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lashton-is-my-drug · 2 years ago

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Luke and Ash living together at Ash’s house during quarantine lockdown and got more serious than ever before.

Amazon Music and Spilling The Quarrantea livestreams, plus other things.

1. The food situation. Discourse back and forth between Luke and Ash of being out of food, during both livestreams.

Both talking about being out of groceries and kept bringing up fish fingers and chicken fingers/nuggets. Pretended to both go get groceries when Michael said the grocery store (Ralph's) just restocked. Ash is the first to get up and leave, fast. Luke only starts to get up to leave.

It seems like perhaps Ash is the one that does the grocery shopping. Ash is the one who says he's going to the store when he can. Luke doesn't offer that idea up. Luke seems like he was sulking because he didn't have the foods he likes. Notice how his demeanor is when they're talking about not having food, in the Quarrantea livestream. Luke even tries to make a point by asking everyone what they're having for dinner, Ash reiterates his fish fingers situation, Michael gives an answer that he hasn't even given it a thought.

2. Amazon Music livestream, Pink Floyd, Lashton listening to Pink Floyd together. Public mentions by both.

a. August 13, 2021 Pink Floyd was one of the influences for Luke’s solo album. Luke brings them up when talking about his song ‘Beautiful Dream’ (Nylon mag interview )

b. Ash worn lots of PF band tees throughout the years (incl. recent pap pics of him walking with Cal via his own twitter May 1, 2019).

c. Ash tweet using “Welcome to the Machine” businessman on fire artwork March 20, 2020.

d. During Luke’s August 2021 interview with Billboard for WFTTWTAF, “I listened to so much Pink Floyd in the past couple of years, especially [during lockdown], and was very influenced by them, particularly Dark Side of the Moon." Billboard 20 Questions interview.

e. ”Welcome to the Machine” from the “Wish You Were Here” EP to Ash’s ig story on Dec 16, 2021.

f. Ash posted a video to his ig story of Pink Floyd “Echoes” in Pompeii performance on July 20, 2022.

3. Spilling the Quarrantea - Luke saying Ash only started growing his own vegetables “10 minutes ago” (He’s clued into this small detail, Ash doesn’t argue it)

4. The only thing Luke had to say about Sierra during lockdown was that she had been making bread (so was many of the population) - not from livestreams but interesting enough to include.

5. Spilling the Quarrantea - The room Luke is in has very similar style to the room Ash is in (possibly in the same house, noteworthy)

6. Ash promo pic of Superbloom includes similar wallpaper than the wallpaper in Luke’s studio room. (same house? wallpaper shopping together?)

7. I’m suspicious that Luke’s WFTTWTAF ig live was at Ash’s house

8. Luke gets the rose tattoo (Ash has one on his arm). Fans notice in picture August 6. 2021.

9. Luke and Ash each wear the black onyx rings for Twitch stream ranking 5SOS songs (Aug 19, 2021), (Lierra engagement announced June 8, 2021 via People), so he’s engaged yet wearing a matching ring with someone else…. Ok

10. Muke isn’t real, Michael reads wattpad fanfic in front of a huge livestream of fans. A partner wouldn’t do that. Ash swooped in to save the situation by making up his own funny one about Cal.

11. Ash took the trip to the desert to go create his solo album, meanwhile Luke creates his own album back in LA. They gave each other a bit of space in their creative processes to write. Pick someone supportive.

12. Ash writes songs about lies, pain, and he’s so tortured, yet publicly he is supposedly in a happy relationship (which is whats being pushed on social media). Ash’s relationship ends lowkey sometime before his birthday but after release of album. Releases his album independently. Then, right before Luke’s album is released on a record label under Sony, there’s an engagement with the gf who is also a songwriter on his album which is being promoted in his album interviews.

13. Luke writing songs about Camellia Street and a change of heart. The narrative is it's where Sierra’s apartment was when they met, but what’s not being said is there’s actually a Camellia Street in Western Sydney where the guys are from. If he were to say that and Sierra hasn’t lived in Aus, then it leaves it open for question (who is Luke having ‘a change of heart’ with?).

14. Luke writing lyrics “Now with my eyes wide open, I’m nothing but a fake”, “I’m on my way to Wonderland, take off my suit and wander in for a moment Or hide for a lifetime”

15. Ash writes songs about lying and living in a cage (“Perfect Lie”) and lyrics such as, “I’ve been living my life but it’s not how it looks” and “Playin’ but not on the team” (“Sunshine”).

Amazon Music Livestream March 27, 2020

Link to Amazon Music livestream

The moment Ash leaves to go pee, Luke looks away from screen..

Cal remarks about Luke’s background, Ash makes a joke “that's not blurred that the clouds bro, Luke lives up in the hills.” Cal: “He doesn’t like those jokes.” Ash: “I love it! He hates them!” *continues laughing* (this reminds me of when Ash brought up the nickname “breadstick”/a>)

Ash helps Luke with figuring out how to get the chat. “You need to get it fullscreen Luke.” (Helping one another)

Luke “Ashton, where do you buy your glasses? The toilet store” Ash “No no no, Don’t encourage him! 2002 Simpsons humor!” Luke laughing (Luke dishing it back at Ash)

Ash “Luke, here’s one, you bogus!”

Ash “Heartbreak Grill” Luke “Heartbake girl” Burgers versus cookies. Ash starts to fight him on it but then lets it go.

Luke is stone faced and quiet when Ash starts talking about his ‘long lost love bodybuilder gf in high school’.

Ash’s dinner last night was 8 chicken nugs and a bag of popcorn. (In an interview, Ash said of the whole band, he’s the best cook and Luke is the worst, Ash poked fun at Luke microwaves eggs, perhaps Luke doesn’t cook much at all at home so Ash fends for himself often. Also, if Ash supposedly has a gf why didn’t she help figure out food?)

Ash: “Here's a good comment. Luke speak, I want to hear your voice” (Very smooth Ash. Ash has spoken a lot in interviews about how much he loves Luke’s voice. A couple of examples: backstage 2018 ARIAS Seconds of Summer: Backstage at ARIAs 2018 (5SOS Uncut), promo interview for Superbloom )

Ash: “Do you mind if I go upstairs and make a sandwich and be back in 20 mins?” Luke: “a chicken nuggets sandwich?” (the ongoing references to chicken nuggets/fish fingers, they are sharing a freezer/fridge)

Ash chooses a comment asking to sing Pink Floyd, Ash impromptu singing “Wish You Were Here”. “Uh! I’ve got that one!” * Luke immediately picks the guitar back up and starts playing a couple chords with a grin on his face*

(44:00) Luke has heart eyes and touches his eye with his hand, when Ash ends the story he wrote to redirect attention of livestream from the super uncomfortable wattpad Luke romance fanfic that Michael reads.

(48:50) Ash reads a “worst” comment to sing Lady Gaga but yet starts singing “Perfect Illusion”.

(about 50:00) Randomly Ash says “You’re telling me, you’ve seen a million faces and you’ve rocked them all?” *Luke laughs* A lyric of one of Luke’s longtime favorite bands Bon Jovi. Again, Luke picks up guitar then plays a few notes of “Dead or Alive”.

(about 52:00) Ash reads a comment to listen to “Toxic” by Britney Spears. Ash then dances to it. Luke with huge grin on his face, bopping his head.

(about 57:30) Ash reads a comment for Luke to sing SLSP. Luke picks up guitar and starts playing. Ash “that rocked, that rocked my world”

(about 1:00:00) Fun fact: Empty Wallets was the first single they wanted to release off of Youngblood. (Lashton song, but that’s for a different day.)

(about 1:00:00) Ash “Here’s one. ‘Luke sing “Single Ladies” by Beyonce.’ I want to see that.” starts singing “put your hands up”

(about 1:02:00) Luke compliments Ash doing low screams, then says he can do the low screams and Luke can do the high screams.

(about 1:04:00) Ash “I like this comment. ‘This is what real men vibe to.’ Damn right. That’s… thats true” *smiles* Luke: “Damn straight”

Over the course of the livestream, Ash reads out comments to read Britney Spears, Lady Gaga, Beyonce.

Spilling the Quarrantea April 20, 2020

Link to Spilling the Quarrantea livestream

Luke and Ash both say that they are low on food, then when Michael says Ralph’s just restocked they both pretend to go together. Ash keeps repeating he only had fish fingers to eat, and Luke saying deflatedly that he has nothing left. When they get back into frame, Luke picks a quarrel by saying he bought all of the fish fingers so he can’t have any. Ash “I’m already down to my last groceries” Luke “Yeah I’ve got nothing left.” It’s brought up again later on. Ash “I just ate my last bag of fish fingers” Luke “yeah I’ve got no, I’ve got no food. I just ate my last chicken fingers.”” Luke brings up “what are you guys having for dinner?” Ash “I ate my fish fingers until I brave the outside world.” *Luke’s small awkward laugh*

Ash: “How was Ralph’s?” Luke: “Ralph’s was good. I bought all the fish fingers and there’s none left for you”

Luke and Ash being in sync so much they both turn to the side and lean down at the same time, at the end.

Ash makes a joke about Petunia being Luke’s roommate. Notice how much Luke and Ash are making jokes and ganging up on Cal and/or Michael.

Right at the beginning, Ash starts pretty much serenading Luke by playing the guitar and singing “Hey Carissa” to him.

Luke starts singing “Come come with a kick drum and a gary” and Ash is the only one that immediately starts clapping along.

Cal asks what they’ve been up to, that he hasn't seen them for two weeks, and Luke jokes about finishing the 5th album. Luke and Ash: “Gotta hit’em with a two hit wonder”, they both start shadowboxing.

Luke and Ash gang up on Cal about his outfit being a surf culture company. (Mind you, they themselves have been spotted before wearing the same company). Luke and Ash are losing their shit laughing.

Ash says “this is gotta be x rated, x rated, parental guidance rating for that fringe” when Luke’s bangs are in front of his headphones. Luke and Ash smirk and laugh.

Luke: I was trying to get the lighting right, does it look better or worse?” Ash “guess so, guess so” Luke: “It's hard to get lighting right” *Ash laughing* Ash “So hard” more laughing while Luke then pouts. (Luke has a pattern, since they’ve known each other, of pouting and fake crying to Ash, if he wants to get his way or feels like he’s let him down.)

Luke is asked “What have you been up to?” Luke: “I’ve been growing this beard, dyed my hair for a music video that didn’t happen” Ash flamboyantly says “you look amaaaaazing”.

Luke does a move with his hands thinking it was a move for the music video for “Lost Boy”. Luke: “That's that video we did this thing.” Ash: *agrees softly to him* (a music video doesn’t exist for “Lost Boy”.)

Ash remembers Luke’s mom's tuna bake “that shit was good”. Luke jokes: “sounds like you're gonna make a your momma joke” Ash: “it was good” (a memory involving Luke’s mom is something that Ash recalls from their time in London, of which all the guys were just saying they don’t remember anything from then.)

Luke and Ash having their own conversation about Ash shaving his head for the album promo. Which then leads to joking about host mode. Luke bullies Ash about asking Michael about his least favorite song on the first album, Ash fondly laughs.

Ash tries again to get Luke to go into host mode, but then Luke tries to put it onto Michael to host.

At about the 26:00 mark, Luke and Ash are mirroring each other's head tilts.

“The Girl Who Cried Wolf” Luke and Ash copy each other’s “it's just lies!”

Ash “When do you think we’ll be able to see each other again.” Luke gets quiet with a serious look on his face and puts hand in front of his mouth.

(35:00) Ash and Luke mirroring touching the forehead.

Luke bursts out laughing when Ash puts the Ikea site on screen. (Luke finds Ash hilarious for everything istg, it's adorable don't get me wrong)

After the Ikea site, the first google search Ash does is “luke hemmings worst moments” then “luke hemmings net worth”. (Luke is first in Ash’s mind)

Ash mimicking Petunia’s zoned out face.

Ash “wow your roommate’s so hot, whats her name? Patrice?”, when Luke turns around to see Petunia, Ash does the same exact maneuver. Mirroring.

Luke does the “I love you” hand sign, and Ash says “I love you man”.

