#i think this model is japanese not chinese

[somehowmags]

i’ve seen a lot of posts talking about nimona’s queer messages which is great! but ive not seen as many posts talking analyzing how both ballister and ambrosius were changed to be asian, which is a shame because i genuinely think its one of the most important parts of the film! a huge part of it is a deconstruction of the model minority myth and respectability politics, both of which are big issues in the asian american community. both of them represent each side of the spectrum, with ambrosius expected to be superhuman with very little support and ballister being seen as less than human, no matter how hard he tries- a monster.

ambrosius (who is now east asian, like his voice actor eugene lee yang, who is korean with chinese and japanese ancestry), despite being in a seemingly powerful position as head of the knights and a descendant of gloreth, he isn’t really given the kind of support that this position needs- he’s constantly undermined and belittled by todd, the face of the other knights, and when asked about his emotional state by the director, represses his emotions rather than talk to her about his true feelings. this is very similar to how asian american students in schools aren’t given the support they need academically by teachers and administration, as the model minority myth leads to them being perceived as more intelligent and competent than their fellow students and therefore not needing support. he’s also held to a higher standard than any of the other knights, being immediately placed into a position of power despite just being knighted, again a reflection of the model minority myth, since asian americans are held to higher standards unfairly. despite being technically better off than ballister, he has no support, no friends, no way to seek help for his problems, and, just like ballister, is immediately thrown away the moment the director thinks he’s served his use.

ballister is now pakistani, like his voice actor riz ahmed (no, not like pedro pascal. where did this come from lol), and i’d go as far as to say that he is also, if not explicitly muslim, heavily muslim coded as well. he’s framed as a terrorist by the white, christian institution, and from then on, it doesn’t matter how good he tries to be- everyone else sees him as a monster. he’s also from a lower socioeconomic class than ambrosius and the rest of the knights- while this is initially used to frame him as a success story, after he’s framed, it’s used to cast suspicion on him. almost immediately he’s othered, with posters casting him as a foreign invader sent to destabilize the city, much in the same way that muslim immigrants are seen in real life. even when he tries to be peaceful and good, it’s always twisted so that he’s the monster of the story. while ambrosius is held to too high of a standard, ballister will never be enough for the institution to accept.

which is why both of their arcs culminate in them breaking out of the system, learning to accept what they’d been taught was monstrous, and leaving behind respectability. it’s a genuinely great commentary, and i can definitely see why riz ahmed and eugene lee yang were chosen for this, as they’ve both done activist work for their communities.

[kuroananosanji]

One aspect of ZoSan that Westerners may not get the full nuance of is the concept of “うちの”, literally “of our/my household”. There’s a reason why the EA fandom (mainly Chinese from my POV) disproportionally ship ZS over other ships, to the point where even dudebros hop the joke.

So there’s this Chinese saying that means “be strict to yourself but lenient towards others” which is seen as model behaviour for respected individuals. I don’t know if there’s an equivalent idiom in Japanese but both Koreans and Japanese hold similar attitudes towards treatment of self vs treatment of others in society. Here’s the fun part: thanks to collectivist culture, one’s “self” extends to your immediate family too. Since you’re seen in conjunction with your family, if you’re head of the house and your “inferiors” misbehave in public, it reflects badly on you as a person. That’s why strict parenting is more normalised in EA culture, because controlling how your kids behave is more or less the same as controlling how you yourself behave. This is also related to how tough love is a more common form of affection in EA families, there’s a sentiment of “being able to be mean to you means we’re close, being too nice means I see you as a stranger.”

You might now see how this relates to the Strawhats in general (see: Nami beating up members for acting out of line). Sanji is a funny one coz he was sort of a maternal figure secondary to Nami early on in the series. Women aside, there’s a difference in how he treats men on his crew and “outsiders” (e.g. Ace). He’s actually not rude towards men, it’s just that we predominantly see his interactions with the crew! Since his crew is his family, he can be strict with them like how he’s strict with himself.

How does this relate to ZS in particular? Well, it’s because Zoro is closest to him on the self—others sphere. Luffy is his captain so despite the usual bickering he has to obey him to some degree. Usopp and Chopper are younger and weaker, so Sanji has a responsibility to take care of them and show generosity as an “elder”. Franky, Brook and Jinbe are way older than him so there has to be some degree of respect when interacting with them. Nami and Robin are Women. This only leaves Zoro, who is his equal in both age, power and hierarchical position on the crew. Essentially, Sanji has every right to hold Zoro to the exact same standard as he would himself. And given that Sanji is extremely harsh to himself, he’s harsh to Zoro too.

This is why there was virtually no discourse over the “Sanji calls Zoro a liability” moment in the EA fandom. The unspoken context was that Sanji was apologising to Jinbe for Zoro, who wasn’t performing his best. And since Jinbe is relatively new to the crew and also much older than Sanji, it feels like a mother/wife apologising for her son/husband?? It’s giving “I’m sorry my Zoro embarrassed us”?? It’s giving “Zoro is my responsibility”?? On the flip side Zoro absolutely does this to Sanji too. I can’t name a specific anime moment but in one of the mobile game collabs he said something like “sorry our cook caused trouble for you”. The specific wording was うちのコック. (They both think they’re managing the other lmao I hate them)

Tldr: Zoro and Sanji see themselves as one household unit 😭 hence the bickering and bluntness and lack of pretences in general.

[acrid-wondrland]

Random TokyoRev Headcanons

🔑Mikey's favorite flavor is anko(red bean). Taiyaki, dorayaki, mochi, etc. It doesn't matter, it has to have anko filling. Fave ice cream flavor? Anko. What does he ask for on his halo halo when he and Izana go visit the Phillipines? Extra red bean.

🔪Yuzuha Is an unofficial member of Toman. The uniform she wears isn't her school's uniform, it's a custom one in Toman colors that Mitsuya made for her. She doesn't wear the ribbon around her neck anymore because once when she got in a fight someone grabbed it and nearly cost her the fight. The only reason she isn't an official member despite Mikey insistence, since she's a pretty decent fighter, is because she hates violence due to her childhood.

😵Shion is afraid of heights.

🚚Kisaki can't smoke because he has asthma. Every time he went to the Valhalla Arcade to talk strategy, he always made Hanma come outside to the back of the building so he doesn't die from the secondhand smoke. Hanma thinks it's funny.

🚬Hanma is left-handed. Also didn't get his Sin and Punishment tattoos bc of the Dostoevsky novel but because of the Nintendo 64 game lmao.

🎴Izana wants to learn how to play every Gackt song on his acoustic guitar.

💤Ran has dated more foreign girls than Japanese girls. Mostly Singaporean(a lot of rich Singaporeans club in Roppongi), Russian(a lot of Russian models come to Japan for work), and Korean(A lot of Korean tourists due to proximity) girls. He wants to try and date a French girl someday (he romanticizes Paris and France like a lot of young Japanese ppl do). He's enamored with foreign pop culture and is in his Passport Bro era lmaoooo, it's why he wants to be a foreign celebrity. And it's easy for him to find foreign girls to date bc Roppongi is popular with foreigners in general.

🎶Rindou is secretly a huge romantic and feels extremely pressured to be a playboy bc of his and his brothers' reputation. A lot of things most boyfriends would find a pain in the ass to do, Rindou actually looks forward to doing for his future girlfriend one day.

💊Sanzu: "While u were out partying w da Haitanis, I studied the blade."

jk jk but I hc that's he's actually a chuunibyou, he just hides it really well. Has whole shonen manga monologues in his head.

🐉Draken dawg HATES anko w a passion and can't stand it. Mikey's love for it is torture to him.

👠Inupi i saw a hc once that his red flag is that he's rude to the waitstaff and I laughed for 5 min straight because why can I see it???? lmao???

That aside I hc that he loves swimming and water in general. Like, in the timelines he ends up being a Yakuza he definitely made sure his penthouse had the fanciest infinity pool complete with custom lights, heating, a built in stone wall on the side that has a flatscreen TV, different connected sections w different elevations, etc.

💴Koko is half Chinese, from his mom's side. She's from the mainland, specifically Henan province and born in it's capital Zhengzhou. He's very proud of his heritage.

---

Anyone got any matching hcs lol?

[swampjawn]

Soooo…. what ever happened to the puppets from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer? And why was Santa such a grumpy bastard?

Well, the answer to that first question ended up being a much more complicated story than it first appeared, even complete with a twist ending. And while researching it, I stumbled across the tale of a forgotten Japanese animation pioneer who revolutionized animation industries in Japan AND China, made a whole bunch of propaganda during WWII and the Chinese Civil War, and then created the Rankin/Bass "Animagic" animation style and animated all those classically American classic stop-motion Christmas classics that we know and love. Tadahito "Tad" Mochinaga (持永 只仁).

