#omg i’m not… going to tag them all for the sake of everyone’s sanity this is already so long

[rasoyas]

what a pleasant view. 🏡 original households + my 3 rotational ocs!

[nyerus]

The Absolute Clownery....

Ya’ll so someone actually tried to plagiarize TGCF?!!?

Gonna try to keep this insanity short but OH my god. Some people (possibly young teenagers; no ages were given on any profiles, so just please keep that in mind) on Instagram started promoting a work of theirs called “The Third Ascension”... featuring main character Xue Yuan, a crown prince who ascended to godhood and then fell from grace over 800 years ago, and meets a ghost king by the name of Ze Cheng....

If you’re thinking “well golly that sounds a lot like something we know” YEAH SDLFKJSDLKFJSDLKFJSD

The “author” wholesale ripped of TGCF and changed Xie Lian + Hua Cheng’s names (AND ONLY THEIRS, BTW). I really hope no one bought the fake books off Rakuten’s Kobo (e-book) site. You can self-publish on there, and the “author” also spared no effort to make fake reviews. Well. Some effort was apparently spared because they were all made on the same day and clearly fake as hell.

And yeah, they did tag @/scholasticinc on instagram -- you know, the children’s books publisher, with titles like “Captain Underpants” and “Clifford the Big Red Dog.” Please just. Take a moment to imagine a world where Scholastic would publish a Chinese xianxia novel featuring horror, gore, violence, suicide, sexual content, and psychologically distressing material -- just to name a few things! BUT APPARENTLY, no need to worry about the gay stuff, because the “author” so generously made Hualian’s romance into a bromance. Like. Legitimately took TGCF and said “everyone’s het tho!” No genderbending, just het-ification. Idk.

I really cannot. I’m moving on for my sanity’s sake. I’ve already lost so much time to how many hysterical breakdowns I’ve had because of this in the last hour and a half.

Meanwhile, the “artist” ripped off not only STARember, but various other fanartists. They have a slew of stolen artworks on their instagram even from artists like GEAROUS. Absolutely baffling.

However, Things Are Happening already, so we can rest assured. Because both of them have set their profiles to private, the carrd and wixsite they had to promote it are down, the discord server was purged (unclear if deleted, people tried to raid it and got kicked lol), and the books were taken off listings from Kobo’s sites. There are multiple sites in different languages though, so it will probably take a little bit of time to get them all down. Fans on Weibo have also been made aware of it.

What’s infuriating is the idea that these people profited off of stolen works, and had thousands of followers. The “author” has over 18k followers on insta!!! Like wth!? Surely amongst those 18k, there was at least one gullible person that fell for this and gave them money. Yeesh. If these people are indeed kids, then I hope they’re really young and stupid -- and that they learn from these. Parents please pick up your kids omg. If they’re adults, then I really do not know what to say.

Technically, it’s still a developing situation, and I don’t have more screenshots because things moved SO fast. By the time I was done screaming and processing the whole situation, telling people I knew, and reporting what I could, that shit was gone LMFAO!!! Fandom moved hella fast, thank goodness. I don’t know what’ll come of it, and I’m really just making this post to archive the fact that this happened at all because I’m not entirely convinced that it’s not just a stress dream I’m having right now.

This twitter user is doing a really amazing job of cataloguing what the hell is going on, so please check out their thread if you wanna see more: https://twitter [.] com/wwxwashere/status/1376948807729045512?s=20

Also rest assured that Suika and the other translators know about it already: twitter [.] com/yummysuika/status/1376952468899295234

Thank you very much to Otonozhin on the Suibian discord sever for bringing it to my attention, as well as others on there + the HOBL server + on twitter who helped spread the word and report all this.

[emeraldbirdcollector]

Why David Tennant and Catherine Tate are the BEST Benedick and Beatrice EVER.

I have just seen this version of Much Ado About Nothing. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS1wo_8L3Yc&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBEyNB5pFhI&feature=youtu.be

It is STUNNING. Not just for the physical comedy, though Tennant is an absoilute master of physical comedy, especially that involving hips, and Tate is right up there with him. (Tennant chews the scenery just as much as Branagh did in the same part, but Branagh appears to be doing it to call attention to himself, while Tennant manages to convince you that the scenery is Tasty and he’s enjoying his meal thoroughly.) Not just for the kid who shows up at random bits and gets laughs by Being A Kid. 