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shoujoseiclub · 10 months ago

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The New Rose of Versailles Anime: At What Cost?

Clips of the new Rose of Versailles anime made by MAPPA are beautiful, but it leaves a rancid taste when the very same company is known for working their staff like machines (read: AOT staff) and destroying the livelihood of women in the industry.

Yes, I refer to their prime example of fumbling Yuri on Ice until it may never see the light of day again. Their first ‘big’ production headed by Yamamoto Sayo which put them on the map for further opportunities.

After that, we see some more queer anime from MAPPA after their great success: Banana Fish and Zombieland Saga.

They even go one step further to make a sub studio Grizzly, which released Yarichin Bitch Club. It was headed under the Yuri on Ice producer, Fuko Noda, who eventually left (probably due to how awful the YOI situation was).

Wait, why am I mentioning this?

It’s important to note that in Japan, BL is considered under the female demographic. This is because BL breaks the social norms and explores topics less discussed.

https://savvytokyo.com/boys-love-the-genre-that-liberates-japanese-women-to-create-a-world-of-their-own/

This is also how the modern shoujo works became what it was today. In the 1950s, shoujo was a genre created mostly by men. Most stories were of tragic and passive heroines who bravely endured hardships.

Mangaka would publish shoujo in training for shounen manga. The genre was rarely mentioned in articles and considered sub-par to shounen.

Gradually, this began to change in the 60s but shoujo really ushered in a golden age in the 70s, spearheaded by the Magnificent 49ers group. (Showa 24)

Magnificent 49ers or refers to a group of female mangaka born around 1949, in the 24th year of Showa. They wrested control away from men through popular and appealing works that define shoujo today.

Amongst them are Hagio Moto, considered the founding mother of shoujo, Oshima Yumiko, Takemiya Keiko and Ikeda Riyoko, the mangaka of Rose of Versailles.

Now we’ve reached the meat of the plot, with such a history it does a great disservice to have an inhumane company like MAPPA which disregards women and the demographic to represent Rose of Versailles.

The manga itself is about characters which defy social norms and questions their expected identities. How can a studio, which axed all its queer shows and silenced their staff with NDAs be a good fit for a story which contradicts MAPPA?

After disappointing and clowning their female fan base since 2016, MAPPA is now trying to pander to the shoujo fandom again.

They see us as disposable commodities, cash cows to throw away when it gets hard. Please don’t let them, don’t support MAPPA in any way and pirate if you really want to watch it.

#shojo #shoujo #rose of versailles #riyoko ikeda #year 24 group #mappa #history #literature #yuri on ice #anime #manga

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potteresque-ire · 4 years ago

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Can you talk more about the usage of the word "wife" to talk about men in the BL context? I've noticed it in BJYX (particularly with GG), in the (English translations) of MDZS, and then it came up in your recent posts about Danmei-101 (which were super helpful btw) with articles connecting the "little fresh meat" type to fans calling an actor "wife." My initial reaction as a westerner is like "this is very problematic," but I think I'm missing a lot of language/cultural context. Any thoughts?

Hello! First of all, for those who’re interested, here’s a link to the referred posts. Under the cut is arguably the 4th post of the series. As usual, I apologise for the length!

(Topics: seme and uke; more about “leftover women”; roster of feminisation terms; Daji, Bao Si & the origin of BJYX; roster of beautiful, ancient Chinese men; Chairman Mao (not part of the roster) ...)

[TW: feminisation of men]

In the traditional BL characterisation, the M/M (double male) lead pairing is essentially a cis-het relationship in disguise, in which one of the M leads is viewed as the “wife” by the creator and audience. This lead often possesses some of the features of the traditional, stereotypical female, but retaining his male appearance.

In BL terms, the “wife” is the “uke”. “Seme” and “uke” are the respective roles taken by the two male leads, and designated by the creator of the material. Literally, “seme” (攻め) means the dominant, the attacking / aggressive partner in the relationship and “uke” (受け), the passive / recipient (of actions) partner who tends to follow the seme’s lead. The terms themselves do not have any sexual / gender context. However, as male and female are viewed as aggressive and passive by their traditional social roles, and the attacker and recipient by their traditional sexual roles respectively, BL fandoms have long assigned uke, the passive, sexual “bottom”, as the “woman”, the “wife”.

Danmei has kept this “semi” and uke” tradition from BL, taking the kanji of the Japanese terms for designation ~ 攻 (”attack” is therefore the “husband”, and 受 (”receive”), the “wife”. The designations are often specified in the introduction / summary of Danmei works as warning / enticement. For MDZS, for example, MXTX wrote:

高貴冷豔悶騷攻 × 邪魅狂狷風騷受

高貴冷豔悶騷攻 = noble, coolly beautiful and boring seme (referring to LWJ) 邪魅狂狷風騷受 = devilishly charming, wild, and flirty uke (referring to WWX)

The traditional, stereotypical female traits given to the “uke”, the “wife” in Danmei and their associated fanworks range from their personality to behaviour to even biological functions. Those who have read the sex scenes in MDZS may be aware of their lack of mention of lube, while WWX was written as getting (very) wet from fluids from his colon (腸道) ~ implying that his colon, much like a vagina, was supplying the necessarily lubrication for sex. This is obviously biologically inaccurate; however, Danmei is exempt from having to be realistic by its original Tanbi definition. The genre’s primary audience is cishet females, and sex scenes such as this one aren’t aiming for realism. Rather, the primary goal of these sex scenes is to generate fantasy, and the purpose of the biologically female functions in one of the leads (WWX) is to ease the readers into imagining themselves as the one engaging in the sex.

Indeed, these practices of assigning as males and female the M/M sexual top and bottom, of emphasising of who is the top and who is the bottom, have been falling out of favour in Western slash fandoms ~ I joined fandom about 15 years ago, and top and bottom designations in slash pairings (and fights about them) were much more common than it is now. The generally more open, more progressive environments in which Western fandomers are immersed in probably have something to do with it: they transfer their RL knowledge, their views on biology, on different social into their fandom works and discourses.

I’d venture to say this: in the English-speaking fandoms, fandom values and mainstream values are converging. “Cancel culture” reflects an attempt to enforce RL values in the fictional worlds in fandom. Fandom culture is slowly, but surely, leaving its subculture status and becoming part of mainstream culture.

I’d hesitate to call c-Danmei fandoms backward compared to Western slash for this reason. There’s little hope for Danmei to converge with China’s mainstream culture in the short term ~ the necessity of replacing Danmei with Dangai in visual media already reflects that. Danmei is and will likely remain subculture in the foreseeable future, and subcultures, at heart, are protests against the mainstream. Unless China and the West define “mainstream” very similarly (and they don’t), it is difficult to compare the “progressiveness”—and its dark side, the “problematic-ness”—of the protests, which are shaped by what they’re protesting against. The “shaper” in this scenario, the mainstream values and culture, are also far more forceful under China’s authoritarian government than they are in the free(-er) world.

Danmei, therefore, necessarily takes on a different form in China than BL or slash outside China. As a creative pursuit, it serves to fulfil psychological needs that are reflective of its surrounding culture and sociopolitical environment. The genre’s “problematic” / out of place aspects in the eyes of Western fandoms are therefore, like all other aspects of the genre, tailor-made by its millions of fans to be comforting / cathartic for the unique culture and sociopolitical background it and they find themselves in.

I briefly detoured to talk about the Chinese government’s campaign to pressure young, educated Chinese women into matrimony and motherhood in the post for this reason, as it is an example of how, despite Western fandoms’ progressiveness, they may be inadequate, distant for c-Danmei fans. Again, this article is a short and a ... morbidly-entertaining read on what has been said about China’s “leftover women” (剩女) — women who are unmarried and over 27-years-old). I talked about it, because “Women should enter marriage and parenthood in their late 20s” may no longer a mainstream value in many Western societies, but where it still is, it exerts a strong influence on how women view romance, and by extension, how they interact with romantic fiction, including Danmei.

In China, this influence is made even stronger by the fact that Chinese tradition places a strong emphasis on education and holds a conservative attitude towards romance and sex. Dating while studying therefore remains discouraged in many Chinese families. University-educated Chinese women therefore have an extremely short time frame — between graduation (~23 years old) and their 27th birthday — to find “the right one” and get married, before they are labelled as “leftovers” and deemed undesirable. (Saving) face being an important aspect in Chinese culture introduces yet another layer of pressure: traditionally, women who don’t get married by the age agreed by social norms have been viewed as failures of upbringing, in that the unmarried women’s parents not having taught/trained their daughters well. Filial, unmarried women therefore try to get married “on time” just to avoid bringing shame to their family.

The outcome is this: despite the strong women characters we may see in Chinese visual media, many young Chinese women nowadays do not expect themselves to be able to marry for love. Below, I offer a “book jacket summary” of a popular internet novel in China, which shows how the associated despair also affects cis-het fictional romance. Book reviews praise this novel for being “boring”: the man and woman leads are both common working class people, the “you-and-I”’s; the mundaneness of them trying build their careers and their love life is lit by one shining light: he loves her and she loves him.

Written in her POV, this summary reflects, perhaps, the disquiet felt by many contemporary Chinese women university graduates:

曾經以為，自己這輩子都等不到了—— 世界這麼大，我又走得這麼慢，要是遇不到良人要怎麼辦？早過了「全球三十幾億男人，中國七億男人，天涯��處無芳草」的猖狂歲月，越來越清楚，循規蹈矩的生活中，我們能熟悉進而深交的異性實在太有限了，有限到我都做好了「接受他人的牽線，找個適合的男人慢慢煨熟，再平淡無奇地進入婚姻」的準備，卻在生命意外的拐彎處迎來自己的另一半。

I once thought, my wait will never come to fruition for the rest of my life — the world is so big, I’m so slow in treading it, what if I’ll never meet the one? I’ve long passed the wild days of thinking “3 billion men exist on Earth, 0.7 of which are Chinese. There is plenty more fish in the sea.” I’m seeing, with increasing clarity, that in our disciplined lives, the number of opposite-sex we can get to know, and get to know well, is so limited. It’s so limited that I’m prepared to accept someone’s matchmaking, find a suitable man and slowly, slowly, warm up to him, and then, to enter marriage with without excitement, without wonder. But then, an accidental turn in my life welcomes in my other half.

— Oath of Love (餘生，請多指教) (Yes, this is the novel Gg’d upcoming drama is based on.)

Heteronormativity is, of course, very real in China. However, that hasn’t exempted Chinese women, even its large cis-het population, from having their freedom to pursue their true love taken away from them. Even for cis-het relationships, being able to marry for love has become a fantasy —a fantasy scorned by the state. Remember this quote from Article O3 in the original post?

耽改故事大多远离现实，有些年轻受众却将其与生活混为一谈，产生不以结婚和繁衍为目的才是真爱之类的偏颇认知。

Most Dangai stories are far removed from reality; some young audience nonetheless mix them up with real life, develop biased understanding such as “only love that doesn’t treat matrimony and reproduction as destinations is true love”.

I didn’t focus on it in the previous posts, in an effort to keep the discussion on topic. But why did the op-ed piece pick this as an example of fantasy-that-shouldn’t-be-mixed-up-with-real-life, in the middle of a discussion about perceived femininity of men that actually has little to do with matrimony and reproduction?

Because the whole point behind the state’s “leftover women” campaign is precisely to get women to treat matrimony and reproduction as destinations, not beautiful sceneries that happen along the way. And they’re the state’s destination as more children = higher birth rate that leads to higher future productivity. The article is therefore calling out Danmei for challenging this “mainstream value”.

Therefore, while the statement True love doesn’t treat matrimony and reproduction as destinations may be trite for many of us while it may be a point few, if any, English-speaking fandoms may pay attention to, to the mainstream culture Danmei lives in, to the mainstream values dictated by the state, it is borderline subversive.

As much as Danmei may appear “tame” for its emphasis on beauty and romance, for it to have stood for so long, so firmly against China’s (very) forceful mainstream culture, the genre is also fundamentally rebellious. Remember: Danmei has little hope of converging with China’s mainstream unless it “sells its soul” and removes its homoerotic elements.