That's right, Rankin/Bass was an anime studio!

Born in 1919, Mochinaga was inspired by early Walt Disney shorts to become an animator. Much like Disney, he built Japan's first ever multi-plane camera rig,

Ari-chan (アリチャン, 1941)

before being contracted to make war propaganda.

Ironically at the same time he was working under Mitsuyo Seo (瀬尾 光世) on Momotarou's Sea Eagles (1943)—a delightful picture about a bunch of cute little animals triumphantly bombing the shit out of those fat, stupid Americans at Pearl Harbor—his biggest inspiration was working on his own exciting propaganda cartoons from the exact opposite side of the same conflict.

But it was during his time working under the Chinese Communist Party that he inadvertently popularized stop-motion puppet animation in east Asia.

Tasked with making a puppet film that satirized the Nationalist Party's leader, but also dealing with an extreme shortage of film in the country, Mochinaga realized that if he stiffened the joints of the puppets, posed them manually and shot them frame-by-frame instead, he could use only the exact number of frames necessary.

He would continue to refine that stop-motion style after returning to Japan,

and eventually catch the eye of an American producer, Arthur Rankin Jr, who had just started a studio with his friend Jules Bass.

The story continues in much greater detail in this video, which completely obliterated my other plans for the month, and which I promise, does actually answer the question at the start of this post. I really didn't expect this project to balloon into an epic that spans an entire century, but in order to understand the ending, you have to start at the beginning!

Seriously though, I think this is the best video I've made yet and you KNOW I spent an absurd amount of time learning 3D modeling/rigging/texturing/animation to make what amounts to just some stylistic icing on the cake, but it's a bit different from what I usually make and youtube can punish you for that so if you do find the video interesting and feel like sharing it with someone you think would also be interested, I will personally show up at your house with an old satchel bursting with deliciously ripe oranges and squeeze all that sweet, sloppy nectar by hand, one-by-one directly into your expectant, gaping maw.

[stil-lindigo]

link

I can't properly put into words the amount of disgust that I feel seeing someone who looks like she could be my cousin fight for a genocidal occupational force like Israel but I will say this.

If you are Chinese, Korean, Japanese or any one of these Asian ethnicities that the West deem "acceptable" and you align yourselves with western-backed racial supremacy, you are making fools of yourselves. You have fallen prey to the myth of the "model minority" and you are suckers for it.

The premise of racial supremacy is based on exclusivity. And here's a dose of reality - the myth of the "model minority" is nothing but a tactic to placate you. To sow divide in the ranks of people of colour. To artificially manufacture another realm of racial supremacy in minorities so that you're distracted from how we all suffer under colonialism.

Did we all forget about the skyrocketing of sinophobia in the wake of the first COVID outbreak? The transformation of Chinese people into fiends with barbaric eating customs, poor hygiene, and mass conspiracy to infect the world with biological weapons?

link

What about the hate-crimes? The attacks in the street against anyone visibly asian? The rampant discrimination and ostracisation from society?

In 2020, Donald Trump referred to COVID-19 as "The Chinese Virus", "Kung-flu" at a campaign rally to raucous applause, a chilling echo of the times where fears of the "Yellow Peril" had the western world in a stranglehold.

For all that Chinese people have been lauded as "prodigies" and "well-mannered workers", the moment our existence was incovenient, were were nothing more than another target. And although Chinese suffering then wasn't close to the scale of suffering that Palestinians now endure, we all received a reminder on what it was like to be in the world's crosshairs.

Now, in 2023, Biden dismisses death tolls as unreliable and remains proudly Zionist even after Netanyahu described the genocide Israel is inflicting upon Palestine as the "struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle." At the same time, Palestinians are being compared to fleeing rats in a gesture of dehumanisation that mirrors how the Nazis portrayed Jews during the Holocaust.

link

And let's not think Abigail's Jewishness will save her, not when it's been proven that Israel has administered contraceptives to Ethiopian Jewish immigrants without their consent. Racial supremacy is an exclusive club that never stops getting smaller, and there is nothing that you, as a minority, will ever be able to do to fit in. One day, you too will be a target and there'll be nothing you can do but blame yourself. After all - it's already happened.

So shame on Abigail. Truly. With the memory of knowing what it's like to be targeted for factors out of your control fresh in her mind, she happily fights to do the same to others. And that says more about her than I ever will be able to.

[mushimatsu]

I found the full versions of the job apps from this post! This was a collab with the restaurant chain Sukiya, so that's where the job app is for! Pictures from this blog post here!

Translation under the cut

Osomatsu:

Academic background/work experience (include relevant experience):

(dates left blank) NEET, factory job, Chinese food restaurant, etc Anyway I have experience with a lotta stuff! And more

About yourself:

Gyuudon! I can eat a lot of it! Beer! (something crossed out) I can drink a lot of it! 

Hobbies/Skills:

Horse racing, pachinko, all kinds of gambling!

Reason for your application:

Because I think I could eat a lot of gyuudon. And because I think a pork bowl made with a brand new model of charcoal grill would be tasty! 

Working hours (for example 9 ~ 17): (he left this blank and just put an x through Monday, Saturday, and Sunday)

Other requests:

I’d like to immediately take off days where a machine is being replaced, store remodeling days, and horse race days! 

What days would you prefer to work?: (left blank)

How many hours would you like to work a day?: (left blank) How long can you work for?: (left blank)

Karamatsu:

(in the furigana section where you're supposed to write the pronunciation of your name he wrote it in English instead of hiragana)

Phone Number: Secret (it's so important to tell you that he wrote "secret" as the English word in katakana, and not the Japanese word for secret)

Academic Background/Work Experience:

Theater Completed curriculum at Hybrid Oden cart (Hybrid misspelled as Hybrit) And more

About yourself:

When I take the stage called Sukiya... After that... Who knows...

(sorry if this is incorrect idk how the fuck to translate what he said. hate his ass /j)

Hobbies/Skills:

I can sing while playing guitar, and more...

Reason for your application:

Gyuudon, butadon, curry... Because your menu calls to me...

Working hours (for example 9 ~ 17): (left blank)

Other requests:

I'm not tied down to anyone...

What days would you prefer to work?:

What a foolish question...

How many hours would you like to work a day?:

I'm not tied down to any time...

How long can you work for?:

How many times do I have to tell you...

Choromatsu:

Academic Background/Work Experience:

Totoko-chan's manager Worked at father's friend's company And more

About yourself:

Personally, I would benefit from your company's management policy, so I think I can achieve results while working remotely. The other day, all my brothers caught a cold, but I was busy making content as a small influencer!*

Hobbies/Skills:

Kanji certification level 6, English certification level 6. Thank you very much.

Reason for your application:

Sukiya would benefit from an entrepreneur and marketing and advertising specialist with a concise plan to make KPIs a priority activity. Boosting conversions** can create solutions for Sukiya through engagement. Gyuudon benefits will surely create profit. Assign buffers and launch. Thank you very much.* ** like click through rate

Working hours (for example 9 ~ 17): (left blank)

Other requests:

Frankly, a pension plan is a must, with a minimum of 200,000 yen fixed and committed per month. Thank you very much.

What days would you prefer to work?:

I will send you the agenda for today's activities afterwards. Thank you very much.

How many hours would you like to work a day?: (left blank)

How long can you work for?: (left blank)

*(struggled so much with him and his business buzzwords if anyone has corrections please tell me)

Ichimatsu:

Academic Background/Work Experience:

Honored Squad Leader for Life at Factory Worked at Cat Cafe, as a cat And more

About yourself:

I want to gather some cats at the restaurant, but not like it would be a cat cafe, and make a "Cat Sukiya"...

Hobbies/Skills:

Cat certification level 2

Reason for your application:

I want to surround the restaurant with a lot of cats.

Working hours (for example 9 ~ 17): (left blank)

Other requests:

How many cats am I allowed to bring to the restaurant?

What days would you prefer to work?:

No particular preference

How many hours would you like to work a day?:

No particular preference

How long can you work for?:

As long as there's cats

Jyushimatsu:

Academic Background/Work Experience:

PRACTICE SWINGS

About yourself:

78 METER THROW

Hobbies/Skills:

BASEBALL

Reason for your application:

I WANT TO EAT LOTS OF GYUUDON!

(All the questions about when you're available to work):

I WANT TO EAT GYUUDON EVERY DAY!!

