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fozmeadows · 3 years

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race & culture in fandom

For the past decade, English language fanwriting culture post the days of LiveJournal and Strikethrough has been hugely shaped by a handful of megafandoms that exploded across AO3 and tumblr – I’m talking Supernatural, Teen Wolf, Dr Who, the MCU, Harry Potter, Star Wars, BBC Sherlock – which have all been overwhelmingly white. I don’t mean in terms of the fans themselves, although whiteness also figures prominently in said fandoms: I mean that the source materials themselves feature very few POC, and the ones who are there tended to be done dirty by the creators.

Periodically, this has led POC in fandom to point out, extremely reasonably, that even where non-white characters do get central roles in various media properties, they’re often overlooked by fandom at large, such that the popular focus stays primarily on the white characters. Sometimes this happened (it was argued) because the POC characters were secondary to begin with and as such attracted less fan devotion (although this has never stopped fandoms from picking a random white gremlin from the background cast and elevating them to the status of Fave); at other times, however, there has been a clear trend of sidelining POC leads in favour of white alternatives (as per Finn, Poe and Rose Tico being edged out in Star Wars shipping by Hux, Kylo and Rey). I mention this, not to demonize individuals whose preferred ships happen to involve white characters, but to point out the collective impact these trends can have on POC in fandom spaces: it’s not bad to ship what you ship, but that doesn’t mean there’s no utility in analysing what’s popular and why through a racial lens.

All this being so, it feels increasingly salient that fanwriting culture as exists right now developed under the influence and in the shadow of these white-dominated fandoms – specifically, the taboo against criticizing or critiquing fics for any reason. Certainly, there’s a hell of a lot of value to Don’t Like, Don’t Read as a general policy, especially when it comes to the darker, kinkier side of ficwriting, and whether the context is professional or recreational, offering someone direct, unsolicited feedback on their writing style is a dick move. But on the flipside, the anti-criticism culture in fanwriting has consistently worked against fans of colour who speak out about racist tropes, fan ignorance and hurtful portrayals of living cultures. Voicing anything negative about works created for free is seen as violating a core rule of ficwriting culture – but as that culture has been foundationally shaped by white fandoms, white characters and, overwhelmingly, white ideas about what’s allowed and what isn’t, we ought to consider that all critical contexts are not created equal.

Right now, the rise of C-drama (and K-drama, and J-drama) fandoms is seeing a surge of white creators – myself included – writing fics for fandoms in which no white people exist, and where the cultural context which informs the canon is different to western norms. Which isn’t to say that no popular fandoms focused on POC have existed before now – K-pop RPF and anime fandoms, for example, have been big for a while. But with the success of The Untamed, more western fans are investing in stories whose plots, references, characterization and settings are so fundamentally rooted in real Chinese history and living Chinese culture that it’s not really possible to write around it. And yet, inevitably, too many in fandom are trying to do just that, treating respect for Chinese culture or an attempt to understand it as optional extras – because surely, fandom shouldn’t feel like work. If you’re writing something for free, on your own time, for your own pleasure, why should anyone else get to demand that you research the subject matter first?

Because it matters, is the short answer. Because race and culture are not made-up things like lightsabers and werewolves that you can alter, mock or misunderstand without the risk of hurting or marginalizing actual real people – and because, quite frankly, we already know that fandom is capable of drawing lines in the sand where it chooses. When Brony culture first reared its head (hah), the online fandom for My Little Pony – which, like the other fandoms we’re discussing here, is overwhelmingly female – was initially welcoming. It felt like progress, that so many straight men could identify with such a feminine show; a potential sign that maybe, we were finally leaving the era of mainstream hypermasculine fandom bullshit behind, at least in this one arena. And then, in pretty much the blink of an eye, things got overwhelmingly bad. Artists drawing hardcorn porn didn’t tag their works as adult, leading to those images flooding the public search results for a children’s show. Women were edged out of their own spaces. Bronies got aggressive, posting harsh, ugly criticism of artists whose gijinka interpretations of the Mane Six as humans were deemed insufficiently fuckable.

The resulting fandom conflict was deeply unpleasant, but in the end, the verdict was laid down loud and clear: if you cannot comport yourself like a decent fucking person – if your base mode of engagement within a fandom is to coopt it from the original audience and declare it newly cool only because you’re into it now; if you do not, at the very least, attempt to understand and respect the original context so as to engage appropriately (in this case, by acknowledging that the media you’re consuming was foundational to many women who were there before you and is still consumed by minors, and tagging your goddamn porn) – then the rest of fandom will treat you like a social biohazard, and rightly so.

Here’s the thing, fellow white people: when it comes to C-drama fandoms and other non-white, non-western properties? We are the Bronies.

Not, I hasten to add, in terms of toxic fuckery – though if we don’t get our collective shit together, I’m not taking that darkest timeline off the table. What I mean is that, by virtue of the whiteminding which, both consciously and unconsciously, has shaped current fan culture, particularly in terms of ficwriting conventions, we’re collectively acting as though we’re the primary audience for narratives that weren’t actually made with us in mind, being hostile dicks to Chinese and Chinese diaspora fans when they take the time to point out what we’re getting wrong. We’re bristling because we’ve conceived of ficwriting as a place wherein No Criticism Occurs without questioning how this culture, while valuable in some respects, also serves to uphold, excuse and perpetuate microaggresions and other forms of racism, lashing out or falling back on passive aggression when POC, quite understandably, talk about how they’re sick and tired of our bullshit.

An analogy: one of the most helpful and important tags on AO3 is the one for homophobia, not just because it allows readers to brace for or opt out of reading content they might find distressing, but because it lets the reader know that the writer knows what homophobia is, and is employing it deliberately. When this concept is tagged, I – like many others – often feel more able to read about it than I do when it crops up in untagged works of commercial fiction, film or TV, because I don’t have to worry that the author thinks what they’re depicting is okay. I can say definitively, “yes, the author knows this is messed up, but has elected to tell a messed up story, a fact that will be obvious to anyone who reads this,” instead of worrying that someone will see a fucked up story blind and think “oh, I guess that’s fine.” The contextual framing matters, is the point – which is why it’s so jarring and unpleasant on those rare occasions when I do stumble on a fic whose author has legitimately mistaken homophobic microaggressions for cute banter. This is why, in a ficwriting culture that otherwise aggressively dislikes criticism, the request to tag for a certain thing – while still sometimes fraught – is generally permitted: it helps everyone to have a good time and to curate their fan experience appropriately.

But when white and/or western fans fail to educate ourselves about race, culture and the history of other countries and proceed to deploy that ignorance in our writing, we’re not tagging for racism as a thing we’ve explored deliberately; we’re just being ignorant at best and hateful at worst, which means fans of colour don’t know to avoid or brace for the content of those works until they get hit in the face with microaggresions and/or outright racism. Instead, the burden is placed on them to navigate a minefield not of their creation: which fans can be trusted to write respectfully? Who, if they make an error, will listen and apologise if the error is explained? Who, if lived experience, personal translations or cultural insights are shared, can be counted on to acknowledge those contributions rather than taking sole credit? Too often, fans of colour are being made to feel like guests in their own house, while white fans act like a tone-policing HOA.

Point being: fandom and ficwriting cultures as they currently exist badly need to confront the implicit acceptance of racism and cultural bias that underlies a lot of community rules about engagement and criticism, and that needs to start with white and western fans. We don’t want to be the new Bronies, guys. We need to do better.

#race #racism #c-drama #fandom #fan wank #fandom wank #microaggresions #culture #the untamed #bronies #whiteness #ficwriting #fanwriting #cultural bias #discourse

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inawickedlittletown · 3 years

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Queerbaiting and Buddie

(word count: 1,900)

I keep saying that I don’t want to spend any more time on 9-1-1 meta or fic, but the events of this weekend made me open up a document where I had some unfinished meta and in light of the S4 finale airing tonight, I thought I might at least write this:

“Queerbaiting is a marketing technique for fiction and entertainment in which creators hint at, but then do not actually depict, same-sex romance or other LGBTQ representation. They do so to attract a queer or straight ally audience with the suggestion of relationships or characters that appeal to them, while at the same time attempting to avoid alienating other consumers.”

That is how Wikipedia defines queerbaiting. And I really feel like everyone needs to read that and then read it again and realize that what is happening on 9-1-1 with Buddie is NOT queerbaiting.

I don’t want to go into the long history of queerbaiting because we would be here all day and anyone that wants to do some research should go and do so. There are a lot of resources out there. Use them.

But the short of it is this: queerbaiting has a lot more to do with the way a show is promoted, with the way that anyone involved in the show talks about a queer ship, and with the show deliberately scripting scenes that hint at a relationship without any intention of following through. Expectations and wanting a queer ship to go canon and those expectations not being met do not alone equate to it being queerbaiting.

For any of us that have been around a long time there are a lot of perfect examples and if you compare Buddie to any of them, they are very different. I’ll name a few:

Merlin/Arthur

John Watson/Sherlock

Emma Swan/Regina

Derek/Stiles

Castiel/Dean Winchester (though they did go canon...barely)

Lena/Kara

Buck and Eddie do not fit into that list. Which isn’t to say that someday they could belong there, but I just do not believe that they will even if Buddie never becomes canon. And this all lies in how Buddie as a ship has been treated both on screen and off. I’ll break it down by season.

S2:

Eddie is very clearly introduced as a new character, a straight Army veteran with a disabled kid and family drama. He and Buck have immediate chemistry. We can’t deny that, or deny that from that first episode there are immediate sparks. Unintended sparks, but sparks nevertheless. And it is easy to tell that no one on the production team expected that and the story reflects that.

Yes a foundation for their friendship is formed and yet the season long story focuses on Eddie’s relationship with his estranged wife and Buck is dealing with his own growth after being left by Abby. Their friendship shines and their scenes are great but none of them suggest romance and there are actually a lot of episodes where Buck and Eddie barely interact in S2 aside from in the background or for small work related moments (this mostly happens after Shannon returns).

S2 does give us the first acknowledgement from the powers that be aka Tim Minear that they know what the fans have seen. This is why the elf scene exists, but it exists in a space where it’s a nod to the fans and not meant to do much more than that. The other moment is during the call with the livestreamer. But S2, places them completely and without question on a strong friendship.

S3:

We see a lot more conflict for Buck and Eddie in this season and we see how close and important they are to each other. Those are the two main things. That can be read as friendship easily and it’s a season where both Buck and Eddie deal with their pasts and in one way or another start to get closure while their friendship remains intact.

Yes there are some scenes that make us squint and go huh, wtf? (I’m looking at you kitchen scene), but narratively we also know that neither of these boys is ready for a real relationship with anyone, let alone each other. But we can bask in how close they are as well as how Christopher fits in into all of it.

But in S3 we are also introduced to Ana and we see the return of Abby. We also get to see that Buck and Eddie have become closer than ever and that the lawsuit only serves to highlight the importance that they both feel about having the other available to them. I’ll also quickly mention that Eddie Begins worked hard to highlight Buck’s devotion to Eddie.

S4:

Without considering the events of the finale (I am avoiding spoilers and know nothing about it or the speculation), we’ve seen Buck and Eddie both grow and get further closure on their past. This season has paralleled them well and their friendship has not faltered, they’re as close as ever.

The beginning of the season was heavily focused on Buck and we saw him grow as a person and begin to work on himself in a healthy way and we’ve seen Eddie be supportive of that.

We also have Ana to consider and her relationship with Eddie as well as the return of Taylor and yet the appearance of these women has not changed the Buck and Eddie dynamic. And I find it fascinating that Eddie beginning to date Ana, is the thing that prompted Buck to start dating. The parallels are all over the place but it is the strength of the friendship and the way they care so deeply about each other that remains whether that becomes romantic is still to be seen, but it could still go either way.

Off-screen by the end of S2, Tim Minear had already addressed Buddie by throwing in that elf scene in a wink/nudge fashion that said “I see you” and in the scene with the girl with the livestream with the comments. During S3 he tweeted about being frustrated by the fans demanding and being hostile and thinking that that would make him more likely to do what they want (I’m paraphrasing what I remember seeing). Tim has never once said that Buddie will happen or shut the door on the ship entirely, but he did say he did not want to engage in conversation about it because he doesn’t want to get into arguments with fans.

Oliver has always been enthusiastic about Buddie and has even said that he would be perfectly fine with it happening both a while ago and more recently in promo for S4. Conscious of queerbaiting and not wanting to give fans false hope, he has specifically said that he does not know if it will or won’t happen and that he wouldn’t speak on that as he’s not the one making that decision. His support for it happening does not mean he has any sway one way or the other. He’s said this a few times and even wrote a letter to the effect to make it clear to fans that the last thing he wants is to disappoint someone due to something he’s said.

All in all, it just isn’t a constructive environment for anyone working on the show to interact with fans on this topic because any time that they do, they get attacked by overly enthusiastic buddie shippers that in many ways are making everything worse.

In all of the interviews from Tim that I’ve seen, he has always been very quick to hint at what was coming up on the show in a way that at times has been misleading on purpose. The number one thing that comes to mind is early in S4 where Buck was said to get a new woman in his life. Tim absolutely made it out to seem like it was a girlfriend while knowing fully well that it was a therapist. This is an excellent example of what promoting and hinting is actually like. No one from this show has done that in regards to Buddie.

No one has gone out of their way to hint that it may happen in a way that excites the fans. And this is one of my main reasons for knowing that Buddie is not a queerbait. At no point in the life of the show so far has anyone used Buddie in a promotional way to bring in viewers. Because THAT was the whole point of queerbaiting in the past.

It was a way that some showrunners found to bring in a lot of viewers when they needed to up their numbers in order to show networks they were worth keeping around. Someone figured out that LGBTQ people wanted to see themselves represented so much so that they would tune in to anything that promised an LGBTQ character in some fashion. It was a tactic that worked well in the landscape of tv where there was so little LGBTQ content on mainstream media that anyone wanting it would latch onto anything. And then they just wouldn’t deliver on those relationships or characters. In 2021, that is not the world we live in any longer.

In today’s tv landscape there is so much to watch and so much to pick from and diversity has grown, it is celebrated. Queer characters are well represented as are queer relationships and queer stories. The times are different. A while back I was listening to a podcast (Bait: a queerbaiting podcast) and something I found interesting was how the hosts both agreed that in today’s tv landscape there is no more real queerbait and that we won’t easily find anything like the ships I mentioned above. I think I agree more with this than I expected to, because I do think that it exists in some spaces, but it definitely isn’t what it used to be. This is a good thing.