With rebelliousness, too, comes a bit of tongue-in-cheek.

And so, when c-Danmei fans, most of whom being cishet women who interact with the genre by its traditional BL definition, call one of the leads 老婆 (wife), it can and often take on a different flavour. As said before, it can be less about feminizing the lead than about identifying with the lead. The nickname 老婆 (wife) can be less about being disrespectful and more about humorously expressing an aspiration—the aspiration to have a husband who truly loves them, who they do want to get married and have babies with but out of freedom and not obligation.

Admittedly, I had been confused, and bothered by these “can-be”s myself. Just because there are alternate reasons for the feminisation to happen doesn’t mean the feminisation itself is excusable. But why the feminisation of M/M leads doesn’t sound as awful to me in Chinese as in English? How can calling a self-identified man 老婆 (wife) get away with not sounding being predominantly disrespectful to my ears, when I would’ve frowned at the same thing said in my vicinity in English?

I had an old hypothesis: when I was little, it was common to hear people calling acquaintances in Chinese by their unflattering traits: “Deaf-Eared Chan” (Mr Chan, who’s deaf), “Fat Old Woman Lan” (Ah-Lan, who’s an overweight woman) etc—and the acquaintances were perfectly at ease with such identifications, even introducing themselves to strangers that way. Comparatively speaking then, 老婆 (wife) is harmless, even endearing.

老婆, which literally means “old old-lady” (implying wife = the woman one gets old with), first became popularised as a colloquial, casual way of calling “wife” in Hong Kong and its Cantonese dialect, despite the term itself being about 1,500 years old. As older generations of Chinese were usually very shy about talking about their love lives, those who couldn’t help themselves and regularly spoke of their 老婆 tended to be those who loved their wives in my memory. 老婆, as a term, probably became endearing to me that way.

Maybe this is why the feminisation of M/M leads didn’t sound so bad to me?

This hypothesis was inadequate, however. This custom of identifying people by their (unflattering) traits has been diminishing in Hong Kong and China, for similar reasons it has been considered inappropriate in the West.

Also, 老婆 (wife) is not the only term used for / associated with feminisation. I’ve tried to limit the discussion to Danmei, the fictional genre; now, I’ll jump to its associated RPS genre, and specifically, the YiZhan fandoms. The purpose of this jump: with real people involved, feminisation’s effect is potentially more harmful, more acute. Easier to feel.

YiZhan fans predominantly entered the fandoms through The Untamed, and they’ve also transferred Danmei’s “seme”/“uke” customs into YiZhan. There are, therefore, three c-YiZhan fandoms:

博君一肖 (BJYX): seme Dd, uke Gg 戰山為王 (ZSWW): seme Gg, uke Dd 連瑣反應 (LSFY): riba Gg and Dd. Riba = “reversible”, and unlike “seme” and “uke”, is a frequently-used term in the Japanese gay community.

BJYX is by far the largest of the three, likely due to Gg having played WWX, the “uke” in MDZS / TU. I’ll therefore focus on this fandom, ie. Gg is the “uke”, the “wife”.

For Gg alone, I’ve seen him being also referred to by YiZhan fans as (and this is far from a complete list):

* 姐姐 (sister) * 嫂子 (wife of elder brother; Dd being the elder brother implied) * 妃妃 (based on the very first YiZhan CP name, 太妃糖 Toffee Candy, a portmanteau of sorts from Dd being the 太子 “prince” of his management company and Gg being the prince’s wife, 太子妃. 糖 = “candy”. 太妃 sounds like toffee in English and has been used as the latter’s Chinese translation.) * 美人 (beauty, as in 肖美人 “Beauty Xiao”) * Daji 妲己 (as in 肖妲己, “Daji Xiao”).

The last one needs historical context, which will also become important for explaining the new hypothesis I have.

Daji was a consort who lived three thousand years ago, whose beauty was blamed for the fall of the Shang dynasty. Gg (and men sharing similar traits, who are exceptionally rare) has been compared to Daji 妲己 for his alternatively innocent, alternatively seductive beauty ~ the kind of beauty that, in Chinese historical texts and folk lores, lead to the fall of kingdoms when possessed by the king’s beloved woman. This kind of “I-get-to-ruin-her-virginity”, “she’s a slut in MY bedroom” beauty is, of course, a stereotypical fantasy for many (cis-het) men, which included the authors of these historical texts and folklores. However, it also contained some truth: the purity / innocence, the image of a virgin, was required for an ancient woman to be chosen as a consort; the seduction, meanwhile, helped her to become the top consort, and monopolise the attention of kings and emperors who often had hundreds of wives ~ wives who often put each other in danger to eliminate competition.

Nowadays, women of tremendous beauty are still referred to by the Chinese idiom 傾國傾城, literally, ”falling countries, falling cities”. The beauty is also implied to be natural, expressed in a can’t-help-itself way, perhaps reflecting the fact that the ancient beauties on which this idiom has been used couldn’t possibly have plastic surgeries, and most of them didn’t meet a good end ~ that they had to pay a price for their beauty, and often, with their lowly status as women, as consorts, they didn’t get to choose whether they wanted to pay this price or not. This adjective is considered to be very flattering. Gg’s famous smile from the Thailand Fanmeet has been described, praised as 傾城一笑: “a smile that topples a city”.

I’m explaining Daji and 傾國傾城 because the Chinese idiom 博君一笑 “doing anything to get a smile from you”, from which the ship’s name BJYX 博君一肖 was derived (笑 and 肖 are both pronounced “xiao”), is connected to yet another of such dynasty-falling beauty, Bao Si 褒姒. Like Daji before her, Bao Si was blamed for the end of the Zhou Dynasty in 771 BC.

The legend went like this: Bao Si was melancholic, and to get her to smile, her king lit warning beacons and got his nobles to rush in from the nearby vassal states with their armies to come and rescue him, despite not being in actual danger. The nobles, in their haste, looked so frantic and dishevelled that Bao Si found it funny and smiled. Longing to see more of the smile of his favourite woman, the king would fool his nobles again and again, until his nobles no longer heeded the warning beacons when an actual rebellion came.

What the king did has been described as 博紅顏一笑, with 紅顏 (”red/flushed face”) meaning a beautiful woman, referring to Bao Si. Replace 紅顏 with the respectful “you”, 君, we get 博君一笑. If one searches the origin of the phrase 博 [fill_in_the_blank]一笑 online, Bao Si’s story shows up.

The “anything” in ”doing anything to get a smile from you” in 博君一笑, therefore, is not any favour, but something as momentous as giving away one’s own kingdom. c-turtles have remarked, to their amusement and admittedly mine, that “king”, in Chinese, is written as 王, which is Dd’s surname, and very occasionally, they jokingly compare him to the hopeless kings who’d give away everything for their love. Much like 傾國傾城 has become a flattering idiom despite the negative reputations of Daji and Bao Si for their “men-ruining ways”, 博君一笑 has become a flattering phrase, emphasising on the devotion and love rather than the ... stupidity behind the smile-inducing acts.

(Bao Si’s story, BTW, was a lie made up by historians who also lived later but also thousands of years ago, to absolve the uselessness of the king. Warning beacons didn’t exist at her time.)

Gg is arguably feminized even in his CP’s name. Gg’s feminisation is everywhere.

And here comes my confession time ~ I’ve been amused by most of the feminisation terms above. 肖妲己 (”Daji Xiao”) captures my imagination, and I remain quite partial to the CP name BJYX. Somehow, there’s something ... somewhat forgivable when the feminisation is based on Gg’s beauty, especially in the context of the historical Danmei / Dangai setting of MDZS/TU ~ something that, while doesn’t cancel, dampens the “problematic-ness” of the gender mis-identification.

What, exactly, is this something?

Here’s my new hypothesis, and hopefully I’ll manage to explain it well ~

The hypothesis is this: the unisex beauty standard for historical Chinese men and women, which is also breathtakingly similar to the modern beauty standard for Chinese women, makes feminisation in the context of Danmei (especially historical Danmei) flattering, and easier to accept.

What defined beauty in historical Chinese men? If I am to create a classically beautiful Chinese man for my new historical Danmei, how would I describe him based on what I’ve read, my cultural knowledge?

Here’s a list:

* Skin fair and smooth as white jade * Thin, even frail; narrow/slanted shoulders; tall * Dark irises and bright, starry eyes * Not too dense, neat eyebrows that are shaped like swords ~ pointed slightly upwards from the center towards the sides of the face * Depending on the dynasty, nice makeup.

Imagine these traits. How “macho” are they? How much do they fit the ideal Chinese masculine beauty advertised by Chinese government, which looks like below?

Propaganda poster, 1969. The caption says “Defeat Imperialist US! Defeat Social Imperialism!” The book’s name is “Quotations from Mao Zedong”. (Source)

Where did that list of traits I’ve written com from? Fair like jade, frail ... why are they so far from the ... “macho”ness of the men in the poster?

What has Chinese history said about its beautiful men?

Wei Jie (衛玠 286-312 BCE), one of the four most beautiful ancient Chinese men (古代四大美男) recorded in Chinese history famously passed away when fans of his beauty gathered and formed a wall around him, blocking his way. History recorded Wei as being frail with chronic illness, and was only 27 years old when he died. Arguably the first historical account of “crazy fans killing their idol”, this incident left the idiom 看殺衛玠 ~ “Wei Jie being watched to death.” ~ a not very “macho” way to die at all.

潘安 (Pan An; 247-300 BCE), another one of the four most beautiful ancient Chinese men, also had hoards of fangirls, who threw fruits and flowers at him whenever he ventured outside. The Chinese idiom 擲果盈車 “thrown fruit filling a cart” was based on Pan and ... his fandom, and denotes such scenarios of men being so beautiful that women openly displayed their affections for them.

Meanwhile, when Pan went out with his equally beautiful male friend, 夏侯湛 Xiahou Zhan, folks around them called them 連璧 ~ two connected pieces of perfect jade. Chinese Jade is white, smooth, faintly glowing in light, so delicate that it gives the impression of being somewhat transparent.

Aren’t Wei Jie and Pan An reminiscent of modern day Chinese idols, the “effeminate” “Little Fresh Meat”s (小鲜肉) so panned by Article O3? Their stories, BTW, also elucidated the historical reference in LWJ’s description of being jade-like in MDZS, and in WWX and LWJ being thrown pippas along the Gusu river bank.

Danmei, therefore, didn’t create a trend of androgynous beauty in men as much as it has borrowed the ancient, traditional definition of masculine Chinese beauty ~ the beauty that was more feminine than masculine by modern standards.

[Perhaps, CPs should be renamed 連璧 (”two connected pieces of perfect jade”) as a reminder of the aesthetics’ historical roots.]

Someone may exclaim now: But. But!! Yet another one of the four most beautiful ancient Chinese men, 高長恭 (Gao Changgong, 541-573 BCE), far better known by his title, 蘭陵王 (”the Prince of Lanling”), was a famous general. He had to be “macho”, right?

... As it turns out, not at all. Historical texts have described Gao as “貌柔心壮，音容兼美” (”soft in looks and strong at heart, beautiful face and voice”), “白美類婦人” (”fair and beautiful as a woman”), “貌若婦人” (”face like a woman”). Legends have it that The Prince of Lanling’s beauty was so soft, so lacking in authority that he had to wear a savage mask to get his soldiers to listen to his command (and win) on the battlefield (《樂府雜錄》: 以其顏貌無威，每入陣即著面具，後乃百戰百勝).

This should be emphasised: Gao’s explicitly feminine descriptions were recorded in historical texts as arguments *for* his beauty. Authors of these texts, therefore, didn’t view the feminisation as insult. In fact, they used the feminisation to drive the point home, to convince their readers that men like the Prince of Lanling were truly, absolutely good looking.

Being beautiful like a women was therefore high praise for men in, at least, significant periods in Chinese history ~ periods long and important enough for these records to survive until today. Beauty, and so it goes, had once been largely free of distinctions between the masculine and feminine.

One more example of an image of an ancient Chinese male beauty being similar to its female counterpart, because the history nerd in me finds this fun.