Todomatsu:

Academic Background/Work Experience:

Currently attending a very prestigious college Part time job at a trendy coffee shop And more

About yourself:

My brothers are all stupid, so I'm the best choice <3

Hobbies/Skills:

English and Japanese certified

Reason for your application:

The new menu item avocado gyuudon is my favorite, so you're going to release it, right? That is to say, you'll hire me, right? Right? Thanks <3

Working hours (for example 9 ~ 17): (left blank)

Other requests:

Rather than just beer, I want to sell kalua milk and cassis orange too ⭐

What days would you prefer to work?: (left blank)

How many hours would you like to work a day?: (left blank)

How long can you work for?:

Depends on if the customers are cute girls <3

thank you @totmatsu for ur help

[sophiebaek]

Portraying Sophie Baek:

A guide to cultural sensitivity and respect

Things to keep in mind

———

Yay! Sophie Baek is finally here and with all of excitement of this casting, I think it’s also important to bring attention to the new intersectionality that comes with the character of Sophie (specifically show Sophie).

Why should you take my words into account? Well, as an Asian woman in society today, I feel that I am qualified to speak on this topic since I’ve experienced all of this.

All of my words come from kind intentions, and I purely just want to communicate to the fandom how to approach Sophie being Asian in a respectful way.

Asia is a gigantic continent filled with various countries that have a multitude of cultures and ethnicities. While on the surface they all seem similar, they each have their own customs and traditions that have meaning within our culture. Do not combine them.

It’s important to remember that not every Asian person is Chinese, Japanese or Korean (East asian).

With Sophie being Korean, please do not generalize when writing about what you think you know about Korean culture.

You like Kpop and Kdrama? Great! BUT that does not define what Korean culture is and you shouldn't use that content as a reference.

When writing, be aware of explicit and unconscious biases you have about Asian people.

Asian stereotypes (Model Minority, Dragon Lady, Lotus blossom, etc) are very harmful and spread false narratives about us. Stereotypes eliminate the dimensions of who we are as Asians (South, South East, East, North, West).

Please, please, please do not fetishize. Especially since Bridgerton is a romance series it's extremely important to be mindful of the scenarios you put in your fics.

This also includes the White Savior Complex we see a lot in media!

If you’re writing about something specific, research it and fully understand the content you are putting into your work. Feel a little iffy about if you should put it in your fic? Probably don’t then. It’s that easy!

It's always great to ask someone who is a part of the community as well to see if what you're writing about is appropriate or potentially offensive in any way.

Describing Sophie is something new as well. Be mindful on how you describe her and other Asian characters.

Let me be clear: descriptions like 'slanted eyes' or 'yellow skin' are harmful

Here are some great resources that go into further detail about specific things! Rather than me paraphrasing their words it's best to link the direct source. Even as a part of this community, these articles were a reminder of how I must keep myself in check as well!

Describing Asian Eyes

Some important tips on making/writing Asian OCs

writing east asian characters

The Depiction of Asian Characters - Book Edition

The Dragon Lady, the Lotus Blossom, and the Robot: Archetypes of Asian Women in Western Media

To wrap this up, I want to be clear that I’m not a professional on this topic, but as someone who has been affected by harmful portrayals in media, I feel compelled to share my perspective. My hope is to spread awareness and encourage others to be mindful of how they approach these subjects, especially if they may not be fully informed. It’s about showing respect, doing the necessary research, and recognizing the impact our words and content can have on real people and cultures. By staying educated and considerate, we can be more aware and thoughtful in our actions.

[eurothug4000]

INTERVIEW ON THE MAKING OF THE CANCELLED MMORPG NINELIVES

Ninelives is the most beautiful RPG that was never completed, but can still be experienced as it was left. As part of my video on the game (now up for early access on Nebula), I also interviewed Tota of SmokymonkeyS on its inspirations and development before its suspension in 2016.

What would you say are your main inspirations for the art style in Ninelives? E.g. other artists, film, games, literature, history etc.!

I was a huge fan of Adventure Gamebook when I was a kid. Well, maybe you don't know what that is. Please read the wiki if you need: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamebook. I was reading (playing) translated oversea gamebooks well, and love the inner artwork especially what draw by monochrome. I had never seen pictures like that before, and had a strong impact on me. So, I wanted to make a gamebook by my self. When I started making my own gamebooks, I learned a lot about how games are made. That's because a gamebook is a medium in which the player can see all the source code. At first I started making gamebooks because I was attracted by the artwork, but my interest eventually shifted to making the game itself.

Related to the above, do you take a lot of inspiration from real world cultures and places? Are there any that you particularly gravitate towards?

I like the mixed culture, like Chinoiserie in France at the 17 century. Plus, since I'm Japanese and this country has always been greatly influenced by China. So I'm not limited to any one of these cultures, but trying to create as I am influenced by all of them. Sometimes people say that what I create looks Japanese, Chinese, or Asian, which is neither correct nor incorrect. I try not to be only of a certain culture when I create. That's because I want to create an imaginary world that is somewhat like reality, but slightly different.

Why did you want to make Ninelives?

Ninelives was the first game I ever thought of making, I think when I was about 17.

Do you think Ninelives being in an unfinished state provides a different atmosphere when playing the game and exploring the world?

I don't particularly think so. The atmosphere of the game is still complete. I wanted the game to be a relaxed, free-roamed adventure for players.

I wasn't certain during my research, so I wanted to confirm if Tomomi Sakuba was involved in Ninelives in any way?

Yeah, Sakuba was involved in Ninelives lots of ways. As you said, he did some of the texture pictures for flowers, plants and tree leaves. He also drawn the world map and area maps of the game like below: http://www.smokymonkeys.com/kyrill/index.asp?direct=138 He actually walked around the world by himself to make this. He was one of the most earliest game tester of the game. Oh, and I have to tell you this. He's a voice actor of male Nightbreed and Elf! In addition, his wife did some of creature voices. Her voice is also used on Triglav too!

What are your own personal thoughts on Ninelives? Is there anything you would drastically change looking back on it? Or any big changes you would want to make if you were to continue development at any point?

Ninelives was too much for me in many ways. It was a world I had been thinking about since I was young, but there were too many things to actually create to handle, and in that sense it's exactly the dream a child thinks about. We are a team of two in SmokymonkeyS, but one of us is in charge of programming and system engineering, and the game itself was created completely by myself. I had to create all the pictures, models, terrain, music, and story by myself. Now if I'm going to make something, I don't make it on such a large scale anymore.

Apart from the Switch release for Garage and occasional updates on Triglav that you mentioned before, is there anything that SmokymonkeyS are working on for the future?

Not yet so far.

I noticed your banner on the official website (http://www.smokymonkeys.com/kyrill/index.asp) has a character on a train platform, I wondered if that might be a future game?

Once it was. It was a previous project of Triglav for mobile. But it was going to be on a larger scale again, so we decided to port Triglav before that. There are no plans to make that game now. But I may make another game with that worldview and atmosphere. For example, as a mobile game.

A big thank you to Tota for taking the time to answer my questions! You can find SmokymonkeyS and their games here:

[fumifooms]

Helki compilation

Helki is a prisoner-turned-servant. He’s a criminal canary and was implicitly one of Milsiril’s charges, and now that she’s retired he’s become her servant.

He must have gotten into Milsiril’s good graces, whether through attachment or convenience, which is a feat considering Milsiril’s a socially anxious recluse. Interesting since it’s not like he seems like the agreeable type, shifty upbeat delinquent style… We really don’t know much about him, not even what crimes he did, so there’s a lot of space for speculation on all grounds.

Edit: Shanghai QnA with Kui gave us a new juicy morsel of info!

Interesting… The original question in chinese is: 米尔西里尔是怎么接纳海尔奇待在自己身边的？毕竟她讨厌精灵，还被金丝雀队友欺负。 and the answer in japanese is: 海尔奇过去出过一些事，遭到了其他伙伴的抛弃，米尔西里尔对这样的人没法不伸出援手。That it’s written in japanese seems to say that there isn’t the same double translation issue there was last QnA, so if someone wants to look at the original phrasing and word choices it can be done. Perhaps Helki-Milsiril has a more protégé dynamic undertone than previously thought… "For various reasons", meaning that there were circumstances that made it so the squad had to choose between saving him and saving their own skin, or like, "man this guy’s personality sucks we don’t really like him"? Likely to be a mix of several things, since ‘for various reasons’ implies the situation had a lot of layers. Either way, the phrasing is very much that out of everyone Milsiril refused to abandon him, and so a relationship sprung out of that. Another instance of outcasts seeking out & sticking with other outcasts in Dungeon Meshi. This could mean that it’s a bit less out of personal attachment and more out of a sense of duty on Milsiril’s side as well, though.

