#there are some inappropriate things

[twilightichor]

Before I say anything, I want to preface that this post isn't meant to throw shade at the character this is about, more so about the direction the company takes with her and a suspicion of mine as for what that reason may be that will be addressed soon.

As I mentioned before, I was looking through content related to Jinhsi in order to make more posts about her —headcanons or otherwise— until I've come across the lines dedicated to Jinhsi through Sanhua's stories / voicelines. This in combination with my reflections on the story (the first part to be precise, when Jinhsi announces her official absence) made me realize that there are a few irregularities when it comes to the direction Kuro made her have.

Starting from the fact that she's Jinhsi's bodyguard, her personal one most accurately said. It's no surprise that anyone of high standing that has a personal bodyguard will have a deeper bond with them than just that and so is Jinhsi's case with her (it's crystal clear to me that Jinhsi cares a lot about Sanhua, to the point where she's an agreed topic of conversation with Changli in which both think she should take it easier, or that instance in one of her stories where Jinhsi introduces herself in one of her nightmares in order to bring her some peace of mind), but there are a few things that are off to me.

Like the fact that she's trusted with paperwork. By this I don't mean to say that Sanhua isn't capable of dealing with it, I'm sure she is. But that would be work out of her scope as a bodyguard. Given that Changli was also setting off Jinzhou at the same time as Jinhsi did, it would be, perhaps, the most adequate to do to entrust one of the people who she has to ask for permission when she wants to implement certain decisions— as it is known that in Jinzhou at least they count with a political system hard for corruption to spring due to the implication of more figures than just the leader. Even more so assuming that said figures might be older and with more years of experience on their backs.

Moreover, there is also this line in particular that makes it inappropriate to me, once again, because Sanhua is her bodyguard. If she were Jinhsi's retainer that might make more sense for her to be concerned about matters like this one, but not in this particular case. One could argue that Jinhsi and Sanhua are friends or their relationship borders a genuine friendship and I would agree with this, but this in particular would be even more awkward if we consider that Sanhua would act this way in a political building. Perhaps it'd make more sense for Changli given that she's Jinhsi's mentor and mentorships tend to be more personal, but not this. An easy example I can think of is of Noctis, Ignis and Gladiolus from FFXV, where Gladiolus is the bodyguard (who also taught Noctis to fight) and Ignis the retainer. There is a crystal clear separation of duties there that, if applied to WuWa, is oddly mixed into Sanhua.

Where I want to get with all of this is to say that in my portrayal of Jinhsi, she will entrust Sanhua with the duties she has a bodyguard but not other things like paperwork or anything that concerns political matters. It's saddening how strange all of this was to me when I began to think about it in more detail because I like their relationship, but I can't help but think that some of these decisions are for plain fanservice purposes that won't be taken in consideration in this blog.

[lazylittledragon]

can't believe we're all adults being forced into the club penguin level of censorship in 2024

[pinacoladamatata]

i just think

[thebusylilbee]

Le comte de Monte Cristo / The count of Monte Cristo (2024)

[brainrotcharacters]

deadclaws where wade catches Logan's attention using the laser pointer or going "pspsps" and Logan Marco Polo's Wade by yelling "FUCK me"

[cry-ptidd]

Babycard not liking/trusting men for obvious reasons and sticking to the women of Hellsing manor?

Seras is his favorite.

[its-de]

[serpentface]

Do you conlang? I was wondering if you had naming languages (or possibly even more developed ones) for pulling the words you use. I tried to search your blog but didn't find anything, wouldn't be surprised if the feature is just busted tho. Your worldbuilding is wonderful and I particularly enjoy the anthropological and linguistic elements.

Ok the thing is I had kind of decided I was not going to do any conlanging because I don't feel like I'm equipped to do a good job of it, like was fully like "I'm just going to do JUST enough that it doesn't fail an immediate sniff test and is more thoughtful than just keysmashing and putting in vowels". And then have kinda been conlanging anyway (though not to a very deep and serious extent. I maybe have like....an above average comprehension of how language construction works via willingness to research, but that's not saying much, also I can never remember the meanings of most linguistic terms like 'frictives' or etc off the top of my head. I'm just kinda raw dogging it with a vague conceptualization of what these things mean)

I do at least have a naming language for Wardi (and more basic rules for other established languages) but the rudimentary forms of it were devised with methods much shakier and less linguistically viable than even the most basic naming language schemes, and I only went back over it LONG after I had already made a bunch of words so there's some inconsistencies with consonant presence and usage. (This can at least be justified because it IS a language that would have a lot of loanwords and would be heavily influenced by other language groups- Burri being by far the most significant, Highland-Finnic and Yuroma-Lowlands also being large contributors)

