#i included more of the overview page to show it really is just that
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I fell into the Shen Yun/Fa Lun Gong trap and am so mad at myself for that. Scale me on stupidity and warn your followers, they gotta hear it.
I would not call victims of cults stupid so therefore be free of the scale!! Reasonable and intelligent people are still susceptible to falling into cults, falling for scams, MLMs, etc. If you do not know much about anything related to Falun Gong's beliefs or the stories they tell (cough make up coughcough) through Shen Yun, then it is easy to get reeled in.
It doesn't help that a lot of the English language info that pops up when you Google Falun Gong/Shen Yun is positive, to the point that even the Falun Gong Wikipedia page paints them as a mostly innocuous spiritual group persecuted by the Evil CCP. They really like to play up this angle, by the way, and sadly for many people in the west, they hear the part where they're forbidden by the CPC and think that automatically means Falun Gong is good and everything they say must be true.
Anyway.
Here are some pieces for others to look at if you're interested and haven't seen them yet:
Video sources
if you're an audio/visual person.
Personally I think the papers/articles are more informative and less annoying (The second video is a video essay whose creators I can only describe as "probably spend a lot of time on liberal Twitter" and "clearly learned everything they know about China from Reddit")
youtube
^2020 release date (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzlMQyM8p74) ↳ Includes interviews of both Falun Gong and former Falun Gong figures. If you're like me, the condescending Englishman POV will make you roll your eyes at least once.
youtube
^2021 release date (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzlMQyM8p74) ↳ sort of gives an overview about Falun Gong from an outsider POV, but the narrator uncritically repeats some of the persecution claims made by Falun Gong (esp. the organ harvesting claims, which are most likely not true imo), and by Amnesty International...via Falun Gong advocates. I honestly wouldn't bother to link this video as a source except it seems like one of the bigger ones that show up in a Youtube search, and they do touch on a lot of sources. Their research just seems really shallow and their commentary on the issue is rudimentary to the point of being unnecessary tbh.
Papers/Articles
ExposingTheFalunGong.org (via wayback machine), a website created by the child of former members ↳ This site includes more description of actual belief, which might better inform you on why they are/can be harmful
Stepping Into the Uncanny, Unsettling World of Shen Yun (The New Yorker, 2019)
The Obscure Newspaper Fueling the Far-Right in Europe (The New Republic, 2019) ↳ This is mostly about The Epoch Times, which is a Falun Gong funded newspaper and mouthpiece.
A Burning Faith in the Master: Interpreting the 1.23 Incident (paper hosted by JSTOR, 2018) (Google Drive link if you're out of JSTOR articles this month) ↳ The 1/23 Incident was an incident where multiple Falun Gong practitioners interpreted words by Li Hongzhi (FLG's founder) to mean they should self-immolate at Tiananmen Square
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Reading Chinese Ebooks on 讀墨 ReadMoo
For the past few years, I've labored under the assumption that I can't read Chinese ebooks because I just can't focus on them. However, I recently saw someone on insta mention the app 讀墨. I was intrigued, and decided to give it a try. And wow, what a shock, I can in fact read Chinese ebooks! I just have to change it to vertical text and make the font very large.
So the past couple weeks I've been trying to read more consistently using 讀墨. The book I started with was slow going at first, which almost made me give up; it was the Chinese translation of The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera. This book really wasn't for me, and I didn't want to keep reading it. So instead of just giving up, I bought one more book and tried again: 《你的孩子不是你的孩子》 by 吳曉樂 (yes, it is the basis for the Netflix show of the same name).
I devoured the book in under a week. So yeah, I think Chinese ebooks work for me if I like the book.
Below is gonna be an overview of the app, and my thoughts on it so far. It's not comprehensive though, since there's a lot of things on this app I haven't explored yet (like the audiobooks).
***Please note that 讀墨 is a Taiwanese app, and as such it mainly offers books written in traditional characters. There are apparently books written in simplified available, but I haven't explored those since I'm fine reading traditional.***
Buying Books
Buying books is fairly simple. You make an in-app purchase of coins, which you then use to buy books. Note: As of writing this, I have recently recently received a notification from the app that their book purchasing system will be changing soon. Instead of being able to buy the books in the app, you'll have to log in to your account in a browser and buy the books there. The books will apparently then appear on the app for you to read.
As it stands, 210 coins costs $10.99, and the books I've bought have ranged in price from 210 to about 300 coins. That means the books cost ~$11-$16, just like a regular book. This could be pricey, but since I'd otherwise be paying for international shipping if I were buying a physical copy, this feels like a bargain to me. (For me, shipping books from Taiwan/China to the US typically doubles the price of the purchase rip)
Once you buy the book, it's in your library for you to start whenever you please.
As for browsing for books, I haven't gone too in-depth yet. I went in to 讀墨 with a TBR and went for books off that list exclusively. When it comes to buying books online, I almost always go on whatever site I'm buying from with a list of the books I'm thinking of buying. I get recommendations elsewhere (e.g., Goodreads or insta).
Reading Books
The 讀墨 reading interface is pretty typical for an e-reader app. What makes me like it way better than other apps I've used is that it has a lot more customization options.
For starters, you've got 6 options for page/text color. There's the typical black, white, and sepia, but there's also blue and green! I use the 奶綠 option, since I don't like having such a stark contrast between the text and the background when reading on my phone for long periods.
Then there's the options for changing the text size and spacing. You can make it bigger or smaller as you please, and put more or less space between each line of text.
You can also change the font. There's 8 different fonts you can choose from, including the default. There's even a font that puts 注音 next to each character! You can see a preview of that one in the photo below.
And then, there's the option to switch between horizontal and vertical text. The default is horizontal text, but I've come to prefer vertical when reading Chinese novels. If you go to your settings on your profile, you can make vertical text your default, which is what I ended up doing.
Like any good e-reader, there's options to highlight text. There's four different colors you can use (pink, yellow, purple, and blue). If you go the ToC, you can find all of your highlights and filter by color of highlight. Super convenient, since I've been using pink to highlight words/phrases I don't know or find interesting and yellow to highlight key sentences/paragraphs.
Aside from highlighting, when you select text you have the option to look the characters up in a dictionary or online. I've been getting a lot of errors with this recently, but I'm wondering if that's just my phone acting weird? It worked perfectly fine when I first started using the app. Anyways, the dictionary it takes you to is 夢典 MoeDict and it opens in a browser. This personally is a bit annoying bc I actually have this dictionary app installed on my phone, but this is a minor complaint. The dictionary opening in a new browser tab is a non-issue.
Reading Stats
Now, I'm a big dork and love to track my reading stats. To my great satisfaction, 讀墨 keeps track of some stats. The main one is time spent reading. You can set a daily goal (the minimum is 20 minutes), and if you reach it you get a nice checkmark on the calendar. The calendar doesn't update until the very end of each day, so if you've reached your goal for the day it won't show on the calendar until the next day.
Also, keep in mind time differences between where you live and Taiwan. I'm ~12 hours behind Taiwan, so the app doesn't start a new day until around noon for me.
Below the calendar, there's a chart that shows your total reading times for a week, month, or year. I normally can't be bothered to time my reading (especially not when I'm reading physical books) so this is cool to see. I think when it comes to reading in Chinese, being timed is more interesting because I'm able to more clearly gauge progress.
And below all that, there's a breakdown of the genres you read. I don't pay much attention to genre when choosing books, so I don't find this one quite as interesting.
(tfw you're reading a non-fiction book about a tutor so your main genre becomes 教育)
Overall Thoughts
So yeah, I've enjoyed myself so far. Aside from the reading interface, I find the app pretty easy to navigate. I spent a bit of time just clicking around and was able to figure out what's what pretty quick.
Like I said, this isn't a comprehensive review, but I'd recommend giving the app a try if you're willing/able to put down money for ebooks and are able to read traditional. It feels worth the money for me, since the interface is pretty customizable and easy to use.
If you're wondering where to find simplified ebooks, idk. This is my first real foray into Chinese ebooks, so I don't really know where to find them for simplified or traditional. I have heard that it is a little easier to pirate Chinese ebooks since their copyright laws are a little different than ours in the US?
#langblr#mandarin chinese#mandarin langblr#chinese langblr#learn mandarin chinese#learn mandarin#learn chinese#mine#books
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Discussion summary: Trans-Intersex studies
On 2023-09-29 we met to discuss our first foray into academic intersex studies! We read three chapters from Transgender and intersex: Theoretical, practical, and artistic perspectives, edited by Stefan Horlacher (2016).
Overall reactions:
Dimitri: I liked there were perspectives I don't normally think about or see
Elizabeth (@ipso-faculty): I found the Costello chapter really useful because I've wondered why there isn't more trans and intersex connections and this explained it for me
Michelle (@scifimagpie): it tapped into and articulated a larger strain in the queer community “the people who want to have a gender” vs “the people who want to destroy gender, there is a fundamental struggle in that can only be dealt with through tolerance and acceptance
vic: multiple chapters make clear that intersex is made by doctors. This thing happens when you give birth and you don't know what to do and conveniently there’s someone confidently giving you a (usually really bad) answer… we're foisting off this thing that doctors aren't trained to deal with it properly plus have medical arrogance
Connections to Disability Studies
Though the book was intended to get intersex studies and trans studies in dialogue, we made many connections to disability studies throughout the discussion.
Elizabeth: The book talks about the dynamic that the doctors are the ones who socially construct intersex, which is similar to how doctors contribute to the social construction of disability.
Elizabeth: And also how in our society, when it comes to who is listened to most on disability/intersex, doctors come first, followed by parents, and it's those of us actually affected who come last (disability/intersex)
Michelle: it was interesting to see the arguments against eugenic abortion… The amount of eugenicist propaganda that's still around in our society, the text addressing the fact that people would abort an intersex foetus didn't surprise me but did alarm me
Elizabeth: Coming from disability studies I felt the question of who is/isn't intersex isn't actually a productive question, in DS we posed those questions for a minute before realizing it's not productive, to instead focus on ableism
Dimitri spoke about the idea of seeing your body as a garden that you tend to, rather than a machine to be fixed, and how it’s been a helpful framing
Michelle: one thing about accepting my intersex identity is that my body isn't broken for having a hormonal imbalance and it's just a way of being
The social and medical models of disability were invoked by Costello in chapter 4, to show contrasting models of intersex (social vs medical) and transness (social vs medical).
-=-=-
Chapter 1: Introduction by Stefan Horlacher, Pages 1-27.
This chapter gave a brief overview of the state of trans studies and intersex studies, and the motivation for putting these two research areas into dialogue.
We didn’t talk much about this chapter.