But Tennant’s Benedick and Tate’s Beatrice get some things right that I’ve never seen a Benedick and Beatrice get right before. 

(This is going to get long, so I’m going to put the rest of this under a tag. Please excuse me while I geek out in geeky fashion. This is my favorite play and now this one is my favorite version of it.)

They get the seriousness of what Claudio does to Hero. Both of them do. It’s a hard thing to grasp in our modern age, where an accusation like that and a rejection might break a young woman’s heart and leave her the subject of unpleasant gossip for a little while. but no worse. In the context of the play, though, Claudio would have been kinder to run Hero through with his sword. He has effectively and completely ruined her life for good, denied her marriage of any sort, denied her any chance at a healthy adult life and family, left her a lonely pariah outcast and rejected by even her dearest family members (or at least she’s supposed to be, but while Leonato goes along with it, Beatrice, bless her, refuses utterly). Which is why when she is proven innocent, he needs to make a Very Public confession of how wrong he was and how innocent she was, to undo the damage he did to her (and even then, there’s probably some remaining). 

Leonato is bitterly shamed and furious - first at Hero, but then when he’s finally persuaded that she’s innocent, at Claudio and Don Pedro. But his fury is for the shame brought on him and his family name. Hero is a symbol to him, his Sweet Obedient Daughter who has been a Good Girl so far and made him proud, and he is perfectly willing to turn on her the moment she doesn’t fit that image any more. 

Only two people immediately and completely believe Hero innocent and stand by her. The Friar, who as a Man of God is pure of heart enough to see Hero’s purity - and Beatrice, who loves Hero as her sister, who sees her as a human being who has been bitterly betrayed and wronged, who reaches out to embrace and protect her, who is utterly furious on her behalf. Hero is a person to Beatrice as she is to no one else, not just a role being played or a mobile piece of decorative household furniture that has suddenly developed an unexpected and not-previously-visible flaw. And maybe Beatrice also feels a bit of guilt there, because she wasn’t sharing a bed with Hero that night and can’t prove her innocent, likely because she was busy mooning over Benedick. 

Benedick - and Tennant does this masterfully - is stunned and in shock, and has no idea which way to turn. His loyalties are ripped nearly in two by the wedding scene - he trusts and is fond of Claudio and the Prince, but here they’re doing something really shockingly awful to a woman beloved of his own darling Beatrice, and Beatrice is as convinced of her innocence as he is of Claudio and Don Pedro’s honorable natures. He’s sure there’s got to be some misunderstanding. He wants to blame Don John, whom he does not like or trust, instead of his friends. He wants to restore sanity, find the solution, fix things. He’s the one who keeps pulling Leonato away, preventing him from hurting Hero physically, who joins with the Friar in urging everyone to calm down and think rationally, who wants to hear everybody out and find a sensible explanation for all this.

And then he’s alone with Beatrice, and her grief visibly hurts him, to the point where he blurts out his love for her just because he wants to comfort her. And for a while, she does cheer up, and she confesses her feelings too, and for a moment he forgets the situation and rejoices in her love - and then she tells him to “Kill Claudio,” and he’s shocked back into the moment. 

What Catherine Tate gets right here is Beatrice’s RAGE. She is furious at what has been done to her innocent cousin (whom, given the difference in their temperaments, she has probably looked out for and been protective of all their lives). She is absolutely merciless as she outlines, piece by piece, just how badly Hero has been wronged, belied, betrayed - and how brutal Claudio has been, and how vital it is to stand up for Hero now. She is frustrated almost to the point of madness because she can’t do it this time, she can’t fight Claudio, she hasn’t the training or the physical strength, But she will damned well make sure someone does, even if it means sending the man she loves out to either die or kill his best friend. Claudio. Must. Die.

Most Benedicks here retain a sense of torn loyalty, and go off to fight Claudio reluctantly because Beatrice demands it and it is an essential task to win her heart. Tennant’s Benedick listens to Beatrice, hears what she has to say, genuinely respects her judgement - and he is persuaded. His loyalties rip completely, and he willingly chooses his side, not just because Beatrice is on that side, but because Beatrice’s side is the right side. He challenges Claudio because he firmly believes Claudio has behaved badly and should be called out on it, and he resigns from the army because he has been persuaded that Don Pedro is no longer a fit leader to serve.  He loves Beatrice not just enough to fight for her cousin, but enough to listen to her, to trust her, to respect her, to be convinced by her. And that is why he is worthy of her - and why Don John could not get him, ever, the way he got Claudio, because Benedick would have talked to Beatrice, one lover to another, and worked out what was going on, rather than throwing her aside like a piece of artwork he bought that turned out to be a forgery. 