The 'method' I used was:

-Skip basic construction elements and fully move into devising necessary name words, with at least a Vibe of what consonants are going to be common and how pronunciation works -Identify some roots out of the established words and their meanings. Establish an ongoing glossary of known roots/words. -Construct new words based in root words, or as obvious extensions/variants of established words. -Get really involved in how the literal meanings of some words might not translate properly to english, mostly use this to produce a glossary of in-universe slang. -Realize that I probably should have at least some very basic internal consistency at this point. -Google search tutorials on writing a naming language. -Reverse engineer a naming language out of established words, and ascribe all remaining inconsistencies to being loanwords or just the mysteries of life or whatever.

I do at least have some strongly established pronunciation rules and a sense of broad regional dialect/accents.

-'ai' words are almost always pronounced with a long 'aye' sound.

-There is no 'Z' or 'X' sound, a Wardi speaker pronouncing 'zebra' would go for 'tsee-brah', and would attempt 'xylophone' as 'ssye-lohp-hon'

-'V' sounds are nearly absent and occur only in loanwords, and tend to be pronounced with a 'W' sound. 'Virsum' is a Highland word (pronounced 'veer-soom') denoting ancestry, a Wardi speaker would go 'weer-sum'.

-'Ch' spellings almost always imply a soft 'chuh' sound when appearing after an E, I, or O (pelatoche= pel-ah-toh-chey), but a hard 'kh' sound after an A or U (odomache= oh-doh-mah-khe). When at the start of a word, it's usually a soft 'ch' unless followed by an 'i' sound (chin (dog) is pronounced with a hard K 'khiin', cholem (salt) is pronounced with a soft Ch 'cho-lehm')

-Western Wardin has strong Burri cultural and linguistic influence, and a distinct accent- one of the most pronounced differences is use of the ñ sound in 'nn' words. The western city of Ephennos is pronounced 'ey-fey-nyos' by most residents, the southeastern city of Erubinnos is pronounced 'eh-roo-been-nos' by most residents. Palo's surname 'Apolynnon' is pronounced 'A-puh-lee-nyon' in the Burri and western Wardi dialects (which is the 'proper' pronunciation, given that it's a Kos name), but will generally be spoken as 'Ah-poh-leen-non' in the south and east.

-R's are rolled in Highland-Finnic words. Rolling R's is common in far northern rural Wardi dialects but no others. Most urban Wardi speakers consider rolling R's sort of a hick thing, and often think it sounds stupid or at least uneducated. (Brakul's name should be pronounced with a brief rolled 'r', short 'ah' and long 'uul', but is generally being pronounced by his south-southeastern compatriots with a long unrolled 'Brah' sound).

Anyway not really a sturdy construction that will hold up to the scrutiny of someone well equipped for linguistics but not pure bullshit either.

[itspileofgoodthings]

two sort of related teaching thoughts I’ve been having as we barrel towards the end of the school year:

1) an aspect of the job I feel I’m just growing into—well, not an aspect, really. More of a central tenet—is being able to see and remember that I teach KIDS. And that is so important to remember in all cases but especially with my high schoolers. They are so young and more than that so much has not happened to them yet. There is so much they don’t know. And the more I see it the more I can be compassionate and yet also removed? Distanced? Not under the illusion that I’m addressing people of equal maturity or experience to me—or even close—and so being at all times mindful of the incompleteness of pretty much everything about them and thus being gentle with them. And also at the same time remembering and rejoicing in their humanity and all their glorious funny raw potential. It’s amazingly hard to do, harder than I thought. But I do think I CAN do it. And it gets a little easier with age.

2) It is shocking how many teachers don’t see kids that way and are uninterested in trying. It’s almost an epidemic the way that teachers swing between appreciating kids as if they were other adults—gassing them up, frankly LYING about their depth or intelligence in ways that shock me on the daily (when people call a kid mature and act like that is a literal statement and don’t contextualize it, I have to laugh, literally none of them ARE mature, they’re all raw; also the smartest of them aren’t deep. They CAN’t be, they’re KIDS)—or on the other hand being disgusted with their immaturity as if, again, they’re dealing with adults. And expressing their scorn and disappointment as if some of that behavior isn’t par for the course. There’s a cruelty in either extreme; there’s a lack of common sense; there’s a rampant sentimentalism. And it makes me almost sick to my stomach sometimes.

