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random-mha-thoughts · 7 months

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Observant (Todoroki x Reader)

Pairing: Todoroki x fem!Reader

Genre: Fluff, College AU

Word Count: 2,562

Summary: In which Shouto moves to the library to study, but it’s more than the quiet atmosphere keeping him coming back.

Tags: @yamichxn @liviitehe @cyanide9602

*Btw it's been a while since I updated my taglist and everyone's usernames I have are from like 2 years ago, so if you wanna be on it shoot me an ask/DM and I'll update it

A/N: Ok maybe I lied and this took longer to write than a week, but it's a lot longer than I thought it would be!

While I liked this idea in theory, once I wrote it I wasn't as big a fan as I thought. *sigh* The life of a writer... Always hating what you put out...

I hope you guys like it, it's more in Shouto's POV than the reader's which is different for me. I think it's pretty cute, and that's what matters.

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Shouto needed a change. Studying inside an empty classroom or in his dorm room alone wasn’t productive anymore; more often than not, he’s started spacing out or having to reread entire pages of his notes. It also didn’t necessarily help that his roommate this year caused so much of a ruckus every day - the roommate tended to have loud company over frequently, or he would stumble into the room in the wee hours of the night when Shouto was still studying - that Shouto's normally abundant patience had run out and he didn't want to sour their relationship by confronting him (Also read: he had no more fucks to give and it was getting on his last nerve).

Finding a replacement study space was the best decision he’d ever made.

Izuku took him to one of the school library’s quiet floors, the place he tends to study after class. The floor looked cozy; among the endless rows of library books, there were rows of desks pushed against a wall covered in windows. A wider clearing in the middle of the entire floor had a few larger tables to seat about six to eight students. On the other side of the rows of desks were locked rooms that groups can request to reserve for a few hours.

Izuku couldn’t stand the typical absolute quiet on this floor, so he tended to reserve one of the rooms with a classmate after a long day of classes; the extra privacy was an added bonus. Iida couldn’t make it, so the freckled fellow was grateful to Shouto for tagging along. The duo settled into a room with concrete white walls and a simple table, a large plane of plexiglass the only view into the rest of the library.

Shouto didn’t care about the room almost feeling like a prison; there was enough natural lighting from a double window, it was minimalistic, and he was in the presence of a friend if he needed someone to talk to when he took small breaks. He figured even if Izuku didn’t come with him every day, he could sit at one of the desks in the middle of the room with his earbuds in for a few hours. A completely focused section of the library with no distractions, just what he wanted.

Until some movement caught the corner of his eye through the plexiglass and made him do a double-take.

A girl with hair reaching past her shoulder blades approaches one of the nearby bookshelves, the white sleeves of her shirt folded up to her elbows and a burgundy skirt sitting just above her knees. The outfit alone earned a small glance from him, but what made him stare curiously was her actions. She moved a few heavy tomes aside, revealing a much smaller one hidden behind them. She plucked it from its place, opened up to a bookmarked page, and proceeded to twist the “bookmark” into her hair, making a neat bun near her nape, before walking away.

Shouto couldn’t help gawking at her receding figure. She not only hid a book in a secret hiding spot, but she used her hair stick - or fork, or pin, he was too far to tell exactly what it was - as a bookmark when she was done reading for the day. He’s heard of Fuyumi using everything but an actual bookmark to hold her place, but he’s never actually seen another person with such a habit. It made sense, one would want to pin their long hair out of their face to read - Fuyumi says she keeps her hair on the short side because long hair is a hassle to control - and Shouto acknowledges how clever she is. But then how does she spend the rest of her day with her hair down? Doesn’t it get it in the way the rest of the day? Going outside with the wind kicking around? Eating with her hair all over the place? Catching it on her backpack or her jacket? Maybe he was getting ahead of himself and this was a one-time thing, she just happened to not have a bookmark and the only thing on hand was her accessory and something was better than simply folding the page down.

Shouto realized he’d spent a whole 5 minutes ruminating about this mysterious girl and her hair and her reading habits. He’d just found a new distraction, and he wasn’t mad at it.

After a few hours of homework and studying with Izuku in the locked room, Shouto noticed the girl walking slowly back to the same bookshelf, nose buried in the pages, bun still in place. The boy silently chuckled to himself as she stood completely still for a few beats, he figured she was just finishing up a chapter.

He suddenly stops short and his eyes widen.

In one swift motion, she pulled the stick from her bun and, as if in slow motion, the silky strands were freed, falling past her shoulders as she shook it out. It was more satisfying seeing it all fall down after she meticulously pinned it up. And of course, it just looked pretty.

In doing so, her glance catches him from her periphery. His heart stopped as he quickly turned back to his laptop screen, already holding his breath. He’s not a creep, he told himself as his face heats up, his mind was just bored and his eyes wandered and he just so happened to catch activity happening. Simple. It’s not like he wanted to see her do it again.

Izuku stretches his arms over his head. “Yikes, I didn’t notice how late it was. Wanna break for the night and come back tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

~*~

Shouto has come to expect the usual schedule of events: He would settle into the study room with his study partner and unpack as he waits for the girl to come retrieve her book. He would watch as she’d expertly weave the stick in her hair, give a cute little head shake to make sure it was strong enough to hold, and then disappear into the library to read her book. A few hours into his work, he’d wait for her to come back to her book hiding spot. The most satisfying part of his day would be watching her pull the stick out of her hair and letting that cascade of silky hair fall past her shoulders. He didn’t think he’d ever get tired of that. On his way out one day, he snuck a peek at what book she was reading and inspected her hair stick. It was a simple enough design, thin and gold colored with a leaf pattern at the very end of it.

Sure, it sounds creepy to an outsider. But he’s not a stalker, he’s just a creature of habit.

Or, that’s what he tried to tell himself whenever he would accidentally meet her eyes and have to turn his head quickly. Which has happened more times than he’d like to admit in a 3 week span.

“What’s IcyHot looking at so intently?” Katsuki’s gruff voice alerts Shouto out of his trance one afternoon as he waits for the mystery girl to appear at the end of the day as usual. “You’ve been looking over there all day.”

Shouto tears his eyes away from the bookshelf, clearing his throat and staring at his screen. “Nothing, I thought I saw something.”

Katsuki and Izuku’s eyes darted to where Shouto was looking to find the girl retrieving her book as usual. A smug look spreads across the blond’s face as he leans back in his chair. “Ohh, I see. You’re watching the pretty girl.”

Shouto clamps his mouth shut, not wanting to give the boy the satisfaction of being right.

“You like her, right?”

“No!” Damnit. “She just happens to be here every day too.” He can’t stop the heat rising to his cheeks.

“Well she’s coming over here, be ready.”

As soon as Shouto’s heart lurches, there’s a soft knock at the door. Shouto glances around to Izuku and then Katsuki, who’s smirking. “Go on, answer it. She’s not looking for us.”

Shouto wants nothing more than to punch his smug face, but he hurries over to the room door to open it. He stiffens up when he sees the girl standing right in front of him.

Up close, she has a slightly rounded face, her black-framed glasses framing cat eyes and long eyelashes. Her mouth was slightly agape for a split second before stiffly closing it to compose herself and stand up straighter. “Um, hi. I hope I’m not bothering you.”

Shouto closes the door behind him. “No, not at all.” He shoves a hand in his pocket to try looking casual while his heart flutters at being close enough to someone he’s been watching from a distance.

“I actually wanted to ask you a favor.” She pushes her glasses up on her face nervously. “Do you mind hiding this somewhere in your study room?” She’s clutching her book to her chest, the dark cover contrasting against her white sweater.

Shouto’s eyes couldn’t help taking a quick glance down; the dark book cover contrasts against her white sweater tucked into her black plaid mini skirt ending just above her knees, the rest of her legs covered by sheer black tights and ending in a pair of black boots with a low heel.

“I usually hide it behind one of the sections of books no one reads,” she continues, pivoting a bit to point, letting Shouto glance down quickly to the black plaid mini skirt, sheer tights, and black heeled boots before she turns back around. “But I figured someone might move it one day. And I just happen to notice that you’re in this room every day at the same time, I can count on it being in the same place…” She tucks a hair behind her ear and Shouto nearly melts at the way her voice trails off sheepishly.

Shouto reaches out to take the book she’s offering to him. “Yeah, I’ll keep it here in the room. It should be locked overnight.”

She clasps her hands in front of her and smiles at him. “Thank you! I’ll come back to get it tomorrow, promise.”

Shouto dazedly smiles back at her. “Sure… See you tomorrow, then.”

She gives him a little bow and walks away from him, letting him get a whiff of her fruity-floral perfume. He stands there a moment to watch her, containing his excitement before collecting himself and ducking back into the room. He realized his palms were sweaty when he sat back down and wanted to study the book cover.

He feels eyes on him, only to meet Katsuki’s shit-eating grin and Izuku’s eager smile.

The blond is the first to break the silence. “Well? What did she want?”

Shouto plays back the conversation in his head. “She gave me her book to keep in the room overnight.” She happens to notice me here… Shouto thinks, Every day… Just like I notice her here every day… “She must think I’m a stalker or something,” he mumbles.

“Oh my god.” Katsuki facepalms. “It means she likes you, you idiot! She just wanted an excuse to talk to you!”

The clueless boy blinks, causing the blonde to groan. “Why else would she come up to you specifically and not Deku?”

Izuku gives his childhood friend a hard look. “I agree with Kacchan, she looked shy to talk to you. Maybe you should do something nice for her and ask her out?”

When the pieces finally click in place, Shouto’s face turns brighter red than his hair at the prospect of the girl possibly being interested in him too.

“IcyHot’s got such a huge crush!” Katsuki guffaws, hitting the table.

~*~

“Thanks for taking care of my book again,” the girl smiles.

Shouto’s already racing heart squeezes as their fingers just barely brush during the exchange, rubbing the back of his neck. It’s a regular occurrence, but the gesture never fails to fluster him. “N-No problem. I know it’s important to you.” He coughs. “I actually read a little bit of it this time.” He thinks she stiffens up for a moment. “I apologize if I was intruding!” he says quickly.

“N-No, it’s fine!” She clutches the book to her chest tightly with both hands, managing a nervous chuckle. “How far did you get?”

“Just the first three chapters, I didn’t get too far.” Her nervous behavior makes Shouto sweat. Did he cross a line? She must think he’s indecent now if she didn’t before.

“Oh.” She visibly relaxes. “Sorry, I didn’t think you’d look. I thought it looked too…girly for you to be interested.”

“I figured you’re reading it so intensely, it must be good. I was just curious, I’m sorry.” He feels his face heat up in shame again. He keeps glancing at the book, not knowing if he should find some way to take it back from her or not; only adrenaline had let him go through with his plan.

The girl realizes the book feels thicker in her hands, the split created by her bookmark now a small hole. Her fingers reach inside and open up to that page, eyes widening.

She plucks out a thin golden stick with a burgundy flower at the head, a matching chain tassel with a gem at the end hanging off of it. “What’s this?”

The boy’s throat is parched and his heartbeat almost deafens him. “I know how much you like using these sticks to tie up your hair, and you tend to wear reds and burgundy a lot. I wanted to give you a nicer looking one that matches.”