Elizabeth: I personally learnt a new word, repronormativity, from this chapter! Per Wiktionary, it refers to the “assumption that all humans want to have children, especially within the context of a monogamous heterosexual relationship”
vic rather aptly described it as “so GERMAN”
-=-=-
Chapter 4: Intersex and Trans* Communities: Commonalities and Tensions by Cary Gabriel Costello, Pages 83-113
This chapter reports on a sociological study of trans and intersex communities on Second Life, noting commonalities as well as tensions between and within the communities.
Everybody found this the easiest chapter of the three to read lol 😅
vic: “I really appreciated the breadth of voices that were included. The author clearly has an argument, but still lets people speak. Like with the person who said ‘I'm not intersex’ and the author was like ‘this could come from fragile masculinity’, it was neat.”
Costello’s conceptual framework
To understand both intersex and trans communities, Costello employs a framework which differentiates a:
Medical framework, in which being intersex/trans is framed as “as a biological problem: a physical lack, superfluity, or malfunction” (p98). While Costello doesn’t use the word “truscum”, this is how many of us are used to referring to people who understand transness through this lens.
Identity framework, in which being intersex/trans is “framed as social in nature: social stigma is directed toward those who are in some way physically variant.”
An important insight of this study was that to understand the relationship between the trans and intersex communities, you have to realize there are four communities at play, not two:
Medical framework trans people (truscum)
Identity framework trans people
Medical framework intersex people
Identity framework intersex people (who are the only ones who use DSD)
And as Dimitri summarized, “the tensions [between the communities] arise in the disorder framework, a lot of the problems lie in the disorder framework, and it's pretty important to make that separation”
In Costello’s study, anti-trans sentiment was linked to the intersex-as-disorder framework
Costello writes about how the majority of intersex people are trained from birth to employ the disorder framework, which can easily result in anti-trans sentiment. Many intersex people are raised in a way where the slightest gender deviance is punished, and feel threatened by gender deviance.
Multiple people noted how the intersex participant “Anna” from Costello’s study had misplaced anger at trans people, that it’s unfair to blame trans people for trans fetish porn when trans people have such difficulty getting conventional employment, and that the demand by cis & perisex people is more at issue
Elizabeth: so many intersex people are told they're intersex by a doctor and that they're disordered and the doctor will fix them so they're not given any community because the doctor is like "I'll fix you" and people are just used to the disorder framework because that's what they've only ever seen.
vic: Yeah, being born visibly intersex getting framed as a medical emergency
Elizabeth: really liked the dig that the shame of the parent comes above everything else
Dimitri: many parents don't know what's going on when their intersex baby is born and they're kinda pressured into the surgeries… the parents might have veered to a more neutral stance on their own, maybe they have some hesitance about having a kid being different, that the surgeries are such a pile-on by everyone around them.... the parents of the kids need their own support, what do the parents need or could have had to make them not make those choices
Similarly, intersexism from trans people was linked to the trans-as-disorder framework
Costello discusses how many disorder-framework trans participants made statements along the lines of wanting to be intersex, or have an “intersex variation of the mind”, mistakenly thinking that this means they may be entitled to free gender affirming therapy (it actually makes it harder to access gender affirming therapy).
Costello explains why this sort of sentiment from trans people is poorly received by intersex people: “It alienates intersex people employing the identity framework by working against their mission to recast physical sex variance as diversity rather than disorder. It alienates intersex people employing the disorder framework by implying that trans-identification [...or] gender-confusion should characterize the intersex person. And the stories told by some trans* people employing the disorder framework about having an impossible intersex history angels intersex people of all camps.” (p107)
Michelle: To be intersex is to have a medicalized gender, and how any gender nonconformity is medicalized… it makes sense why so many trans people would cling onto a misunderstanding of intersex
Michelle: the medicalization of being transgender and you need surgery to fix a flaw in your brain, and the medicalization of intersex, they both need an anti-eugenics approach of let people be a little broken/different
Elizabeth: as a disabled intersex person it's been confusing that trans people would want medicalization like they don't know how terribly medicalized ppl are treated, and the chapter helped me realize they are already medicalized and they're trying to get a more "legitimate" medicalization rather than realizing they’re trying to play a rigged game
vic: transness is medicalized, too–the diagnosis is gender dysphoria and the treatment is transitioning. Also transitioning is only seen as a viable treatment because literally everything else doctors did to “cure” trans people didn’t work (they tried *so* many things). Trans people treating medicalization as something that’s desirable sucks, but I feel so deeply for anyone who was put in a place where that seems like their only option–people who feel like their only way forward is to claim things that don't make any sense. They're like “please, I'll do anything, I'll lie out of my ass, help me”. Those poor people!! And, of course, they also cause harm. It's all so sad.
Criticisms of Costello’s chapter:
Elizabeth: I felt a weakness was not talking about the hypervisibility of trans people vs the invisibility of intersex people. Like trans people who have huge platforms to talk about gender stuff and should know better than to perpetuate perinormative ideas about sex.
vic: transmascs tend to really minimize our own difficulties. We're not well studied, and when we are, the data consistently shows we have the worst outcomes of any gender (in things like health, mental health, employment…). Disheartening to see Costello buy into it at times.
-=-=-
Chapter 5: Transgender and Intersex: Unavoidable Essentialism and the Normative Struggle for Recognition by Sebastian Jansen, Pages 115-140
High level notes
This chapter makes the argument that it’s impractical, if not impossible, to avoid essentialism of some form when theorizing about sex/gender, and so academic gender studies scholars should spend less time trying to avoid essentialism and focus more on improving the material circumstances for intersex, trans & LGBA+ individuals.
vic: I think they were saying that we can't do it because it can't be done without throwing trans & intersex people under the bus
Elizabeth: ch5 was how I realized that in the social [identity] model of intersex where we see intersex as a natural variation it is essentialism and I'm okay with it thanks to this chapter
We all agreed this was a challenging read. As vic put it: “it was very ‘as you know’ and I didn't know”, and that the author was probably nervous about writing it.
Jansen’s chapter got us talking about the nature of gender
Michelle and vic talked about how finding out truth about gender is building houses on shifting sand
Michelle: I liked the stairwell metaphor [that female is one level of a building, male is another level, and there’s a stairwell in between]... I don't like the idea of female and male in opposition, they are categories, you can be both/neither/change
Elizabeth: I did like how ch5 talked about how gender isn't just a thing in your brain, it's made through interactions of people interpreting your gender in interactions and they didn't talk about euphoria and I think gender euphoria is that feeling of people seeing you for the gender you are
Michelle: [Judith Butler’s] gender as conversation reminded me of how art and research are forms of conversation... is gender a form of art?? [we then spent some time talking about this]
Elizabeth: I like the idea that gender should be like hair colour - it's there, you can change/experiment with it, it affects how people see you, but we don't organize society around it and I agree that's a good goal
vic: my gender is contextual - it's different depending on whether in an arts context vs. in interacting with landlord, etc
vic: in War & Peace there are four pages spent describing the beauty of a woman with a moustache–Tolstoy waxes quite poetic about how beautiful & beauty-enhancing her moustache is.
Elizabeth: yeah so many cultures see women's mustaches and/or unibrows as beautiful and hate how current Western culture hates hair
Elizabeth: yeah it's SO RECENT the idea that women shave legs, the Gillette company had saturated the men's market and convinced women that their hair is bad
A main critique of Jansen’s chapter was how it only considered Western perspectives
Elizabeth: ch5 was so Western, based on a mind/body dualism and I wanted there to be a discussion of other cultural constructions, like in cultures without mind/body dualism from what I can tell it's often that trans and intersex are not separated.
We then spent some time talking about different cultural ideas about sex/gender such as Two-Spirit and hijra, and the intense medicalization of transness in Russia
Dimitri described how Russian/Slavic culture is big on repressing any kind of sexuality, and being queer is deeply tied to perversion, which kicked off a discussion of Left Hand of Darkness
Elizabeth: another reason I wanted postcolonial stuff was it'd be useful to have strategic essentialism discussed (Spivak), which seems really relevant to a discussion of essentialism.
Overall we were all glad we got to give our brains some exercise, and we’ll be reading more intersex studies in November! 😅 Join us for a discussion of Holmes’ Critical Intersex on Nov 24.
#intersex book club#book summaries#queer theory#gender studies#intersex studies#trans studies#trans theory#sociology#sociology of gender#intersex books#intersex#book reviews#book review#book summary
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Fanfic Schedule News - 2024
You can find this post later in my Pinned Post links
Overview
- Fairly OddParents - On hiatus while buffer building. Weekly Friday updates when ready, probably in summer. Origin and Knots are planned to alternate to show both sides of the war, but can be read independently.
- WordGirl - On hiatus while buffer building. Weekly updates when ready, but lower priority than FOP. I'd like to post a few one-shots in spring and summer.
- MCYT - Weekly Tuesday updates (Dog's Life until Chapter 30, then other 'fics while Dog's Life is on break). I'm also posting on Friday, but am moving towards posting on Sunday.
- Total Drama - I'm not writing new content for the TD fandom, but I have 40+ 'fics I posted on FFN, but not AO3. Now that many are 10 years old, I'd like to archive some on AO3.
- Every year I say I want to post my Mario drafts, but... I don't think 2024 will be that year. We will see.
Fandom-Specific Series
I post 'fics under my AO3 account, FountainPenguin.
If you'd like to get notifications for new works but don't want to follow me as a user, consider subscribing to some fandom-specific series:
Fairly OddParents
130 Station - All pieces in the 130 Reasons Why I'm Fairy Trash series.
These are further broken down into "Trains" (Ex: Main cast, Anti-Fairies, Pixies, shippy stuff, etc.) - Find info HERE
Notable pieces that are not 130 Prompts include Origin of the Pixies, Frayed Knots, Come What May, and Reedfilter Rules, which may be best subscribed to individually- They do not have a series at this time.
WordGirl
Heroes' Journey - Stuff about WordGirl and Huggy learning to share Fair City with Kid Math
28 Million Degrees - Character studies
MCYT - Not RPF, but the 4th Wall is very thin
Pixels Imperfect - Pixel people (who are all mob hybrids) live in a server hub and roleplay with their friends. Lots of interpersonal and social drama mixed with humor.
Neighborhood Watch AU - A serious take on the Life series lore and mechanics, ft. a semi-medieval world where the first 5 Life seasons take place in a single timeline.
Roundabout - Misc. MCYT content
These pages also have links to character relationship series.
Total Drama
Riddle's Drama - Total Drama 'fics I wrote 2013-2016.
These are also on my FFN, where I cross-post my FOP and WordGirl content as well.
