#which makes no sense because I wrote one of our most popular articles

[taesankisser]

CHASE ME!

CHAPTER ONE: NIGHTWALKERS

pairing: ???!taesan x vampire!fem reader

word count: 1.8k+

warnings: mentions of blood/bloodlust, a bit of stalking (reader follows him), mentions of the feeling of being burned, reader sort of has an allergic reaction, reader and taesan both pass out, threats, i promise the warnings seem weird but it’ll make sense if you read it (:

writing under the cut!

“nightwalkers…

what are they? they are said to be vampires, who reign in the darkness of the night in search of their next meal. parents would warn their children, “don’t go out at night, there are monsters that walk the streets.” the truth of the matter is that these vampires are simply just a myth, or so most people thought. their existence has been hidden from the public eye, every sighting was somehow proven to be fake. they blamed bloodied and mutilated bodies on “animal attacks.” how cliche. in order to prevent mass hysteria, the media portrayed them as fiction. “here are 10 pieces of evidence to disprove their existence-”

you rolled your eyes while reading the article on your phone. “do you hear this nonsense? look at us, ten! we’re so real!” you gestured to yourself with a pout, groaning as you kicked some of the gravel on the rooftop you and your friend were hiding out on.

“oh hush. our goal is to not get seen, remember? you don’t want to get found out.”

“yeah but they make us seem like cryptids! i’m real, i exist!” you pouted once more.

“i mean, you could always kill the person who wrote it?”

“wait a second. ten, you’re a genius!”

“i was kidding. we don’t kill just for fun. unless you’re one of those evil vampires in which case i will stop mentoring you.” he said with a smirk on his face.

“hmph. i know. i was kidding too. i’m not evil. i’m a very well behaved girl.” you said matter-of-factly, giggling at the way he rolled his eyes.

“yeah. sometimes. although, you do cause me quite a bit of stress.” he admitted, causing you to stick your tongue out at him. he loved you. in reality, you were his little protege and he couldn’t be prouder of you. he saved your life, gave you a new one, and you couldn’t be more grateful to him and for him. you smiled as you looked at him with such love. your best friend.

you then scanned the area below you. the building you and ten were on top of belonged to a popular college. for some reason, you found comfort in this area. it might be because of your past, specifically the age at which you were stuck at, or maybe it was just because you typically found your prey here.

“see anything you like?” he asked as he gestured towards the ground, seeing a flood of students leaving their evening classes.

“no, this is so boring.” you huffed as you looked around.

“are you sure? take a closer look.” ten said as he smiled while gently putting his hands on your head and moving your view to match his. “take a look at that.”

your jaw dropped as you saw the most beautiful human you think you have ever seen. if you weren’t already dead, you think that the sheer beauty of him might have killed you, or at least been enough to make your heart work so hard that you fell unconscious. it was like love at first sight, or lust. not that kind of lust, though. lust for his blood, which you happened to notice. he smelled incredible. the air around him was like expensive cologne, but not the overbearing scent that most people use. it was more unique, more on the lighter side like fresh sheets with a hint of citrus.

his blood smelled like the human equivalent of walking into a bakery and fresh cupcakes were being made. the aroma around him was so delicious that you felt your brain go fuzzy. you thought that scent would be seared into your olfactory nerve for the rest of your undead life.

he was also painfully your type, it almost made you wish for a split second that you were different. in the span of less than a minute, you wondered what if. what if things were different. however, your vampirism took over and it was as if all those thoughts were physically thrown out of your mind. all you could think about was eating. eating him. drinking from him and maybe stealing every last drop that he has in his body. although, you’re not supposed to kill, this was one of those rare occurrences where you wondered if you would truly be able to control yourself. the taste of him was probably so addictive that you would steal his life source and never be able to stop until his body was physically unable to make more. well, maybe, you could make him your little human blood bag, taking from him whenever you wanted. you were delusional, absolutely unhinged because of him. it was the first time this sort of emotion had taken over you.

“i have to have him. i have to taste him or i might actually die.” you said as you started running for the stairs. as you did, you heard ten in the distance, yelling at you to wait for a second, then proceeding to laugh as you ignored him. you chased the college boy, watched him, and followed him as he left the campus with what you assumed were his friends. you remained in the shadows while he stayed blissfully unaware.

he went to dinner with his friends, while you remained hidden. you knew you had to be strategic about this, not wanting to ruin your chance at having probably the most incredible meal of your life. you listened in as he laughed with his friends, noticing the sound of their hearts in sync as they were enjoying each other’s company. your own heart sank for another moment, you wish you could experience true youth.

before you could think too much about the what if’s, he got up, mentioning something about needing to go home to study. he was going ahead on his own. “this is my chance!” you thought to yourself as he was about to be alone; inevitably vulnerable.

he walked out of the restaurant with a smile plastered on his face, most likely feeling fulfilled after time well spent with his friends. you followed him. stalked him like he was some kind of prey- or well he was in this case. the aroma of him never faded as you watched him all night. you followed him on and on until you saw an alleyway you could make your move in. you took a deep breath. “here goes nothing.” you whispered to yourself.

you reached at his arm, snatching his shirt sleeve and threw him into the alley with your enhanced strength. “what the hell?” he exclaimed. you kept your head down as he stayed hidden in the shadows with you. he was even more beautiful close up. you stayed like that for a moment as he looked at you; confused. “are you okay? do you need my help?” he asked with sincerity in his voice. he must have thought you were some poor helpless girl. you took a deep inhale, breathing him in. “you have no idea how much i’m going to enjoy this.” you smiled as the bloodlust took over. he whispered out a confused “what?” you looked up at him, staring into his deep brown eyes with your own piercing red orbs. you concentrated on his for a moment before speaking. “you’re going to let me drink, and not make a single peep as i do so. got it?” you whispered. “i’m going to WHAT?” he yelled out as you realized he was utterly unphased by your compulsion. you were dumbfounded, but didn’t want to miss the opportunity you had in front of you. instead of wondering, and maybe paying more attention to the odd situation at hand, you went for it.

you lunged at him with incredible speed. you were so fast, it was almost as though it all happened in slow motion. he didn’t even have a moment to react. you pulled his hair roughly to the side to expose his neck, and pierced one of his veins. the taste was like nothing you had ever had before, it was almost like you weren’t even drinking blood. it was just as delicious as you thought it would be. except, as fast as the euphoria came over you, so did the dread.

you pushed him away from you as your mouth began to burn. his body crashed against the brick wall, causing him to let out a pained noise. you started coughing and feeling like your airway was closing. your lungs felt like they were on fire, hell, your entire nervous system felt like it was about to go up in flames. your body felt heavy and your vision was blurry. you were on the verge of passing out. before you could even hit the ground, your body was caught and you heard a familiar voice.

“YOU! WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?” you heard ten yell at the boy. “i-i didn’t do anything? she tried to kiss my neck- i th-think? and i- i don’t even know? she attacked ME!” taesan stuttered while frantically looking between you and ten. ten gently placed your limp body against the wall and whispered to you. “don’t worry, you’ll be okay.” he then got close to taesan, looking at him as if he was going to rip him apart.

“we’re not done here. i’m going to kill you the next time i see you, hunter. i hope you know that this means war.” he spat out as he grabbed your body close to him and sped off to god knows where. he left the poor college boy sitting on the ground absolutely confused and scared out of his mind. he touched his neck, pulling his hand away to stare at the blood. despite the fact that he was bleeding, he felt a lot less pain than he thought he would have.

“what the hell just happened?” he whispered to himself as he felt his body start to heat up. he felt a wave of electricity course through his body as he doubled over in pain, grabbing his stomach. he started coughing, it felt like he couldn’t breathe. he felt this odd burning sensation at the back of his neck, like someone had taken a piece of metal that had been heated up and etched something into his soft skin. he felt like most of his energy was stolen from him in the span of seconds, but with what little he still had he grabbed his phone and called someone.

“taesan what now?” the man on the other line groaned. “i-i think i’m dying.” taesan whimpered out as he felt his head spin. “WHERE ARE YOU?-“ he heard the man yell at him as his consciousness was failing him. “l-location.” was all he was able to mumble out. he was talking about the fact that the man on the other line had his location, it was a safety precaution that he was now extremely grateful for. “i’ll be right there.” was the last thing he heard the man say before he began falling into a deep sleep…

TO BE CONTINUED.

author’s note: AHHH SHE’S HERE!!! i hope you all enjoy and pls feel free to let me know what you think (: have a great day/night my loves!

- lots of love, solar

[grislyeye]

This post evolved out of a series of self-essays I wrote on the subject of Mothership while developing CONT/EXT. I present these (incomplete) thoughts here. Please see my previous article on institutional horror.

I continue to unpick the intestinal knot in our cultural psyche that is Alien (1979). This article expands on Skerple's Aliens and Alien Design post, focussing on Aliens as objects of fear for games like Mothership.

Let me start with this: by definition, aliens should be uncategorisable. In the comfort of Skerple's categories, aliens can only replicate the earthbound horrors of slasher flicks and supernatural thrillers. It's a trap to imagine aliens as comprehensible in any conventional sense.

But, how do you go about portraying incomprehensible aliens?

Star Trek Futurism

Firstly, in order to question our assumptions about alien life, you need to understand Star Trek futurism. Star Trek futurism is the (often unconscious) bias that the future will be like the eponymous (and often nonsense) TV show. It's an optimistic vision of the future as it ought to be, with faster-than-light travel and (most relevant here) contact with ubiquitous, intelligent and human-like alien life.

It's a powerful vision, so thoroughly internalised that it colours everything we understand about science and technology. If you've ever wondered why earnest young men consistently keep faith with Elon Musk's increasingly unlikely plans to colonise Mars, it's because Star Trek futurism demands someone, anyone must make this first step.

Star Trek futurism also biases our understanding of alien life. Faster-than-light travel only makes sense (if it makes sense at all) when there's something to actually visit. Or someone, such as intelligent alien life that shares some affinity with us, i.e. possesses the ability and desire to communicate, trade, exchange knowledge, etc. with us.

Any concept of intelligent alien life that lacks that affinity gives lie to the idea that space travel is a meaningful endeavour, and so we see the endless forms of human-like aliens with funny foreheads in popular scifi.

But these creatures can never be terrifying because they are too like us. We must abandon Star Trek futurism, give up on the unlikely idea that aliens would possess any affinity with us, and leap, heedless, into...

The outside context

I propose a new category: Aliens as outside context entities. The alien as fundamental physiological, psychological, categorical and semantic break with our parochial assumptions of what alien life might look like.

Xenobiological universalism

Alien life, however, does not have to respect the educational difficulties posed by naked apes with oversized brains, and can exploit any autocatalytic system to generate complex 'lifeforms' if the environment permits. And the range of environments - and autocatalytic systems - is huge.

What Does a Martian Look Like? by Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart, 2004

Xenobiological universalism is another powerful concept, one that has influenced science fiction authors like Philip K. Dick and Greg Bear. At its heart is the idea that the complex, self-replicating systems that lead to life are not just unique to this planet, but are, in fact, a fundamental property of nature.

In scientific circles, the general consensus is that conditions for biological life on Earth are so narrow, delicate and improbable, it's unlikely they occur elsewhere in the universe (the Rare Earth hypothesis).

Xenobiological universalism is called "xenoscience" by its proponents, but I'd question its scientific basis.

This is, of course, absurd. Open hailing frequencies!

Universalism rejects this hidebound, parochial outlook. Just as the pond skater can't imagine existence beyond the two dimensions of its pool, our earthbound perspectives prejudice our definition of life.

Universalism seeks to widen our understanding of what life is, and the conditions under which it might evolve. In particular, it focuses on one of the possible origins of life on Earth: autocatalytic systems.

Quick science lesson, bear with me: catalysts are molecules that promote the formation of other molecules, without being used up themselves. For example, enzymes are naturally occurring catalysts, and catalytic converters can turn carbon monoxide into carbon dioxide indefinitely.

Autocatalysts - molecules that can create themselves without being used up - don't really exist, but collections of chemical reactions, taken as a whole, can be autocatalytic. DNA and its various helpers are an example of an autocatalytic system, which are capable of self-replication, a key element that allows complexity to defy the second law of thermodynamics, persist, grow and, hypothetically, evolve into more complex forms.

Examples of xenoscientific fiction include:

Diaspora by Greg Egan, 1997 (a personal favourite)

Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward, 1980

Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement, 1951

Ring by Stephen Baxter, 1994

Sundiver by David Brin, 1980

Universalism takes this further, imagining that DNA is just one possible example of an autocatalytic system, and that similar kinds of processes could occur under radically different circumstances. If self-replicating DNA could originate from the building blocks of organic chemistry, could not other, self-replicating systems form in the complex interactions in, say, silicon-based chemistry, magnetic fields, and so on?

These are "analogous autocatalytic systems," that mirror organic enzymes and DNA, but with radically different mechanics. They're a tool for imagining truly exotic forms of alien life, from the sun-ghosts of David Brin's Sundiver, who evolved in the magnetic fields of the Sun's chromosphere, to the microscopic cheela from Robert L. Forward's Dragon's Egg, who evolved on the surface of a neutron star.

All that is needed is that spark of self-replicating complexity, whether that is exotic, nucleic "molecules" formed by the strong nuclear force, or organic-like, silicon-based chemistries.

Or - in one particularly colourful example - squids living in machine-like simulations, running off Wang tile mathematics, formed by the interaction of super-large carbohydrate molecules floating on an alien ocean.

Most importantly, xenobiological universalism allows us to imagine aliens that defy categorisation, that exist in contexts completely outside human experience.

Creatures we can truly fear.

