August, writer and educator Shaté L. Hayes writes that the only meaningful response to racial insensitivity within ballet is to genuinely commit to change within ballet schools through major companies. Posting PR-approved hashtags isn’t enough.

David McAllister left his role as artistic director of the Australian Ballet last year. In the statement provided to Allure, the new artistic director, David Hallberg, says, "The future of The Australian Ballet will continue to uphold the rich repertoire of classical ballet but as well, search for new ways to communicate the spirit of dance in this country. I am absorbing the diversity that makes Australia the great country it is, full of varied voices in dance, music, and art, that will be a part of building the repertoire at The Australian Ballet."

That can't happen too soon. Burnett's bravery in speaking of her own experience of working within the ballet world as an Asian-Australian also echoes the experiences of Black, Latinx, and multiracial dancers internationally. “For those of us who were mixed race or fully Asian, Black, or a dancer of color, the ballet world can feel really homogenous, and difficult to find your place and to find a way to celebrate your cultural identity with truth and authenticity,” Burnett says. “It’s important not to be afraid to question the systems that we work in, to say things to your directors. I really hope for a day when the structures we work in don't ask dancers to be mute, subservient, and to comply all the time."

[taliel-strykidz]

A Place Called Home

 A little Seungcheol and Bao moment to start off. 

Li Bao hadn't spoken to her father, Li Chen for a while now, it was going on months now. Whilst she'd been busy with the new album he'd been busy filming Keep Running in China. Alongside the busy schedule she spent majority of her day running around after the 13 chaotic boys in the two dorms, having made it difficult for the Chinese member to even pee in peace never mind have enough time to call her Dad.

Whilst she was sat waiting for the oven to heat up she sat and thought about the first plane ride she took to Korea when she got invited for an audition, how she sat on the plane next to her father trying to quell the tears in her eyes with the lump in her throat. It made her homesick remembering the sad smile her father gave her once they said their goodbyes in the airport. Thinking about him made her feel sick, longing for the home she left behind all those years ago.

The group had gotten back from filming Going Seventeen and they were tired and hungry, so as usual Bao was cooking the boys food for dinner, chopping the veg to make some Japchae. It had already turned 9pm and she let out a sigh realising she didn't buy any rice on their drive home. Bao was the kind of tired at this point where she needed a good months sleep and so much more. When Bao was overly tired like this made her really emotional and had become an ingrained part of her nightly routine.

"Cheol?" She shouted trying to find her car keys on the counter, when they get in from schedule Mingyu usually places all of Bao's belongings away whilst she works hard to make them food, but for some reason she couldn't find them.

"Ne Princess?"

"Have you seen my car keys?"

Out of no where Bao felt his arms wrap around her waist, tightening lovingly as she twisted to look at him. "You need to go to bed. They're right next to you- what do you need i'll go get them." Ironically there they were placed in the storage tub next to her purse, just as she went to grab them an unbeatable force stopped her from moving again. "Bao, go call your dad and go to bed. Huannie's already called me to complain that we make you do too much, and quite frankly i'm too handsome to have my head sliced off by the spawn of satan herself."

"I'm only going to the store Cheollie, I'l be there and back before you can spell Abracadabra in english." She giggled, unwrapping herself from his warm chest.

"Don't be stupid Princess." He took her keys and set her purse out of her sight and was already dragging her toward the door, her keys and his wallet proudly in his hand.

"Yah! I'm fine Cheollie you can stay here,"

"I'm coming with you at least- It's late."

"You're acting like I don't own hands and feet. Oh and my r*pe whistle."

"Where did you get a the whistle from?"

"Huannie."

"Obviously.."

----

Carots were used to seeing the two roaming the lit streets late at night, just passing by like they weren't global Idols. They were usually going to the store, raiding the ramen and generally having a laugh pushing each other into bushes. Fans didn't bother disturbing the Idol's as they strolled passed them, finding that the two were completely in their own world.

As they finished shopping they found themselves in a park, Seungcheol was enjoying the quiet comfort they provided each other in that moment. He only stared at the woman as she hummed along to a melody her and Woozi had made up in the studio only hours ago. Whilst in their comfortable solace she began to think about the moment she wished she was trapped in, how open she felt when around the charismatic man and their 12 idiotic children. Thinking about how much she adored Seungcheol's Daegu accent like he was constantly scolding her as they lived their life with their family 24/7.

In the middle of her thoughts she realised that she'd managed to hum the chorus that neither Woozi or herself could figure out in the studio, but she got pulled out of the discovery as he handed her his phone with her fathers number already dialled.