[im-not-a-virgo-im-a-lesbo]

In light of recent news, I'd like to share my stance on this.

I absolutely stand with the victims. This is horrible horrible news, and as someone who has experienced SA, I am incredibly disappointed and stand with others who have had similar experiences.

But I don't think there's enough information to jump to conclusions yet.

I'm not going to defend Neil and insist he didn't do it because I don't know him, I never did, and I never will. But on the other hand, I'm not going to say he absolutely did it.

As of now, we have an article and a true crime podcast as evidence (which I've heard is run by some transphobic individuals, but please, correct me if im wrong), and it simply isn't enough to say for sure what happened.

Since hearing the news, I have unfollowed Neil, and I've tried to find as much information as I can. Which is what I implore everyone to do. Research.

And as for the Good Omens fandom:

While I have abandoned things I've enjoyed in the past due to shitty creator behavior, it's too much of a safe space for me to completely leave. We shouldn't let this change how we interact with each other. We shouldn't let this shake our compassion for one another. I don't think we should feel guilty for enjoying something that makes us happy. If Neil Gaiman is indeed this terrible of a human, don't let that stop us from being kind to each other. I have faith that as a fandom, we will move on from this, even if it's without Neil. Don't let a shitty creator prevent you from enjoying something and letting you be creative.

Thank you.

[pangzi]

apparently jing yanjun, chen yesheng and wang bowen got along so well and had so much fun on set for conjuring curse and misty creed that a big chunk of the behind the scenes content was just completely unusable. they blamed it mostly on wang bowen saying inappropriate things.

[choco-aj]

i kinda want some videos about how our wolf boys told their mates about...the wolf boy thing.

BECAUSE DO YOU REALLY THINK ANY OF THEM WOULD TAKE THE BOYS SERIOUSLY-

David: "Okay, I know this might sound crazy but...I'm actually a werewolf. I'm the alpha of the shaw pack..."

Angel:"...HAHAHSHSNANH-"

Asher: "Babe...this is gonna come as a shock to you but, I'm actually a werewolf."

Babe: "oh no i'm dating a furry 😧😨😭"

[anghraine]

The English class I teach just finished a unit on literary criticism, and one of the things we talked about was the distinction between criticism in the sense of literary criticism/critical thinking and criticism in the more common sense of criticizing things.

I think the distinction is important, and it's important to take the next step, too. Nobody is obliged to like anything or not to recognize its flaws. But pointing out flaws is often the lowest-hanging fruit when it comes to engaging with a text—the quickest, easiest approach to take.

For many, it's quite easy to default to kneejerk critical reactions (in the common sense) without thinking them through or seeing any need to do so. That isn't just different from critical thinking; it's the opposite of it and actively impedes it.

I've often seen this in creative writing workshops. People typically are much readier to point out real or imagined flaws than to think through what the text is aiming for and how the author's choices aid or inhibit it. When workshop students encounter a very good piece, they often don't know how to respond and will resort to comfortable nitpicking or simply "I don't see anything wrong with this," as if finding wrong things is the sole purpose of a workshop.

But the idea that thinking critically about things = criticizing or condemning them seems to loom even larger over literary criticism and reviews and fandom meta and all sorts of things. Identifying and analyzing flaws can be part of critical responses (in the lit-crit sense) and often are. I am personally not at all hesitant about pointing out flaws when I see them or connecting them to more general interpretations. But critical thinking does not begin or end with pointing out flaws and it's entirely possible for critical thinking about a piece to result in an even greater conviction that it's wildly successful in its aims and as a piece of art.

I was partly thinking about this because of the common insistence that it's okay for people to like things (thank you, kindly overlord!) as long as they also think critically about them. But "think critically" here almost always seems to mean "as long as you point out its flaws every time you mention it and your actual overall opinion about it is ambivalent at best." The goal doesn't seem to be for others to ever have a reaction like, "I stopped and thought deeply about how it's crafted and what it's doing, and thanks! Now I have a fuller understanding of how spectacularly well it accomplishes its artistry."

It's fine to be ambivalent about things and point out flaws, as I said before, but a) it doesn't take critical thinking to do that alone, and b) it's not required for someone to feel and do that to be thinking critically about something.

[eerna]

losing it at the fact that Arthur and the Minimoys was heavily edited for its USA release. Arthur getting drunk & high, trying to join M's army, and marrying a grownass woman was one of the most iconic moments of my childhood I can't believe poor American kids were completely left out

[innovatorbunny]

anime sexualizes women to the exact same extent western live action media does but people love to act like anime is special because they really wanna be racist