Fearful intersection

The problem with analogous autocatalytic systems is that they propose forms of life so alien, it's difficult to understand how we might interact with them. From the perspective of Mothership, our interest is in those potential points of contact, where exotic alien biologies unhappily intersect with our own. With xenobiological universalism in mind, horrors can lurch out of the darkness from some very unexpected places. So, we must imagine (or steal from science fiction) new forms of life that somehow hunger for our own.

Fearful symmetry

...it was a perfectly, perfectly reasonable, it seemed to me, that... that some organism should incubate within the warmth of another being.

John Hurt speaking in The Beast Within: The Making of Alien, 2003

While we stretch the definition of life, we must take care to stretch it only so far. The xenomorph, for example, is horrifying because it is incomprehensible, but also because it speaks to uncomfortable and undeniable truths about biology. It follows a set of rules that make it feel palpable.

When creating improbable biologies, there must be some hook our players can grab onto, so they can at least realise how doomed they are.

Learnings

This article was research for CONT/EXT, my upcoming britpunk one-shot for Mothership. Please follow or subscribe for updates.

I tried to make the alien "xenostoma" from CONT/EXT as inexplicable as possible. It doesn't have any sensory organs, no obvious front or back. It's unorthodox method of locomotion that has no earthly equivalent, seemingly designed for space. As an inhabitant of the Thread, it's not evolved for gravity, its senses attuned to the effluvia.

There's little context for the player's to latch onto, especially as I kept its full form hidden during playtests.

The elegance of Mothership allows us to portray complex creatures using the light touch of the rules. Our outside context entities only need the fateful intersection with Wounds and Instinct. The fiction of the invented biology can inform the rest.

But, the truly inexplicable thing about CONT/EXT is The Thread. Next week, I'll be looking at the psychological and semantic implications of the alien as outside context entity.

[lingshanhermit]

Lingshan Hermit: Western Values and the Ever-Shrinking Hamburger

Most of the time, we only see the most superficial causes and effects. We fail to perceive the intricate causal relationships between things, unable to identify which factors are influencing us, directing us, or harming us. A few years ago, I wrote an article titled "Harm and Influence," which discussed how movies and TV series affect the course of our lives, the invisible connections between things, and those elements that most people are unaware of yet continuously influence and harm us.

Nowadays, we generally lack a sense of security. We don't trust anyone, we don't believe in any authoritative statements, and we even distrust our food. We worry about carcinogens in beer, whether the meat on skewers is really from sheep, and if fluoride toothpaste might damage our brains. Every day, you can see various exposé videos and people teaching us how to avoid consuming toxic substances, making us anxious even when eating a meal. We are perplexed: when did the world become like this?

Since the 16th century, Western culture has gradually begun to influence China. By the 20th century, Western culture started to affect every Chinese person. We began to realize how unfree we were before and felt that we needed more freedom. At the same time, our greed was fully awakened, and possessing vast wealth was no longer viewed as a sin. Today, most people have a Western-style mindset. They believe that we only live once, that having more possessions leads to greater happiness, and that because we only have one life, we should strive to live for ourselves and try various new experiences and meet new people. In this regard, women seem to be more easily influenced than men and have gone further (thus, they have become the biggest victims of this ideology. Although it appears they are benefiting, gaining freedom and elevated status, in the long run, they are the greatest victims).

This is why movies like "The Decision to Leave" are so popular. Many women are indoctrinated with these ideas daily. They are completely different from their grandmothers, having broken through the seal of traditional culture. They no longer believe in emotions, focus on one man, conceal their desires, or suppress themselves. They want to fully enjoy life and live for themselves. In a sense, this is one of the reasons why your food is becoming increasingly unhealthy and your stress levels are rising. Because women want a better life, and for many, "a better life" is not a goal with limits: it can mean higher income, men who are more willing to spend money on them, shopping in Japan, traveling to Florence, or owning a luxury apartment in Mid-Levels, Hong Kong. The key is that it's boundless. So their men must start adding things to your food, find ways to get money from others, and put knives to people's throats. If they don't do this, they have no way to satisfy women's ever-expanding greed. In this increasingly complex society, you need to deal with all kinds of people, pay various fees, face different forms of extortion, and ultimately satisfy your woman's growing greed (many women are quite insensitive in this regard, completely unaware of social changes and oblivious to the pressures and predicaments men face). For this, he has no choice but to harm others. He can only steal money from other people's wallets, use cheap meat to pass off as lamb, make hamburgers smaller and smaller, and this is the profound change that Western culture has brought us. And each of us is a victim of this value system.

September 27, 2024

Copyright Notice：All copyrights of Ling Shan Hermit's articles in Simplified and Traditional Chinese, English, and other languages belong to the natural person who owns "Ling Shan Hermit". Please respect copyright. Publishers, media, or individuals (including but not limited to internet media, websites, personal spaces, Weibo, WeChat public accounts, print media) must obtain authorization from Ling Shan Hermit before use. No modifications to the articles are allowed (including: author's name, title, main text content, and punctuation marks). We reserve all legal rights.

灵山居士：西式价值观与越做越小的汉堡

大多数时候，我们都只看得到那些最浅表的因缘。我们看不到事物之间错综复杂的因果关系，看不到是哪些因素在影响我们、在左右我们、在伤害我们。几年之前我写过一篇《伤害与影响》，里面讲到了电影电视剧对我们人生走向的影响，讲到了事物之间那些隐形的关联，讲到了那些大多数人都毫无意识却一直都在影响伤害我们的东西。

现在我们普遍都没有安全感，我们不相信任何人，不相信任何权威说法，我们甚至不相信食物。我们会担心啤酒里有没有致癌物，担心烤串的肉是不是来自真正的羊，担心含氟的牙膏是不是会损伤我们大脑。每天你都能看��各种曝光视频，看到各种人在教我们如何才能避免吃到毒物，这让我们吃个饭都心惊胆战。我们很困惑，世界什么时候变成这样了?

从十六世纪开始，西方文化开始慢慢影响到中国。到了二十世纪，西方文化开始逐渐影响到了每一个中国人，我们开始觉悟到自己以前多么不自由，开始觉得自己需要更多的自由，同时我们的贪欲也被彻底激活，拥有再多的财富也都已经不再被视为罪恶。到了今天，大多数人都有一个西式的头脑，他们相信人只能活一世，相信拥有的越多越幸福，因为只有这一生，所以应该努力为自己而活，应该去尝试各种新鲜事物各种新鲜的人。在这方面，女性似乎比男性更容易受到影响，也走得更远（也因此，她们成为这种观念最大的受害者。虽然看起来她们是在受益，看起来她们得到了自由也提升了地位，但从长远来看，她们却是最大的受害者。）。所以《出走的决心》这样的电影会大受受欢迎。很多女人每天都在接受这种观念的洗礼，她们和她们的祖母完全不同，她们突破了传统文化的封印，不再相信感情，不再专注于一个男人，不再掩饰欲望，也不再压抑自己，她们想要充分享受人生，想要为自己而活。从某种意义上来说，这就是你的食物越来越不健康你的压力越来越大的原因之一。因为女人们想要更好的生活，而“更好的生活”在很多人那里并不是一个有止境的目标：更好的生活可以是更高的收入、更愿意为她花钱的男人，也可以是去日本购物去佛罗伦萨旅游或是香港半山的豪宅。但重点是，它是没有止境的。所以她的男人就必须开始在你的食物里添加一些东西，就要想方设法从别人那里弄钱，就要把刀架在别人的脖子上。如果他们不这么做的话，就没有办法满足女人日益膨胀的贪欲。在这个日益复杂的社会里，你需要应对各种各样的人，需要交各种费用，需要面对各种勒掯，最后你还要满足你的女人日益增长的贪欲，（很多女人在这方面相当钝感，她们对社会的变化完全无意识，对男人所面临的压力和困境也毫无感知。）为此他别无选择，只能去伤害别人。只能去从别人的钱包里偷钱，只能用便宜的肉来冒充羊肉，只能把汉堡越做越小，而这就是西方文化带给我们的深刻变化。而我们每个人都是这种价值观的受害者。

2024 9 27

[laurenpomfrett-ardn632-2024]

Week 1 - A brief history of photography and the truth of an image - Part 1

The article 'A brief history of photography and truth' recalls the history of the photographic medium, from its agreed upon invention in 1839, and its development during the 19th century. It begins with Daguerre’s Boulevard du Temple (c.1838) as being credited as the first photograph with people. However, due to the seven minute long exposure, the high traffic of the bustling boulevard could not be captured. The article then questions if this is a truthful, realistic image. In my opinion, I would agree that the photograph was realistic, as its complications were due to the limitations of the technology of the time but would also agree that it did not truely 'capture' the scene.

Photography developed to using an albumen print combined with the wet collodion negatives (invented in 1851 by Frederick Scott Archer) which created sharp brown toned images in seconds. However, they had a lack of sensitivity to blue light, meaning the sky and sea could not be accurately captured. Photographers instead, used methods such as compiling photographs and or painting scenes that could not be captured. Personally, I think that compiling photographs with different exposures would be more accurate than painting scenes, because that could be up to the interpretation of the artist which could be inaccurate if a documentary-based photo was the goal. However, if the photo was for 'artistic value', then painting allows the photo to feel alive and true to what our eyes see.

Valley of the Shadow of Death by Roger Fenton, taken in 1855, is a famous photo that depicted numerous cannon balls in a valley. This was showcased to communicate the sense of the cannon fire and danger of war to faraway readers. However, we have since learned that Fenton and his assistant Marcus Sparling rolled cannon balls into the valley. I think that this crosses an ethical line, because with tampering with the scene, it creates a different message that aimed to input fear and distress into viewers. This was deemed one of the first photographs of war, and so would have been seen as truth by people, without any knowledge of the tampering.

Lady Elizabeth Eastlake, in 1857, wrote a widely distributed essay, simply entitled Photography that stated that photographs were created through the action of the sun and were thus objective, mechanical creations without subjective, artistic value. She surmised that photography was better suited to producing ‘cheap, prompt and correct facts’. I highly disagree with this claim, as photography is a diverse medium with many interests as opposed to just journalism or documentary. I appreciate that photographers of her time thought of themselves as artists who aligned with popular artistic themes and narratives.

In the early years of photography, the human eye perceived more than a camera could. During the mid-nineteenth century, the camera began to capture more, things previously considered impossible to the human eye. In the 1870s, Eadweard Muybridge created a series of images of a horse galloping. I would agree that the camera 'seeing' more than the human eye still makes it truthful, as it purely opens up a much wider viewpoint that we can appreciate.

In 1854, Carte-de-visite, by André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri, offered quick and cheap portrait photographs. In 1861, over 300 million cartes were sold in England alone. Cartes were used to take photos, which could be sent to loved ones, and put the sitter in charge of the artistry, which was a dynamic change. As an example, some people would pretend to row boats on dangerous waters. This use of the medium became a performance and has been compared to our modern day social media. However, this included faked and staged racist imagery of criminality, idleness and savageness, most commonly depicting those from African backgrounds. I like that some people were creative with their photographs and created fun and lighthearted photos with no ill-intention. However, when it gets pushed too far and it becomes a way to spread hate, that is not taking the proper responsibility as an artist.

Additionally, photographs of Aboriginal people were mostly created under exploitation, and presented them as 'passive, exotic people, frozen in time and disengaged with the changed world around them.' They encouraged the ideas of European supremacy and the control over Aboriginal people. I find this knowledge disturbing, that these people were being forced to be mocked and put down as being 'inferior' purely for not being aligned with the European way. I find that upsetting as no human being should be ridiculed and used against their will to spread an idea that they do not believe in.

Finally, the growing interest in portrait photography during the nineteenth century, combined with the lack of knowledge, provided many opportunities for fraud and exploitation. Spirit photography, most famously practiced by William H. Mumler (1832-84), lead people to believe that they could reconnected with deceased loved ones. He would use the double exposure technique to create the appearance of another human to portraits. He was tried for fraud in 1869 and was unable to rekindle his business. I do not like photographers like Mumler who clearly know that what they are doing is misleading, and is using the grief of others for his own profit. That act is morally wrong and takes advantage of vulnerable people.

Relate the article to at least one example from your personal experience (for example, where you have encountered a faked or manipulated photograph). 

The first example that came to mind would be the 'fish enlarging' trick which involves hiding the hand, pushing the fish out to fill the frame and using a wide angled lens in order to make the catch look bigger than it actually is. This is most common on social media and is used to make someone's fishing abilities look better. This is a relatively harmless trick, but shows how small adjustments can change our perception of the truth and influence how we interpret someone.

[fwoopersongs]

Poetry + Names? :D!!!! Can't resist adding ~

Stacking on to Hunxi's 晓星尘 example

How to search for possible poetry references Another great resource that I love a lot besides gushicimingju and gushiwen (highly recommend the gushiwen app for its clean and user friendly interface if you're interested in reading poetry/exploring classics and keeping track of what you've learnt) is sou-yun.cn, which is particularly useful for searching up names and possible references because there are lots of parameters for advanced searching to chose from - like exact vs approximate match, position, dynasty etc.

Results are returned in their full poems with the text highlighted per the image below this paragraph. With the textual instability of ancient poems and all, you sometimes get alternate words - this site also displays them and their source, as you can see in the first example.

What's even cooler is that, hey, they may recognize me but I sure don't know them! What do these characters mean together? Click into the poem, select the word and you get both the pinyin and examples of usages in other poetry.

(I try to look at this only after doing the legwork for poetry club though, because this is seriously too much of a golden finger and my searching skills may grow rusty LOL)

Gushicimingju is fantastic for the purpose of telling us how many instances does the word show up. Gushiwen actually returns results from texts as well as poetry which is also desirable because name inspo for Chinese characters is not limited to poetry and auspiciousness. If you select the 古籍 tab (indicated with a red dot below) and if the search term actually exists in any of the texts within the site's archive, then it will turn up. In this case for 星尘, there is none.