何晏 (He Yan, ?-249 BCE) lived in the Wei Jin era (between 2nd to 4th century), during which makeup was really en vogue. Known for his beauty, he was also famous for his love of grooming himself. The emperor, convinced that He Yan’s very fair skin was from the powder he was wearing, gave He Yan some very hot foods to eat in the middle of the summer. He Yan began to sweat, had to wipe himself with his sleeves and in the process, revealed to the emperor that his fair beauty was 100% natural ~ his skin glowed even more with the cosmetics removed (《世說新語·容止第十四》: 何平叔美姿儀，面至白。魏明帝疑其傅粉，正夏月，與熱湯餅。既啖，大汗出，以朱衣自拭，色轉皎然). His kick-cosmetics’-ass fairness won him the nickname 傅粉何郎 (”powder-wearing Mr He”).

Not only would He Yan very likely be mistaken as a woman if this scene is transferred to a modern setting, but this scene can very well fit inside a Danmei story of the 21st century and is very, very likely to get axed by the Chinese censorship board for its visualisation.

[Important observation from this anecdote: the emperor was totally into this trend too.]

The adjectives and phrases used above to describe these beautiful ancient Chinese men ~ 貌柔, 音容兼美, 白美, 美姿儀, 皎然 ~ have all become pretty much reserved for describing beauty in women nowadays. Beauty standards in ancient China were, as mentioned before, had gone through significantly long periods in which they were largely genderless. The character for beauty 美 (also in Danmei, 耽美) used to have little to no gender association. Free of gender associations as well were the names of many flowers. The characters for orchid (蘭) and lotus (蓮), for example, were commonly found in men’s names as late as the Republican era (early 20th century), but are now almost exclusively found in women’s names. Both orchid and lotus have historically been used to indicate 君子 (junzi, roughly, “gentlemen”), which have always been men. MDZS also has an example of a man named after a flower: Jin Ling’s courtesy name, given to him by WWX, was 如蘭 (”like an orchid”).

A related question may be this: why does ancient China associate beauty with fairness, with softness, with frailty? Likely, because Confucianist philosophy and customs put a heavy emphasis on scholarship ~ and scholars have mostly consisted of soft-spoken, not muscular, not working-under-the-sun type of men. More importantly, Confucianist scholars also occupied powerful government positions. Being, and looking like a Confucianist scholar was therefore associated with status. Indeed, it’s very difficult to look like jade when one was a farmer or a soldier, for example, who constantly had to toil under the sun, whose skin was constantly being dried and roughened by the elements. Having what are viewed as “macho” beauty traits as in the poster above ~ tanned skin, bulging muscles, bony structures (which also take away the jade’s smoothness) ~ were associated with hard labour, poverty and famine.

Along that line, 手無縛雞之力 (“hands without the strength to restrain a chicken”) has long been a phrase used to describe ancient scholars and students, and without scorn or derision. Love stories of old, which often centred around scholars were, accordingly, largely devoid of the plot lines of husbands physically protecting the wives, performing the equivalent of climbing up castle walls and fighting dragons etc. Instead, the faithful husbands wrote poems, combed their wife’s hair, traced their wife’s eyebrows with cosmetics (畫眉)...all activities that didn’t require much physical strength, and many of which are considered “feminine” nowadays.

Were there periods in Chinese history in which more ... sporty men and women were appreciated? Yes. the Tang dynasty, for example, and the Yuan and Qing dynasties. The Tang dynasty, as a very powerful, very open era in Chinese history, was known for its relations to the West (via the Silk Road). The Yuan and Qing dynasties, meanwhile, were established by Mongolians and Manchus respectively, who, as non-Han people, had not been under the influence of Confucian culture and grew up on horsebacks, rather than in schools.

The idea that beautiful Chinese men should have “macho” attributes was, therefore, largely a consequence of non-Han-Chinese influence, especially after early 20th century. That was when the characters for beauty (美), orchid (蘭), lotus (蓮) etc began their ... feminisation. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which started its reign of the country starting 1949, also has foreign roots, being a derivative of the Soviets, and its portrayal of ideal men has been based on the party’s ideology, painting them as members of the People’s Liberation Army (Chinese army) and its two major proletariat classes, farmers and industrial workers ~ all occupations that are “macho” in their aesthetics, but held at very poor esteem in ancient Chinese societies. All occupations that, to this day, may be hailed as noble by Chinese women, but not really deemed attractive by them.

Beauty, being an instinct, is perhaps much more resistant to propaganda.

If anything, the three terms Article O3 used to describe “effeminate” men ~ 奶油小生 “cream young men” (popularised in 1980s) , 花美男 “flowery beautiful men” (early 2000s), 小鲜肉 “little fresh meat” (coined in 2014 and still popular now) ~ only informs me how incredibly consistent the modern Chinese women’s view of ideal male beauty has been. It’s the same beauty the Chinese Communist Party has called feminine. It’s the same beauty found in Danmei. It’s the same beauty that, when witnessed in men in ancient China, was so revered that historians recorded it for their descendants to remember. It doesn’t mean there aren’t any women who appreciate the "macho” type ~ it’s just that, the appreciation for the non-macho type has never really gone out of fashion, never really changed. The only thing that is really changing is the name of the type, the name’s positive or negative connotations.

(Personally, I’m far more uncomfortable with the name “Little fresh meat” (小鲜肉) than 老婆 (wife). I find it much more insulting.)

Anyway, what I’d like to say is this: feminisation in Danmei ~ a genre that, by definition, is hyper-focused on aesthetics ~ may not be as "problematic” in Chinese as it is in English, because the Chinese tradition didn’t make that much of a differentiation between masculine and feminine beauty. Once again, this isn’t to say such mis-gendering isn’t disrespectful; it’s just that, perhaps, it is less disrespectful because Chinese still retains a cultural memory in which equating a beautiful man to a beautiful woman was the utmost flattery.

I must put a disclaimer here: I cannot vouch for this being true for the general Chinese population. This is something that is buried deep enough inside me that it took a lot of thought for me to tease out, to articulate. More importantly, while I grow up in a Chinese-speaking environment, I’ve never lived inside China. My history knowledge, while isn’t shabby, hasn’t been filtered through the state education system.

I’d also like to point out as well, along this line of thought, that in *certain* (definitely not all) aspects, Chinese society isn’t as sexist as the West. While historically, China has periods of extreme sexism against women, with the final dynasties of Ming and Qing being examples, I must (reluctantly) acknowledge Chairman Mao for significantly lifting the status of women during his rule. Here’s a famous quote of his from 1955:

婦女能頂半邊天 Women can lift half the skies

The first marriage code, passed in 1950, outlawed forced marriages, polygamy, and ensured equal rights between husband and wife. For the first time in centuries, women were encouraged to go outside of their homes and work. Men resisted at first, wanting to keep their wives at home; women who did work were judged poorly for their performance and given less than 50% of men’s wage, which further fuelled the men’s resistance. Mao said the above quote after a commune in Guizhou introduced the “same-work-same-wage” system to increase its productivity, and he asked for the same system to to be replicated across the country. (Source)

When Chairman Mao wanted something, it happened. Today, Chinese women’s contribution to the country’s GDP remains among the highest in the world. They make up more than half of the country’s top-scoring students. They’re the dominant gender in universities, in the ranks of local employees of international corporations in the Shanghai and Beijing central business districts—among the most sought after jobs in the country. While the inequality between men and women in the workplace is no where near wiped out — stories about women having to sleep with higher-ups to climb the career ladder, or even get their PhDs are not unheard of, and the central rulership of the Chinese Communist Party has been famously short of women — the leap in women’s rights has been significant over the past century, perhaps because of how little rights there had been before ~ at the start of the 20th century, most Chinese women from relatively well-to-do families still practised foot-binding, in which their feet were literally crushed during childhood in the name of beauty, of status symbol. They couldn’t even walk properly.

Perhaps, the contemporary Chinese women’s economic contribution makes the sexism they encounter in their lives, from the lack of reproductive rights to the “leftover women” label, even harder to swallow. It makes their fantasies fly to even higher, more defiant heights. The popularity of Dangai right now is pretty much driven by women, as acknowledged by Article O3. Young women, especially, female fans who people have dismissed as “immature”, “crazy”, are responsible for the threat the Chinese government is feeling now by the genre.

This is no small feat. While the Chinese government complains about the “effeminate” men from Danmei / Dangai, its propaganda has been heavily reliant on stars who have risen to popularity to these genres. The film Dd is currently shooting, Chinese Peacekeeping Force (維和部隊), also stars Huang Jingyu (黄景瑜), and Zhang Zhehan (張哲瀚) ~ the three actors having shot to fame from The Untamed (Dangai), Addicted (Danmei), and Word of Honour (Dangai) respectively. Zhang, in particular, played the “uke” role in Word of Honour and has also been called 老婆 (wife) by his fans. The quote in Article O3, “Ten years as a tough man known by none; one day as a beauty known by all” was also implicitly referring to him.

Perhaps, the government will eventually realise that millennia-old standards of beauty are difficult to bend, and by extension, what is considered appropriate gender expression of Chinese men and women.

In the metas I’ve posted, therefore, I’ve hesitated in using terms such as homophobia, sexism, and ageism etc, opting instead to make long-winded explanations that essentially amount to these terms (thank you everyone who’s reading for your patience!). Because while the consequence is similar—certain fraction of the populations are subjected to systemic discrimination, abuse, given less rights, treated as inferior etc—these words, in English, also come with their own context, their own assumptions that may not apply to the situation. It reminds me of what Leo Tolstoy wrote in Anna Karenina,

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Discrimination in each country, each culture is humiliating, unhappy in its own way. Both sexism and homophobia are rampant in China, but as their roots are different from those of the West, the ways they manifest are different, and so must the paths to their dissolution. I’ve also hesitated on calling out individual behaviours or confronting individuals for this reason. i-Danmei fandoms are where i-fans and c-fans meet, where English-speaking doesn’t guarantee a non-Chinese sociopolitical background (there may be students from China, for example; I’m also ... not entirely Western), and I find it difficult to articulate appropriate, convincing arguments without knowing individual backgrounds.

Frankly, I’m not sure if I’ve done the right thing. Because I do hope feminisation will soon fade into extinction, especially in i-Danmei fandoms that, if they continue to prosper on international platforms, may eventually split from c-Danmei fandoms along the cultural (not language) line due to the vast differences in environmental constraints. My hope is especially true when real people are involved, and c-fandoms, I’d like to note, are not unaware of the issues surrounding feminisation ~ it has already been explicitly forbidden in BJYX’s supertopic on Weibo.

At the same time, I’ve spent so many words above to try to explain why beauty can *sometimes* lurk behind such feminisations. Please allow me to end this post with one example of feminisation that I deeply dislike—and I’ve seen it used by fans on Gg as well—is 綠茶 (”green tea”), from 綠茶婊 (”green tea whore”) that means women who look pure / innocent but are, deep down, promiscuous / lustful. In some ways, its meaning isn’t so different from Daji 妲己, the consort blamed for the fall of the Shang dynasty. However, to me at least, the flattery in the feminisation is gone, perhaps because of the character “whore” (婊), because the term originated in 2013 from a notorious sex party rather than from a legendary beauty so maligned that The Investiture of the Gods (封神演義), the seminal Chinese fiction written ~2,600 years after Daji’s death, re-imagined her as a malevolent fox spirit (狐狸精) that many still remembers her as today.

Ah, to be caught between two cultures. :)

#tell-me-everything #pie metas #yizhan #bjyx

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vixensheart · 4 years ago

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This is a free coupon/excuse for you to infodump on the current topic you’re obsessed with. Take some time away from internet discourse and share with us something you find interesting.

Ohohohohohohoho, anon, mistakes have been made. X,D

I would like to introduce you to these idiots that I love more than anything:

Say hi to Randi and Green Bean! These guys are African Blackfoot Penguins (Spheniscus demersus) and are the only penguin species found on the continent of Africa!

