#is. inexcusable.

[ireneae]

kristen reidel needs to be fired for real.

[cheerioskid]

anyone up for pretty women

[severussnapemylove]

Thoughts; Snaters (and general haters) only seem to care about children being mistreated when it has something to do with Snape or a child that's established as the "bad child".

Snape says anything critical about Neville, he's the devil incarnate. McGonagall publicly ridicules Neville and leaves him stranded with a murderer on the loose. *crickets*

Snape makes a bitchy comment about Hermione's teeth, grab your torch and pitchfork. Trelawney insults Hermione repeatedly. *Crickets*

Barty turns 14yo Draco into an animal and physically beats him against the stone floor, making Draco scream in pain. Barty performs the torture and killing spells in front of children who lost their families to those spells. *Barty fans invent a fanon that has Barty being a sweet lost lamb*

Hagrid performs body modification on an 11yo Dudley, who he doesn't know and certainly has no jurisdiction over, resulting in Dudley needing corrective surgery. Fans; *Good old Hagrid*

So bullying and child endangerment is acceptable if it's by a popular character or comic relief? Physical child abuse is acceptable if it's towards a child you don't like?

So, is Snape bitchy? Yes. But the monster they like to make him out to be? Hell no. In fact, compared to what the others do, he's a freaking delight.

I know I've posted things like this before, but I just had another Snater try to pull the same arguments again and the double standards are just mind blowing and makes my blood boil.

[crowfaraday]

you are so correct, franziska will never let him forget this

[snowflake-sage]

Monthly Bean

SORRY I MISSED LIKE TWO MONTHS

[sappho-rose]

someone take the guns away from him he’s too powerful I fear

[sleepoutro]

i don't love you, like i did...

[linghxr]

Why you should watch 乘风破浪 and 披荆斩棘 to learn Chinese

What are these shows?

Both 披荆斩棘 and 乘风破浪 follow the same basic format: 30+ celebrity contestants, mostly actors and singers ages 30+, form teams and compete in singing and dancing over several rounds. Viewers vote on their favorite performances and contestants, and 1-3 contestants are eliminated each round. The top contestants form a temporary "group" and appear on a follow-up reality show.

Why you should watch

1. Exposure to different accents

Contestants come from all over the Chinese-speaking world: Dongbei, Sichuan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and even Malaysia. I can personally say that watching these shows has vastly improved my ability to understand the Hong Kong Mandarin accent.

2. Pop culture knowledge

Because the contestants are celebrities, you'll be introduced to dozens of famous actors, singers, etc. Also, you'll hear the many iconic songs that they cover. I've impressed several native speakers with my with knowledge of pop culture and music.

3. Branch out to new media

These shows serve as a gateway to Chinese music, movies, and TV. if you really like the contestants who are actors, you can check out their shows and movies. If you enjoy a certain song or like a contestant who's a singer, you can explore more music.

4. Casual and formal registers

You’ll get to hear casual, unscripted speech while watching the behind-the-scenes and rehearsal clips. But you’ll also get to hear more formal speech when they’re announcing rules and also from the MC who hosts the actual live performances.

5. Incredible talent

Also, you should watch for the awesome performances and general fun. I love seeing the contestants' friendships, and I’m also obsessed with the amazing sets. There are some incredibly talented performers on these shows, and I love getting to see them shine.

Where to watch

All seasons are free to watch on YouTube! Sometimes clips may be muted or missing, probably due to YouTube's restrictions. But the vast, vast majority is available, and when a clip is missing, you can usually do a separate search and find it. I also pay for a Mango TV subscription, which is $1.99 USD/month.

乘风破浪 full episode playlist links:

乘风破浪的姐姐1

乘风破浪的姐姐2

乘风破浪3

乘风2023

乘风2024

披荆斩棘 full episode playlist links:

披荆斩棘的哥哥1

披荆斩棘2

披荆斩棘3

披荆斩棘4

To help you get started, below is a YouTube playlist of my some of my favorite performances (5 per season, except for the most recent season of each). Cause why not! Also, below the cut I'll put more details along with direct links to my favorite performances.

And if you're a fellow fan emotionally preparing for the 披荆斩棘4 finale 🥲, feel free to message me and commiserate!

See similar posts: I watched all the Chinese idol survival shows so you don’t have to (but you should anyway) Tips for finding Chinese-language media you like

Sisters Who Make Waves

Chinese title: 乘风破浪的姐姐 (S1-2) / 乘风破浪 (S3) / 乘风 (S4-5) English title: Sisters Who Make Waves (S1-3) / Ride the Wind (S4-5) *I call it Sisters for short

This series is the original, having started in 2020. The focus was on female empowerment, particularly of women 30+. A lot of the celebrities had slowed down in their careers, and the show served as their reintroduction to audiences. While female empowerment is still a theme today, I do feel it has lessened in prominence.

Season 1

The original, iconic season. You can tell they had a limited budget and not a ton of space, but it doesn't detract at all thanks to the incredible talent and energy of the contestants. And they had no idea what a phenomenon the show was going to be! Many of my most rewatched performances come from the season.

得不到的爱情

大碗宽面

相爱后动物感伤

FLOW

新物种

Season 2

This season has a special place in my heart as the first one I watched! It's the only one I've seen twice (when it originally aired and rewatched with friends). Compared to season 1, you can definitely tell they had a bigger budget and started to refine the format. Also, some of my all-time favorite contestants are from this season.