But besides all these bells and whistles, the difference between these sites is the pool of works available. Gushiwen only returned 5 results with 星尘 across the Song to Qing Dynasties. Sou-yun.cn gave me 9 from Song to Late Qing, and a further 7 from the Republican Era to our times. See below xD

/got sidetracked LOL

Oh, ctext is another of my fav go-tos as well!!!! But we all know that the search function there can be a little bit broken sometimes. So when you suspect that it's not working for you, a workaround is googling like this: "the characters you're looking for" ctext.

But let's say we're looking for something different, so you want to search within the site. And if for some reason, you want to know if a particular usage of a word was more popular in older texts (like Pre-Qin and Han) or later ones (like Wei-Jin and after), then use the search box like this!

星辰 with 'Pre-Qin and Han' selected returns 177 results. 星辰 with 'Post Han' selected returns 385 results.

Another method of researching a name Looking at the words themselves! Sometimes a return to simplicity works just as well (or maybe I just like digging many rabbit holes).

The Chinese baike.baidu (like wikipedia) these days has this cool etymology section 字源解说 at the beginning of the article for most words.

If you've ever wondered how people from the Shang Dynasty wrote the same word (ok it's not as simple as that xD but for the sake of not making this a long ramble let's go with this), there we go.

For 晓

And since this is a surname, don't forget to check out its origins!

For 星

For 尘

What did the words mean originally? How did they extend and drift to other meanings and when were these drifts becoming popular? Does it fit in with what you know of the character?

Does the conclusion you're drawing about the meaning of their name feel a bit forced, or does it make perfect sense and you're happy to make this your headcanon / share it as a possible fun fact?

Happy searching!

so I know that a lot of chinese names are references to specific poems. Is there a way to determine this (vs general auspicious meaning) and which poem specifically? I'd love to be able to figure this out for character names and I haven't been able to find any resources (in case it's helpful, I'd say I'm my understanding is maybe HSK4-level so I can clumsily make my way through the chinese internet with the help of a dictionary)

feel free to make this public so that others can benefit if you have any suggestions

oof... unfortunately I suspect that this, along with one's repertoire of chengyu, is something that one simply Just Learns with reading more. my personal repertoire of poetry is embarrassingly thin, so the horrible horrible process I've been going through is, well, throwing the name into a search bar and hoping for the best.

here's an example of how I (think I) went about doing this for Xiao Xingchen's name, way back when I wrote this post:

I went ahead and dropped "星尘 诗词" ("Xingchen poetry") into the search bar, which turned up this:

Generally speaking, I'll only put the name (minus the surname) because putting the character's full name into a search bar will probably turn up the character themselves, and if someone's name is being derived from a poem, it's usually independent of the surname anyway.

Xiao Xingchen's name is an interesting example because it doesn't quite come from a poem, but it doesn't not come from a poem. you can see that the search engine has automatically assumed that I am looking for poems about constellations, as "星辰" and "星尘" are homonyms, and one of these is more commonly seen. I usually consider that a solid indication that "星尘" (the name) is a novel formation of characters in a name, and not likely a poetic reference.

but! in for a penny, etc. I'm a huge fan of the first search result, gushicimingju, since it's a solid database of poetry and some prose. clicking into that listing informs me that gushicimingju is turning up. oh my. 119 possible matches:

note that these are matches for "星辰" (constellation), not actually our character's name. still! you can click in and peruse the selection if you'd like.

now that you're on gushicimingju's site, you can also use the search function within the site to search for more exact matches, without worrying that you'll accidentally activate the fandom itself.

looks like there's a few matches for "晓星," but nothing for the full name.

so! gushicimingju is a solid database I like to refer to most of the time. if for some reason I'm feeling particularly academically rigorous, I might also do some searches on ctext as sometimes names will come out of famous turns of phrases (a la Zhao Yun 赵云 / Zhao Zilong 赵子龙 from that post I linked earlier) rather than poems. searching the dictionary sometimes (Pleco, or zdic) doesn't hurt either. basically, I throw spaghetti at the search engine wall to see what results come back for these characters in this particular order to try and get the original referent (if any) to show up; I'll probably give up after a few permutations of search terms if nothing is actively jumping out at me

but back to the search results: sometimes, if your character is famous enough, straight up searching for "what poem is this character's name from?" will help you find like-minded people on baidu zhidao (basically yahoo answers):

although of course, take baidu zhidao result with all of the salt you would take with any yahoo answers (look for alternate sources to validate, good for a laugh most of the time)

best of luck!

[crimsonblackrose]

Please join me in a moment of pure shock that my mini boss jumped in and started helping me with a task and decide oh hell nah this is boring AF I’m getting you actual help next week you shouldn’t be doing this by yourself. On top of on Tuesday her coming in seeing the people who were here on Monday didn’t do anything and essentially bringing the hammer down so I wouldn’t have to do it all by myself. Which I think included pushing back to our main boss to make our boss do their job and flat out tell everyone how many hours they’re supposed to be helping me with said task.

[impostoradult]

This is time that was allotted to these storylines by canon, offering an expectation of meaning and importance, offering what results in a promise—not time the fans imagined or made up, not something they feel nebulously entitled to, but time they spent on plots the canon gave to them. (Cas means something to Dean after all these years and a love confession. Bucky means something to Steve after all these years and a snap. Jaime’s project of growth and his meaningful relationship with Brienne is something worth investing in.) But instead of saying, yes, you spent all this time watching these scenes, feeling these moments, taking this in—you grew with this character, with these relationships (grew in many cases away from the set starting point)—here is your promised meaning, again and again, these properties snatch the rug away and then pretend blithely they cannot understand why “entitled fans” are so upset.

I’ve been meaning to write my version of this argument for a while now, and I suppose this article is just as good a reason as any.

My thesis, in short, is that lack of queer representation actually isn’t what is creating ~the problem~ here. What’s creating the problem is the overriding power of heteronormativity as a kind of ‘trump’ story logic that is allowed to steamroller everything else into oblivion. (And yes, there actually is a substantial difference between those two things)

Sub-thesis 1: Representation Actually Isn’t A Strong Argument for Destiel (or any particular ship/character)

Controversial, I know.  The representation argument (while an extremely valid argument as applies to popular culture in general) is actually not a very good argument when it comes to why Dean should be explicitly queer and Destiel should have been consummated. 

For one, there’s no reason -- exclusively from the standpoint that it is a moral imperative that queer people are represented in media -- why any particular character or set of characters should be that representation. The ethical cultural mandate to represent marginalized groups does not mandate that any one character or set of characters in any particular given story be that representation*. Yes, even if you as a member of that marginalized group happen to identify with that character. Even then, it isn’t OWED to you. (I think writers should take those trends of identification seriously, and think about what it means to marginalized groups, and act accordingly. But I don’t think it creates an OBLIGATION)

*I’d argue the primary caveat to this would be in stories where the character’s situation or arc is directly related to struggles experienced by that marginalized group (i.e., casting mostly white actors in stories where those characters are experiencing racial oppression)

For another, if representation of queer characters were primarily dictated by fandoms, 90% of queer characters in media would be white, conventionally attractive men. (That might be overstating it a bit, but fandoms have serious biases when it comes to shipping and what kind of characters they latch onto for queer interpretation, and that’s one of the reasons I’m grateful queer representation is not primarily linked to our tastes/preferences). 

The representation argument is a very valid argument when examining popular culture as whole, and when looking at broader trends for example, within a genre, or a whole network. But no particular TV show is obligated to make particular characters within it queer just because representation is a moral imperative as a broader cultural issue. 

Sub-Thesis 2: Heteronormativity Creates Stupid/Badly Constructed Stories

The actual problem here is how heteronormativity creates a kind of trump logic that overrides coherent storytelling. 

I’m not upset about what happened on Supernatural because I think we missed out on representation. There is actually plenty of ~better~ representation elsewhere, and there will continue to be more as time goes on. The representation issue is peripheral at best when it comes to analyzing what went ‘wrong’ with Supernatural. 

The key issue here is that stories need to make sense, not just in terms of plot (although that matters), but in terms of character growth, emotional arcs, etc. The ending of Supernatural is bad because it treated massive pieces of character growth and one of the most significant emotional arcs of the whole show as if it was ultimately inconsequential -- which is bad storytelling and doesn’t make sense. 

And YES, we are ‘owed’ stories that make sense. It’s not entitled to want a story to be coherent, because coherence is what makes a story a story, and not just a series of random meaninglessly assembled plot points/fictional anecdotes. 

The problem is, Hollywood writers keep writing themselves into situations where emotional coherence basically requires an explicitly queer dynamic (or at least a strongly subtextual one), and then just being like...but these characters aren’t queer so we can’t do that. Instead, let’s end Steve’s arc by sending him back in time to live a heterosexual life with Peggy, disregarding the HUGELY significant plot points related to Steve/Bucky which grounded multiple entire movies within the MCU (Winter Solider, Civil War). Let’s end Sherlock by inventing a random, long-lost Holmes sister never remotely hinted at or foreshadowed and make that incomprehensible plot point the finale, when the entire series has been grounded in John and Sherlock’s relationship. 

Let’s make it canonically clear Cas’s love for Dean is the one single act of pure free will in a world with a malevolent God trying to manipulate everyone’s lives for his own amusement, and that Cas’s love for Dean is the only thing keeping the primary story-universe of Supernatural intact, because every other version of Sam and Dean in every other universe kill each other as God intended. Let’s make it clear that Cas’s betrayal of heaven due to his love for Dean is literally propping up their entire universe, but then end the story by pretending like it’s not that important after all. Castiel who?

And it’s just like...THAT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE! It doesn’t make fucking sense. It’s bad writing. So why would you do it? (I mean, I being a bit facetious here. I know exactly why. Because the precious feelings of homophobes will be hurt, and companies don’t want to lose out on their money) 

It’s not entitled to want a story to make sense. It’s not entitled to want major plot points and character arcs and emotional dynamics to have resolutions that follow from what came before in the story. 

And I’m sorry, but you are a ridiculous person if you watched Dean grieve Castiel’s ostensible deaths in s7 and s13 (both times becoming nearly catatonic, nihilistic, more self-destructive than usual, and borderline suicidal over losing Cas) and try to argue to me that his shrug-it-off attitude towards Cas’s death/loss in the finale makes any goddamn sense at all. 

It is utterly inconsistent with everything that has happened before in Supernatural regarding Dean and Castiel’s relationship. It’s incomprehensibly incoherent and just stupid. (And that is just the absolute tip of the incoherence iceberg because to fully explain why the ending of Supernatural re: Destiel doesn’t make sense we’d have to review over 300 episode’s worth of content, and there isn’t time for that) 

I’m just so sick and so tired of being asked to pretend to be stupid because you know, man, heterosexuality. They’re not gay!!1! 

The exhaustion I feel, as a queer viewer, in fact is not borne out of lack of representation. The representation issue is very much on an upward trajectory and I’m not worried about the future of TV not being queer enough. I’m not. 

The exhaustion and frustration and anger I feel as a queer viewer is borne of having to repeatedly watch stupid endings to good stories because the story can only make sense if you make it queer (you cowards). I’m tired of being asked to develop dumb amnesia disease in order to consume endings to stories that had to blow everything up at the end to (re)enforce a heterosexuality that can only stand on a foundation of utter incoherence and contradiction to monumental things that came before it.

I am JUST SO TIRED of being asked to sacrifice my intelligence, my basic logic and critical thinking skills, and my ability to remember basic narrative beats at the alter of almighty Heterosexuality, supreme ruler of all cultural output and destroyer of good queer things. 

Heterosexuality isn’t owed my stupidity, and I’m not entitled for wanting stories to make sense. YOU are entitled for demanding my stupidity when you wrote that dumb shit and expected me to act like it wasn’t dumb simply because it was heterosexual. 

No, the heterosexuality is exactly the reason it IS dumb. 

[moosoobi]

Battle Royale

(1) Fresh bread, French Prince

G.Lafayette : Hamilton the musical

Sometimes when you work on a project, there are moments when you need to take a break and work on something else. That’s really the case with In The Night, I have all these ideas but sometimes I feel confined to ITN (I literally have not started Chapter 3 when this is posted). And thus this fic was born. I hope you enjoy! 

Y/N and Lafayette’s POV 

Bridgerton inspired AU (watching the Bridgerton series would probably help in understanding ideas of ‘courting’ and finding a suitors) 

Odd social structure (dukes are essentially owners of land which was popularized in London, Washington is considered a president, and Lafayette is now a prince!) 

not my cover image 😟

Word count: 4k

Literally the biggest thanks to @deja-you for proofreading and some great feedback, ILY 🧎‍♀️

—-the Washington residence

The dreamy clouds would stream across the sky as Y/N began to read the newest article from Thomas Paine, the most notorious writer known for acknowledging every piece of gossip and whispers among the noble colonists. 

The pamphlet felt newly written, as few spots of the odd-smelling ink would smudge. Though Y/N was not awake, a young boy delivered this meticulous pamphlet to the Washington residence before dawn. 

As the daughter of the president, being the center of noble gossip was nothing new to her, in fact, gossip was never the center of her attention either. But something about this pamphlet in particular would surely catch her eye. 

She began to read:

‘The scene for this courting season is looking quite interesting. Now that these young ladies are finally of age, they will indeed add competition to the scene.’

Ah yes, the annual  courting season. A time for women and men to make their move and commence into the adult world. While many aren’t satisfied with their partners, reputation seems to grow higher than feelings. 