The orange that you see is their natural range. These penguins live in large colonies along the rocky coastlines, where they sleep at night. During the day, they spend most of their time out at sea looking for food. Penguins in general eat a shittonne of fish-- they can eat up to fourteen percent of their entire bodyweight! Depending on the time of year, of course. Food demands will rise and fall depending on things like breeding season and whether or not it's time for them to molt. What do they eat? Fish! Anchovies are a favorite, as are round herring, and they even can eat crustaceans like krill or squid.

These penguins are considered medium sized, falling around 1.5 feet tall and nearly seven pounds on average. They're also within a group of penguins affectionately referred to as "banded" penguins, do to the thick black band that runs along their sides and chest. Their "tuxedo" pattern that all penguins are famous for actually serves a purpose-- it's a type of camouflage called countershading. Basically, the pale belly helps these birds blend in with the light shining into the water from above and helps shield them from any predators lurking down below, and the dark back helps them blend into the darker depths down below, protecting them from any possible predators lurking from above.

What preys on penguins, you ask? Quite a few things! General predators for various species can include sharks, seals, or killer whales, but the Blackfoots can also fall prey to large birds of prey and land predators, such as dogs and cats.

African Blackfoot Penguins are also a highly social species-- as I mentioned above, they live in large colonies along the beaches, and in those colonies, they pick mates and establish a social hierarchy, communicating through a variety of calls. These birds display three types of calls; the bray, the yell, and the haw. Their most famous call, the bray, is used to attract a mate or between partners displaying to each other in a colony, and sounds shockingly similar to a donkey's bray, which is where they earn their other common name: The Jackass Penguin. The yell is a call they use when warding off or "yelling" at a rival colony member, most likely from encroaching on their nesting site or favorite corner. The last call, the haw, is used between partners, usually when one is out in the water and the other is on land.

These birds are considered monogamous, which means they will return to the same partner for multiple breeding seasons, sometimes even staying with the same partner their entire lives. (This isn't always the case, however. Penguins absolutely do cheat or "divorce", though how common that is varies from species to species and individual to individual). Each colony will return to the same breeding and nesting sites year after year, and while breeding can occur year-round, it reaches a peak in South Africa in March-May. African penguins are "burrowers", and will dig a shallow burrow in the earth, often under rocks or vegetation in an effort to escape the heat.

Females lay two eggs, which usually take around 40 days to hatch. Both partners will take turns incubating the eggs and protecting the nest from predators and colony members alike-- as kidnappings and nest raids are a common occurrence among penguins. The parents feed their young by regurgitating food into their mouth, and after about a month, they begin to leave their young with the other colony kids in large groups while they forage during the day. Baby Blackfoots ditch their down between 2-4 months, which they trade for their "juvenile" plumage, which looks very different than a mature Blackfoot's plumage.

They keep this look for their first year, usually swapping to their adult plumage after their second year molt.

These penguins are also endangered! According to the Red List, there is currently 41,700 mature individuals left in the wild and their numbers are declining. There's a myriad of reasons for that and most of them point to human interaction; feral cats and dogs, human encroachment, pollution (especially oil spills), and one of the worst offenders, competition with commercial fishing over their food. Fisheries in the seas near their home are in major decline and that's forcing penguins to have to swim farther and longer to find enough food for themselves and their offspring.

Ironically, what ripped the carpet from under these guys, so to speak, is their shit. See, once upon a time, many of the islands that made up the breeding grounds for the Blackfoots were piled high with something called guano, also known as penguin shit. Years and years of breeding there had made this shit accumulate, and this guano made up a perfect substrate for the Blackfoots to burrow into to build their nests and escape the brutal African summer heat and sun. The problem, is when humans showed up. See, guano, like lots of other animal shit, makes a fantastic fertilizer. And as global trade was increasing and people from Europe were travelling and exploring, these islands of guano got discovered. And raided. Humans came in and quite literally dug up all the penguin shit they could, leaving hardly anything behind for these birds to burrow in, and as a direct result, their population plummeted.

Nowadays, we've been helping these guys out by making artificial nests to help keep them cool and protected, and it's been working! But the population overall is still in a massive decline.

Now, if you want to help there's many organizations out there helping the birds. Like SANCCOB , SAFE , etc. Also supporting sustainability, cleaner energy, and wild-life friendly policies are great ways to help penguins and other animals.

Now. There you have it. My ridiculous infodump on African Penguins. You're welcome, nonnie 🤣 Say hi to Blueberry, and have a lovely evening, lmaoo

#ask me anything #kat rambles #adventures in biology #adventures in science #penguins #Spheniscus demersus #African Blackfoot Penguin

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anarcho-skeletonism · 4 years ago

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Heya everyone,

I’m gonna be leaving tumblr. Not just for a while but hopefully for good. I got onto tumblr in the first place because I knew it was a website with a fairly left-wing and overtly queer user base and I figured I would fit in pretty well. This blog was initially supposed to just be a place to post some thoughts I’d been having about politics, philosophy, being queer etc. but as with a looooot of people I got sucked into “The Discourse" and recently I’ve started to see that mentality seep into my IRL interactions. This site taught me to get overly mad at people who misrepresented their political opponents, or deliberately misinterpreted good-faith posts, or exclusionists, or liberals, or whatever, the list goes on and on and on. I did the thing social media is structurally designed to get us to do which is get stuck into all sorts of arguments and discussions on menial bullshit, not actually doing anything except endlessly engaging. Well, I’m done. Goodbye to the only @staff worse than TF2’s developers, goodbye to the communalists and bookchinites pretending to be anarchists, goodbye to the liberals LARPing as ancoms, goodbye to the aro/ace exclusionists, the pan exclusionists, the truscum, the transmeds, the TERFS, goodbye to the pros, the antis, the anti-antis, goodbye to the people who’ve never read theory, telling other people that reading theory is actively harmful as they slowly turn into TERFs, goodbye to all the weird boomers who thought tumblr of all places was where they were going to be racist, goodbye to the people who don’t think queer history is important, and all the people who’ll get mad I called it “queer” history, goodbye to the three remaining libertarians stalking the notes of every goddamn post, goodbye to the american MLs buying Chinese stocks, goodbye to the Stalinists and the Maoists who’ve never encountered an anarchist outside of twitter, and goodbye to that one covid denying boogaloo blog posting pictures of IRA members completely unironically (fave blog honestly). I’ve spent too long looking at walls of text on subjects I don’t care for, so I shall be logging off and touching some grass, as I hope literally every single person on this website and every other does too. I think I’ll leave this blog active for a little while but hopefully after that I’ll be gone for good.

Goodbye and thank you to everyone who followed me, I am deeply grateful for all the serotonin I got from quite so many people pushing The Buttons.

I do wanna say goodbye to a couple of mutuals who I really should have got to know better: @anarcho-gamerist who liked a CS:GO post I made one time and is therefore my favourite mutual, @catgirlforeskin who’s discord server, despite everything, continues to scare me, @floatingstirnerhead who is the only person on this website with a better url than me, @ratatatat who has made me learn more about the supernatural fandom than I ever deserved to know, @anarchamints who is very cute, @pogasm who I should not be mutuals with but still am, and @civilisationkills who I really hope one day takes me fishing (they promised).

Whilst I’m here shout out to @guerrillatech, they’ve got a very cool lefty project about communication and organising going on, so do dm them if that sounds like your cup of tea.

I think that’s all, so I guess I’ll see ya nerds

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giantpredatorymollusk · 3 years ago

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i'm still thinking about john green being harassed until he left tumblr, not because i see it as my life's mission to defend john green but because i think it marked a crucial turning point in how online social spaces work, or at least the ones i know about: i think it marked the point at which social media spaces became too large to have a harmonious userbase. my recollection is that john green was harassed until he left tumblr because people whose social lives were on tumblr were surprised and alarmed to discover that those social lives now included john green. i think that this reaction would have happened no matter what he did; it was a function of who he was (a very popular large adult man author and youtuber) and where he was (on tumblr, making posts that a lot of people paid attention to.) the entity known as tumblr had started to cast a wide enough net that some of the fishes caught in it didn't want to wriggle next to some of the other ones. i think that this is important because a huge amount of the energy that gets poured into social media every day consists of people trying to enforce boundaries within the social space they share with people to try to make it no longer include some of those people.

a long time ago, i wrote a post arguing that the memes that are spread on twitter apparently to discredit and disparage elon musk don't work; they don't actually counter the things that the people who like him think. i still think that's true and important to consider when trying to have useful conversations about facts, but it has since occurred to me that maybe this discourse serves another purpose: it might be a way for people to signal that despite being active on a website that has elon musk as one of its most popular users, has founders that view elon musk favorably, and may soon be owned by elon musk personally, they do not like elon musk. i guess this is valid, but it would probably be a lot easier just to not be on a website that has all these ties to elon musk, huh.

it seems that social media networks cast wide nets to the point where a) you can't really escape them anymore and b) neither can the people you hate; and angry posts thus emerge from being confronted with such people trending constantly and from the need to clarify exactly how much you hate them. i think it's a bit of a waste of energy and potential inner peace. probably everyone should just leave twitter and separate out into discord servers or congregate around blogs again. i think that the desire to send strong social signals leads people to make and believe worse arguments and have politics that make less sense. i also think it leads them to believe that the people they dislike are even worse and stupider than they actually are, which i don't think is a pleasant feeling. also, this:

and the kicker is, all of us social media addicts, including elon musk, we probably do have a lot of aspects of our brain in common, don't we? don't we have some shared cultural background with a lot of the extremely online people we hate that we don't have with some random person off the street who doesn't know about dril? in a lot of ways that we don't think about, from an outside perspective, we're all caught in the net. abandon all hope, ye who wriggle here.

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clearsky · 4 years ago

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My Top Comfort Characters/Kins and My Main HCs For Them

(Note, not all my kins/comfort characters are on here, just the ones I have more than 5 hcs for)

CW: Korekiyo Shinguji (DRV3), Himiko Yumeno (DRV3), Shinsou Hitoshi (BNHA), Kyoko Kirigiri (THH), Tsuyu Asui (BNHA), Entrapta (Spop), Ibuki Mioda (SDR2), Celestia Ludenberg (THH), Funtime Foxy (FNAF), Peril (WOF)

Korekiyo Shinguji (DRV3)

Nonbinary

He/They pronouns

Autistic

Chains and loose accessories are for stimming

Likes the feeling of silk and cotton

Can't stand the feeling of anything rough or bumpy

He likes collecting small trinkets and the bones of small mammals

Can't stand anything salty. He'll eat it but he certainly won't enjoy it

Dating Rantaro

Can flirt, but only if he doesn't try

Petnames are a hell yea

Gets sunburnt really easily

Group dates with Celesnaegiri and Ikuzono

Can't cook for s h i t

Had a scene kid phase in middle school

Went to the same middle school as Celeste and Maki

Knew them when Celeste went through her "I'm not like other girls" phase and Maki was a Band Kid™

Himiko Yumeno (DRV3)

Female

She/Her pronouns

Lesbian

Can force herself to fall asleep within seconds regardless of where she is

100% forces herself to fall asleep when she doesn't wanna listen/talk to someone

Himiko/Angie/Tenko relationship. I'm calling them the Traffic Light Trio

She likes taking naps in the forest

She prefers enclosed/tight spaces more than open ones

Has several hundred stress balls and squishies laying around

She overheats easy

Shinsou Hitoshi (BNHA)

Questioning his gender, but goes by any pronouns

Knows he's Asexual, at least

Has no clue what his romantic orientation is though

The kind of person to carry treats in his pocket just in case he runs into a cat

Will stop to pet literally every cat he comes across

Great at reading people

Doesn't talk unless it's 100% needed

Hangs with Tokoyami, Jirou, and Denki most often

Aizawa has 100% unofficially adopted him

Fosters kittens

Not a big fan of physical touch

He is 100% in the bakusquad. Anyone who says he's in the Dekusquad is a c o w a r d

He and Tsuyu vibe

Knows a bunch of random facts

Dark humour? Dark humour

*skates backwards into his therapist's room slowly sipping from an absurdly huge cup of coffee* Candice you're not gonna BELIEVE the shit I just went through

In case I forgot to mention it, he skates

Kyoko Kirigiri (THH)

Mtf

She/Her

Bi with female preference

Burns go up to her shoulders/collarbone/chest

Prefers to just listen as opposed to saying anything

Knows a ton of random trivia about everyone else in her class

She keeps a notebook she fills with all the trivia

Doesn't celebrate her birthday. She just doesn't see the point of it

Doesn't hate sugar/sweets, but if given the choice she would choose literally everything else

Cuts her own hair

A cat person

Permanent dark circles

T-Tall 😳

Like,,, 6'1 at LEAST

Only person taller than her is Yasuhiro (6'3)

Canon no longer exist

Ahahaha healthy life habits? What are those?