Shouto almost wants the ground to open up and swallow him whole when she stares up at him wordlessly. The girl finally smiles warmly. “It’s really pretty, thank you, I love it!”

The boy lets out a held breath, the cold fear slightly leaving him. “Oh good, I’m glad.”

She hands him the book to hold as she wraps her hair up and places the stick in the bun. Shouto’s chest fills with pride as she turns her head to show him. “How does it look?”

“Stunning,” he blurts out and his eyes immediately widen at his unintentional candor, earning a giggle out of her. He hangs onto the wondrous sound and the way her warm eyes bore into him. “Would you grab dinner with me later?”

She slightly tilts her head at him with a smile, sending more warmth through him. “I’d love to.”

Shouto smiles back, his whole body relaxing and his heart full. “Great! See you later, then.”

The girl reaches both her hands to gently retrieve her book, allowing more contact to linger between them as she shyly keeps their eyes locked. “See you then.”

As she walks away, the burgundy tassel swaying side to side, Shouto leans back against the door for a moment and smiles to himself. He feels lighter now, looking forward to his date. As he turns to go back inside the room, he briefly wonders if he should learn how to use one of those hair sticks; maybe he’ll get the chance to weave his fingers through her silky hair and place it himself. He’ll get the chance to pull it out, eventually.

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rockinhamburger · 1 year

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What exactly is empathy?

Back with more Nate meta - shocker! At a basic level, empathy is about widening our perspective to understand where someone is coming from. It doesn’t mean actions taken are acceptable or justified, but it’s an exercise in looking for insight and extending compassion. One thing I’ve noticed can go missing in analysis of Nate’s choices is the limited POV he has throughout the show. People are quick to judge him for his reasoning in the latter half of S2 without recognizing that he’s missing crucial insights, often because he is not in the scene which would provide it. I want to highlight a few examples that I think show this limited POV and, hopefully, indicate where he deserves some grace.

Of course, a straightforward example of this is the picture Nate gave to Ted for Christmas. Nate couldn’t help but notice it’s not hanging in Ted’s office, and that became emblematic to Nate of the abandonment he was feeling. We the viewers know that Ted has the picture on his bedroom dresser next to his picture of Henry. Nate doesn’t know this; he has a limited POV, so in my view it’s a lot kinder and more empathetic to give him grace on that one. But what tends to happen is that a detail like that gets sublimated into justification to continue criticizing Nate. For instance, instead of feeling sorry for Nate, feeling compassion for his limited perspective in that moment, the thinking becomes judgemental and defensive: Why should Ted display it in his office? Ted doesn’t owe Nate that. Nate needs to get over himself.

People tend to be similarly hard on Nate for the moment in 2x11 when he says, “There we go. Give Ted another idea he’ll take all the credit for.” We have a wider perspective than Nate does. We know that Ted doesn’t take the credit; in fact, Ted credited Nate for his decoy play back in 1x03. It’s a great moment that shows us Ted’s integrity - he doesn’t take the credit for that, even when Trent Crimm is audibly horrified that Ted would entrust such a thing to the kit man. It adds to our growing love for Ted as a character.

But crucially, Nate doesn’t hear a lick of it. Nate is yards away kicking dog shit off the field. His POV is limited in the scene, so he entirely misses that lovely moment of Ted giving him the credit. We’re also privy to the article Trent writes at the end of the episode, and he doesn’t mention in there that Nate came up with the play. Why would Nate have any idea that Ted gives him the credit?

“That’s the job, son,” Roy says to Nate. Putting aside that they’re roughly the same age, so it’s more than a little condescending, this comment from Roy doesn’t address the void Nate’s feeling of validation and approval from Ted. In 2x12, Nate says, “And I... I worked my ass off, trying to get your attention back. To prove myself to you. To make you like me again.” I wish people would take these words at face value instead of using them to continue justifying uncharitable readings of Nate’s behaviour. I wish more people would put themselves in Nate’s shoes and imagine for a moment what it felt like to be in the sunlight of Ted’s kind, supportive attention in S1 only to feel like he’d done something to lose it. Imagine wondering what you did wrong to lose the attention and care of the kindest, sweetest man you’ve had the fortune of meeting. Nate is feeling Ted’s absence so keenly by the time he lets it all out in 2x12. He feels invisible and occasionally even outright replaced. Ted laughs at the idea of him being a big dog, and god, that has to sting so much, and then he brings Roy in as coach. People are quick to gloss over this moment, but it’s a crucial one for understanding how twisted up Nate is starting to feel. If he truly thinks Ted doesn’t like him anymore, then imagine what it felt like for him to be the subject of Ted’s laughter and for Ted to subsequently bring in someone he wouldn’t laugh at? And in the episodes following, Ted’s giving Roy the attention Nate craves as the wins pile up, and to top it off, those wins are largely attributed to the Roy Kent Effect.

Ted isn’t there for Nate’s big moment of glory in 2x06. We know why he wasn’t because we got a lot of Ted’s backstory. Nate didn’t. He has no idea what Ted’s going through. One big takeaway from the show is that we don’t know what the people in our lives are going through, and that’s another reason to be kind and empathetic to each other. So yes maybe Nate should have been able to connect some of the dots, particularly once Ted confessed he’d had a panic attack. Maybe he could have given Ted some grace, but clearly Nate was going through some of his own toxic stuff that made him miss a few things, just like Ted. And really, it’s not like people are giving Nate grace given what we know of his struggles. Nate doesn’t realize the extent of Ted’s mental health struggles because Ted doesn’t let him in on it, just like Ted doesn’t realized the extent of Nate’s feelings of abandonment.

One moment I find so brilliant for highlighting just how much Nate wanted specifically Ted’s validation and approval (to make you like me again) is the fact that Roy gives Nate credit and validation for his big win. He tells Rebecca the win was all Nate (but, crucially, Nate isn’t in the room for that) and then afterward he says, “Oy, Nate, great fucking work today.” I think to Nate it feels more like getting validation from a friend or brother. It’s the kind of thing we like to imagine will make a difference and build us up, but usually it doesn’t quite do the trick, not when it isn’t coming from the person we most want it from - in Nate’s case, Ted, and on a deeper level, his father.

In 1x07, when Ted is at one of his lowest points in the series, he lashes out at Nate. We know why he did. We understand that he has to sign his divorce papers, to essentially quit his marriage, which kicks up a bunch of his emotional triggers around quitting due to feeling like his father abandoned him. We also know he’d been drinking. So, we give Ted plenty of grace in that moment because we have the full picture. Nate doesn’t. Of course, Ted apologizes for treating Nate like that the next time he sees him and Nate forgives him instantly. It’s a lovely moment that again showcases what a thoughtful character Ted is, that he can earnestly apologize. But it’s also a lovely moment that shows Nate’s capacity for understanding and forgiveness when he’s been wronged.

As has been discussed a lot since the end of S2 aired, this conversation outside the locker room in 1x07 is the last time Ted and Nate have a one-on-one conversation before the scene in 2x12. I think it’s easy to overlook this turning point in their relationship and to think that everything’s been patched up in the apology, but the damage from that moment in front of Ted’s hotel room is substantial. I did everything I could to make you like me again. I can’t help feeling like Nate looks back on that night in Liverpool and feels that was the moment everything changed, the moment the attention started to shift, when Ted stopped liking him.

I wish more people would extend to Nate the same compassion we gave Ted following his angry outburst at Nate in 1x07. We all make meaning from the limited perspective we have. Nate was lacking important insight throughout much of S1 and S2, and that was compounded by feelings of inadequacy and abandonment. And I think when it comes down to it, Ted knows exactly how that feels. Empathy widens perspective. Ted’s not going to bask in schadenfreude; he’s going to extend empathy and compassion because he gets where Nate is coming from. He won’t take his pain out on Nate, even though Nate did that to him, and if we admire Ted’s capacity for forgiveness and understanding, this is the test of our own.

I hope fandom can rise to the occasion in S3.

#nathan shelley #ted lasso #tl meta #fandom double standards for nate as a poc plays a significant role here #it's not the purview of this meta but i should make that clear

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junjikuza · 3 months

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Asked By @mubthemoff

"I have a question... How does Caine view the circus members?"

I asked Caine about what he thinks of each circus member a great choice since he has his ALL SEEING EYES:

"Jax, I find rather... interesting. He is incredibly dangerous. Like a ticking time bomb, he can be nice and friendly one moment and completely unhinged the next... I find him fascinating, and he always keeps me on my toes. I never know exactly what he'll do or say next, which makes him a wild card, and I love it!

Gangle is a coward, a whiner and a crybaby. She constantly whines about EVERYTHING and always plays the victim. I absolutely despise her and wish she didn't exist. Sorry, not sorry.

Kinger is an absolute nut job! He is obsessed with collecting bugs and he just seems completely off the wall. He doesn't seem like he has any common sense and he's always doing things that baffle and confuse everyone around him.

Ragatha is the caretaker and doctor of the main group, and I find her to be a bit "eccentric" if you know what I mean... She is very colorful and has an interesting way of speaking. She is often seen with a cup of tea. GOSH I HATE HER ACCENT.

Zooble is a mysterious and secretive loner that always seems to have something up their sleeve. I find them particularly intriguing because they are the only one who lives outside of the fort, and I feel like they know more than lets on. They definitely have a more serious attitude than other characters, and they rarely show a soft side. I would definitely be careful around them and keep my guard up.

Pomni is a colorful and chaotic newbie. She is very nervous and unsure of herself, and she tends to be easily startled. She is constantly asking questions and trying to figure out what's going on, and she often makes some not-so-great choices and decisions. Her naivety can be both entertaining and frustrating...HMPH...that seems about it!"

"What about bubble and Kaufmo?"

"Ah yes, BUBBLE, my one and only assistant. He's a bit overly eager and very energetic. He's also not very smart, and he often messes things up. He's very accident-prone and I often have to clean up his mess. But despite all of those quirks, he always tries his best to assist me so I appreciate that. He can sometimes be OUTRIGHT annoying.

Kaufmo was a very selfish, untrustworthy clown who was willing to betray Jax for his own interests. He made a deal with me to betray his friend, and then he ended up getting.... well... you know... as a result of his actions. I had no sympathy for him, and I was glad to see him go. He was definitely one of the more unlikeable pawns."

From my POV, Caine is a bit of an unreliable narrator here about the characters, though... and he's vague... however! It does provide insight.

#weird tadc!#tadc weird #tadc au #au ask blog

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idyllic-affections · 8 months

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Yo yo yo yo yo yo yo yo yo

Tis' I, 🐉Anon!

I enjoyed those brainrots between you and Kaixserzz about Kaveh and Younger sibling![Name]'s relationship with each other and their... "differing" views of their mother, to say the least- and how it affects their relationship as the siblings grow up. I always enjoy those sort of part-character analysis part-drabble fics(?) That really dive into the perspectives and nuances of the characters, as well as address the issues that come up with issues like your mom deciding to bounce and re-marry… while both her children are still clearly wrestling with the grief of their fathers’ death (and one of them maybe or maybe not blaming himself for their death). Quite the intriguing read all around! The dichotomy was just lovely.

