#because its a literal historical figure fanart

[heatsu]

uhhhhh so

[lunatic-fandom-space]

Ive been getting really into Elisabeth: Das Musical lately and I havent really talked about it here even though I do have a lot of thoughts because its about like, a historical figure. Like, thats a real person that was alive at some point and idk, it just makes me feel so embarassed to enjoy it because of that even though it is really good, like I have no idea how the Hamilton Fandom with all the fanfics and fanart and headcanons and AUs (animatics are a different story though) was ever A Thing because Im just looking at all that stuff and Im going "youre not embarassed?? you dont feel like the most cringe person on this stupid baka earth for this??" And Im not even saying that because I think the hamilton fandom is THAT cringe I just literally cant imagine having the kind of mindset that would allow you to enjoy it like that, if that makes sense

Anyway, the reason Im bringing that up is not because I actually wanna talk about Elisabeth: Das Musical, its because Elisabeth: Das Musical reminded me of a different piece of Sisi Media that I used to watch when I was a kid and it was this animated series where she could talk to animals using some kind of amulett I think?? Or some kind of different piece of jewelry or accessoire and thats just really weird to me. Like, I have absolutely no desire to watch it because I remember thinking it was really boring as a kid and only watching it on SuperRTL when there were commercials running on nickelodeon but in hindsight Im like "thats the second most bizarre premise for a show Ive heard of since the one about two kids traveling back in time using a magical science cube to rescue their dad who got kidnapped through time and space except when they travel back in time they travel to bible stories because all the bible stories are actually real and also the guy who kidnapped their dad is trying to prevent them from happening I think"

[figurativepieceoftrash]

Okay, so there’s something that I’ve been thinking about for a while that I’ve (surprisingly) never seen any DFO theorists point out. Everyone knows that Izuku is associated with sheep, in fact, every animal-related art piece Horikoshi has created has depicted him as either as a sheep like this example here:

Or as someone with an implied supernatural connection to one (the only example of this is in the poll art but shhh):

People do acknowledge this, and I see fanart related to it on a pretty regular basis, but I’ve never seen anyone really explore the symbolism of sheep, especially in relation to their historical/cultural juxtaposition with and genetic relation to goats.

Goats are typically considered to be a demonic symbol in Western religion, with the image of the goat often being directly conflated with that of the Judeo-Christian figure Satan. Y’know. Like, the devil. Who you might also refer to as the king of Demons. 

It might be a bit too speculative on my part, but I certainly think that with all the demonic references surrounding All For One’s character, you definitely could draw symbolic parallels between himself and Lucifer, especially considering that they both have close, first positive and later antagonistic, relationships with the wise, almost mythically revered “ultimate good” figures of their respective narratives, serve as irredeemable antagonists/ultimate evils, tend to engage in manipulative behavior, and are closely associated with the concepts of sin and corruption (poor Aoyama). Horikoshi also really likes to sprinkle fun little references to Western literature/concepts/media in his work so. Something to keep in mind.

Now this wouldn’t be super interesting on its own. Like. Yeah. AFO could be symbolically represented as a goat. Real interesting bro. But when you consider the fact that Izuku is often depicted as a sheep, things start to get a little more interesting. Because not only are goats and sheep closely related genetically (shoutout to the family group Bovidae and its subfamily Caprinae) but they also have a history of being juxtaposed against each other in Christian-inspired texts and media. 

While goats represent sin, agency, and temptation, lambs are symbols of innocence, moral malleability, and humanity, often being led by a more experienced shepherd archetype (hero society/All Might here) without truly comprehending the gravity of their actions. This might tie into Izuku’s budding reluctance to adhere completely to the precedents set by hero society as well as his newfound intention to save villains. Now that Izuku is branching out from authoritative forces, he’s able to express a more fluid and complex morality than in previous chapters, shedding his innocence while retaining moral purity (the sheep in the most recent art had horns, which shows maturity as well as another parallel to goats, who are much more strongly associated with horns than their fluffy cousins).

The idea of equal but opposite is very prevalent throughout bnha, especially when tied to All For One and One For All (it’s literally present in the names, you can’t escape it), meaning that such a clear duality may further aid the AFO/goat connection.

As a recap, AFO may have a connection to goats based on subtext. To my knowledge, Horikoshi has never associated him another animal. Goats and sheep are closely related, and are often juxtaposed in numerous Western cultures.

I may delete this later if I go back and realize I was being conspiracy theory levels of ridiculous here, but for now, thank you for coming to my TED talk.

[captainaikus]

Oliver gives me the vibes of acting all cool collected and nonchalant but secretly obsessed with this one random thing like action figures a comic book series or a childish tv show and no one knows about it except when one day he sees a limited edition of something just his eyes light up his face pulls into the biggest most innocent smile and he lets out the most adorable little gasp when you ask him about it and immediately starts rambling about whatever it is and all you can do is just stare at this 6’3 man fanboying over a kids show with all the surprise and fondness and love in your eyes. Idk I just feel like once you get to really know this man and he really falls in love with you? That he’d let some of that facade down around you. I think it just means that he feels safe to be himself around you. And he doesn’t have that cool playboy image to uphold anymore at least not for a while and certainly not around you yknow? Idk that thought just came into my head and I had to share it with you. How are you btw? How’s uni? Hows the new show going? Also if you don’t mind. I will be ranting about the end of Tokyo Revengers in another ask and how it absolutely destroyed me and left me completely empty inside and just all the feelings because it’s my favorite and comfort manga. If that’s alright? *sends many virtual hugs*

- ✨ anon

✨ (the urge to call you starry or charmer but it’s upto you ♡) , I-

I love this. so much ♡(˃͈ દ ˂͈ ) this man has my heart and I had a dream about him last night

He'd fanboy over the little things so much - it's so adorable. 6'3 defender of japan going out shopping with you to buy figurines, mangas and pointing at the one he wants on the shelf with a smile. And imagine if you share the same passion? And what if it coincides?

I made some groundbreaking discoveries yesterday and many more reasons on why Oliver and I are the perfect couple

So I was curious to see if there was any fanart of him on twitter (cause the artists there are amazing and I found this one pic of tendou with like really short hair and he was fucking AHHh he was hot !! but anyway) I found a thread of discussion on Oliver

Turns out, he hates corn cause it gets stuck between his teeth and I have no words cause even I didn't like corn for that reason... but its alright to eat now ig; he likes shin ramyeon. (Literally stocked the goddamn thing into the cupboard yesterday adbfkjhfbhesff ) and he likes Spicy food!! 🥹

and his manga. *put on glasses* Chi: Chikyū no Undō ni Tsuite.

It is a historical manga and it’s coinciding with astronomy. *is a major of it at uni* I- Oliver is a nerd. He’s a nerd and I love him for it. And I’d like to think that there is a moment where he does engage with you in discussions about it and when you give him that look; that knowing look of ‘I know who you really are’ when he turns an argument into an intellectual one without realizing it. And he just gives you the look back of ‘I know. I’m not stupid. Surprise.’

And once he falls in love with you? playboy season is over and he will be locked.

I absolutely loved this thought and thank you for sharing it with me ଘ(੭ˊᵕˋ)੭ ♡

Cause seriously it fits well with his character and I can totally imagine him just being giddy about it (T.T) *heartclench*

What happened at uni today : So me and this guy I’ve known for 5 years since school share one of the majors we have out of two together. He’s very aloof, always sits at the back and doesn’t talk to anyone. But today since he was late, he sat next to me. And he goes ‘You’ve changed. You’ve lost a lost of weight.’ And not even in the positive way… it was condescending.

*proceeds to lose a debate against me* (like seriously you’d think I’d let that slide?)

I've also destroyed my glutes and elbows at the gym today and I'm writing more to the NNN challenge fic along with another one

Romantic killer is so cute and funny! I’d rec you to give it a watch !!

*passes cup of hot chocolate and a squishmallow* go on. I’m listening *pat pat* (੭˶•༝•˶)੭ ♡ You can rant to whenever you want <3

*sending warm and comforting hugs*

[therogueheart]

The Cardinal Rules of Real Person Shipping

The debate on the morality of RPS is a long and divided one. But it will always exist and while it does there are basic rules of conduct and respect that that anyone engaging in RPS should follow. Its very important to remember that you are not shipping fictional characters or characters based upon historical figures. You are shipping actual, real people, and they should be treated as such.  Please note these should also extend to fanart of one person, ‘slash reader’ content and anything that involves sexualising or romanticising another person. 

Do not tag the people in RPS content.  This goes for posts, fanfiction, fanart and any other form of RPS content. ‘Gen’ content (for example, fanart depicting them hugging in a non-sexual manner with no RPS related caption or implication) is acceptable, but its very important to ask yourself before you do so: 'Is this work immediately interpreted as platonic?’ If the answer is no, post it but don’t tag them. Don’t tag them in discussions or posts pushing their friendship or “relationship”. If you’re confused on what to tag it as, here’s a key: Name & Name = gen/platonic content.  Name/Name = romantic/sexual content.

Do not, EVER, show/share with/push NSFW content on the people. At all.  This is the number one rule and breaking it will disappoint even the rest of the RPS community. Its uncomfortable, weird, and downright disrespectful. It doesn’t matter if the actor has laughed about coming across NSFW content before. It doesn’t matter if they joked about it in an interview. Just don’t do it.  Any NSFW content you make involving RPS should be appropriately tagged.  Another thing to remember here since a lot of people post NSFW fanart to Twitter - writing the person’s full name in the text will make your Tweet show up when people follow that name.

Where possible, keep RPS content out of the ‘main’ tags. This one is just as much to protect you as it is to protect other people from being exposed. People who are against RPS content often resort to volatile bullying, death threats, harassment, doxing and detailed hate speech.  RPS is also normally an extreme breach of moral clause and respect for many people, and it makes them uncomfortable and upset. All in all, for everyone’s sake, its better to keep RPs content to specific pairing tags or to make a ‘secret’ tag. A lesser known fact is that ‘ship names’ can also be used platonically, but while this is a fact its still best not to use the tag in conjunction with other main tags, such as the fandom name or the people’s names.

Do not spam the people with RPS content or push it on them during streams, cons, panels ect. This relates to the NSFW rule but constantly pushing RPS content on the people involved can quite literally ruin their friendships. We’ve seen it time and time again - Septiplier, Phan, Cockles ect. Especially if there’s no merit to the RPS pairing (e.g both are happily in monogamous relationships). It can erode friendships and force the people involved to be more reserved. Imagine not being able to go out with your friends or hug them or engage with them because people forcibly sexualise it. This is what can happen.  Embracing their friendship is fine, but its important to remember the limits. Its also important to note that disregarding a celebrities other acts, motions or achievements in order to push RPS or fictional ship content on them is a dick move. One such example is Misha Collins’ latest political panels being spammed with Destiel demands. Undermining and undervaluing their other projects and their lives in order to satisfy your own desires isn’t going to earn you brownie points.