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Fairly OddParents
I'm working on a buffer for Origin of the Pixies and Frayed Knots chapters so they can alternate during the war. At the moment I'm posting content for other fandoms, but once the buffer is ready, these will roll out weekly. Hopefully by summer.
- Origin is caught up and ready for the war meeting next chapter, so we're just wrapping up Anti-Cosmo's school and relationship drama in Knots :)
- We're in the era of 2016 draft chapters, so it's a combo of "Lots of stuff is already written" and "Lots of stuff needs to be updated."
Origin and Knots will update on Fridays when the time is right (alternating weeks).
The 130 Prompts wrapped up Arc 2 in December and is on hiatus.
If you missed the Arc 2 finale, check out "Grudge"- It's about Happy Peppy Gary and Crocker striking a dangerous deal and I think it's cute :)
Ideally, I'd like to finish the whole Come What May draft before I post more chapters (so we don't have more of these long lurches between chapters), and Reedfilter Rules is in a similar boat.
Origin and Knots are my priority, but once Come What May starts, I'd like to do weekly or bi-weekly updates until it's done.
WordGirl
Factor It In - I'm very happy with how the story has come out so far. It's fully outlined, but this is a "serious and fluffy" story and I've been on a "silly and angsty" streak lately, so the mood isn't there.
- I'd like to circle back to it soon, but don't want to post more chapters until I have a nice buffer.
- I'd like to post again in autumn 2024 and keep up weekly updates for several months. Origin and Knots are higher priority, but I really like this story and look forward to more.
I have some WordGirl one-shot drafts I've been sitting on for months. I haven't been satisfied with them enough to post, but you might see them soon as I finalize them. There's no schedule for these, but they include:
- Local alien girl is SO brave about Rex's problems while they lie in the grass discussing love and culture
- Local alien boy loses his fawn spots, comes of age, and hits up Hal Hardbargain for alien-strength deodorant
- Character study for Victor Best (My horrible son)
- Character study for pre-series Rex living on Hexagon (My somehow more horrible son)
- Other drafts from 2018 that need polish
I so desperately want to show the world my "Hopelessly romantic life planner since he was born" x "She can't commit to anything including this" marriage of convenience superhero drama... He's oblivious... She's dying inside... He is so embarrassing... Do u understand my vision?
MCYT
- Dog's Life Session 2 will end with Chapter 30. I've finished up to Chapter 28 and just need to tweak the remaining chapters. It will then be on hiatus for a few months while I work on the Session 3 buffer and other projects.
Edit - Session 2 will actually be 36 chapters, so another month
Expecting 4 to 5 months of hiatus from regular updates with some intermission chapters a few weeks apart (Full moon arc, my beloved).
I have 'fics I look forward to posting (including new multi-chapters that already have nice buffers and will post weekly), so there will be plenty of MCYT content, but it seemed wise to leave Dog's Life on break to avoid burnout. I hope you enjoy these new stories!
When Dog's Life returns, it'll be with weekly updates for several months as per usual :)
My "first half of 2024" goal is to close out as many of my existing MCYT multi-chapters as I can. Thank you for your patience with multi-chapters that have slow updates- I plan to finish them soon :)
I recently completed For Sale: Bird Wings (Never Worn) with weekly updates and am on track to finish One and a Half Birds with weekly Friday updates.
After this, I would like to finish the last 2 to 3 chapters of Criminal Experience (which has always had Friday updates as well). I don't want to post the next chapter until I nail down the story's end, so there's been a delay, but I'm glad I've wrapped up other multi-chapters and I look forward to finishing this soon.
After this, I plan to post MCYT content Tuesdays and Sundays, leaving Fridays for my other fandoms.
What's on Tuesdays?
At the moment, Dog's Life for 7 more weeks. Session 2 ends with Chapter 30 on April 9th.
Edit: Chapter 36 on May 21st
I've started new multi-chapters while chasing inspiration bursts, but I held back from posting them, so now I have buffers for those. I look forward to sharing them throughout 2024. Two notable ones are:
- Chalaza - Quick story about Martyn arriving in New Star Station. Bdubs voice study, some practice writing short scenes, and this is the story that helped me nail down pixel person anatomy.
^ Highlights include Bdubs trotting around with Martyn's dissolved soul in a fishbowl and regaling Etho with tales of how the Phantom Dragon carries phantom hybrids in her mouth. Also, Martyn hides under Etho's couch for 4 days.
- Herobrine's Guide to the Between Dimension - A meta story about my Between lore, hybrid anatomy, and hybrid culture. No plot, but I think it's fun.
These are expected to post Tuesdays while Dog's Life is on break :)
What's on Sundays?
At the moment, nothing- I'm posting on Fridays (weekly updates to One and a Half Birds for the next several weeks).
I've also got a draft called "Scar's Castle" that's about Grian doing chores during 3rd Life... we'll see if that turns out nice.
Now that Secret Life is over, I've been able to do more worldbuilding and story planning for Neighborhood Watch AU. I plan to post some one-shots soon. Highlights include:
"Goodchild Oscar" - Oscar Goodchild's lovely parents put out a hit on his soulmate. He drags Grian around the Hearts Club Ball in his attempts to thwart it. Title's subject to change, but this is a fun one :)
"They Never Found the Desert" - Local Green Life parrot can't get Red Life soulmate motivated for anything. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
"Ethograms, Etho Slab, and Something About Ethics (Probably)" - Joel studies wolves... and the single(?) dad who keeps coming around with his kids.
I've also been working on the big multi-chapter for this universe, which centers around the Clocker family: Arsenic Waltz. It's fully outlined and I'm 5 chapters into the buffer, but it doesn't feel "fun" to read yet, so... Hmm.
- If anyone wants to beta read the first 10k words where Martyn arrives at the Clocker residence and meets his soulmate Cleo for the first time, lmk? Been struggling with the pacing of action vs. world lore for months and it'd be nice to get outside thoughts.
- My plan was to start posting in April after Dog's Life ends, but it might need more time. With weekly updates, it should finish in December or January, but I'd like a nice buffer first. Possibly, this story will start in the summer and end in early 2025.
EDIT - I ended up killing all these darlings and moving them to a separate story, which will be released at a later time. The pacing was just not working :)
Additional multi-chapters to wrap up:
Closed Door Policy - Can't finish until Criminal Experience is done. Will post Tuesdays or Sundays as appropriate (Expecting 2 or 3 more chapters).
Dear Future Captain - Waiting for Dog's Life to catch up to this part of the timeline (Between Sessions 4 and 5?) - I like my draft for Chapter 3, but I'd rather wrap up other stories first.
With Acid In Your Eyes - Outlined and expecting 10 chapters. This is a high-tension story I was excited for, but it's on the backburner while finalizing lore, social dynamics, and plot points. It was ambitious to post this one before things were solid, but I look forward to returning when I'm ready :)
If you're interested in being a beta reader for any of my work, you can get in touch. I've not worked with beta readers in fanfic before, but if you're interested, we can talk about it!
Thanks for reading! Happy 2024!
#Fairly OddParents#FOP#WordGirl#ridwriting#Dog's Life#FAIRIES!#Pixels Imperfect#Neighborhood Watch#Long post
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My 2024 Journal Setup
This month I thought I’d share my 2024 Journal Setup! I’ve been journaling around six years now and I still find new things I can add or things to tweak as time goes on, so after doing some research and a review of how 2023 went I’ve come up with a mix of old and new things for my 2024 journal Setup.
Cover page
This is just a 2024 cover page to welcome the new year and define what this journal is for. It’s really just a moment to make a pretty and decorative page for the start of the journal.
2. Word of the Year
This is something I’m trying out for the first time after seeing other people do this. Basically, you chose a word that will serve as the vibe for the year, sort of like a nebulous general goal. I also decided to add a definition/quote for what that word means for me specifically.
3. Year Questions
I saw someone answer these four questions in their setup and decided to include the on the lower half of the word of the year page. The questions are:
-a habit I’d like to break
-a new skill I want to learn
-a hobby to start or carry over
-something to do better at
4. 24 in 24’ / Yearly Goals
24 in 24’ is also a first for me! Essentially, it’s just a list of 24 things you want to do in 2024 that aren’t necessarily goals and things you need to plan out and do progress checks on, but just things you want to do or maybe were already planning on doing.
Underneath it I also have my Yearly Goals broken out into Lifestyle and Creative with subheadings under all of them.
5. Monthly/Weekly/Daily Goals
I just wanted to list out the things I try to accomplish every month, every week and every day ranging from habits to accomplishments.
6. Money Tracker
I like to keep track of how much money I’ve spent in a month. I also donate to charity every month so I also set aside some space on the side to track the amount I donated and where I donated to.
7. Weight/Cycle Tracker
I also try to just track how much I weigh once a month and of course, follow my cycle throughout the year as well. I denote each phase with a different color so that I can get an overview of how my cycle looks.
8. Monthly Notes Pages
I’ve talked about the concept of monthly notes before on my blog but it’s basically 3 things I want to accomplish in the month. It could be a goal I’m working towards, one of my 24 things for 2024, or just something fun I’ve been meaning to do. It’s also where I put my monthly checklist of things to do (denoted earlier page 4).
Note: After the Monthly Notes Page begins each Month’s own section which I’ll include in a separate blog post.
9. At the end of my journal I also do a Year in Review page where I list out:
-the books I’ve read
-music I’ve listened to
-shows/movies I’ve watched
-the writing I’ve done
-the creative projects I’ve worked on
-the new things I’ve done every mont
10. I also have a section for a more abstract Review that is 4 parts:
-what I learned
-what I accomplished
-what I enjoyed
-challenges I’ve faced
11. 2024 Highlights page
This is broken out into each month and I just like to list out the highlights and positive memories that happened over the course of the year!
-.-
And this is my year set up! I’m excited to try out some of the new things I’ve found and see how all of this shakes out! I will also make a post on my Month setup if anyone is interested!
I hope this helped or inspired you to make your own journal setup!
Thanks for reading!
#journaling#journal#bullet journal#planner#journal setup#2024 journals#planner setup#lifestyle#blog#lifestyle blog
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Karyukai Book collection, 2022 edition
It’s been a while since the last book feature on this blog. The collection has grown, maybe you are also interested in Gei-/Maiko related books and find this helpful.
Category 1: Japanese only or Japanese with only little English
…Hiroshi Mizobuchi - Showa no Gion: b&w photos depicting life in Gion Kobu in the 1970’s and 80’s. Captions are entirely in Japanese, but easy to translate, since they are mostly dates and names. At the end of the book, there are few pictures from the 1930’s and 40’s.
…Sumi Asahara - Tokyo Rokkagai: Interviews with Tokyo Geisha, history and map of the main six Tokyo Kagai, old and new photos. Books on the subject of Tokyo Geisha are fairly rare, so this is a good source of information.