And oh yes. Yes yes YES! Dragon parents for the absolute W I N!!! Dude, dragons are the absolute coolest fantasy creatures, it ain't even up for debate. And dragon babies going through their growing pains ;-;Since dragons are reptilian, do you think they shed their skin like irl reptiles do? I imagine it'd be as painless as the horn shedding (I can't get the image of somebody witnessing that for the first time- maybe while giving the lil' guys™️ headsets and unintentionally brushing up against a horn- and just fucking FAINTING on the spot from sheer shock).

Oh oh, imagine dragon parents waking up (or getting woken up) to their dragon kiddies teething on their horns of tail, they're a tiny bit annoyed by it, but also find it really cute, so they decide to be wilfully ignorant for that moment.

Oh oh oh, you know how often in fantasy settings, how dragons tend to have "hords" of valuable items (most often loads and loads of prescious metals and gems… which would be oddly fitting for Zhongli, in spite of his horrible financial skills lol). Imagine the Dragon kiddos having their own little hords, but rather than gold and jewels and gems, they collect pretty looking rocks, feathers, sea shells (from visits to the beach with papa dragoon)... and maaaaybe some gold/mora/credits that they just so happened to find strewn around the streets.

hi lovely hello!!!! i'm sorry that this response is a little late but i am here to reply now ajskahahf <3

that's why i love having those kinds of discussions! it really creates a good opportunity to exchange thoughts and ideas about how such a specific scenario might affect each child differently. there is a ton of nuance in issues like that. i personally cannot sympathize with faranak. i don't like her. i don't care if she turns out to be genuinely sweet like kaveh. i do not like her whatsoever and i don't think her actions are justifiable. but from a writer's pov, it is... a lot more nuanced than that. and that's why i find such discussions to be really fun and enjoyable!

YESSSS DRAGON PARENTS...... pleasejshssng...... that is such a good question though! i feel like they would shed. or maybe some specific types of dragons would shed. but if they did shed...... imagine them taking little baths with warm water to help make it easier... i feel like that could be very soothing and comforting, especially if the dragon has a friend helping (because sheds have been known to become stuck sometimes, so i imagine it would be helpful to have someone gently hold on to the skin. i am planning on getting a snake soon so i have a handful of random bits of information related to this kind of thing stored in my brain!). i definitely agree that it's painless, though. AND THE HORN SHEDDING THING LMAO I LOVE THAT fucking PASSING OUT because the poor victim--who is presumably not a dragon of any kind--is just in pure shock

PLEASE teething on their horns and tail... i imagine it would be a little uncomfortable, but it's just very cute because this baby has the most innocent look in their lil eyes. and dragon parent also happens to know that it's probably helping relieve some of the pressure caused by their teeth coming in, so... they just deal with the slight discomfort it causes. maybe they also gently chide their kid later, but it's not severe punishment or anything.

YOU KNOW. AS SOMEONE WHO HAS A LITTLE HOARD OF GEMS AND MINERALS... i like this idea. i grew up collecting seashells and pretty rocks and honestly it's such a cute idea that the dragon children would do something similar. also you're so right about zhongli AJSHAKFHSNZG

#aphelion replies: 🐉 anon 🌸

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wolfpants · 2 years

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Hello beaut! I'm a really big fan of your writing. I'm reading Pages of You for the second time and just loving it so much. Your fics are worlds I want to stay in and I find them really comforting and safe, especially during this unsettling time.

I know this is a bit of an annoying / tricky question for writers to answer, but I wondered if you could talk a bit about where you get your ideas from? Do they sort of fall into your head or do you work them out for a while? How do you know which idea is the one you want to go ahead with? Do you have lots of different fics on the go or do you just focus on one?

I've always wanted to have a go at writing but I get overwhelmed by all the ideas I have and I never know which one I should go with. If I do sit down to write one, I get really into it for a few days and then it sort of fizzles out, and I move on to something else so I never complete anything!

Hello sweet anon! What a lovely message to recieve, thank you so much for your kind words!

Not an annoying question at all. But hopefully my reply isn't too disappointing!

My ideas come from loads of places. Real life, films, books, history, songs... I tend to grasp on to little nuggets of ideas in fleeting moments, and when I do, what works for me is writing them down. Even if it's just a few words on a notes app, which I then add to my WIP trello board if I think the idea has legs (and yes, I usually have 2+ things on the go at once!).

For example, I've been thinking a lot about a Quidditch/mystery fic lately that came out of watching the TV show Yellowjackets earlier this year. Back then, I jotted it down and let it marinate for a while, because I knew I had a bunch of other things I needed to focus on - fests, gift fics, another long fic I've been planning for a while - so I only came back to it yesterday to flesh it out a little more after watching another film that got the little cogs in my brain whirring.

I think it's absolutely fine to jot down an initial idea then come back to it later - you might have more to add to it after an experience or a conversation, or after reading a good book or article or watching something inspiring, and this way you can watch it grow like a plant and evolve. That method works for me for my longer projects.

For my shorter things, I definitely start by thinking of all of the different 'ingredients' of a fic before I start baking it:

the simple outline or perhaps just the context of where the characters got to be where they are the moment the fic begins (as I tend to 'open' my stories with action),

the atmosphere (this is a huge thing for me in my writing - I like writing that evokes feeling, that incorporates the senses through setting and environment),

whose POV I want to focus on and how they are feeling and how they got to where they are feeling (you've probably noticed that I pull in a lot of memory in my writing, I like to layer memory with present action),

and then I usually think about the end point/conclusion to the story and work my way backwards from there.

I'm not a professional writer by any means, I don't read many, if at all, writing tips literature or use that many tools to help with my writing as sometimes I can feel they hold me back rather than help me (disclaimer: this is just my way of working, and won't work for everyone!). I just follow my emotions when I write and often that leads to, some amount of, success. I feel deep empathy with my characters and just let that run through me.

I think it's really important to also remember that you need to love something in order to get it done (or at least get it done to a standard that you're going to be satisfied with). Pages of You was hard for me in places to get through, don't get me wrong (100k is a lot of work), but I was very in Harry's head the entire time I wrote it and I was in love with his point of view of the world, of his way moving through and navigating the landscape I'd created for him (queer London in the 80s). Originally, I thought about a multiple POV story and was going to write Draco's POV too, but as I got started I realised I just didn't want to leave Harry. And I loved falling in love with Draco from Harry's POV too.

So if you're struggling to complete something, perhaps ask yourself if you should be coming at it from an angle that makes more sense to you, that you love: a POV change? A setting change? Maybe even a ship change? Even something like a tense change! Experiment! There's genuinely no rule book here.

Good luck with your writing, I think the main thing is to just start, to enjoy yourself, and to give yourself grace and a break when you struggle. You will get there. I believe in you.

#wow sorry that was a long reply #ask #anon #writing #pages of you #fanfic #fanfic advice #fic #fanfiction #on writing

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shepherds-of-haven · 2 years

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I saw a post about how you used to hate second person, and that got me wondering how you felt about other narrative POVs. the patreon short stories are in a restricted 3rd person, with the exception of some kind of virus, which is epistolary so it basically has to be in first person. and WHABH is in third person. is there a reason why you don't use first person as much?

All of my favorite books growing up were written in either limited or omniscient third-person, so I think it's just naturally the POV I gravitate towards the most! I don't tend to personally like writing in first-person simply because I find it too limiting: it's hard for me to naturally introduce world-building details or exposition while in the perspective of someone who's lived in that world all of their life (because I, throughout the course of my everyday life, am not thinking something like, "I head downstairs and root around for breakfast, finding one last banana in the fruit bowl. Bananas are generally yellow fruit with a thick peel imported from South America, but this one is from Florida, a neighboring state, and therefore a little more green."). It's like, why is the character thinking that? Who are they explaining that to, because surely it can't be for the benefit of themself? It just doesn't feel natural for an inhabitant of that world taking time out of their day to think about or explain how things in that world work, and as someone who generally writes fantasy or science fiction worlds that need a lot of explanation, it's just not a mode that I'm naturally comfortable with. (I only get away with it in Some Kind of Virus because, as an epistolary to someone in an imagined far future, Brightburner has to explain things that they presume won't make sense to a future reader.)

I also find first-person more limiting when it comes to the personalities and psychologies of other characters as well as the larger plot: you're restricted to the perceptions of the narrator, which may or may not be accurate, so you're often having to deal with a meta narrative (the larger world and story at play that the narrator may not be aware of how they fit into) as well as the direct perceptions of the main character themself. Other characters might have histories, secrets, or mannerisms that they would never explicitly state or explain to someone else (like the main character), but which would be important for the reader's understanding of their characters or the larger story. A character who seems exclusively silent and surly with a main character might be completely different to their family or lover behind closed doors, which is an important character detail that the narrator might never get the chance to witness or find out for themselves (but which would be very easy to allude to in third-person POV). It might be unrealistic for a self-professed oblivious or obtuse thirteen-year-old main character (like a Caine) to perceive the subtle love triangle or professional passive aggression between other adult characters in a scene, or to realistically have the knowledge to keep up with some really complex political situation going on. Etc., etc. I think first-person necessarily makes the main character the central focus of the story, almost to an exclusion of everything else, and I like floating around with large casts and their dynamics as well as larger plots that might be taking place in multiple places or timelines, rather than staying fixed with just one limited point-of-view, realm of experience, and state of mind--at least more often than not.

The latter part is something I also sometimes struggle with in second-person: knowing the Shepherds so well means I often wish I could relay their thoughts or off-screen actions more directly, but have to rely on the perceptiveness and guesswork of the MC rather than stating it outright! (For example, MC might notice if Blade clenches his fists in a scene, but a first-person or second-person POV can only guess or interpret what that action means, using the MC's particular understanding and realm of experience, whereas sometimes I long to simply state it outright as a third-person narrator--especially since Blade's obviously not going to be forthcoming about it to anyone!) There are just a lot of layers involved, so I tend to prefer the larger freedom of third-person POV more!

Also, there's this whole thing with narrative distance and first-person past POV that I don't need to get into in detail--but in short, first-person limited stories told in the past tense always somewhat spoil whether the narrator lives or dies, which is a consideration that third-person stories don't really have to contend with. In LOTR, when you read about Frodo leaving the Shire in third-person, you're like "Damn, that dude could legitimately die at the end of this trilogy!" There's a certain amount of mystery and suspense there. But when you're reading about Katniss's first-person past perspective in the Hunger Games, as in, "I drew my bow and fired at so-and-so," you already know she's going to live at the end of the series, because otherwise how would she be telling you the story, or writing it all down for posterity? There are ways to get around this--epistolary narratives can cut off mid-way, and obviously you don't know what happens to the narrator after the story ends, but you do know that the Hunger Games didn't kill her, and that she survived the events of the story long enough to tell the whole tale. This is basically a clumsy way of saying that first-person POVs introduce the question of where the narrator is in time, in relation to the story (are they telling it six months after its events? four years? what prompted them to start telling the story, and to whom and for what purpose?) and exactly what they're choosing to include or omit in the story itself. If they have the benefit of retrospection and hindsight, that means the details they choose to share, highlight, or deflect are very deliberate, and at some point you have to wonder why they're keeping the reader in the dark about certain things if they (having already experienced the entirety of the events) already know what truly happened and why.

It's just a lot of different layers that I find get circumvented in third-person limited or omniscient, so that's why I prefer other POVs over first-person! That isn't to demean first-person narratives at all--I think first-person narratives can be much more difficult and complex to pull off well because of all of those considerations--but it's just not something I personally read or write a lot!