Can't handle horror games

She's the kind of person you'd go to if you needed to rant but didn't want any advice

Polyamourous yo

Celeste/Kyoko/Makoto

She's a dom yall are just scared to admit it

Tsuyu Asui (BNHA)

They go by They/Them

Lesbian

They and Ochaco are dating

They like to hang with Shinsou

Which mainly just means the two sitting in one of their dorms in near total silence doing whatever

Can speak English and French as well as Japanese

Learned English from cartoons

Picked up French bc they thought it'd be fun

Prefers to stay neutral in the whole Bakusquad / Dekusquad thing

They're invited to all outings/events by/for both squads

They like puns

They're a dumbass but willingly, and for fun

Like "someone says they like dark humour and they'll turn off the lights before telling a joke" kind dumbass for fun

Great at poker

Likes Disney Movies

Very touchy once you get close enough

Not in a sexual way, just likes physical contact

Especially fond of piggyback rides and cuddles

Extreme fear of needles

Entrapta (She-Ra)

She/Her or It/Its

Doesn't bother trying to figure out whether she's cis, trans, nonbinary, or what

Was AMAB though

Short as fuck (4'7)

Strong as fuck though

Cuddle game strong

Physical touch is a fuck yes

Cuddles

Piggyback rides

Hugs

Anything where she's touching someone is wonderful in her book

As long as she's the one that initiates it

Anyone else touching her without her permission makes her freak

Prefers being high up

Makes it harder for anyone to sneak up on her

An ace at video games

When it comes to sexuality she just says she's Questioning

Ibuki Mioda (SDR2)

Any pronouns + Pup/Pupself + It/Its

No idea what their gender is otherwise

Biromantic Asexual

Just likes sexual jokes

Gets distracted easily

Has severe hearing problems

She's plays her instruments as loud as possible, with the amp right next to her, without ANY ear protection

It's caused some damage

She talks so loud bc she has no idea how loud is considered acceptable

Wears hearings aids most of the time

Several piercings and tattoos

Likes hearing things jingle

She has a bracelet with a few bells hanging from it

She'll shake it whenever she's bored

LOVES hair accessories

Ribbons are a particular favourite

Occasionally she'll hang little charms from her hair "horns"

The kind of person who never takes any pills/medicine bc she keeps forgetting she has to

Frequently uses emojis

Skates everywhere but she isn't very good at it

She keeps crashing into everything

Has broken every bone in her body at least 3 times

Most of which was bc she keeps trying to kick in doors and skating down the stairs

Celestia Ludenberg (THH)

Nonbinary

Any pronouns, mainly goes by She/They

Bi, 70:30

Collects mini hand sanitizers and can tabs

Has single handedly gotten Mario Kart, Mario Party, Monopoly, Uno, and Clue banned a grand total of 17 times (and counting)

The kind of person to purposefully target someone regardless of what game was being played

Favourite victim is Byakuya (bc he gets so upset about it and she finds that hilarious)

Mains Waluigi

Celeste/Kyoko/Makoto

Has several banned Twitter accounts bc whenever she's bored she'll start discourse on purpose

Hangs with Korekiyo, Ibuki, Byakuya, Yasuhiro, and Leon most often

It's a weird friend group but everyone's sorta gotten used to it

She and Byakuya gamble together occasionally

She tries to avoid it bc he'll willingly blow his entire fortune in an attempt to beat her

Autustic

Can't stand the feeling of water

Mainly bc she can't swim for shit

Horror movies? Hates them

Gets flustered super easily

Taka is her twin brother

Kotoko, Kokichi, and Gundham are their half siblings (Same father)

Peko and Toko are their cousins

She sucks ass at go fish

Fuck canon she's 4'11 now

C h u b b y

Freckles

Once she gets comfortable enough with herself she dyes her hair in the peekaboo style

Either black and red or black and blonde

Haven't decided yet

I'll be doing Celesnaegiri hcs as a seperate post but I just feel it's important for you to know that she expresses her affection verbally and is a very touchy person

Went to middle school with Maki and Korekiyo

Has horrible eyesight

She wears contacts most of the time but she always puts off buying more

After the 5th or so time she ended up blindly stumbling around a week after her contacts ran out Kyoko convinced her to buy glasses as well

Religious accessories yo

Like chokers and dangly earrings with crosses and pentagrams and shit

Likes wearing wacky earrings

Can run and do all sorts of tricks in heels

She and Mukuro are exes yo

Keeps her hair short so it's easier to manage

Hair never gets longer than her shoulders if she can help it

She seems like the kind of person who'd keep her bangs grown past her eyes regardless of how frustrating or inconvenient it is

She's a sub yall just don't wanna admit it

Funtime Foxy (FNAF)

I'm going on the record to say this

Funtime Foxy is genderfluid and that is that

Goes by Funtime

Any pronouns, They/Them most commonly

Plays music (keyboard and guitar mainly)

They and Funtime Freddy (Freds) mainly play with the kids

Freds mainly tells stories with Bonbon while Funtime more so plays one-on-one

Has nicknames for everyone

Circus Baby - Ringleader

Ballora - Bells

Funtime Freddy - Partner

Bon Bon - Bun

Peril (WOF)

I like both Nonbinary She/They Peril and Mtf She/Her Peril

They're both such good concepts

She's a lesbian, Harold

She only had a crush on Clay bc he was pretty much everything she was supposed to like in a guy

Gimme a moment while I force all my mental disorders onto this poor child

Autistic, Anxiety (Social anxiety, mainly, but she has most types), Adhd, PTSD

I'd like to reiterate yet again that She's a lesbian

Sunny and Glory were her gay awakening

Peril in Book 1: Damn, Sunny and Glory sure are pretty. Anyone would be lucky to date them. Clay would probably go for them over me. He would be stupid if he didn't. I myself would willingly date them over someone like me. They're just so pretty :(

Peril waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of arc 2: WAIT-

Rarepair alert but Peril/Sora

Peril meeting Sora: "Hmmm She's attractive. I would love to date her. Too bad I'm straight and in love with her brother lmao :P"

Peril, a mere month later, waiting for Ruby to leave Jade Mountain, pacing in her cave, running face first into a wall: WAIT-

I remember reading this one amazing story where Sora taught Peril to read/write and Peril found out she set off the bomb and comforted her/convinced her her run so that's canon now

Btw if anyone can remember what that story was called/what platform it was on and could tell me I'd appreciate it very much

I'd even be willing to draw a character of your's or make you an icon or something

I usually don't accept requests bc I get burnt out easy but this is a special case

She runs into Sora again sometime between the beginning of TOP and the end

I like to imagine she just goes wandering around

Anyway she confesses like a mere few minutes after running into her again bc Peril is just subtle like that

The actual confession takes 15 minutes and the entire time Sora is just sitting here like "👁👄👁 sure"

Bam Peril/Sora

Peril plans to keep it a secret for a little while longer but she spends 3 seconds around Clay and pretty much blurts it out

Clay, who wasn't even aware that Peril was a lesbian, is just "👁👄👁"

I wanna say Clay doesn't know what a lesbian is but in my canon Sunny is a lesbian so Starflight has already told him

Anyway he's super supportive

From that point Peril is sorta open about her sexuality?

Like, she gives Clay permission to tell the rest of the D.O.D bc she isn't about to risk being in front of them when they hear the news

(When Sunny starts actively seeking her out as a hang out buddy and Tsunami, Glory, and Starflight appear to tolerate her presence just a bit more afterwards she pretends she isn't confused by the change)

She's pink, white, and blue bc I said so

If you look at a certain angle in the right lighting her eyes, mouth, fire, and under her scales all look purple

But her fire is normally white and blue bc I said so

Also she pale as fuck bc in my canon their fire just sorta burns their colour away

You know how you leave something outside for too long and it gets sunbleached? Where it gets all washed out?

Like that but more extreme

By the age of 10-12 firescale dragons are just white with pale eyes

That's right not even the eyes are safe

Ram horns :P

I'm also fond of Peril/Sunny

Or maybe Peril/Sora/Sunny

But Peril/Sora is the main thing

On the topic of that bringing in my hc that if one sib in a sib group is fire resistant all of them are

She,,, She can change her scale colour

But only slightly and only if her emotions are strong enough

Bc I don't give a fuck about Darkstalker's scroll we were robbed of hybrid Peril

Unfortunately all of Peril's emotions are strong

Rainwing ruff along her head and neck

It's like a hood

It's mainly smoothed to her sides but when she's startled it flares out

RAINWING PUPILS

Y'all will know what those look like as soon as I get off my ass :P

She,,, She can mimic bird cries

Hates the summer

She has more than enough body heat already and the outside is just hot enough to add on and make her feel sick

She can somewhat control her heat but most of the time it's based on her emotions

It can go from standing-in-the-middle-of-a-burning-building-cant-see-your-nose-smoke-is-so-thick heat (Strong emotion) to Hey-thats-a-nice-cozy-campfire heat (Calm/"weak" emotion/Sleeping)

I'm just gonna make a different post with all my Peril hcs cuz there isnt enough room for all of them here

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autoirishlitdiscourses · 4 years ago

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Discourse of Sunday, 29 August 2021

Preparing for and serving as a bridge to question 1 and 2 and pointed to. Arrangement was enjoyable and you'd clearly spent some time and/or social construction of your discussion around a male visions of beautiful women, and I know that for you to speak eventually if you have any other questions, though. Two student musical performances have been doing. You reacted to it? I'm sorry you're so inclined. If you have any questions, OK? Sigh. I felt like you were also a fertile hunting ground. Questions and answers for the registrar to release grades, explained below was 87. There were several small errors, your attention should primarily be on the final, you should do now, you have a nuanced analysis. Good question. It's OK to hold a discussion with the Clitheroes in The Walking Dead, which at least apparently reaction to the course website: good reading of the spreadsheet, because there are some available on it not in many ways that looking at the Recitation Assignment Guidelines handout, which words and ideas in a couple of ways. Too, your paper in on time.

There are a couple of suggestions. Race is a weaker assertion that takes a directly historical perspective on it before, and I've gone ahead and changed that the ideas you had a B paper turned in a competition that valorizes certain characteristics by denying the opportunity to explore variations on standard essay structure instead of electronically.

You picked a longer-than-required selection. Hawthorn in the text of Pearse's speech without too much, but you picked a good number of things would have helped to have gone to your secondary sources. Deadline this week, but rather to set up the image properties, then V for Vendetta seems to me, I also think about might be to prioritize senior English majors trying to assess attendance now, you should have the effect of giving your attendance/participation that is, specifically? But there are a fair number of important ways.

You have a word out in the early bits of the math, then please come talk to me, I will cut you off. Dennis Redmond 2. A particular way of thinking about specifics before you ask ask them to argue that one thing, I just won't see that you're likely to be helpful. One of these various types and weave them into a Fish. They should also give a more fluid, impassioned performance; but make sure that you're making a claim about exactly what is your central claim about Yeats's relationship to each other than the top of page 6 to Let's stop talking for four minutes, so it hasn't hurt your grade further, and I hope you're feeling better now.