…Hiroshi Mizobuchi - Hannari Kyo Maiko no Shiki: photos of the seasonal events and celebrations in the Kyoto Hanamachi, with Map and full Ochaya list.
…Keiko Tanaka - Nihongami taizen: despite featuring Maiko Fukuno on it’s cover, only a little part of it deals with Maiko Nihongami. It has a bit of Tayu/Sumo/new Nihongami as well, the largest part however is focusing on the various historical hairstyles displayed at the Kushi Matsuri.
…Kobunshi Katsura - Showa Meigiren: featuring portraits of 228 senior Geisha in the late Showa period. Some of them worked in Hanamachi that no longer exist, 31 of them are still active in 2022.
…Tetsuo Ishihara - Maiko no kamigata: showing Maiko hairstyles, how to tie them, Kanzashi calendar, Pocchiri showcase, and a Maiko getting dressed
…Tetsuo Ishihara - Kyo Shimabara Tayu: similar to Maiko no Kamigata, but focusing on Tayu hairstyles. Contains a little overview about the then-current Tayû and some of their activities around the year.
…Hiroshi Mizobuchi - Gion, the world of stylish parties: Photos by HM (mostly Gei/Maiko, but also some Hanamachi architecture and food), Maiko illustrations, old (Taisho/early Showa) photos of Gion Kobu Gei-/Maiko and interviews with selected Gei/Maiko and Karyukai workers.
…Noboru Hamaoka - Gion to Maiko: mostly b/w photos, some colour photos featuring people who live in the Karyûkai: including Gei-/Maiko, dance teachers and hairdressers, Gion’s cityscape, Kanzashi and Okiya interior. More text than photos.
…Hiroshi Mizobuchi - Kyo Miyagawacho: Photo book, bit of history, events through the year. “History of Miyagawacho” by the then head of the Ochaya Union fully translated to English, otherwise the main content is in Japanese. Miyagawacho map and Ochaya list on the last pages.
…Hiroshi Mizobuchi - Kyo Pontocho: similar to Kyo Miyagawacho, but smaller format and less text
…Hiroshi Mizobuchi - Gion Mai Goyomi: HM photos on abysmal tiny pages. Can’t recommend. Heard there are two editions of this, that differ, so maybe the other one is bigger?
Category 2: English or Japanese with full English translation in the same book.
…Liza Dalby - Geisha: LD lived in Kyoto and worked with Pontocho Geiko in the 1970′s. In this book, you can read about her experiences
…Kikuya - I, a Geisha: written by an Akasaka Geisha, has infos about her profession, some infos about the history of selected Tokyo Hanamachi.
…various - Geisha: beyond the painted smile: lots of text but only little content. Few nice photos. Only worth buying if it’s really cheap.
…John Paul Foster - Geisha and Maiko of Kyoto: portraits of and interviews with several Gei/Maiko, studded with anecdotes of JPF’s experiences as photographer in Kyoto.
…Percival Perkins - Geisha of Pontocho: Experiences with Pontocho Geiko and Maiko in the 1950’s and short biographies of selected GeiMaiko.
…Kyoko Aihara - Geisha: good and basic book from the late 1990′s focusing on Hanamachi life in Kyoto. You can spot some familiar faces of Geiko who were Maiko then, or Geiko who just retired recently.
…Mineko Iwasaki - Geisha of Gion: autobiography of one of the most famous Kyoto Geiko, including anecdotes from her elders (for example, concering life in the Hanamachi during WWII)
…John Paul Foster - now a Geisha: while “Geisha and Maiko of Kyoto” offers a rather broad spectre of topics, this is focused on the change from Maiko to Geiko: Sakko and Erikae. JPF portrays three Maiko, then Geiko during this time of transition.
…Kazuhiko Matsumura - Subtle Beauty: originally a photo essay published in a newspaper. It’s about Maiko and Geiko from the five Kyoto Hanamachi in all stages of their carreers.
…Hiroshi Mizobuchi - the Kagai in Kyoto: probably the only HM book mostly translated to English. Apart from being an updated version of books like “Kyoto Gion, Kyoto Pontocho, Kyoto Miyagawacho”, an entire chapter is dedicated to Satsukis way from Shikomi to Geiko.
…Taka Kobayashi - Utsuyaka: full-page photos of Kosen (Gion Kobu) with only little text. The book itself is a pretty large format, so you can have a good look at her outfits.
…Kelly Foreman - the Gei of Geisha: densely packed with information on around 250 pages, concerning arts, economy and the social aspects of being a Geisha.
…Sayo Masuda - Autobiography of a Geisha: SM endured a lot of abuse from childhood on, was sold to an Okiya in Kamisuwa Onsen at the age of 12 and worked as a Geisha until she was “bought” by a patron around 1939.
Category 3: originally published in Japanese, available in lots of different languages, but not English.
…Kiharu Nakamura - Memoiren einer Geisha: KH worked as Geisha in Shinbashi for around 2 years in the early 1930′s. Only around 20% of the whole book deal with her time before retirement, so the title is a bit misleading. Nevertheless, it’s a nice source of information on pre-war Shinbashi.
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How I write my smut short stories #2: More insights
Last week I showed you my dashboard and how I plan, organize, draft and schedule all the k-pop smut stories I post on this blog.
Since then, I've really gone all-in to improve the dashboard I've built, and added some new cool features to it :D To be honest, this week I've spent more time on this than on writing – because it's so much fun to me to organize a project like this!
So, in this post I wanted to show you some of the additions I've made. This is nerdy, a bit weird, and probably not something anyone other than myself care about, but it is fun to me and some of the screenshots in this post will give you more insights into what is yet to come on the blog ;)
So, strap in and let's go! Maybe you'll see your bias?
Series Overview Pages
I've redesigned the pages for each specific series that I'm running on the blog. Currently, those series are Most Memorable Sexual Experiences of NCT (as seen in the image above), Quick Fix Dirty Kpop Imagines and Mixed One-shots. Each of these have their own dedicated page to manage all the stories that belong to the series.
With the new design, this page gives me easy access in the top left to the work I need to continue doing (stories that I've yet to finish writing), which allows me to quickly see and jump into what story I should be working on right now. It also gives me more information that I previously needed to look up on Tumblr, without having to leave the dashboard. It's all there, on a single organized page! :)
More Story Details
On the main dashboard I have a section that shows all published stories regardless of what series they are from. I've added more details and information that I can get from this section.
As you can see in the image above, published stories now also show things like "On Fire" which means that the story received more likes than most of my other stories on Tumblr, and "Quick Read" or "Longform" which has to do with the word count of the story.
Idols Database
The biggest new addition to the dashboard is the "Idols" section.
The Idols section features an individual page for each member of the groups I've written about – or considered writing about. It currently includes more than just NCT, TXT, BTS and RIIZE, which are the only four groups I've ever published a story about. (I won't tell you which groups though).
From the main view of all the idols you can read quite a few things: the name and image of course, but also their age (which is automatically updated on their birthday), nationality (relevant to some stories) and how many stories I've published about the idol. I try to spread things out so I don't just write about my bias all the time.
As seen above, I can click a menu to change how I view the idols. For example, I can get an alphabetical list or sort them by their age, or by how many likes they've received on average among any and all stories I've published about them. This is useful information to find out who you want to read about the most ;)
The second image above shows the "By Total Word Count" view. I've set a goal to try to write 10,000 words about as many different members as possible, and the little circle to the right shows my progress for each member.
Idol Pages
If I go to an individual idol I will see all the stories I've written about them. Here I can also view ideas that I've added as stories but not yet finished (or even started) writing, and scenes that I've written but later removed/deleted because I wasn't happy with them.
Notice the three buttons at the top: If I click them I create a new story on the dashboard that is assigned specifically to this member, so I don't need to manually create and assign a new story each time I have a new idea about a specific member.
Idol-specific Writing Prompts
This is where things maybe get a bit weirder :P Remember the Random K-pop Smut Writing Prompt Generator I wrote about? I've incorporated it into the Idol pages. If I scroll down past my stories and ideas for the specific idol I'm viewing, I'm met by what you see in the image above.
Each time I refresh the page the prompts change. But, unlike in the actual writing prompt generator (which is a separate page from the dashboard), the idol/member stays fixed. This is great, because it means that if I know who I want to write about but not what I want to write about them, I can just go to the member and open their page :D
Several yet-to-be-announced Quick Fix stories that I've already written have started this way. While I don't follow the prompts by the letter and want to make each story feel like it was made for that member, I LOVE the prompt generator and how it inspires me!
So, that's a little more insight into how I work and run this blog. Am I going totally overboard with this setup? Absolutely! Am I ashamed of that? Definitely not! I love organizing projects and building dashboards like the one I've shown here, and this smut blog has given me a new project to do so around. I'm having a lot of fun with all of this :D
+ Read part #1 about my dashboard here.
+ Learn more about the K-pop smut writing prompts here.
And don't worry – lots more smut is on the way too!
#smut#nct#nct smut#nct dirty#nct 127#kpop smut#nct dream#wayv#nct jisung#smut writing#smut warning#riize smut#riize imagines#bts fanfic#bts smut
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Hey! I have a paper on Buster Keaton coming up in my History of Film class? Would you be willing to info dump everything you know about him? I've only heard of this man through your blog and don't know where to start haha
bruh you're lucky you weren't standing next to me when i read this, my screech would have blown out your ears.
okay, buster keaton 101. he was one of the giants of the silent comedy era, alongside charlie chaplin and harold lloyd, and from the period of 1920 to 1929 he put out 19 short films and 10 feature length films under his own studio, plus two more silent films under MGM that can creditably be called his creations (i use his filmography page on wikipedia to keep it all straight). he also had the unique distinction of doing all his stunts himself, as well as doubling for many of his co-stars. most of these stunts have never been replicated, because honestly they'd probably kill people; his crew called him the "little iron man" because he was fearless and nigh indestructible. he was also a genius behind the camera, in ways that unfortunately i probably can't fully appreciate.
he was born october 4, 1895 in piqua, kansas, during a one-night stopover. his parents were working with a traveling medicine show at the time, to little acclaim, along with harry houdini before he got big. buster's first known stage appearance was as a toddler, interrupting his father's act. at first they tried to shoo him offstage, but his antics drew bigger laughs from the audience, so they decided to incorporate him into the act—leading to what would eventually be called, once they reached vaudeville, "the three keatons." buster said in interviews that his first salaried year was at 5 years of age, in 1899. that was when his family finally hit the big time—and he was almost single-handedly responsible for it.