Thanks for your question, and I hope that makes sense!

#me #personal #writing #first-person POV #POV

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thezanyarthropleura · 1 year

Text

Statistical Analysis for Fun

This is entirely self-indulgent, so feel free to scroll past in whatever tag you found this in, but I made some pretty graphs about my fic if you want to look at them or, if so inclined, take notes and do something similar for your own work, because this was actually really neat and potentially helpful to calculate and plot out visually.

Most of what you are about to see is based on the premise that Gamera vs. the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a story with multiple character POVs. The data were collected by finding the word count for each line-break-separated section of the fic and adding them up according to the characters they belong to. This is not necessarily an accurate representation of each character’s actual presence and plot importance, as characters may still get significant page-time while the narration is following another, but it more-or-less represents a bare minimum of how much each character is in the story.

I’ll further note that these data were calculated using the original versions of the chapters, not those posted publicly on AO3, and may vary slightly from the AO3 word count because, when posting, I tend to do minor cleanup things like reword sentences so a paragraph doesn’t have a single word on the last line. There is an additional margin of error of 27 words, as when I added up each character’s individual word count and compared that to what I calculated by adding up the individual chapter word counts, there were 27 words missing and I don’t know where they went. This is still smaller than the smallest data value (42).

So, here are those character word counts, compared:

Gamera’s point of view is a special case, as all of these 12,157 words are from one extended sequence in Chapter 5. Moving next down the line, we immediately see that apparently I just really like Donatello... which I guess shouldn’t by surprising considering I made a post called Statistical Analysis for Fun. Donnie gets a lot of his word count from Chapter 3, where he does most of the actual work during the underground city expedition.

In the next five spaces, Karai, Raphael, and Baxter Stockman are all characters whose scenes early on are kept brief, mostly because I didn’t want this story to get too dark and depressing, but they all become much more directly present in the chaotic grand finale of Chapter 6, which grants them most of their points here. Ayana and Asagi, in contrast, are spaced more evenly throughout, being the major perspective characters for their protagonist groups and having a lot of important thoughts about their imminent or ongoing reunion.

Then we have Mai, which is kind of surprising, since she’s one of only two characters on this list not involved in the main action set in New York. She stays in Japan, and only gets two scenes in the whole fic - one in Chapter 2 and one in the epilogue. She does get very existential and has a long-winded internal monologue, so that probably contributes.

Mikey and Leo are in the middle, and it’s not that Mikey is less important so much as a lot of his scenes go to Donnie, likewise to some extent for Leo and Raph. Being honest, Leo is probably my weakest turtle, as a lot of what I’ve written for him feels like rehashed ideas from canon and his own personal story is minimal compared to the other three, but one thing I wanted to make sure I did was have him eventually participate in banter and get a few moments to just goof off, which is something I love about the early seasons of 2003.

...I was not expecting Traximus’s ending cameo to score this high.

Nor was I expecting Yukino to have so few perspective scenes, but I guess this is a case of Asagi getting the narration more often than not. In reality, they’re always in scenes as a pair and have about the exact same real page-time. And if you add the 4,933 words from the prequel short, then Yukino has 6,678 words and gets 4th place, between Karai and Raph.

For similar don’t-make-it-too-dark reasons, the only time the Shredder gets perspective time is when something about the other character in the scene needs to be hidden from the audience. Even beyond that, he has very little page-time overall with most of it being during the Chapter 6 fight scene.

Of the last five, Shinigami is the only real surprise, for how important and present her character is, but I tend to default to other characters (mostly Ayana and Karai) for her scenes. Not only does Shini have an aura of mystery that makes her perspective mostly just a guess, she’s bonded to Gamera for Chapters 4-6, and how that situation looks to the person bonded isn’t really explored at all by the movies. Sydney, April, and Casey are just in the fic for less time, and have fewer opportunities for perspective sections. And then we have a singular mouser robot, which gets one forty-two word paragraph in Chapter 5 to foreshadow Stockman’s knowledge in Chapter 6.

Moving on, we have what I like to call the “What is this Story About?” graph, and no, this is not new data, this is just the characters’ word counts rearranged into categories:

This is mainly the result of me wondering how fics’ content is interpreted when there are tagged ships, or in this case, when there are tagged ships and also the title refers to characters who are not in the tagged ships. In all honesty, most of what I write is going to have lesbians in it, because that’s what I don’t usually get from canon, and whether you call it f/f or wlw, it’s underrepresented even in most fandoms. It’s basically a required condition for me to actually commit to writing something, but it won’t necessarily be the only thing in the story because, if that was all I was looking to write, I’m sure I could find a more popular fandom to do it in. Instead, here I am necromancering TMNT characters from 6-20 years ago and Gamera characters from 17-28 years ago.

I’m actually surprised I wrote so much of the turtles. In the beginning, I felt like it was going outside my usual comfort zone to write them as main characters, but what I now feel like I’ve discovered is that the turtles are just one of those big, fictional exceptions, where they share experiences with just about anyone who writes fanfic for any reason. The LGBT+ community is only one of the many things for which they work well as a metaphor, and they’re really the best kind of superheroes, often capable of being fun, compassionate, and upbeat in spite of the shocking darkness of the villains and the world they’re presented with. Combined with Gamera, just under half the fic is written from the POV of one of the title characters, which I think, averaging with what Gamera’s screentime usually is compared to the movie as a whole, more than fulfills what the title promises.

The shipping category also includes the time spent developing the characters in the pairings, not just the actually shippy scenes, which are there but kinda spaced around the story like romance usually is in a movie or show (and doesn’t get past kissing, there’s no smut in this, the M rating is for subject matter). Of course there’d be nothing wrong with writing a story just about Karai/Shini and Asagi/Yukino with the turtles in the background, but since I haven’t seen anything like this done before, I decided to specifically script this like it was a big deal crossover movie, with maybe just a little more focus on the leading women than any real crossover movie would probably have.

And speaking of which, we also have Ayana, of the redemption arc category, despite it being arguable whether she actually needs one or has in fact gone through it prior to the main events of this story. She’s not in a ship, at least not a main or endgame pairing that we know of (though she does get one of the kisses...) and rather, I just really wanted to write about her and kinda set her up for her own possible later adventures. Stockman is here too, because what he goes through in canon deserves a portrayal where it’s not treated like a joke, and I really, really wanted to put him and 2012 Karai in the same universe so they could basically keep each other sane (why has no one else done this?).

Next up, let’s see exactly (well, subjectively) how much of this fic is Gamera and how much of it is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:

...not bad. I was aiming for a sort of even-ish split, but I acknowledge TMNT by nature comes with more major characters, and if anything, the most obvious path would be for them to completely overtake the role of the ‘humans’ in this and be our perspective characters for the entirety of the story.

Sadly I don’t think a lot of people would even consider bringing the human characters from a kaiju film franchise into a crossover, or really consider them major characters at all. But these days I’m at a point where I enjoy these films, at least the classic ones, for the human stories just as much as for the monsters themselves - there’s something about them that can often feel many times more progressive than modern Hollywood films, and a whole lot of them just feel genuine, from the heart, in ways that are hard to explain but always keep me coming back to watch them again and again.

Taking the Gamera elements of this fic by themselves, it’s a tale about Asagi, now in her mid-twenties and in a secret relationship with her best friend, not only finding out Gamera has returned but that Ayana is also back in the picture and has something do with it. It’s a tale about Ayana paying Gamera’s unexpected kindness forward, dreading a reunion with Asagi only to discover she’s forgiven and accepted, and figuring out what she’s supposed to do next. It’s a tale about Mai, realizing she now has the rest of her life in front of her, meeting all the women who’ve stood in her shoes before. And it’s a tale about Gamera, at war with himself between his purpose and his compassion in a world that fights him on both fronts, and his reunion with Asagi that provides the needed reminder that he is truly making a difference.

Taking the Ninja Turtles elements of this fic by themselves, it’s a tale about a family on the verge of falling apart - Leo withdrawing into his sense of responsibility to the point of obsession, Raph drowning in anger out of a misguided attempt to protect his brothers from the truth, and Mikey and Donnie beginning a slow process of healing by bonding over a new and exciting mystery. It’s a tale about Karai and Baxter Stockman finding, if not the mental clarity to save themselves, the innate drive to save each other. And it’s a tale about Shinigami, with the longtime support and encouragement to take initiative, still struggling with her own protective anger to the point of near-disaster and ultimately seeking out help from those she once thought of merely as being in her way.

For the next graph (because that’s what this post is about, if you forgot, I know it went deep there for a minute), I took that previous one and split it up a little further, to the best that the available data can really represent:

This graph is a little misleading, because the “Gamera” and “Turtles” sections can’t really be worked out by word count, so we’re looking mainly at the top two slices and the two in the bottom right, which split up all the non-turtle characters according to the iterations of each fandom they hail from. For TMNT we have Karai, Shinigami, and Shredder from the 2012 CGI animated series totaling to about even, word-count-wise, against Stockman, Sydney, April, Casey, and Traximus from the 2003 2D animated show. For Gamera we have Asagi, Yukino, and Ayana from the 90s Heisei trilogy outweighing Mai, the one character from 2006′s standalone Gamera the Brave.

There’s a lot going on beyond the characters, however - we have other parts of the story like the setting, where most of the TMNT aspects are based on the 2003-verse and most of the Gamera apsects have to do with the smallest slice here, Gamera the Brave (those two being more or less the present-day anchors, as they’re contemporaries of each other). And then we have the five turtles themselves, which are actually composite characters, to a greater extent than any of the others featured here.

For the turtles, they’re still mostly based around the 2003 versions, as those are the versions I’m most familiar with, but I definitely did let some 2012 get in there while writing, and if you really wanted to read them with the 2012 voices (or probably the voices of some other iterations, like the various movie turtles, as well) I think it would mostly work. Perhaps it’s my own bias, but I always feel like it’s the Donnies that are most different, and in particular, this Donnie has a physics-overlay moment during the underground city fight and a bit of a science rant in the epilogue that I felt were leaning a little in the 2012 direction (and of course, I couldn’t resist just one “Fibonnaci!” when they’re all using the Rise powers). Raph in this story was also Nightwatcher like his 2007 version - and yes, Mikey was also Turtle Titan, in the same universe, which is another thing I’m genuinely shocked I don’t see done more often.

Lastly, this story establishes Gamera as the same character across the events of all his films, occasionally reincarnating into a new body. He’s now a more grown-up Gamera the Brave Toto, and appearance-wise, he’s described and depicted similarly to Guardian of the Universe Gamera with a few of Toto’s characteristics, but not only does he have aspects of both of these Gameras character-wise, he also has aspects of Showa Gamera, which become prominent with some of the moves he uses during the fight scenes. A dreamlike sequence involving memories from Gamera’s past includes references to Showa, Heisei, and the Brave, all as one long history that goes into how I’ve interpreted Gamera as a character.