Specific to 9-1-1, this is a show that has that diversity and that isn’t afraid of tackling that diversity and giving us interesting and nuanced perspectives and stories embracing that. We have characters of color, women in positions of power, a F/F relationship, two multi-racial relationships, a disabled character, other queer characters including a M/M relationship. There is so much in this show that embraces diversity and that embraces the reality of what the world looks like. To call it queerbait is to disrespect everything else that this show is and has done and the hard storylines that have been tackled that we would not have seen on tv ten years ago.

And I get that Buddie would be another breakthrough. It would be a novel way to tell a queer story, and it would be amazing if it were to happen. The set up is there, but it isn’t fully realized, and Buck and Eddie can still be read as just friends if we take off the shipping goggles. But it also isn’t queerbait or likely to become queerbait and people have to stop calling it that.

What Buddie resembles is one of the many unintended slow burn ships that have frustrated viewers in many forms across fandoms and we just have to go along for the ride and maybe it will happen. Or maybe it won’t. But if we know anything about relationships on tv, it is that a lot of the fun comes from the journey, even if the destination is good too.

#911 fox #buddie #911 meta #911 on fox #buddie meta #buddie is not queerbaiting #long post #this is almost 2k long

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gwynrielsupremacist · 3 years

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A COURT OF LIGHT AND SHADOWS

Chapter 1: Voices

Read at AO3.

Gwyn's afternoon couldn't get any worse.

First of all, the morning's training had been horrendous.

Three weeks after the Blood Rite, Cassian and Azriel had thought it was time to start practicing again, since according to them, they had made a lot of mistakes that could very well have cost them their lives.

She was still alive, just like Nesta and Emerie, so at least one thing they had done well, survive.

After 3 weeks of not doing any sports, it was noticeable when you came back with all the energy, especially on a day where the sun was literally burning.

She noticed as she did push-ups that morning how her arms were trembling dangerously, the sweat running down the curve of her breasts, soaking the shirt she had worn.

Gwyn had promised herself that she would go out into the outside world.

That year she had made a lot of progress, she supposed she should be ready to enter society again, but no.

After the events in the Blood Rite, what she wanted was to lock herself in the darkest corner of the library, with a good book, and stay there to live.

Obviously, she couldn't do that. But she would have liked it.

With all the sore muscles, having failed almost all the obstacles the two Illyrians put them, showing a regrettable endurance in each and every one of the exercises, she had to go down to the library to have a pleasant chat with Merrill, who did not understand why her performance hadn't been 100% in recent weeks.

"I don't know, Merrill. Maybe because they pulled me out of bed against my will, left me in the middle of a forest full of Illyrians, while I had to fight to stay safe, as well as having to kill people? Maybe because I had never left the library after Sangravah, and I suddenly found myself in the same situation? " She reasoned, trying to control her pulse, having remembered the events in the Blood Rite.

She detested Merrill.

More than anyone else, she hated her. She often thought that life would be so much easier if people like Merrill just didn't exist.

After leaving her a ton of work to do, the female disappeared, leaving Gwyn with about seven books resting in her arms, already numb from the morning exercises.

She ran to the nearest table, relieved when she put the books down, with a thud.

She rubbed her dazed hands, wincing at the pile of books that awaited her to spend hours and hours together.

She had to research one of Merrill's new obsessions, the ancient and forgotten Prythian gods.

"I didn't even know they existed", she opined, opening a random book to a random page, flipping through the contents.

She got dizzy from so much information she did not understand, closing the pages with force, grabbing a cart that was nearby, leaving the volumes in it and going to her room, to calmly read those pages and pages of useless information, and then do a chapter-by-chapter summary for Merrill.

"Great, it's a good way to spend your free time if you love reading junk." She groaned as she carefully lowered the cart down the stairs.

"It is not junk. It is information that may be useful at some point", answered her subconscious.

At least she thought it was her subconscious.

She didn't remember when she had started to hear that voice, just one day it had appeared, and now it was considered the voice of reason.

Everything that voice said, it was true.

"I know, but I don't know how knowing which are the main and forgotten gods of Prythian is going to solve my problems." She attacked, greeting one priestess that came close to her, passing by her side.

The voice fell silent, apparently it had nothing more to add.

At least Gwyn could answer the voice in her mind. It would have been a strange thing to see a person argue with herself.

Upon reaching the room, which was a simple square with a bed, a wooden desk with a wooden chair that had more splinters than wood itself, and a modest closet, also made of wood.

Yeah, in summer the termites would destroy all the furniture if she wasn't careful.

Closing the door with the latch, one of the little luxuries she had on it, she put the books down with a thump, brushing her hands on the skirts of the gown, which was already heavily encrusted with dust.

She thought of taking off that long dress, which after so many washes the initial blue had ended up in an almost invisible gray, but she did not feel like going to the common baths of the priestesses, because every time she went there, they peppered her with questions about the Blood Rite.

And the last thing she wanted to do was talk about it.

So she collapsed on the bed, pulling back the covers and hugging the pillow with one arm, as she got into a fetal position.

"You have to go out, you can't hide in the bedroom all afternoon." It protested, to which she responded very kindly with a growl as she turned, trying to make it understand that she was going to do whatever she wanted.

"Alright then. If you get caught between the sheets and can't get out, don't come running to ask me for help." it threatened.

Gwyn didn't know how she was going to ask for help to a voice. It was disembodied, how the hell was she going to beg for help if she didn't even know what that murmur was?

She rolled over on the bed, rubbing her eyes and exhaling, disappointed.

She hated not being able to get out of that damn room.

She hated her insecurity and her irrational fear.

"It is not irrational, Gwyn." It assured her.

"Leave me alone." She begged, getting it to shut up.

She lay on her stomach, breathing deeply.

She looked at the time on the only clock in the room, located above the closet.

19.36.

It appears that she had a lot of time to do absolutely nothing.

Maybe she was going to pick up a book that Nesta and Emerie were reading.

Honestly, she was dying to sink her teeth into one that had caught her attention. According to her description, a maiden sent by the gods fell in love with her bodyguard...

Determined, she bolted upright, unlocking the latch, happily heading for the book.

There would be time to examine the books Merrill had passed her.

Anyway, she had a lot of time, reading something that interested her was not going to do anything bad to everyone.

With a broad grin, she made it to the fiction book section. She opened one of the books, tucking her nose between the pages, an exhale escaping from her lips when she smelled the wonderful book scent.

Her gaze sparking, she searched for the novel she was looking for.

"Didn't you forget something?" It asked.

She stopped short in the middle of the shelves, alarming a passing priestess.

Bowing her head in apology, she went back to searching, her eyes narrowing as she searched the thousands of spins with her eyes, finding none that bore the name of the book she was looking for.

"I don't have any errands to deliver to Merrill." She snapped, frowning when she finally found it.

It was at the top of the shelf.

She made a long face, standing on her tiptoes, stretching her arm as far as she could as she stuck her tongue out, focused.

"I don't mean Merrill, Gwyneth."

"Mysterious voice, what are you talking about?" The priestess demanded in a tired voice. She did not arrive. Why did they make the shelves so high? It was not possible that someone could reach them.

Although, don't get it wrong, Gwyn adored the voice. It was equal to the voice that we all have within us guiding us.

The problem was that the voice that she had was a little… annoying.

She looked at the shelves next to the floor, no books in sight.

Maybe if she got on them…?

She put one foot on it, skipping little hops as she judged whether the bookcase was going to fall or not.

Realizing that it was unlikely, she lifted her other foot, raising her heels as much as she could while she stretched out her arm, feeling her muscles go numb.

A little more ... just a little more ...

"You remember that your friend Nesta has a mate, right? And that you promised them that you would go to her ceremony?" As soon as she finished the sentence, Gwyn stopped.

Shit.

Seriously, had she forgotten that?

"There is still time… There are five days until the ceremony." The voice tried to calm her down, but nothing was going to do it now.

She jumped down from the shelf, as she began to walk from one place to another, in circles.

She had to go.

She couldn't do that to Nesta.

"I don't even have a dress. What am I going to wear?" Alarmed, she slightly stretched the strands of her coppery hair, thinking of a way to solve all the problems that had suddenly befallen her.

I have to leave the library to go to the mating ceremony.

The female began to hyperventilate, forgetting the book that she had held less than 3 centimeters from her hands.

That was far more important.

"I can't tell Nesta that I forgot about her mating ceremony. I can't do that to her." Gwyn protested, running her hands over her face, rubbing her temples angrily, forcing herself to search for solutions and solutions and solutions.

But neither of them was going to work.

She had to get out of there, no priestess was going to leave her a suitable dress for the mating ceremony.

But she couldn't go alone. She did not dare to go down to the city alone.

Emerie couldn't help her. It had started the illyrian high-selling season and the illyrian needed the money. She only went to training, then she quickly returned to her store, not staying a minute longer than necessary.

Cassian and Nesta were completely out of the question.

Azriel...

"Ask him." The voice advised.

She needed to name that voice. She could not continue calling it "the voice", that was beginning to be uncomfortable.

"Maybe he can help you get the dress." It continued.

Would it be male or female? Or rather, what the hell was it?

"Are you listening to me?"

She definitely had no idea what it was.

"What are you?" Gwyn questioned, curious as she left the fiction section behind, walking aimlessly through the library.

She loved to wander aimlessly through the thousands of bookshelves, silent priestesses, the whisper of books her only company.

Besides that voice, of course.

"Have you heard anything I've said to you in the last two minutes?" Her voice roared.

"I've heard nonsense, so no, I haven't heard anything." She claimed. "But anyway, you haven't answered my question. What are you?"

"I am everything and I am nothing at the same time."

Now was it was being funny with her?

She rolled her eyes, annoyed "That is not an answer."

"It's an answer if you know how to interpret it." It answered.

She rolled her eyes again.

"Well, at least tell me what I can call you, it's uncomfortable to think of you as 'The voice'" She asked.

The voice fell silent, which she thought meant the end of the conversation.

She decided to head over to her room, assuming she should start Merrill's work, until 'the Voice' answered her.

"Elián"

Gwyn stood in the middle of the bedroom hall

"That is your name?" She asked.

"My real name would burn your lips if you were able to pronounce it" It replied. "But yes, Elián is my name, and I am 'him', I have noticed how you struggled because you did not know if I was a man or a woman. The definition of gender is much more complicated than that, but it will be enough".

"G-Good." She answered.

Elián was quiet at last, leaving her with her own thoughts, as she opened the door, her own scent of jasmine feeling welcoming.

And the proposal he had made, although obviously she had ignored it, she was not wrong to consider.

Perhaps the Shadowsinger would help her out, aiding her finding a decent dress for her.

She closed the crank behind her, sitting on the small bed, wondering if it would be smart to ask him, risking him saying no, or not asking him and risking not having a dress for the ceremony.

Sighing, she figured she should go to the bathrooms to get the sensation of dust - and the dust itself - off her body, so she grabbed change clothes and headed there, deciding at that moment that tomorrow she would ask the Spymaster if he could accompany her to buy a dress.

Inside her, she could feel Elián nodding his head, giving his approval.

TAG LIST (tell me if you want to be tagged or deleted) @bookish-isha @imsointobooks @shisingh @feyretale @niaacotar @flora-shadowshine @tealnymph24 @trashforazriel @hlizr50 @meher-sumedha @heyovivi @positivewitch @greywarens-magician @sageofthegalaxy @valkygwyn @verifiefangirl @verifiefangirl-mainblog @snickerdoodlechittybangbang @genya-berdara @katekatpattywack @frulyall @mercurianbisous @rainbowcheetah512

#omg here's the first chapter #i hope you like it <3 #gwynriel #my fic #acolas #acosf #acotar #nessian #elucien #gwynriel fanfiction #azriel #gwyn berdara #gwyn #gwyneth berdara

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thevalleyisjolly · 3 years

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Hi there! If you feel up to it, would you be willing to expand a bit more on the idea of white creators creating poc characters who are ‘internally white’, especially in a post-racialized or racism-free setting & how to avoid it? It’s something I’m very concerned about but I haven’t encountered a lot of info about it outside of stories set in real world settings. Thanks & have a good day!

Hey, thanks for asking, anon! It’s a pretty nuanced topic, and different people will have different takes on it. I’ll share my thoughts on it, but do keep in mind that other people of colour may have different thoughts on the matter, and this is by no means definitive! These are things I’ve observed through research, trial and error, my own experiences, or just learning from other writers.

The first thing I guess I want to clarify is that I personally am not opposed to a society without racism in fiction. It’s exhausting and frankly boring when the only stories that characters of colour get are about racism! So it’s a relief sometimes to just get to see characters of colour exist in a story without dealing with racism. That being said, I feel like a lot of the time when creators establish their settings as “post-racial,” they avoid racism but they also avoid race altogether. Not aesthetically -they may have a few or even many characters with dark skin- but the way the characters act and talk and relate to the world are “race-less” (which tends to end up as default white American/British or whatever place the creator comes from). Which I have complicated thoughts on, but the most obvious thing that springs to mind is how such an approach implies (deliberately or not) that racism is all there is to the way POC navigate the world. It’s definitely a significant factor, particularly for POC in Western countries, but it’s not the only thing! There’s so much more to our experiences than just racial discrimination, and it’s a shame that a lot of “post-racial” or “racism-free” settings seem to overlook that in their eagerness to not have racism (or race) in their stories.

A quick go-to question I ask when I look at characters of colour written/played by white creators is: if this was a story or transcript I was reading, with no art or actors or what have you, would I be able to tell that this character is a character of colour? How does the creator signal to the audience that this is a character of colour? A lot of the time, this signal stops after the physical description - “X has dark skin” and then that’s all! (We will not discuss the issue of racial stereotypes in depth, but it should be clear that those are absolutely the wrong way to indicate a character of colour).

This expands to a wider issue of using dark skin as a be-all-end-all indication of diversity, which is what I mean by “aesthetic” characters of colour (I used the term “internally white” originally but upon further reflection, it has some very loaded implications, many of which I’m personally familiar with, so I apologize for the usage). Yes, the character may not “look” white, but how do they interact with the world? Where do they come from? What is their background, their family? A note: this can be challenging with diaspora stories in the real world and people being disconnected (forcibly or otherwise) from their heritage (in which case, those are definitely stories that outsiders should not tell). So let’s look at fantasy. Even the most original writer in the world bases their world building off existing things in the real world. So what cultures are you basing your races off of? If you have a dark skinned character in your fantasy story, what are the real world inspirations and equivalents that you drew from, and how do you acknowledge that in a respectful, non-stereotyped way?