Do not, under any circumstances, harass or hate on the partners or friends of the people.  This is right up there with the NSFW rule. Its important to remember that almost every RPS ship is purely fantasy and that those people often have real partners and real friends who can and are hurt when you hate on them or harass them over an RPS ship. Regardless of your feelings about the relationship, they are the real life partners and friends of that person, and you are also hurting that person by attacking a valued piece of their life.  Partners and friends are not ‘unworthy’ or ‘getting in the way of Z and Y’. No other friendship is less valuable or unfair. No partner deserves to be attacked on a daily basis simply for being with someone. Know that if you do this, even the RPS community doesn’t want to engage with you and that you won’t be welcome on 90% of the blogs who engage in that ship.

The only proof that is conclusive is what comes right from the people’s mouths - anything else is speculation. It doesn’t matter if its sharing clothes, buying each other accessories, getting matching tattoos or whatever. Unless the people involved have explicitly said ‘this is what’s happening’ then it is speculation. Intimacy is not strictly romantic nor are definitive acts of love/bond such as matching tattoos. Its great to celebrate acts of their bond but don’t claim it as irrefutable proof that something is happening; again, things like that can destroy the friendship or erode the closeness of the bond. 

As a last note - its important to be respectful no matter your stance on RPS. If RPS isn’t your thing, block any related tags or blogs and cultivate positivity in your own space. If it is your thing - don’t give antis reason to attack and harass you. 

[adorpheus]

on fujoshi and fetishization

Lately, more and more, both here on tumblr and on other sites, I keep seeing people spew unfiltered hatred at fujoshi - that is, women who like mlm content such as gay fanfic and fanart featuring men with other men. And I don’t mean like a specific type of fujoshi, like the ones who are genuinely being weird about it, but just like a general hatred for girls (but especially straight identifying girls) who express love for gay romance.

I hate to break this to you all, but women (including straight women!) actually are allowed to like mlm fanfiction and fanart, even enthusiastically so. A woman simply expressing her love of gay fanfic, even if it is in kind of a cringey way or a way that you personally don’t like, is NOT automatically fetishization.

I’ve been on the receiving end of fetishization for my entire life, from a very young age, as many black and brown folx have, so I consider myself pretty well acquainted with how it works. Fetishization isn’t just like, being really into drawings of boys kissing, or whatever the fuck y’all are trying to imply on this god forsaken site. 

Fetishization is complicated imo, and can encompass a lot of things, such as (but not limited to):

1 - dehumanization, e.g. viewing a group of people as sexual objects who exist purely for entertainment purposes, rather than acknowledging them as actual people who deserve respect and rights

and

2 - projecting certain assumptions onto said people based on their race/sexuality/whatever is being fetishized. These assumptions are often, but not always, sexual in nature (like the idea that black people in general are more sexual than other races, etc etc etc).

I’m going to use myself as an example to illustrate my point. Please note this isn’t the best or most nuanced example, but it is the most simplistic. A white person finding me attractive and respectfully appreciating my black features as part of what makes me beautiful is not, on its own, fetishization. A white person finding me attractive solely or mostly because I’m a PoC is now in fetishization territory. Similarly, assuming I’m dominant because of my blackness (like saying “step on me mommy” and shit like that) is hella fetishistic. 

That being said, theres definitely a difference between how fetishization works in real life with real people, and how it shows up in fandom. 

Fetishization manifests in many different ways in fandom, but most commonly on the mlm side of things, I personally see it appear as conservative (or centrist) women who love the idea of two men together, but don’t actually like gay people, and don’t necessarily think LGBT+ people deserve rights (or “special treatment” as its sometimes dog whistled). These women view queer men as sexual objects for entertainment rather than an actual group of people who deserve to be protected from systemic oppression. I’ve noticed that they often don’t even think of the men they “ship” together as actually being gay, and may even express disgust at the idea of a character in an mlm ship being headcanon’d gay. In case its not obvious, this is pretty much exactly the same way a lot of cishet men fetishize lesbians (they see “lesbian” as a porn category, rather than like, what actual LGBT people think of when we read the word lesbian). There’s a pretty popular viral tweet thread going around where someone explains seeing this trend of conservative women who like mlm stuff, and I have also personally witnessed this phenomenon myself in more than one fandom. 

The funny thing is, maybe its just me buuuut.... The place I see this particular kind of fetishization happen most is not in the anime/BL fandom, from which the term fujoshi originates - I actually see these type of women way way more in western fandom spaces like Supernatural, Harry Potter, and Hannibal. I can’t stress this enough, there’s a shocking amount of people who are like, straight up trump supporters in these fandoms. If you want to experience it, try joining a Hannigram or Destiel group on facebook and you will probably encounter one eventually especially if you happen to be living through a major historical event. Like these women probably wouldn’t even be considered “fujoshi”, because that term doesn’t really apply to them given they aren’t in the BL/anime fandom, yet they’re the ones I personally see actually doing the most harm.

Of course this isn’t the ONLY kind of fetishizing woman in the mlm/BL world, there are other ways fetishization shows up, but this is the most toxic kind that I see.

A girl just being really into BL or whatever may be “cringe” to you, or she may be expressing her love for BL in a “cringey” way, but a straight woman really enjoying BL is not, on its own, somehow inherently fetishization. Yes, sometimes teenage girls act kind of cringe about how much they like BL and that might be annoying to you, but its not necessarily ~problematic~. 

That being said, IT NEEDS BE REMARKED that a lot of the “fujoshi” that you all hate so deeply, are actually closeted trans men or nonbinary people who haven’t yet come to terms with their gender identity, or are otherwise just NOT cishet. I know because I was one of these closeted people for years, and I honestly think tumblr and the cultural obsession around purity is one of the many reasons I was closeted so deeply for so long. STORYTIME LOL!!! In my early adolescence, I was a sort of proto “fujoshi”. I identified as a bi girl who was mostly attracted to men, or as most (biphobic) people called it, “practically straight”. I wrote and read “slash” fanfic and looked at as well as drew my own fanart. We didn’t use the term fujoshi back then, but that’s definitely how I could have been described. I was obsessed with yaoi, BL, whatever you want to call it, to a cringe-inducing degree. I really struggled to relate to most het romances, so when I first discovered yaoi fanfics (as we called them at the time), I fell in love and felt like I finally found the type of romance content that was made for me. I didn’t know exactly why, I just knew it hit different. LGBT+ fanart and fanfiction brought me an immense amount of joy, and I didn’t really think too hard about why.

At some point, in my early 20s, after reading lots of discourse™ here on tumblr and other places like twitter, I started to get the sinking feeling that my passion for gay fanfiction was ~problematic~. I had always felt a sense of guilt for being into mlm content, because literally anyone who found out I liked BL (especially the men I dated) shamed me for liking it all the fucking time (which btw is literally just homophobic, like can we talk about that?). In addition to THAT bullshit, now I’m seeing posts telling me that girls who like BL are cringey gross fetishists who inspire rage and should go die? 

Let me tell you, I internalized the fuck out of messages like this. I desperately wanted to avoid being ~problematic~. At the time, I thought being problematic was like the worst thing you could be. I was terrified of being “cancelled”, before canceling was even really a thing. I thought to myself, “oh my god, I’m gross for liking this stuff? I should stop.” I beat myself up over this. I wanted so badly to be accepted, and to be deemed a Good Person by the internet and society at large.

I tried to shape up and become a good ally (lmfao). I stopped writing fanfic and deleted all the ones I was working on at the time. I made a concerted effort to assimilate into cishet culture, including trying to indulge myself more deeply in the few fandoms I could find that had het content I did enjoy (Buffy, True Blood, Pretty Little Liars, etc). I would occasionally look at BL/fanfic/etc in private, but then I would repress my interest in it and not look for a while. Instead I would look at women in straight relationships, and create extremely heterosexual Couple Goals pinterest boards, and try to figure out how I could become more like these women, so I, too, could be loved someday. 

This cycle of repression lasted like eight years. Throughout it all, I was performing womanhood to the best of my ability and trying to become a woman that was worthy of being in a relationship. I went in and out of several “straight” relationships, wondering why they didn’t make me feel the way reading fanfic did. Most of all, I couldn’t figure out why straight intimacy didn’t work for me. I just didn’t enjoy it. I always preferred looking at or making gay fanfiction/fanart over actual intimacy with men in real life. 

Eventually, I stumbled upon a trans coming out video that someone I was following posted online, my egg started to crack, and to make an extremely long story short, after like 3 years of introspection and many gender panic attacks that I still experience to this day, I realized that I’m uh... MAYBE... NOT CIS..!? :|

I truly believe if I had just been ALLOWED TO LIKE GAY STUFF WITHOUT BEING SHAMED FOR IT, I probably would have realized I was trans way way sooner. Because for me, indulging in my love of gay romance and writing gay fanfic wasn’t me being a weirdo fetishist, it was actually me exploring my own gender identity. It is what helped me come to terms with being a nonbinary trans boy.

Not everyone realizes they are trans at age 2 or whatever the fuck. Sometimes you have to go through a cringey fujoshi phase and multiple existential crises to realize how fucking gay you are AND THATS FINE.

And one more thing - can we just be real here? 

A lot of anti-fujoshi sentiment is literally just misogyny. omg please realize this. Its “women aren’t allowed to enjoy things” but, like... with gay fanfics. Some of the anti-fujoshi posts I see come across my dash are clearly ppl projecting a caricature they invented in their head of a demonic fujoshi fetishist onto any woman who expresses what they consider to be a little too much enthusiasm for gay content and then using their perception of that individual as an excuse to justify their disdain for any women, especially straight women, ‘invading’ their ~oh so exclusive~ queer fandom spaces.

 god get over yrselfs this is gatekeeping by another name

idk why i spent so long writing this no one is even going to read it, does anyone even still use this site

*EDIT: HOLY SHIT WHEN DOING RESEARCH FOR THIS POST I FOUND OUT THAT Y-GALLERY IS BACK OMG!!! 