Still edit: So then maybe him staying with Rin in that comic isn’t that much because of work ethics or that he cares for kids (or maybe he does because he feels kinship to them, alone and mistreated), but because he didn’t want to join the other canaries in that room chatting and laughing? Maybe the isolation was exacerbated because he became Milsiril’s favorite, teacher’s pet style, but I’d also be careful about assuming the others disproportionately dislike him, it could be that they just don’t really care for him. Why? Could be a lot of things, canary mentality, or because of his personality, because he’s seen as shifty or unreliable or annoying, if not an event, who knows who knows. But I like to think because of the Rin comic that he generally just tends to be a loner, that he’s "weird" in a neurodivergent vibe, he doesn’t conform to proper social behavior which in elven society seems especially alienating. He’s the only one to think of Rin's sake, not only sees her as worth observing/caring for but also asks her to eat— but he does this with an offputting stare, not really emoting, and then well, the infamous alone with her staring munching covered in blood panel. He stands out. I’m a fan of the theory that it was a "Helki? Not that I dislike the guy but I’m not risking my skin for him" situation… Ok end edit back to older observations.

He seemed to be acting out of his own initiative in the Rin comic, he doesn’t look thrilled to be there in many post-canary comics but he also seems content enough. He restrains Milsiril in the Mithrun cleaning comic which is interesting to think of for their relationship.

It’s fun to notice how he’s the only one that didn’t get bored of looking after Rin, and then reports back about her condition… I’d say he was getting used to taking care of kids which would come with the job of serving Milsiril, but then, not enough for him to clean the blood off himself hah. In this way it’s interesting to think about his relationship to the idea of parenthood, he’s probably the closest thing to a father figure/male role model Kabru had around him growing up, without mentioning the other kids as well. [Edit: the new modern AU art shows that he really did have a not unsignificant role in caring for the kids!] I feel like he’d consider himself an older brother, cousin or uncle figure sooo much sooner than a father, but even then I do think it’s just his job and he’s not really invested or forming real relationships with any of them much.

It’s curious to note that he’s dressed in canary uniform presumably after having been pardoned and living with Milsiril? Which you can tell by the armor bits (the yellow strips of spider silk). Specifically, in the Kabru training montage and the Rin comic. It seems very implausible for him to have still been a canary while being retired Milsiril’s servant and being with her all the time, and the cleaning with Mithrun comic (where he’s not in uniform) happens after Utaya, so it could happen after Kabru was taken in but around the time of the Rin comic. It is said that Helki was pardoned and Milsiril retired after their work in Utaya specifically, in the anime we also see a brief shot of canaries silhouettes at Utaya including Milsiril's, so combined with the Mithrun comic after Utaya and Mithrun's recovery efforts we have a pretty tight timeline of when they retired, year 499 when Utaya was destroyed to 500 when Mithrun became captain. (We know Mithrun started recovery efforts in year 480, but it's also hearing about Utaya that made Mithrun double his efforts, knowing the demon had struck again, so it's the next milestone we can use as reference point.) So why uniform? It could be one of the best outfits he has, so it’d make sense to wear it around especially if you’re sparring or getting… Blood on you? Could just be because that's how Milsiril wants him to dress. But yeah we don't know when exactly Helki becoming Milsiril’s servant happened. We do see Mithrun’s charge, Cithis, be tasked with taking care of him, so a charge being given a servant-caretaker role doesn’t seem all that out of the ordinary, sometimes even prior to retiring.

Imo, if he doesn't work for Milsiril he goes back to jail/the canaries/has to try and get a job instead of just tending to her, so Helki is staying with Milsiril because she's the best option for him. He’s Milsiril's personal servant and does mostly dull tasks of whatever she requires, cleaning, being a training mannequin, looking after kids. He’s not particularly suited to the role but they’ve gotten used to each other, she got used to him, so she took him with her, and he does prefer it to canary work so it works out decent for him. I think he’s used to reading her and managing her moods, he's evidently comfortable enough with her (and allowed) to physically restrain her when her emotions get the better of her, and he’s one of the rare social connection she has. Edit: The Shangai Q&A seems to point towards a deeper history and connection between the two. With Milsiril having implicitly saved Helki, it's likely he feels like he has to repay her, whether he's happy with that or not. But again, he seems content enough imo.

Under spoiler is stage 2 interpretation stuff, bigger speculation, in a reblog I’ll make soon I’ll go over my thoughts for stage 3 interpretation lol. Helsiril I’m coming for you

Translation of the canary hierachy chart used is by Thatsmimi, here.

[memorandum]

...EXPERIMENT: BEGIN ! I commend you for finding this file. In the chance of my death, I must ask you continue to document ASU-NARO agents. Do whatever you must to extract our desired results. Don't worry—they've already signed away their lives.

{ This is an interactive ask blog, set one year prior to the Death Game! Run by @faresong }

☕️ KOA MYOJIN ;; Adopted heir of the Hiyori/Myojin Branch. Japanese/Vietnamese; 11 years.

KOA MYOJIN is the replacement heir for Hinako Mishuku, Myojin's biological granddaughter. Being raised with this knowledge hanging over her head has resulted in a rather cynical mindset wherein she views those around her, up to and including herself, as pieces in a larger game. A mindset reinforced by Mr. Chidouin in Myojin's absence, for he had faith in her where Myojin did not—seeing her solely as a mandatory last-resort to continue his reign of power. But of course, even a pawn can become a queen.

🎃 RIO RANGER (LAIZER PROJECT) ;; Experiment of the Gotō Branch. Doll, Japanese model; 20 years.

RIO is an experimental project spearheaded by Gashu Satou simulating the deceased Yoshimoto heir. It was initiated with its basic personality, and to compensate its limited emotional range, this iteration of AI technology was granted a much more adaptive program compared to M4-P1. As such, he has taken to mimicry of the researchers which surround him in all their crudest forms. Despite denouncing humanity, his development has certainly been typical of one. The candidate AIs are proven promising.

🐉 SOU HIYORI ;; Heir of the Hiyori/Myojin Branch. Japanese; 22 years.

SOU HIYORI is the heir of the Family and inherently quite skilled at keeping appearances��only if it benefits him. He obeys Asunaro with the sneer of someone who thinks himself something above it, and has recently taken great lengths to abandon its ruling through the rejection of his individual humanity. It is a bastardization which requires admirable resolve, but implies him to be a much larger threat if left unchecked. Thus, Mrs. Hiyori arranged plans for his execution on the day Myojin and herself are simultaneously incapacitated or dead.

🦋 MAPLE (ITERATION M4-P1) ;; Experiment of the Gotō & Hiyori Branch. Obstructor, Japanese model; 26 years.

MAPLE was the first Obstructor to be granted emotional programming, and is the final Obstructor to be decommissioned. However, this fate has been put on standby due to the new researchers intrigue in her, insisting she exists as a base from which all other AI programs were spawned and must be archived properly. Until her execution, Maple tends to menial tasks within the laboratory she resides and spends her idle time pining for Hiyori and wishing to learn more about humanity through the researchers who care for her.

🩸 KAI SATOU ;; Patriarch of the Gotō Branch. Japanese/Wa Chinese; 26 years.

KAI is a reserved patriarch whose reputation precedes him. Though once thought denounced, he's rumored nonetheless a controversial figure in Asunaro's midst—however, all can agree him to be a vengeful, resolute person lent the power of God.

💉 MICHIRU NAMIDA ;; Lieutenant of the Satou Family, Gotō Branch. Korean; 28 years.

MICHIRU is a revered researcher within Asunaro's newer ranks, having quickly rose to a position of respect for her ruthless pursuit of seizing humanity's destiny with her own two hands. Without being absorbed by the superficial desire for power, many recognize her dedicated state of mind to be reminiscent of the natural way Mrs. Hiyori assumed her role under Asunaro's whispers of guidance. There is importance in the fact that the Godfather's right hand regards her as a peer, where he otherwise dismisses his own kind by blood, by culture.

🫀 EMIRI HARAI ;; Lieutenant of the Satou Family, Gotō Branch. Japanese; 29 years.

EMIRI is a new researcher and serves as the connecting point between Asunaro's primary facility and civilian life. For all her resentment buried inside one-off remarks and festering within herself, she throws herself to her work with the drive of a passionate someone who has lost all else. Someone who perhaps hungered for life.