(Gonna quickly digress here and say that there are already so many stories about characters of colour disconnected from their heritage because ‘They didn’t grow up around other people from that culture’ or ‘They moved somewhere else and grew up in that dominant culture’ or ‘It just wasn’t important to them growing up’ and so on. These are valid stories, and important to many people! But when told by (usually) white creators, they’re also used, intentionally or not, as a sort of cop-out to avoid having to research or think about the character’s ethnicity and how that influences who they are. So another point of advice: avoid always situating characters outside of their heritage. Once or twice explored with enough nuance and it can be an interesting narrative, all the time and it starts being a problem)

Another thing I want to clarify at this point is that it’s a contentious issue about whether creators should tell stories that aren’t theirs, and different people will have different opinions. For me personally, I definitely don’t think it’s inherently bad for creators to have diverse characters in their work, and no creator can live every experience there is. That being said, there are caveats for how such characters are handled. For me personally, I follow a few rules of thumb which are:

Is this story one that is appropriate for this creator to tell? Some experiences are unique and lived with a meaningful or complex history and context behind them and the people to whom those experiences belong do not want outsiders to tell those stories.

To what extent is the creator telling this story? Is it something mentioned as part of the narrative but not significantly explored or developed upon? Does it form a core part of the story or character? There are some stories that translate across cultures and it’s (tentatively) ok to explore more in depth, like immigration or intergenerational differences. There are some stories that don’t, and shouldn’t be explored in detail (or even at all) by people outside those cultures.

How is the creator approaching this story and the people who live it? To what extent have they done their research? What discussions have they had with sensitivity consultants/readers? What kind of respect are they bringing to their work? Do they default to stereotypes and folk knowledge when they reach the limits of their research? How do they respond to feedback or criticism when audiences point things that they will inevitably get wrong?

Going back to the “race-less” point, I think that creators need to be careful that they’re (respectfully) portraying characters of colour as obvious persons of colour. With a very definite ‘no’ on stereotyping, of course, so that’s where the research comes in (which should comprise of more than a ten minute Google search). If your setting is in the real world, what is the background your character comes from and how might that influence the way they act or talk or see the world? If your setting is in a fantasy world, same question! Obviously, avoid depicting things which are closed/exclusive to that culture (such as religious beliefs, practices, etc) and again, avoid stereotyping (which I cannot stress enough), but think about how characters might live their lives and experience the world differently based on the culture or the background they come from.

As an example of a POC character written/played well by a white person, I personally like Jackson Wei and Cindy Wong from Dimension 20’s The Unsleeping City, an urban fantasy D&D campaign. Jackson and Cindy are NPCs played by the DM, Brennan Lee Mulligan, who did a good job acknowledging their ethnicity without resorting to stereotypes and while giving them their own unique characters and personalities. The first time he acted as Cindy, I leapt up from my chair because she was exactly like so many old Chinese aunties and grandmothers I’ve met. The way Jackson and Cindy speak and act and think is very Chinese (without being stereotyped), but at the same time, there’s more to their characters than being Chinese, they have unique and important roles in the story that have nothing to do with their ethnicity. So it’s obvious that they’re people of colour, that they’re Chinese, but at the same time, the DM isn’t overstepping and trying to tell stories that aren’t his to tell. All while not having the characters face any racism, as so many “post-racialized” settings aim for, because there are quite enough stories about that!

There a couple factors that contribute to the positive example I gave above. The DM is particularly conscientious about representation and doing his research (not to say that he never messes up, but he puts in a lot more effort than the average creator), and the show also works with a lot of sensitivity consultants. Which takes me to the next point - the best way to portray characters of colour in your story is to interact with people from that community. Make some new friends, reach out to people! Consume media by creators of colour! In my experience so far, the most authentic Chinese characters have almost universally been created/written/played by Chinese creators. Read books, listen to podcasts, watch shows created by people of colour. Apart from supporting marginalized creators, you also start to pick up how people from that culture or heritage see themselves and the world, what kind of stories they have to tell, and just as importantly, what kind of stories they want being told or shared. In other words, the best way to portray an authentic character of colour that is more than just the colour of their skin is to learn from actual people of colour (without, of course, treating them just as a resource and, of course, with proper credit and acknowledgement).

Most importantly, this isn’t easy, and you will absolutely make mistakes. I think the most important thing to keep in mind is that you will mess up. No matter how well researched you are, how much respect you have for other cultures, how earnestly you want to do this right, you will at some point do something that makes your POC audience uncomfortable or even offends them. Then, your responsibility comes with your response. Yes, you’ve done something wrong. How do you respond to the people who are hurt or disappointed? Do you ignore them, or double down on your words, or try to defend yourself? Just as importantly, what are you planning to do about it in the future? If you have a second chance, what are you going to do differently? You will make mistakes at some point. So what are you going to do about them? That, I think, is an even more important question than “How can I do this right?” You may or may not portray something accurately, but when you get something wrong, how are you going to respond?

Essentially, it all comes down to your responsibility as a creator. As a creator, you have a responsibility to do your due diligence in research, to remain respectful to your work and to your audience, and to be careful and conscientious about how you choose to create things. It’s not about getting things absolutely perfect or being the most socially conscious creator out there, it’s about recognizing your responsibilities as a creator with a platform, no matter how big or small, and taking responsibility for your work.

In summary:

Research, research, research

Avoid the obvious no-no’s (stereotypes, tokenization, fetishization, straight up stealing from other cultures, etc) and think critically about what creative choices you’re making and why

Do what you’re doing now, and reach out to people (who have put themselves out there as a resource). There are tons of resources out there by people of colour, reach out when you’re not sure about something or would like some advice!

Responsibility, responsibility, responsibility

Thank you for reaching out! Good luck with your work!

#the valley is posting #thanks anon!#writing advice #hope this helps! if another POC has something to add - please go ahead!

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wordsnstuff · 4 years

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Guide To Writing Historical Fiction

PLEASE REBLOG | Tumblr suppresses posts with links :/

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Finding Credible Sources

This can be a major struggle, especially for those who don’t possess a lot of skill in writing research papers or writing informative works. I could write an entire article on this subject alone, but instead I’ve decided to link a few helpful articles that can help you identify credible sources. A good rule of thumb is to pay attention to how recent the information is, who wrote it (what are their credentials), and who/which organization published the information. If you’re unsure of whether one or all of these things indicates a lack of credibility, cross-reference against other material, and always keep the list of sources you’ve used handy for future reference.

Familiarity vs. Accuracy

The ultimate goal of writing historical fiction is creating an immersive experience for the reader, which takes place during a period in time they didn’t live through, or in a location they didn’t experience during that time. It’s about immersion, and it’s important that you don’t sacrifice that experience in an effort to make the material as factual as possible. You are an artist, and you have the room to pick and choose where accuracy is necessary, and where familiarity can supplement it.

Write For Your Reader

When choosing which information to include in your writing, you need to keep the reader at the forefront of your mind. What do they need to know? What can be omitted in the interest of individual interpretation? Where does specificity take away from the excitement of a moment in the story. There should never be a scene that is completely focused on unpacking the research you’ve done on the time period. You do the research and learn the information to aide in your ability to tell an immersive story, and you edit include information sporadicly with the intention of keeping the worldly aspects fresh in their mind. Each piece of information is a reminder to the reader’s imagination of where and when they are. It’s not about teaching them anything. That’s why it’s fiction.

Authenticity vs. Accessibility

A lot of historical fiction works become problematic when the author prioritizes factual accuracy over accessibility to the everyday reader. The majority of readers come for the taste of another time or another culture, or both. If they wanted to read a history paper, they would. If they wanted to read a 120 page report on 16th century Japan, they would. Keep this in mind. Accessibility is a deal breaker for most readers. If they can’t see the story through the information, they’ll put your story down, because they want what’s been advertised.

Differentiating Between Classes

Class is one of those things that, when imagining what it’s like to research for historical fiction, you forget to consider. In most cases, the experience of lower classes or the middle class were not documented or recorded in the past because it wasn’t considered worth remembering. Be mindful of who your characters are, because if you’re writing about a time period that predates modern methods of recording life and events, you may struggle to find information on anyone other than royalty and the general upper-class.

Common Struggles

~ Being a detail-oriented writer who struggles with efficiency… Here’s the thing. Write down the questions you come up with while writing, put a signifier in your draft, and then move on. Continue writing, because in all reality, it’s not worth your time to squeeze all of that minuscule detail into a first or second draft. Get the actual story done with a solid foundation of information about the relevant subjects, and then when you’re confident in your current draft, move onto the little things.

~ How far should I go when taking artistic liberties?… Make the time period and the location familiar and make the characters fit logically into it. Beyond that, nitpicking is not your responsibility. It’s historical fiction. Unless you’re wildly misrepresenting a serious issue or an important detail, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t take liberties where you see fit. It’s one thing to decide tomatoes did exist in Italy during the 14th century and another to erase a minority struggle in your historical fiction story. It’s fairly simple.

~ Speech patterns and vernacular of different time periods… Speech patterns are difficult to smoothly incorporate into text anyhow, but if it’s relevant to your plot, there are a lot of resources on speech during different time periods and the dialects in various areas of the world. The vernacular of languages are more important to research, especially for dialogue, but this is also something you can hire an specialized editor to work with you on. I would use texts of the time period as a jumping-off point, translated into their original version but in whatever language you speak, and then compare patterns you see between them.

~ Portraying historical figures… This is subjective, and whether the figure is dead or alive is also important to consider. Unless they’re an integral character in your story, my best advice would be to portray them with the enduring attitude of the majority, such as neutrality for a figure like John F. Kennedy, or negativity for figures like Adolf Hitler. This is highly subjective to your story and their role in it.

~ Depicting more recent time periods… If you have no experience with that time period and the events within it, and you have the option of asking someone you know, I recommend doing so. However, take bias and perspective into account when incorporating the information you glean into your story. Try to depict them with more nostalgia than stereotype.

Other Resources

Resources For Writing Royalty

Commentary on Social Issues In Writing

Describing Setting

Resources For Worldbuilding

Resources For Describing Physical Things

Things To Know About Your Real-Life Setting

Guide To Political World Building

Tips on Introducing Political Backstory

Resources For Writing (Global) Period Pieces : High Middle Ages & Renaissance

Resources For Writing (Global) Period Pieces : 1600s

Resources For Writing (Global) Period Pieces : 1700s

Resources For Writing (Global) Period Pieces : 1800s

Resources For Writing (Global) Period Pieces : 1900-1939

Resources For Writing (Global) Period Pieces : 1940-1969

Resources For Writing (Global) Period Pieces : 1970-1999

Writing Other Eras

World Building In Historical Fiction

Historically Accurate Dialogue

Accuracy vs Relatability

Guide To Writing Historical Fiction

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ava-candide · 3 years

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Poldark’s Aidan Turner on playing Leonardo da Vinci

The newly married heart-throb actor learnt to paint left-handed for his new role, and he’s still daubing now, he tells Ed Potton

Aidan Turner takes on the role of Renaissance polymath Leonardo

I’m trying to work out where Aidan Turner is Zooming from. Is it London, where he moved to in 2017 after his Ross Poldark became the drooled-over king of Sunday-night television? Dublin, where he grew up, trained as an actor and returned to spend the first lockdown with his parents? Or Rome, where he shot his new series, Leonardo, in which he plays a young Leonardo da Vinci?

“None of the above!” Turner says. “I’m in Toronto.” The enigmatic charm, feline eyes and gleaming locks that he deployed so mercilessly in Poldark, The Hobbit films and Being Human are all there. “My missus is working here,” he explains, and so is he. That’s the American actress Caitlin FitzGerald, his partner of three years, whom he met when they starred in the 2018 film The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot. At first I assume the “missus” is laddish affectation but it turns out that it’s official: Turner and FitzGerald, both 37, got married in secret in Italy in August after filming finished on Leonardo. You can almost hear the sighs of disappointment ripple around the world.

Turner won’t say any more — he is famously guarded about his personal life — but he looks insanely happy in the couple’s rented apartment. FitzGerald — whose grandfather Desmond was a CIA agent and organised several plots to assassinate Fidel Castro — is shooting a series, Station Eleven, in Toronto while her husband works on another project that he’s not allowed to talk about. In their downtime they’ve been watching I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, an HBO documentary series about the Golden State Killer, and, on a lighter note, Ottolenghi and the Cakes of Versailles. They share the apartment with Charlie, an ebullient Norfolk terrier that Turner has to eject from the room halfway through our interview when he starts yapping. “I’m surprised he behaved for so long,” he says

Eight-part series Leonardo has been criticised for warping history

Like many of his fellow thesps, Turner has been doing a great deal of lockdown painting. “We have a roof garden here and the light has been really good,” he says. “I probably shouldn’t be saying this because I don’t know if the landlord knows. It’s not messy work anyway!” Unlike some of his peers — I’m looking at you, Pierce Brosnan — he has yet to unleash his daubings on the world. How would he describe his style? “I struggle to say abstract, but I haven’t quite figured out what it is yet.” Did it help with playing Leonardo? “I don’t know. If you saw my paintings, you’d assume very much not,” Turner says. He has a studied line in self-effacement, honed after years of “sexiest man on TV” questions.

Leonardo premiered in Italy last month and was watched by seven million, many of them doubtless keen to see Turner brooding in a succession of smocks. The eight-part series has been criticised for warping history, having the artist accused of murder and featuring an apparently fictional muse, Caterina da Cremona, played by Matilda De Angelis from The Undoing. Luca Bernabei, the chief executive of Lux Vide who produced the series, defended it stoutly. “Matilda De Angelis’s character did exist. She was a model Leonardo asked to paint,” he said. “We have been really careful in our research. But this is not a documentary, we are not historians and this is not a university history lecture.”

And if the history pedants are spluttering, the art pedants should be happier — the series goes to considerable lengths to make the painting look authentic. Each episode is themed around a different masterpiece, from the portrait of Ginevra de’ Benci to The Last Supper to the Mona Lisa, and the candlelit cinematography is often sumptuous. Turner’s research included a private view of a Leonardo exhibition. “I spent some time alone with the actual paintings, which was brilliant,” he says. “They’re just like high-definition photographs. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that a human had done this.”

Aidan Turner attended an artist’s boot camp before filming started

The series opens in Florence in the 1460s, with Leonardo a pupil of Verrocchio, played by the veteran Italian actor Giancarlo Giannini. Before the shoot Turner and his co-stars went on an artists’ boot camp (brush camp?) supervised by professionals. He says the hardest part was learning to paint, as Leonardo did, with his left hand. He compares it to learning to ride a horse for Poldark, which he pretended he knew how to do before going on a crash course when he got the part.