"Hello? Seungcheol?" Li Chen's broken Korean spoke after hearing the line fumble on their side.

"Hello? Pa? It's Bao." She smiled within two seconds of hearing his voice started playing with the drawstrings of Seuncheol's sweatshirt.

"Hey! Li Bao it's late why are you not resting?!" His Hu dialect was a punch to the heart, she could picture his forehead creased and him biting his thumb, it was something she'd gotten from him. They were family thumb biters.

"Woah, I didn't know it was a crime to call my dad. I was mainly checking up to see if Kai Ge hasn't beat you to a pulp yet." Another family trait, they were never overly loving to each other, avoiding any sort of feelings they had under humour.

"Hiyah, you used to say you were calling home, it's more like I should be calling you more often to make sure those boys are treating you well." Li Chen teased =, noticing she sounded a lot more happier than the last time they had called.

Bao giggled. "I think I found my home Pa, where these boys are is my home. I'm home." She replied softly smiling at Seungcheol, although he had no clue what they were talking about the smile on his face had him reassured that it was a good conversation. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, gently rubbing her arm. Despite the drowsiness of her body and the faint sick feeling in her stomach, it fluttered at the feeling of her body pressed against his. She sunk into the warmth of his side, appreciative of the simple gesture. His touch made the air warmer somehow, her future within its air seeming a little less cold and bleak.

That night when they got home the boys- mainly Joshua and Jeonghan forced the two to go to bed, the boys were fully aware on how tired the two eldest were at the moment and took it upon themselves to look after the two. So there they were in their shared bedroom, holding each other tightly, despite the overwhelming urge to turn over and drop into consciousness.

Bao snuggled in, "You're the only person I know that gives indefinite hugs."

The man snickered under her gaze, "Well, princess, where else would I rather be?" In that moment the arms squeezed a fraction tighter and Bao breathed more slowly, her body melting into his as every muscle lost its tension to the spring air. This was life, real life. This feeling right here. It's home.

[linkspooky]

Shigaraki and Dabi: Death and Rebirth

Shigaraki and Dabi both have the most destructive quirks of the entire league of villains. Shigaraki’s Decay and Dabi’s Cremation are both quirks that quickly reduce people to ash, totally killing them. However, both boys also actively kill themselves every time they use their quirks. Both of them are covered in scars from the overuse of their quirks on their bodies. 

Underneath the cut, an examination on how both Tomura and Dabi are dying due to their quirks, and how both of them might live. All of the things Dabi   (荼毘) “Cremation” and Tomura  (弔) “Funerals” or Tomurau (To Mourn) are connected to each other in death, and in life. 

Neither Shigaraki nor Dabi go by their real names anymore. They both choose to go by aliases which both represent the deaths of their former selves by their connection to funeral services, Dabi for cremation and Tomura (Tomurau) for mourning as the one who who beckoms mourning. 

They are named for both the cause and effect of death. Dabi cremates others effectively burning them to death. Tomura decays, which rots their bodies the same way a corpse would slowly rot until they are killed. They also are named for the effect of death, cremation is a funeral service done to a dead body the most common type of funeral in japan. Whereas Tomuraau “Mourning” is what is done at funerals. Both the death and the grief of death are represented in both characters. 

At the same time, what Tomura and Dabi to to others they are also inflicting on themselves. They kill others, they kill themselves. They inflict pain on others, they inflict pain on themselves. Their names can serve as a symbol for what they have done to others, but also what has been done to them. 

Just as AFO says, the original Shimura Tenko is long gone. Tomura was born from the death of his former self. The same way in which Dabi was only name from the “death” of Todoroki Touya. Both of them had to experience a death of their former selves to become who they are currently. 

They also both experienced death, but in opposite ways. Tenko killed his own family by accident. Touya was most likely killed in a training accident (considering his family never mentions him they may even consider him death). Toua had death inflicted upon him by a family member. They also both experienced death in direct relation to their quirk, Tenko’s quirk decayed everyone he touched, whereas Touya’s body was not suited to his quirk at all and he himself was killed just by using it. They are also, children who were born with mutant quirks, Dabi is a failed hybrid who was intentionally bred for Enji’s sake, whereas Tomura’s quirk was a random mutation. 

They also both use quirks which actively kill and harm their own bodies. They subject themselves to this pain over and over again. Dabi himself is burning up on the inside when he summons his flames, Tomura’s quirk decays his own body. 