[youareunbearable]

Catch me not having a clue who any of these gods(?) and people are, but still sitting here like, "I ship that pretty one with the gruff one, and that brown haired one with the other(?) gruff one?" without knowing names or what this is except the fanart I see you reblog, because this fandom apparently has lots of nice art

Fam i have no idea what ur talking about or when u sent this im so sorry asfkjhfkjhf but i thiiiinnnkkkk??????? it’s “Heavens Official Blessing” or  Tiān Guān Cì Fú (TGCF for tagging stuff) its originally a chinese gay novel that is soooooooo long by the author  Mo Xiang Tong Xiu (MXTX) who wrote 2 (two?????) other novels that I know of that are also gay historical fantasy but i personally havent actually read TGCF???? im just watching the anime and looking at the wiki and reading fanfics so i have a vague idea whats going on but not really???? so i cant really give a good review BUT i LOVE THE CHARACTERS MXTX WRITES SO MUCH AFHAFKFHKFAKF IM SO SORRY IM SHIT WITH TAGGING SO U HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IM HYPER FIXATING ON BUT

LISTEN

LISTEN 

LISTEN

Pretty one and the gruff one im THINKING is He Xuan (or Ming Yi/ Ming-Xiong/Ming Bro) for the grumpy one and Shi Qingxuan for the pretty one and both are kinda gender fluid?? (more Shi Qingxuan but they both change their forms to be both women and men which is Iconic and the anime put her in the TRANS FLAG COLOUR instead of her canon white and green which is ICONIC) AND THHEYRE SO TRAGIC AND HOT AND I CRY JUST THINKING ABOUT THEIR STORY LIKE AFHDFKJAFDSGS like i want to kinda read the book just for them, the two super minor characters, but i also read somewhere that their story doesn’t really have a clean ending so im also holding back from just getting Emotionally Hurt because im a cancer and i know it’ll wreck me

I think The Two Gruff Idiots are Feng Xin (dark haired gruff boy) and Mu Qing (brown haired gruff boy) and theyre both martial gods and both knew each other for over 800 years and both tried to take care of Actual Human And Heavenly Disaster Xie Lian, failed, and tried to do it again 800 years later but with stupid glasses with moustaches in hopes that Xie Lian cant figure out that they care about him but OOPS Xie Lian does in fact have the braincell of the three of them fajfafjajf 

Heres the link to watch the anime, there are 11 eps rn but it updates every weekend (I dont actually know when but i watch it on sundays) Make sure u have ur ad block on tho lol there is a manga too and the art style is TO DIE FOR like its GORGEOUS but its roughly at the same pace as the anime so eh

Heres where to read the whole thing online, just a warning its BIG AS FUCK like 244? plus extras I think?? 

I’d also recommend MXTX’s other books!

Mo Dao Zu Shi (or Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation/ The Untamed/MDZS) is both a Book as well as an Anime (the whole thing is on youtube) , a Live Action which you can watch on Netflix (look up Untamed, also a warning, the plot is a little different from the book and anime cause of uhhh censorship?? also i guess to make it more live drama friendly, my friends an i binged it and really liked it, but some of the fandom doesn’t), a manga which is not finished I think???? idk im not caught up, and a fucking chinese AUDIO DRAMA LIKE BITCH ITS SO WELL DONE but i have to stop listening sometimes cause like there is a difference between watching/reading characters kiss, and then like just hearing them, i get so embarrassed i have to skip the kissing scenes and god forbid i accidentally click on the smutty extras alfjajlfjalfjaljf u can find it on youtube, i linked the one i listen to but i havent finished it and i don’t think it’s all of it, but you can find other episodes/chapters easily

Its about 1 Dumb Yet So Smart gay/bi man (Wei Wuxian) who honestly tries his fucking best, fucks up everything, dies for over a decade, and then is forcefully brought back to life to solve a murder mystery with the guy who has been in Super Gay Love with him since they were teens (Lan Zhan), a bunch of teens Who Are Just Honestly Here For A Good Time And Yet (Lan Juniors, Jin Ling, and Best Boy Ouyang Zizhen ) while badly hiding his real identity from all the people he knows, including his foster brother (Jiang Cheng) who is out for blood and hunting his ass down with a whip and also Lan Zhan who is travelling with him. Also the Killer. There is a killer on the loose and is willing to murder whoever to keep their secrets. Also Nie Huaisang. I adore him and his brother Nie Mingjue, if there is one bitch u gotta remember from this summary it’s this little twink (he and his brother also have a fucking spin off movie from the live action drama THAT I HAVENT BEEN ABLE TO FIND A ENGLISH SUB VERSION AND ITS BEEN KILLING ME SINCE I STARTED WATCHING THIS SHOW LAST YEAR. GOOGLE GIVE ME MY FAVOURITE TWINK AND HIS BEAR OF A BROTHER HAVING A FUN FAMILY ROAD TRIP!!!!!!!)

My Personal Current Favourite is Scum Villain’s Self Saving System (SVSSS) which is SOOOOOOO FUNNY Like it’s not as popular cause the comic was discontinued, and the anime looks like its from 2005 with the weird 3D animation but its my current comfort media!!! 

Its basically about a spite reading millennial (Shen Yuan) who died after reading a REALLY awful popular cheesy smut harem novel (think like 50 shade series but worse cause the protag had 600 wives) and was forced into the body of a minor but important villain (the protagonist’s teacher, Shen Qingqiu) from the novel who was fated to die with all his limbs cut off and his eyes and tongue plucked out and is told he has to fix the story so its not trash, he reasonably freaks the fuck out and hugs the protagonists (Luo Binghe) thigh so hard he turns him gay without realizing. Sadly, he does have to make sure certain plot points happen, which fucks him over a lot,  and he thinks Luo Binghe still wants to kill him instead of love him cause he has the Emotional Intelligence of a Rock, but its so funny reading about him handling all the awful tropey stuff, like imagine u have to be a character in My Immortal But With Porn?????? without breaking out of character too much?? I wouldn’t be able to handle it ajhakfkfhjfj He also finds out that he’s not the only transmigrator in the novel either, but it doesn’t matter cause theyre both So Fucking Stupid Collectively but everyone would honestly die for the both of them

warning for this story though, the main relationship is a teacher/student relationship, but nothing happens until the student is in his 20s and also kinda not his student anymore cause he’s running hell??? but if that squicks u out i totally understand and offer you to PLEASE still enjoy some of this media, and instead of the BingQiu ship, I offer you the LiuQiu one, where both me and the main character cry over how a beautiful man/fellow immortal lord loves the main character so much that he literally fought every day for 5 years to be by his side and I Think Thats Beautiful and I kinda like this ship more than the main one tbh PLEASE just look at the art for Liu Qingge because i love him so much, he’s like if you took Lan Zhan and Jiang Cheng from MDZS and mashed them into one beautiful man the author is trying to tell me is straight but u take one look at him And Tell Me Otherwise

[demi-god-ing]

“House of Earth and Blood” (Sarah J. Maas) Review

“That’s the point of it, Bryce. Of life. To live, to love, knowing that it might all end tomorrow. It makes everything that much more precious.”

Sarah J. Maas, you evil, sadistic mastermind.

I know people have issues with Sarah J. Maas (I mean, people have issues with everyone, but I digress). Hell, sometimes I have issues with her. I acknowledge that she tends to have a thing about stunningly gorgeous chosen one heroines and broody, all-powerful alpha dudes as their love interests. I acknowledge that she hasn't had a good track record of representation for anything outside of white, cis, straight people in the past. I acknowledge that she sometimes is super cheesy and overuses phrases like "eyes lined with silver" and calls characters "males" and "females" instead of just "men" and "women" (this bothers a lot of people but it doesn't really annoy me that much because okay, they're not human, I buy it).

AND YET I don't get invested in books like I get invested in SJM's books. She makes me feel like I'm fourteen again, swooning at every bad boy love interest in every kind-of-bad YA novel and getting completely invested in every single character. I don't get that feeling a lot anymore, and I miss it. SJM gives it to me with every single book, and I think there's something to be said about that. Is she Shakespeare? No (duh). But someone who can consistently write highly rated, best-selling books that spawn gigantic tumblr fandoms, endless fanart, and an ungodly amount of fanfiction is doing something right. Her books are escapism. I acknowledge that. That doesn't make them any less. I don't think I should have to defend the fact that I read and adore SJM (this message directed to all the SJM haters and also my English lit professors who shit on YA authors in general). (***beware potential (marked) spoilers from this point on!***)

Aaanyways, this book was actually really, incredibly good. In some ways, it's a lot like what SJM's done in the past, but in others, it's completely different. [*SPOILER: Hunt, for example: so not what I expected him to be in the absolute best way. Yes, he's a super powerful, sorta alpha dude, but he's also pretty level headed, not super growly, and lowkey like a giant softie. The dude spends as much of the book cuddling with Bryce on the couch watching trashy TV, bonding with her dog, and making her food as he does being a badass, tormented killing machine. It's excellent. END SPOILER*] For one, I'd say this is some of the best world-building SJM has EVER done, and it's not historical-ish high fantasy but MODERN high fantasy, which isn't exactly a new thing but surprisingly doesn't show up that much. When it does show up, I get really excited, because modern technology in a fully high fantasy world is a very fun combination. Another thing is that this is at its core a murder mystery, and it was a pretty compelling murder mystery. I honestly wanted to figure out who was behind the murders and really did not suspect who it ended up being. SJM pulled it off, and it totally WORKED.

Another thing: though Bryce and Hunt are similar to characters we've seen from SJM before, they also felt really unique to me, Hunt especially. [*SPOILER: Bryce could maybe be like Aelin pre-Heir of Fire. Now she has tons of crazy power, though, so she'll be a lot more like both Aelin and Feyre. But we knew it was inevitable she'd end up being a chosen one. END SPOILER*] The other characters are really interesting and relatively diverse (you better believe I was noting the fact that SJM made a point to make sure not all of the characters were white and straight (though they all appeared to be cis)––Hunt is canonically described as having brown skin, so yay). There's just a lot of potential character arcs and relationship dramas being set up and I'm beyond excited. [*SPOILER: Really hoping we stick with Hunt as endgame, though, because I adored him. People are already pointing out the ways he might be problematic and thus dismissed as a love interest, but I hope SJM breaks that pattern and stays with this dude because I love him and Bryce loves him and just LET THEM BE HAPPY. There's clearly things they need to address, but I don't think this should be grounds to just end the relationship and get a new love interest. END SPOILER*]

Also just THE ENDING. Oh sweet Jesus. The last 200 pages of this book were like Freytag's pyramid on crack. Every time I thought we'd reached the top of the pyramid and the true climax had occurred, she somehow drove the action and tension EVEN HIGHER. I cried multiple times, not even of sadness but just of such high emotion. I finished the book and actually felt the dopamine and adrenaline leave my body. It was like being on drugs. I've had book hangovers before, but I'd describe these past two days more like book depression. I feel like I'm literally grieving the fact that this book is over and it HURTS [*SPOILER: and no one even really died (except Lehabah, the poor dear)!! What am I going to do when characters inevitably die? END SPOILER*] It's taking so much effort not to reread it.

I have a lot of thoughts, but they come down to this: I honestly think this is SJM's best work to date, and that's really exciting. The world-building is crazy good, the characters are crazy good, the plot is crazy good. [*SPOILER: Also SJM and I both believe in the power of love, which is probably why I connect with her books so much. LOVE TRUMPS ALL. IT FIXES EVERYTHING. AND YOU CAN'T TELL ME OTHERWISE. END SPOILER*] For God’s sake, it's 800 pages long and I finished it in just over 24 hours. I can't wait to read the next one, and that's all that really matters.

see this review on Goodreads where I gave it 5/5 stars

[theliterarywolf]

So... Let's talk about Hetalia. Controversies, Specifically.

Tagging @apply-force-too-begin since they’re the one who was interested.

Hetalia was one of my first big fandoms outside of 'The Big Three' anime (Naruto, Bleach, One Piece) and outside of video games (mostly whatever wee babby weeaboo me could get on the Gamecube).

And, you know what? It's a dumb, silly anime about stereotypes, poking fun at the absurdities of History, and one's relationships with clashing cultures. It's dumb... But, remember, we all need our daily thirty minutes of dumb. And some of the characters are cute.