And in the end, most Benedicks are relieved to be able to pin everything on Don John and cheerfully, completely reconcile with Claudio. Tennant’s Benedick doesn’t, quite. He gets, as other Benedicks have not, the significance of the line being “An you are like to be my kinsman, live unbruised,” instead of “an you are innocent, let us be friends again.” There’s a bit of menace in his delivery of that line, even a warning slap in the face on the “live unbruised” - what he’s really saying is not the usual, relieved, “Oh, good, you’re innocent and it’s all that bastard John’s fault, so we’re friends again,” but “I saw what you were willing to do to my kinswoman, my wife’s best friend and sister. She’s forgiven you, and she’s in your power now, so I’ll make peace with you for the family’s sake. But try that again, and I will END you.” (To his credit, Claudio accepts that as deserved, which it is.)

Tennant and Tate also do an absolutely brilliant job of convincing the audience from the beginning that they’re really crazy in love with each other, letting their love for each other show through their sparring, making it clear that the sparring is just a protective shield to keep the other from breaking their heart again (and it’s quite clear that they’ve had some sort of relationship, and it broke - probably because Benedick was afraid of commitment - and now they’re each convinced the other hates them, but they’re still unable to stop thinking about each other, so they cover it up by constant bickering and insults). Beatrice can’t help asking the messenger if Benedick is back safely from the wars - she frames it as insults, but she’s clearly been worried. Benedick is genuinely hurt by Beatrice insulting him to his disguised face at the ball (and oh, that disguise, and the way Tennant wears it, it’s gorgeous- those HIPS omg) - unlike Branagh’s Benedick, who seems more resentful of the blow to his ego and the insult to the wit of which he is so proud, Tennant’s Benedick is brokenhearted because he’s just heard the woman he really loves dismiss him with apparent contempt and dislike. Beatrice, when questioned by Don Pedro, makes it quite clear that she’s lonely, but that she’s not prepared to marry for anything but real love - and pretty much confesses outright, in that quiet and vulnerable moment with someone who cares and won’t mock her, that her heart is still Benedick’s. And just before the eavesdropping scene, in Benedick’s monologue, he adds just a little tweak to the description of the Ideal Woman Who Could Convince Him To Marry that makes it quite clear he’s thinking of Beatrice and her alone. The palpable relief they show when they can finally admit their feelings, and when they realize the other still loves them, is glorious. They can’t keep themselves from bursting into laughter at inappropriate moments, not just because the situation is funny, but because they’ve just got so many FEELINGS and they’re finally able to be let out and it’s such a relief that they’re both downright giddy. It’s adorable. 

I would also comment here that it’s not just Tennant and Tate, though they steal the show - the other actors in this are brilliant, too.  Elliott Levey as Don John is masterfully insinuating and sneaky, a talented gaslighter, while Tom Bateman’s Claudio is just innocent and gullible enough to be readily deceived, and manages to show a level of remorse and repentance once Hero’s innocence is revealed  that make me feel less sorry for Hero having to marry him in the end than I usually am. You get the feeling he might genuinely have learned from his mistake and might be a better person in future. Jonathan Coy, as Leonato, plays him as a comfortable, genial sort of squire whose world has been turned upside down, and who is furious and out of his depth and passionately determined to get his honor back, whether that means throwing away his cherished daughter or killing his former potential son-in-law. Someone is going to pay for publicly humiliating him (not Hero, him). 

 Adam James’s Don Pedro has an easy air of authority - until Don John’s treachery is revealed, at which point he seems genuinely shaken. And he makes his proposal to Beatrice seem genuine - he’s charmed by her and attracted to her, and while he’s not yet as much in love with her as Benedick is, you get the feeling he might be, had he been given time and encouragement. I didn’t believe that either Denzel Washington’s Don Pedro - though I loved him - or Reed Diamond’s had a thing for Beatrice, but I get that loud and clear from this one. Her rejection hurts him - but he’s an honorable enough man that his next move is to get her fixed up with the man she is obviously pining for, a man she considers worth rejecting a wealthy prince for. (And rejecting him is a big deal. When Leonato thinks Don Pedro is wooing Hero as himself for himself, he gives her quite clear orders that she WILL be wooed, because after all, he’s the PRINCE. Beatrice literally turns down Prince Charming for a man of far less wealth and status, and he realizes why, given that she’s practically confessed to him a few minutes before that she’s still got feelings for Benedick - “I gave him use for it, a double heart for his single one...”) During the eavesdropping scene, he quite clearly says, “Would she had bestowed this dotage on me - I’d have doffed all other concerns and made her half myself,” and he’s only partly mugging for Benedick’s benefit, part of that is genuine, I think. And at the end, when he sees her happy with Benedick, he’s happy for her - but there’s some pining on his own behalf, too. Which makes Benedick’s “Get thee a wife!” a bit of a barbed phrase, and you can see the barb go home.  