Both of them are active harbringers of death as well. Dabi’s falmes can spread like wildfire and kill everyone around him, whereas Tomura’s decay can spread to entire crowds of people. Their victims are reduced entirely to ash.

They both kill with little compunction or hesitation, but at the same time they also both overuse their quirks, and keep fighting with no regards at all to how their bodies are damaged by it.

Dabi will fight when his body is burning up and his stitches leaking smoke and keep pushing through, Shigaraki will have his hand destroyed, go insane in a middle of a fight, have his arms start to decay and still keep on fighting. Dabi is in stitches, Shigaraki is covered in scars, and yet they continue to harm themselves physically and also mentally. Both of them remark about the fact that they’re slowly going crazy from thoughts int their own head. They also both smile and laugh it off, because they both harm themselves in the same way, and they both cope in the same way. 

Both Shigaraki and Dabi self destruct. They inflict death upon themselves, they self harm because of the harm inflicted upon them in the past. That is why they are so closely tied in with death, but how can two characters tied to death also represent rebirth?

1. Dabi is a Phoenix

Dabi immolates, burns, and cremates himself every time he uses his quirk. If he is Touya then we know, just like Shimura who suffered from a freak mutant quirk, he was “born wrong” in a way. 

Endeavor knew about the weakness in his quirk, intentionally bred himself with an ice quirk knowing that he could also make children who suffer worse from the weakness of his quirk than he does, had three “failures” and then Todoroki. Not only does Touya represent death he’s also a “failure at life” having never been born in the first place, hence why his character necessitates a symbolic rebirth. 

Their circumstances from “birth” were wrong from the start, due to their parents. While this is just speculation it was likely Endeavor’s special move “Flash Fire” which resulted in the burns on Dabi’s body. This is due to one, the burns are in the same locations that Endeavor’s flames come out of, and two Endeavor himself specifically mentions Touya when telling Todoroki he was going to pass on that technique and he had no choice but to learn it.

We have seen how actively harmful and abusive Enji’s training techniques are, and how he inflicts them on young children no older than five (around the same age Tenko was as well). Enji will push them actively beyond their limits, train Shoto until his entire body was smoking and he was vommitting from the pain. 

Then, he will insist that they are capable of handling far more than this, they’re just pretending to be weak. That they should be able to handle the pain if they wanted to. When they obviously cannot stand up again like Enji commands them too, he then hauls more abuse on top of them for being weak and gets violent.

The thing about abused children is they may despise their abuser and try to be the opposite of whatever he says, but they will still internalize things from their environment. Especially if they are young, isolated (like Todoroki was from his other siblings) and are not exposed to anything else. 

Not only does Enji physically beat these children, but he alsoactively encourages an extremely harmful mindset. That any show of weakness at all is running away. That if they can’t endure this pain, it’s their own fault. Every time they are in pain he insists they are just pretending and they can handle more if they really wanted to. 

There is a studied link between Self-Injury and childhood maltrreatment. 

One framework involves three different pathways that overlap and interact. These pathways are: regulatory, representational, and reactive. During child maltreatment, these pathways are not correctly developed and cause problems with adapting normally to life. These pathways are. Regulatory: Disturbance created by trauma in cognitive and affective processing, thinking and feelings, and expressing emotional states. 

Representational: Self-injury could be caused by disturbances in child-caregiver attachment that has impaired working models of the self and others  Selfinjury therefore could result from learning ineffective emotion management.

Reactive: Neurobiological response to trauma is altered (excitatory and inhibitory processes). Children who have experienced maltreatment could have very high stress responses. 

[SOURCE]

In other words children who grow up in an environment of constant harm are more likely to self harm. While Dabi is fighting against Endeavor, he also harms himself in the way Endeavor harmed him, by pushing his quirk to his absolute limit and harming his body because as he was taught, if he shows any weakness he’s just pretending, he can’t run away from this pain. Dabi’s is clearly some kind of regulatory and representational, he cannot process his pain in any meaningful way, and he does not have a strong sense of self because he does not take care of himself at all and instead actively destroys himself over and over for the sake of an objective. (In my opinion, Shigaraki’s is probably a mix of that and also reactive due to his compulsive excoriation). 

Touya was taught the only good thing about him were the same flames that actively harm him. The only way he can be strong is by hurting himself. He’s also taught if he was strong enough, he would not be in pain. Strength comes from harming himself, and strength is the only release from his pain. It’s an extremely unhealthy and self destructive mindset. There’s no future in that, we only see him burn away slowly trying to at least be a martyr and burn up in the name of some cause. 