(￣▽￣) MR. CHIDOUIN ;; Godfather. Japanese; 44 years.

MR. CHIDOUIN aligned himself with the Gotō Family's lost heir after his father's untimely death, uniting the two families in a manner he hoped would justify the suffering once inflicted upon them—but particularly his wife, who had been cast out by her own. Despite, or as he had claimed, for his being extremely capable of detaching to arrange the larger canvas upon which Asunaro's story is written, he takes a personal pride in being the one to groom and inevitably cull its important pieces.

⚰️ GASHU SATOU ;; Captain of the Satou Family, Gotō Branch. Japanese; 62 years.

GASHU is a remarkably candid researcher with a scrutinizing eye for detail. Despite regarding most with unrelenting cynicism, he places his remaining shreds of hope in a choice few. Whether they reinforce this worldview and finally break him is a decision entirely in their hands.

[croded]

Hopefully Mostly Accurate Translation of the Link Click Art Book Interview with Director Li Haoling

thank you very much to @yingdu-lover for the initial post+tag and also the interview!!

I made a chinese transcript of the entire interview and goddamn it was 4 Google doc pages long 😭this is going to be a long post but let's go :)

Blue text=interviewer, white text=Director Li (small text=little translator notes. don't worry they won't pop up too often :))

About the production team and production process

Q1. The main production team of Link Click is an internationalised lineup, can you introduce the members of the team and their usual responsibilities to the readers?

---About Link Click's main production team's structure, I am the screenwriter and director, the executive director is (Zhang) Yuxia, his position is equivalent to the assistant director. Our work distribution is I mainly work on content creation and overall control; he leans more towards communicating, interacting and executing the created content. The members in the country (China) also include Studio LAN, who have overall control of the production process. Their work includes Chief Producer, original design, mid-term character modeling et cetera. Besides, there are also our colleagues in the Japanese branch taking part in and leading the post-production work.

As for the pre-production process of the show, INPLICK-laoshi* from Korea was in charge of the character design. She is a very well-known illustrator. On the art aspect, since we have previous cooperation experience with Shinkai Makoto-laoshi's* team, the process was quite enjoyable, and we established a long-term cooperation relationship, so this time we also invited Tanji Takumi-laoshi* to help with the art supervision and design; whereas Tenmon-laoshi* is in charge of the music. This is roughly our team configuration.

*In the original interview, Director Li added -老师 to the ends of the names of these other creators. Much like Japanese's sensei, this is used as an honorific, used to indicate respect. I don't think there's an English equivalent for these honorifics, so I kept them in rough Pinyin 🥹 I'll keep it like this for the rest of the translation too

Just now you said the assistant director was Yuxia-laoshi, is this the same person as Yu Xia from episode 2, "Secret Recipe"?

Correct. Actually there are a lot of character names in the show that are the same as our friends at work. But in the real world, Lin Zhen and Yu Xia are two guys. They're college classmates.

*Director Li says 工作里的小伙伴 in the part that says "friends at work", and 小伙伴 directly translates to "little partner", so it's like a bit cuter? lol :') also noodle lesbian name lore?!?!

Q2. Sounds like the team atmosphere is quite relaxed, can you further introduce how the usual work atmosphere is? And how is the state/condition when communicating with overseas teams?

---Because Link Click is an original donghua, so there is a higher freedom in the creating process. Like the part with using the names of work friends as character names, I also think it is more relaxed this way, and more meaningful. As for communicating with overseas teams, because we have a greater experience in cooperating with overseas teams, the process is quite smooth. For example, we have had several indirect cooperations with Tanji-laoshi from the Shinkai Makoto team. At the time, we mentioned that we wanted to do some new challenges and content, and they were willing to take part in it, they also thought it was something new and were very interested. The more novel it is, the more enthusiasm they have to give it a try.

Q3. Going back to Link Click, what was your (Director Li's) original intent during the creation of Link Click?

---At first it was because I saw a photo one time, that time I thought the people in the photo were particularly happy, but the person looking at the photo was not that happy. At that time I felt that photos were quite a unique thing, through a piece of paper, it connects two different worlds, different states of yourself. Because of this feeling, I got the idea of using photos as a base for a story's script, and then from there, I thought about if I could go back to a certain scene or time in a photo, what kind of feeling would I have. I took the thoughts I had while trying to figure out this kind of feeling and expanded them further, and it slowly formed into Link Click's overall story.

Q4. The impression that photos give us is mostly warm, so how come you thought of using a theme that carried some suspense to fill in each episodic story?

---If we're talking about only setting an ability that can enter photos, I imagine there definitely isn't a shortage of similar themes, so I wanted to include an even more interesting setting.

Take the point of entering a photo to change the past and save the future for example, there are actually many ways to travel through. When setting the plot, my first thought was to separate/disassemble this ability. The more imperfect the ability, the more it can create changes and plot conflicts. Like how we see that even though Cheng Xiaoshi can enter photos, but he doesn't know what will happen in the photo, so him inside the photo will become an unstable factor; whereas Lu Guang is outside the photo, he can see what is about to happen in the photo, but he has no way of completely controlling Cheng Xiaoshi's actions. Both of their abilities are imperfect, so they must cooperate to sufficiently utilize each other's effect. I expanded the later plot based on this point.

Additionally, about returning to the last through photos, that itself already carries many elements of suspense. Everyone probably has had this experience before: you're all smiling when the photo is taken, but the you at the time might not actually feel like smiling, deep inside. In that photo, everyone looks very happy on the surface, but maybe there are different thoughts in everyone's hearts. It's actually quite interesting. To me, this is also a kind of suspense - what's the real meaning behind the photo?

So a conflict between appearances and the inside?

That's right. What's truly beneath those appearances, the process to unearth this in itself will carry suspense, I suppose this is also a main point that I abided by when I designed the story to go towards suspense. This is one of the reasons. Another point is that there are very few donghuas in the country (China) that use a suspense theme, I wanted to try to break through, and do a fresh theme.

Q5. Link Click is in the form of an episodic show, with every episode having a different story, what is your original intent when picking stories? What is your starting point?

---Some stories were already thought out, but actually every story was not "picked out", but instead expanded from several angles. For example, the story of "Farewell" (s1e5 T_T) first had a narrative inspiration: everyone says going back to the past is to change the future, but if you went back to the past and made changes, only to find out in the end that nothing had changed in the future after all? I will assume this situation: it changed, and yet it didn't. As long as there is this hypothetical, there will be a lot of plot conflicts. The emotional level will also be very high. I think this is a plot core for having something interesting happening, and the story "Farewell" sprouted from this point.

Let's take another example of the special episode, "Marrying by Contesting". It originated from a story I read before. At that time there was a news report, saying that in a certain place, a girl was banned from something by her family*** and gave up her whole life. After reading, it left a deep impression on me, something like this actually happened, so I used it as a main theme to create. And the episode about kidnapping, "Aunt May" as well, I hope that through this donghua I can not only show entertaining content, but also embody some social value.

***GUYS IM SO SORRY for this part, the word was NOT eligible in the picture of the interview log 😭the closest (and only) thing I could think of when I saw that blob of pixels was the word 锠, but the phrase 禁锠 had no meaning. I looked it up. Nothing. 禁 means ban, so the general meaning of the sentence is that the girl's family banned her from something and she gave up on her life. I don't know what they banned her from 😭 so sorry once again

Q6. From the OP and ED, we can see that Link Click's art style is quite intense, how did you think of using this kind of style to make a donghua?

---About the style of the OP and the ED, the earliest intention was to create a sense of trendiness. I invited many teams to work together with, like INPLICK-laoshi, her art style can give people the impression of trendiness. Aside from characterization, the backgrounds were also considered to be stylised a bit, and not just done in a realistic style, because a realistic style will make it look heavy and serious. I hope that the backgrounds can be made to have more personality, more tactile, with a more artistic effect, so I discussed it with Tanji-laoshi and the artistic design done with this target in mind had a stronger drawing sense.

Q7. In the episode "Marrying by Contesting", a quote by Edward Weston appeared, and we understand by communicating with the team that there is a quote in the beginning of every episode, what is the purpose of this setting?

---Because we're making a theme based on photos, so I hoped to take the quotes of world-famous photographers and pick appropriate quotes for each episode, it's mainly an expression of form.

When I saw that line I felt quite moved, I was touched.

Yes, we had this intention. The intentions of animators making animations are the same, people who like the content often have this kind of empathy, we all hope to unearth the differentness of the world through our content. Just like how war photographers are willing to give their lives to document reality, to be able to capture that moment in time with your own life, that spirit is quite a great thing.