So anyway, that’s pretty much it for now. Another chart I couldn’t find a good place to put is one that compares the chapter lengths, and aside from providing some context for the word counts of characters I’ve described according to chapter prominence, all it really says is that I can’t keep my chapter lengths consistent, but I already knew that:

Yes, the epilogue is longer than Chapter 2. And I believe this final chart should be self-explanatory:

#gamera #tmnt #tmnt 2003 #tmnt 2012 #statistics #fanfic stats #pie chart #gamera march #gamera april

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potteresque-ire · 3 years

Note

Can you talk more about the usage of the word "wife" to talk about men in the BL context? I've noticed it in BJYX (particularly with GG), in the (English translations) of MDZS, and then it came up in your recent posts about Danmei-101 (which were super helpful btw) with articles connecting the "little fresh meat" type to fans calling an actor "wife." My initial reaction as a westerner is like "this is very problematic," but I think I'm missing a lot of language/cultural context. Any thoughts?

Hello! First of all, for those who’re interested, here’s a link to the referred posts. Under the cut is arguably the 4th post of the series. As usual, I apologise for the length!

(Topics: seme and uke; more about “leftover women”; roster of feminisation terms; Daji, Bao Si & the origin of BJYX; roster of beautiful, ancient Chinese men; Chairman Mao (not part of the roster) ...)

[TW: feminisation of men]

In the traditional BL characterisation, the M/M (double male) lead pairing is essentially a cis-het relationship in disguise, in which one of the M leads is viewed as the “wife” by the creator and audience. This lead often possesses some of the features of the traditional, stereotypical female, but retaining his male appearance.

In BL terms, the “wife” is the “uke”. “Seme” and “uke” are the respective roles taken by the two male leads, and designated by the creator of the material. Literally, “seme” (攻め) means the dominant, the attacking / aggressive partner in the relationship and “uke” (受け), the passive / recipient (of actions) partner who tends to follow the seme’s lead. The terms themselves do not have any sexual / gender context. However, as male and female are viewed as aggressive and passive by their traditional social roles, and the attacker and recipient by their traditional sexual roles respectively, BL fandoms have long assigned uke, the passive, sexual “bottom”, as the “woman”, the “wife”.

Danmei has kept this “semi” and uke” tradition from BL, taking the kanji of the Japanese terms for designation ~ 攻 (”attack” is therefore the “husband”, and 受 (”receive”), the “wife”. The designations are often specified in the introduction / summary of Danmei works as warning / enticement. For MDZS, for example, MXTX wrote:

高貴冷豔悶騷攻 × 邪魅狂狷風騷受

高貴冷豔悶騷攻 = noble, coolly beautiful and boring seme (referring to LWJ) 邪魅狂狷風騷受 = devilishly charming, wild, and flirty uke (referring to WWX)

The traditional, stereotypical female traits given to the “uke”, the “wife” in Danmei and their associated fanworks range from their personality to behaviour to even biological functions. Those who have read the sex scenes in MDZS may be aware of their lack of mention of lube, while WWX was written as getting (very) wet from fluids from his colon (腸道) ~ implying that his colon, much like a vagina, was supplying the necessarily lubrication for sex. This is obviously biologically inaccurate; however, Danmei is exempt from having to be realistic by its original Tanbi definition. The genre’s primary audience is cishet females, and sex scenes such as this one aren’t aiming for realism. Rather, the primary goal of these sex scenes is to generate fantasy, and the purpose of the biologically female functions in one of the leads (WWX) is to ease the readers into imagining themselves as the one engaging in the sex.

Indeed, these practices of assigning as males and female the M/M sexual top and bottom, of emphasising of who is the top and who is the bottom, have been falling out of favour in Western slash fandoms ~ I joined fandom about 15 years ago, and top and bottom designations in slash pairings (and fights about them) were much more common than it is now. The generally more open, more progressive environments in which Western fandomers are immersed in probably have something to do with it: they transfer their RL knowledge, their views on biology, on different social into their fandom works and discourses.

I’d venture to say this: in the English-speaking fandoms, fandom values and mainstream values are converging. “Cancel culture” reflects an attempt to enforce RL values in the fictional worlds in fandom. Fandom culture is slowly, but surely, leaving its subculture status and becoming part of mainstream culture.

I’d hesitate to call c-Danmei fandoms backward compared to Western slash for this reason. There’s little hope for Danmei to converge with China’s mainstream culture in the short term ~ the necessity of replacing Danmei with Dangai in visual media already reflects that. Danmei is and will likely remain subculture in the foreseeable future, and subcultures, at heart, are protests against the mainstream. Unless China and the West define “mainstream” very similarly (and they don’t), it is difficult to compare the “progressiveness”—and its dark side, the “problematic-ness”—of the protests, which are shaped by what they’re protesting against. The “shaper” in this scenario, the mainstream values and culture, are also far more forceful under China’s authoritarian government than they are in the free(-er) world.

Danmei, therefore, necessarily takes on a different form in China than BL or slash outside China. As a creative pursuit, it serves to fulfil psychological needs that are reflective of its surrounding culture and sociopolitical environment. The genre’s “problematic” / out of place aspects in the eyes of Western fandoms are therefore, like all other aspects of the genre, tailor-made by its millions of fans to be comforting / cathartic for the unique culture and sociopolitical background it and they find themselves in.

I briefly detoured to talk about the Chinese government’s campaign to pressure young, educated Chinese women into matrimony and motherhood in the post for this reason, as it is an example of how, despite Western fandoms’ progressiveness, they may be inadequate, distant for c-Danmei fans. Again, this article is a short and a ... morbidly-entertaining read on what has been said about China’s “leftover women” (剩女) — women who are unmarried and over 27-years-old). I talked about it, because “Women should enter marriage and parenthood in their late 20s” may no longer a mainstream value in many Western societies, but where it still is, it exerts a strong influence on how women view romance, and by extension, how they interact with romantic fiction, including Danmei.

In China, this influence is made even stronger by the fact that Chinese tradition places a strong emphasis on education and holds a conservative attitude towards romance and sex. Dating while studying therefore remains discouraged in many Chinese families. University-educated Chinese women therefore have an extremely short time frame — between graduation (~23 years old) and their 27th birthday — to find “the right one” and get married, before they are labelled as “leftovers” and deemed undesirable. (Saving) face being an important aspect in Chinese culture introduces yet another layer of pressure: traditionally, women who don’t get married by the age agreed by social norms have been viewed as failures of upbringing, in that the unmarried women’s parents not having taught/trained their daughters well. Filial, unmarried women therefore try to get married “on time” just to avoid bringing shame to their family.

The outcome is this: despite the strong women characters we may see in Chinese visual media, many young Chinese women nowadays do not expect themselves to be able to marry for love. Below, I offer a “book jacket summary” of a popular internet novel in China, which shows how the associated despair also affects cis-het fictional romance. Book reviews praise this novel for being “boring”: the man and woman leads are both common working class people, the “you-and-I”’s; the mundaneness of them trying build their careers and their love life is lit by one shining light: he loves her and she loves him.

Written in her POV, this summary reflects, perhaps, the disquiet felt by many contemporary Chinese women university graduates:

曾經以為，自己這輩子都等不到了—— 世界這麼大，我又走得這麼慢，要是遇不到良人要怎麼辦？早過了「全球三十幾億男人，中國七億男人，天涯何處無芳草」的猖狂歲月，越來越清楚，循規蹈矩的生活中，我們能熟悉進而深交的異性實在太有限了，有限到我都做好了「接受他人的牽線，找個適合的男人慢慢煨熟，再平淡無奇地進入婚姻」的準備，卻在生命意外的拐彎處迎來自己的另一半。

I once thought, my wait will never come to fruition for the rest of my life — the world is so big, I’m so slow in treading it, what if I’ll never meet the one? I’ve long passed the wild days of thinking “3 billion men exist on Earth, 0.7 of which are Chinese. There is plenty more fish in the sea.” I’m seeing, with increasing clarity, that in our disciplined lives, the number of opposite-sex we can get to know, and get to know well, is so limited. It’s so limited that I’m prepared to accept someone’s matchmaking, find a suitable man and slowly, slowly, warm up to him, and then, to enter marriage with without excitement, without wonder. But then, an accidental turn in my life welcomes in my other half.

— Oath of Love (餘生，請多指教) (Yes, this is the novel Gg’d upcoming drama is based on.)

Heteronormativity is, of course, very real in China. However, that hasn’t exempted Chinese women, even its large cis-het population, from having their freedom to pursue their true love taken away from them. Even for cis-het relationships, being able to marry for love has become a fantasy —a fantasy scorned by the state. Remember this quote from Article O3 in the original post?

耽改故事大多远离现实，有些年轻受众却将其与生活混为一谈，产生不以结婚和繁衍为目的才是真爱之类的偏颇认知。

Most Dangai stories are far removed from reality; some young audience nonetheless mix them up with real life, develop biased understanding such as “only love that doesn’t treat matrimony and reproduction as destinations is true love”.

I didn’t focus on it in the previous posts, in an effort to keep the discussion on topic. But why did the op-ed piece pick this as an example of fantasy-that-shouldn’t-be-mixed-up-with-real-life, in the middle of a discussion about perceived femininity of men that actually has little to do with matrimony and reproduction?

Because the whole point behind the state’s “leftover women” campaign is precisely to get women to treat matrimony and reproduction as destinations, not beautiful sceneries that happen along the way. And they’re the state’s destination as more children = higher birth rate that leads to higher future productivity. The article is therefore calling out Danmei for challenging this “mainstream value”.

Therefore, while the statement True love doesn’t treat matrimony and reproduction as destinations may be trite for many of us while it may be a point few, if any, English-speaking fandoms may pay attention to, to the mainstream culture Danmei lives in, to the mainstream values dictated by the state, it is borderline subversive.

As much as Danmei may appear “tame” for its emphasis on beauty and romance, for it to have stood for so long, so firmly against China’s (very) forceful mainstream culture, the genre is also fundamentally rebellious. Remember: Danmei has little hope of converging with China’s mainstream unless it “sells its soul” and removes its homoerotic elements.

With rebelliousness, too, comes a bit of tongue-in-cheek.

And so, when c-Danmei fans, most of whom being cishet women who interact with the genre by its traditional BL definition, call one of the leads 老婆 (wife), it can and often take on a different flavour. As said before, it can be less about feminizing the lead than about identifying with the lead. The nickname 老婆 (wife) can be less about being disrespectful and more about humorously expressing an aspiration—the aspiration to have a husband who truly loves them, who they do want to get married and have babies with but out of freedom and not obligation.

Admittedly, I had been confused, and bothered by these “can-be”s myself. Just because there are alternate reasons for the feminisation to happen doesn’t mean the feminisation itself is excusable. But why the feminisation of M/M leads doesn’t sound as awful to me in Chinese as in English? How can calling a self-identified man 老婆 (wife) get away with not sounding being predominantly disrespectful to my ears, when I would’ve frowned at the same thing said in my vicinity in English?

I had an old hypothesis: when I was little, it was common to hear people calling acquaintances in Chinese by their unflattering traits: “Deaf-Eared Chan” (Mr Chan, who’s deaf), “Fat Old Woman Lan” (Ah-Lan, who’s an overweight woman) etc—and the acquaintances were perfectly at ease with such identifications, even introducing themselves to strangers that way. Comparatively speaking then, 老婆 (wife) is harmless, even endearing.

老婆, which literally means “old old-lady” (implying wife = the woman one gets old with), first became popularised as a colloquial, casual way of calling “wife” in Hong Kong and its Cantonese dialect, despite the term itself being about 1,500 years old. As older generations of Chinese were usually very shy about talking about their love lives, those who couldn’t help themselves and regularly spoke of their 老婆 tended to be those who loved their wives in my memory. 老婆, as a term, probably became endearing to me that way.