‘Many pertinent names are included in this season, and I’m honored to document the presence of these people.’ 

‘The Schuylers: all three of the incredible General Schuyler’s daughters are finally entering the courting scene simultaneously. During the war, many soldier boys would fall head over heels to impress them, and many were unsuccessful. I’m ecstatic to observe the lucky men to take the hand of Angelica, Elizabeth, and Peggy Schuyler.’ 

‘The Payne’s: Miss Dolley Payne has finally been granted entrance into this courting season. Many theories and speculation suggest that her arrival to the scene at the same time as the other great names was not a coincidence.’ 

‘And finally, the most significant family joining us this season,’ 

Y/N sucked in a breath 

‘The Washington’s: His grace’s pride and joy, Y/N, will be the most imperative competition this season. The pressure of being the president’s daughter, as well as the stigma of conceiving an heir, follow her wherever she resides. Nonetheless, Y/N Washington is an extraordinary star among the courting scene, and it would indeed be foolish to throw away your shot.’ 

‘It’s just common sense.’ 

‘-Thomas Paine’ 

It would take Y/N a couple moments before her squeals of excitement could be heard across the residence 

Shortly after, the rumbles of Y/N racing down the stairs would cause her parents, George and Martha, to take suspicious glances at each other. Y/N finally reached the dinner table where her parents were finishing up their morning tea. 

“What’s got you going so early, dear? I usually have to pull you out of bed around this time,” Martha questioned 

“Sir Payne wrote about me in the paper! My entrance to the courting scene seems to be the most glittering cluster of ink in this pamphlet” She squealed 

Y/N excitedly, yet also harshly, slid the pamphlet over to her parents, moments later they would observe her words to be true 

“That’s great, dear” Her father, George, looked up from the paper with a smile. “I know you’ll represent the Washington Family name well, although it’s a shame you’ll have to lose it when you get married” he sighed 

“Oh lighten up George, Y/N will be the talk of the town, I’m sure she’ll attract some worthy gentleman” 

“Damn right he better be worthy.” His eyes transferred from Martha to Y/N 

“Remember Y/N, very few are prepared to handle a Washington, you can even ask your mother.” 

Y/N couldn’t hold in a giggle as Martha rolled her eyes. Both Y/N and George watched as Martha arose to place her porcelain dishes in the sink

“Well I must be soo blessed to have to take care of two of them.” 

George turned back to Y/N and slid her a letter across the table, keeping another letter in his opposite hand, which was still unopened

 “May I ask what this is?” She held up the letter. Even the feeling of the paper could tell Y/N that it came from the colonial gentry. The scent faintly reminded Y/N of champagne and flowers, and the seal was a sparkling coral-pink shade. The letter appeared to be already opened 

“The Schuyler’s are inviting you to a small tea get-together, whatever you kids call it.” 

Y/N opened the envelope, searching for the details. How exciting was this, to be among the best of the best, especially in the greatest city in the world. Before she could reply, George began to speak again

“I’ve already requested for two escorts to accompany you on your way to the Schuyler residence.” Y/N turned to him in confusion 

“Huh?” She questioned “escorts?”

“Now that you’re officially in this courting season, your safety could be potentially in danger. I’m just trying to make you comfortable” He retorted 

“Father, I’m sure I’m capable of walking on my own. I mean, the Schuyler residence isn’t even that far and-”

Y/N was interrupted by multiple knocks on her door. She shot a ‘this isn’t over’ glare to her father before wandering over to her front door. She opened the door and found a surprise

The Duke of Monticello and the Duke of Manhattan, my father’s two trusted secretaries. Dropping the formalities, Y/N addressed them by their first name 

“Thomas? Alexander? Don’t tell me..” she turned back to her father. Jefferson and Hamilton stood at the doorway, both with flowers and nervous in the presence of Washington 

“Father, I’m starting to question whether you worry for my safety, or worry for your pickiness of my suitor.” Thomas and Alex attempted to hold in their laughs as if their lives depended on it 

“Of course I do!” He held a hand to his chest as if he was hurt “although I do owe them a favor-” a smirk spread across Thomas’s and Alexander’s face, yet was quickly faded as Washington addressed them 

“But no funny business with my daughter. If I hear of any shenanigans from either one of you, you both have serious consequences.” Y/N turned back to the dukes, both of them appearing drained of color. 

“Let me get dolled up and we can be on our way” Y/N swiftly ran upstairs, leaving Thomas and Alexander alone in the presence of their boss. Those poor, poor, boys

Five minutes later, Y/N glided down the stairs in her fancier skirt. Her corset gave her an amazing shape, and her hair made her appear to be a celestial being. She caught the dukes’ eyes lingering on her for a little too long. Luckily, Washington wasn’t around. “Let’s keep our focus on what’s really matters, guys” she laughed 

“R-right...” they said in unison, both turning away and pretending to be interested in the furniture in the house. Y/N had never seen the two secretaries so calm around each other, it made her realize the power the Washington’s have in the colonies. A simple order from a Washington could probably end wars, especially if it’s capable of making Jefferson and Hamilton contain their pride 

“Your graces?” She held out her hands, signifying that she was ready to depart. The dukes held out their forearm and elbows for her to take. Y/N intertwined her arms into theirs, and they headed for the Schuyler residence.

A few minutes down the path and Alexander Hamilton decided to break the silence 

“I still can’t believe you’re entering this season, Y/N. I mean, I still remember running around those horrid military camps all those years ago” he chuckled. It’s true, it’s been all these years since the war and so much has changed 

“I like to believe I’ve grown into a wonderful, young woman, don’t you think?” I batted my eyelashes towards both of them 

“Of course darlin’” Jefferson cut in “but just because we’re your honorable colleagues doesn’t mean Hamilton and I won’t be lining up for your hand” 

“Don’t be so sure. I heard this season has a few aggressive competitors on both sides. The Schuylers, the Paynes, even the Madisons! I might have to step up my game. In the meantime, both of you have to keep an open mind.” 

Thomas and Hamilton stared at each other, surprised by her response. 

“And If I find out that both of you placed bets on which one of you will earn my hand, I’ll be reminding my father to collect both of your heads.” 

Their heads hung in defeat “alright, alright darlin’ I think I kind of like my head attached to my body. No need to get violent.” 

“Plus I don’t think any of you can truly handle a Washington.” Y/N giggled, her arms still intertwined with theirs

“If Jefferson and I don’t scare away the competition, I’m sure your father will” Alexander chuckled, Thomas visibly reacted to the joke as well 

“Oh come on, the two most popular dukes of the colonies have nothing on a suitor that is truly worthy of me” she scoffed 

“And where would you find such a worthy contestant? Someone better than a duke?” The three stopped in front of the Schuyler residence 

“Don’t kill my hopes, a Washington has her ways” Y/N removed her arms from Thomas’s and Alexander’s, heading for the front door. As soon as she was greeted by General Schuyler herself, she waved goodbye to the clashing dukes 

“She’s so mine, Hamilton.” Thomas stated 

“I’m sure you should be worried about your tomcat nature, Jefferson, don’t get too ahead of yourself” Alex retorted

Jefferson audibly scoffed before wandering with him into the city 

—-France

3 weeks prior to Y/N reading that exciting pamphlet, Marquis de Lafay-- Now Prince Lafayette sat around a table of French nobles and officials. It felt like ages since he’s been in the colonies, and it has only been a few years ever since the French Revolution had ended. Yet instead of abolishing the monarchy system in France as Lafayette promised to the colonies, he and a few other nobles replaced the previous royal family. 

Lafayette was later titled as a Prince, as were other leading men of France, but he urged to continue being addressed as the ‘Hero of two worlds’. 

But with a new era upon the people of France, came the countless government meetings and conflicts that he had to resolve. 

“Your Majesty? Are you even paying attention?” Secretary Robespierre whispered over his shoulder, causing him to visibly straighten himself out. 

“O-Oui. Why wouldn’t I be?” Lafayette laughed nervously, scratching the back of his head. Robespierre rolled his eyes before whispering again. 

“This is our last meeting of the day. With all due respect sir, can you get yourself together?” 

“Okay, Okay.” Lafayette sighed with boredom 

He missed the colonies dearly, sometimes he wished he never left at all, but seeing his country yearn for a revolution compelled him to sail across the Atlantic once again. He often daydreamed of his riskier lifestyle with his closest friends and soldiers, as well as the feeling of awe while serving directly under General Washington. Never in his life did Lafayette think he would miss the adrenaline rush of stealing cannons and leading fully arm battalions. 

His teenage memories of fooling around in those military camps, wandering the streets of New York City severely intoxicated, and the best memories of all, the memories of escorting the General’s daughter, Y/N Washington, to buy bread and pastries for him and his fellow soldiers. 

Oh, what could she be doing now? 

If it weren’t for the revolution at hand, Lafayette would’ve surely bent a knee once she set foot onto the military camping grounds. Lafayette held such a high respect for Y/N when they first met, especially since she was the daughter of his most admired general. The women in France just couldn’t compare to her heavenly beauty, and her kindness was unbeatable. She was the greatest treasure that Lafayette had stumbled across during his time in the colonies. Although many noblewomen would attempt to take a bite of him, Lafayette stayed loyal to his non-existent promise to Y/N.

A quick quill-slam to the table, and he was quickly drawn back to his reality. Why should he worry about his previous General’s daughter anyway? Lafayette was now a Prince, he could have anything he wanted. But the moment he set foot in France after the American Revolution, he lost the most precious things he already had. He yearned for glory, but at what cost? The cost of abandoning his bonds in the colonies? 

He sighed, standing from the meeting table and wandering to his quarters. Secretary Robespierre followed closely behind him. Sensing an odd tension from Lafayette’s mood, Robespierre attempted to address his situation

“Do you need anything, your majesty?” Lafayette froze in his tracks, weighing his two options 

“Actually...” Lafayette turned to face him “Schedule me a ship to the colonies. The earliest one you can find.” 

Robespierre tilted his head in confusion, letting the last sentence sizzle in his head.

 “I’m sorry, what?” 

The prince in distress sighed with fatigue. “I’ve decided I’m heading to the colonies, tout suite.” Lafayette kept his gaze strong  

‘B-but sir, you have so much to take care of-” Robespierre was notably panicking at this moment. “-and the recent shortages-”

“Mon Ami, there are at least three other ‘crowned princes’ who are perfectly capable of maintaining this nation. One prince gone won’t hurt the economy”  Prince Lafayette stated firmly 

Robespierre debated for a moment before confirming his thoughts “Alright. I’ll notify you when the earliest ship can be sailed. But what shall you do about the gossip? Perhaps they will believe you are not responsible enough for this role.”  

“Let the people speak as they please. In the end, I’ll remind them who’s in charge.” Lafayette began towards his quarters once again, Robespierre stayed behind to script all of his thoughts. 

Finally in his study, Lafayette dipped his quill into the nearest container of ink and started to write. 

‘To the Great General Washington, It’s been ages since we’ve last written…’

Maybe Lafayette will be able to have a taste of his old life. 

---the Schuyler residence

Giggling echoed throughout the Schuyler residence as the 5 girls enjoyed their tea. 

“Have you gals read Payne’s newest pamphlet? We’re the talk of the town as of now” Angelica, the oldest Schuyler, smiled with satisfaction. Her luminous complexion complemented her coral pink gown. 

“I never expected our courting debut to be so..” Eliza searched for the right words “..turbulent among the talkers..” she took a sip of her tea 

“I’m still stunned by the feedback” Y/N laughed nervously “My father even requested his two most clashing secretaries to escort me here, they didn’t even argue once” she said in awe 

The top 5 girls of the season all sat in one room. Though they would eventually become each other's courting competition, they were great friends nonetheless. During the war, Y/N would stay in the Schuyler household while their fathers were out of town daydreaming of being free from the king, attending a few balls together, and watching soldier boys trip over themselves. After the war ended, Dolley Paine became a mutual connection through their high ranking families. The 5 got along way too quickly. 

Peggy held up the tea pot “another fill, ladies?” Y/N and Dolley nodded, both taking their turns to fill their cups. 

“Awee, look at you Peggy, you’ll make a perfect wife” Dolley teased. The rest of the girls laughed it off, yet Y/N didn’t feel at ease with that statement. 

“You don’t actually think we will all get married that quickly, do you?” Y/N looked around to see their confused expressions. “Guys?” 

“Well..” Angelica pondered for a moment “I believe that it’s ideal to marry on your first season” 

Peggy had to stop herself from spitting out her tea 

“That soon? But we’re so young, and-” Eliza interrupted

“And we’re ladies. Society expects us to do nothing more and nothing less with what we’re given” Angelica takes a content sip of her tea once again “I don’t make the rules around here.” 

The silence was awfully louder than the conversation. 

“Alright.” Dolley smiled “I guess we'll just have to make this next few weeks extra special, right?” 

Y/N took a deep breath “the best of the best.” She muttered

Peggy turned to her and nodded, and Eliza was quick to join. Y/N faked a smile at the girls, ‘I guess that’s just how it is’ is what she thought, and Angelica would raise her glass for a toast 

“A toast to the best courting season?” The 4 other girls raised their glass as well. 

Though many hours were filled with laughter and giggles, Y/N couldn’t help but imagine how much her life would change within the next few months. And just by entering this season, Y/N will give up her youth and give someone her hand to please someone. To please herself? To please the people? To please her parents? She had no clue 

She stared out the window, remembering those nights of staying at the Schuyler residence, watching those drunk soldiers stumble across the street. Many of them were her friends, friends she had met through her fathers rank. She smiled at the thought of the most memorable gentleman she had met while at those camps. 