Q8. We heard that the donghua had been accepting fans' commissions since it began airing, and the donghua also showed everyone's submissions and story collections, like the Time Photo Studio really exists, can you talk about the purpose of this setting?

---This was the first thing we thought of. We could really open a Time Photo Studio and find real-life stories, restore them, help people complete their commissions. I think this is rather romantic. We have also been doing this continuously, collecting everyone's stories, be it in the mini-theatre series (it's The Daily Life in Lightime chibi series!) or in the later plot, we'll show them in future parts. The saying of "breaking the fourth wall" might be a little cliché, but it does indeed have the feeling of breaking "the fourth wall".

About the characters and the setting

Q9. This question may have been asked quite a few times on other occasions, how did you (Director Li) decide on using a double male protagonist setting like with Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang?

---As I mentioned earlier, I wanted the powers of the protagonists to be imperfect. The abilities must be split into two halves and be distributed to two separate people. This is the first point. Secondly, we had discussed at the time, if it were a male-and-female setting, putting the two characters together will have one problem: should we give them a romantic storyline or not? Later on we found that this problem was too complicated/troublesome, and couldn't be resolved well no matter how we tried to do it, and there were things to consider in every aspect of the matter. So in the end, we ended up with the double male protagonist setting that we have now.

Regarding Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang's personalities, I mentioned it earlier as well: Cheng Xiaoshi is an unstable factor, since he can enter the photos but doesn't know what will happen next, whereas Lu Guang is a stable factor. The two of them must partner up and complement each other, then only can they utilize their abilities perfectly.

Q10. About this female character Qiao Ling, how did you (Director Li) adjust the character relationship between them and the interaction atmosphere?

---The audience has always cared a lot about Qiao Ling. Although she doesn't get much screen time, her existence is still very important. To express the kinship* between two boys, this isn't much of a problem, but to make these two boys open their hearts to each other is not as easy. I want to set a link that allows there to be emotional communication between the boys, such as Lu Guang wanting to know how Cheng Xiaoshi sees "me" (Lu Guang), Cheng Xiaoshi wants to know how Lu Guang sees "me" (Cheng Xiaoshi), how is Cheng Xiaoshi's thoughts towards "me" (Lu Guang), how is Lu Guang's thoughts towards "me" (Cheng Xiaoshi), all these thoughts can be converted and conveyed through Qiao Ling.

*(sorry in advance for the long tl note) this "kinship" might be more of a "tacit understanding", which is 默契 in Chinese. I don't think there's an English equivalent that sounds as good, so basically 默契is where people work together so well they don't even need to talk to each other to do something together. Think something like maybe you and your best friend turn around to high five each other at the same time without looking, or when you do the same action (e.g. tilting your head a certain way, saying something, closing a book etc.) at the exact same time in the exact same way. That's 默契 :) in cxs and lg terms, it's them passing the ball around to each other flawlessly and dogwalking the rest of the court without even really looking at each other or communicating verbally. They just do, and they work together seamlessly without even trying. 默契 babyy

Is it equivalent to Qiao Ling between them balancing their views towards each other, balancing the relationship between the two of them?

It isn't balancing their relationship, but rather she is a path for their communication. The communication I mean is core communication between hearts.

Is it the more sentimental/emotional part?

Yes, for example episode 10, where Cheng Xiaoshi possessed Xu Shanshan and listened to Qiao Ling talk about how Lu Guang saw him at the time. This kind of trope can only be conveyed and converted very well through her.

Q11. Among all the characters, who do you (Director Li) like the most?

---This is like asking which of your children is your favourite, it's kind of difficult to choose. You ask which one I like, I can only say I like them all; but saying I like them all, this answer seems kind of boring. I'll be honest, I still like them all, they each have their special characteristics.

Then let's talk about the points of the three main characters that shine/stand out.

Cheng Xiaoshi is righteous, and he's very genuine. He's a very naïve person, and naivety is commendable. In the current society, naivety is becoming increasingly scarce.

Lu Guang is calm, knowledgeable, and very smart and mysterious. He's a rather perfect male image.

Qiao Ling cannot simply be said to just be a "girl next door", instead she has more of a big sister image, and can hold the trio. While she has a rational, strong side, she also has a very soft side, the future plots will also bring out these virtues of hers.

Q13. You (Director Li) seem to have a soft spot for the word "light"(光), what meaning does the word "light" represent? Outside of the donghua, what does this "light" repose?

---"Light" is a symbolic hope, or maybe energy, giving people an uplifting feeling. Personally as a practitioner of animation, the reason I chose such a difficult job was because this job could bring people some direction and light. I also think I'm a little delusional* when it comes to this aspect, the people watching animations usually aren't very old, planting a little bit of light in the hearts of children, I think this is the lovable part of animation and the value of its existence. So at the time I kept bringing up "light", including many characters' names have something to do with light, the theme is also related to light, it all comes from this kind of thoughts.

*he says 中二. which is basically chuuni, for chuunibyou (中二病) and is usually known as "delusional disease" or "8th grade syndrome" but the gist of it (though I think yall know what chuunibyou is 😭) is that he's calling himself delusional here lmaoo

Q13. During the process of creating Link Click, what were the parts where you felt the happiest?

---The happiest part is still the good overall creating atmosphere. The creation of Link Click began in 2019, at that time I had the rare chance of creating without much concern, purely creating for the sake of creating. So Link Click getting everyone's approval in the end is partially because that time the conditions for creating were good.

Q14. Can you reveal some details about Season 2, some details that everyone wants to know.

---Season 2 is mainly suspense. The storyline of pursuing the culprit was a very large tension/cliffhanger in Season 1, Season 2 will definitely go through this tension/cliffhanger till the end. I saw a lot of viewers wish to keep some things from Season 1, such as the episodic stories, and some portrayals of real-life stories. So I'm also thinking of a way to satisfy the condition of Season 2 being suspenseful and following a main storyline while also adding these elements into it.

Will it be more angsty* than season 1?

As the audience, are your expectations wishing for it to be "angsty*" or not "angsty*"?

It's hard to say, this mentality is quite dilemmatic.

Personally, I think a lot of Season 1's content was real-life things, so its "angst*" is an "angst that hits close to home*", akin to the regrets in real life. But in Season 2, since it has a storyline of pursuing the culprit, so some parts with emotional concentration will be different from Season 1, the feeling of "angst that hits close to home*" will be weaker.

*(hoo boy this will be a long one) so the words they are using here are Chinese internet language/slang: 刀, which means knife/blade, is used to mean something that makes your heart hurt when you read it. Yknow, like cxs dying! Chen Bin falling! Chen Bin's wife walking down the funeral hall in her wedding dress! S1e5 in general! That kinda stuff. That's 刀. It makes you cry, it makes you hurt, it makes you sad. So I ended up using "angst" with the definition of the fanfic term here since that was the closest thing with that meaning. With the "angst that hits close to home" part, he used "贴肉刀" which directly translates to "knife that sticks to meat" and like... basically it's blade that cuts you deep (emotionally) because it's something you've experienced? something like that? the closest thing I could think of was "hits close to home" :') sorry this particular section is so confusing. its like 50% chinese slang

Q15. One last question, say something to the readers that are eagerly awaiting Season 2, increase the anticipation.

---Just like the creating process I mentioned earlier, I wish to be able to tell a beautiful story in a quiet, peaceful condition. I also hope the viewers can be more calm when treating/regarding this work, whether everyone likes it or dislikes it, I accept it all, but sometimes the feelings of the audience becomes a form of pressure on the work. The original intent of this work was to present it in a quiet, good condition, so I still hope that in the future, everyone can maintain a level head towards Link Click.

Thank you, Director Li. Thanks for all your hard work.

-interview end-

that's the end of this VERY long post! :'D translating is kinda fun ngl

I tried my best to keep it as accurate as possible, forgive me if there are any mistakes :') (especially the "girl was banned from something by her family" one... ooh. I am on my knees apologising for that one I am cringing at myself)

and also sorry for the longass translator notes in the middle of some segments... I hope it didn't disrupt your reading too much 🥹

[creatingblackcharacters]

re: Warhammer anon. I'm into mini painting (although I'm more into fantasy minis used in dnd and adjacent games), and inclusivity is a big issue I've encountered when looking for new models to print.

The vast majority of prints are clearly fitted for white people with european features, and majority of paint jobs (and tutorials as well!) only cover painting lighter skintones. Most of already rare POC models are either Chinese/Japanese, or most orientalist depiction of Western Asia possible.

I can count on one hand all miniatures with Black people I've ever seen.