We see evidence again and again of Dabi fighting even when his insides are boiling. His response to pain is always to push himself farther past his limits, even as his stitches start to bleed and smoke pours out of them. In this case, overuse of his quirk is an act of self harm and one that he was taught. 

It’s self destruction, it’s the death of himself. It’s a response to the environment he was raised in, Touya was born wrong, he was a failure, and therefore he never should have been born in the first place. The only thing his current self can do is hope to die and be reborn. 

Dabi himself however, is tied to a symbol of death and rebirth. 

Fenghuang or the phoenix is represented as a symbol of duality. It represents yin, and yang, black and white, death and rebirth. It also represents a union between a phoenix and a male chinese dragon. (Dabi’s skin is covered in scales and there’s several panels of him breathing fire). They represents opposites and dualities together, like sky and earth for exmaple (hawks can fly, Dabi cannot). Duality, rather than opposites the sets are believed to be part of a pair together with more in common than they have differences. 

Dabi’s particular method of self destruction is to burn himself to death, death by flames. Which is the particular way phoenixes are thought to die and be reborn. Not only are Hawks’ feathers specifically colored in as red but we have also seen art of him and his feathers burning up entirely. Hawks’ feathers also regrow when they have been burnt off. 

Other than Endeavor, Dabi is the most important character to Hawks arc. Other than Shigaraki, Hawks is the most important character to Dabi’s arc. The two of them are tied together by plot and by symbolism. 

Dabi symbolizes death. On the path he is on, he will eventually burn up and die in the fires he himself stoked for some cause. However, in that burning death there is also a chance to be reborn. The same way that Hawks is foreshadowed to fall, Dabi is foreshadowed to be burned by his won flames but the both of them have a chance in each other. 

2. Shigaraki is a Butterfly

In the latest chapter we see Shigaraki in the same mindset, desperate to destroy himself and emerge from the cocoon as something else, a butterfly. 

For millennia, the world has latched on to the image of the butterfly: its metamorphosis from a caterpillar to a butterfly used as a metaphor for death and rebirth. 

It is a spiritual symbol for life after death because of its metamorphosis, or transformation, from a caterpillar that crawls on the ground to a beautiful, almost ethereal creature that flies through the air. It has also become a symbol for personal growth and spiritual rebirth.

In killing themselves, both Dabi and Shigaraki are seeking what lies beyond their pain, that life for them can only come after their original flawed selves are completely destroyed. That their only escape from this pain is death, and they are both taught to feel this way, taught to exist in a cycle where they continaully harm themselves. 

Just look at the way Shigaraki acts this chapter. As the doctor points out, Shigaraki has basically already won himself a victory, thousands of subordinates, and proven himself and yet that is still enough for him. He’s even significantly upgraded his quirk beyond its previous bounds which is so rare in the series its a once in a lifetime freak event. 

Yet, that still is not enough for Shigaraki. Not because he is a pwoer hungry villain, but even now after having acquired so much he does not feel safe with what he has, he does not feel like he is enough.Because even with all of that strength, his body was still broken into pieces the last time he fought and yet he still believes it is going to happen again. He is taught to expect pain, pain is all he sees. He only knows how to fight and be strong by breaking himself again and again. 

This is also an attitude he internalized the same way that Dabi did. Shigaraki has the idea in his head that he was born wrong. That it was his birth itself that led to the idea of his family being destroyed. That he wanted it. Therefore, to start out with he is someone who should have never been born.

He also existed in a household that denied his existence, and individual needs in the first place. And this was before AFO even entered the picture. Tenko was taught that he was the one causing the disturbance in this household, and he was the one provoking his father into harming him. 

Therefore it’s a logical step that Tenko then makes the leap to assign the blame for a freak accident onto himself. They all must have died because he wanted them to. It’s not something Shigaraki takes pleasure in, he actively loathes himself for it. The hands are a reminder of his guilt and he is constantly mourning, so self disgusted to the point of nausea. 

As much as he hates everyone else he hates himself. Tomura is sick of himself most of all. What he did against his family is something he not only continually punishes himself for  over and over again, but he also keeps mourning them and never allows himself to heal. Tomura even mutters I’m sorry whenever his father’s hand is knocked off of his face.

All for One also reinforces Shigaraki’s self loathing. He tells him again and again that he was born a violent child, that he’s violent because he wants to be, that he’s someone who has a natural urge to inflict harm on others. In other words he was born wrong. Shigaraki’s guilt for destroying his family comes from the fact he’s been told over and over again, he wanted to destoy them, he was born a freak meant to ruin that house. 