And, you know what? Most of the most engaging aspects of the fandom were those who used the initial shallow splash of history that the anime gave them to actually research and make engaging, well-written, culturally-sensitive content.

Of course, I'm not going to ignore how... Over-the-top some members of the fandom have been. We've seen how, whenever recent political conflict or natural disaster have occurred, we have to remind younger members of the Hetalia fandom to not cutsiefy it with the Hetalia characters. Examples that come to mind are: when the conflict between Russia and Ukraine was surging up, kids kept trying to draw art of 'Russia just wants his big sister back~!', and the last major earthquake that hit Japan that had people making fanart of the Japan character which, while some was tasteful and was meant to bring awareness and donations for Disaster Relief, not... all of it was...

Hell, that’s not even bringing into account the last time I went to Anime Expo (way back during Hetalia’s hayday), I was walking around and saw a bunch of Russia and Baltic State cosplayers being interviewed by the news and the one dressed up in a USSR uniform was holding up a Communist flag and shouting ‘Whoo! SOVIET TAKEOVER!!’

However, one thing that I have noticed, while researching for this write-up, was this:

Most of the controversies and pieces of fandom-wank that have surrounded Hetalia and its fandom... Aside from one instance... Are the results of the Western-fandom and Western-localization of the anime  via Funimation.

Aside from one... Most of the issues surrounding Hetalia are due to the West and not even the source media in of itself.

So, with that in mind, let's talk about the main controversies of both Hetalia and its fanbase.

Controversy 1 – The South Korea Controversy/Protests

As I recently answered a question about this, so I'll just pull that answer for this segment:

'To summarize it: there’s a Hetalia character meant to represent South Korea. As every Hetalia character has a gag related to them (America gorges himself on fast food and constantly proclaims himself to be the Hero, Italy is cowardly, Germany is constantly angry, China constantly builds Chinatowns wherever he goes and sells bootleg merchandise, etc), so did S. Korea.

His gag was calling all the other Asian countries ‘big brother’ as well as groping the chests of male characters (China and Japan mostly), proclaiming ‘these mountains belong to South Korea, da ze!’

Of course, people would draw pictures of S. Korea doing his thing but one day during a meeting between a bunch of South Korean politicians and representatives, someone brought out a piece of fanart that depicted S. Korea groping Japan’s chest with the latter looking embarrassed and what not.

They interpreted the character as being an offensive, lecherous stereotype that was somehow belittling S. Korea’s worth as a country.

There were a bunch of small protests until, finally, Himaruya Hidekazu (the creator of Hetalia) just decided to say “you know what? Fine! I’m not getting rid of the character but he’ll never appear in the anime adaptation, okay?!’

So… Yeah! Fun times…'

Magnitude of Controversy – MAJOR

Like... In what universe is 'this meme hurt my feewings, we need to take VALUABLE TIME DURING GOVERNMENT FORUMS to talk about it RATHER THAN OTHER PRESSING ISSUES' a good response? And the fact that people took to the streets to protest? Come on, guys! There's so much more to worry about in this world...

Controversy 2 – Emperor Heliogabalus and Himaruya's 'Transgender Erasure'

There was a section of time where Himaruya Hidekazu, rather than focusing on the nation characters of the series, made chapters and updates about certain historical figures. They were all done for laughs while interspersing various bits of trivia and facts about them.

One of these updates centered around the Roman emperor Heliogabalus (or 'Elagabalus'). And this is where certain portions of this hellsite got soooooo upset...

You see, Himaruya titled the update centered on Heliogabalus as 'The Emperor Who Tried to Live as a Woman... Even Though He Was Really a Guy'.

Almost immediately people were typing up callout posts about how 'transphobic' Himaruya was for the title and 'how dare he misgender my precious trans baby~!' or 'this just goes to show how ignorant Japanese people are to Western history' and so many more, all because Himaruya didn't use out-and-out female pronouns for Heliogabalus.

Now. Mm, two things!

One! This was during the time when Himaruya had an open blog where, not only did he post pictures and updates about where in the world he was traveling and what he was researching, but it also had an inbox that was open for people to send insight to him.

So, if people were really incensed by this, you would think that they would use such a means to let a creator know 'hey, this is kind of problematic; can you edit it to show this information', right?

Right?

NO ONE tried to inform Himaruya of their upset; they literally didn't want an answer, they just wanted to be upset!

But, here's the kicker: the guy that all of these people were stanning for? Emperor Heliogabalus?

WASN'T FUCKING TRANS!!

The real Heliogabalus was a sadistic little shit who was connivingly put on the throne by his mother via a bunch of espionage and assassinations... Who, as thanks, had his own mother murdered once he was emperor. Other wonderful exploits of this 'icon' that tumblr kids decided to stan was:

Getting politicians and countrymen drunk and then, while they were passed out, brought in lions to kill and eat them

Deciding 'fuck Jupiter, Helios is my husbando – We're all going to worship him now!'

Completely wrecking Rome's monetary system

Promising favors to his lovers (whom he called his 'husbands' despite not making anything official) that strictly contradicted favors to his other lovers

And just generally being a hot mess

So... why were tumblr children so insistent on him being a transgender woman?

You ready for this?

Okay.

Because he occaisionally dressed in women's clothing and called his male lovers his 'husbands'.

Yeah.

One of the earliest case of tumblr children trying to ruin someone's life because they didn't follow their headcanons.

Magnitude of Controversy – Honestly, this was just fandom-wank. But it was one of the earlier instances of fandom brats using serious terms (transphobia) to justify being upset at a creator not following their headcanons.

Controversy 3 – The Passover Photoshoot

…

…

I'm sorry, just...

Everytime I remember or have to go over this one, I have to stop and reflect; maybe grab a drink.

…

Okay.

So, pretty early into the Western reaches of the Hetalia fandom, a group of friends and Hetalia fans decided to meet up together at a mall for a cosplay photoshoot.

Okay. Cool. Fine.

They were all dressed up as their favorite characters from the series! Germany, Austria, Hungary, P-Prussia, Holy... Roman Empire...

Ahem. Okay. Cool. Fine.

So, they get to the mall and start taking pictures. But then someone in the group gets the amazing idea for everyone to do certain poses.

I... You know, why did I start this, I could have just not done thi--

Nazi salutes. You had a bunch of dumb kids dressed up as Germanic nations. Performing Nazi salutes and shouting 'Heil Hitler'.

Now, as bad as this was... you could have just drawn it out as shitty edgelord humor; we still have plenty of that going on today.

H-however. There were two factors that made this photoshoot 50 Shades of Tasteless.

Number one. This photoshoot took place during Passover.

And number two. The mall that this photoshoot took place at...

WAS JUST A HOP, SKIP, AND A JUMP FROM THE UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MUSEUM!!!

This is the one, THE ONE, instance where, anytime someone talks about 'lol, young Hetalia fans are so cringey', this is what pops into my head.

Those of us older members of the fandom can never fucking forget this. Yeah, the perpetrators were called out; yeah, they learned their lessons, yeah it opened up a conversation about appropriate behavior in fandom. But this one event will always remain as the big 'Ooh, baby, nooooo! What are you doing?!' moment in the fandom.

Even moreso than what the current batch of hatedum is about.

Magnitude of Controversy – Huge. The South Korea controversy was discussed on a governmental scale, but the Passover Photoshoot is what remains as the biggest mark on the fandom.

Controversy 4 - FUCKING FUNIMATION!!

Okay, I... 

This one is so infuriating because it’s the result of Funimation just not giving a DAMN.

So, Hetalia got popular enough to be localized! Yay... And it was going to be handled by Funimation. Yay... They do quality work... Sometimes.

*kicks the Black Butler dub into the sun*

So, they dubbed Hetalia. And, you know what? So many questionable decisions went into this fucking dub. 

You have Vic Mignogna! You! *clap* Have! *clap* Vic! *clap* Mignogna! You could have easily put him as one of the Axis characters or the Allied characters and you...

Don’t use him...

Until three seasons down the line...

And then you have him as Greece. 

A character who barely says anything.

... And this was WAY before the clusterfuck of KickVic, so they really had no excuse. 

Oh, also! For China, who is a main character, maybe we should have an actual voice-actor?

Pssh! Fuck that shit, let’s just have some random chick from accounting voice him. 

... They literally had some random-chick from accounting do an overly stereotypical Chinese accent and said ‘yeah, that’s fine; print!’

And she gave us such... wonderful line-reads as: during the Hetalia movie Paint It, White! --

“SUCK BALLS! I knew za fortune cookie today was bad ruck~!”

But as bad as the dub got sometimes (Oh God, I’m having war flashbacks of Russia...), the exchange from the dub that people constantly point to as ‘see! This show was antisemitic all along!’ were these: 

Exchange 1 - 

S. Italy/Romano - ‘Hey asshole, I have a surprise for you~!’

Germany - ‘What is it? Another Jew?’

And, you know what? As asinine and idiotic as that brief exchange was... 

IT WASN’T IN THE ORIGINAL MATERIAL!

Funimation, in their infinite wisdom, wrote that in and thought ‘yeah, that’s fine; print!’

So, there goes another issue of ‘problem that only existed because of the idiocy of a Western presence’.

Magnitude of Controversy - Well, people are still talking about it, despite it literally being because of Funimation’s laziness, so...

'Controversy' 5 – The Civil War fanart

So, this segment will be short because it doesn't even need to exist. But, you may have noticed an upsurge in people hating on the series again; even going so far as to raid Discord servers for fans of the series with gore.

Hell, I even scrolled past one person doing a 'call to arms' for people to spam any server that has to do with Hetalia as a big 'gotcha'.

And you wanna know where this fandom-wank started?

Someone on tumblr re-posted an old piece of... questionable chibi fanart of Confederate!America and Union!America. Union!America is hiding a slave woman behind him while shouting at Confederate!America to 'Pick your own damn cotton!'

(deep breath... okay)

And, while the art in of itself is... not great, the fact that it is an old piece of fanart and that someone posted it onto tumblr for the 'lol, look at this cringe' lolz, is what rallied some people to start shitting on fans of the show and raiding servers.

There also may have been some drama over on picrew by some teenage LGBT user lashing out at the whole 'stop spamming Picrew with gay shit' sentiment and then some edgelord over on this hellsite screencapping their game and talking about 'lol, of course it would be a cringey Hetalian to post some dumb shit like this; get off the site, queer' but, honestly, this last one, while being the reason why people are acting dumber than usual, is the most inconsequential.

Magnitude of the Controversy – It would be minimal at best, especially compared to the other ones in this write-up, but like I said, it does have some trickling into the current hatedumb.

So, yeah, here was my little write-up/mini-dive into the madness. You guys can let me know if you want more insight or if you have any questions, and I love you and buh-bye!