Maybe this is why the feminisation of M/M leads didn’t sound so bad to me?

This hypothesis was inadequate, however. This custom of identifying people by their (unflattering) traits has been diminishing in Hong Kong and China, for similar reasons it has been considered inappropriate in the West.

Also, 老婆 (wife) is not the only term used for / associated with feminisation. I’ve tried to limit the discussion to Danmei, the fictional genre; now, I’ll jump to its associated RPS genre, and specifically, the YiZhan fandoms. The purpose of this jump: with real people involved, feminisation’s effect is potentially more harmful, more acute. Easier to feel.

YiZhan fans predominantly entered the fandoms through The Untamed, and they’ve also transferred Danmei’s “seme”/“uke” customs into YiZhan. There are, therefore, three c-YiZhan fandoms:

博君一肖 (BJYX): seme Dd, uke Gg 戰山為王 (ZSWW): seme Gg, uke Dd 連瑣反應 (LSFY): riba Gg and Dd. Riba = “reversible”, and unlike “seme” and “uke”, is a frequently-used term in the Japanese gay community.

BJYX is by far the largest of the three, likely due to Gg having played WWX, the “uke” in MDZS / TU. I’ll therefore focus on this fandom, ie. Gg is the “uke”, the “wife”.

For Gg alone, I’ve seen him being also referred to by YiZhan fans as (and this is far from a complete list):

* 姐姐 (sister) * 嫂子 (wife of elder brother; Dd being the elder brother implied) * 妃妃 (based on the very first YiZhan CP name, 太妃糖 Toffee Candy, a portmanteau of sorts from Dd being the 太子 “prince” of his management company and Gg being the prince’s wife, 太子妃. 糖 = “candy”. 太妃 sounds like toffee in English and has been used as the latter’s Chinese translation.) * 美人 (beauty, as in 肖美人 “Beauty Xiao”) * Daji 妲己 (as in 肖妲己, “Daji Xiao”).

The last one needs historical context, which will also become important for explaining the new hypothesis I have.

Daji was a consort who lived three thousand years ago, whose beauty was blamed for the fall of the Shang dynasty. Gg (and men sharing similar traits, who are exceptionally rare) has been compared to Daji 妲己 for his alternatively innocent, alternatively seductive beauty ~ the kind of beauty that, in Chinese historical texts and folk lores, lead to the fall of kingdoms when possessed by the king’s beloved woman. This kind of “I-get-to-ruin-her-virginity”, “she’s a slut in MY bedroom” beauty is, of course, a stereotypical fantasy for many (cis-het) men, which included the authors of these historical texts and folklores. However, it also contained some truth: the purity / innocence, the image of a virgin, was required for an ancient woman to be chosen as a consort; the seduction, meanwhile, helped her to become the top consort, and monopolise the attention of kings and emperors who often had hundreds of wives ~ wives who often put each other in danger to eliminate competition.

Nowadays, women of tremendous beauty are still referred to by the Chinese idiom 傾國傾城, literally, ”falling countries, falling cities”. The beauty is also implied to be natural, expressed in a can’t-help-itself way, perhaps reflecting the fact that the ancient beauties on which this idiom has been used couldn’t possibly have plastic surgeries, and most of them didn’t meet a good end ~ that they had to pay a price for their beauty, and often, with their lowly status as women, as consorts, they didn’t get to choose whether they wanted to pay this price or not. This adjective is considered to be very flattering. Gg’s famous smile from the Thailand Fanmeet has been described, praised as 傾城一笑: “a smile that topples a city”.

I’m explaining Daji and 傾國傾城 because the Chinese idiom 博君一笑 “doing anything to get a smile from you”, from which the ship’s name BJYX 博君一肖 was derived (笑 and 肖 are both pronounced “xiao”), is connected to yet another of such dynasty-falling beauty, Bao Si 褒姒. Like Daji before her, Bao Si was blamed for the end of the Zhou Dynasty in 771 BC.

The legend went like this: Bao Si was melancholic, and to get her to smile, her king lit warning beacons and got his nobles to rush in from the nearby vassal states with their armies to come and rescue him, despite not being in actual danger. The nobles, in their haste, looked so frantic and dishevelled that Bao Si found it funny and smiled. Longing to see more of the smile of his favourite woman, the king would fool his nobles again and again, until his nobles no longer heeded the warning beacons when an actual rebellion came.

What the king did has been described as 博紅顏一笑, with 紅顏 (”red/flushed face”) meaning a beautiful woman, referring to Bao Si. Replace 紅顏 with the respectful “you”, 君, we get 博君一笑. If one searches the origin of the phrase 博 [fill_in_the_blank]一笑 online, Bao Si’s story shows up.

The “anything” in ”doing anything to get a smile from you” in 博君一笑, therefore, is not any favour, but something as momentous as giving away one’s own kingdom. c-turtles have remarked, to their amusement and admittedly mine, that “king”, in Chinese, is written as 王, which is Dd’s surname, and very occasionally, they jokingly compare him to the hopeless kings who’d give away everything for their love. Much like 傾國傾城 has become a flattering idiom despite the negative reputations of Daji and Bao Si for their “men-ruining ways”, 博君一笑 has become a flattering phrase, emphasising on the devotion and love rather than the ... stupidity behind the smile-inducing acts.

(Bao Si’s story, BTW, was a lie made up by historians who also lived later but also thousands of years ago, to absolve the uselessness of the king. Warning beacons didn’t exist at her time.)

Gg is arguably feminized even in his CP’s name. Gg’s feminisation is everywhere.

And here comes my confession time ~ I’ve been amused by most of the feminisation terms above. 肖妲己 (”Daji Xiao”) captures my imagination, and I remain quite partial to the CP name BJYX. Somehow, there’s something ... somewhat forgivable when the feminisation is based on Gg’s beauty, especially in the context of the historical Danmei / Dangai setting of MDZS/TU ~ something that, while doesn’t cancel, dampens the “problematic-ness” of the gender mis-identification.

What, exactly, is this something?

Here’s my new hypothesis, and hopefully I’ll manage to explain it well ~

The hypothesis is this: the unisex beauty standard for historical Chinese men and women, which is also breathtakingly similar to the modern beauty standard for Chinese women, makes feminisation in the context of Danmei (especially historical Danmei) flattering, and easier to accept.

What defined beauty in historical Chinese men? If I am to create a classically beautiful Chinese man for my new historical Danmei, how would I describe him based on what I’ve read, my cultural knowledge?

Here’s a list:

* Skin fair and smooth as white jade * Thin, even frail; narrow/slanted shoulders; tall * Dark irises and bright, starry eyes * Not too dense, neat eyebrows that are shaped like swords ~ pointed slightly upwards from the center towards the sides of the face * Depending on the dynasty, nice makeup.

Imagine these traits. How “macho” are they? How much do they fit the ideal Chinese masculine beauty advertised by Chinese government, which looks like below?

Propaganda poster, 1969. The caption says “Defeat Imperialist US! Defeat Social Imperialism!” The book’s name is “Quotations from Mao Zedong”. (Source)

Where did that list of traits I’ve written com from? Fair like jade, frail ... why are they so far from the ... “macho”ness of the men in the poster?

What has Chinese history said about its beautiful men?

Wei Jie (衛玠 286-312 BCE), one of the four most beautiful ancient Chinese men (古代四大美男) recorded in Chinese history famously passed away when fans of his beauty gathered and formed a wall around him, blocking his way. History recorded Wei as being frail with chronic illness, and was only 27 years old when he died. Arguably the first historical account of “crazy fans killing their idol”, this incident left the idiom 看殺衛玠 ~ “Wei Jie being watched to death.” ~ a not very “macho” way to die at all.

潘安 (Pan An; 247-300 BCE), another one of the four most beautiful ancient Chinese men, also had hoards of fangirls, who threw fruits and flowers at him whenever he ventured outside. The Chinese idiom 擲果盈車 “thrown fruit filling a cart” was based on Pan and ... his fandom, and denotes such scenarios of men being so beautiful that women openly displayed their affections for them.

Meanwhile, when Pan went out with his equally beautiful male friend, 夏侯湛 Xiahou Zhan, folks around them called them 連璧 ~ two connected pieces of perfect jade. Chinese Jade is white, smooth, faintly glowing in light, so delicate that it gives the impression of being somewhat transparent.

Aren’t Wei Jie and Pan An reminiscent of modern day Chinese idols, the “effeminate” “Little Fresh Meat”s (小鲜肉) so panned by Article O3? Their stories, BTW, also elucidated the historical reference in LWJ’s description of being jade-like in MDZS, and in WWX and LWJ being thrown pippas along the Gusu river bank.

Danmei, therefore, didn’t create a trend of androgynous beauty in men as much as it has borrowed the ancient, traditional definition of masculine Chinese beauty ~ the beauty that was more feminine than masculine by modern standards.

[Perhaps, CPs should be renamed 連璧 (”two connected pieces of perfect jade”) as a reminder of the aesthetics’ historical roots.]

Someone may exclaim now: But. But!! Yet another one of the four most beautiful ancient Chinese men, 高長恭 (Gao Changgong, 541-573 BCE), far better known by his title, 蘭陵王 (”the Prince of Lanling”), was a famous general. He had to be “macho”, right?

... As it turns out, not at all. Historical texts have described Gao as “貌柔心壮，音容兼美” (”soft in looks and strong at heart, beautiful face and voice”), “白美類婦人” (”fair and beautiful as a woman”), “貌若婦人” (”face like a woman”). Legends have it that The Prince of Lanling’s beauty was so soft, so lacking in authority that he had to wear a savage mask to get his soldiers to listen to his command (and win) on the battlefield (《樂府雜錄》: 以其顏貌無威，每入陣即著面具，後乃百戰百勝).

This should be emphasised: Gao’s explicitly feminine descriptions were recorded in historical texts as arguments *for* his beauty. Authors of these texts, therefore, didn’t view the feminisation as insult. In fact, they used the feminisation to drive the point home, to convince their readers that men like the Prince of Lanling were truly, absolutely good looking.

Being beautiful like a women was therefore high praise for men in, at least, significant periods in Chinese history ~ periods long and important enough for these records to survive until today. Beauty, and so it goes, had once been largely free of distinctions between the masculine and feminine.

One more example of an image of an ancient Chinese male beauty being similar to its female counterpart, because the history nerd in me finds this fun.

何晏 (He Yan, ?-249 BCE) lived in the Wei Jin era (between 2nd to 4th century), during which makeup was really en vogue. Known for his beauty, he was also famous for his love of grooming himself. The emperor, convinced that He Yan’s very fair skin was from the powder he was wearing, gave He Yan some very hot foods to eat in the middle of the summer. He Yan began to sweat, had to wipe himself with his sleeves and in the process, revealed to the emperor that his fair beauty was 100% natural ~ his skin glowed even more with the cosmetics removed (《世說新語·容止第十四》: 何平叔美姿儀，面至白。魏明帝疑其傅粉，正夏月，與熱湯餅。既啖，大汗出，以朱衣自拭，色轉皎然). His kick-cosmetics’-ass fairness won him the nickname 傅粉何郎 (”powder-wearing Mr He”).