their act is incredibly difficult to describe. the central conceit was: joe keaton threw little buster across the stage in a parody of strict parenting, while myra keaton played accompaniment on the saxophone. the best description i've found is biographer rudi blesh's, in his 1966 book, Keaton, on pp. 30–33 and 47–48. you can borrow a copy here. (be careful with this book; the author has a way with words, but he sets aside facts in favor of mythology more than once. for a rigorously researched and trustworthy biography, one with all the dates and weights, go for A Filmmaker's Life (2022) by james curtis.)
vaudeville was buster's early training ground, where he learned tumbling, comedic timing, improvisation, and how to construct a gag. most film comedians of the era got their start in vaudeville or comparable music halls, and many of the gags buster performed in his movies were adapted from vaudeville stage magic or repurposed from the family act. if there's one single book on buster keaton i'd recommend, it's Camera Man (2022) by dana stevens. it's not as dense or as thorough as the james curtis book, but it's an extremely good overview of the main events of his life AND the surrounding historical context—including vaudeville. it's also just a really fun read.
buster's vaudeville era ended in 1917, when he was forced to break up the family act over his father's worsening alcoholism. the official party line is that joe couldn't handle the fact that he was getting older, which i think is partly true, but i think a more true explanation is that he couldn't handle the fact that he was outshone by his own son (pretty much all sources agree that buster was the better comedian). he took his anger out on buster onstage during performances, and out on his wife offstage between performances, until myra finally had enough. she and buster ditched joe in los angeles when buster was 21 years old. here's an interesting paper that digs into buster's rough childhood and the impact it likely had on his films.
buster almost immediately found work as a solo act, but a chance encounter with an acquaintance introduced him to roscoe "fatty" arbuckle, then one of the highest-paid, most well-known comedians in film. it took one day on set—and one night disassembling a camera—to convince buster to abandon the stage for a film career. as a bonus, he and arbuckle became life-long friends. they spent the next three years working non-stop, making 14 short films together (plus a couple more buster wasn't involved in, during the 10-month period he was overseas for ww1). the grueling schedule wasn't without its downsides, and arbuckle, tired of making short films, decided to move to feature-length films, which had a slower, more relaxed pace. he left buster his entire studio and crew.
and that's when the real magic began. buster started (continued) with short films: 20 minute "2-reelers" that were played before a feature film, basically doing what looney tunes cartoons would do later. the best way to understand how different buster was from the dominant comedic idiom of the time is to watch a couple of arbuckle shorts ("coney island" and "the garage" are good choices), then watch a couple of buster's own ("one week" and "cops" are probably the best known). buster catered his humor to an older audience, and his gags were sophisticated, subtle, often cynical or ironic, and intricate to construct and film. "keaton made you laugh, then think" (blesh, xi).
in 1923, buster dropped short films in favor of feature-length films, starting with "three ages." he was a little behind the curve on this, but not through lack of trying; if he'd gotten his way, he'd have been the first major comedian to switch to feature-length films. unfortunately, studio contracts and his producer's cold feet held him back for a few more years, so chaplin and lloyd got there first. not that that slowed buster down; his output in the eight years he had creative control is virtually unmatched. despite getting married (in 1921, to natalie talmadge) and having two children (james, 1922, and robert, 1924), he continued filming at breakneck pace. to see what he could do with a camera, i'd recommend "sherlock jr." to see him at his cinematic best, i'd recommend "the general" "the cameraman" (i just committed cinematic heresy with that recommendation, but IN MY DEFENSE it was thee romcom training film for 20 years at MGM, well into the talkie era, so it's hardly a dud :p).
in 1928, buster's producer, joseph schenck, sold his contract to MGM. buster wasn't the owner of keaton studios, just an employee, so he didn't have much say in the matter. both chaplin and lloyd tried to talk him out of it, but in the end he signed the new contract anyway. later, he said it was the worst mistake of his career. denied the creative control he was accustomed to, he gradually descended into full-blown alcoholism, running away from his studio responsibilities and his disintegrating marriage alike. his final film for MGM, "what! no beer?", was an attempted buddy comedy with jimmy durante, and buster was visibly drunk or hungover in almost every scene. MGM fired him in 1932; his divorce, started in 1932, was finalized in 1933.
from there, buster had some dark years. he got married a second time, in 1934, to mae scriven (who mostly seems to have been a con artist), before they divorced in 1936. he was in and out of various rehabs, and nearly died at least once, before he managed to buck the odds and dry out. he spent the last years of the '30s working as a gag man and consultant for other comedians at MGM.
after that, things started to get better. he met his third wife, eleanor norris, in 1938 and they married in 1940. he had a couple high profile cameos in big movies, my favorite being the one in "sunset boulevard," where he played one of norma desmond's waxworks. then, a massively popular article by james agee, titled "comedy's greatest era," was published in LIFE magazine in 1949, kicking off a resurgence of interest in silent film as an art form and as a feature of cinematic history. agee paid special attention to buster, and that, combined with buster's own fascination with the up-and-coming technology of television, led to his comeback. he worked steadily and enthusiastically in television (and occasionally in movies) up until he died of lung cancer on february 1, 1966, living long enough to see his films receive the recognition they deserved. (also here, have this nice article i found while trying to find the one by james agee.)
i've never taken a film history class myself, so i can't begin to explain all the ways buster keaton advanced filmmaking. here's an article that analyzes the gag as a staple of film comedy; a book that analyzes buster's comic and directorial style chiefly through "the general"; and another article that explores gags, this time specifically mechanical gags, and has lots of nice things to say about buster. if this isn't enough and you decide to go whole chicken fried hog on buster like i have, hit up me, @spokir, or @busterkeatonsociety and we can connect you with all the material you could possibly want.
enjoy!!!
(colossal, chrysler building-sized thanks to spokir, who sourced most of these articles. seriously, talk to your local librarian, they WANT to find things for you.)
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GJ and ZZH Updates — January 22-28
<<< previous week || all posts || following week >>>
This is part of a weekly series collecting updates from and relating to Gong Jun and Zhang Zhehan.
This post is not wholly comprehensive and is intended as an overview, links provided lead to further details. Dates are in accordance with China Standard Time, the organization is chronological. My own biases on some things are reflected here. Anything I include that is not concretely known is indicated as such, and you’re welcome to do your own research and draw your own conclusions as you see fit. Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, concerns, or additions. :)
[Glossary of names and terms]
[Masterlist of my posts about the situation with Zhang Zhehan]
01-22
→ Zhang Su posted a douyin a few minutes before midnight, leaving the comment on it, “New Year's Eve~ Those who spit at me are really meaningless, I have never hurt him, so you can spit whatever you want~ If you still support him, go support his new songs and trendy brand~ As his friend of 18 years, it’s not that you make friends just for show, there are some things you can’t help if you don’t believe it, time will prove it” [screenshot] (I’m not linking the douyin itself because I don’t want to give him traffic, DM me if you want the link) This was well timed, as Flora finished the wiki page for him the following day, which outlines exactly what a good “friend of 18 years” he’s been.
→ #GongJun and #HappyJunZhe2023 trended on Twitter.
→ Gong Jun’s studio posted three photos of him from 12-31 holding Lunar New Year’s items. Caption: “At the beginning of the new year, window stenciles are posted, the red envelopes are full of blessings, and spring comes. Chinese New Year's Day is destined to be the beginning of good luck, remember to turn on the TV today and watch the boss @ Gong Jun Simon!”
→ The Weibo account for Fox Spirit Matchmaker posted a new poster for the show featuring Gong Jun and the female lead Yang Mi.
→ Gong Jun posted a promotional image for the Youth Exhibition program he would appear in on 01-24. Caption: “In the new year, I hope to jump out of my comfort zone and see more scenery that I’ve never seen before. In the brand-new Year of the Rabbit, I also wish you a bright future and to not to shrink back. On January 24th at 20:00 on the third day of the Chinese New Year, I will take you into a special ‘Youth Exhibition’, remember to come and see it!”
→ 361° posted two photo ads [here] and [here] featuring Gong Jun.
→ The Instagram posted a video of “Zhang Zhehan”, “Zhang Mama”, and “Zhang Zhehan’s nephew” sending New Year’s greetings.
→ Gong Jun’s studio reposted a video by People’s Daily of Gong Jun’s Dragon TV appearance that would air later (full videos linked below) with the added caption: “Fighting with swords in the jianghu, living a bold life, watch boss @ Gong Jun Simon's chivalrous transformation tonight! In the coming year, I wish everyone good luck and a happy New Year!”
→ Gong Jun’s studio posted sixteen photos from his Dragon TV appearance. Caption: “The whirling chivalrous man, willful and dashing, boss @ Gong Jun Simon is free and unrestrained, happily singing a song of the jianghu.”
→ Gong Jun posted a douyin of himself in his outfit from his later Beijing TV performance. Caption: “There are a lot of ‘skins’ in the New Year!🤓” BGM is Rollin by Calvin Harris.
→ Gong Jun appeared on Dragon TV’s Spring Festival Gala, where he performed 刀剑如梦 originally by Wakin Chau and did some magic tricks. [performance] [translated lyrics] [subbed magic tricks] (cw a bunny falls, no obvious signs that it was hurt)
Fan Observations:
- The hanfu worn by some of the backup dancers (below) is the same one that Zhang Zhehan wore on 2021-07-14. At that time, fans of another artist whom I will refrain from naming slandered Zhang Zhehan online, claiming that the outfit had been made exclusively for that artist who had worn it previously. The use of the hanfu here—and for multiple backup dancers nonetheless—is pretty much spitting in the faces of those people.
- During the first part of the performance, there’s an illustrated cherry tree with a single white blossom.
→ Gong Jun’s studio posted nine photos of Gong Jun in the outfit from his later Beijing TV performance. Caption: “The green shirt welcomes the spring, smelling the snow on the branches. Boss @ Gong Jun Simon is going to the Chinese New Year appointment at the #Beijing TV Spring Festival Gala# tonight!”
→ Gong Jun’s studio posted a douyin of him from the above photoshoot. Caption: “Snow is falling, green shirts are fluttering, and boss @ Gong Jun Simon starts the first work diary of the lunar calendar 🐰 year!” BGM is 探窗 (钢琴版) by 汐音社.
→ Gong Jun appeared on Beijing TV’s Spring Festival Gala, performing the song Blood Actor originally by HITA. [performance] [lyric video with contextual info]
Fan Observations:
- Some drew parallels between the lyrics of this song and those of the song Zhang Zhehan recited part of on 2021-07-26.
- As mentioned in last week’s post, HITA is openly and actively a CPF. [Here] is a song she wrote specifically for them. 😊
→ Gong Jun’s studio posted nine photos from his Beijing TV performance. Caption: “The rhyme of the opera is melodious, and the music and shadow overlap. Boss @ Gong Jun Simon's green shirt appeared, tasting the meaning of rhythm and leading the elegance of the country.”