[irenethehistorynerd]

An extremely popular writer both in her lifetime and in the millenia since, Murasaki Shikibu is credited as writing the world's first novel, The Tale of Genji. A mysterious figure, Murasaki used her illicit knowledge of classical Chinese and Japanese literature not only redefine the genre she wrote in, but to create an artform that survives to this day. Like so many of the women we cover, it's unknown if Murasaki Shikibu is even this woman's real name. Probably born in 973 CE, Murasaki not only grew up in a time where the early lives of women weren't deemed worth recording, but in a society where it was considered impolite to use a person's real name. The name we know her by is taken from her father's profession, and the name of the central female character from her novel. Murasaki was the daughter of Fujiwara no Tametoki, a scholar, and lowranking member of the dominant Fujiwara clan. Murasaki's grandfather and great grandfather had both been important poets, and education was highly valued in her family. Consequently, her brothers were both given brilliant educations in both Chinese and Japanese literature. It was uncommon for ladies to be educated this way, as the Chinese language was considered to be unladylike. However, Murasaki showed an eagerness and aptitude for learning, with some stories even saying that she would eavesdrop on her brothers lessons through a door. Recognizing her aptitude, or perhaps tired of her antics, Murasaki's father allowed her to be taught in Chinese language and literature, grousing that such a mind was wasted on a girl. In 998 Murasaki married family friend (and literal family) Fujiwara no Nobutaka. He was about twenty years her senior, and already had a basketball team's worth of wives, and an American football team's worth of children. As was traditional, Murasaki continued to live with her father after her marriage. Nobutaka must have visited at least once, however, because in 999 Murasaki gave birth to a girl she named Kenshi. Nobutaka died a few years later in 1001 when a plague swept Kyoto. Whether or not Murasaki's marriage was a happy one is an interesting question. Japanese tradition paints her as a loving wife and loyal widow, but her writing brings all of this into question. There are certain resemblances between the idyllic Genji and an exiled nobleman of Murasaki's acquaintance whom Murasaki was rumored to have a relationship with. It is questioned if some of the love poems written by Murasaki might be inspired by this nobleman, and if the image of her as a loyal widow might be the moralistic construct of a later era. After her husband's death Murasaki joined the court of Empress Shoshi as a lady-in-waiting. At the time the worth of a Japanese noblewoman was measured not by her looks, but by her artistic abilities. Being able to write sensitive poems, having beautiful calligraphy, and skillfully matching colors for the elegant draping sleeves of a kimono, was how a lady attracted a man. The sign of a successful Empress was the ability to surround herself with the greatest creative minds, much like the salon of Europe. By the time of her arrival at court Murasaki was already an accomplished poet. She had, however, made no forays into prose. It is, of course, likely, that Murasaki simply woke up one day and decided to write a series of stories about the amorous adventures of a handsome nobleman, but the popular legend is much more exciting. In an episode similar to the gathering of Romantics at Lake Geneva, the Empress Shoshi lamented that there were no good stories, that she was tired of the old romances, and would Murasaki please write a new one. Murasaki agreed, and retreated to a Buddhist temple on Lake Biwa. One night while looking at the moon and lamenting the death of her late husband Murasaki was struck by inspiration, and wrote two whole chapters of her work on the back of sacred Buddhist texts. Genji was an instant hit. It was read by the Empress, and subsequently devoured by all the ladies of the court. This was unsurprising, as monogatari novels were as popular in Heian Japan as romance novels are today. Works like this were written in the fledgling kana, or written Japanese, and were thus accessible to women who were rarely taught Chinese kanji. What is surprising, is that men read Genji too. Empress Shoshi's father, Fujiwara no Michinaga, was an important court influencer, the real power behind the throne, and an avid Tale of Genji fanboy. From him the story circulated through the men of the court until noted male poets were congratulating Murasaki on her creation. Murasaki, unfortunately, wasn't much for life at court. Conservative and introverted, Murasaki detested the inane frivolity and illicit love affairs that made up the daily schedule in the Heian court. She was often viewed as cold and aloof by her contemporaries, and had open rivalries with several other important female poets of the day. When Empress Shoshi left court after the death and abdication of her husband in 1011, Murasaki left with her. The end of Murasaki's life was quiet. She died some time between 1014 and 1031, either staying with Shoshi to the end, or retiring to a Buddhist convent. She left behind a daughter, and an enormously popular work twice the length of War and Peace. The Tale of Genji is perhaps the most important piece of Japanese literature. Its glimpses into the life of aristocratic Heian Japan are not only precious from a historical perspective, but the slice of life narrative and overarcing character development make it a literary gem as well. Additionally, Genji was a major factor in the standardization of kana, and became required study for anyone hoping to become a scribe. The novel was copied out hundreds of times, and when woodblock printing came around it was distributed even further beyond aristocratic circles. It experienced a huge resurgence in popularity during the Edo period of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and owning a piece of Genji 'fanart' was considered the height of sophistication. This popularity continues to this day, with The Tale of Genji being translated over and over again, and being treated to reimaginings in a variety of mediums in and out of Japan.

[proto-language]

Gentlemen Bastards and 1789 for the fandom thing?

Thank you so much!!

Gentleman Bastard Sequence

Favourite Male Character

Kinda generic but I have to say Locke Lamora, closely followed by the Sanza twins, who probably would’ve been my faves if they’d been allowed to live for more than half a book. Locke’s just such an interesting character: so smart and so stupid at the same time, a thief and occasionally a killer but also a pretty dedicated priest in his own way, able to talk his way out of just about any situation (and to hang on til Jean can save him when he can’t) but also awful at talking about his own feelings. As for Calo and Galdo; more than anything, they just made me laugh, but their care for Locke and Jean and Bug was so sweet, even when it manifested itself in the form of a threat to knock Locke out and drag him out of Camorr if they had to to get him out of danger.

Favourite Female Character

This one’s a little bit harder. I think I’d currently say Ezri Delmastro, but I’m also only halfway through Red Seas Under Red Skies (I’m like 99% sure things aren’t going to end well for her), and so haven’t actually met Sabetha yet. She’s so funny and scary and yet sweet, and frankly she and Jean deserve each other, and I can’t currently remember any specific thing she did because my memories of RSURS are weirdly foggy compared to TLOLL, but................ she. Also, I loved Nazca a lot, but again she didn’t really live long enough for me to get attached to her in the way I am to others.

Least Favourite Character

I mean, there are plenty of choices. The fucking Grey King/Capa Raza is one of them, obviously. Outside of obvious antagonists, frankly I’d have to say Sabetha right now. It’s not that I dislike anything about her or her character (or at least what I’ve heard of it), but just that it’s been a book and a half and we’ve heard Locke and Jean and the Sanzas and Locke again going on about her, and never had a single scene with her - I’m sure there’s probably a point to it, but I’m dense, and so it just annoys me.

Favourite Ship

Hmm, I guess I’d have to say Jean and Locke - I’m not actually particularly interested in shipping for this series? The fanart and fics for them are really cute though!

Favourite Friendship

Obviously just the whole dynamic of the Gentlemen Bastards - Jean, Locke, Calo and Galdo’s brotherhood, the way they work together and tease each other and ultimately would do anything for each other. The way they all mentor Bug, constantly take the piss out of him, but in the end he was becoming like a younger brother to them all too. The way that, in RSURS, Jean (eventually) knows exactly what to do to help Locke and get him to start living again. Yes, this is something I think about at least twice a day.

Favourite Quote

Oh man, there’s a lot. The whole liars and bastards ritual:“‘I only steal because my dear old family needs the money to live!’ [...]‘Liar!’ they chorused.‘I only steal because this wicked world won’t let me work an honest trade!’ Calo cried, hoisting his own glass.‘LIAR!’‘I only steal because I have to support my poor lazy twin brother, whose indolence broke our mother’s heart!’ Galdo elbowed Calo as he made this announcement.‘LIAR!’‘I only steal,’ said Jean, ‘because I’ve temporarily fallen in with bad company.’‘LIAR!’At last the ritual came to Bug; the boy raised his glass a bit shakily and yelled, ‘I only steal because it’s heaps of fucking fun!’‘BASTARD!’“

And its reprise before Locke has to pretend to be the Grey King, which is too long to reasonably put here. And, of course, “Nice bird, arsehole”, because Locke has never ever just kept his goddamn mouth shut.

Worst Character Death

Literally all of them!!!!!!!!!!! I’m fine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m totally over it all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In particular, Calo and Galdo and Bug, who I feel I can count as one, because it was one scene. Calo and Galdo because they were my favourites, and it was so damn unexpected - I genuinely thought it was some kind of joke or trick they’d played, until Bug was killed as well. Bug’s death was just so sad in every way: he was only a kid, he doubted his place among the Bastards, Locke was trying so so hard to reassure him and yet he couldn’t. Nazca gets an honourable mention, for both horrificness and shock factor

“This made me so happy you have no idea” moment

Again, the liars and bastards ritual, because it was one of the best moments of interaction between the five of them, and it was so funny and so heartwarming at the same time - pretty much the closest we got to “domestic” life, tied with some of the scenes from Locke’s childhood. Also, the very last few pages. Locke and Jean reflecting on their friendship, their losses, and how shit Locke’s real name is, whatever it may be (I’m still genuinely dying to know)

Saddest Moment

Tie between Calo/Galdo/Bug’s deaths, and the second-to-last-ish scene, after Locke’s killed the Grey King and Jean finds him, bleeding out, and Locke gets all “Jean you gotta leave me here to DIE I’ve MESSED UP I can’t GET UP so DON’T BOTHER” and Jean just picks him up and calls him an idiot.

Favourite Location

Is is valid to say all of Camorr? It’s just such an awesome setting, so vibrant and full of life and wonderful and horrible, and I only realised when I started reading RSURS that it feels like home, and I’m so sad we probably won’t get to go back there.

1789

Favourite Male Character

Mmm, I’m tempted to say Lazare - he’s just one of the most interesting, and easiest to speculate/imagine about, being neither a historical figure nor a main character. His relationship with Ronan is always interesting to think about too - it probably also helps that Nous Ne Sommes is highkey one of the best songs from the musical imo!

Favourite Female Character

Would it be bad if I genuinely said Charlotte? I love Olympe and I love Solène, but Charlotte’s just like... this random sassy child who interferes in Olympe and Ronan’s love life and apparently hangs out with Danton on the regular, and that’s just very iconic of her.

Least Favourite Character

I mean, I have a love-hate relationship with Ronan (like someone else we know. possibly a few people, to be honest. possibly everyone who knows him). Frankly, I see a lot of myself in his tendency to shout and get angry and accidentally mess up with his sister, but they’re also not sides of myself that I like. But I do admire his willingness to stand up and fight for something he believes in, which is something I lack despite all my anger, and I’m still pretty attached to him. I don’t know if he’s my least favourite, but he’s certainly most interesting to write about in that respect.

Favourite Ship

I’d say Lazare and Ronan, with Olympe and Solène a close second. Ronan and Lazare and Olympe and Solène are both couples with such different circumstances, and it makes it really interesting to think of the ways they would (or wouldn’t) work around and overcome that.