I'm less familiar with Warhammer specifically, but from quick search, the inclusivity is also non-existent here.

I don't think I'm qualified to give proper advice, but I would love to see representation of POC (and especially Black) people in miniature painting scene. At least because it doesn't exist.

Well in that case! You can follow doll painters! Obviously they're not gonna have the same models, but the tips on how to obtain darker skin and types of hair and such will help you there! There has to be at least ONE Black fan of DnD that does or is into model modification. You might just have to do some digging!

But yeah, part of that issue of representation is "is it safe/inclusive to BE in this space". We have to talk about that from within; if your space is not inclusive of Black people, of course they're not going to be there! Even this reddit I found that discusses Black models (which could also have some resources; I saw some links); there was another thread in it that was getting down voted specifically because it mentioned the desire to even have Black models 😭 so if that's my first impression, I'm sure it isn't that great.

Part of breaking into that is being willing to start, like I said. Even if you just say "hey, I want to see more Black fans enjoying this media and more representation in it; here's my attempt at this", you might make someone change their mind, or even a Black fan might see it and feel like it's worth staying around.

You got to be willing to deal with the hardship that comes with though; being openly inclusive of Black people- and saying out loud what that means- often puts a dent in your creative career, which is why so many creatives dodge it altogether. And based off that little I saw, they might not be so nice.

But if that's what you want to do, if you want to make that change... You just gotta do it! Know what it is you want to do, know how to make that change respectfully, and start. I'm excited for you, actually. I wish I had more advice.

[asexual-juliet]

hello! i saw your post from a while ago about race and casting in the musical, and i was wondering if you'd be willing to share some more thoughts on it? i'm working on my honors thesis and the idea seems really compelling :)

man i don’t even know what post this ask is about because i feel like i talk about this All The Time but of COURSE i will yap more! i mean just like on a basic level the Socs being cast as generally white/white-passing and the greasers being cast as multi-ethnic is such a fantastic choice that just adds another layer to the class dynamics of the story!! I absolutely adore the choice to only cast actors of color in the roles of Johnny and Dally and think it adds so so much to their characters <3 Dally being portrayed as a Black man is so intentional and adds something to the way he’s developed this tough-guy persona to avoid being hurt… and specifically Johnny being Native American is such a special choice in my opinion especially with the story taking place in Oklahoma and Johnny always having been described as darker-skinned… and also the way the greasers are able to show their race/heritage in their costumes is so so special… the embroidery on Sky’s jean jacket that represents his tribe, the Black power patches on Renni’s jean jacket, the sheer visibility of Daryl’s tattoo…

If you follow me it’s obvious that i think about this most often with reference to Ryo Kamibayashi covering four of the Soc boy tracks (Paul, Chet, Brill & Trip) because god this musical is so intentional with its casting in terms of race and the choice to have an Asian American man be the first visibly non-white actor to portray a Soc is so fascinating… like there is intrinsically SO much there about the myth of the model minority and like. something about how the west side of Tulsa as it is presented in this narrative as this seemingly all-american dream of suburbia and how that is affected by the presence of an Asian family… how that family is affected by their overwhelmingly white setting… the way that the rise of suburbia after World War II broadened the definition of whiteness to include Irish/Italian/Jewish/Catholic minorities so that it could stand even stronger in opposition to Blackness & where an Asian family would fit into that binary… and of course speaking of World War II, casting a Japanese American actor in any of the Soc boy roles sends the implicit message that this character’s parents were incarcerated in concentration camps by the American government a little over 20 years before The Outsiders takes place and raises the inherent question of how they got from there to this successful life on the rich white side of town. I also think it’s so purposeful that out of the three actors in the cast who have Asian heritage — Daryl Tofa is Filipino/Samoan and Jordan Chin is I think half-Chinese (not 100% sure but basing this off of his last name and the Hong Kong flag in his Instagram bio) — Ryo is both the one with the lightest skin and the only one who covers any of the Soc tracks. Something about the way his Soc character is an example of the myth of the model minority but then how that casting choice connects to all of the white-passing actors who portray Socs in the show — Victor, Henry, and Anna are Hispanic and Cameron is biracial. Cameron actually dropped some lore on a Soc Saturday a couple months ago about how his Soc boy character’s (white) mom fell in love with a (Black) greaser so she got sent out of Tulsa and he got adopted by his (white) grandparents… but then also there’s a bit in one of the Call Me Cherry vlogs where Henry is talking about his favorite costume details and mentions that when he’s playing a greaser he’s allowed to show his heritage through his costume (implying that when he plays a Soc he is not allowed to)… but just thinking about the way all of these nonwhite Soc characters have to stay so distant from their race/heritage because they are Socs… the way class and race are so intertwined even in just the casting of these roles…

this is long and messy and incoherent but if you are interested in more of these thoughts from me you can check my “japanese american paul holden” tag. thanks so much for the ask!!

[argumate]

you've mentioned china's trade surplus effectively ripping of Chinese citizens (they are generating product but not getting access to it, I think?) and I was wondering... why? what benefit does this give to the people of China? I assume they operate that way for a reason but I don't know what the reason could be

I think it was a sensible strategy for at least 25 years or so, from when open policy began under Deng Xiaoping in 1979 up to the Beijing Olympics and Global Financial Crisis in 2008, then it became increasingly unhelpful but it was difficult to stop.

China was coming out of 30 years of Maoism when Deng took over, disconnected from the global economy, lacking infrastructure, and extremely underinvested: the GDP of Japan was 5x larger than China and it was exporting 10x as much as China, despite China having 8x more people.

under open policy, China created special economic zones across the south east and encouraged companies from Hong Kong and Taiwan to setup low cost operations there, then later invited US and European corporations too but always with strict conditions to partner with local businesses and state owned enterprises to ensure technology transfer (the classic story of investing in China is to do the work of setting up a partner company then later have that partner company take over the market).

at the same time as opening up to global markets (and getting rid of rations and price controls and switching to a market economy domestically), China poured resources into infrastructure investment, building factories and highways and bridges and docks and harbours and the largest high speed train network on the planet and vast cities of apartments to accommodate the biggest urbanisation project in history and so on and so on.

this transformed China at vast scale with shocking speed into the industrial powerhouse that it is today, with GDP 4x Japan and exporting 5x as much, an incredible turnaround from the 20th century, when cyberpunk authors were predicting the Japanese economy would eat the world.

but all that infrastructure and property development required to urbanise and industrialise was a massive investment, funded by the government and paid for by the hard work of Chinese households, whose incomes were suppressed by a range of mechanisms: fixed exchange rates and tariffs making imports expensive and helping exporters, bank spreads giving low deposit rates for savers and cheaper loans for favoured industries, the hukou system taking away rights from rural residents so they could be used as cheap labour in the cities much like undocumented immigrants in the US, and of course the labour movement was carefully controlled by the government and suppressed when its demands grew too strong.

the Chinese people paid for the transformation of China, but by and large I'd say it was well worth the effort: even if the politically connected elite siphoned off the top and wealth inequality increased, the overall quality of life improved enormously from the Maoist dark ages that preceded the open era.

the transition from the rationed economy to the market economy was rough, and inflation and unemployment not always perfectly managed, but the unrest of 1989 was relatively minor in the scheme of things, compared with the chaos and dysfunction of Russia's failed attempt to cross the chasm and liberalise its economy.

so that's the Chinese success story, which I think peaks in 2008, when China is inviting the world to the Beijing Olympics while America is busy spending billions of dollars invading other countries and has just blown up the global economy thanks to poor regulation of its banks inflating a mortgage bubble into a credit crisis.

however at this moment of triumph, China faces a quandary that it has not resolved to this day: the development model that has made it the industrial envy of the world has run its course and must be changed in order to continue steady growth, but it is very difficult to change course when politically connected vested interests owe everything they have to the continuation of these policies!

but first, why were exports important to China's growth in the first place? I think there are multiple reasons for this:

foreign companies that setup operations in China were focused on the export market because the Chinese people at the time had very little money, making them great workers but poor customers, and although the domestic market would steadily grow in size over time, the size of the global market and the suppression of local wages would continue to favour exports.

the government knew that the export market was highly competitive and would keep industry honest in a way that the domestic market might not, avoiding the problems seen in the USSR where protected industries could manufacture low quality products and faced little pressure to improve: "Made in China" would start cheap and then work its way up in quality, a classic tale of market disruption, as we see today with China subsidising Tesla factories as a rabbit for its own greyhounds (BYD) to chase.