I can’t find the name of the woman who played Margaret, but she was a delight, too, as playful and witty as Beatrice and clearly an old and cherished friend of both hers and Hero’s, as well as a servant. Certainly not afraid of talking back to her employers, well aware that Beatrice and Benedick have it bad for each other and quite willing to tease both of them mercilessly about it, but genuinely fond of both of her ladies and wishing both of them well (Borachio makes it quite clear that her seeming betrayal of Hero was innocent and unknowing, and that he was the schemer, not her). When Benedick tells the Friar and Leonato that he wants to marry Beatrice, she gives the most adorable happy squeal. I hope she continues as Hero’s lady’s maid - Hero needs someone tough and witty in her corner, though of course she’ll always have Beatrice (and now Benedick, in a brotherly sort of way) on her side as well.

John Ramm’s Dogberry and Mike Grady’s Verges get their parts thoroughly right, too - they are delightfully dim, but full of self-importance, trying SO HARD to be witty like the aristocratic characters, and they have NO IDEA what they are getting wrong. They overact like crazy, but they’re supposed to.

 Alex Beckett’s Borachio is first casually flip about his villainy and proud of his cleverness in getting so much money out of Don John and fooling the noble Don Pedro and Claudio - but then he hears that Hero died of it, and you can see the seriousness of that hitting home. He’s not as much a villain as Don John. It shakes him, that he killed an innocent woman, and you get the feeling that his confession to Leonato was not drawn from him by the constables, incompetent as they are, but came straight from him. And he takes all the blame himself and makes sure to exonerate Margaret. There’s some honor left in him.

All in all, this is the best version of my favorite Shakespeare play that I have ever seen. You should see it too.  

[forestwater87]

You know I've gotta ask about Jaspidwen

AND YOU KNOW I FUCKING LOVE YOU FOR IT! (we’ll make this ship happen I swear to Christ)

hell no | how about no | eh | kinda cute i guess | that’s adorable | omg omg yes | otp | you’re fucking kidding right i’m dying because of these two THREE

and i’ll also tell you who:

proposes

Well see, in my head Jaspid absolutely happens before Gwen; they were engaged when she met them, so I have a hard time imagining that they’d just … like, not get married. So I assume Jasper proposed to David. They’d been talking about it forever, but David’s a fucking spaz and was way too nervous to actually do it, so eventually Jasper had to summon all of his not-inconsiderable charm and make it happen. (Gwen attends the wedding. She’s … kinda their girlfriend but also kinda in a weird place about knowing if she wants in on this crazy family, so it’s a bit bittersweet for all of them. But damn if those two dumb boys aren’t adorable the day of; David cries excessively, and Jasper mostly just … bounces. Everywhere. All the time. He’s too excited to stay in one place.)

Obviously polyamory isn’t really a legal thing, so they can’t marry her even after they’re all a big cuddle puddle. And Gwen makes a very big deal about how she doesn’t like weddings, they’re a waste of time and money and she never planned on getting married anyway, but … well, she’s not as good a liar as she thinks she is. 

Which is why when Nerris, Max’s delightful girlfriend of like 4-5 years, goes out on a shopping trip with Gwen (they’re close. They’re the only girls in the family, they have to be close) and she points out a cute little knee-length dress and says wistfully that she would’ve worn something like that if she’d ever gotten married, Nerris immediately talks her into buying it and gives Max a heart attack by texting him “we have to talk.”