Favourite Friendship

Is it valid to say Danton and Charlotte, because that was honestly sweet. Otherwise, I feel Ronan and Olympe, despite being pretty bland romantically at best, would’ve made a really awesome friendship. Unfortunately, 1789: Les Amis de la Bastille, isn’t such a catchy title apparently

Favourite Quote

Not so much a quote, but the reading of the Declaration-Whose-Name-I-Can’t-Recall-Right-Now at the end generally makes me cry, as does “Je veux sourire à tes erreurs”, etc in Pour la peine, because I am Soft and Weak, despite Ronan and Olympe being such an uninspiring couple

Worst Character Death

Ronan/Olympe, I suppose? Did anyone else die?? No death actually affected me too much emotionally

“This made me so happy you have no idea” moment

Ronan and Lazare/Louis and Matthieu’s hug during Pour la peine, and generally all of Au palais royal

Saddest Moment

I’ve surprised myself, actually, by initially thinking of Je vous rends mon âme -  that’s my initial reaction, but I’m not actually sure what my saddest moment would be. As much as I love it, 1789 has never really emotionally killed me quite the same way MOR does?

Favourite Location

The staging of the storming of the Bastille is super cool, let’s be honest.

[m-oana-archive]

Ships & Fandom from the view of a literary theory student: My thoughts on the “Drarry War”

Recently, members of the HP fandom from all backgrounds that I adore have been fighting about the treatment of ships (notably Drarry) in the HP fandom.  Lack of respect, listening, and communication resulted in hateful messages being sent to several members of our fandom.  The extent of this blatant disrespect and arguing has caused the interaction to be dubbed, “The Drarry War.”  Though it seems as major players have thus apologized, I’d still like to voice some of my thoughts which I believe are relevant in order to make sure nothing like this happens again, and that our shared fandom remains a peaceful, safe, and respectful place for creativity to flourish.

My opinions on this matter are based mainly in the literary theory class I took last quarter.  Acknowledging the fact many of you have probably not taken a class in lit theory (I 10/10 recommend it, though), I would like to preface this explanation with some context.  Before Post-Saussurean linguistics erupted in the 20th century, there were three main figures which influenced how readers consumed literature: the author, the text, and the reader themselves.  The relationships between these three elements dictated and differentiated the earliest reading styles which are still used today.  The first was expressive realism, in which the author had some sort of “inward eye” or special trait of artistry that readers did not attain.  The text was the vehicle in which the author’s message could be given to the reader.  New criticism, the next practice, discounted the author all together.  Once the text was written, the text held it’s own meaning, and readers drew conclusions only from the words on the page.  In both of these, the readers were “ideal,” meaning they were passive consumers of text that were basically spoon-fed material and expected to agree with it wholeheartedly.   Reader response, the third reading practice, discounted this entirely.  It stated that readers determine the meaning of the text in social groups, allowing for creativity and originality not only in analysis, but in recreation.  Reader response is therefore the origin of fandom by allowing fanart, fanfiction, and roleplay to exist as legitimate functions of analyzing text.

I mention these not to bore you or prove how much I learned in English 202, but to point out the main issues I see occurring from a literary theorist standpoint when fandoms hate on non-canon ships (or non-canon-discounted ships).  There are two more so foundational issues I see happening: the glorification of canon and the deconstruction of fandom, both of which are extremely detrimental to fandom flourishing the way we want it to.

The glorification of canon is rather self-explanatory.  However, the issue that occurs in this, tying it back to literary theory, is that glorifying what literally exists either promotes expressive realism or new criticism.  Because paper and ink are inanimate objects, I will solely focus on expressive realism’s toxicity in this matter.  Only believing what the author has proven to be true as valid is an extremely new critical approach to reading.  The issue with this is, more often than not, authors are prone to problematic views based on their own historical context.  We all know this holds true with JKR: from her forcing together of non-compatible characters into straight romance and her lack of non-discriminatory or offensive representation, we understand her historical context is extremely cishet and white.  Therefore, only going along with what she gives in canon will inherently lead to ships being the same.  Fandom is the place to explore alternatives, giving people the representation they lack.  Only upholding ships that coincide with the author’s views are therefore dangerous, as every author has biases that should be questioned and challenged as we begin becoming a more open-minded and inclusive world.

But, more jarring than that is what will happen to fandom if such “civil wars” over ships keep occurring.  As I stated previously, fandom exists because readers took meaning from the author and decided what it was by themselves, creating it through different mediums.  The opposite of this is therefore only adhering to canon ships, as it represents expressive theory.  This is the base of the issue: expressive theory and reader response cannot exist at the same time.  Because both have different opinions on who decides the meaning of text, they are fundamentally destructive towards one another.  Therefore, when individuals hate on ships which are non-canon, only believe in canon ships, or do both at the same time, they are destroying the targeted person’s ability to participate in reader response by promoting its opposer.  By saying the fanfic writer/fanartist/roleplayer cannot conceive relationships in fandom because they are unhealthy in canon,  anti-ship fandom groups are not permitting the creative analysis that defines reader response to exist, demolishing reader response as an appropriate way to respond to literature.  Because reader response is the foundation of fandom, it can therefore be concluded that by disproving non-canon ships and taking away reader’s creative response forms, members of fandom are actually deconstructing the fandoms they are in.  Yes, you heard me correctly: by hating on Drarry (or any non-canon ship), you are going against the very foundation of literary theory that allows fandom to exist by saying what happened in canon is the only reliable bases for determining compatible pairings.  It’s not just about creative expression being what fandom is “about,” but what allows fandom to exist, and exist in the way it does.  By hating on a non-canon ship, you are going against the same rights that allow you the freedom to reform any characters or plots that do not belong to you.  The right to write fanfic, to draw fanart, to do role-play, make fan theory videos, you name it.  

This, in my opinion, is the true issue with fandom “civil wars:” they are demolishing fandoms altogether, not only from ruining good-will, but not permitting the foundation of fandom to exist.  Yes, the beautiful part of fandom is it’s creativity, but that’s also the necessary part of it.  It’s more than just difference is what makes fandom unique.  Without allowing fans to ask, “what if?” and stray from the canon, we would essentially be promoting a literary theory that disproves the foundation of fandom itself.  We would be destroying ourselves.  And, from what I’ve read about this “civil war,” we have already been doing so for a long time.

If you’ve held on and have read this analysis to this point, you probably have a question I am anticipating.  Yes, I am a Drarry shipper.  And a Wolfstar shipper.  But also love Jily, Romione, and Remadora.  For a long time, I’ve wondered how I can love Remadora and Wolfstar at once.  My analysis answers this question: I am truly promoting fandom by not allowing what happened in canon discount what can happen in head-canons.  But I don’t mean to toot my own horn; there have been plenty of times in which I have hated on ships on Tumblr (I mean, just look at my “pairings I will not write for” list; it’s pretty blatant) and in conversations with my mutuals.  If we want fandom to survive and thrive, this needs to stop on all levels.  Especially when it gets as toxic as demeaning the actual people behind the computer screens.

I know this fandom means so much to every single member of it, and I am sure we would ache to see it crumble into pieces from our own wrongdoings.  It is never too late to learn from our mistakes and apologize for them; these are the mature actions that were demonstrated by so many of the big blogs who, by choice or force, fought in this “civil war.”  So please continue to be mindful in the way you interact with those who have different opinions than you.  Remember: it is those differences that make fandom possible, regardless of your distaste, so please at least respect them for the role they play in the foundation of fandom itself.

Also, if you do only ship canon ships, I do not mean for the “glorification of canon” section to peg you as someone homophobic or anti-POC.  I just want to remind us all of the imperfections of authors, and, therefore, of the content they create in order to stay mindful that we have the power to bring more representation and non-offensive representation to the table.  And, of course, we have fandom to thank for that.  

A/N: I would like to end by saying this post is targeted towards no one in particular and everyone at once.  We all need to work together to make our fandom inclusive, kind, accepting, and strong, and these are ways in which I believe we can accomplish such goals.

[prinzenhasserin]

Dear Trick or Treater

Dear Trick or Treater!

Please don’t feel obligated to use my prompts! This letter is just in case you might want to poke at some more of my prompts/likes. Generally, I’m open to a lot, and I will be delighted with any rating from gen to explicit. My AO3 account is here.

If you want to write me a crossover, great! If you need to check if I know the canon please go through the mods.

My prompts are pretty ridiculous in places. That is not a preference to the treat-side, that’s just where my brain goes first. If you want to scare me, then definitely go for the creeping existential horror. It doesn’t even need to be detailed, I freak out really easily.

(If this letter cribs a lot from my other letters, it’s because I’m lazy, and my likes don’t change around that much :D You can find some of my other letters under the exchange letter tag. I hope you have fun creating!)

General likes:

loyalty

odd couples

found family, dysfunctional families that nevertheless love each other

historical stories for same-sex pairings that aren't unhappy but that fit with the society of the time (so like, spinster ladies living together; bachelors-for-life)

cultural differences, age differences, height differences

heists, rescue missions

dragons, fairy tales, magical realism, urban fantasy

competent characters

people not realising they’re the most competent at their job/hobby

people failing their way to success

happy endings, earning your happy ending, open yet hopeful endings

cynical humour

mutual pining

suits, corsetry, fancy dresses

Identity shenanigans (secret identities, mistaken identities)

Blatant Lies

Enemies becoming friends and/or lovers

outsider POV

epistolary

orange/blue morality (that is, not entirely human morality); grey/grey morality

people not usually found in law enforcement solving crimes

non-verbal expressions of affection

Kinks:

wall sex

shifting power dynamics

semi-public sex

lots of foreplay, drawn out orgasms, edging

desperate sex, drunk sex, we-just-can’t-help-it!sex, sex for life-affirming

sex toys

sex toys in public (though I get embarrassed if someone else notices)

General dislikes:

infidelity in mentioned pairings

suicide

non-con (dub-con is totally fine though; as are consent issues due to power imbalances, people not knowing all the facts, or drunken sex-polleness)

The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman

Silas, Miss Lupescu

trick or treat; fanart or fanfiction

I'm very interested in their backstory, alone and together -- how did they meet? What's the purpose of the honour guard aside from killing all the Jacks?

But if you want to explore Miss Lupescu’s death — that would also be terrific (fix it! or make me cry because I will cry; either way is good)

Also here for: what scares a vampire? Other adventures Miss Lupescu went on. Where did she learn how to cook? What's up with the ghoul fighting? (How do Silas and Miss Lupescu earn a living? Do they pay taxes?)

Wynonna Earp (TV)

Xavier Dolls

trick or treat; fanart or fanfiction

Xavier Dolls is (SPOILER ALERT) a dragon. What's up with that? Does he hoard weapons? books? uncomfortable situations?

I'd be very interested in something that explored his supernatural side. Does his dragon-self work like a werewolf? Is he only mostly dragon? does he need to bathe in lava to grow?

Also terrific would be: Xavier Dolls knows that dragons exist, and revenants -- but ghosts?

Alternatively, Dolls hoards a collection of hats. Doc and Wynonna can never know.

Nirvana in Fire (TV)

Consort Jing

Trick or Treat; fanart or fanfiction

Consort Jing is very quiet. She also has a lot of dead friends. Maybe she's constantly surrounded by them?