‘The French Foreigner’ is what they used to call him, but only before he became comfortable in the colonies. ‘Marquis de Lafayette’ was his title, and Y/N always loved the sound of his name rolling off her tongue. 

“I don’t know what my father told you, but I’m sure I don’t need you to accompany me simply to buy bread” Y/N stood stubbornly 

Lafayette gently grabbed her hand and raised it to his lips 

“I just want you to be safe, mon ange, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if you got hurt..”

 He kissed the back of her hand, maintaining eye contact. Y/N appeared as if she just experienced a revelation “..shall we be on our way, mademoiselle?” 

She took a moment to think, her head still in the clouds. Y/N slowly nodded “Alright.” The two intertwined arms and headed into the city 

Oh how she missed the old days. Y/N hated to admit it, but she truly believed she met the most exquisite gentlemen during the war. Whenever she’d stay at the camps with her father, a small group of soldiers would always keep her company. A tailor, an abolitionist, two immigrants, the camps were definitely a mixing pot. 

At that very moment, Y/N prayed she’d be able to find someone like the men at her fathers military camp during this courting season. 

Y/N jumped at the tapping on her shoulder

“Y/N? Don’t tell me you already have suitors lining up out there for you” Y/N shook her head and laughed 

“I just spaced out. That’s all.” She attempted to change the subject “What were we talking about?” She questioned 

Peggy interrupted “Next week's ball, the first ball of the season. Do we show up in our best, or do we build suspense until the last seasonal ball?” Peggy debated 

“Let’s take one ball at a time, shall we?” Eliza proposed her idea 

“Well for the first ball, I suggest….” All the girls gathered around Angelica to hear her plan

—-Lafayette’s quarters (France)

Prince Lafayette neatly folded his clothes as he was departing for the colonies within a few hours. He remembers the excitement he felt when he traveled to the colonies for the first time, having to dress like a pregnant woman in order to board the ship, but he still cringes at the imagery. 

He elegantly stuffed his belongings into his shoulder bag. He stood back to admire his rushed work, but he felt as if he was missing something. 

Lafayette looked around his quarters, his eyes became glued on his treasured gun, gifted to him by General Washington himself. The wooden hilt was stained with god knows what, but the gold trimmings were shining in the afternoon sunlight. 

He’d already have French soldiers accompanying him, he was a prince after all. Would he need such weaponry? 

“I do not see why not.” He muttered to himself before stuffing it into his bag with the rest of his belongings. Lafayette dusted off his fancy clothing and stood in triumph, well, before a woman cleared her throat behind him. 

Lady Adrienne stood at the doorway to his study, her emerald green skirts creased against the doorframe. Lafayette and Adrienne previously courted before he left for the colonies, which ended up being her last straw. Lady Adrienne attempted to stop him, since she was a loyalist to the monarchs of France, but Lafayette refused to listen. 

“que veux-tu? I'm busy at the moment.” Lafayette covered his bag with a nearby coat, crossing his arms. 

“I heard you’re going back to the colonies. What’s so special across the ocean that you can’t have here? You’re a prince for god sake” 

“It’s none of your concern, get out of-”

“Last time you left for the colonies- left me for the colonies- you just weren’t the same when you came back.” she was on the verge of yelling

Lafayette sighed, having already been through this conversation ever since he came back to France. 

“This is nonsense. I need to be alone as of now.” Lafayette turned away from her to continue packing his belongings. She had a hurt expression on her face; part of her mind refused to believe he wasn’t her suitor anymore. Ever since he left for the colonies. 

She slowly began to advance towards him. “That is no way to talk to your previous courting partner, Lafayette.” Her tone was strong yet unsure. 

“It’s Prince Lafayette to you, and there’s a reason why we’re not courting now..” He was notably irritated by her presence. 

Lady Adrienne wasn’t leaving his quarters until she was given an answer. 

“Was I not enough for you to stay in France…?” she rested a hand on his shoulders, Lafayette visibly cringed. “What’s in the colonies that you can’t have here?” 

Lafayette swiftly turned towards her, brushing her hand off of his shoulder in disgust. “I don’t have to answer to you—“ he attempted to retort

“—Don’t tell me you’re still mad that I had more faith in the monarchs of our country rather than you” 

Lady Adrienne rolled her eyes annoyingly, Lafayette blood had already begun boiling long ago. She started moving closer to Lafayette, attempting to trap him in his room, and forcing him to stay in France. Although this was her main plan, she wanted an answer, and she wanted it now. 

“Your own lover didn’t believe in you. Is that why you’re so upset? It’s quite the reaction for something so minuscule—” she scoffed. 

Lafayette snapped

“—as a matter of fact, you weren’t my lover. It’s not you, its...” 

Lafayette, clearly frustrated, struggled to hold up under his old friend’s gaze. She saw it in his eyes, the way they lightened when he thought about the colonies. 

She saw a similar light in them the day he returned from France. Perhaps it was the praise he obtained for the foreign war, or perhaps some treasures he discovered, or maybe someone.

“Lafayette... Did you find another partner in the colonies?” 

The panic was visible in his eyes, but there no was no reason to panic, he thought. 

Lafayette brushed up against lady Adrienne, his lips were millimeters from her ear. He began

“Our relationship ended from the moment I set foot on that ship, and I do not regret it one bit..” 

He stepped out of her reach and continued to pack away his belongings, Lady Adrienne was frozen with shock.

“My business in the colonies is my business only,” He stated strongly. “And you are free to believe whatever you want, it would benefit me in the least to care about what you think. Am I being clear?” 

Lady Adrienne could only stand in silence

“Security! I’d love for you to escort this maiden out of this quarters at once!”

He’d never forget the hatred in her eyes as she was humiliatingly taken away. Lafayette kept his mind on his current task: the colonies await his arrival. 

—to be continued—

[jnselfshipping]