Brushwork was the same, he says. “I realised I had to get good quite quickly and look like I knew what I was doing with my left hand, which is more difficult than you would think. It’s keeping it steady — you find it just moves around a lot. Leonardo was very slow and precise — I think I got it down. After a few weeks you start picking up the brush with your left hand, it becomes natural.”

Leonardo was a vegetarian, Turner tells me, “and apparently later in life opened some sort of vegetarian restaurant”. He was also gay, something that, despite reports, the series does not shy away from. Was this Turner’s first time kissing a man on screen? He laughs. “Of all the things I was expecting you to ask next, that wasn’t one of them! In a lot of ways it was just another love scene. The fact that the gender was different — that was never a thing. No, it felt right. It didn’t feel any different at all. But yeah, to answer your question, that was the first time, which I’d never really thought of until now.”

What did feel weird, he says, were the Covid protocols. “Suddenly people are wearing masks and shields and hazmat suits. We had a big sanitisation machine as we walked in that would spray us. You take off the mask when you shoot the scene and it’s a bit strange for a second. Then you realise it’s the first time you’ve seen your co-star’s face that day. It’s not conducive to a very creative environment, for sure. But we made it work and nobody got sick.”

Turner spends a chunk of the first episode painting De Angelis, and both actors know what it’s like to be ogled. She has been asked endlessly about her naked locker-room sequence in The Undoing, just as he has been reminded of his shirtless scything scene in Poldark. Before that there was his lusted-after vampire in Being Human and his sexy dwarf in The Hobbit — branded a “dwilf” in some quarters — although that “definitely wasn’t the intention”, he says. “I think I just had less prosthetics on my face. My make-up call was 20 minutes and everyone else was sitting in the chair in the morning for three and a half hours. It wasn’t good to be around the other dwarfs in the mornings, that’s for sure.

“I get why people are interested,” he says of the ogling. “It’s just when it keeps coming up.”

We move on. According to a recent survey Cornwall has overtaken London as the most desirable place to live in Britain. Does he think Poldark played a part in that? He laughs. “Maybe we nudged a few people in the right direction. I think people forgot how beautiful that side of the world is. One of the first reviews of Poldark we read was like: ‘We can’t believe that this is our country, it looks like the south of France.’”

Could Poldark return, and would Turner be in it? If they stuck to the chronology of Winston Graham’s books they would have to leap ahead a few years. Maybe he could play an aged-up Ross Poldark in latex and fake paunch? “I don’t know if I’d be keen on the ageing-up thing,” he says. “It never really works. I don’t know whether they need to be too strict with that gap anyway. There’s the possibility someday, maybe. I enjoyed working with everybody on Poldark, from the writers right down to all the cast and crew. It really is like a family. So I’d be open to chat about it. But not for a while.”

Before that he will appear as the apostle Andrew in The Last Planet, the forthcoming biblical epic from Terrence Malick, revered creator of The Thin Red Line and The Tree of Life. Well, he doesn’t know for sure if he will appear. Actors of the calibre of Rachel Weisz, Mickey Rourke and Jessica Chastain have seen their performances in Malick films vanish during editing.

“You want what’s best for the film. And if you don’t fit into it, you don’t fit into it,” Turner says in the tone of hair-shirt devotion that actors tend to use when talking about Malick. With a cast including Ben Kingsley and Mark Rylance as Satan, the movie is meant to tell the story of Jesus through a series of parables. Turner doesn’t really have a clue, though.

“You don’t necessarily know what you’re signing up to. You’re signing up to Terrence Malick,” he says. The director has “a great way of working. Everything is around ‘where is the sun’ at this particular time. That’s our natural light and it’s all we use. So things happen fast. There’s no trailers, hair, make-up, we’re just all together. You don’t know from day to day what you’ll be doing. It’s quite renegade stuff. That’s the way I always wanted to work.”

It’s closer to the immediacy of the theatre, which is where Turner started out. The son of an electrician, Pearse, and an accountant, Eileen, he represented Ireland at ballroom dancing before falling into acting. After studying at the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin he acted in plays for five years and in 2018 he returned to the stage to rave reviews in Martin McDonagh’s The Lieutenant of Inishmore in the West End. Rave being the operative word — his performance was bracingly unhinged. “I can’t wait to get back to the theatre,” he says. “That’s what we’re looking at probably next.”

Turner’s character in The Lieutenant of Inishmore was an Irish freedom fighter, but he is reluctant to talk about the prospect of Irish reunification (“So I don’t get shot when I get home,” he told one interviewer). Culture is safer ground, and his native country is going through a purple patch with Sally Rooney in literature, Fontaines DC in music and the likes of McDonagh, Jessie Buckley and Denise Gough in drama. “It tends to happen in waves,” Turner says. “Coming out of drama school, Colin Farrell was such a big thing. When these actors really make it you can feel some of their light begin to shine on the industry back home.”

Like Farrell, Turner is an international star, although it has mainly been in period roles: Poldark, Leonardo, Andrew and his breakout turn as the 19th-century poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti in the 2009 series Desperate Romantics. It must be something about the hair.

That could be about to change, though. Toronto often stands in for New York, which suggests that his current mystery project has a contemporary setting. Does he yearn to act in jeans? “Yeah, you’re right,” he says with a laugh. “After Leonardo, I think tights and knee-length boots are out for a while.” Many would beg him to reconsider.

#aidanpics

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fineillsignup · 3 years

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Hello! I recently found your post on creating Chinese names for characters in fiction and I'm curious if I could get your opinion on some that I've created? I'm afraid that I'm a bit too literal with naming and I'd love tips on how I could make the names shift more to fit a proper standard. I've been using a few of the links that you share in that post to do my best to make sure the names sound natural instead of so wrong that people wouldn't be able to take the characters seriously. Thanks!

You can send me the names in a DM, but I warn you in advance I have been utterly terrible in the past year at answering asks or replies in a timely manner, or in some cases, at all. (I mean to answer, and I forget or I don't have the focus/energy, then it goes so long that I get anxious that it's too late to answer, and then it seems like it's really too late to answer, and it's just a bad time all around. I'm trying not to let it get to me too much.)

The more specific your question is the more likely I'll be able to answer it simply. Like if you have a brief rundown of the setting, the character's background, and then the name.

It's okay to find the process stressful, I think it is pretty stressful, and Chinese names can really get very strong, divided opinions. I think I mentioned this in my post, but for one of my stories, there was one name that I picked for a character that a friend who I was bouncing names off of utterly hated, but I decided to push through and choose it anyway with my eyes open to the fact that a lot of people (like my friend) would find the name cheesy. (It was a happy ever after epilogue baby, and I decided I wanted cheesy. After all, it's not like the fictional baby has to worry about a future career, I can name them something sappy if I want.)

It's okay that somebody out there will inevitably not like a character's name. The infiniteness of the options in Chinese names means that for every "that's too plain" reaction to one kind of name, you get a "you're trying too hard" reaction to another kind of name, and so on and so on. (And on the reverse, you will people who will LOVE your name, whether it's unusual or traditional or avant-garde or poetic or...) Native speakers from the same city won't agree, much less from across the Sinosphere. You are aiming for something within a wide range of "basically acceptable", not for "perfection", so be easy on yourself.

As a reminder of what's out there, the given name of the President of Taiwan is 英文 Yingwen which is literally "English" (as in the language), and if she didn't exist and someone asked me if they could name a character that, I would say no way, there's no way anyone would choose that as a name for a baby, that's horrendous. But she's out there getting elected president of Taiwan, so good for her, you know? Good for her.

I really want to lower the anxiety about choosing a Chinese name as much as I can. I truly believe that if you try hard, do some research, and are open to input and correction, you can do it. (If you are going to professionally publish a work, then I think you should spend the $$ to consult an expert just for a final check. But I would not put that level of responsibility on an amateur writer publishing for free.)

#chinese names #onomastics #i should have a tag for asks

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captain-ross-poldark · 3 years

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Poldark’s Aidan Turner on playing Leonardo da Vinci

Ed Potton

Friday 2 April 2021

Aidan Turner takes on the role of Renaissance polymath LeonardoJUSTIN SUTCLIFFE/EYEVIN

Eight-part series Leonardo has been criticised for warping historyPA

Aidan Turner attended an artist’s boot camp before filming startedVITTORIA FENATI MORACE

With his wife, the American actress Caitlin FitzGeraldREX FEATURES

“I get why people are interested,” he says of the ogling. “It’s just when it keeps coming up.”

Turner with Eleanor Tomlinson in PoldarkMIKE HOGAN

Before that he will appear as the apostle Andrew in The Last Planet, the forthcoming biblical epic from Terrence Malick, revered creator ofThe Thin Red Line and The Tree of Life. Well, he doesn’t know for sure if he will appear. Actors of the calibre of Rachel Weisz, Mickey Rourke and Jessica Chastain have seen their performances in Malick films vanish during editing.

All episodes of Leonardo will be on Amazon from April 16

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/poldarks-aidan-turner-on-playing-leonardo-da-vinci-wnmqhxqxr

#Sunday times #aidan turner #Leonardo

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jeannereames · 3 years

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Hi, Dr. Reames! I just read your take on Song of Achilles and it got me thinking. Do you think there might be a general issue with the way women are written in mlm stories in general? Because I don't think it's the first time I've seen something like this happen.

And my next question is, could you delve further into this thing you mention about modern female authors writing women? How could we, beginner female writers, avoid falling into this awful representations of women in our writing?

Thank you for your time!

[It took a while to finish this because I wrote, re-wrote, and re-wrote it. Still not sure I like it, but I need to let it go. It could be 3xs as long.]

I’ll begin with the second half of the question, because it’s simpler. How do we, as women authors, avoid writing women in misogynistic ways?

Let me reframe that as how can we, as female authors, write negative (even quite nasty) female characters without falling into misogynistic tropes? Also, how can we write unsympathetic, but not necessarily “bad” female characters, without it turning misogynistic?

Because people are people, not genders, not all women are good, nor all men bad. Most of us are a mix. If we should avoid assuming powerful women are all bitches, by the same token, some women are bitches (powerful or not).

ALL good characterization comes down to MOTIVE. And careful characterization of minority characters involves fair REPRESENTATION. (Yes, women are a minority even if we’re 51% of the population.)

The question ANY author must ask: why am I making this female character a bitch? How does this characterization serve the larger plot and/or characterization? WHY is she acting this way?

Keep characters complex, even the “bad guys.” Should we choose to make a minority character a “bad guy,” we need to have a counter example—a real counter, not just a token who pops in briefly, then disappears. Yeah, maybe in an ideal world we could just let our characters “be,” but this isn’t an ideal world. Authors do have an audience. I’m a lot less inclined to assume stereotyping when we have various minority characters with different characterizations.

By the same token, however, don’t throw a novel against the wall if the first minority character is negative. Read further to decide if it’s a pattern. I’ve encountered reviews that slammed an author for stereotyping without the reader having finished the book. I’m thinking, “Uh…if you’d read fifty more pages….” Novels have a developmental arc. And if you’ve got a series, that, too, has a developmental arc. One can’t reach a conclusion about an author’s ultimate presentation/themes until having finished the book, or series.*

Returning to the first question, the appearance of misogyny depends not only on the author, but also on when she wrote, even why she’s writing. Authors who are concerned with matters such as theme and message are far more likely to think about such things than those who write for their own entertainment and that of others, which is more typical of Romance.

On average, Romance writers are a professionalized bunch. They have national and regional chapters of the Romance Writers of America (RWA), newsletters and workshops that discuss such matters as building plot tension, character dilemmas, show don’t tell, research tactics, etc. Yet until somewhat recently (early/mid 2010s), and a series of crises across several genres (not just Romance), treatment of minority groups hadn’t been in their cross-hairs. Now it is, with Romance publishers (and publishing houses more generally) picking up “sensitivity readers” in addition to the other editors who look at a book before its publication.

Yet sensitivity readers are hired to be sure lines like “chocolate love monkey” do not show up in a published novel. Yes, that really was used as an endearment for a black man in an M/M Romance, which (deservedly) got not just the author but the publishing house in all sorts of hot water. Yet misogyny, especially more subtle misogyny in the way of tropes, is rarely on the radar.

I should add that I wouldn’t categorize The Song of Achilles as an M/M historical Romance. In fact, I’m not sure what to call novels about myths, as myths don’t exist in actual historical periods. When should we set a novel about the Iliad? The Bronze Age, when Homer said it happened, or the Greek Dark Age, which is the culture Homer actually described? They’re pretty damn different. I’d probably call The Song of Achilles an historical fantasy, especially as mythical creatures are presented as real, like centaurs and god/desses.

Back to M/M Romance: I don’t have specific publishing stats, but it should surprise no one that (like most of the Romance genre), the vast bulk of authors of M/M Romance are women, often straight and/or bi- women. The running joke seems to be, If one hot man is good, two hot men together are better. 😉 Yes, there are also trans, non-binary and lesbian authors of M/M Romance, and of course, bi- and gay men who may write under their own name or a female pseudonym, but my understanding is that straight and bi- cis-women authors outnumber all of them.

Just being a woman, or even a person in a female body, does not protect that author from misogyny. And if she’s writing for fun, she may not be thinking a lot about what her story has to “say” in its subtext and motifs, even if she may be thinking quite hard about other aspects of story construction. This can be true of other genres as well (like historical fantasy).

What I have observed for at least some women authors is the unconscious adoption of popular tropes about women. Just as racism is systemic, so is sexism. We swim in it daily, and if one isn’t consciously considering how it affects us, we can buy into it by repeating negative ideas and acting in prescribed ways because that’s what we learned growing up. If writing in a symbol-heavy genre such as mythic-driven fantasy, it can be easy to let things slip by—even if they didn’t appear in the original myth, such as making Thetis hostile to Patroklos, the classic Bitchy Mother-in-Law archetype.

I see this sort of thing as “accidental” misogyny. Women authors repeat unkind tropes without really thinking them through because it fits their romantic vision. They may resent it and get defensive if the trope is pointed out. “Don’t harsh my squee!” We can dissect why these tropes persist, and to what degree they change across generations—but that would end up as a (probably controversial) book, not a blog entry. 😊

Yet there’s also subconscious defensive misogyny, and even conscious/semi-conscious misogyny.