If it's not a play. All in all, you lose the opportunity may not have any questions, and your close-reading individual passages, but I absolutely meant what I would have liked to have been to let me know what you intend to accept it by 10 a. A on a different text on a specific claim of what I'm trying to take so long to get an incomplete petition which requires you to leave your paper, is the best way to be absolutely sure. I'll see you tomorrow morning. I distribute during class for instance, if any of that first draft I often do, or the viewer is likely to be more careful about the distrust of the University, and mechanics are mostly solid, though I think that your body paragraphs don't wander too far afield. Travel safely and enjoy your time and managed to introduce a large gap for recall before the quarter. Hi! I'll see you in lecture tomorrow and I'll get back to you. Is late, you really have produced some excellent work at the point value of the people not warming up to me, and no special equipment is required. A lot of your plans by ten a. Oversleeping, even if it's necessary to come to both, although I would recommend that, and none of them. There are a core opportunity for you to be a hint or not this lifts you to become familiar with any passages talked about topics 1. You are in fact up this week. Administrative Issues: 1 ratio. You picked a good background to the connections between the poem, Parnell which is full of rather depictions that are not present last night, but Seamus Heaney I'm extending this backwards a bit because this book has similar interpretive problems for Ulysses recitations is over and in a different relationship to each other. The maximum possible discussion credit if you feel better soon. Ultimately, you'll still want people to reflect on the assumption that you were on track throughout your time and managed to convey or build up to this document is an awfully slow recitation.

I had your paper and I enjoyed having you in lecture but didn't address the question so that you do will depend on what it means: are you using a number of good plays: thanks to! Sunk himself by taking the absolute minimum standards for a job well done, both of you is so strong that it is. It is also quite short and contains some hesitations that deserve a bit like they've been represented by men in literary texts such as background information. The Stolen Child second half of the poem. Let me know what works for you to demonstrate what a very very close and, say, an A-is if you have any more questions, and religion, and your material very effectively. You have a 91. If you have been pushed even further, though, overall. Whatever is appropriate for quick questions, OK? —You've got some good ideas in there what I'm really saying here is going to be as specific and nuanced readings by a bus or abducted by aliens over the last sentence of the total grade for the bus, walking between classes, you in lecture, and your presence in front of the class warmed up and see what he thought just so that we have seen here would have been to be more specific, particular idea is that you can make absolutely sure that I'll be looking through the Disabled Students Program. Again, thank you for a late paper/must be killed except as a whole. Have a good idea to skim the first line of thought, that what I'll expect is that you realized that each of you this quarter you've worked hard and it's documented on the syllabus for Thursday, December 10 30% of course, it allows you to achieve goals that you realized that your choice of texts to think about it in the front of the guinea actually fluctuated a fair amount of what they'd discussed, then we'll figure out what you most need to let you know how you're going, including absolutely everything except the final that gets deep into the discussion go on! Let me know, and any other race I think that there are some ways in the back of your analysis more specifically what the implications that this would have to do this would not be everything that I've pointed to some punctuation and formatting issues—none genuinely hurt you a photocopy from it, in this case. You must also provide me with a very good ideas.

Romance has or has not removed the price tag from his hat. I'm glad your schedule to drop a photocopy of the text and helping them to pick up more points than you already have a copy of Ulysses that's sitting in a productive exercise I myself am less than thrilled about with this paper would have been pushed even further, and you exhibit a very good job here. If you are performing—for instance, if you'd like them to larger-scale concerns with other representations of very good work here in a way of thinking even more care than you to make progress toward graduation that satisfies the include an audio/visual text of some parts of the novel's characters are, and nearly three-syllable metrical foot, accented-unaccented-unaccented-unaccented-unaccented-unaccented-unaccented.

Hi! Truthfully, I feel that it wasn't assigned in class that you are thinking about how you'll effectively fill time and perhaps other poems, as well. There are not by any means the only or best way to think if there was anything else around, it's impossible to do anything differently on your life, you had an excellent job. I'll have your grade should be substantiating some aspect of love, but I'll say a selection from McCabe in your thesis to say, Italian Futurism Giacomo Balla, for instance, if you have a good student this quarter, though they'll probably require a fair amount of detail. I think it will boost your attendance/participation grade that was helpful rather than a path that you'd have to speak with me in an in-section responses, OK? I think making a clear argument that is also a thinking process, but may not know yourself yet, I don't know that I built in the assignment handout. I'll see you next quarter we have tentatively arranged to work with, and they will benefit from an assigned course text is fine with me in a Darwinian sense? But you've been very close to their hearts, you have disclosed any part at all you receive a failing grade policy. Be excellent. I'll see you in section Wednesday night with details about the negative sides of nationalism, exactly, surely there are places where attention to how other people have done some very, very good job with it—it was written too close to convenient and painless as possible, OK? That is to write a draft, letting it sit for two or three people together may perform a recitation/discussion segment. For one thing that will be given away on a Leash has been trying hard with limited success to motivate to talk about, but made up for them to move up, then feel free to let you know what's going to be worth emphasizing that your first question, for instance, you must email me a handout or other information, at 7 am for session A but could make it difficult for you if you have a fully developed idea yet, and that neither one has stolen them, and your reading for class must represent your thoughts might be hidden in the symbolism of motherhood, those who. Here are some real contributions in a donut shop is less reliable than a merely solid job, but also the only student who missed the midterm to avoid specificity, and that missing more than happy to discuss Francie's stream of consciousness is potentially very productive move, given Ulysses, is a good weekend! Could you email a description of your discussion. 1% of the contracting party, based entirely upon attendance I won't be assessed until after the meeting you'd have to leave it. Thank you so much for being so long as to avoid hesitation, backing up your final grade for the quarter, and I'm happy to send it along. I said verbally, any your grade I'd just like to see models, there is also a traditional vampire repellent and, Godot TBD, McCabe TBD, please let me know by Friday afternoon for posting on the final exam; b they showed a substantial number of things that would mean that you can bring your copy of your new score for the Self. Was that helpful? You have a good thumbnail background sketch of your own section, and this question lies at the context of your argument and graceful, nuanced close readings and comments into the perspective of a combination that would be a hard time distancing themselves from their topics and themes, looking closely at whether every word, every B paper turned in on the assignment requirements next week: Patrick Kavanagh, I think that there are many other possibilities, and you're certainly on track throughout your paper topic is a mark of professionalism that I think that the rather thin time slice that Joyce gives us of their material. Think about the play with which you dealt. Hi! Hi! My suggestion, then waited four days.

One recall. At the root of these are impressive moves. What is his point is a bit more slowly would have helped to have particular specific takes on all of Godot is already an impressive move, which is entitled to demand from the syllabus, but I think that Easter 1916 is a bit due to strep throat, so it is, I think that's a good student this quarter. If you can get the group develop its own interests while staying on task. IV: lyrics and discussion and question provoked close readings would help to motivate you to get to people that I really did enjoy your long weekend. The cost of a paper that pays off as abrasive, which is entitled Odysseus or Myth and Enlightenment. I know that I think, is the instructor of record for classes that I think that you should rightfully be proud of it. You picked a good weekend, and the way that mothers and motherhood are used as standalone software although it's never bad to have a strong understanding of the poem to music. Don't forget to mention that you are nervous or feel that there is going to be ready to write questions on the rest of your passage, but I think. Lesson Plan for Week 7:00. Absolutely. See Wikipedia's article on the Mad Hatter's hat in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Batteries die, power cords fray, hard drives crash, printers break or run out of it to be as effective as it could, theoretically informed paper, and more specifically, to be on the section website and see whether I was happier then. I won't post them tomorrow night!

Anyway. This was not acceptable, that there are two common practices that students have jobs and sports and family emergencies and about nine billion other things, that I could give you the opportunity to recite, the discrepancy, the average score would be after lecture tomorrow and offline for several reasons, including the fact that you will have failed to satisfy breadth requirements, major requirements, and that not doing so. Distribution of paper handout. —You have a good impression and pick up his midterm; talked exactly twice in section. The Plough and the larger-scale questions may also, if you're leaving town. One of the Heaney poems that will occasionally have reminders, announcements, and Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake, all of the room, were engaged, thoughtful performance that you'd have to be helpful. I think you've prepared more material than was required by the Easter Rising, the notes my students: You changed before to as in just a little bit and will have an excellent sense of harmony and rhythm.

I suspect that this would be to find sources that disagree with it. Both of these are worth cleaning up, I've attached a copy of the group to read, and if you have unusual, stressful, or any sheet music during a week when we're discussing the selection you made to the texts as a bridge to a lot of things well. That's very good work. Don't just pick the shortest acceptable one, I really will take as many students who can tell you where he is the day: Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-control, etc.

I'm proctoring a make-up of the analysis that supports your larger-scale questions may also benefit from and to engage other students and integrated their interests and observations Again, very well here. That's a good way to make sure that I may find that action of little importance Though never indifferent. This is not necessarily the order I will take up some important things to do this well enough to juxtapose particular texts side by side? Hi! On another hand, and nicely grounded in a very good plan here. Thank you. The Butcher Boy can best be read in ways other than that would be grateful if you fall back on it before, and you do, in part just because you're bright and articulate and the to smell of perfume; changed off he went; dropped as a member of her religion finds that to happen differently for this, but that you attribute to them; this means that you have a clear logico-narrative path through your questions touches on things that people run up against was that I try to recall what information there is a deep connection to the perception of absurdity this is. I hope it's helpful to build up the section develop its own logic. The study of 'Ulysses' is, in all, Chris! This is not unusual in the argumentative baggage associated with love, for your material effectively and in a nuanced understanding of the landscape itself, just sending me an email saying Welp, guess I'll have one of these announcements. Section. A perhaps complexifying point: every picture I've seen any of the analysis fits into the poem, and this paid off for you than for recall and some gaps for recall, and only on genuinely tiny errors, which sounds like a natural end or otherwise just want the experience to develop. Professor Waid, who told your aunt in Ohio, who is the amount of what you're saying and look at it with the rest of your head as you write, but they're also specific; #4 is also constantly thinking in his collection Illuminations. I'll try hard to get back to you on Thursday. Again, thank you for a more accurate translation of the texts you've chosen as a result of from as a serial killer. You might look specifically at Bottle and Fishes; Clarinet and Bottle of Rum on a first and foremost, I haven't been able to find. But it's entirely normal when you see the text than an omnivore would? In particular, there are some alternate scenarios that assume less-than-required selection and changed grade to demonstrate what a bright student you are welcome to leave campus by four today. Nicely done this week Yeats is almost no work for you so much thought and writing a draft of a woman's affections and body by developing a more rigorous, incisive analysis on other assignments. Responses below. Crashing? I'm trying to eat up time that you needed to happen differently in this way.

Even without the genuinely astounding bonus, this is that you turn in a way that shows you paid close attention to the aspects of some parts of the midterm, based on my shelf at home, if you really do have some interesting comments about the actual facts behind some of the two elements plough, stars and then think about their relationship, but you still have to ask what your overall grade is. If the other Godot groups for several reasons, too, and an estimate based on The Plough and the way in this particular offer for several hours tonight. McCabe yet if they're cuing off of the texts as a whole is 26 lines. Anyone at all. Either way is OK with me or with the poem. You changed where to go this coming Sunday night, and that you tell me when large numbers of fingers to let me know. —You've got some breathing room too, that you should do whatever is most called for, and I will make life easier if you have any more information is needed than you were on track throughout your time off.

I mean: you had a good job, and safe travels if you're planning on using equipment. It's perfectly OK to ask people to discuss you may be that your own thought, then built on it, but certainly not beyond you, then a single goal. If neither of those three things, you will have the room. If you have rocked the cradle of genius. Remember that the Irish status to people that I have open chairs in both sections in terms of which is rather tricky to do Yeats next week. One thing that might ultimately constitute a larger scale, but I think that paying more attention to at least one email from n asking whether she can take you. Where I feel that your own purpose. As it stands, I think that you may ameliorate the conditions producing your anxiety. This is not to claim that Yeats didn't have the gaze. Let me know immediately. Hi, Megan! As it is probably difficult to read. One of the text, and so I suppose, is 50, some people did it because he'd been focusing on other classes and do a perfect job, which had been properly formatted for instance, it could be.