现在不跳舞要干嘛

归零

快乐宝贝

给自己的歌

我

Season 3

This season was the first with the show's "modern" and fully-developed format, which remains to this day. For example, they started to include more complex sets and recruited more diverse contestants, such as dancers, an athlete, etc. Also, my favorite performance of the entire series, 雾里, is from this season.

雾里

梦中人

山海

孤独颂歌

有吗炒面

Season 4

This season was the first time I felt there wasn’t improvement over the previous season. I think the stage design took a step backward, and I didn't love the international focus. It was hard to identify my favorite performances because I didn't feel strongly about many. That being said, my friends and I still enjoyed this season.

从头

千里万里

下个，路口，见

归途有风

I'm Not Yours

Season 5

Though this season has already ended, I'm not done yet. I watch with friends, so we move at a slower pace. So far, it seems largely in line with season 4. I'll update this post after we finish.

Call Me By Fire

Chinese title: 披荆斩棘的哥哥 (S1) / 披荆斩棘 (S2-3) English title: Call Me By Fire *I call it Brothers as a nickname

A show about female empowerment gets a male spin off? Out of skepticism, I did not plan to check out this show when it premiered in 2021 (after Sisters S2). But at some point I changed my mind, mostly because I had to run out of other shows. Little did I know I would arguably become a more devoted fan of this show than the original!

Season 1

This season had too many iconic performances to count, and in particular, the Hong Kong contestants really took the world by storm. Due to scandals, they edited out 2 contestants (Huo Zun and Li Yundi), which admittedly does make for an awkward viewing experience at times, but you should totally watch anyway.

凄美地

MMA

飞云之下

达拉崩吧

如果还有明天

Season 2

Looking back, season 2 did not have as many stand out performances as season 1, but it does boast my favorite performances of the entire series, 新地球. It also features a fantastic group of contestants, probably my favorite overall cohort of the show.

新地球

袖手旁观

私人生活

理想

凤毛麟角

Season 3

This was the first season to air after I started watching, though I didn't watch it live because I was still on season 2. While it's probably impossible to top the iconic status of season 1, I think season 3 was an improvement over season 2 in terms of memorable performances. We also got the iconic 0713 (2007快乐男声全国13强) contestants.

行走的鱼

爱人错过

Joker

走麦田

有没有一首歌会让你想起我

Season 4

This season is sadly coming to an end, although I have not started the finale yet. I'll start this weekend and update this post in the future after I've had some time to gather my thoughts.

Now I have to go finish 披荆斩棘4 episode 11 so I can watch the finale. Bye!!!

[proshippers-against-censorship]

Not so gentle reminder that if you're standing there, and in front of you is a victim of assault and a victim of sexual assault, and when asked who went through the worse crime you point to the victim of sexual assault and not to both of them, you are a victim of Puritan values and you should really work on that.

[dunmeshistash]

I honestly don't trust anyone that sees any Dunmeshi character as a complete saint/an irredimable monster (regards to the misril situation lol)

All of them are flawed! Something I really like is that even victims of prejudice there have prejudice themselves, like Kabru himself, very true to real life.

I feel like most people nowadays prefer a black and white view so they want objective bad guys and objective good guys. That's why so many people were shocked at the comic where Falin and Laios are xenophobic even tho it makes total sense for the world they live in.

It's not really a "gotcha! your fave actually sucks!!!" they're just humans living in a very flawed world trying their best and learning to do better

[claitea]

i've had these scenarios written down since volo's debut in pokemon masters and i just really wanted to scribble them down and finally release them

[ludinusdaleth]

a brilliant setup in campaign 3 that will finally begin to come to fruition next chronological episode is that ludinus is staring into the faces of people who pretty much all directly represent his sins and how they've hurt people. imogen is the manipulation & abuse of ruidisborn (specifically liliana). fearne is also representative of ruidisborn but also the way ludinus has hunted & slaughtered fae to extend his own life, how he has manipulated their courts. laudna is the wanton unchecked cruelty of the cerberus assembly. fcg (there in spirit) is the idolization of aeor and choosing to bring what brought it down back for all of exandria to bear. ashton (and while this post is about the bells, it does extend directly to essek) is the experimentation on the luxon that started an entire war because he wouldn't turn the beacons over to a culture he despised & oppressed. orym is the decimation of the ashari for a mere test run. chetney is the corruption in the greying wildlands, the destruction of molaesmyr simply to contact predathos.

[effemar]

psuedo-medieval fantasy AU ✌️✌️✌️

everyone give it up for ronan's great kilt i had to google so many diagrams to try and figure out how they worked. also big thank you to my mom for gansey's dumb hat btw she was like 'you HAVE to keep the dumb hat'

[eosofspades]

sometimes rereading your old writing is like having a cinematic reunion with an old friend by the sea and sometimes rereading your old writing is like pulling teeth and what they don't tell you is that sometimes these are both true for the same piece of writing

[ace-and-the-rpg-horrors]

one thing i really love about the DBD fandom and was relieved to see is that people don't villainise Crystal or Niko for being close to Charles and Edwin and claim that they're "in the way" of the Payneland ship

it's an all too common way female characters get treated in fandom, and i'm glad to see that while they both had affectionate relationships with one of the boys (briefly romantic in Crystal's case, platonic in Niko's), people are normal about them

especially Crystal, i really dreaded that some of the fandom would blame her for the piss-poor way Edwin initially treated her out of his jealousy over Charles liking her, but thankfully, i haven't seen that happen myself

[storywestistrash]

watched mouthwashing finally. the fact that i saw people be more aggressive towards curly than jimmy is kinda strange. kinda real weird