Not only would He Yan very likely be mistaken as a woman if this scene is transferred to a modern setting, but this scene can very well fit inside a Danmei story of the 21st century and is very, very likely to get axed by the Chinese censorship board for its visualisation.

[Important observation from this anecdote: the emperor was totally into this trend too.]

The adjectives and phrases used above to describe these beautiful ancient Chinese men ~ 貌柔, 音容兼美, 白美, 美姿儀, 皎然 ~ have all become pretty much reserved for describing beauty in women nowadays. Beauty standards in ancient China were, as mentioned before, had gone through significantly long periods in which they were largely genderless. The character for beauty 美 (also in Danmei, 耽美) used to have little to no gender association. Free of gender associations as well were the names of many flowers. The characters for orchid (蘭) and lotus (蓮), for example, were commonly found in men’s names as late as the Republican era (early 20th century), but are now almost exclusively found in women’s names. Both orchid and lotus have historically been used to indicate 君子 (junzi, roughly, “gentlemen”), which have always been men. MDZS also has an example of a man named after a flower: Jin Ling’s courtesy name, given to him by WWX, was 如蘭 (”like an orchid”).

A related question may be this: why does ancient China associate beauty with fairness, with softness, with frailty? Likely, because Confucianist philosophy and customs put a heavy emphasis on scholarship ~ and scholars have mostly consisted of soft-spoken, not muscular, not working-under-the-sun type of men. More importantly, Confucianist scholars also occupied powerful government positions. Being, and looking like a Confucianist scholar was therefore associated with status. Indeed, it’s very difficult to look like jade when one was a farmer or a soldier, for example, who constantly had to toil under the sun, whose skin was constantly being dried and roughened by the elements. Having what are viewed as “macho” beauty traits as in the poster above ~ tanned skin, bulging muscles, bony structures (which also take away the jade’s smoothness) ~ were associated with hard labour, poverty and famine.

Along that line, 手無縛雞之力 (“hands without the strength to restrain a chicken”) has long been a phrase used to describe ancient scholars and students, and without scorn or derision. Love stories of old, which often centred around scholars were, accordingly, largely devoid of the plot lines of husbands physically protecting the wives, performing the equivalent of climbing up castle walls and fighting dragons etc. Instead, the faithful husbands wrote poems, combed their wife’s hair, traced their wife’s eyebrows with cosmetics (畫眉)...all activities that didn’t require much physical strength, and many of which are considered “feminine” nowadays.

Were there periods in Chinese history in which more ... sporty men and women were appreciated? Yes. the Tang dynasty, for example, and the Yuan and Qing dynasties. The Tang dynasty, as a very powerful, very open era in Chinese history, was known for its relations to the West (via the Silk Road). The Yuan and Qing dynasties, meanwhile, were established by Mongolians and Manchus respectively, who, as non-Han people, had not been under the influence of Confucian culture and grew up on horsebacks, rather than in schools.

The idea that beautiful Chinese men should have “macho” attributes was, therefore, largely a consequence of non-Han-Chinese influence, especially after early 20th century. That was when the characters for beauty (美), orchid (蘭), lotus (蓮) etc began their ... feminisation. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which started its reign of the country starting 1949, also has foreign roots, being a derivative of the Soviets, and its portrayal of ideal men has been based on the party’s ideology, painting them as members of the People’s Liberation Army (Chinese army) and its two major proletariat classes, farmers and industrial workers ~ all occupations that are “macho” in their aesthetics, but held at very poor esteem in ancient Chinese societies. All occupations that, to this day, may be hailed as noble by Chinese women, but not really deemed attractive by them.

Beauty, being an instinct, is perhaps much more resistant to propaganda.

If anything, the three terms Article O3 used to describe “effeminate” men ~ 奶油小生 “cream young men” (popularised in 1980s) , 花美男 “flowery beautiful men” (early 2000s), 小鲜肉 “little fresh meat” (coined in 2014 and still popular now) ~ only informs me how incredibly consistent the modern Chinese women’s view of ideal male beauty has been. It’s the same beauty the Chinese Communist Party has called feminine. It’s the same beauty found in Danmei. It’s the same beauty that, when witnessed in men in ancient China, was so revered that historians recorded it for their descendants to remember. It doesn’t mean there aren’t any women who appreciate the "macho” type ~ it’s just that, the appreciation for the non-macho type has never really gone out of fashion, never really changed. The only thing that is really changing is the name of the type, the name’s positive or negative connotations.

(Personally, I’m far more uncomfortable with the name “Little fresh meat” (小鲜肉) than 老婆 (wife). I find it much more insulting.)

Anyway, what I’d like to say is this: feminisation in Danmei ~ a genre that, by definition, is hyper-focused on aesthetics ~ may not be as "problematic” in Chinese as it is in English, because the Chinese tradition didn’t make that much of a differentiation between masculine and feminine beauty. Once again, this isn’t to say such mis-gendering isn’t disrespectful; it’s just that, perhaps, it is less disrespectful because Chinese still retains a cultural memory in which equating a beautiful man to a beautiful woman was the utmost flattery.

I must put a disclaimer here: I cannot vouch for this being true for the general Chinese population. This is something that is buried deep enough inside me that it took a lot of thought for me to tease out, to articulate. More importantly, while I grow up in a Chinese-speaking environment, I’ve never lived inside China. My history knowledge, while isn’t shabby, hasn’t been filtered through the state education system.

I’d also like to point out as well, along this line of thought, that in *certain* (definitely not all) aspects, Chinese society isn’t as sexist as the West. While historically, China has periods of extreme sexism against women, with the final dynasties of Ming and Qing being examples, I must (reluctantly) acknowledge Chairman Mao for significantly lifting the status of women during his rule. Here’s a famous quote of his from 1955:

婦女能頂半邊天 Women can lift half the skies

The first marriage code, passed in 1950, outlawed forced marriages, polygamy, and ensured equal rights between husband and wife. For the first time in centuries, women were encouraged to go outside of their homes and work. Men resisted at first, wanting to keep their wives at home; women who did work were judged poorly for their performance and given less than 50% of men’s wage, which further fuelled the men’s resistance. Mao said the above quote after a commune in Guizhou introduced the “same-work-same-wage” system to increase its productivity, and he asked for the same system to to be replicated across the country. (Source)

When Chairman Mao wanted something, it happened. Today, Chinese women’s contribution to the country’s GDP remains among the highest in the world. They make up more than half of the country’s top-scoring students. They’re the dominant gender in universities, in the ranks of local employees of international corporations in the Shanghai and Beijing central business districts—among the most sought after jobs in the country. While the inequality between men and women in the workplace is no where near wiped out — stories about women having to sleep with higher-ups to climb the career ladder, or even get their PhDs are not unheard of, and the central rulership of the Chinese Communist Party has been famously short of women — the leap in women’s rights has been significant over the past century, perhaps because of how little rights there had been before ~ at the start of the 20th century, most Chinese women from relatively well-to-do families still practised foot-binding, in which their feet were literally crushed during childhood in the name of beauty, of status symbol. They couldn’t even walk properly.

Perhaps, the contemporary Chinese women’s economic contribution makes the sexism they encounter in their lives, from the lack of reproductive rights to the “leftover women” label, even harder to swallow. It makes their fantasies fly to even higher, more defiant heights. The popularity of Dangai right now is pretty much driven by women, as acknowledged by Article O3. Young women, especially, female fans who people have dismissed as “immature”, “crazy”, are responsible for the threat the Chinese government is feeling now by the genre.

This is no small feat. While the Chinese government complains about the “effeminate” men from Danmei / Dangai, its propaganda has been heavily reliant on stars who have risen to popularity to these genres. The film Dd is currently shooting, Chinese Peacekeeping Force (維和部隊), also stars Huang Jingyu (黄景瑜), and Zhang Zhehan (張哲瀚) ~ the three actors having shot to fame from The Untamed (Dangai), Addicted (Danmei), and Word of Honour (Dangai) respectively. Zhang, in particular, played the “uke” role in Word of Honour and has also been called 老婆 (wife) by his fans. The quote in Article O3, “Ten years as a tough man known by none; one day as a beauty known by all” was also implicitly referring to him.

Perhaps, the government will eventually realise that millennia-old standards of beauty are difficult to bend, and by extension, what is considered appropriate gender expression of Chinese men and women.

In the metas I’ve posted, therefore, I’ve hesitated in using terms such as homophobia, sexism, and ageism etc, opting instead to make long-winded explanations that essentially amount to these terms (thank you everyone who’s reading for your patience!). Because while the consequence is similar—certain fraction of the populations are subjected to systemic discrimination, abuse, given less rights, treated as inferior etc—these words, in English, also come with their own context, their own assumptions that may not apply to the situation. It reminds me of what Leo Tolstoy wrote in Anna Karenina,

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Discrimination in each country, each culture is humiliating, unhappy in its own way. Both sexism and homophobia are rampant in China, but as their roots are different from those of the West, the ways they manifest are different, and so must the paths to their dissolution. I’ve also hesitated on calling out individual behaviours or confronting individuals for this reason. i-Danmei fandoms are where i-fans and c-fans meet, where English-speaking doesn’t guarantee a non-Chinese sociopolitical background (there may be students from China, for example; I’m also ... not entirely Western), and I find it difficult to articulate appropriate, convincing arguments without knowing individual backgrounds.

Frankly, I’m not sure if I’ve done the right thing. Because I do hope feminisation will soon fade into extinction, especially in i-Danmei fandoms that, if they continue to prosper on international platforms, may eventually split from c-Danmei fandoms along the cultural (not language) line due to the vast differences in environmental constraints. My hope is especially true when real people are involved, and c-fandoms, I’d like to note, are not unaware of the issues surrounding feminisation ~ it has already been explicitly forbidden in BJYX’s supertopic on Weibo.

At the same time, I’ve spent so many words above to try to explain why beauty can *sometimes* lurk behind such feminisations. Please allow me to end this post with one example of feminisation that I deeply dislike—and I’ve seen it used by fans on Gg as well—is 綠茶 (”green tea”), from 綠茶婊 (”green tea whore”) that means women who look pure / innocent but are, deep down, promiscuous / lustful. In some ways, its meaning isn’t so different from Daji 妲己, the consort blamed for the fall of the Shang dynasty. However, to me at least, the flattery in the feminisation is gone, perhaps because of the character “whore” (婊), because the term originated in 2013 from a notorious sex party rather than from a legendary beauty so maligned that The Investiture of the Gods (封神演義), the seminal Chinese fiction written ~2,600 years after Daji’s death, re-imagined her as a malevolent fox spirit (狐狸精) that many still remembers her as today.

Ah, to be caught between two cultures. :)

#tell-me-everything #pie metas #yizhan #bjyx

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kisilinramblings · 3 years

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I often hear people claim that Adrien would make a better protagonist. In what ways do you think that would not work? We'd probably understand the other characters less since Adrien interacts with them less due to less free time. Adrien's also usually stuck at home with what is shown onscreen as the rare free time he has, so an Adrien pov show would usually show him at home/work? It would also probably work better for a shorter, more serious show rather than a long comedic series like ML.