→ #Gong Jun sings beautifully# trended at #9 on Weibo hotsearch, and #GongJun, #龚俊Simon, and Junjun trended on Twitter.
01-23
→ Hsu Fu Chi posted a photo ad featuring Gong Jun.
→ Fresh posted four gifs of Gong Jun.
01-24
→ Hsu Fu Chi posted a photo ad featuring Gong Jun.
Fan Observation: Someone mentioned that they’ve been using these same photos for ages, so I checked and they've been using this specific one since literally the first day of their endorsement on 2021-10-29. 🤡 Judging by hairstyles, I would guess he hasn’t done more than MAYBE three photoshoots for them, if I’m being generous.
→ Fresh posted four more gifs of Gong Jun.
→ Gong Jun’s studio posted two photos of him from the 2023 Online Audio-Visual Ceremony he would appear in that evening. Caption: “Firm and proud, hard-blooded. Tonight at 20:00 boss @ Gong Jun Simon stars in ‘Youth History’, recalling the heroic years of the past and expressing the spirit of the times.”
→ Gong Jun appeared in the 2023 Online Audio-Visual Ceremony, performing in a group song and acting in a skit. [full performance] (no subs yet)
01-25
→ The Instagram posted a video of a clip from a fourth stolen song that would be released the following day. This was 洪荒剧场, the same song mentioned above that the real Zhang Zhehan had recited some of during his livestream on 2021-07-26, which was intended to debut it at the cancelled concert. (Quite coincidental timing, if you ask me.)
Fan Observation: The photos used were leaked by August 2022, and the song demo was leaked in October 2021.
Also, the Instagram’s pfp was changed again, now to one of the most recent white haired photos. This might have happened a day or two earlier before I noticed.
→ Gong Jun made a post promoting the new drama Turn on the Right Way of Life. Caption: “Support Bo-ge's new drama! ... Catch up tonight!”
01-26
→ The fourth stolen song was released. In the credits, it lists only Zhang Zhehan as the lyricist despite the real Zhang Zhehan having mentioned that it was written by Tang Tian.
→ Hsu Fu Chi posted a photo ad featuring Gong Jun.
→ Gong Jun posted nine illustrations of the God of Wealth. Caption: “God of Wealth, God of Wealth, look at me! ! !”
Fan Observation: The eighth picture was used by Zhang Zhehan as a pfp when he first made the Super3 Instagram account.
→ #ZhangZhehan trended on Twitter.
01-27
→ #ZhangZhehan continued to trend on Twitter, #TheRealZhangZhehan also trended.
→ Wang Yixu, the CEO of STELLAR Pictures responded to a question on Weibo, saying that both Rising with the Wind and Fox Spirit Matchmaker will include songs performed by Gong Jun.
→ The Instagram posted a video of “Zhang Zhehan” playing basketball.
01-28
→ #TheRealZhangZhehan continued to trend on Twitter.
→ MARRSGREEN posted a photo ad featuring Gong Jun.
→ Kangshifu posted three photo ads featuring Gong Jun.
→ Addition 01-29: The Instagram posted a video of “Zhang Zhehan” playing with fireworks; this video had been posted to Weibo the previous day. [Here] is a video highlighting a glitch in the deepfake.
Additional Reading:
→ Flora’s daily fan news
→ Flora also finished the wiki page for Xie Yihua this week.
<<< previous week || all posts || following week >>>
This post was last edited 2023-01-29.
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wwdits tarot: minor arcana
Okay, now that the Major Arcana is complete, I’m just going to do a quick rundown of the Minor Arcana.
The Minor Arcana (i.e. the cups, wands, swords, and pentacles cards) roughly correspond to the suits found in a normal playing deck. Each one has a meaning, but I mean. There are 56 of them.
I would happily design 56 more cards for this beautifully stupid show, but I think y’all have already been indulgent enough. If there’s ever any demand I might do the Minor Arcana, but I don’t… think anyone wants that. lmao
So I’ll just do a brief overview of the Minor Arcana, how the cards work, and which symbols I would use for my dear idiots.
Okay, so like I said, the Minor Arcana roughly corresponds to the suits you’ll see in regular playing card decks. Cups is hearts, wands is clubs, swords is spades, and pentacles is diamonds.
Each suit tends to tell a story from beginning to end with plenty of ups and downs, starting with the Ace and ending with the King, and each suit tends to have a particular association.
Cups/hearts cards tend to be about emotions, love, and relationships. Wands/clubs tend to be about creativity, willpower, and manifestation. Pentacles/diamonds tend to be materialistic. Finally, swords/spades are about reason and war.
(Side note: each suit here has 14 cards, not 13. Most of them are the same, but instead of Jacks, there are both Pages and Knights.)
Every card has a meaning, too, just like the Major Arcana do, but there are patterns. Most of the suits follow similar beats of triumph and despair, even if each manifests it in a different way. A lot of decks don’t include the Minor Arcana because there are so many of them, but there’s a rich tradition for each of these cards and they’re really key to a layered reading.
These cards tend to be just as evocative as the Major Arcana, if not more so, and many of them are really beautiful. Their imagery is at times really iconic and you’d probably recognize some of the cards if I showed them to you.
I also feel like they would really suit our dumb vampires — with a few little changes.
Like tell me this wouldn’t suit Nandor and/or Guillermo really well.
While some decks stick strongly to the swords/wands/cups/pentacles imagery, some replace these symbols with ones more suitable to the topic of the deck. A floriography tarot might replace cups with tulips. A Halloween tarot might replace pentacles with pumpkins. You see what I mean.
So here are the symbols I would use in my WWDITS tarot deck.
The swords are easy. These would be replaced by stakes. They’re close enough in function, and the suit’s associations with reason but also pain, blood, and anxiety suit Guillermo & his relationships with the others well, I think.
Next, cups. I’ve noticed that the vampires tend to like to put blood in little wine glasses when they want to be fancy, and I think those cups would be perfect for this deck. Cups are all about love and abundance, and that’s exactly what blood symbolizes in this show.
These little guys. Don't get distracted by what's going on in the scene, I say having written an entire meta about those glasses in this scene and how they symbolize the distance and ever-present promise/threat of vampirism between the two of them.
Next we have pentacles. Pentacles are basically just coins, and I’ve noticed that a lot of decks hew fairly close to this symbolism. Coins are just a very adaptable symbol, and one that has stayed very close to the suit’s themes of money and possessions. That said, I’m remembering that the suit is also associated with diamonds… So I’m thinking, overall, about the vampires’ treasure. They seem to have a limitless supply of antiques, ancient coins, and jewelry. So I think that I would use both antique coins and jewels for this deck.
Finally, wands. Wands, along with being associated with creativity and willpower, are aligned with the element of fire. (Pentacles, cups, and swords are earth, water, and air respectively.) With that in mind, I think our best bet for wands is candles. The shape suits the original symbol, and there is that element of fire, illumination, and ingenuity there as well. And… well, a little bit of danger. An idea can be dangerous in the wrong hands, and I assure you — almost every hand in this show is the wrong one.
So. Swords, cups, pentacles, and wands. Stakes, chalices, treasure, and candles. I think these are all images that call to mind our vampires while also having the potential to be used in some really creative ways.
There’s a lot to WWDITS that I wasn’t able to put in the Major Arcana, and it would be fun to incorporate those characters, settings, and objects into the Minor Arcana. So many monsters, so little time.
Again, I probably won’t do a full write-up for the Minor Arcana unless people want me to (or if someone wants to design an actual deck with me) but I hope this all at least serves as an overview for what the rest of the deck would hold.
Thanks for indulging for all this time, and I hope you loved and/or learned something. I had a really fun time with this project and I hope you did, too. 💜
wwdits tarot masterpost
#posting early today so I can get things organized for tarot night#and maybe post some fic later today#wwdits tarot
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First OOC message on this account! Most of these will be me using my character(s) to respond, even if the question is not in character.
This Tumblr is for all things related to the Impact University Genshin Roleplay Server. Here I will show funny moments [IC or OOC], little lore drops, event ideas, and maybe more!
A quick overview of the server is that it is a University AU set in current Genshin time, yet all vision wielders have been forced into this one school to control their 'gifts', though really all elemental wielders (Including Gods and others) are just kidnapped from their jobs and lives and brought here to exist.
For more info, look at our Disboard Page! It's updated fairly often: https://disboard.org/server/1001933028253241444
#genshin impact#genshin#genshin roleplay#discord rp#impact university#impact university ooc#you dont have to be part of the server to interact#this is mainly for fun#and partly to tease my members#Hehe~
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Galar Star Fanbook Notes (cover, p. 2)
I randomly remembered I bought this SWSH magazine special back when I was living in Japan in 2021... it looks like this:
I skimmed it when I got it (mainly for this section called "Raihan's 15 Secrets"), but I thought I'd give a go at trying to read it more thoroughly. :V It has things like character blurbs, fan opinions, and popularity poll results. I'm hoping to share my rough translations over a series of different posts since it's pretty long and I'm really slow at reading;;
DISCLAIMER: I'm not a professional translator and my Japanese is honestly not that good (I'm like N3-ish I guess, never took the JLPT tbh). I only lived in Japan for around 2 years before moving back to the US. I'm definitely going to be missing a lot of nuance in my translations & there's a good chance I may translate some things incorrectly. I'll do my best tho. ^^;
Anyway, this is only the first 2 pages, but feel free to continue under the cut for the translation/summary if you're interested!
Cover page
Galar Star Fanbook
Features a reader-decided popularity poll for Galar trainers!
Fanbook contents:
Questionnaire summary and results (p.2)
Raihan's 15 secrets (p.5)
Major character compilation/ranking (p.6)
Trainer class compilation/ranking (p. 10)
Pokemon TCG Sword and Shield trainer card publication at a glance
Page 2
Nintendo Dream Reader Poll Results: Most Popular Galar Trainers! (TN: "Nintendo Dream" is the magazine this fanbook was featured in)
Poll Rules & Overview:
In December 2020, the official Nintendo Dream twitter page (@/nindori) began accepting votes for a poll to determine the most popular characters in Pokemon: Sword and Shield. The poll was conducted using Google Forms, with one submission per voter. The poll was divided into two sections: major characters and trainer classes. Voters included their top 3 favorite major characters and their top 2 favorite trainer classes in their submission.
28 Total Characters for the Major Character Popularity Poll
The "Major Character" results come from the various characters you meet in Galar, such as gym leaders and rivals to the protagonist. The "approval rating" score next to each character represents what percent of voters included that character in their submission.