Much debate/discussion has ensued regarding “Queen Bee Syndrome” in the workplace and whether it’s even a thing. I think it is, but not just for bosses. I also would argue that it’s more prevalent among certain age-groups, social demographics, and professions, which complicates recognizing it.

What is Queen Bee Syndrome? Broadly, when women get ahead at the expense of their female colleagues who they perceive as rivals, particularly in male-dominated fields, hinging on the notion that There Can Be Only One (woman). It arises from systemic sexism.

Yes, someone can be a Queen Bee even with one (or two) women buddies, or while claiming to be a feminist, supporting feminist causes, or writing feminist literature. I’ve met a few. What comes out of our mouths doesn’t necessarily jive with how we behave. And ticking all the boxes isn’t necessary if you’re ticking most of them. That said, being ambitious, or just an unpleasant boss/colleague—if its equal opportunity—does not a Queen Bee make. There must be gender unequal behavior involved.

What does any of that have to do with M/M fiction?

The author sees the women characters in her novel as rivals for the male protagonists. It gets worse if the women characters have some “ownership” of the men: mothers, sisters, former girlfriends/wives/lovers. I know that may sound a bit batty. You’re thinking, Um, aren’t these characters gay or at least bi- and involved with another man, plus—they’re fictional? Doesn’t matter. Call it fantasizing, authorial displacement, or gender-flipped authorial insert. We authors (and I include myself in this) can get rather territorial about our characters. We live in their heads and they live in ours for months on end, or in many cases, years. They’re real to us. Those who aren't authors often don’t quite get that aspect of being an author. So yes, sometimes a woman author acts like a Queen Bee to her women characters. This is hardly all, or even most, but it is one cause of creeping misogyny in M/M Romance.

Let’s turn to a related problem: women who want to be honorary men. While I view this as much more pronounced in prior generations, it’s by no means disappeared. Again, it’s a function of systemic sexism, but further along the misogyny line than Queen Bees. Most Queen Bees I’ve known act/react defensively, and many are (imo) emotionally insecure. It’s largely subconscious. More, they want to be THE woman, not an honorary man.

By contrast, women who want to be honorary men seem to be at least semi-conscious of their misogyny, even if they resist calling it that. These are women who, for the most part, dislike other women, regard most of “womankind” as either a problem or worthless, and think of themselves as having risen above their gender.

And NO, this is not necessarily religious—sometimes its specifically a-religious.

“I want to be an honorary man” women absolutely should NOT be conflated with butch lesbians, gender non-conformists, or frustrated FTMs. That plays right into myths the queer community has combated for decades. There’s a big difference between expressing one’s yang or being a trans man, and a desire to escape one’s womanhood or the company of other women. “Honorary men” women aren’t necessarily queer. I want to underscore that because the concrete example I’m about to give does happen to be queer.

I’ve talked before about Mary Renault’s problematic portrayal of women in her Greek novels (albeit her earlier hospital romances don’t show it as much). Her own recorded comments make it clear that she and her partner Julie Mullard didn’t want to be associated with other lesbians, or with women much at all. She was also born in 1905, living at a time when non-conforming women struggled. If extremely active in anti-apartheid movements in South Africa, Renault and Mullard were far less enthused by the Gay Rights Movement. Renault even criticized it, although she wrote back kindly to her gay fans.

The women in Renault’s Greek novels tend to be either bitches or helpless, reflecting popular male perceptions of women: both in ancient Greece and Renault’s own day. If we might argue she’s just being realistic, that ignores the fact one can write powerful women in historical novels and still keep it attitudinally accurate. June Rachuy Brindel, born in 1919, author of Ariadne and Phaedra, didn’t have the same problem, nor did Martha Rofheart, born in 1917, with My Name is Sappho. Brindel’s Ariadne is much more sympathetic than Renault’s (in The King Must Die).

Renault typically elevates (and identifies with) the “rational” male versus the “irrational” female. This isn’t just presenting how the Greeks viewed women; it reflects who she makes the heroes and villains in her books. Overall, “good” women are the compliant ones, and the compliant women are tertiary characters.

Women in earlier eras who were exceptional had to fight multiple layers of systemic misogyny. Some did feel they had to become honorary men in order to be taken seriously. I’d submit Renault bought into that, and it (unfortunately) shows in her fiction, as much as I admire other aspects of her novels.

So I think those are the three chief reasons we see women negatively portrayed in M/M Romance (or fiction more generally), despite being written by women authors.

------------------------------------

*Yeah, yeah, sometimes it’s such 2D, shallow, stereotypical presentation that I, as a reader, can conclude this author isn’t going to get any better. Also, the publication date might give me a clue. If I’m reading something published 50 years ago, casual misogyny or racism is probably not a surprise. If I don’t feel like dealing with that, I close the book and put it away.

But I do try to give the author a chance. I may skim ahead to see if things change, or at least suggest some sort of character development. This is even more the case with a series. Some series take a loooong view, and characters alter across several novels. Our instant-gratification world has made us impatient. Although by the same token, if one has to deal with racism or sexism constantly in the real world, one may not want to have to watch it unfold in a novel—even if it’s “fixed” later. If that’s you, put the book down and walk away. But I’d just suggest not writing a scathing review of a novel (or series) you haven’t finished. 😉

#misogyny in m/m romance #how to avoid misogyny writing women characters #writing complicated women characters #asks #writing life #writing advice

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stillebesat · 3 years

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Beneath the Moon -part 2

December Drabbles Day 21 Sanders Sides: Logan, Roman Blurb: After all the research he’d done, after all the signs he’d been experiencing. Logan needed someone to tell him he wasn’t crazy. And Roman…Roman had always been the one most likely to believe in the fantastical, the impossible, the…supernatural. Fic Type: Werewolf!AU Overall Fic Warnings: Bite Wound -Semi-Detailed, Dog Attack Mention, Injuries, War Talk, Fighting Talk, Death/Dying Talk, Gun Mention Taglist in Reblog.

To Catch Up: Part 1

It was simple.

Or, at least Logan hoped it would be simple.

He’d read so much literature on how werewolves needed to be chained up, locked away, and prevented from roaming free in order to keep them safe from themselves and from other people…that he wanted to try the opposite.

“So let me get this straight.” Roman said, leaning against a statue in his back garden. “You’re just going to stand there...and let the change happen without tying yourself up?”

Logan took a breath, trying to not feel self conscious as he placed his shirt on a nearby bench. “Yes.” He probably should have taken all his clothes off if the stories were true that they would be rags by morning...but he already felt extremely self conscious with just his shirt off in front of his--his frenemy. It felt--he felt too...vulnerable. “My theory is...is that if I just...accept this. Accept that I will change into a wolf and not try and fight it. I will retain more of my...humanity.”

“If you shift.”

Logan nodded, rubbing his arm with his good hand, glancing to the horizon. The moon should be making its appearance any minute now. “Yes. If I shift.”

Would it have to fully emerge before something happened? Or would just the smallest of slivers cause the change?

“And you need me---”

“Mostly for your wall.” Because Roman’s family had placed a large stone wall around the perimeter of their property years ago for privacy. With nearly a dozen acres stretching out behind his home, it should hopefully be enough space for Logan to roam around comfortably without feeling...trapped.

“My wall.”

“To keep me contained…but also for---for--” Logan exhaled, forcing himself to look at Roman’s shadowed form. “If this goes badly, I hope your aim with a gun is as good as the news proclaims it to be.”

Roman made a face, one hand dropping to the handgun at his waist as he took a step forward. “I don’t hate you enough to kill you, Logan. No matter if this werewolf thing actually happens. You won’t die tonight. Mark my words.”

Logan shivered, taking a step back to keep his distance as he again glanced to where the moon should be. Was it getting brighter over there? “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Ro.” He whispered, narrowing his eyes. It did appear to be lighter than before. He swallowed, feeling his heart rate pick up.

Any second now.

Would the first light of the moon cause the change? Or did it have to be fully risen?

He brushed the unhealing wound on his hand. “I don’t know how...human my mind will be if this happens. I may just try to kill you.”

Whether it was to defend himself or because he would feel the need to hunt...remained unknown. Logan just hoped it wouldn’t come to that. At least he hoped his childhood friend could get to safety before anything...happened.

“Ha.” Roman scoffed, drawing Logan’s attention back to him as he deliberately drew closer. “I doubt you’d be coordinated enough to do so.”

Possibly. Logan shook his head, again retreating away from his childhood friend. Just because Roman believed nothing would happen didn’t mean that he should try and approach until after they established he wasn’t going to become a wolf.

And if he did…walking on four limbs would be something he’d have to adjust to. It would be completely different from being on two legs and it wasn’t exactly something Logan could practice at. At least not well, because he had tried to experiment and figure out how walking on all fours would go back at his apartment. He’d even created and tied a makeshift tail around his waist, but after watching dogs playing in the nearby park, he knew that the extra limb would be far more active than the limp thing he’d made.

Logan drew in another shaky breath, the hairs on the back of his neck rising as he kept his attention on Roman. “You don’t know that.”

There were just too many unknowns in this. Too many tidbits of information that couldn’t be confirmed as fact or fiction.

Would it hurt? It had to. All the stories said it would. Would it burn? Probably. Every account described it as such. But then again, it wasn’t like the authors in the YA Supernatural section of the library had ever personally experienced a transformation themselves. Since werewolves weren’t supposed to exist it wasn’t like they could know just how this change would affect hi--

“Lo.”

He looked up, stiffening as Roman grabbed his shoulders. “Ro--” He choked out, lifting his hands up in an attempt to push his childhood friend away, his heart climbing into his throat at his sudden proximity. He shouldn’t be this close!! Not when the moon should--he tried to look over his shoulder to find the moon, but Roman’s palm was there to catch his cheek, keeping him from turning around.

“Lo.” He repeated softly looking into his eyes. “You’re going to be okay.”

Logan mutely shook his head. The moon had to be rising. It had to be! And it didn’t feel like he was okay. It felt more like he was teetering on the edge of a cliff. Walking the line between the impossible and insanity. Either he was right or he was crazy. It wasn’t--it wasn’t comforting and he didn’t--he couldn’t---an icy chill ran down his spine as soft white light washed over Roman’s face.

Roman squeezed his shoulders. “Trust me.” He said, amber eyes suddenly shifting to a bright blazing gold as he abruptly turned Logan to face the horizon.

To face the rising moon.

To Be Continued. Part 3

#Beneath the Moon #December Drabbles #Sanders Sides #Logan #Roman #Logic #Creativity #Werewolf!Logan #Werewolf!AU #gun mention tw #death talk tw #bite wound tw #shooting talk tw #December Day 21

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theshatteredrose · 3 years

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Relic Keepers: Awakening of the Red Lily (Chapter 35) - Original Fiction

AN: Ooh, boy, this was a long chapter to write. Hope you enjoy reading!

Ao3 | Wattpad | Inkitt | FictionPress

Chapter 35:

Night had fallen quickly, plunging their surroundings into pitch black not long after they had returned to camp. Eishirou was once again issued with the task of sitting down and letting the Elites prepare camp, where they would stay for the night. Although feeling somewhat guilty that he wasn’t physically useful, he had other work that needed to be done.

The campfire was the first thing to be built, so he was sat on some thick padding on the ground next to the fire.

The illumination of the campfire would prove to be less of a beacon for ShadowDwellers than an artificial lantern. Besides, there was something alluring about a campfire; the sound, the smell, the dancing, flickering light.

It reminded Eishirou of the recordings he had viewed. Which helped since he was in the middle of typing out a report for said recordings.

His writings wouldn’t be considered professional to many, but since it was to reach Jacob, it didn’t have to be perfect. He just needed to jot down what he had witnessed as frankly as possible. Even if his musings were somewhat jumbled.

Although reluctant to do so, he also explained the moments of their first ShadowDweller encounter and then near-miss with a rockslide. Those pieces of information were sure to worry anyone who read the report, especially Jacob, but Eishirou knew it wasn’t something he could just flatly deny.

But he did add the small consolation of a possible new area to explore sometime in the future.

Zayne suddenly dropping down onto the mat next to him, lounging causally on his side, pulled Eishirou from his work.

“Did you take your painkiller?” Zayne asked as he rested his chin in the palm of his hand and leaned on his elbow.

Eishirou nodded. “Yep. Needed to get this report done before the drowsiness kicks in.”

Thankfully, he was almost done with the wordy part of his report, as jumbled as that was. All he needed to do next was to attach the photos he had taken.

Speaking of photos.

“Before I send this; can you see it?” Eishirou questioned as he turned his tablet toward Zayne.

“Hm?” Zayne glanced at it idly to begin with before he perked up and reached with his hand to take hold of the tablet so that he could get a closer look. “Is that the ShadowDweller we encountered today?”

Eishirou felt a rush of relief. “Ah, so it did work.”

He had been worried that it would just disappear from existence or something.

Intrigued by Zayne’s response, Rinka wandered over to him with a wholly curious expression. “Can I see?”

As Eishirou retrieved the tablet from Zayne to present to Rinka, Leon wandered over, also.

“I’m interested, too,” he admitted and leaned over Rinka’s shoulder (more like simply tilted his head down since he was so tall) to look at the tablet, too. A flicker of surprise appeared on his face, matched in time with Rinka’s eyes widening, before he appeared intrigued. “Hmm. Looks bigger from this photo.”

Did it? From Eishirou’s point of view, the photo couldn’t properly convey how big the ShadowDweller truly was in person.

“Isn’t it virtually impossible for a photo to be taken of a ShadowDweller?”

Eishirou winced at Cadmus’s sudden but actually quite understandable question. “W-well, yeah.”

As he retrieved the tablet from Rinka, he risked a glance over in the veteran Elite’s direction. Only to find a pair of sharp eyes fearlessly and pointedly looking directly at him.

“How did you manage it?”

“I just…took the photo,” Eishirou replied as he turned his head away abruptly and busied himself attaching photos to his report. “I mean, it showed up on the map, so I figured that it had enough outward mana to take a photo of it. Of course, it could just be sheer luck.”

Cadmus didn’t verbally respond. Though, Eishirou certainly felt his eyes on him…

His question also caused a tense silence to fall over the group. Rinka shuffled away, moving to sit next to Ernesta on the other side of the campfire. Leon shoved his hands into his pockets as he turned to pace the perimeter of their camp.

“So, this means it’s the first photo of a ShadowDweller, right?” Zayne suddenly commented, breaking the silence. “It’ll be sure to make you famous.”

Zayne’s tone was light with a hint of teasing, which prompted Eishirou to relax. “I hope not. But I do hope it’ll be of use for future ShadowDweller Research.”