Or: The real reason nobody stands in her way is that she’s a world class assassin. Or a witch, maybe.

Would also most definitely read a lot of words before anyone died and she was happy. Would also read her mothering her son, or Lin-shu, or quietly helping the other concubines in the palace.

Gokusen (Manga)

Sawada Shin, Yamaguchi Kumiko

Trick or Treat; fanart or fanfiction

Holiday-appropriate fic! Ghost houses! A school trip to the ghost forest where people kill themselves. One of these three is not like the other, but I would read all sorts of stories about these characters. Post-canon would be great, but anything goes really. I'd like additional appearances by any other of the cast, but it would be icing on the cake.

Focusing on just one character would be terrific. Kumiko has adventures with another class, or her minions! Shin goes to Africa, but gets lost in a different universe on the way there!

I ship Shin/Yankumi but gen is delightful also.

10 Things I hate about you

Kat Stratford, Patrick Verona

treat or trick; fanart or fanfiction

Kat and Patrick go to make-out in an abandoned factory. Too bad there's a ghost interrupting them every five minutes.

Would also read: Zombie apocalypse; Kat is a literal witch who devours boys and Patrick is her (virgin?) sacrifice. Obviously, you can probably come up with much better stories :D A look at what they do in ten, twenty years would be great, too! Separately, even!

Miss Marple - Agatha Christie

Jane Marple

treat or trick, fanart or fanfiction

St. Mary Mead’s police is convinced there’s a ghost robbing/murdering people. Miss Marple is convinced they have all been too deep in the bottle.

Miss Marple has always been able to see ghosts. They usually have nothing much to say, and are quite nonsensical, but this one is different.

Or: zombie apocalypse! Or it’s Miss Marple who is the ghost.

Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch

Molly

treat or trick; fanart or fanfiction

Tbh, I just want Molly to be the protagonist of her own adventures. Molly is the best at riding the Folly of vermin like bed bugs, ghosts and the occasional angry spirit. Her cooking is a little bit magic.

Or: She has to fight with the traders at the market for magic ritual ingredients every time, since the Folly isn’t well liked among the demi-monde.

Also, what’s up with her heritage? Fae? Not Fae?

Original Works

Space Traveler, Incubus, Ghost Jellyfish, Incompetent Fortune Teller, Part-Time Ghost Exorcist, Eldritch Abomination In A Human Skin-Suit, Time-Travelling Artificial Intelligence, Long Abandoned Sentient Ship

trick or treat; fanart or fanfic

I think these tags speak pretty much for themselves. Feel free to combine them! I read anything from gen to explicit. Femslash, slash or any other relationships are great, too. If you want to take a look at my likes/dislikes see my letter.

How would a ghost jellyfish be different from a non-ghost jellyfish? Why would it turn into a ghost?

What kind of ghost stories do they tell in space? Space halloween traditions?

Tbh, I would read a story containing all those characters. It is by no means necessary, though!

Space Traveller: Tell me of the Halloween traditions that survive into the space age! Are there new traditions? What kind of scary stories do they tell in space?

Incubus: I have a thing for magical creatures doing totally mundane things, while being supernatural about it. Would also work for me if combined with any of the other characters! Also here for an Incubus dub-conning someone with sex pollen.

Ghost Jellyfish: How would that work? How would a ghost jellyfish be different from a non-ghost jellyfish? Why would it turn into a ghost? Maybe it’s a familiar of the Part-Time Ghost Exorcist?

Incompetent Fortune Teller: Ooh. In what way are they incompetent? Do they tell people what they want to hear, because they are incompetent at telling the future? Or are they incompetent at being a fortune teller, and tell people their future? Maybe they only see two seconds into the future -- maybe they are cursed and nobody believes the truth they are telling ;) Would also read if the Incompetent Fortune Teller was made incompetent by the Time-Travelling AI and was pretty angry about that... or any other combination, really

Part-Time Ghost Exorcist: As I mentioned, I love when the mundane meets the supernatural. What’s the other part-time? Is the ghost exorcising business only hiring part-time workers so they don’t have to insure their workers? (This is admittedly very US centric. Would also love an AU where a part-time job can have a living wage! Or any other setting) Would also love a space travelling ghost exorcist. 

Eldritch Abomination In A Human Skin-Suit: Existential horror freaks me out pretty quickly, but this is such an interesting concept. Why is the Eldritch Horror using a Human Skin Suit? Because they can? Is it like, a life-style choice? Is the EA doing it for the experience, or to be edgy? Would also read if the Eldritch Horror is the thing that gets exorcised. Would also read if there’s no existential horror.

Time-Travelling Artificial Intelligence: What is the AI doing while time-travelling? Does anyone find them out? Why is it time-travelling? Does it abide by Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics? Would also read a story where the AI figures out to be human -- or tries having sex with someone, or maybe they get best upon by an Incubus and there’s confusion all around.

Long Abandoned Sentient Ship: How does the sentience work out, did it become sentient through its abandonment, or is the ship even self-aware? Does it model itself on its creators? Is the ship going crazy in a mild way, or in a creepy way? Or maybe the sentience isn’t very human-like, and it doesn’t need contact at all, and is just merrily continuing its mission to map the unknown space? Maybe it collects hitchhikers. Maybe nobody knows how or who had created it, and it’s just there.

[zagenta]

I don't mean to be annoying, but what's wrong with liking Hamilton? you don't have to answer btw I understand if you don't want to I just want to know why

It’s… complicated… I don’t even know if I should be the one to explain it. Keep in mind that at any explanation I personally give on the situation is essentially going to be far too forgiving and apologist bc I rly like the musical. Just.. Yeah anyone reading this just keep in mind that I’m inevitably going to fall in favor w the show despite its flaws bc I suck

Anyways for anyone that doesn’t just take the show as a popular thing at face value & therefore popular = good, It’s somewhat controversial bc ppl laud it as this super diverse show full of Pee Oh Cees & but there’s also been some fair critique of the show’s possibly anti-black elements b/c it treats white racist slaveowners as cool hip guys you’d wanna spit bars with.

To be fair, the show is critical of the characters/historical figures but I can understand this criticism bc it only seems to be critical up to a point? Like. Sure Hamilton is a dick for cheating on his wife and TJ is called out for being a demon but it still glosses over some of the more unpleasant & ngl sometimes downright despicable elements of the characters/historical figures, PARTICULARLY the ones we’re supposed to root for such as Hamilton, Eliza, Mulligan, Laurens, Washington, etc.

And perhaps more worryingly although Lin claims the intent is to “put PoC back into American history” (im paraphrasing), the show erases instances we actually do appear in history, such as Mulligan’s slave Cato. Or making a kind of tacky jab at Jefferson abt Sally Hemings—which to be fair that entire song is supposed to have this dissonance between the cheery tune and how messed up TJ actually was, but it’s still… weird.

Tbh I think this was inevitably going to happen bc musicals abt revolution are rly popular but always end up being reproductions of the status quo bc the majority of ppl who support & can afford to see shows on Broadway are rich & white, they don’t want anything too challenging to their worldview.

Also Lin’s not black, he’s Puerto Rican so he has a somewhat tenuous claim to the history he’s trying to reclaim in the first place, other minorities are definitely affected by America’s racism & history but this specific part of history addresses white owners of black slaves.

And he’s using rap a historically & largely black genre to tell the story, too. I mean, there’s overlap between the experiences of the Latinx/Chicanx community and the black community, but they’re not the same. & it doesn’t really have to do with “ownership” of a genre either, but the reception to Hamilton is super off-putting bc a Latinx guy is getting all this praise from rich white ppl while they don’t give a crap abt the rest of the genre. They don’t even get all the homages in Lin’s music. (If you need proof, literally any post by a basic white person talking abt how the rap they like is abt cabinet battles unlike that “other rap” about bitches and money).

(Sidenote: I know a lot of ppl have developed negative feelings towards the musical & while that’s fair I literally give 0 fucks abt white ppl’s opinions on the show. It’s important to listen to criticism from black people definitely but they fail to treat it like the complex phenomenon it is. Too often they have annoying self-righteous superiority complexes bc they think they’re better than the nasty Pee Oh Cees who just don’t get it man.)

Tbh I’m personally unsurprised that the first real hip hop musical to be a big hit is about the whitest thing ever (remember, musicals have to hit that perfect balance of revolutionary and complacent).

Also there’s the problem with fandom too… Like… People have rightly gone “what the everloving fuck” at the realization that there’s a Hamilton fandom at all & I mean that’s completely fair. I personally don’t see a problem with like… Drawing a pretty fanart of scene you like or of Daveed in his Rad Velvet Maroon Suit, but ham fandom is just descending into this huge pile of wtf bc people ship and fangirl and look up weird minutiae abt American history to justify their headcanons and it’s just bizzaro. Also thank god it’s relatively died down bc early on it was just the biggest cesspool of disgusting racism and fetishization & apologism in the world.

“Why do you still like it, Janelle?” Because I love suffering

Now some people just like the musical for its catchiness and artistry and are rightly weirded out by the hardcore fan community, and honestly I’d recommend that approach bc ngl I’m never ever going to forgive myself for being convinced that TJ & JMads were totally a Thing™

But I like both. Honestly I like them for almost entirely different reasons. Honestly at this point if I didn’t think Hamilton was literally a Masterpiece™ I would probably end up hating it just bc there was so much discourse surrounding its hype, but I think it’s just a tribute to how catchy the songs are and how talented the cast is and just the combination of everything that I still love the show despite its problems. I know it’s not great of me but I know pretty much everyone is an apologist of something they like despite its Problems.

& the fandom in my experience is a fascinating phenomenon to me personally bc in my headspace it’s practically this entirely different entity to the musical itself? Like a lot of people think it’s cringey & it definitely is but the entire reason I still am engaged is bc I found my niche of practically a handful of close knit mutuals and Only care about Their Content, except for like… The occasional drawing. Bc our personal niche is so detached from the reality of the show or the history that it’s practically original content & has lead to some rly creative works that are much less Problematic Musical abt Demon Men but with Catchy Songs and much more along the lines of Intriguing Character Studies on the Themes of Parenting, LGBT+ Experiences & Relationships, PoC’s experiences,( and also lots and lots of self-destructive behavior)

I think Hamilton is a very interesting phenomenon. In my personal opinion even in this somewhat glorification, I’m glad Hamilton is getting people interested in history, even if people are way too excited abt it and tread the demon father’s like they were Fun Quirky Guys. I understand the horrifying response to everyones giddiness, but I don’t think it’s wrong to be excited abt history/interested in history even if it verges into dark territory, heck, learning abt history in its entirety important so we don’t glamorize the terribleness that is the past. That’s why posts abt Hamilton’s bisexuality doesn’t matter bc he was a slave owner rub me the wrong way—I mean he definitely isn’t someone we should treat as the pinnacle of ideal representation, but we should also acknowledge the totality of him as a person.