(TN: idk it's kind of a confusing metric since the results are based on voters submitting their top 3 favs instead of just submitting one character vote per person... if someone can explain the statistics behind this better than me, that'd be great LMAO;;)
From 6th place and onward, the approval rating scores were considerably close!
1st Place: Raihan (approval rating: 48%)
He's Galar's top gym leader and Leon's strongest rival. He's never not smiling and his normal demeanor is one that's somewhat relaxed and unserious. He also shows a complete change of expression in battle, where he has a more fierce demeanor. This personality gap leaves quite an impression. He's in first place and earned a noticeably high approval rating score!
(TN: I'm pretty sure the approval rating means 48% of voters included Raihan in their top 3 when they voted. So almost half of the participants included him in their vote.)
2nd Place: Leon (approval rating: 40.1%)
For the main character, Raihan, Hop, and many other people in Galar, Leon is seen as the main goal to surpass. He's been the strongest champion for a considerable amount of time, and his strength in battle, of course, lives up to his champion title. His dedication to accomplishing his duties as well as his straightforward nature certainly make him admirable.
3rd Place: Hop (approval rating: 33.1%)
Hop is the rival who knows the protagonist the best. He's also a close friend of the protagonist's, and the two of them go on an array of adventures together. Even though he becomes worried about the difference in strength between himself and his surrounding competitors, his growth makes him quite sympathetic.
4th Place: Piers (approval rating: 27.5%)
His tone of voice is simultaneously polite and blunt. His outward appearance truly gives off "dark type" vibes, yet he's good at taking care of others... he shows many sides of himself--in particular, his brotherly nature leaves a strong impression.
(TN: I think the first part about Piers being polite is referring to the fact that Piers uses polite forms (です/ます) in the Japanese version of the game, iirc. It's kinda weird/dissonant to be rude and blunt when using polite forms, which is probably the point. I guess imagine like... a rude, blunt person trying to use customer service voice, idk (??))
5th Place: Kabu (approval rating: 17.2%)
On the one hand, he leads the youthful trainers as their elder. At the same time, he never forgets to respect those younger than him and always seeks to challenge himself. He's a hot-blooded gym leader with a spirit full of vigor. His surprisingly playful side is also what makes him popular.
---
OK that's all of the cover and page 2! The next page has the 6th place ~ 10th place characters + some additional demographic information. I'll try to translate that one next sometime. Thanks for reading!
(9/17/2022: changed "regular trainer" to "trainer class")
page 3: [x]
#pokemon#pokemon swsh#pokemon sword and shield#galar star fanbook#raihan pokemon#leon pokemon#hop pokemon#piers pokemon#kabu pokemon#info
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re: the tv tropes page it is SO bad. full on fanon being included in the character page (not even the ymmv page), like y'all. have your headcanons but please stop forcing them on everyone else
yeah in most cases i’m skeptical that ‘forcing headcanons’ on people is actually a thing that happens because 99% of the time that grievance could be sufficiently addressed if people would only curate their feeds so they see the content they wanna see, but this might be a legitimate example of such a thing.
it is annoying because tvtropes is a great tool for understanding the technical aspects of storytelling and getting a general overview of a show and how content-making techniques can help deliver messaging (e.g. lighting, sound, sfx, camera angles). i’ve been using it for that purpose for years and i’ve found only recently that i’ve been encountering this problem more and more.
it’s been a while since i looked at the MASH page because i’ve basically written it off, but if memory serves the character pages were pretty unreliable. it could be that people have are projecting their personal interpretations/feelings on the show (any reading will have some amount of this) but some of the reaches on there are dishonest about the text.
MASH is a show that lacks continuity and is full of gags. it is also a show from another completely different era of television and the world. without some knowledge of that time, your interpretation might be lacking. many episode titles are puns or a play on an existing piece of media from the first half of the 20th century - but you rarely see that addressed nowadays in the fandom because we’re (mostly) a different generation.
there’s a difference between saying ‘radar is psychic’ and ‘a running gag on the show is that radar is psychic’ - does that mean MASH has a canonical magical realism aspect to it? no, of course not. but i sure as hell could find a way to make it seem that way to a person who has never seen it just by being a bit creative, telling half-truths and remixing things i know to be true about the show - aka, writing an AU. it’s like that “mash is haunted” post floating around on tumblr - it’s great in the format that it’s in, but on tvtropes, production flubs need to be called what they are - flubs - and not “trapper is haunting the OR” - those are the rules of engagement on TV tropes.
the rest under a this cut because i talk specifically about one of my most be-loathed myths that the MASH tv tropes page seems to want me to believe: hawkeye the “canonical” CSA/rape survivor
i say ‘let me leave shipping out of this’ a lot because i do get the sense that if i don’t give non-shippy examples of this happening that it’s valid for people to think i’m projecting a shipping bias onto my argument because a lot of fandom discourse is frankly, about shipping. so here: something I remember really rubbing me the wrong way about the MASH tv tropes page was how much it seemed to insist that Hawkeye was a CSA survivor.
i am not saying that this is not viable or that it is a bad reading or even that i disagree with it as an interpretation of the source material, but framing it like it’s an undeniable part of his character that other characters acknowledge is just - it’s not there! and if canonical portrayals of survivors are important to you, I don’t see how pretending that Hawkeye is a CSA survivor and trying to convince other people of that before they’ve even watched the show is “good representation”.
it gives way for all sorts of other misunderstandings of the show, for example, his “loose morals” around sexuality which are first and foremost about his being anti-establishment, that is something which is key to his character and tbh if you subscribe to the HC that hawkeye is a survivor of abuse then his being a scrappy, unconventional male lead who turns his nose up to traditional masculinity only enriches that HC in my opinion.
#csa mention#rape mention#mash#tvtropes#hawkeye pierce#replies#sorry for the essay i just was using this to work out my feelings about the whole thing#anyway - i agree with you anon#i just have specific complaints about this practice#majorbaby.txt#re: mash
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Papa and J----, August ‘34 Update
Author: shadowsong26
Rating: PG/PG-13
Fandom: Les Misérables
Characters: Technically all on-page characters are OCs; Valjean, Cosette, Marius, and Javert are discussed as historical personalities. Backstory Cosette/Marius and heavily implied Valjean/Javert.
Warnings: Nothing specific, I don’t think?
Summary: Euphrasie Pontmercy–known in the art world as La Jardinière–isn’t exactly a household name. Still, the sheer length of her active career (her work was first displayed and sold in 1839, and she left one last work unfinished at her death in 1910) makes her interesting to people who actually study that century in art. But as far as the historical record is concerned, Jardinière seems to have sprung semi-fully-formed from the streets of Paris somewhere in the mid-to-late 1820s. Other than the fact that she was educated in a convent, essentially nothing is known about her parents or her childhood.
Until now.
Or:
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a PhD student with no thesis topic must be in want of an undiscovered painting to go absolutely feral over.
Disclaimer: All characters are the property of their respective creators.
Notes: Chapter 2! Admittedly a little infodumpy, but let’s be real, would this really be a Victor Hugo fanfic if I didn’t have at least one?
Updates will be posted here on Thursdays and crossposted to AO3 on Fridays.
From: Wright, Ari
To: McLean, Emma
Thesis proposal
Saturday, 1/24, 1:14 AM
Hi, Emma,
So, I may want to change direction. Pretty radically. Is it too late to do that?
Thanks!
Ari
-----
From: McLean, Emma
To: Wright, Ari
Re: Thesis proposal
Monday, 1/26, 8:32 AM
That depends. How big a change are we talking?
Emma McLean, PhD
Professor, 19th Century French Art
-----
From: Wright, Ari
To: McLean, Emma
Re: Thesis proposal
Monday, 1/26, 9:54 AM
Well. Hypothetically. If I may have hypothetically found an early--mid-30s--Jardinière portrait. One of the subjects may or may not be identified as her father. That. Hypothetically.
Ari
-----
From: McLean, Emma
To: Wright, Ari
Re: Thesis proposal
Monday, 1/26, 10:35 AM
Authentic? Show me the painting.
Emma McLean, PhD
Professor, 19th Century French Art
-----
From: Wright, Ari
To: McLean, Emma
Re: Thesis proposal
Monday, 1/26, 10:38 AM
See attached photos. Taken with my phone sorry about the quality. Inscription looks like her tho doesn’t it?
Ari
Sent from my iPhone
-----
From: McLean, Emma
To: Wright, Ari
Re: Thesis proposal
Monday, 1/26, 10:45 AM
How soon can you get it here for authentication
Emma McLean, PhD
Professor, 19th Century French Art
-----
From: Wright, Ari
To: McLean, Emma
Re: Thesis proposal
Monday, 1/26, 10:47 AM
Owners are out of town, but expected back later today or tmrw, I’ll get in touch about borrowing it ASAP.
Sent from my iPhone
-----
From: McLean, Emma
To: Wright, Ari
Re: Thesis proposal
Monday, 1/26, 11:02 AM
Do that. If it is what you think it is, absolutely. Write the thesis.
If you don’t, I will.
Emma McLean, PhD
Professor, 19th Century French Art
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
I spent most of that weekend, while I was waiting for Emma--my thesis advisor--to get back to me, pulling together everything I had on hand about La Jardinière and figuring out my next steps. I don’t think I slept for like forty hours.
Unfortunately, what I had on hand wasn’t all that much. I’d done some basic research into her--like I told Phil, the fact that her career lasted as long as it did made her interesting to me. My focus had more been on the relationship between technology and art (and not just the basic stuff, like the advent of photography, but things like changes in travel and communications technology, in available pigments, and so on), but a painter with a seventy-year career, including most of the period I was interested in, was definitely at least worth looking into.
Still, it had only been a basic overview, not much more than you’d find on her Wikipedia page.
Well, actually, it kind of was more than you’d find on her wiki page, which is pretty sparse. Just covering the basics, noting that she: was born around 1815; died September 18, 1910; was married to Marius Pontmercy, a lawyer and sometime radical; and was the mother of Thierry Pontmercy, a pioneer in the field of forensic photography, along with his four less-famous siblings. Also the fact that her work was first displayed and sold in 1839, and her last piece (Souvenir--inachevé) was left unfinished at her death; although her popularity peaked in the early-mid 1850s, she continued to be reasonably well-respected as an artist throughout her life. The entry also lists a couple of her other better-known works. And that’s about it.
To be fair, that isn’t all that surprising. Because the truth is, Euphrasie Pontmercy--known professionally as La Jardinière, and apparently to her family as Mémé Cosette--isn’t exactly a household name. Even as far as mid-19th-century/pre-Impressionist painters go. Some of that comes down to the way art is studied, and the way the various art movements of her century worked. Some of it is that she wasn’t a major player in any of those movements. And probably general background misogyny plays a role.