Just before Eishirou moved to finally send off his report, he took a moment to gaze at the ShadowDweller photo again. Was it really the only photo of a ShadowDweller in existence? More importantly, how and why was he able to take photo?

Hm…The X marking he saw didn’t show up on the photo?

Well, that was something he would have to work on later. His first priority was to learn how to activate the Red Lily. Before those Star Rebellion group got their hands on it.

“There,” Eishirou sighed. “Hopefully that went through.”

“Was that information sent to Professor Chryses?” Ernesta asked.

Eishirou set his tablet aside. “Not directly, but it should get to him. It’s easier for me to send information through to Communications. Misaki will then send it to the appropriate people.”

Leon paused in his pacing and tilted his head to the side. “Misaki?”

“Oh, Misaki is going to be our contact for this mission,” Eishirou explained, leaning back on his hands. “I feel kinda bad since he's going to be working overtime for this.”

“Ah,” Leon uttered simply in understanding. He paused for a moment before adding, “He seems like a nice guy.”

“He is,” Eishirou replied with a smile. “He has a habit of being parental at times. I keep telling him to take medical classes as I’m sure he would be a great medic.”

Leon turned back to his pacing, those his movements were more for the need to move rather than out of caution. “He definitely seems the type not liking to see anyone hurt.”

Eishirou immediately nodded his head. “Definitely.”

He soon found himself musing that possibility. “Hm, I wonder if that’s the reason why he’s reluctant to become a medic. It’s a medic’s job to deal with the injured. He might be better off staying a chronicler and communicator. He’s also the type to take an attack in someone else’s place.”

“Tch.”

A sound, like an annoyed scoff, was heard over the crackling of the fire. It was a terse sound, though soft, also. He wasn’t sure if that sound was just one of the many noises of nature around them. Or if someone had responded to his ramblings.

It was probably just a croak of a frog or something.

Though…Ernesta was side-eying Tatsu with a tight frown on her lips.

Another sound was heard, but one that was immediately recognisable. It was his tablet alerting him. He immediately picked up the tablet and tapped at the screen to activate. Thankfully, it was a message from Misaki.

Oh, good, information got through. He hoped Jacob would be thrilled with the information he found. Even though it wasn’t exactly what he was sent to find.

Another message soon came through, once again from Misaki. Though, it was on the behalf of Neriah.

“Oh hey, Leon?” Eishirou called out, immediately gaining the Elite’s attention. “I just got a message from Neriah regarding Mikiel. His status has been steadily improving. His brainwaves are becoming stable. He believes that he may awaken in a few days.”

Leon perked his head up, an expression of relief on his face. “Really?”

“Hm?” Cadmus uttered. “That is the Elite you rescued, yes?”

“Yes,” Ernesta immediately answered, turning her head in the veteran’s direction to gaze at him with a somewhat placid expression. “We found his badge and it is thanks to Eishirou that we had found him in time.”

Cadmus arched an eyebrow at the team leader. Eishirou was about to explain that it was Team 3 who had found and rescued Mikiel. Eishirou had just been the medic at the time. But another buzzing from his tablet prompted him to immediately turn his attention back to it.

It was another message from Misaki. The content of the message, however, didn’t appear pleasant. If Misaki beginning the message with “debated whether or not to give you this while on a mission” was any indication.

And after reading the message, he immediately understood why.

It was information about the missing Elites of Flutterlight Forest. And the news wasn’t good. Two bodies had been found. The document didn’t go into great detail about what…state the bodies were found it. But the information it did provide was no less disturbing.

They were…robbed of their belongings? Badges and holsters? That…meant they weren’t the victims of ShadowDwellers, did it? A ShadowDweller had no use for such items.

He tried to supress a wince as he read through the information, but clearly, he did a poor job at it as Zayne immediately nudged him with his arm.

“What’s wrong?”

“There's...news about a two of the missing Elites,” Eishirou admitted reluctantly.

“From your wince, the news isn't good?”

Eishirou shook his head and sighed. He couldn’t keep the information away from the others. It was disturbing, something that needed to be known. And that would, no doubt, increase the Elites’ caution and protection.

“No. They were found. Not alive, though.”

A tense silence immediately fell over the campsite.

“…Any names?” Leon asked softly.

Eishirou shook his head again, granting the silently distraught Elite a sympathetic look. “No. Not yet. I’ll let you know as soon as I do.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Leon replied simply, his voice purposely steady. However, he turned his back toward the campfire and stared out into the pitch darkness of the forest around them.

Everyone fell into silence once more.

Eishirou looked sadly at Leon’s back before he uttered a sigh. He set his tablet aside upon his bag and pulled his legs to his chest and rested his chin atop of his knees. He was certain that Zayne and the others were worried about future encounters with ShadowDwellers, those creatures being the first to come to mind upon learning the defeat of a pair of Elites.

But the information Eishirou had read indicated that something else might be response. Something wholly more human. Of course, he had no way knowing that human interference was involved. Maybe a ShadowDweller was responsible and someone opportunistic looted the bodies for their own gain.

Whatever the reason, he was grateful that Zayne was beside him.

“You know,” Tatsu unexpectedly began, “there’s a theory doing the rounds stating that the presence of Passives may be the reason for increased ShadowDweller attacks.”

Eishirou abruptly lifted his chin from his knees and whipped his head in Tatsu’s direction.

That…he had heard something along the lines of it. High populations of Passives, with their inert mana deposits, were believed to be a draw point for ShadowDwellers. It hadn’t been confirmed. But it hadn’t been debunked, either.

Do…do Elites believe that, though?

Zayne slowly pushed himself upright. “Is that so?” he asked slowly, his tone terse. “Are you saying that it was Misaki's fault he got injured when he was a kid? By a ShadowDweller, no less? While you, an Elite, was there and should have done something about it?”

From the other side of the camp, Tatsu snapped his head sharply in Zayne’s direction. “What did you just say?” he hissed, surprising and honestly startling Eishirou greatly.

Zayne, however, scoffed and pushed himself to his feet. “Do I need to repeat myself? Misaki has a scar on his forehead because of a ShadowDweller attack. An attack you were present for. Does it bother you that a weak, fragile Passive protected your worthless ass instead? Is that it?”

Tatsu’s green eyes seemed to…flash with anger. “That isn’t what happened. Who told you that?”

“Who do you think? It may surprise you that Eishirou and Misaki are friends.”

Tatsu turned his head sharply in Eishirou’s direction. “Eishirou…”

The way he practically growled his name with barely suppressed rage caused Eishirou to wince. And feel the need to, well…hide away from him. That anger…he wouldn’t actually attempt to hurt him. Would he?

However, Zayne suddenly moved to stand in front of Eishirou. Protecting him. Again. “Eyes on me, asshole.”

“Why are you so obsessed with him?” Tatsu snapped. “He's just a Passive!”

“Eishirou is not just a Passive,” Zayne retorted just as sharply. “He's a medic, a researcher, a Chronicler. He enjoys reading up ancient myths and legends. He plays a violin, for fuck's sake. He's not just a Passive.”

Eishirou’s felt his eyes widen as he stared up at Zayne. His back straight, his shoulders tense, his legs spread apart in a power stance. He meant it. He meant everything he said. He wasn’t just standing up for him – he was protecting him. Not only because he needed it.

But because, in his mind, he deserved it.

Zayne…

“But you,” Zayne continued. “You’re nothing but an Elite. And that’s all you will ever be.”

That…

He was talking about himself, too, wasn’t he?

“That’s enough,” Cadmus interjected with a purely reprimanding tone, physically moving to stand between the two. “Zayne, an Elite is meant to remain professional at all times.”

“Since when does being professional mean you have to be a cold, heartless bastard?” Zayne retorted.

And it appeared to be a question that Cadmus couldn’t answer immediately.

“Passives don't belong on the battlefield,” Tatsu quickly spat, unable to hold himself back from doing so.

Again, Zayne snapped his attention toward his teammate. “You’re sounding like a fucking parrot, repeating the same shit over and over again. Sure, Passives shouldn’t be on the battlefield, which is why there are fucking Elites, you dumbass! Passives don't fight! They don't have to! They do literally everything else!”

“Only because of Elites. Passives wouldn’t exist without Elites!”

“Elites wouldn’t survive without Passives!

Tatsu barked out a sharp, almost disturbing laugh. “Do you actually believe that shit?”

Zayne’s expression unexpectedly darkened. “I bet you can't even cook a cup of instant noodles without fucking it up. Elites are useless outside the battlefield. And you know it. And that's why you're such an asshole; you've been told that Elites are superior. That we are all powerful and important. But we're not. We fight. We fight and protect. And that's fucking it. We can't have hobbies. We can't have interests. We can't even have friends. We're soldiers, not human beings. And that's fucking infuriating.”

Eishirou…knew those things. But it hurt to hear. It hurt because no one disputed that. No one attempted to correct him.

“Ok, that’s enough,” Cadmus once again tried to intervene.

But Zayne was having none of it. His frustrations, his anger, his…self-loathing was too much. He had been holding back for so long.

He couldn’t hold it back any more.

“No, you shut and listen for once in your god-damn life,” Zayne said, utterly scathingly toward his father, visibly startling the other man. “I'm not just an Elite. I'm not just a prodigy. I'm not just the son to an Elite. There is more to me than being an Elite. I know there is. But I don't know what. I want to find out. I want to have hobbies. I want to have interests. I want there to be more to life than god-damn ShadowDwellers. Why is that so fucking wrong to you?”

Silence. A tense silence. The kind of tension one could just about physically see fell over the campsite once more.

Zayne stood off against his father, the two just staring at each other with unreadable expressions. But Eishirou could tell what Zayne had said struck a chord with his father. His cold silence, the purposely stoic expression…the crease at the corners of his eyes.

He felt something.

And Zayne…He had…been holding that in for a long time, hadn’t he? Years’ worth of pain and resentment.

“…This is not something that should be discussed here,” Cadmus finally stated, attempting to dismiss any possible future outburst. “Now let’s-”

“I want to as well.”

Rinka’s soft voice interrupting the Veteran Elite caused everyone to turn in the young woman’s direction. Standing next to the campfire, head lowered with her chin toward her chest and hair curtaining over her eyes, Rinka stood stock still.

With her hands curled into tight fists by her sides.

“Rinka?” Ernesta questioned; her voice filled with obvious concern.

“I want...I want to learn how to draw rabbits,” Rinka began slowly. “I want to learn how to make flower crowns. And go looking for seashells on the beach. I want to play volleyball and go swimming like other girls. I want to listen to music and learn how to dance. I want to be normal.”

Oh…

They…they really weren’t allowed to be anything else but Elites?

Her shoulders began to tremble. “I don’t want to be an Elite. I want to be a Passive!”

Rinka’s raised voice full of pain startled everyone within the camp. So sharp, so sorrowful was her voice, it immediately made Eishirou’s chest ache with pure empathy.

“Rinka…”

Eishirou pushed himself to his feet and walked over to the young Elite-no, young woman. He pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket and crouched down in front of her so that he could look before her curtain of hair to the young, pained youth beneath.

“You don’t need to be a Passive to do those things. You’re human. You’re alive. And that’s a good enough reason,” he said gently as he reached up with his hand to brush aside her hair. “Listen, when we get back to the academy, we’ll go speak with Lyvia. She’ll be happy to help you. And be your friend.”

“R-really?” Rinka murmured as she looked at him with tears in her eyes.

Eishirou nodded and presented her with the handkerchief. “So, don’t cry.”

Rinka fumbled with the handkerchief and used it to hastily rubbed at her eyes. “S-sorry,” she murmured quietly.

When Ernesta moved to stand on Rinka’s other side and, too, lowered her tall frame to crouch down beside her, Eishirou dutifully stood and took a step back. Far from perturbed by Rinka’s outburst, Ernesta appeared sympathetic and understanding. And not remotely surprised.

Of course, he couldn’t be entirely sure as Ernesta’s expressions had always been either placid or passively aggressive. But he swore that she held a sense of gratitude in her eyes when she looked over at him.

Once more, silence reigned over the campsite. Only the crackling fire and the distant sound of frogs could be heart.

They were reacting to their own mortality, weren’t they?

There were reportedly more Passives than Elites, which was why they were so highly regarded. And yet, a reason why there were so few was because it was rare for an Elite to live pass the age of thirty. They were expected to marry young and have children early, to have an Elite child and to continue their lineage. If one did live beyond the age of thirty, they graduate to the title of Veteran Elite.

To live such a short life fighting and doing nothing else…

Being an Elite wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

It made him feel guilty that he was so afraid of Elites.

Eishirou uttered a sigh and pushed himself to his feet. He fidgeted with his hands in front of him as he turned to look into the brightly burning campfire. Something within the dancing flames and the pops and crackles was calming.

Yet, reflective, too.

“To be honest I, too, saw Elites as someone different from me,” Eishirou began quietly. “Someone beyond my league. And someone who I couldn’t possibly engage in conversation with as I expect them to treat me with nothing but disdain. And there were times, in the past, that turned out to be true.”

Haughty, aggressive, arrogant. There was no excuse for their attitudes. And he would never excuse such behaviour. But what he had heard today, he now knew of their reasons. It didn’t excuse their actions, but Eishirou was no longer going to allow himself to make grand, sweeping generalisations of a whole group of people because of a few bad incidents.

“But I understand now. And I’m sorry if I treated Elites differently or shied away from them, from you, because of a perceived intimidation. You’re human. Just like me.”

He used the accompanying silence to walk around the campfire to gather up his bag and tablet. There was still an undeniable amount of tension in the air, but the brewing situation seemed to have been diffused for now.

“It is late,” Ernesta stated. “Eishirou, you should get some sleep. You’ll need your energy for tomorrow.”

Yeah. His painkillers were starting to kick in. He felt exhausted.

“Right,” Eishirou replied simply to Ernesta’s suggestion before he turned and tilted his head questioningly in Zayne’s direction. “Zayne?”

Not bothering to answer verbally, Zayne simply nodded and moved to join Eishirou as he slipped the strap of his bag onto his shoulder. He then slipped an arm around Eishirou’s upper back and proceeded to escort him toward one of the set-up tents, ignoring the stares he was no doubt getting from his father and teammate.

As the flap of the tent fell behind them, blocking the view outside, Zayne suddenly pulled Eishirou into his arms in a tight hug. Eishirou, however, was only half startled by the sudden embrace. In all honesty, after hearing Zayne bare his soul to his father, he had wanted to walk straight up to Zayne and comfort him in some way.