「Love of my life」

This is a post dedicated to let people know more about my F/O, Aesop, and our relationship. Not many people know him because his source material is so niche. It's also a win-win, because I get to lore-dump and gush about him! This post will keep updating as my understanding of his character changes (if it changes).

~~~~

About him

Aesop has a reserved, quiet personality. He is a man of few words, but he is very intuitive. He has severe social impediments, stemming from crippling social anxiety (explicitly stated by source material). In his 2nd anniversary voicelines, you can hear his voice getting softer and softer until it is barely louder than a whisper.

However, he has another side. Below the surface, Aesop has a kind of confidence. Unlike some other characters, Aesop is always standing gracefully straight, shoulders back and head held high. He is also shown to have a sense of duty in leading others to death, and being very passionate about doing his job perfectly right and respecting the dead.

Lastly, he is baby.

About us

Four years ago, I came across a game called Identity V. It was quite popular (not on western media ofc) and the fandom was in full throttle. I joined the game a while after a gray-haired, sombre and reserved young embalmer became a playable character; a character by the name of Aesop Carl. He was not hugely popular: he wasn't particularly meta, he wasn't super impressive, and his lore wasn't fully fleshed out yet. In fact, most of the attention he received in the fandom was from a ship which characterised him as a weak, bashful, pillow-biting bottom simply because he looked kinda cute. Needless to say, I didn't pay him much attention.

「He looks interesting.」 said I, at the time, in a conversation with a friend, before I changed the topic.

One stuffy afternoon, I came across a lore article of the game, delving deep into the character's stories. It mentioned Aesop, the embalming industry in the 19th century, and the possibility of manipulation that he was subjected to, to make him like he is now. I read it and only half-understood it. I had not bothered to see his character stories before, so I didn't know much about his personality... or anything, actually, but to understand this cool sounding article, I was going to have to sit through some context. I booted up google and found his character stories on some website. It was only to get enough information to read the article. I'm sure I wouldn't fall for this character or anything. It won't be a problem.

Half an hour later, I had a problem. A massive problem.

Over the next months I started writing about him. It started with analytical things about his lore. I read all the chemicals that were used in 19th century embalming processes. I chewed my pen over details in his upbringing: did his father die, or did he divorce? Did his mother commit suicide? How does his mother know Jaye Carl, his stepfather? Was he bullied? Isolated? More and more, I wanted to know all the details about him.

I also wrote poetry. Soppy poetry that I cringe to read now. I told my friends all the possibilities that his life could have gone. And I daydreamed. About his eyelashes, his personality, everything.

I looked up at the sky one day, thinking of him, and with a pang I realised: "Oh shit, I'm in love". And so it began.

And now. We've been together for four years and counting! I cannot be prouder of us.

[peigslayers]

The article is paywalled 😭 what's it say

oh i just copied it into an incognito tab and then turned off my wifi before the paywall loaded lol. here are the specific bits i was talking about

Irish people are very open about the fact that we like it when we’re noticed. We’re a very small country who punch far above our weight in terms of world recognition. It doesn’t make any sense. We’re the size of Costa Rica and we have a lot of notable people, but sometimes we do feel like we get forgotten, that people haven’t spoken about us enough in the last two weeks. I wrote a little piece in the Guardian about the sense that whenever Irish American politicians show their support, it clings them to our breasts. [When American politicians visit Ireland] there’ll be parties in the streets. Outside, this is interpreted as being purely about tribalism. But it’s mostly just injecting a little bit of interest in world events by seeing it through Ireland. Bill Clinton, for example, has negligible Irish ancestry and had no proof of any of it, and we were like, “Ah, no worries. It’s fine"

and

It’s not done with any seriousness. Ireland has one of the world’s longest running chat shows, The Late Late Show. They’ll have Tom Hanks or they’ll have Julia Roberts, and you only need to watch for literally three minutes before they ask something about, “Do you like Ireland? Have you ever been to Ireland? I hear your great-grandmother is from Ireland.” It’s this kind of playing to the gallery thing, which is sycophantic and desperate — but also undeniably really popular. People like the idea that these rich and famous people are thinking about Ireland. For the most part it’s harmless. If you can get the accents right, we’ll buy it up. So that’s what makes the failures so mystifying, because that is an absolute open goal. But then, we’re not the market.

this last bit isn't really related to the point but i do think it's funny

When John Patrick Shanley’s Outside Mullingar opened on Broadway in 2014, reviews were mostly warm. Charles Isherwood in the New York Times called the romance between neighboring Irish farmers — one played by stage veteran Brian F. O’Byrne, the other by Debra Messing — “wholly diverting,” praising Shanley’s “lyrical writing” for giving “such consistent pleasure.” The Hollywood Reporter’s David Rooney hailed it as “a tender paean to rural life, to the Irish spirit, and to the enduring belief that love will find a way.” Tony voters enjoyed Outside Mullingar so much that they nominated it for Best Play, though it lost to the Bryan Cranston as LBJ drama All the Way — an act of AMC on NBC violence.

Then there was Fintan O’Toole’s review in the Irish Times, which began, “When plays are bad, their badness is usually easy to explain. Occasionally, though, there is a play whose woefulness demands a whole new theory,” and went on to call Outside Mullingar both “mystifyingly awful” and “unfathomably bad.”

a lot of the rest of the article is about depictions of the irish in hollywood more generally. it's quite a good read tbh. the author is interviewing the guy who did the viral thread about meeting the president of ireland while on ket

[evanescentjasmine]

I’m going to talk about a little pet peeve of mine with regard to portrayal of poc in fic, TMA specifically since that’s what I mostly read and write for. 

I suppose I should first start by saying that, of course, poc are not a monolith, and I’m certain there are other poc who have many different views on this issue. And also this post is in no way meant to demonise, shame, or otherwise discourage people from writing poc in fic if they’re doing something differently. This is just a thing I’ve been noodling on for a while and have had several interesting conversations with friends about, and now that I think I’ve figured out why I have this pet peeve, I figured I’d gather my thoughts into a post.

As a result of the fact we have no canonical racial, ethnic, or religious backgrounds for our main TMA cast, we’ve ended up with many diverse headcanons, and it’s absolutely lovely to see. I’m all for more diversity and I’m always delighted to see people’s headcanons. 

However, what often happens is I’ll be reading a fic and plodding along in a character’s PoV and get mention of their skin colour. And nothing else. I find this, personally, extremely jarring. In a short one-shot it makes sense, because you’re usually touching on one scenario and then dipping out. Likewise if the fic is in a different setting, is cracky, or is told from someone else’s PoV, that’s all fine. But if I’m reading a serious long-fic close in the poc’s head and...nothing? That’s just bizarre to me.

Your heritage, culture, religion, and background, all of those affect how you view the world, and how the world views you in return. How people treat you, how you carry yourself, what you’re conscious of, all of that shifts. And the weird thing is that many writers are aware of this when it comes to characters being ace or trans or neurodivergent—and I’m genuinely pleased by that, don’t get me wrong. Nothing has made my ace self happier than the casual aceness in TMA fics that often resonates so well with my experience. But just as gender, orientation, and neurodivergence change how a character interacts with their world, so do race, ethnicity, and religion. 

As a child, I spent a couple of years in England while my mother was getting her degree. Though I started using Arabic less and less, my mother still spoke to me almost exclusively in Arabic at home. We still ate romy cheese and molokhia and the right kind of rice, though we missed out on other things. She managed to get an Egyptian channel on TV somehow, which means I still grew up with different cultural touchstones and make pop-culture references that I can’t share with my non-Arabic-speaking friends. She also became friends with just about every Egyptian in her university, so for those years I had a bevy of unrelated Uncles and Aunties from cities all over Egypt, banding together to go on outings or celebrate our holidays.

As an adult who sometimes travels abroad solo, and as a fair-skinned Arab who’s fluent in English, usually in a Western country the most I’ll get is puzzled people trying to parse my accent and convinced someone in my family came from somewhere. When they hear my name, though, that shifts. I get things like surprise, passive-aggressive digs at my home region, weird questions, insistence I don’t look Egyptian (which, what does that even mean?) or the ever-popular, ever-irritating: Oh, your English is so good!

At airports, with my Egyptian passport, it’s less benign. I am very commonly taken aside for extra security, all of which I expect and am prepared for, and which always confuses foreign friends who insisted beforehand that surely they wouldn’t pull me aside. Unspoken is the fact I, y’know, don’t look like what they imagine a terrorist would. But I’m Arab and that’s how it goes, despite my, er, more “Western” leaning presentation. 

This would be an entirely different story if I were hijabi, or had darker skin, or a more pronounced accent. I am aware I’m absolutely awash with privilege. Likewise, it would be different if I had a non-Arab name and passport. 

So it’s slightly baffling to me as to why a Jon who is Pakistani or Indian or Arab and/or Black British would go through life the exact same way a white British character would. 

Now, I understand that race and ethnicity can be very fraught, and that many writers don’t want to step on toes or get things wrong or feel it isn’t their place to explore these things, and certainly I don’t think it’s a person’s place to explore The Struggles of X Background unless they also share said background. I’m not saying a fic should portray racism and microaggressions either (and if they do, please take care and tag them appropriately), but that past experiences of them would affect a character. A fic doesn’t have to be about the Arab Experience With Racism (™) to mention that, say, an Arab Jon headed to the airport in S3 for his world tour would have been very conscious to be as put together as he could, given the circumstances, and have all his things in order. 

And there’s so much more to us besides. What stories did your character grow up with? What language was spoken at home? Do they also speak it? If not, how do they feel about that? What are their comfort foods? Their family traditions? The things they do without thinking? The obscure pop-culture opinions they can’t even begin to explain? (Ask me about the crossover between Egyptian political comedy and cosmic horror sometime…)

I’m not saying you’ll always get it right. Hell, I’m not saying I always get it right either. I’m sure someone can read one of my fics and be like, “nope, this isn’t true to me!” And that’s okay. The important thing, for me, is trying.

Because here’s the thing. 

I want you to imagine reading a fic where I, a born and raised Egyptian, wrote white characters in, say, a suburb in the US as though they shared my personal experiences. It’s a multi-generational household, people of the same gender greet with a kiss on each cheek, lunch is the main meal, adults only move out when they get married, every older person they meet is Auntie or Uncle, every bathroom has a bidet, there’s a backdrop of Muslim assumptions and views of morality, and the characters discuss their Eid plans because, well, everyone celebrates Eid, obviously.

Weird, right? 

So why is this normal the other way around? 

Have you ever stopped to wonder why white (and often, especially American) experiences are considered the default? The universal inoffensive base on which the rest is built? 

Yes, I understand that writers are trying to be inoffensive and respectful of other backgrounds. But actually, I find the usual method of having the only difference be their skin colour or features pretty reductive. We’re more than just a paint job or a sprinkle of flavour to add on top of the default. Many of us have fundamentally different life experiences and ignoring this contributes to that assumption of your experience being universal. 

Yes, fic is supposed to be for fun and maybe you don’t want to have to think about all this, and I get that completely. I have all the respect in the world for writers who tag their TMA fics as an American AU, or who don’t mention anyone’s races. I get it. But when you have characters without a canonical race and you give them one, you’re making a decision, and I want you to think about it. 

Yes, this is a lot of research, but the internet is full of people talking about themselves and their experiences. Read their articles, read their blogs, read their twitter threads, watch their videos, see what they have to say and use it as a jumping-off point. I’m really fond of the Writing With Color blog, so if you’re not sure where to start I’d recommend giving them a look. 

Because writers outside of the Anglosphere already do this research in order to write in most fandoms. Writers of colour already put themselves in your shoes to write white characters. And frankly, given the amount of care that many white writers put into researching Britishisms, I don’t see why this can’t extend to other cultural differences as well.

[fortey]

The Day I Met Ray Liotta

Once a long lost FunnyCrave or HolyTaco article, now returned! I emailed it to someone in 2011! RIP Mr. Liotta, you were awesome.

The life of an internet comedian is a whirlwind of excitement.  If you’re not at a gala dinner to support the preservation of owls whose name may include the word “tit” but not in an obscene fashion, you’re spinning hilarious quips into 140 character gemstones on Twitter, then constantly refreshing to see who replied or retweeted you and helped validate your existence for a few moments.  Oh, it’s quite the ride.  Of course, along with this comes the magnificence of celebrity; brushing elbows with the world’s elite.  Yes, celebrities are better than you and I because they have been on television.  Have you been on television?  Don’t answer, I won’t have time to read it.

Every so often, as writers, we get invited to cover luxurious events, movie premieres and golden jubilees.  Recently, we were on our way to cover the opening of Moneyball when it became clear that getting to the theatre for the red carpet event would be a difficult task when it happened the day before and we had forgotten about it.  Oops.  Like any reasonable professional, the course of correction for this oversight was clear – cheap booze from Trader Joes.

The bus came quickly and the ride was as smooth as the finest Chinese silk, straight from the puckered anus of the most refined caterpillar.  Upon reaching the stop conveniently located a mere block from Trader Joe’s, I departed from my public transit comrades’ company and sought out some discount bourbon that I felt would make my evening a little more festive as I planned another week of Holy Taco galleries and answered the site’s fan mail with veiled threats and outright threats.

Upon entering Trader Joe's I was met with the familiar smell of Joe himself – exotic spices from the Orient and a touch of sweat.  Kind of what you’d expect a child in a shoe factory to smell like, if he’d managed to use that month’s salary to buy a ginger snap.  Other customers milled about purchasing unsweetened green tea, trail mix and other preposterous products of that ilk.  None of that for me, it was the single malt Imperial bourbon whiskey that was calling my name.  To be fair, a Trader Joe’s employee was the one calling me after I accidentally knocked over a display of Toscano cheese, but he didn’t know my name so I refused to listen.

As I perused the store’s selection of liquors, emboldened by the knowledge an underpaid servant was now cleaning my artisanal cheese mess, I paused to ask a fellow alcohol enthusiast if the Aberlour would quench my thirst better than the Imperial, only I worded it thusly “How fast will this get me shitfaced?”

To my surprise, the gravelly voice that replied to me with a simple “it’ll get you where you need to be” belonged to none other than famed thespian Ray Liotta.  Mr. Liotta, as you no doubt know, is the star of such films as No Escape and Operation: Dumbo Drop.  I was taken aback.

“Are you Ray Liotta?” I asked. It was a stupid ass question at best, because he was clearly Ray Liotta.  Also, no one likes being asked who they are.  Generally the only people who ask you to confirm your identity are the police or idiots on the phone.  I had made my first misstep in our new friendship.

Liotta may have smiled or sneered and said “yes,” making eye contact only briefly.  Was he becoming testy?  Did he realize he should not have initiated contact?  I had to act quickly.  How does one best know for writing internet articles about sex toys and the Black Eyed Peas (but not together.  Not yet anyway) make a good impression on a man who has co-starred on film with Whoopi Goldberg?

“I wrote a pretty popular article about sex toys once,” I say, placing a hand in my pocket.  Tactical error, that.

Mr. Liotta bade a hasty retreat, which makes sense even to me, and I was left holding my bourbon.  The Aberlour sounded good so I took two and shortly followed after Mr. Liotta looking to not only explain myself but take some time to arrange a play date for us later in the week.  Of course, being men, we wouldn’t call it a play date.  That would be asinine.  It would be Boy Time.

Having only watched Liotta on film, you may be surprised to learn he possesses some manner of Spiderman-like intuition or “Liotta Sense” if you will, which allowed him to stealthily avoid me with apparent ease thence forward.  By the time I finaly caught sight of him he was leaving the store with several packages of breakfast burritos.  Good choice, Ray.  Good choice.

I was detained in line behind some filthy hippie who was trying to find out if there was gluten in his trail mix, as if anyone on earth would mourn his loss should he eat gluten (it’s poisonous, right?  Why on Earth would they add that to trail mix?  Add more raisins instead) and by the time I made my purchase, Ray had vanished forever.  As I rode the bus home, I was wistful, and lifted my head with an impossible hope every time the bus stopped and the door opened to allow on a new passenger.  “Ray?!” I’d say quietly, as other passengers moved away from me.  But it never was.  Ray Liotta probably has a car.  No bus for him.  No sir.

[merakilyy]

Lan Qiren is Not a Completely Terrible Parent + Bonus Headcanon