Also the show a good stepping stone that will hopefully lead to more hip hop musicals in the future. I know it being a “baby step” is a rly lame-ass excuse for why the show is good but it’s making me hopeful for the future.

Sorry abt how long this was.

[rigelmejo]

Like to preface, I never learned a language to fluency so everything i say needs a million grains of salt but like i do think it’s true, that the more u study languages, the easier it gets. not in the sense that it will ever be magically fast, but in the sense you get a better idea of how to study proficiently. You get a better idea of how to do the most possible in the least amount of time.

Because like? Chinese - it’s objectively hard. It’s hard. I think it’s difficult. But I am making progress at maybe 50% the speed I made progress in French. Which is a LOT faster than I made progress in Japanese (which was about 30% of the speed I learned french). In French, I got to being able to read the gist of informational texts/forums at around 6 months - and maybe 3-4 months to start struggling through titles and simple texts. Then maybe 1-1.5 years for being able to mostly read simple texts, get the gist of historical texts and light novels, and struggle through pretty much anything else - but at least get the basic ideas. 

For Japanese? It took me 1.5 years to get the basic gist of BASIC things like titles/short captions. It took me 2 years to get to the point where I could read simple short dialogues in some slice-of-life daily-activity mangas, and sometimes be able to get the gist of the plot. I think right now, for Chinese, I would probably be somewhere slightly under that point - because I can read fanart comics and watch short fanwork animations based on things I know and follow the gist - but if I looked at something completely new its uncertain if I’d be able to get the gist at all. But like... that’s 3 months of chinese in comparison to 2 whole YEARS working on japanese.

If I’m going to be GENEROUS, I also had a 3 month-ish high school chinese class once upon a time, although i don’t remember much from the class. So that would be like 6 months total in my life studying chinese. Which is still a FAIR BIT faster than I accomplished things in japanese. It’s still slower than french, but french is definitely one of the easiest languages to try to read in if you’re a native english speaker (so many words are similar once you get some basic grammar and high frequency words learned). 

If I keep progressing at this speed, I might be able to start struggling through web-novels and comprehending the gist at around 1 year. And for me, reading is the easiest way (and my favorite way) to improve my skills in a language. So once I hit that sweet spot where I CAN struggle to read, I’ll just keep improving at reading more or less as I just keep making myself read. And if Chinese is anything like French, then I’ll just need to be aware of the need to listen to chinese as well (and shadow audio for pronunciation) if I don’t want my listening comprehension to lag behind. That could be... a relatively decent level of reading ability in a few years. If it’s like french, but half as fast, then maybe 3-4 years to finally get to the point I don’t need a dictionary to read the stuff I want to be reading, and probably 1-2 years to start being able to grasp the main ideas of the target-stuff I want to read.

But like - my point? Is just that I am CERTAIN part of why I’m managing to progress to something I consider useful at a speed I am happy with, is because I’ve learned how I learn best.

For me, I know that I learn fastest by USING a language. My brain does not like being hand held, it does not like going slowly. My brain likes being thrown into a problem and being expected to solve it. It likes learning from context. It REMEMBERS best by being given a real context to associate the new words and grammar structures to - if it has a memorable example, that will make me learn it faster than mnemonics or repetition or anything else. Secondly - my brain acts like it always wants to go slow, and the best thing for it is to push myself past where I feel comfortable and keep over-challenging myself. It learns faster than I think it does, but I only can see that progress if I push myself.

For me, the fastest way to learn is:

To look up that 200-300 most common words tumblr post, for being able to communicate one’s thoughts, and make that the first list I work on learning. My brain likes knowing how to say anything it would need to say, and that list is perfect for prioritizing usability of a language (versus textbooks, which often prioritize classroom/work/hobby words before sentences like ‘i hope that’ ‘i need help with’ etc).

To look up a grammar guide, and read through that bastard. I’m not kidding - read through it. Don’t wait, don’t slow down. If a grammar point makes sense, move forward and do NOT bother trying to memorize it. Grammar points WILL keep popping up again and again in other textbooks you look at later, and as you look up structures later in context - so first literally just prioritize EXPOSING yourself at least once to the grammar structures and the explanation of how they work. (My brain always, without fail, wants me to slow down here - but it never actually needs to, slowing down here just prevents me from making progress as quickly as I’m able to). It’s boring, but do it - this step is so the structure of the language will make some sense to you, and be something you can start to interpret when you see/hear it.

Now start engaging with native material - right now. It’s the biggest struggle in the world. You maybe know 50-150 words. Start engaging with native material and looking things up that keep popping up. It’s a painful struggle at first - but its the easiest way to get started on learning the rest of that 300 word list, and to get started on learning the most common words by frequency (because they’re the words pissing you off the most as you see them over and over but don’t understand them). At this point get a good dictionary app or website lined up (that has audio examples) to use. Bonus points if you are also LISTENING to native material. With Chinese, I started with watching shows from day 1, with chinese subtitles on - which made looking up new words really easy, and made attaching pronunciation to words really easy. Youtube videos are also good for this. Again, at this point EVERYTHING is an absolute struggle. You just live with it. This step is to throw yourself into the deep end and make your brain START LEARNING AND CARING - this is the problem it’s being given to solve: how to understand. The difficulty makes your brain want to figure out what things mean, and try to figure them out - and this is also the basis for context you’ll refer back to as you learn more. 

Once the absolute pain of the struggle finally hits its breaking point, find a general word frequency list of 500-2000 of the most common words in the language. You can either use a flashcard app (memrise/anki), literally just go through that list over and over, use a book focused on teaching them, use clozemaster if you want context around the words (which WILL be a struggle at first just like reading native materials, but if you’re improving it will become MOST obvious on that app when suddenly sentences go from seeming awful to get through, to seeming overly easy). This also might be where a textbook comes in - just so you can see those frequent words used in textbook example sentences, with explanations, over and over.  This step is so that the next time you dive into native material, it hurts less.This is about expanding vocabulary.

After a while, gauge your progress by going back to native materials. (To some degree, always be engaging in native materials - but during step 4 of expanding vocab you can just do it passively without actually trying to learn much from native material). But once you feel you’ve improved your vocabulary, go back to trying to read/listen and gauge progress. There should be some difference. What’s easier to read? What’s easier to hear? What are the weak points - is it certain grammar structures you now need to look up more in depth? is it idioms holding you back? have you been focusing on fantasy words too much and you need more business vocab? is the listening weak - do you need to listen while reading more? Whatever your weak points, that will help you plan your next specific learning goals (aside from the obvious long term goals of - acquire more vocabulary and keep re-looking up grammar points until they stick). Clozemaster, again, I think is one of the fastest ways to gauge progress - the short sentences make it clear if your reading is improving or not, without being overwhelming. Youtube videos make it clear if your listening is improving or not - can you understand more without english subtitltes/without ANY subtitles, or is it still the same? It’s pretty obvious if you’re in a ‘struggling’ stage, a ‘gist understood’ stage, or a ‘easily understood’ stage. This step is about engaging in native material intensively again, to see what topics you actually CARE about learning, to practice comprehension, to put all the hard work to use and feel satisfied at the improvements. 

Once you have noticed a jump in progress, take the time to look at your original high frequency word list again. Did you learn all of the 300 basic common words? If not, finish that up now so there isn’t a gap in knowledge. If there’s a real basic grammar point you didn’t learn, fill that gap now too. Then move on to the 500-2000 high frequency word list. If there’s a gap in what you know, work on filling it in now (by doing step 4 some more). If you noticed that you only understand grammar up to a POINT, then consider now diving into a new grammar guide or book and start reading into grammar more again - just read through it, don’t worry about memorizing. You just want to become more familiar with the parts you don’t understand, and get more exposure to other explanations for those grammar structures. This step is all about working in a more structured manner to fill in the gaps in your knowledge so you make sure the foundations you’ve build are solid. This step is all about finishing reading the actual word lists/pushing through flashcard or clozemaster drills/reading textbooks, and making sure everything you’ve learned is a solid level - whatever level that is. (Sort of like A1-B1 etc, you don’t want some reading ability at B2 then you get thrown a topic you forgot to study and suddenly you aren’t even A1 level comprehending anything). 

Now just keep repeating steps 3-6: (3) engage with native material and look up things when not understanding something that keeps coming up is frustrating/holding back comprehension, (4) find a word list of a higher size if you get too frustrated from too many unknown-words and focus on word drills, (5) go back to native materials once that gets boring and gauge progress again. 

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 Once you see a significant progress-jump in your comprehension of native materials, you can do step 6 again and make sure your newly-learned level of comprehension has all it’s gaps filled in - by scanning over the entire word list you’ve been using/scanning over grammar books for structures you’ve been struggling to understand/doing more listening practice if that’s what you need/etc. 

The key to studying efficiently, for me, is to first find word frequency lists and grammar guides and start reading those through. Then to throw myself headfirst into native materials and struggle horrifically - but it’s interesting material, and I know I’ll look up a bunch of the high-frequency words/grammar structures I encounter that keep eluding me (and the native content will provide context for those words/structures so I remember them more easily). Then once that is no longer efficient, diving into learning materials and just cramming new information quickly - again, because I’ll go back to native material later to get more exposure to those new things, and to get context to remember them better with. Then finally, as I keep cycling through this process, occasionally gauge my own progress and make more specific goals if I realize I have gaps in certain areas (which is almost ALWAYS in either certain topics of vocabulary, listening comprehension, or grammar points I haven’t read about yet and should read about once they start hindering my ability to comprehend things).

I know myself, and what I’ve learned is my brain loves to encourage me to study much slower and less efficiently than I know I’m capable of - because being thrown headfirst into challenging content feels HARD, but it’s also the way I learn quickest, because I learn the easiest when I’m just problem solving.

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I also know that for myself, the things that have made the most significant difference in how fast I learn are: 

Finding a frequency word list immediately and using THAT to prioritize which words to learn.

Finding a grammar guide and CHUGGING through that as fast as possible as early as possible.

Engaging with native materials immediately, and often, even though at first (and in waves throughout my progress) it can be an absolute slog. 

Doing listening early, often - listening to shows, listening to youtube videos, listening to audiobooks, listening to the pronunciation in the translators/dictionaries when I learn new words. (I did NOT listen to french often enough or early enough, and that still holds me back in french. In contrast, I did listening so immediately in chinese that even though my listening still isn’t as good as my reading, it is FAR CLOSER in comprehensibility then my listening-to-reading ratio in french is.)

Not letting myself slow down and try to stop and memorize things. Instead, trying to prioritize learning from context. Flashcards and word lists DO help me, but not nearly as much as context based problem solving - so they’re more of a crutch to push up my ability to comprehend or to fill in gaps in knowledge. I should use those things to be exposed to the new word/structure, and then instead of memorizing jump into REAL CONTEXT and then start learning it as I keep coming across it. This is the easiest, fastest, way for me to learn new words and structures. Mnemonics/flashcards/lists are just crutches for when learning from context needs some more building blocks to even be possible to do. I am NOT good at sticking to flashcard/list regimes, and they don’t help me as much as just forcing myself to dive into native material anyway.