All for One even goes a step beyond and continually tells him that the pain Shigaraki feels due to his trauma is caused by himself. That he is inflicting it on himself by hodling back, the same way Enji said that Shoto was only pretending to be hurt and he could handle this.

That there is something inside Shigaraki that is always hurting him and that he can never escape from. All for One introduces the stressors to Shigaraki’s body that causes him to psychologically break down, the hands of his family, exposure to violence again and again, and then insists that all of this is Shigaraki hurting himself. 

And then twists the logic around to make Shigaraki believe that this is what Shigaraki wants to do. He wants to be violent, he wants to cause death, on himself and others. 

Tomura is encouraged to actively harm himself in order to be strong, overuse his decay quirk which is not suited to his body, and also to continuously hold onto feelings of grief that will only injure and scar his heart even more. All for the purpose of making him into a violent, unstable person. 

Then, when Shigaraki is continuouly trapped within this cycle of violence which he can never escape from, Shigaraki is told that his only escape is to become stronger than everybody else. Shigaraki sees no future, no escape, he’s told again and again there’s no healing for someone like him, there’s no future. Just like Dabi the only future he sees is in death, which is why he does not think about the future at all. 

Shigaraki is a bug, a worm in the dirt dying to be reborn as a butterfly. He’s glitchy, defective, born wrong someone who was born to curse and destroy his family.

The reason he wants to destroy everything is not because he enjoys destruction, but because he has been pushed to such extremes that he’s desperate for any kind of relief, and sees his only way to be free is to destroy absolutely everything around him. He believes he is so hopeless that there’s no way for him to live in the current world, only to die and be reborn.

Shigaraki has been taught, just like Dabi to continually harm himself to gain power, and that freedom from the pain will only come for him when he has power. 

Which is what directly leads us to the latest chapter again. It’s never going to be enough for him. Shigaraki already gains power, and we see he falls into his pattern once more, he intentionally inflicts upon himself four entire months of pain, an unnecessary and risk of surgery. Because surviving unbearable pain is the only way he knows how to get stronger. He has subjected himself to pain over and over again, and continues to self harm even when All for One is in prison and away from him because it was all he was taught and therefore all he knows. He self harms to make up for the perceived deficiency in himself. 

He has to enter the coccoon, because his new self is not good enough and it never will be. 

Shigaraki, desperate to die in a cocoon and be reborn, Dabi desperate to die in flames and be reborn, but both of them were fine as they were. There’s still a chance for those children who believe themselves already dead to heal, and to live for te first time. 

[skidar]

Disney announces a ‘live action’ (hyper-realistic CGI animation) remake of Bambi

I’m sure most of the world is tired of the Disney remakes and sequels that have been plaguing the box offices as of recent years. With all the stories of the world that have yet to be told, Disney is opting to stay in the illusionary ‘safe lane’ and continue the hash out the same products it already knows will sell instead of trying to cobble together an original feature. It’s hard to believe that the animation company that backs amazing original tv show ideas like Gravity Falls, The Owl House and Amphibia cannot fathom how to make an original animated movie. Is Disney actually scared of risk? It shouldn’t be! Disney is literally too big. A massive media monopoly that could literally make flop after flop in the box office over and over in experimentation and not fail. So many indie studios do NOT have that luxury and yet still take crazy risks to tell us new stories in new ways. Disney used to be the animation pioneers but recently the only thing Disney seems to create are re-hashes of its classics that fall all too short. Disney is focusing on the visual realism in its films while seemingly ignoring the heart and soul that made the originals so successful. The most recent and best example was The Lion King remake. While the films boasts near-flawlessly realistic animals, their stoic expressions and restricted movement made them unappealing. The movie copied dialogue from the original word-for-word and nearly shot for shot but the focus on the realism cut the character’s charm completely out. The ‘I Just Can’t Wait To Be King’ number lost all its stylistic qualities that made the song bright and colorful and the character’s lip-syncing to the songs was emotionless and stale. The characters also no long moved with expressive freedom. Are they happy? Sad? Overjoyed? We wouldn’t know. The Lion King remake was devastatingly disappointing. A realistic skin stretched over the bones of a far better film while letting no charm or heart escape the cold, hyper realistic faces.

Surely Disney would realize the mistake and stop. Right? Surely they could dig around their submissions box and try to make something new with the skills they obviously have without resulting to re-hashing it’s already successful classics. Right? 

Wrong.

Disney now has Bambi on its chopping block of remakes and plans to do to it what it’s done to The Lion King. Virtually gut it.