What they have to talk about, of course, is weddings. (This is Max’s second heart attack, because he thinks she’s proposing. It takes a few minutes to drag him back from the brink of terror.) It’s a whole big surprise thing – which Max insists is a terrible idea because Gwen hates surprises, but Jasper’s caught up in the scheming and David’s too much of a romantic to let the idea die. Of course, Jasper’s ideas are all kind of terrible — he has the most aggressively bad taste and will sacrifice sincerity for a joke 8 times out of 10 — and David’s are unrealistic (“No, Dad, we can’t have doves fly out from under everyone’s chairs because then they’d poop on everything. And we’re not hiring Harrison just for a stupid dove trick!”), which means that Max and Nerris do the vast majority of the planning, being the only practical adults in the room.

Nerris talks Gwen into wearing her pretty white dress and having a girl’s day, and when they arrive at this dinky little community center that’s all but closed down, Gwen gets “married” to the two dorks she’s been dating for well over half a decade.

She tells them they’re all idiots, and absolutely does not cry. (Nope, not even if you look close, get out of her face especially with that fucking camera, Max!) There’s a lot of dancing, even more drinking. All the campers show up, which is both embarrassing and extremely sweet. 

Speaking of … all three of them get spectacularly drunk, and are a combination of embarrassing and extremely sweet. Max and Nerris become designated babysitters.

(I hope I got all this right; @hopefullypessimistic84 and I came up with this idea approximately 2 million years ago and it’s hard to remember all the details. I just remember it being very cheesy in the best way.)

shops for groceries

Jasper! David insists on coming along so he can sneak junk food into the cart, and Gwen insists on staying home because she’s not refereeing that fucking battle every goddamn week, for Christ’s sake. Besides, it’s the only time they’re all out of the house so she can enjoy her trash TV in peace.

kills the spiders

Jasper’s too afraid to go near them, and so usually it’s David having to rescue them from Gwen, who’s merciless. He has to scramble to get it safely outside before she gets there because she has zero patience for the things and will make them very very Dead.

comes home drunk at 3am

I … don’t know, honestly? I mean, Gwen definitely used to do that, but I feel like she’d be very over that scene by the time she gets with her boys. Jasper would probably enjoy it every now and then, and I’m sure he could talk Gwen into it. And where they go … David will of course follow. So I’d say if they do it it’s all 3 of them, they make a total mess of themselves, and swear never to do it again. It’s like an annual thing, if that. Not frequent.

makes breakfast

Jasper! He’s the only one who’s willing to put in that kinda effort.

remembers to feed the fish

David, hands down. He also sings to them every morning and tells them how pretty their scales are. Gwen can’t remember their names, and neither can Jasper but he refuses to admit it so he just makes up ridiculous nicknames for them.

decorates the apartment

It’s a David-Jasper tag team affair. David makes it look like it belongs to an 80-year-old woman, and Jasper adds hideously tacky ornaments at every available opportunity.

initiates duets

Jasper will sing whether you want him to or not. Especially if you don’t want him to. He can usually rope David into singing with him, but Gwen only sings when she’s confident no one can hear her.

falls asleep first

Huh … probably Gwen? I think Hope and I headcanon both Jasper and David as having insomnia to a degree, so Jasper tends to stay up watching cartoons until he’s comatose and David … usually just lies awake in bed and looks out the window, thinking.

sends the most selfies

I think this must be a close race. Jasper sends really ridiculous ones, Gwen likes the validation that she’s hot so she sends them whenever she’s feeling either confident or insecure, and David … actually, now that I think of it I imagine David’s less likely to take pictures of himself than of random things he finds pretty, so while he texts as many pictures, they aren’t selfies very often, more like “look at this flower!” and “this duck reminds me of you!”

makes the first move

Depends what the move is. If it’s a serious conversation or important moment, it’s probably Jasper who’s brave enough to initiate (Gwen would just avoid it for as long as humanly possible, and David would flutter anxiously, start to bring it up about 17 times, and then give up and deflate into a puddle of sad man). Something heartwarming and “let’s talk about our feelings!” is all David – especially if it’s not his feelings they’re talking about. Sex? That’s Gwen all the way. In terms of romantic gestures like going on dates or whatever, it probably varies based on who gets the idea – though Gwen usually likes to pass the responsibility of actually coming up with plans onto one of the others, because she hates the pressure to have it go well.

plans spontaneous trips

Oooh, David. He loves surprises and spontaneity and fun! Gwen’s the most likely to shoot him down, and Jasper’s probably the one who’s both creative and practical enough to find some sort of middle ground, that halfway gets what David had planned without completely destroying their bank accounts/personal lives/sanity.