Some disorganized thoughts on Lan Qiren!

A lot of my thoughts on Lan Qiren come from a bilibili article breaking down what it means be be righteous (雅正) in accordance to the Lan Sect’s motto. The article is in Chinese so I’ll just sum up some of the major ideas first:

***

~It fundamentally refutes the idea of Lan Wangji as the “black sheep” in the Lan Sect 

~It assumes Cloud Recesses has a highly collective intrasect environment. Children are raised not just by the parents, but by the entire Sect. 

~The Elders raised Wangji and saw him grew up and didn’t have the heart to hurt Wangji, even after he escaped with Wei Wuxian into the cave. Western fandom especially tends to see the elders as strict, conservative disciplinarians who are rigid in their beliefs to the point of hypocrisy. This meta refutes that. It’s unreasonable that Wangji, no matter how strong his cultivation, would be able to stand on his own against 33 seasoned cultivators. So, contrary to popular belief, the elders allowed Wangji to injure them so they would not have to harm a child of the Sect.

~Lan Sect rules are not about what is literally written, but the spirit of the rules. This also makes sense given that when you have 4000+ rules, some rules are bound to contradict one another. And, many rules are quite vague. Eg. “sneering for no reason is prohibited.” Where is the line that justifies sneering? There is none because the idea is not “don’t sneer for no reason,” the idea is “don’t be unnecessarily rude.” In many of the rules, there is room for interpretation and it is this process of interpretation that is valued over the literal inscription of the rules. 

~Basically, they are not good people because of the rules. They are good people because they are good people. The rules guide them to make good judgement, but good judgement does not comes from following the rules to a T.

~So the function of 雅正 (to be righteous) is internal, not performative.

~It is this internal clarity that makes Gusu Lan “innocent” (the word used is 纯真; 纯/chun = pure, clarity, genuine, practised and 真/zhen = true, real, genuine, clear)

~There is also a long history of Lans being deviant and rebellious. In CQL, there is Lan Yi who invents guqin battle techniques. They are also the only Clan to have been led by a female cultivator. Qingheng-jun clearly went against orthodoxy by marrying a murderer, but still remained in Cloud Recesses. We’re going to set aside consent here because is a total other separate conversation, but his punishment is self-imposed, not enforced by the Sect. So there are a lot of rules, but they aren’t pedantic. There is leeway, as seen in Lan Yi, but only within reason, as demonstrated by Qingheng-jun.

~Like his ancestors, Wangji also deviated from the straightforward path but his sect accepted his unrepentant love for Wei Wuxian in the end.

~In the end, Wangji gets what he wants: to live with Wei Wuxian in Cloud Recess. But he only gets this because the elders and Lan Qiren allow him to.

~To allow Wei Wuxian to exist in Cloud Recesses, the Lan Sect has to be more inclusive than we typically see them as.

~Despite everything, Lan Wangji still wants to return to Cloud Recesses because it is home to him.

~This is also my favourite explanation of Jingyi’s Jingyi-ness. Rather than Wangji (and possibly Xichen) singlehandedly creating a space for Jingyi, that space already existed. Jingyi isn’t as much of a black sheep as people portray him as because you don’t grow into a Jingyi if everyone is constantly yelling at you to follow rules. CQL Jingyi is plenty sassy, even in front of Lan Qiren, and Jingyi isn’t stupid! He was born and raised in Cloud Recesses, he knows when he is pushing several of the rules and he knows that he has the leeway to do so, and that Lan Qiren will not stop him (within reason).

~”Be righteous” is how the Lan motto is translated in English, but it’s….not exactly what it is in Chinese.

~In modern Chinese, it’s  雅正.  雅/ya = elegance, graceful and 正/zheng = positive, correct, straight, just. 

~Notice how the two parts of the motto contrast one another. Ya is outward, something that dictates how you act. Zheng is internal, determined by your actions and attitudes. Zheng is the foundation of Ya.

~As a related aside, the literary meaning of 雅正 is slightly different; it means to be correct and honest, and to welcome corrections to one’s shortcomings. The literary 雅 is to be proper。

~The meta ends with this beautiful line: 所谓的“雅正”，家族交出来，体雅是表象，心正才是更本。Now to ruin it in translation: “Each configuration of “righteousness,” as taught by the Sect, is outward physical elegance built on the foundation of a moral heart.”

~TLDR: Rebelliousness is a function of Gusu Lan, not an anomaly.

***

Onto some fun headcanons!

~Lan Qiren has personal issues with Wei Wuxian because of his mother, but he is more horrified by Wei Wuxian because Wei Wuxian has all this potential and then uses it to go down the heretial path?? Blaphemous. All that ability, all that work, only to throw it all away? Wei Wuxian is incredibly competent and Lan Qiren begrudgingly respects that competence. What he can’t stand is Wei Wuxian’s lackadaisical attitude towards his cultivation.

~In novel canon, Lan Qiren accepts Wangji and Wei Wuxian’s marriage. He definitely still has issues with Wei Wuxian for being a mass murderer, a demonic cultivator, for desecrating the dead, etc. Also for his general Wei Wuxian-ness. But Wei Wuxian is nothing is not incredibly competent and Lan Qiren eventually softens towards Wei Wuxian because of that competence. Once Wei Wuxian starts using that competence to be useful to the Sect and not just to be as annoying as possible, he gets Lan Qiren’s approval. 

~Secretly, of course. Lan Qiren would qi deviate before saying nice about Wei Wuxian to his face.

~I totally wrote a fic on Lan Qiren publicly defending Wei Wuxian heheh

~Cloud Recesses is only so big and Lan Qiren can’t avoid Wei Wuxian, even if he is never trying to seek him out. Plus, Wei Wuxian has this way of being in the most inconvenient place at the most inconvenient time.

~We all agree Wei Wuxian is a terrible cook. But, is he a bad cook because he adds too much spice, or he is a bad cook because he’s a bad cook? He did manage to cook congee for the ducklings in Yi Cheng without any fatalities. so I’m inclined to believe the former.

~Lan Qiren definitely thinks Wei Wuxian is a terrible cook, especially after hearing about how Wei Wuxian burned a hole in a pot.

~But Wei Wuxian is Wei Wuxian and even if he can’t be trusted with spices (or anything remotely resembling seasoning), he can make plain congee just fine....after some practice 

~Lan Qiren eats this congee and it’s a perfectly good congee. Ideal thickness, light taste, no spices, slides down the throat smoothly and pairs perfectly with his dried zhacai (pickled mustard; a super common Chinese side dish). He asks who made the congee, expecting it to be Sizhui. He chokes when he is told Wei Wuxian is the cook.

~Lan Qiren knows how to be a good parent in theory. He’s just terrible at putting it to practice.

~Jingyi’s parents, when he was still a terrible toddler wreaking havoc everywhere, went to Lan Qiren for desperate advice like “why is our child such a terrible Lan???”

~But Jingyi isn’t actually Lan Qiren’s kid so he actually gives good advice. “Give him a toy, he’ll tire himself out for his nap,” “Let him crawl around, just cover sharp objects and table corners,” and “give him a crushed peach as a reward for walking across the room”

~But he doesn’t know how to talk to Xichen or Wangji as family. He loves them both dearly – obviously he raised them, but they’re also good nephews!! Questionable taste in men aside, they are excellent nephews! He just doesn’t know how to talk to them outside of official sect business.

~Especially with Wangji, He kind of did declare Wangji’s husband a heretic, a traitor, was extra hard on Wei Wuxian as a student, Wangji for visiting Wei Wuxian. And there’s that whole discipline whip thing.

~Which, to be fair, did end up saving Wangji’s life. Raising his sword against Sect Elders and one’s own family is an act of treason punishable by execution. But Lan Qiren can’t just execute his own nephew….he has a heart, even if no one believes it

~33 discipline lashes from the discipline whip is very harsh and Lan Qiren won’t pretend otherwise. But he could gamble that Wangji’s core is strong enough to pull him through. Because the odds of a living, resentful Wangji is better than a dead Wangji.

~They never talk about this. There are a lot of things they don’t talk about.

~Even before, Lan Qiren isn’t a bad parent. He just has no idea how to put his ideas of parenting into practice. He knows what a good parent looks like, he just doesn’t know how to be one.

~So he hides behind the rules because the rules can’t go that wrong, right? Right???

~Lan Qiren is lowkey jealous of Wei Wuxian for knowing how to be affectionate. He definitely thinks Wei Wuxian is too open with his emotions, but he is envious that Wei Wuxian and Wangji are open to each other in a way that Lan Qiren never established with either nephew. They are loyal in the filial manner of juniors to their elders, but Lan Qiren isn’t exactly close to his nephews. 

~In his ongoing attempt to be a better uncle, he ends up getting advice from Wei Wuxian about emotions.

~It’s not like he can go to anyone else. And, well. That congee was really good.

~Turns out Wei Wuxian can brew the perfect pot of tea, too.

~Offensive. That Wei Wuxian is so competent and the least emotionally repressed person in all of Cloud Recesses.

~Eventually, Lan Qiren begins to understand why Wangji is so attached to Wei Wuxian, even if he still can’t stand to be in the same room as Wei Wuxian for longer than 15 minutes. 

~No matter how much he might no longer hate Wei Wuxian, he prefers their interactions in small doses and spaced out.

~But he does learn to bond with Wei Wuxian over cultivation theory. Annoyingly, Wei Wuxian is just too useful to continue to despise. 

[peach-astrology]

Natal chart:Ariana Grande

Hi! I want to create a new category in my blog,where I talk about the natal charts of famous personalities.I've been listening to Ariana's songs since 2015 and watched TV shows with her on Nickelodeon.I love this Princess! She and Dalton are now engaged and I'm so happy for her.I also want to suggest that this is an incomplete analysis of her natal chart,otherwise this article would be too large,here I looked only at the main positions(for youuuuuuuu ahahahaha)

The first thing I noticed was that there were no planets in the fire element(not counting houses).Although many astrologers say that this means a lack of optimism and fire in the eyes.But look at its conjunction of Jupiter and the Moon in Libra.She went through difficult times in her life,but she went on and wrote beautiful songs.We'll talk about this later.

Its ascendant is in Capricorn,but it doesn’t,fortunately,create an opposition to the Sun.This gives her a beautiful face shape and beautiful cheekbones(Capricorn is responsible for the bones).Also in the interview,we can see how comfortable she is to communicate,as if she is confident in herself and her words,even when joking.In this,in addition to the ascendant,Mercury in Cancer(gentle and sweet communication)and the 7th house are also involved.This position can’t but fascinate.

Let's talk about the Sun(Oh,this is Ariana ahaha).But seriously,it's in the 6th house in Cancer.People with this position can choose a certain vocation and grow very much in their career.Cancer is responsible for the beauty and soulfulness that is in her songs.The Sun has many aspects.The Sun square Moon cause it to fluctuate between the impulses of the soul and the mind.Sun trine Saturn,I notice that this situation indicates a late marriage or a good career.Both planets are in water signs,which indicates the importance of feelings in a relationship.Sun sextile Mars another indication of fame.

In a recent interview,she said that she tries to be sincere in front of fans,but at the same time tries not to divulge too much.She also said that she didn’t want her current relationship to be too public,as it was with the past.Here comes the influence of the ascendant opposition Mercury.The ascendant is responsible for what we show to the outside world(strangers,for example),and Mercury is responsible for our communication.Mercury's opposition to Uranus shows its rebelliousness.You've noticed exactly how often she supports social movements.She helped in the voting and actively disseminate information about the BLM.Moreover,both planets are in cardinal signs.Ariana has a song called "Just like magic" that fully describes Mercury's opposition to Neptune.This position gives a rich inner peace and interest in psychoanalysis,but also obsessive thoughts and anxiety(which she also spoke about in a recent interview).Sometimes indicates a good intuition.

She has a Venus opposition to Pluto,which makes frequent changes in her personal life.Venus controls the sphere of love and relationships(including friendship),and Pluto controls revolutions,changes and transformations.Pluto,like Saturn,gives difficult and morally difficult lessons,but thanks to them,a person becomes stronger and more experienced than others.Venus is in Taurus in the 4th house,which makes her so cozy and caring.It's a very romantic position.Only sincere feelings and their best manifestations.Ariana has two trines(Venus trine Neptune,Venus trine Uranus)that indicate the possibility of development in music.Remember when I said that trine gives us chances,sextile gives us opportunities,and conjunction gives us talent?All of them differ from each other in that the trine requires the most time to develop.You know that Ariana has been developing in show business for a very long time(if you believe the Internet,then since 2008),which is why she has achieved such success and such a strong vocal.Venus trine ascendant makes her so beautiful OMG.

I want to pay special attention to Mars,because it has greatly influenced her life.You probably remember the terrorist attack in Manchester.This event is indicated by 2 positions in her Natal chart:Mars opposition Saturn and Mars in the 8th house.These aspects create accidents and dangerous cases,severe damage.Even if a person tries to get out of this situation,he will not succeed.This event affected her career(Mars sextile MC) and her personality(Mars sextile Sun).After the terrorist attack before the concert,people began to search for security reasons,and Ariana still sends money to the affected people.

Jupiter in the 9th house in Libra also hints at our favorite work and study.Jupiter in Libra gives the ability to cooperate and meet people,and the 9th house shows a person's desire to constantly learn and develop.Jupiter square Sun also indicate to us the desire of a person to develop(but a little in a negative sense).They are competitive and a bit of a gambler.They respect themselves and appreciate their merits and sometimes it is difficult for them to accept criticism.

I consider Saturn trine MC to be one of the best positions for a career.Saturn,though strict,loves the field of work(MC is responsible for this),so it isn’t a pity to give him several opportunities for a good career.Remember the times of Nickelodeon,don’t underestimate them,because they brought considerable popularity to her,although they were not associated with music.Here Saturn gave her the opportunity to gain a little fame.Saturn in the second house and Saturn square Pluto force you to be a perfectionist in the field of Pisces,that is,music and creativity.Remember her shows and how she and her team carefully prepare for them.Also,this situation is often found in people who often take on someone else's fault.

Uranus and Neptune in the first house make her stand out.She has a photogenic appearance,interesting images and style.Also,such positions bring sensitivity,empathy and a rich inner world.Uranus square Neptune make her be honest,a little moody and intuitive.She is interested in politics,society and a bit of astrology(during Cancer season,she posted posts about it in stories).I've noticed that people who made some major changes somewhere had Uranus sextile Pluto or Neptune sextile Pluto.Remember her albums,which are filled with their own atmosphere and their own era,vocals and a style of voice that can’t be confused with anyone.She made a big contribution to the pop industry and made it more sincere and unusual.

Pluto sextile ascendant forces her to also be active in the affairs of society(notice how many provisions say this?).She is interested in the topic of magic,money,personal growth and is very curious and inquisitive.Scorpio is at home(in Pluto),so it plays an important role.You know how famous Scorpios are for their stubbornness,love of success and power,and since he is in the 10th house,this is another position that indicates success.In a recent interview,she said that she doesn’t set herself boundaries or specific goals,she just wants to develop her creativity every day.

Lilith in the second house indicates that a person in a previous life was careless about his money and property,so in this life he should invest and protect his money.Often the sign in the 2nd house indicates exactly how a person should invest them.In this case,the Pisces are in the second house,so Ariana had to invest in creativity and music.She creates great shows,gathers a huge team of professionals and spends a huge amount of money for music.But don’t forget that later this amount is returned to her in a much larger amount.That's about how Lilith works in the second house.Simply put,"The more money and labor you put in,the more you get back".

Thank you for reading this! Write if you have similar provisions.Love ❤

[imperiuswrecked]

To me, it doesn’t make sense to make Magneto the main villain because it has been done so much before and it would connect it so much to the Fox Films. Also I think there is a GREAT laziness in writing Magneto especially in films. He generally didn’t want to kill all humans, subjugate them yes because he doesn’t trust them. Which isn’t a ‘good guy’ move in itself and he slips in and out of.

He legit murdered genocide I think when he was going to kill all humans. Like no.

I also think that the average cinema goer likes Magneto too much… or maybe that is me. It would also require them to recast the most famous faces of the franchises?

Like is anyone going to care if they recast Jean, Scott, Iceman, Rogue, Kitty, Beast even Mystique but Magneto? I don’t know. I have long been a fan of an actual Jewish actor playing Magneto but following Ian McKellan would be difficult for the casual fans to accept. I don’t think Fassbender left such an amazing impression.

Even my most average MCU fans friends (and god they love the MCU 😤 but I see past it) still talk about how much they want to see a Magneto solo film.

To me I would put the focus on their reveal and sentinels. Then again I thought they’ll go through Krakoa stuff. Like it turns out the mutants have been living on this Island etc

With the ‘simpler times’ comment I have to for the sake of my sanity have to think that it was because Pietro knew where he was. Things were clear to him, as much as it hurt he had his sister. The following trauma had not occurred. Again I don’t think this is true but I am trying to reason bad writing. He didn’t doubt his morality but was indebted and controlled. Shitty actions were out of his control.

I don’t read Avengers so I didn’t know he was shelved for so long.

I think the Trial of Magneto is trying to ride on the coattails of Wandavision because even though she’s not a mutant a lot of the internet was wanting Magneto to show up. So what is the best way to get those fans who wanted to see that? Set up a family comic book where they establish the family again because I guess the MCU fans heard they’ve changed their background and themselves didn’t like it.