“You ok?” he asked as he rested his cheek against Zayne’s chest, his head nestled beneath the taller man’s chin.

“I’m sorry about that,” Zayne said quietly.

Eishirou raised his hands to slip around Zayne and rest against his back. “You’ve been holding that in for a while, haven’t you?”

“…Yeah,” Zayne admitted around a sigh. “And he just pisses me off.”

Eishirou gave a small chuckle in spite of himself. He wasn’t sure if Zayne was talking about his father, or about Tatsu. The both of them had been sniping at him all day, so it could be either one.

He was glad, however, that Zayne had gotten all of that off of his chest. To hold so much resentment for such a long time must have been incredibly painful.

Eishirou subconsciously tightened his arms around Zayne. He didn’t want him to suffer like that again.

“Zayne, listen; I’m grateful to have met you. For allowing me to do the things I do. Not many Passives get to venture beyond the walls of the city and experience new environments. Places like this. It can be dangerous, I know. But I also know that I am safe with you, no matter what. Others don’t get to see what I see. And I only get to experience these things thanks to you. So, thank you.”

Zayne didn’t respond verbally, at first. However, his arms did tighten around him. One arm wounding tightly against the small of his back, pulling his body closer to his. He then slipped his fingers of his other hand through his hair. With his fingers gentle carding through Eishirou’s hair, Zayne lowered his head to whisper something into his ear.

“Eishirou…I need to tell you something.”

The way Zayne’s warm breath hit the side of his neck caused Eishirou to unwittingly shiver. And a strange, fluttering feeling to appear in the pit of his stomach. “Hm?”

“It’s-” The sound of someone sneezing loudly outside interrupted whatever Zayne was about to say. In annoyance, he sharply turned his head to look over his shoulder toward the entrance of their tent. A motion that caused Eishirou to feel a great sense of disappointment from…something.

“Never mind,” Zayne muttered as he turned back to glance down at Eishirou, whom he still held tightly in his arms. “It can wait.”

“Are you sure?”

Zayne smiled warmly, gently down at him. “Yeah. We’ll talk when we return home. For now, get some sleep.”

“Ok,” Eishirou returned.

Zayne then loosened his arms around him. And Eishirou took a step back and over toward the cot occupying one side of the tent.

He dropped his bag to the ground next to his bed and felt a frown tug at his lips. There was that feeling of disappointment again. The warmth of Zayne’s arms was consuming yet comforting. And to be pulled from them, even by his own accord, felt wrong in some way.

He didn’t have the state of mind to ponder that, however. The painkillers had well and truly kicked in now. And the only reason he hadn’t fallen asleep was that he was standing upright. He was certain that as soon as his head hit the pillow, he would be asleep.

So, without another word, he slipped onto the cot and laid down onto his side.

Just before he fell asleep, he felt something brush against his cheek. It was a hand. Zayne’s hand. He was sure of it. And it made him smile.

… … … … …

A gentle, but urgent hand touching the side of his face awoke Eishirou from his sleep. His eyes fluttered open, though it was a difficult thing to do. All he wanted was to close his eyes and fall back to sleep.

“Eishirou, wake up.”

But the urgency in Zayne’s voice forced him to push through the need to sleep and to open his eyes. It was still night. The tent was dark, saved for the subtle glow of the campfire through the nylon shelter.

“Hm? Wha-?”

Zayne suddenly pressed the pad of his thumb against Eishirou’s lips to silence him. “Shh. Grab your bag. We need to sneak out. We’ve been followed.”

F-followed?

#original fiction #scifi fantasy #mystery #Adventure #young adult #relic keepers: awakening of the red lily

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cool-ghoul · 3 years

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Darklanders: Inuit with Whale-Oil Guns

First bit takes place in the extreme northern border, closer to Alaska than Skyrim. These guys are Fantasy Canadians, with a Redneck’s verve for zero-waste DIY, derived from Inuit culture without being 1:1. They’re here because I think I’m onto something and Inuk angles add to the narrative.

Book I’m reading right now for insp is by recommendation, from an inuk perspective around the chronological time I’m drawing from for the game (Top of the World, by Hans Ruesch). It is, well, woke for the 70s. It’s explicitly post-Colonial, and don’t let the “Eskimo” fool you, Ruesch has disposed of it by the end of the front matter. I’m researching around it now, and it seems to scratch the right itch.

So, I’m still looking for primary sources and fiction, especially historical. ATLA Water Tribe’s the initial framework, but it’s materially more Dishonored. Whalers and shit.

The angle hoping to come from here is as a white girl who’s a little confused, but who has got the spirit. Stories are tools to Inuit culture, so lifting something and missing intent, or worse, ripping off an allegorical story as Aesthetique would make me complicit. This is a take that comes from a book and a half and a couple games right now, so it’s rough.

My take? Inuit are fucking Punk and this is a Punk Game.

Consider this me checking with the internet before I snip the red or blue wire. That’s a major spirit in which Inuit tell stories and have fun, so that’s how these guys are conceived, and they’re a designed to be a natural part of the thematic tapestry and one lens among several.

I’m looking for the go-ahead from a couple Inuk outreach orgs once I’ve got a clearer picture. It would be disrespectful of me to and waste an already-stressed org’s time by coming completely ignorant and asking them to do the creative work for me.

I have been told before, and I should know better, you could say.

Here’s the concept at it’s roughest:

The Darklanders [Working Name], are Inuk with a tech advantage. They derive their epithet from the Northern Darkness, a permanent supercell around Planet’s north pole. This is the water nightmares swim upstream to fuck in, and the Darklanders are the only ones who can reliably sail it.

They brought the guns.

Everything aughta be explicitly “how this tribe does it”, but there’s major pressure to conform out of necessity. Tribe’s a ship, we’re the crew, and the ideal Darklander finds the joy in work and ensures everyone picks up the slack. Generosity without reciprocation is tantamount to insult. Tribes get more flexible the more there is to go around (generally, more southern), but there’s obviously never a whole lot of slack to work with. They’re working through The Duties of Gender, but they’re historically pretty binary about it (Inuk binary, not Europe binary). It’s explicitly A Problem.

These guys are the most maritime of several communities that operate in some of the same general ecology. The biggest icebergs are big enough to support a tribe and sustainable animal traffic at the same time, and some hardy plant life can be grown via hydroponics for teas, medicine, and some dangerous fucking moonshine. Bergs float, though, so everything’s built to move on a dime if the weather or game turns. Permanent installations are regularly lost and rediscovered. Whaler, salvager, hunter and hawker are just the same job with different priorities.

Intertribe conflict exists, but it’s understood to be taken with high likelihood of mutually assured destruction. There are pirates.

Almost everyone is taught to be very good with tools, and there’s a high average cultural knowledge base. If the Darklanders don’t work with you, you fucking starve up here, and the seas are carpeted with the bones of proud sailors who didn’t take good advice. The joyless and proud Catharate (evil empire), often forgets that as they built the first railroads to the northern coast.

These aren’t a miserable or sullen people, though, but the sense of humor gets more morbid the further north you go. Their Dwarf-cognates are pranksterous and Seal-y.

Tribes don’t always fracture on species lines, but there’s plenty of Horrible Little Men and sinister crones in the snowy warrens and sea caves, but nobody gets kicked out without good reason. Teamwork is the default, and they have a system of social Face.

There’s a lot of Demiurge salvage up there, as well as wares from Zu (Implied to be flourishing Fantasy China in the middle of an Inward Perfection policy. It’s closer to here than the Europe analogue, “Elf Rome”, and it shows). That’s where the metal comes from. Dis is a metal-rich place in general.

Metal and machinery blends with scrimshaw, and hide. They work off of a Dishonored-style Whale Oil system, but there’s a continual struggle between whether it’s safer to innovate or conform at all times, and there’s a tendency to view ancient salvage as much as a perfect product as the whale, moon, or sea, with their tech being a blend of that. That’s a Big Problem.

This is a game of fighting with tools and, part of an ecosystem, and remembering fun. Inuit’s probably the way to go.

Companion concept’s a Goth Bullet Witch, and a recurring NPC as a male, disabled, masterful engineer, responsible for the party’s crunchy, Bloodborne-inspired weaponry.

#GRAVEN #It's not a wendigo and never will be a wendigo

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thefloatingstone · 4 years

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If you’re doing Self Quarintine (and you should be if you can help it) here’s some Youtube recommendations! Some of these I have posted about or recommended before but with almost all of us stuck indoors now’s a good time to remind you of some cool things you can watch for free!

I’m not gonna imbed the videos, I’ll just post the link because otherwise I would only able to post 5 and I want to collect a few so you can make a playlist or something. (I could make a playlist too but then I couldn’t tell you what each video is and you can’t pick and choose which one sounds interesting to you)

In no particular order:

Polybius: The video Game that doesn’t exist

An hour long documentary in which the youtuber did extensive research to find the origin of the “Polybius” Urban Legend, which speaks of an early arcade game reportedly seen around the early 1980s which reportedly gave people migraines, insomnia, nausea, subliminal messages, and in some cases heart attacks.

The Universal S

A shorter video in which LEMMiNO does his very best to try and track down where exactly this S that we all drew in middle school comes from? Why does literally every country on earth seem to HAVE their children draw this S?

I also recommend LEMMiNO’s video on the Dayltov Pass Incident and the perplexing UFO cases

Down the Rabbit Hole: Henry Darger

Fredrick Knudsen has an incredible fascinating series called “Down the Rabbit Hole” which simply focuses on... anything you can discover and go digging into. From weird internet personalities, to bizarre happenings in history. This video is about the artist Henry Darger, a man who lived in the early 1900s and for all intents and purposes had a perfectly average, lonely life, until it was discovered just before his death he had spent literally decades writing and drawing a fantasy world in what is possibly the longest piece of literature ever written.

I also recommend his video on the Hurdy Gurdy

Bedtime Stories Channel

I’m actually just gonna link the whole channel for “Bedtime Stories”. If you like weird and creepy stories, all of which at least claim to be “true” then Bedtime Stories is great. Coupled by illustrations and subtle sound effects, Bedtime Stories is literally listening to someone tell you a story about such things like hikers who mysteriously went missing, Sightings of Bog Men in Florida and giant Birds over Chernobyl, as well as weird and unsettling murders that remain unsolved. Sometimes the facts are a little dubious or have been disproved, but that’s not the point of the channel. It’s here to tell a creepy story, not give you a documentary.

A Journey Through Rule of Rose

Rule of Rose is a Survival Horror gave for the PS2 which has rather bad gameplay... but a FASCINATING story with just as many layers and symbolism as Silent Hill 2 could boast. It tells the story of one young woman traveling back into her own childhood in an orphanage in the 1930s, and all the horrors that contains. From repressed grief, abusive relationships, child neglect, abuse, and bullying... but it ALSO contains symbolism of societal class structure, politics, eating the rich, and how power structures work. Not for the faint of heart, but HIGHLY recommended.

I also super highly recommend his video on the similarities between Silent Hill 2 and Solaris

Clemps Reviews Crisis Core

Mr. Clemps is a great internet gamer who reviews JRPGs and other games he simply enjoys. Sprinkling in a heavy dose of comedy and very fast jokes and observations, Clemps’ videos are always upbeat, fun, and incredibly enjoyable to watch. I’m linking part 1 of his Crisis Core video in which he explains why the PSP game remains a personal favourite of his despite its flaws.

I also recommend his video on Eternal Sonata

Defunct TV: The History of Dragon Tales

Defunctland is a channel that deals with theme parks and theme park rides that are no longer standing, or which are no longer around in their current form. Defunctland also has a sub series though, called “Defunct TV” where they look at the origin of children’s TV which are no longer airing. I recommend the video on Dragon Tales which is incredibly wholesome, and a genuinely uplifting and soft story of good people trying to make good things for children. (I also recommend the videos on Bear in the Big Blue House, Zoboomafoo, and Legends of the Hidden Temple)

Hagan’s Histories of Polar Exploration

A Playlist for Diamanda Hagan’s videos about the doomed Franklin Expedition from the late 1800s, where England tried to find a passage through the Northern Arctic to the Pacific Ocean. This went horribly horribly wrong, with every member of the Expedition dead. Over a 100 years later we are still fuzzy on what EXACTLY happened, but apart from the arctic chill, there is also evidence of faulty canned food, a series of bad decisions, and cannibalism. Caution advised for this series.

I also recommend the rest of Diamanda Hagan’s channel. She is NOT for everyone, but if you enjoy somebody reviewing Z grade indie movies as well as just BIZARRE films, really bad Christian media bordering on Science Fiction (without making fun of religion itself) hot takes of classic (and modern) Dr. Who, an introduction to Red Dwarf, She’s an EXCELLENT channel to check out.

Good Bad or Bad Bad: Pass Thru

A half podcast half review show where two guys watch a terrible film, decide if it’s “Good” Bad or just Bad Bad and tell you if you should watch it too.

That’s it. That’s the whole show.

I recommend diving into the untold madness that is one of the best(?) bad film makers currently still producing batshit insane movies, the immortal Niel Breen.

There is literally nothing I can say that’ll prepare you for Niel Breen.

(I also recommend their more recent video for “Dancin’ It’s on!”)

History Buffs: Apollo 13

Do you like History? Do you like movies ABOUT History? Do you want to know if the movies about history you watch actually resemble what really happened in any way at all? History Buffs is an EXCELLENT channel, which does talk about the merit of a film itself, but is mainly focused on letting you know just how true to life that historical film you watch is. I highly recommend his longest video which covers the space race between the USA and the USSR, leading to what is known as “The most Successful Failure in NASA’s History”. The Infamous Apollo 13 and where the words “Houston, we have a problem” came from.

If you’re not interested in Apollo 13 however, I also recommend his video on the movie Casino, as well as his video on the female philosopher, Agora.

The Internet Historian: The Goodening of No Man’s Sky

With videos with literally MILLIONS of views, you probably already know the Internet Historian. But I still want to recommend him very highly because his videos are just THAT good and entertaining. I recommend his newest video, documenting that time we were all pissed off about No Man’s Sky, the difficulties the game studio was in when the game released, and how they have been working hard to finally create what is now a truly brilliant game which is winning major awards. A really good underdog story of how a video game company actually saw what was wrong with their game, and FIXED it.