possible geopolitical advantages to taking over critical industries for the entire world, along with an ideological bias in favour of production over consumption which means industries will habitually produce more than the domestic market can consume, requiring exports to meet the demand for demand.

so the problem was that over time China began to run out of opportunities for productive investment: when every person has an apartment and every river has a dozen bridges and the country is exporting a trade surplus of a trillion dollars a year it's time to slow down investment driven growth, shift towards consumption, pay households more, and let increased demand from Chinese consumers drive future development.

however, this requires reversing the transfers currently in place that take money away from households to subsidise exporters, which would immediately hurt export competitiveness and risk businesses downsizing and spiking unemployment -- much as we're seeing with Trump's tariffs in the opposite direction, any poorly managed change causes an economic downturn immediately but the potential economic growth is delayed, leading to a painful adjustment period and possible political instability.

as a result the Chinese government has been announcing plans to raise consumption and deleverage (reduce debt-fueled investment driven growth) for fifteen years now but it has balked from actually doing it every time, so the trade surplus mounts ever higher and popular discontent grows as -- much like America -- the people see the economic growth opportunities that their parents enjoyed now receding into the distance.

in theory the US could force this adjustment unilaterally, ideally by controlling financial investment from China (which is how China balances its enormous trade surplus) or much more clumsily by the kind of tariffs that Trump is levying (although bilateral tariffs may just push trade into more circuitous paths through other countries to evade them).

if the US no longer accepts Chinese trade surpluses then the government will have no choice but to shift the economy in a different direction, and perhaps it will be easier to justify the transition when the disruption can be blamed on a foreign adversary.

so if I had to summarise I would say that extracting wealth from the people can be beneficial if it is invested productively, but ultimately what makes an investment productive is that it meets demand from the people, that is what an economy is for, and we see countries experience growth booms when demand drives investment to meet demand and stagnate when demand drops and investment becomes increasingly unproductive, pushing on a piece of string in the hope that people will spend money they don't have if you just build enough shopping malls.

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/751445319499317248/httpsolderthannetfictumblrcompost75113540651

She did not "basically write fanfic about Unit 731", and that's exactly the weird sort of game of telephone that led to her being relentlessly harassed by people who had not even read the book (there were claims that it was set in WWII, because the 'Unit 731 fanfic' lie was spread so far that people only heard that and decided to jump on the bandwagon) and decided she deserved to be publicly eviscerated for it.

From what the author has actually said about her inspirations for the book, she started writing it years before she found out that the ghost stories she was told as a child by her grandfather (who lived through the occupation) were about a real, specific atrocity, rather than just broadly about colonization--which makes sense considering the only part that seems directly inspired by Unit 731 is revealed near the end of the book and is the major twist that ultimately carves the scales from the MCs eyes with respect to the enemy prince in question.

Also, she didn't 'whitewash' the Japanese, and that kind of claim is really galling because would it actually have been better if she'd based the Evil Empire on Japan instead? Would that really have gotten people off her back? (And in fact I can very easily understand why someone whose family lived through such a brutal occupation would want to get some distance in a story that is partially processing those feelings and experiences by not modeling the Evil Empire directly after the country that brutalized her own; especially since a significant portion of the story involves the main character having very complicated feelings for the prince of the Evil Empire.)

If you want to talk about the writing not being great or your belief that the author didn't achieve what she set out to, that's fine, although I gather from this ask that you haven't actually read the book, which is at minimum a prerequisite to talk with authority about how any given topic or plot point is or isn't handled. I, personally, think it's incredibly tone-deaf to police how someone else writes about their own cultural heritage and family history with oppression and colonization, and that is very much how so much of this criticism comes across, especially considering how much of it is from people who fully admit to not at the least reading the book to form their own opinions about it. And for some reason, this form of criticism seems to be aimed disproportionately at authors of color, who are given much less grace and freedom to be just kinda mid or handle things poorly than white authors.

(Just as an example, I've never seen anyone call Avatar: the Last Airbender 'basically CCP fanfic' even though the fantasy prison where political dissidents/troublemakers are tossed to be tortured/brainwashed into compliance in Ba Sing Se is literally named Lake Laogai, after the Chinese political prisons/labor camps.)

--

Yeah, that last part is the crux of it, isn't it? People need a little room to work on their craft. More marginalized creators, indie creators, and people working on media with smaller audiences are afforded less. White dudes making TV shows are afforded a whole lot. Seems like it would be fairer the other way around!

[noticiasarquelogicasjaponesas]

Sean bienvenidos japonesasarqueológicos a una nueva entrega arqueológica, en esta ocasión hablaremos de la primera moneda japonesa atrás vez de los restos Arqueológicos y de evidencias históricas dicho esto pónganse cómodos que empezamos. - ¿Cuándo surge la moneda en Japón? La primera moneda, oficialmente nace en el año 708 d.c llamada Wadokaichin, mientras tanto que en otros continentes del mundo como china o en el próximo oriente ya se habían creado la moneda y los primeros sistemas monetarios. ¿Qué había antes del 708 d.c? Pues había dos protomonedas una en el año 660 d.c. otra en el año 683, habían tomado como modelo la moneda china de 621 d.c - ¿Cómo se llamaban las dos monedas anteriores al siglo VIII d.c? Fuhonsen data del año 683 d.c y fue descubierta en 1998 Mumonginsen datada del año 660 d.c - La moneda Mumonginsen coincide con la leyenda de la fundación del estado japonés por el primer emperador Jinmu Tennō, según la historiografía moderna lo consideran un personaje ficticio hay que tener en cuenta que toda leyenda tiene una base real. - ¿Qué emperadores podemos encontrar en esta cronología según la historiografía y los restos arqueológicos? Los emperadores eran Tenji y Tenmu tennō. ¿Dónde fueron encontradas dichas monedas? fueron halladas en las ruinas de Asukaile en la prefectura de Nara en el pueblo de Asuka. - ¿Conocían estas monedas?¿Qué opinan ustedes al respecto? Espero que os haya gustado y nos vemos en la próxima publicación de arqueología nipona. - 日本の考古学者は新しい考古学の記事を歓迎します。今回は、考古学的遺跡や歴史的証拠の代わりに、最初の日本のコインについて話します。 - 日本ではいつ通貨が出現しますか？最初の通貨は、和同開珀と呼ばれる西暦708年に正式に誕生しましたが、中国や中東などの世界の他の大陸では、通貨と最初の通貨制度がすでに作成されていました。西暦708年以前は何がありましたか？ええと、2つのプロトコインがありました。1つは西暦660年にありました。別の683年に、彼らは621ADの中国の硬���をモデルとして採用しました。 .- 8世紀以前の2枚の硬貨は何と呼ばれていましたか？ 富本銭は西暦683年にさかのぼり、1998年に発見されました。 西暦660年のムモンギンセン ムモンギンセンの硬貨は、初代神武天皇による日本国家の建国の伝説と一致しており、現代の歴史学によれば、彼は架空の人物であると考えられており、すべての伝説には本当の根拠があることを考慮に入れる必要があります。 - 歴史学と考古学的遺跡によると、この年代学でどの皇帝を見つけることができますか？天武天皇は天武天皇と天武天皇でした。これらのコインはどこで見つかりましたか？奈良県のあすか町のあすかいれ廃墟で発見されました。 - これらのコインを知っていましたか？それについてどう思いますか？あなたがそれを気に入って、次の日本の考古学の出版物であなたに会えることを願っています。 - Japanese archaeologists are welcome to a new archaeological installment, this time we will talk about the first Japanese coin back instead of the Archaeological remains and historical evidence, having said that, make yourself comfortable, we begin. - When does currency emerge in Japan? The first currency was officially born in the year 708 AD called Wadokaichin, meanwhile in other continents of the world such as China or the Middle East the currency and the first monetary systems had already been created. What was there before 708 AD? Well, there were two proto-coins, one in the year 660 AD. another in the year 683, they had taken as a model the Chinese coin of 621 AD .- What were the two coins before the 8th century AD called? Fuhonsen dates back to 683 AD and was discovered in 1998. Mumonginsen dated to 660 AD The Mumonginsen coin coincides with the legend of the foundation of the Japanese state by the first emperor Jinmu Tennō, according to modern historiography they consider him a fictitious character, it must be taken into account that all legends have a real basis. - Which emperors can we find in this chronology according to historiography and archaeological remains? The emperors were Tenji and Tenmu tennō. Where were these coins found? They were found in the Asukaile Ruins in Nara Prefecture in the town of Asuka. - Did you know these coins? What do you think about it? I hope you liked it and see you in the next Japanese archeology publication.