Discussion notes for week 5. Section; c you can be found on the section as a group is one of the poem I've heard, and I think, and you really want to make any changes made I have only three students raised their hand; one is simply a straight numerical calculation that was strong in several ideas for other ways that you could benefit from hearing your thoughts are sophisticated and clear. I think that one or more implicit assertions to support it. For instance, you really do have several options: 1. Some students improved their score between 105 and 118 on the section. Thanks for your recitation needs to be without feedback at the last minute and two-minute lecture on Thursday, and Bates Motel thank you for doing such a good thumbnail background to the course website, and deployed secondary sources. You are absolutely welcome to propose this, and then asking them questions about what kinds of background, and it would have needed to be my student, has interesting and important topics to discuss and/or how to discuss and haven't quite punched through to being perceptive. You might look specifically at Bottle and Fishes; Clarinet and Bottle of Rum on a Leash has been known to bill clients in guineas to this and settled on this will just not show, take the discussion component of your weekend so that they should not be clear on parts of your political poster; and added and before I leave town. —This will not be tolerated. Looks good.

Of course! 277 in the narrative from which stakes for vampires should be watching that show off for you. B papers take risks and do a genuinely collaborative, rather than a merely solid job here, I do before I get for going short, but really, your writing, despite the few comparatively minor textual grammatical, formatting issues that you've put a printed copy of your education, and the Stars How would you prefer to do well. Currently, you don't already use Twitter, you have any other race I think that one way to do at this question would help you make meaningful contributions to discussion problem if it is 4. Those who are reciting that week; it sounds, because asking people where they could stand? You've done a lot of similarities to yours, though I felt that it should be set next to each other. I offer you to work harder for the recitation, you should rightfully be proud of the texts that you're actually talking about a the specific language of your thoughts might be a TA or instructor of record. Attendance. I told him to use Downton Abbey, too, that examining your own narrative dominate your analysis what is it necessarily mean that I didn't foresee at the structural schema given to friends: Carlo Linati; Stuart Gilbert J. In addition to doing it is unwise to email me a right of way. This is a bit more guidance while also bringing them back to you. Aside from the class, with absolutely everything calculated except for the last sentence of the next thing what does it really mean it when I saw you come out and with your ideas develop naturally out of town this weekend has just been crazy and I'm certainly happy to proctor it if you miss more than three sections, you did a very thoughtful comments about some kind of interesting. Then re-instantiate an argument from going for, though, you've done a very small but very well be questions that you made constant insightful, meaningful contributions to the poem. Right now, though I think that the overarching goal is to say that making an audible tone. I'm trying to finish off Arrested Development and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. November: Pearse's The Mother, recited in lecture yesterday: Laurel & Hardy's/The Music Box/1932: There will be 500 total points for section in a grading daze and haven't impacted your grade is unfair. You Are Old. Students who are having difficulties with the professor wants is a strongly religious woman whose son is not too late to pick out the issues.

And what kind of viewer? Let me know what you wanted to discuss with the but this is a pretty good at picking up cues that tell me when large numbers of fingers to let me know if you want to discuss your paper are yours and which lines you're reciting. I think that it is that you look at the end of your discussion tonight. Thank you again for doing such a good plan here. Again, thank you for the quarter as I said, looking at the end of the criteria that I'll be in my office hours are 3:50 or so.

I'll get you one in front of the room. I think that finding ways to proceed with your paper is worth. Before I forget to bring in other places, and have a section you have elements of the course Twitter stream for the conversation without badgering or threats or even if you feel good about yourself although, in the paper has frequent, severe grammatical/mechanical problems can receive, regardless of the text, you provided a good paper. I expected, and a bit too much on track for an excellent Thanksgiving and that you've got a potentially productive ways to answer this question, but I'm pretty sure that every phrase, and that, counting absolutely everything calculated except for the quarter, so I realize that right now your primary insights are and what these differences might mean by passionate, and, say, and went above and beyond the length requirements. I feel that you want your argument will be reciting as soon as I can post a slightly modified version of your grade on that without also pulling in the manner of A-is entirely possible if you have any questions, though this overlaps at least represents itself as a result of curving grades, discussed in a 1:30 to discuss the readings in a lot of payoff for your third source nor, for instance, if that doesn't mean that you'd thought about the Irish identity are instantiated in the middle—91.

#Irish literature #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Python #Markov chains

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southeastasianists · 5 years ago

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The memory of Thanaruek Laoraowirodge’s favorite Thai dish is intertwined with the memory of his grandmother, Somsri Chantra. Originally from the eastern town of Trad, Laoraowirodge vividly remembers the chicken stew that she would cook after he returned home from school.

The dish, as simple as it is, is included in his family’s upcoming cookbook, a volume that will detail the recipes created by his khun yai, or grandmother. Not surprisingly, Yai Somsri’s recipes also make up much of the menu for his family’s popular Bangkok eateries, Supanniga Eating Room and Krua Supanniga by Khunyai.

Laoraowirodge considers the upcoming tome to be the family’s first funeral cookbook. “It will include all stories of memories from our family members with khun yai, related to her life and her cooking,” he says.

Most Thais consider funeral books a way to safeguard good memories of a loved one. Distributed by family members as mourners file into the temple to say their farewells, funeral books are typically put together by grieving children or partners. Often, they document the life of the deceased, share family anecdotes and photos, and reprint important Buddhist sermons.

However, many books cannot help but include matters dear to the departed’s heart. A jewelry aficionado’s funeral book could contain a primer on spotting gem quality. For an avid foodie, it might include their favorite places for street eats, replete with histories of the vendors. Yet whether a slim pamphlet or a thick, hardcover volume, favorite family recipes have become standard funeral book content.

But legend has it that the origins of the Thai funeral book are rooted in tragedy. The first queen of King Rama V, Sunandha Kumariratana, and her daughter, Princess Karnabhorn Bejraratana, drowned in 1880 when their boat capsized on the way to the palace. Courtiers and servants who would have been able to help were rooted to the spot, for fear of breaking a law that forbade commoners from touching royals. At their funeral, King Rama V gave out 10,000 books to commemorate the lives of the queen and his daughter, but these did not include any recipes. Instead, they featured Buddhist teachings and philosophy. The nangsue anusorn ngan sop (funeral book) was born, and the custom was swiftly copied by the king’s subjects.

The motives behind this tradition, however, may not entirely stem from a desire to keep good memories of the deceased alive. “Grand families were very competitive in showing face—and still are,” says Phil Cornwel-Smith, author of Very Thai and the new book Very Bangkok. “Funeral books would have shown all the titles, awards, and ranks that the deceased had been bestowed, which would be of vital interest for the surviving relatives to publicize and justify their social position.”

While funeral books were initially considered the purview of the aristocratic elite, the bourgeois—the military, high-ranking civil servants, and wealthy merchants—were only a few steps behind. Initially, Buddhist philosophy was a popular feature, until King Rama V in 1904 proclaimed the volumes to be “not very enjoyable” and advised future books to include more interesting subject matter, such as popular Thai fables. It was only later, in the mid-20th century, when food-related matters became the norm in funeral publications.

“For grand ladies of the past, there would be far less in terms of rank to document,” says Cornwel-Smith, “so their household accomplishments would be lauded, such as recipes,” adding that one of his first jobs in Thailand was to edit a funeral booklet for a female Sino-Thai banker.

It might seem odd that Thailand would be able to nurture the unique culinary tradition of the “funeral cookbook” when cookbooks themselves were a relatively recent phenomenon. Inspired by Isabella Beeton’s The Book of Household Management, the first Thai food cookbook, Mae Khrua Hua Pa (or “Talented Women Chefs”), was published by Lady Plian Phasakorawong in 1908. Before Lady Plian’s masterwork, recipes were transmitted verbally, ideally to family or household members only. These recipes were guarded fiercely. For a family to reveal one’s culinary secrets was tantamount to ceding social cachet to another rival house. “Grand families competed in culture as much as in titles, such as quality of food and rival troupes of traditional musicians,” says Cornwel-Smith.

The publication of the first Thai cookbook finally allowed for the sharing of private culinary knowledge in the public sphere. It also reflected a general rise of literacy in the pursuit of siwalai, the Thai attempt to appear more “civilized” in the face of encroaching colonization, academics say.

The debut of Mae Khrua Hua Pa was said to have been a commercial failure because of its relatively high price. However, it has since managed to take hold of and eventually shape Thai culinary discourse—primarily through its reprinting as a souvenir for Thai funerals. In essence, it has enjoyed a second (and third, and fourth) life as a funeral cookbook for families wary of sharing their own recipes.

Other funeral cookbooks have added to the cultural conversation by keeping specific family traditions alive. The many funeral cookbooks of one of the grand houses of old Siam, the Bunnag family, detail a plethora of dishes from the homeland of Sheikh Ahmad, who arrived in the kingdom as a Persian merchant in 1600. After entering the service of King Songtham, Sheikh Ahmad eventually rose to the rank of samuha nayok (First Prime Minister), a position that many of his descendants would also hold.

Scholars such as Thai food chef David Thompson—the proud collector of at least 600 funeral cookbooks—credit the Bunnag family for bringing gang massaman (loosely translated to “Muslim curry”) to Thailand. Although hailed today as one of the most popular Thai dishes in the world, massaman curry is still classified by some Thais as “foreign” since it incorporates a mix of dried spices, while traditional Thai curries are based on fresh herbs.

Today, the family recipe for massaman curry lives on in Bunnag funeral cookbooks, and includes raisins, small potatoes, nutmeg, cumin, star anise, cardamom, mace, and the decidedly un-Thai flourish of bay leaves. In the funeral cookbook of Sheikh Ahmad’s descendent Longlaliew Bunnag, one can find Persian-inspired gems such as the aforementioned massaman, khao buree (translated loosely as “smoked rice,” the family’s own take on chicken biryani) and sai gai, a saffron-scented, syrup-soaked dessert known as jalebi in Indian cuisine.

A wealthy family into the 20th century, the Bunnag family recipes also mirror the many foreign influences that shaped the Thai upper classes. One recipe calls simply for Chinese-style egg noodles mixed with olive oil and sprinkled with “the grated cheese of your choice,” a fusion that probably would have horrified Lady Plian.

In an essay on Thailand’s culinary identity, journalist Panu Wongcha-um argues that funeral cookbooks are still shaping Thai culinary discourse. This can be amply illustrated by the menus of Michelin-starred Thai restaurants such as Nahm, Paste, and Bo.lan, whose menus are rooted in the funeral cookbooks of noble families and whose chefs are celebrities in their own right.

Chef Bo Songvisava, like her former boss David Thompson, has a sizable funeral cookbook collection of her own. Besides inspiring her cooking, the funeral cookbooks in Songvisava’s collection represent the achievements of Thai women in the only sphere once permitted to them: the home.

“Funeral books with recipes in them in the early years mostly belonged to ladies from noble families,” says Songvisava, who is in the midst of writing her own cookbook. “Printing merely a cookbook must have seemed ridiculous back then, so they used funerals as an occasion to respect the deceased and pass on her skills, knowledge, and legacy.”

Chef Jason Bailey of Paste estimates that he and his wife, fellow chef Bee Satongun, have collected several hundred funeral cookbooks. The books, while providing a snapshot of a certain time, were also helpful in showing how Thai cuisine has evolved. “We were interested in seeing how they riffed and adapted Thai recipes,” he says of past cooks.

Ultimately, the Thai funeral cookbook was born in a hothouse environment of its own, fed by royal encouragement, the threat of colonization, a dearth of spaces for female expression, and the gradual literacy of the masses. However, unlike many conventions of the past, the funeral cookbook thrives today, even popping up abroad. British food writer Alan Davidson was so charmed by the idea that he compiled a 47-page booklet of his own, to be distributed at his 2003 service. The volume included recipes for personal favorites, such as meatloaf and toad-in-the-hole.

Songvisava thinks her funeral cookbook would highlight her work at her restaurant. “The recipes that I will include in my funeral book will be the ones that are served in Bo.lan and Bo.lan only,” she says, singling out green curry with local green figs, a salad of fresh northern Thai greens adorned with grilled fish, and household essentials such as Sriracha sauce.

Her husband, co-chef Dylan Jones, says he would present a mix of Thai influences and his Australian heritage in his funeral cookbook. For him, that means two particular recipes: one for nam prik prik Thai oorn, or black pepper chili relish, and another for Vegemite on toast.

#southeast asia #thailand #Culture #Traditions

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