I see the Trial of Magneto as something poorly thought out as they saw what the audience was interested in. The timeline kind of clashes uncomfortably with Inferno. Which makes me think it was wedged in there to ride the Wandavision train and undo the retcon on the side of the main storyline.

Thank you for reading my essay/rant

Ok so I'm going to first say you have a lot of great thoughts and great on picking up the whole forced feeling. You are right, it does feel wedged in there and it does feel forced because that's exactly what Marvel did.

The Trial of Magneto was supposed to be an X-Factor plot, it was Leah Williams next arc, here's an article link talking about her podcast: link (yes I know it's bleeding cool but I don't have time to listen to the podcast)

Leah Williams tells us that X-Factor was canceled because Leah's pitch for the Magneto/Wanda story for X-Factor, now called Trial Of Magneto, became such a popular pitch at Marvel but they thought the reader numbers for X-Factor wasn't big enough for this story, so they wanted it as a separate comic. And canceled X-Factor #10 rather than seeing it run as originally planned, with the Trial beginning in X-Factor #15. Williams says she only learned about the cancellation of X-Factor when she was writing #9, so as she had to finish the series quickly, squeezing six issues worth of story into those last two issues, calling it "cramped and rushed".

So I'm not a fan of Leah but the way Marvel treats it's writers has always been terrible so this cancellation doesn't surprise me. Could this be about W*ndaVision? It's likely, but it's more likely this has to do with Hickman bowing out. It's no secret literally everyone hated the retcon and I always knew it would be undone but I didn't think it would take 6 years but here we are.

Hickman leaving is a bigger thing, he stated in an interview ( link ) that he had planned Krakoa and X-Men to be a 3 arc story, and he wasn't allowed to move onto the 2nd arc because the clowns at Marvel liked the idea of Krakoa too much and I'm so mad because that's exactly the kinda behavior that annoys me with the fans, them thinking Krakoa is just a fun playground for the mutants to mess around with.

"Oh, plans have changed entirely," Hickman says. "When I pitched the X-Men story I wanted to do, I pitched a very big, very broad, three-act, three-event narrative, the first of which was House of X. And while this loosely worked as a three-year plan, I told Marvel upfront that I honestly had no idea how long the first part would last because there were a lot of interesting ideas that I had seeded that other creators would want to play with, and so, we left this rather open-ended. I was also pretty clear with all the writers that came into the office what the initial, three-act plan was so no one would be surprised when it was time for the line to pivot." Hickman continues, "However, I also knew that I was cooking with dynamite, and it was very possible that what I had written in House of X, and the ideas contained within, was not actually the first act of a three-act story, but something that resonated more deeply and worked more like Giant-Size X-Men, where it would represent a paradigm shift in the entire X-Men line for a prolonged period of time. So, during the pandemic, when the time came for me to start pointing things toward writing the second-act event, I asked everyone if they were ready for me to do that, and to a man, everyone wanted to stay in the first act. It was really interesting, because I appreciated that House of X resonated with them to the extent that they didn't want it to end, but the reality was that I knew I would be leaving the line early."

I'm so MAD because the thing I was predicting, that Hickman would have it come crashing down and everything would be revealed to be terrible and Mutant Death Sex Cult Island wasn't a paradise is never going to happen because the fucking CLOWNS at Marvel don't want him to move past it. I may have my personal gripes about some of Hickman's writing but we can't deny the man wrote one of the best if only the best Marvel Event with Fantastic Four/Avengers/Secret War.

As for the simpler times comment, like I have my theories that I wrote out here, and that's what I think is most likely but I do think Pietro's life has never been easy or simple once his adoptive parents died. Pietro could be drinking to a time before the Brotherhood.

I would love for a Jewish actor to play Magneto and any other characters who are Jewish. I would love for a Jewish writer to be able to write them too. However Ian's performance literally set him in the minds of the people as Magneto, not even Fassbender's bleh one note Magneto could compare. Imo the only reason people liked the younger Magneto was because he was young, handsome (? ig idk i dont simp for him) and they could ship him with young professor X (cowards. where is the old man ship???) But I feel like a new actor could definitely fill the role if they are Jewish and the writing was good.

Magneto's writing in comics... well I just wish we could have a Jewish writer for him. There's some great stuff for him but I feel like characters like him and Doom could be written better by non white/american writers.

Although by today's standards the og X-Men trilogy doesn't hold up I will defend the first two movies with my life simply because after Blade these movies opened up the idea that a good serious, non campy version where characters called Magneto and Cyclops were taken seriously. X2 in my mind was the definitive X-Men movie. Was it totally comic accurate? No, but it doesn't do what the MCU does, it doesn't treat the watcher like they need to have their hand held through all the military propaganda and "hints to the comics". Also side note; the reason no one cared about any of the other X-Men being recast is because all through most of the X-Men movies the focal story point has been Professor X vs Magneto. If they really want people to care about those characters/actors then we would need stories that focused on them. Not like how Storm barely had any character growth or plot in the og X-Men and even young Ororo got mishandled by the script. This is why I feel we should have "origin movies" for the X-Men that don't do what Wolverine Origins did and try to make a whole new cast but instead should use the stories as they are. If it was Kurt's story then we would see him join the X-Men, and have the other actors revolve around that. Same with each of the others, the X-Men work best when they are working off each other and each given enough screen/page time to shine. Unfortunately we all have our favorites, even movies and writers, so those are who are going to be pushed for fans to love.

Thank you for your long rant and sorry for my own long rant/reply.

[bloodbenderz]

humaniterations (dot) net/2014/10/13/an-anarchist-perspective-on-the-red-lotus/ this article from oct 2014 is very dense — truly, a lot to unpack here, but I feel like you would find this piece interesting. I would love it if you shared your thoughts on the points that stood out to you, whether you agree or disagree. you obv don’t have to respond to it tho, but I’m sending it as an ask jic you feel like penning (and sharing) a magnificent essay, as is your wont 💕

article

i know this took me forever 2 answer SORRY but i just checked off all the things on my to do list for the first time in days today so. Essay incoming ladies!

ok im SO glad u sent me this bc it’s so so good. it’s a genuinely thoughtful criticism of the politics in legend of korra (altho i think its sometimes a little mean to korra unnecessarily like there’s no reason to call her a “petulant brat” or say that she throws tantrums but i do understand their point about her being an immature and reactionary hero, which i’ll get back to) and i think the author has a good balance between acknowledging like Yeah the lok writers were american liberals and wrote their show accordingly and Also writing a thorough analysis of lok’s politics that felt relevant and interesting without throwing their hands up and saying this is all useless liberal bullshit (which i will admit that i tend to do).

this article essentially argues that the red lotus antagonists of s3 were right. And that’s not an uncommon opinion i think but this gives it serious weight. Like, everything that zaheer’s gang did was, in context, fully understandable. of course the red lotus would be invested in making sure that the physically and spiritually and politically most powerful person in the world ISNT raised by world leaders and a secret society of elites that’s completely unaccountable to the people! of course the red lotus wants to bring down tyrannical governments and allow communities to form and self govern organically! and the writers dismiss all of that out of hand by 1. consistently framing the red lotus as insane and murderous (korra never actually gives zaheer’s ideas a chance or truly considers integrating them into her own approach) 2. representing the death of the earth queen as not just something that’s not necessarily popular (what was with mako’s bootlicker grandma, i’d love to know) but as something that causes unbelievable violence and chaos in ba sing se (which, like, a lot of history and research will tell you that people in disasters tend towards prosocial behaviors). so the way the story frames each of these characters and ideologies is fascinating because like. if you wanted to write season 3 of legend of korra with zaheer as the protagonist and korra as the antagonist, you wouldn’t actually have to change the sequence of events at all, really. these writers in particular and liberal writers in general LOVE writing morally-gray-but-ultimately-sympathetic characters (like, almost EVERY SINGLE fire nation character in the first series, who were full on violent colonizers but all to a degree were rehabilitated in the eyes of the viewer) but instead of framing the red lotus as good people who are devoted to justice and freedom and sometimes behave cruelly to get where theyre trying to go, they frame them as psychopaths and murderers who have good intentions don’t really understand how to make the world a better place.

and the interesting thing about all this, about the fact that the red lotus acted in most cases exactly as it should have in context and the only reason its relegated to villain status is bc the show is written by liberals, is that the red lotus actually points out really glaring sociopolitical issues in universe! like, watching the show, u think well why the fuck HASN’T korra done anything about the earth queen oppressing her subjects? why DOESN’T korra do anything about the worse than useless republic president? why the hell are so many people living in poverty while our mains live cushy well fed lives? how come earth kingdom land only seems to belong to various monarchs and settler colonists, instead of the people who are actually indigenous to it? the show does not want to answer these questions, because american liberal capitalism literally survives on the reality of oppressive governments and worse than useless presidents and people living in poverty while the middle/upper class eats and indigenous land being stolen. if the show were to answer these questions honestly, the answer would be that the status quo in real life (and the one on the show that mirrors real life) Has To Change.

So they avoid answering these questions honestly in order for the thesis statement to be that the status quo is good. and the only way for the show to escape answering these questions is for them to individualize all these broad social problems down into Good people and Bad people. so while we have obvious bad ones like the earth queen we also have all these capitalists and monarchs and politicians who are actually very nice and lovely people who would never hurt anyone! which is just such an absurd take and it’s liberal propaganda at its best. holding a position of incredible political/economic power in an unjust society is inherently unethical and maintaining that position of power requires violence against the people you have power over. which is literally social justice 101. but there’s literally no normal, average, not-politically-powerful person on the show. so when leftist anarchism is presented and says that destroying systems that enforce extreme power differentials is the only way to bring peace and freedom to all, the show has already set us up to think, hey, fuck you, top cop lin beifong and ford motor ceo asami sato are good people and good people like them exist! and all we have to do to move forward and progress as a society is to make sure we have enough good individuals in enough powerful positions (like zuko as the fire lord ending the war, or wu as the earth king ending the monarchy)! which is of course complete fiction. liberal reform doesn’t work. but by pretending that it could work by saying that the SYSTEM isnt rotten it’s just that the people running it suck and we just need to replace those people, it automatically delegitimizes any radical movements that actually seek to change things.

and that’s the most interesting thing about this article to me is that it posits that the avatar...might actually be a negative presence in the world. the avatar is the exact same thing: it’s a position of immense political and physical power bestowed completely randomly, and depending on the moral character and various actions of who fills that position at any given time, millions of people will or won’t suffer. like kyoshi, who created the fascist dai li, like roku, who refused to remove a genocidal dictator from power, like aang, who facilitated the establishment of a settler colonial state on earth kingdom land. like korra! she’s an incredibly immature avatar and a generally reactionary lead. i’ve talked about this at length before but she never actually gets in touch with the needs of the people. she’s constantly running in elite circles, exposed only to the needs and squabbles of the upper class! how the hell is she supposed to understand the complexities of oppression and privilege when she was raised by a chess club with inordinate amounts of power and associates almost exclusively with politicians and billionaires?? from day 1 we see that she tends to see things in very black and white ways which is FINE if you’re a privileged 17 yr old girl seeing the world for the first time but NOT FINE if you’re the single most powerful person in the world! Yeah, korra thinks the world is probably mostly fine and just needs a little whipping into shape every couple years, because all she has ever known is a mostly fine world! in s1 when mako mentions that he as a homeless impoverished teenager worked for a gang (which is. Not weird. Impoverished people of every background are ALWAYS more likely to resort to socially unacceptable ways of making money) korra is like “you guys are criminals?????!!!!!” she was raised in perfect luxury by a conservative institution and just never developed beyond that. So sure, if the red lotus raised her anarchist, probably a lot would’ve been different/better, but....they didn’t. and korra ended up being a reactionary and conservative avatar who protected monarchs and colonialist politicians. The avatar as a position is completely subject to the whims of whoever is currently the avatar. and not only does that suck for everyone who is not the avatar, not only is it totally unfair to whatever kid who grows up knowing the fate of the world is squarely on their shoulders, but it as a concept is a highly individualist product of the authors’ own western liberal ideas of progress! the idea that one good leader can fix the world (or should even try) based on their own inherent superiority to everyone else is unbelievably flawed and ignores the fact that all real progress is brought about as a result of COMMUNITY work, as a result of normal people working for themselves and their neighbors!

the broader analysis of bending was really interesting to me too, but im honestly not sure i Totally agree with it. the article pretty much accepts the show’s assertion that bending is a privilege (and frankly backs it up much better than the original show did, but whatever), and i don’t think that’s NECESSARILY untrue since it is, like, a physical advantage (the author compares it to, for example, the fact that some people are born athletically gifted and others are born with extreme physical limitations), but i DO think that it discounts the in universe racialization of bending. in any sequel to atla that made sense, bending as a race making fact would have been explored ALONGSIDE the physical advantages it bestows on people. colonialism and its aftermath is generally ignored in this article which is its major weakness i think, especially in conjunction with bending. you can bring up the ideas the author did about individual vs community oriented progress in the avatar universe while safely ignoring the colonialism, but you can’t not bring up race and colonialism when you discuss bending. especially once you get to thinking about how water/earth/airbenders were imprisoned and killed specifically because bending was a physical advantage, and that physical advantage was something that would have given colonized populations a means of resistance and that the fire nation wanted to keep to itself.

i think that’s the best lens thru which to analyze bending tbh! like in the avatar universe bending is a tool that different ethnic groups tend to use in different ways. at its best, bending actually doesn’t represent social power differences (despite representing a physical power difference) because it’s used to represent/maintain community solidarity. like, take the water tribe. katara being the last waterbender, in some way, makes her the last of a part of swt CULTURE. the implication is that when there were a lot of waterbenders in the south, they dedicated their talents to building community and helping their neighbors, because this was something incredibly culturally important and important to the water tribe as a community. the swt as a COLLECTIVE values bending for what it can do for the entire tribe, which counts for basically every other talent a person can have (strength, creativity, etc). the fire nation, by contrast, distorts the community value of bending by racializing it: anyone who bends an element that isn’t fire is inherently NOT fire nation (and therefore inherently inferior) and, because of the physical power that bending confers, anyone who bends an element that isn’t fire is a threat to fire nation hegemony. and in THAT framework of bending, it’s something that intrinsically assigns worth and reifies race in a way that’s conveniently beneficial to the oppressor.

it IS worth talking about how using Element as a way to categorize people reifies nations, borders, and race in a way that is VERY characteristic of white american liberals. i tried to be conscious of that (and the way that elements/bending can act in DIFFERENT ways, depending on cultural context) but i think it’s pretty clear that the writers did intend for element to unequivocally signify nation (and, by extension, race), which is part of why they screwed up mixed families so bad in lok. when they’ve locked themselves into this idea that element=nation=race, they end up with sets of siblings like mako and bolin or kya tenzin and bumi, who all “take” after only one parent based on the element that they bend. which is just completely stupid but very indicative of how the writers actually INTENDED element/bending to be a race making process. and its both fucked up and interesting that the writers display the same framework of race analysis that the canonical antagonists of atla do.

anyway that’s a few thoughts! thank u again for sending the article i really loved it and i had a lot of fun writing this <3