I also recommend his video on Fallour 76 as well as the Failure of Dashcon

8 Creepy Video game mysteries

Hey. Did you know that sometimes there’s some REALLY weird shit in video games, hidden easter eggs which took literal decades to find as well as just a lot of “what the actual fuck?”. Oddheader is a channel with a dedicated discord and Reddit form solely focusing on trying to find or replicate bizarre video game finds, mysteries, and hidden glitches. Even if it means getting in his car and driving to a specific arcade just to check a rumour about Street Fighter II’s arcade version. So if you like getting spooked by weird game shit that’s not just some dumb creepypasta, this is a great place to start.

I also recommend his video on weird discoveries in DVDs and movies.

Red Letter Media: Best of the Worst

Look you already know who Red Letter Media is.

You know... these guys:

Here’s a video of them and Macaulay Culkin watching 3 terrible movies together.

I recommend literally any and all of their videos. Their discussion on Carpenter’s The Thing is amazing.

The Impact of Akira: The film that changed Everything

Ok trying to pick just ONE Super Eyepatch Wolf video is literal torture. Originally I was going to suggest his recent video on Final Fantasy 7 for the PSone but I realised I recommended something FF7 related with Clemps, so instead I will recommend The Impact of Akira, a video talking in depth about Akira both as a film as well as a manga, how it completely and utterly changed the anime industry both in Japan as well as the west, and why it is still a meaningful and one of the most important anime/manga even to this day, still being unsurpassed despite so much competition.

However, ALL of Wolf’s videos are incredible, so I also recommend his videos on wrestling (despite me not caring about wrestling at all), His video on how media scares us, The bizarre reality of modern Simpsons, Why the Dragon Ball Z manga is great, and literally any other video he’s made. He hasn’t made one bad video yet.

Was Oblivion as Good as I remember?

Exactly what it says on the tin. The Salt Factory goes back to playing The Elder Scrolls Oblivion and now with hindsight and modern sensibilities, gives feedback on his experience and whether Oblivion still holds up. This isn’t a super in depth review of the game’s mechanics or how its put together or how it was made. This is simply one guy talking about his experience replaying it with somejokes thrown in and how he felt revisiting it. It’s pretty good.

I also recommend the video he did on Morrowind (because I’m biased).

Weird Japan Only PS1 games

Thor High Heels is SO GOOD and deserves SO MUCH MORE subs than he currently has. THH focuses a lot of obscure and lesser known games as well as big popular titles like the Yakuza series, talking about what he likes about them, what he thinks is cool, and just what kind of atmosphere and mood a certain game has, even if the game itself is kind of ass. He’s done several videos on games that were only released in Japan, as well as videos talking about the fashion in Squaresoft games and how it inspired as well as was inspired by real world street fashion, the aesthetic of PC-98 games and other topics. He also styles his videos and thumbnails after promotional art for video games from the 90s and generally just has an excellent style to his channel over all. Very chill.

Blue Reflection Review

ValkyrieAurora is a channel run by Sophie where she talks about games she personally likes and enjoys. Her videos are really laid back and her voice is really calm and pleasant to listen to. She’s made a bit of a reputation for herself as “The channel that talks about the Atelier Games” and general is just a really enjoyable channel worth checking out if you just want something soothing to listen to.

Ancient Chinese Historians Describe Japan

Voices from the Past is a channel were historical text is read out loud in english. These can be anything like the above video where Chinese historians describe the people of Japan around 297 AD, Accounts of “Dog-Men”, or the worlds oldest letter of complaint from 1750 BC. If you’d like something interesting historically to listen to but don’t want a full blown history lesson, this is a really good way to hear contemporary people talk about their experiences and what they thought about each other in their own words, without opinions or input given by the narrator.

The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet

Whang! is a channel that covers weird internet stories, some horrifying, some curious and interesting, and some just plain weird. His video on The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet and its update, are about a song which was recorded off the radio in Germany around the 1980s, and after one person online asked if anyone knew who the artist was as they couldn’t find any information, led to the realization that NOBODY online knows where this song came from or who sang it. It’s a fun mystery to look into that, unlike some others on this list, is not creepy or unsettling, although perhaps a little frustrating.

I also recommend his video on The Most Mysterious Anime theme song, and the haunted Ebay Painting.

5 Lost, Destroyed, and Locked away Broadcasts

Yesterworld is similar to the Defunctland channel in that it talks about obsolete rides, theme parks and other forgotten pieces of entertainment. Although the majority of the channel focuses on movie rides, rollercoasters and Disneyland, I recommend the video on lost and locked away broadcasts which you can no longer see. I also recommend the video about Lost and Rediscovered movie props.

The Nightmare Artist

I talked about this one recently as I just discovered this channel. This video is about the renowned Polish artist Zdzislaw Beksinski who painted surreal and horrifying paintings during his lifetime. There is no mystery here or anything like that, it merely talks about the impact WWII left on Beksinski and how the trauma his country and people suffered influenced his painting, and how certain images and motifs can be seen to directly reference this terrible part of Poland’s history.

Disabilities in Prehistory

Modern media likes to portray how “savage” the ancient past is, and tell us stories of how any person born with a deformity or disability would be thrown over a cliff or dumped in a well because they would be too big a drain on a community to look after. But here’s the thing... according to archaeological evidence, it turns out our ancient ancestors actually did their best to look after its disabled members to the best of their abilities. This video talks about archaeological finds of people who had genetic disabilities and what we can learn from their remains. TREY the Explainer is a great channel for archaeology and also talking about what answers we could have for sightings of cryptids. (not ALL of which we have answers for)

I also recommend his video on Pre-Contact dogs as well as Homosexuality in Nature and the Genetic History of the Ainu.

Decoding “The Secret: A treasure Hunt”

“The Secret” was an art book released in the 80s full of beautiful paintings, but it is also more than that. The book has a fantasy story talking about 12 fantastical races who left wonderful treasures for humans to find,and the book’s paintings and riddles will tell you where you can find each of these treasures which are yours to keep if you can solve the puzzle... and the treasures are 100% true and can actualy be found and claimed, if you can solve the riddles in the book. The video tells the story of the artbook, who was behind it, what the treasures are, how many have been found and various other facts and details.

I also recommend the videos on this channel “The Game: A scavenger Hunt” and “The investigation of Erratas”.

5 Ancient Inventions That Were WAY Ahead Of Their Time

I would recommend you be careful with this channel as its main focus is existentialism and rather alarming topics such as “how close are we to the apocalypse” and other things whose titles alone are enough to upset me. However this video is nothing like that. This video is exactly what the title suggests it is. 5 ancient inventions that were so incredibly ahead of their time you’d think they were made up. From the computer used by ancient Greeks to steel swords we don’t know how to replicate, this video is a great mix of mystery and history.

Although I caution you with this channel, I recommend Joe’s other videos about mysterious books, as well as his video on the most inbred people in history.

However, I know I keep repeating this, I highly recommend caution with this channel. Perhaps its just me and the topics of life and existent are just triggering for me, but I’d recommend maybe just doing a search for the titles I mentioned and not to go searching through the video library unless you’re not bothered by this kind of thing.

Anyway I could keep going, but I think that’s a LARGE amount of videos to keep you occupied for the time being as well as some suggestions for further viewing.

Please enjoy, let me know if you found something interesting, and look after yourself!

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universejunction · 3 years

Text

Midwayers, and problems of intended belief

A discord conversation (at first about fae and spirits)

Me:

I feel so far behind on learning about fae and spirits and such. When I thought The Urantia Book was more than a well-intentioned hoax it was easy to think fae and such are all just what it calls "midwayers". Now I'm... wide open to new interpretations. I know I'm not behind, I'm just where I am, but still...

I would love to give you more of an idea, but I don't know a ton about the Urantia book or what you mean by midwayers.

Me:

Oof, okay. I don't expect much in the way of answers, I know I'll get what I get in time. But I will take this opportunity to share.

In the Urantia Book, it make a lot of distinction between spirit and matter, as you might expect. Mind is the means by which Spirit rules over matter, yada yada. It also has a ton of details on angels.

There's a ton of history in there too, which I'm now interpreting as metaphor at best, because it's sure as shit not factual with its racial skeletal types and what not.

Anyway... Y'know, I'm gonna give the summary and then see if I have the energy for the story, because I'm worn out.

Basically, midwayers are midway between material and spiritual (but they're not, like, pure mind), covering the gap between angels and humans. They're native to the world, but descended from super-humans. They're immortal and stick around until the "age of light and life". And there's 1111 of either all of them or that might just be the first group of them.

Midwayers also get attributed cases of demonic possession (but so does mental illness), though they're not supposed to be able to do that anymore since Jesus completed his experience of life and earned his sovereignty (which was... before his public work) as basically god of local creation.

There's so much in this book and I carved it into my brain and now I don't trust it but it's still so quick to mind 😩

Innkeeper:

Woof okay I just read this

This is....so much not correct at all but also weirdly accurate

Which makes sense considering my personal theories on bleedthrough but thats another topic for another time

Me:

"Bleedthrough" sounds so very likely correct even without knowing what you mean exactly. That's pretty much my theory on how the Absolutes stuff seems so probably accurate despite everything else

I'm just going to offer that whenever you hear "superhuman," in a spiritual tome, your hackles should probably raise.

Like, it sounds like this is coming from the same branch of angelic and Christian occultism that recognize the Nephilim, but uh, just be mindful that rhetoric about "ancient superhumans" is almost ALWAYS used to sell bullshit about magic indigenous people

It sounds like you're mindful of that, but, heads up

The midwayer concept is ringing alarm bells between "Magic White People From Outer Space" to "Eugenics"

Innkeeper:

The idea of a liminal concept, something that exists in between those two states, I feel that holds water

The idea of literally everything else is uh

Worrisome at best

Me:

I'll add more in a sec but y'all right

Me (later):

To be clear, I was raised on the Urantia Book and am now moving away from it. For reasons mentioned above, among others.

It does come very close to "magic white people from outer space" and definitely is like "eugenics is a good idea but no one is qualified to direct it".

Me (replying to A):

Adding on, yes, but it's like... Fix-it fic. There's this spirit prince for the world who rebelled with Lucifer (who was like... a local administrator, not a god or angel), but when he arrived they like... called 100 natives [of Earth], cloned them with power-ups, and put people from other worlds like ours into the bodies who served as the prince's staff in the task of cultivating culture. Those staff, through essentially spiritual sex, created the first midwayers. After rebellion, the staff split and the ones who stay loyal to the prince are called nephilim and start a line of (acknowledged in the text) big ol' nasty racial supremacists. They're also called Nodites (c.f. "Land of Nod")

Later, Adam and Eve show up to "upstep" human evolution (disease resistance, humor, art... yeah, magic white people) but because the prince rebelled and shit's fucked, they're having a hard time. Eve bangs a local tribe leader to get an alliance and fucks everything up (that results in Cain. Able is Adam and Eve's next kid). So now should-be-immortal Adam and Eve only have a few hundred years to live and their (already many) kids get the choice to leave and most of them do.

A while later, their first son, Adamson, goes off to start a new cultural center, meets a woman named Rata who "claims" to be the last pure-line Nodite. [They] have a bunch of kids, every 4th of which is invisible(???), and they make those kids get together (yikes!) and that's where the secondary midwayers come from.

And it lampshades all this like "many things in the spiritual development of a world are hard to understand." Uh, yeah! History is weird, sure, but as it's fan fic, it's creepy.

So, I'm saying this with all the love in my heart, but you can only portray things as fiction which are not intended to be believed.

That's not a fanfiction, that's a religious text. That is a religious text with a fully realized theology and metaphysics, complete with creation story. I think it is harmful to approach it as anything else, or as a "generic" metaphysical practice. (Relatedly, there is no such thing as "generic witchcraft," which is a main point of this history of the occult book club).

Doing a little bit more research, it's a religious text associated loosely with the Urantia Foundation and written in 1955. I'm not seeing any indication at the moment that there's a formal power structure associated with the movement, which lessens the chance for cult behavior.

What I will suggest to you is that you need to approach this work like you would any other religious text. Set aside questions of whether the text is "accurate" or "true." If you are honestly interested in the metaphysical, you should be able to separate empirical reality and history for the metaphysical. If you can't do that, take five steps back in your practice and come back once you can.

So, setting aside questions of truth, does this cosmology reflect the things you believe about the world? Does it encourage a way of thinking about people that you think is good, virtuous, honorable, etc? Can this text be used to uphold values that you hold, or do the natural extensions of this text lead to certain conclusions? Are those conclusions harmful?

For instance, I believe that eugenics is totally and morally abhorrent, and that there is fundamentally "no such thing" as a person who could pull it off "correctly." There's no way to do eugenics "right," just like I believe there is no morally correct way to, I don't know, punch a baby.

As such, even your acknowledgment that the text accepts eugenics makes it worthy of rejection in my mind.

Maybe you are interested and capable of doing the apologetics to make this into a compassionate religious movement. I don't know. I am not interested in doing that. But I do not think you can "move away" from this text, in the same way that you cannot "move away" from the bible, only from interpretations of it.

At some point, you have to believe in a basic assumption. If there's something that "feels right," there's only so far you can push it without that basic assumption.

If you think there is a separation between mind, body, and Spirit, wonderful. I would recommend you find another text and another basic set of assumptions. For instance, one that doesn't involve angels making angel-possesed magic native people for the point of preparing the world for the "good races."

Me:

Yes, you've got it right. Except that my interpretation has moved from "I think this book is what it claims" to "I think this was (probably well-intentioned, but still) a hoax perpetrated by ex-Seventh-Day Adventists". But for whatever good intentions may've been involved, the fact that it's intended to be believed makes it very harmful. I talked about it today as a way of saying "wow, look at this crazy shit" and talking through the changes involved in my different interpretation / loss of faith.

I don't believe in midwayers anymore and don't know what to believe, I'm trying to do the work, as you say, of finding what parts are good and what's harmful, comparing with empirical stuff, etc. But, however ready I may've been to walk away from the Urantia Book, it's still a process of recognizing what ideas I have based on it and examining them in turn to see what's salvageable.

Innkeeper:

I think that's an incredibly respectful way to go about it, Toph.

When something is that formative to you as a person, it's rarely as easy as learning it's harmful and then moving on, entirely separated from the source material. There's a long process of digging up every assumption you know you have--and many you don't know you have, or don't have at all--and needing to challenge them in a newer, healthier framework. One of the most potent aspects of the danger of cults is that they're incredibly difficult to challenge that base assumption, and it can take years if not a lifetime to walk a path that steadily heads away from what was taught.

So to acknowledge something formative's deep capacity for danger and harm, and go through the long process of picking it apart piece by piece to ensure you don't retain its harmfulness as you separate from it, I think that's the best possible way to go about something.

#urantia analysis #behold my eloquence #long post

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