Bambi cannot be remade successfully as a hyper realistic film today. You could tell the story, yes, based off the original book, Bambi: A Life in The Woods by Felix Salton, but it would not be the visual masterpiece of the original. Let me explain:

Bambi was the 5th animated feature by Walt Disney but it was MEANT to be one of the first. Walt wanted to make Bambi from the beginning but he wanted to make it ‘right.’ He wanted to stray away from the ‘toony’ simplified animals of Snow White and Pinocchio and instead focus on realism, anatomy and expression. He brought live animals into the studios and worked with animal artists to develop a healthy balance of realistic anatomy and exaggerated features. Ie: Bambi’s large forehead and eyes symbolized that of a toddler as a young deer. 

Bambi also pioneered new ways of technology, the early pan-shot of the forest in the beginning of the movie was made by painting trees on long panes of glass and then stacking the glass vertically and sliding the panes around to show depth. By sliding the camera on a track from left to right, the viewer was transported through a ‘3D’ forest that moved and shifted with them. Bambi also brought about the study of the art of water physics for the ‘Little April Shower’ scene. By filming and photographing drops of milk, the animators learned how to draw the intricate patterns of a splashing drop of water on a leaf or in a puddle. 

Speaking of animators, Bambi employed at least four of Walt Disney’s ‘Nine Old Men’ some of the most well-known character animators in history: Milt Kahl, Frank Johnson, Ollie Thomas and Marc Davis.  The iconic movements of Bambi and the other animals would not have been possible with them, but the biggest artistic influencer of Bambi was a young Chinese-American man name Tyrus Wong. Tyrus Wong had been an inbetweener animator on Pinocchio but expressed interest in Bambi by privately submitting some sketches to Walt. He was hired and became the lead production illustrator of the film. Tyrus Wong’s beautiful watercolor backgrounds were soft and simple, setting a film steeped in nostalgia, innocence and beauty of the natural world. Without Tyrus Wong, the film would have been completely different. 

Bambi was also the first Walt Disney film to recognize a woman in its screen credits. Traditionally, women often worked in the Disney Ink and Paint department coloring cels. Retta Scott was a storyboard artist that worked mostly on scenes with Bambi and his mother, but became well known for her savage hunting dogs sketches that caught the eye of Walt Disney during production. Many men were shocked at the ferocity of her dogs because ‘she was a women and shouldn’t have been able to draw something so vicious,’ but she became the lead animator for the hunting dogs that chased Faline during Man’s hunt. She was tutored by another member of the Nine Old Men, Eric Larson. Retta Scott’s continued yet under-appreciated success opened doors for many women in the animation industry.

Bambi was a film of massive risks and little payoff. It challenged style, it pushed animators to their limits, it experimented in technology, color and technique. It opened doors for marginalized people that usually had doors slammed in their face. It received backlash for its violence and the anguish of loss and its questionable suitability for children. Bambi broke boundaries… but wasn’t much a success until it’s future re-releases. 

Bringing us back to the present. Disney announces a Bambi remake similar to the failed ‘Lion King.’ There will be no luscious backgrounds of Tyrus Wong. There will be no jaunty gaited fawns crafted by the masterful Nine Old Men. There will be no ferocious hounds carved by the hand of Retta Scott to make a path for women. There will be a story of a deer in the woods. A ‘real deer’ in ‘real woods.’ It will be hollow and lifeless. It will be eye-candy at best, but it will not be better than the original. The original is a true masterpiece. It is not something that needs to be redone or retold. Bambi was a risk, a risk that didn’t pay off in the beginning but today it is a marvel. A true testament of art and love of the craft and it cannot be replaced. Disney should not remake Bambi, they should learn from it, they should learn that they are big enough to take risks and they can. They should learn to give marginalized creators a chance to shine because they have something amazing to share. They need to let go, move on, and embrace the fear of the untold story. I hope that in the years to come, the age of remakes and sequels will stop and we can look forward to a new era of wonderful stories that get to be told for the first time in animation.

--

Bambi is my favorite movie in the world. I have seen it well into the hundreds if not quad digits. I watch it when I’m happy, I watch it when I’m devastated. I watch it when I’m sick and I watch it when I wake up from a nightmare and can’t fall back asleep. Bambi is what made me want to become an artist and I have a lot of personal feelings about the movie as a work of art. I’m not looking forward to the remake, I can only hope and hope and hope that Disney learned from the Lion King and won’t make the same mistakes again. Until then, we just have to wait...