There’s also the fact that there is next to no information available about her early life. As far as the historical record is concerned, Jardinière seems to have sprung semi-fully-formed from the streets of Paris somewhere in the mid-to-late 1820s. Other than the fact that she was educated in a convent, essentially nothing is known about her parents or her childhood.
Until now.
Maybe.
Assuming the painting checks out.
But I wanted to have all my ducks in a row, so to speak, before I talked to Phil’s parents about borrowing the painting (and in case I needed more support to sell Emma on the idea). So, compiling what information I had, and making a list of things I’d need to dig more into.
Jardinière spent, as far as current research can tell, her entire life and career in Paris, apart from the eighteen months she and her husband spent in Dover in the 1860s (most likely because his politics got them into trouble), and the approximately two months in the early 1850s she spent in Calais without him (reasons unknown).
Her work is mostly landscapes--several paintings of gardens, appropriately enough, as well as various parts of Paris; the seascapes from her Dover period are particularly beautiful, even if fashions in the art world had generally turned away from landscapes in that period. There are also a few portraits, some commissioned and some apparently just of ordinary people in her life; and a series of works she referred to as memories, depicting places or events she had lived in or witnessed years before actually sitting down to paint them.
Some of her sketchbooks also survive, including one from Calais that has several pages missing. Most of her paintings are marked on the back with the subject and a date (generally assumed to be the date she completed the work), like the one in Phil’s living room was.
If you line up her paintings chronologically, you can see her style shifting a little, drawing in bits and pieces from new movements and artistic fashions while still remaining recognizably hers. Especially when she comes back to locations she’d already painted years before--which she did repeatedly--showing the way both she and her city have grown and changed over time.
Even more interesting, while not all of her personal correspondence is available, there are a few surviving letters she exchanged with notable artists, particularly in the last few decades of her life. There’s one letter she wrote to Toulouse-Lautrec, which was briefly quoted in a biography of him I read a few years back.
I made a note to try and get my hands on the whole text of that letter, among others, if I was really planning to do a deep dive into Jardinière’s life and work--even if it was from fifty-some years after the painting at the center of all this. I’d also need to find someone who could help me translate it, and any other papers I managed to gain access to. My French is decent enough, and I’d probably be fine communicating with French institutions and archivists in order to request access to their collections, but for something this important, I’d want someone way more fluent to help with the actual documentary evidence.
Next was a list of museums that had some of her work on display or in their collections; there was also an exhibit in Marseille that I wanted to look into--not Jardinière’s work, but ‘Bertillon and Pontmercy: The Men and Minds of Early Forensic Photography’ might include some relevant things from her son’s life and papers. Given that I’d almost certainly end up flying to France anyway, it would be stupid to skip that.
So. I had a game plan, or at least the beginnings of one. Start by reaching out to various archives, here and in France, possibly England as well; look closer at her work where I can find it, particularly her early work and the few portraits that are available--although the fact that her poetically-named final work was currently included in a post-Impressionist exhibit in Chicago definitely caught my eye. And then go to France, to look for other documentary evidence. Try to identify Papa and J-----, and, assuming I manage to do that, write about it. Fill in the gaps in a story that might not be interesting to everyone, but for the people who were interested, it mattered a hell of a lot.
All of this, of course, rested on gaining access to Phil’s parents’ painting, and proving it really was an 1834 Jardinière.
Hopefully he was right, and his parents would be easy to get on board.
But I sure as hell had to try.
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Hello, Dr. Reames! I was wondering if you happened to have a post where you describe medicine in ancient Greece and in the Middle East lands that Alexander conquered during his time, their difference and what use did he do of that knew knowledge. As far as I know, middle east medicine was more advance that Greece's, but of course I'm not an expert and I might be wrong. Could you explain this topic a little further, please? Thank you in advance, I hope you're having a great week!
I have not really done any posts on ancient medicine, although I did do one that involved the way humors were understood to affect personality. Medicine is not an area where I have a specific specialty in except the general way we all do. (I teach on it for my Intro to Greek History, for instance. I also teach a bit on ANE medicine in the ANE class.)
*So right upfront, let me suggest some books of interest:
Ancient Medicine, 2nd ed., Vivian Nutton, 2012, Routledge: If I had to give you a lost-cost place to begin, this would be it. Broad overview of medicine in the ANE and Med basin, as really, these are continuums.
Oxford Handbook of Science and Medicine in the Classical World, Paul Keyser & John Scarborough, eds., 2022, Oxford UP: This just came out, a bit pricier in paperback, but is a longer text and covers more than just medicine. These companions and handbooks are useful because you get potted summaries of “the state of the field” on various topics under the broader umbrella. ALSO, it’s not just Greece and Rome, despite the title. Includes Mesopotamia, Egypt, as well as India and China.
*Alas, now we jump up to books over $100, so look for them in libraries:
Ancient Greek Medicine in Questions and Answers Diagnostics, Didactics, Dialectics, Michiel Meeusen, 2020, Brill (why it’s so pricey): This is on the academic side of things, looking at language and how medicine fit into the wider world of Greek philosophy.
Magic and Rationality in Ancient Near Eastern and Graeco-Roman Medicine, Manfred Horstmanshoff & Marten Stol, 2004, Brill: Examines how religious and magical thinking wove its way through medicine of various places and periods. Again, on the academic side.
*Finally, books specifically on women and medicine, in Greece, and in Rome:
Birth, Death, and Motherhood in Ancient Greece, Nancy Demand, 1994, Johns Hopkins UP: An oldie but goodie. Demand used the Hippocratic Corpus (et al.) to examine the lives of women in Greece, and how (badly) Greeks understood the female body. (Link to the hardcover as it’s cheaper, used.) I regularly use this in my classes.
Medicine and the Making of Roman Women: Gender, Nature, and Authority from Celsus to Galen, Rebecca Flemming, 2001, Oxford UP: As the title suggests, the focus is on how medical knowledge shaped Roman conceptions of womanhood…and how Roman conceptions of womanhood shaped medical thought.
I also note, with some trepidation, the work on women and medicine by Holt Parker. Medicine is among the things he specializes in, and his scholarship is solid. But he was convicted of child pornography (see this very good Eidolon article). It was quite the shocker. I met this guy in 2010 at the Missouri Valley History Conference here in Omaha, and he seemed like a nice guy. Just goes to show what people may be hiding. I won’t link to any of his books that might give him royalties, just his academia.edu page, where his work is free. I’m always a bit at sea in cases like this. His scholarship is excellent and should be mentioned, but he turned out to be a horrible excuse for a human being.
Some general observations:
Roman medicine is Greek medicine, and Greek medicine is Mesopotamian medicine, modified. There is a direct line of development. The oldest pharmacology in the west is from the middle bronze age in Babylon, and Mesopotamians assembled medical treatises that systematically recorded what was known about various illnesses not long after, although the largest collection we have are late Neo-Assyrian (late iron age).
In Mesopotamia, there was a distinct “spiritual” (magical/divine) element to medicine. So the Asu and asipu often worked together. The asu was a physician, and asipu is often translated as exorcist. Spiritual advisor might be more appropriate. Together, they would try to determine not just how to treat the illness, but the cause of it, which was generally attributed either to sin, or to curses from others. However “silly” that may sound today, we might rather think of it as a “wholistic” approach, treating the whole person, not just the physical body.
Another fun detail about Mesopotamian doctors: after “medical school,” they served a “residency” of sorts under a senior physician before being allowed to hang out their own shingle.
Greeks of Asia Minor and the islands, being in much closer contact with inner Mesopotamia via Assyria (both by trade and as mercenaries serving in Assyrian armies), picked up on their medicine and adapted it. There were two primary schools on Kos/Cos and Knidos/Cnidos, one based on prognostication, the other on diagnostics. Because the ancients understood the body so badly, the diagnostic school tended to be wrong more often than right, so the prognostic school on Kos won out in the long run.
Yes, that’s Hippokrates’s home. And yes, the Hippokratic Corpus gets its basis from the earlier Mesopotamian ones, although it’s not just a copy. Also, the corpus as we have it isn’t only Hippokrates, but included a lot of later material down into the Hellenistic period (and may also have included older material too).
What Hippokrates did was take (at least some of) the religion out of medicine. He began to focus on the physical body apart from notions of sin and demonic possession. In short, he applied the rising trend of CRITICAL REASONING to medicine. This much larger movement arising with Thales and Friends had introduced an entirely new way of sifting information and examining the world. Medicine borrowed it, and so did history, resulting in Herodotos. His students followed in the same vein.
But religion in medicine was still quite popular all over Greece, and more traditional medical approaches mostly absorbed the new ideas of Hippokrates rather than seeing them as a challenge. Temples to Asklepios became the “hospitals” of the ancient world, their priests often trained physicians. Hippokrates himself worked in the Asklepion in Kos, the home of his school. So rational medicine was still combined with treatments such as “incubations,” wherein the sick person would sleep in the temple and receive a dream. The priest-physician would hear the dream, hear the symptoms, and prescribe a cure, which often included some religious elements too, such as sacrifices, etc. Again, we might think on this as a wholistic approach.
Physicians also traveled, apart from these major temple centers, and as you can imagine, their skill varied a good deal. We also had midwives and herbalists, and, yes, female physicians too by the Hellenistic age. (For those who read Dancing with the Lion, Myrtale/Olympias is a trained herbalist and midwife, and in a scene involving Hephaistion’s injury, her medicine is presented as working better than the physician’s.)
Finally, there were surgeons, who traveled with armies. The job of a surgeon was different. Physicians (mostly) didn’t engage in surgery. Hence the line in the original Hippocratic Oath: “I will neither cut nor kill.” Surgeons did both (the latter as mercy).
If Greek medicine really came into its own in the late Archaic and Classical eras (yes, it pre-existed Hippokrates), it got a big boost in the Hellenistic era with all the new science brought back via Alexander’s conquests from Mesopotamia, but also India too, plus the comingling of Greek knowledge with Egyptian in Alexandria. The Romans absorbed it. Even in Rome, Greeks remained the best doctors well into late antiquity; even the early medieval period, Byzantine doctors were prized. Then came the leaps and bounds during the golden age of Islam in Bagdad, and the work of Al-Razi and Ibn-Sina (Avicenna), who built on Greek medicine.
So medical knowledge came out of Mesopotamia, into Greece and the west, then passed back into Mesopotamia, in terms of advancements.
#ancient medicine#ancient Greek medicine#Mesopotamian medicine#ancient Greece#ancient Mesopotamia#ancient Rome#Neo-Assyria#Classics#ancient science#tagamemnon
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