(Pt 2) Someone could argue that they could just make Adrien have more free time if it was Adrien-pov, but I'd rather not the show compromise the restrictiveness of Adrien's home life like that. With more "free time" to show him interacting with other characters, his isolation from the rest of the cast because less apparent (Compared to Marinette, which the show can work with what its trying to do because she interacts with many characters and meddles into situations, for better or worse)

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I think you have made your points, Anon ^^ I can hardly add anything more.

One argument I have stumbled upon recently in favor of "Adrien should be the protagonist" is that Marinette comes from a loving and caring family and therefore she doesn't have problems 🙃

As if a loving and caring family prevented Marinette to be bullied before the story started, to have little to no friend before meeting Alya and had so much low self-esteem of herself to the point she believed her taking actions would only make things worse. Insecurities which still ressurface from time to time, both as a civilian and as a superheroine. (Pharaoh, Timetagger, Miracle Queen, Furious Fu to name those)

The thing about picking a protagonist isn't about picking who has the most tragic backstory ™ as the main character. It's picking the character you want your audience to experience the story you want to tell.

Also, those people often forget that when Marinette became Ladybug, her life changed too! While Adrien jumped on the occassion to be a superhero with both feet, Marinette was reluctant. She didn't even think herself up to the task put on her shoulders (not as her first mission as LB and not when she became the Guardian).

While Adrien experienced freedom, Marinette became burdened.

After making her first mistake as Ladybug and seeing the consequences of it, she spiraled down. Everything is her fault. She only creates catastrophes. She only makes things worse for everyone. She quits.

She only started to be Ladybug again when she saw she was the only one who could help Alya and Chat Noir.

She chose to become Ladybug. She chose to accept the burden on her own.

Becoming Ladybug has allowed Marinette to face adversities such as bullies (Hawkmoth, Chloé, Lila) or her mistakes. It also allowed her to stand up for herself, to acknowledge her mistakes, to learn from them and to make things right. But it doesn't mean some of her mistakes aren't affecting her on the long run.

Becoming Ladybug allows her to grow and become a better person. She inspires people to do the same (both her classmates and the audience) and that is what we see throughout the show.

But by becoming Ladybug, by accepting to carry the burden, Marinette kept pressuring herself so much that she believes everything rests on her shoulders and her shoulders only. As a result, we have seen she has hard time accepting to delegate and share the burden on the long term because she has to keep things under control. She doesn't allow herself to be vulnerable.

Marinette's creativity is her greatest asset and allows her to find solutions to problems but at the same time, it is also her creativity that leads her to overthink things and imagine the worst case scenario.

Also, because of her background -- because Marinette trusts her parents as well as their advices and their rules -- she more easily believes authority figures like Fu, Bunnyx and Su Han. She thinks outside the box, yet she doesn't question people who have more experience regarding the Miraculous. In fact, she listens and relies on them to guide her. She follows their directions, but doesn't question if those directions actually fits her. So she molds herself and becomes someone she doesn't recognize and she feels like she isn't true to herself anymore.

Marinette wants to be a normal girl with a normal life like she used to be, except her secret forever prevents her to ever be that again. And Marinette is mourning that fact. (Gamer 2.0, Miracle Queen, Gang of Secrets, Rocketear).

Adrien? Adrien, in opposition, never had a normal life. Everything is dictated to him. His schedule, how to pose and behave. You have an emotional burst? Keep it down. Even better, hide it! Bottle those emotions up. You have to keep appearances. No wonder Adrien doesn't know who he is. He always had defined himself through others and what they expected of him. He has never learned to define himself on his own.

As a civilian, Adrien is trapped. Both litterally and figuratively. If he makes a mistake, his father tends to punish him severely, stripping away the little liberty Adrien has as a civil. Chat Noir allows Adrien to break free and more importantly, break free, incognito. But it doesn't solve his problems which all boils down to his father's authority and control. Instead, Adrien runs away from his personal problems and it is not a reproach. Adrien has good reasons to do so as it is how he survives. But it is not healthy nor safe for him on the long run.

Whereas Marinette can make various mistakes and has the power to fix them. In other words, she can confront her mistakes. She is allowed to cope with her different emotions. She has the latitude to do so. She is allowed to make her own choices which will affect her as well as the others.

And the show is centered about emotions because life is filled with them and we grow up to deal with those.

But just because Marinette is the protagonist doesn't mean Adrien is irrelevant as a character. In fact, he is the deuteragonist. The second most important character to follow. The one who foils and complements the protagonist.

Both characters have a story that is being told. Marinette's point of view is favored because it is the one that provide the widest array of possibilities and because Ladybug always find a solution to fix a problem.

#miraculous ladybug #adrien agreste #marinette dupain-cheng #ml analysis

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vidalinav · 3 years

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I don’t know who needs to hear this, but...

y’all need to accept the fact that ALL of these characters are and can be horrible people. This is not anti post, this is a let characters be morally grey post. They’re flawed, accept that already.

I’m tired of seeing posts like but--but Nesta-- But Nesta what? We already know what her flaws are. They’ve been highlighted from day one. They’ve been acknowledged by every character including herself. They have never once been excused, nor empathized with though she needed that severely. She has made friends and no friends by being the way she is. She has made friends who understand her, and has a family who doesn’t understand her. Friends who take into account that she has been through horrible things, and a family who has not. A family who in her own POV has left her behind, because they did. I said this about Feyre, I’ll say this about Nesta, if in a POV someone says someone wronged them THEY DID. But she is not easy, and sometimes not nice. We know this, we accept this. I stan her for this because emotion often is not beautiful, but stop pointing out her flaws like we don’t know. We all know! We also know that she was aggressive for a reason, she was hateful for a reason, she was in a very low place, and she deserved healing and better, unjudgmental treatment by other people which she didn’t get. She helped in a war, she tried to get Feyre back, she talked to the High lord, advocated for the humans, showed she cared for Cassian in ACOWAR, etc, too. We know her perspective is biased and she’s never once been excused for her mistakes, but other character’s are not treated like Nesta is (like Lucien is, Like Eris is, Like Jurian is).

So, let me go through the ways that all of these characters are imperfect and that you just have to accept as a reader. Okay? Okay.

Elain is not going to be you’re pretty little doll that has done nothing wrong, because she has and she should. Elain was not a good character in ACOTAR, just as much as Nesta was not a good character. Elain does sometimes seem a bit oblivious to what is going on around her. Elain may be very nice and pleasant but that is and will not be all she is. She is allowed to make mistakes and she should be held accountable if she does. When she doesn’t do too much (because she doesn’t) or when she is not very helpful (whether by plot or by Feyre/Nesta’s POV-whether that is noted or not), we can be like okay, she’s in a bad way, because she was, she’s healing herself. But don’t be a hypocrite and please don’t make her victim of other people. Her narrative right now is that “Nesta coddles her,” but we already know that blame game. We’ve seen it in Nesta’s own POV. No one is in charge of anyone’s actions but themselves. If she wants to help, she can. Stop saying the IC won’t let her or Nesta won’t let her, if Elain wanted to help she can. She will find a way... or at least put her foot down, which we’ve already seen she can do. If Elain wanted to reject the bond right then with Lucien, she could, but she doesn’t. And, If Nesta says she wasn’t there and she chose Feyre (no matter how skewed that perspective is), and Elain shows in Nesta’s POV that she didn’t show empathy either to Nesta or even love in a way that Nesta could see, or try to understand where she was coming from vocally in the scenes she was featured in regardless of whether she was capable or not of helping Nesta (because she didn’t (i.e scene in library, the treatment spiel, and the “did feyre pay you?”, and also never being around while Nesta was there, but also ACOSF when she took a drink like she couldn’t handle the situation, and then laughed like nothing at all was wrong)) then she wasn’t there for her. She’s a complex character just as everyone else. Let her be a complex character! Flaws are not bad, please stop trying to negate flaws like they shouldn’t exist. She’s great and she stabbed the King of Hybern to protect her sisters, she let the fae into her home, and she chooses to be kind in a world that’s not very kind to people like her, and she’s got a whole lot of story to tell, but she’s a normal character not a disney princess. She’s not close to anyone. Why? That’s not anyone else’s predicament except her own. Neither is her life nor her actions. Okay?

Mor can be loved because she was very supportive to Feyre in Feyre’s POV, understood because she is the first LGBT character in this book and she lives in a world it seems where she has to hide who she is, and we as readers understand that she has been through also horrible things. However, this does not negate the fact that she is a horrible person sometimes, to both her friends and people outside of their little group. She was not good to Nesta on SEVERAL occasions, even when Nesta was not bad to Mor. This weird love-triangle kept happening because she didn’t want to just admit that she didn’t like Azriel romantically, whatever the reason was. She’s a complex character. Hate her/Like her, but acknowledge that no matter what you choose, she has fucking flaws.

I see posts sometimes about how people don’t understand where this Rhysand came from, like “he’s so awful in ACOSF, SJM did this to make Nesta look better.” What? He’s been a dick always. He’s just not a dick to Feyre but that could be argued as well really. We as readers can acknowledge though that he like all the rest have gone through horrible things, and though the horrible things he has done are not excused (i.e. murdering children, killing people, his court still having so many problems and their solution being lets go to Vallahan, putting up an evil front to just keep people in line, not instilling any action to help those who need it or not treating people like subject who depend on him as a ruler regardless of whether he likes them or not (i.e the Hewn City/Illyria)) we acknowledge that he can be understood at the same time that he is also a hypocrite. Generally he’s not bad on an individual basis. but he’s not “good!” He’s morally grey. As they all are, but because he’s a ruler, he should be 10x more responsible for all of these problems and for all of his flaws.

Azriel is a sweetheart and sometimes he’s understanding, and doesn’t seem judgmental. But he’s a psycho! I’m sorry. He’s got a lot of things to work through, I mean. We acknowledge that he has been through HORRIFYING things, but we also should not neglect the fact that he’s a creep and he tortures people on a regular basis. There’s no reason he should have had that insane long infatuation with Mor and now seems to have one with Elain. We understand why he does this, psychologically, but it does not excuse him for making Mor uncomfortable for 500+ years. Take all of him or none of him.

Cassian. I love Cassian, but he does not think before he speaks, he does have his head up the IC’s ass, and he’s does not connect dots very well. He’s sweet and he’s supportive, and I have less of a problem with him than some other characters, but!!!! He’s got flaws and those are not bad. Those do not make him unlovable, but he’s got them and they’re not going away.

Feyre has this same issue. She does what she needs to, she’s loving, she gives people a chance, and yes she was there when people needed her, she has also suffered a good amount, but Feyre’s suffering has been acknowledged by everyone. It has been given voice to, it has been reflected in empathy by every single character even when Feyre herself has not been a great character. She tends to be very one-sided in things, as in her own view is the only one that exists (though that’s everyone of them really as we’ve seen, there’s no nuance there) but she’s also not very emotionally intelligent and she does get into everyone’s business, when she should probably let people do their own thing (this has been her trait forever since ACOMAF I think). But she should also take more of a stance to be a ruler, because unfortunately she has that responsibility, and she should hold Rhys more accountable for the actions he does. It should not be a “let’s have sex and all is well” sort of situation. She’s a very biased perspective, but so are all of them. But she’s not perfect and we should never feel that she is. She is not the light of heaven that has glorified Prythrian, she is just an average human-to-fae girl trying to live. She deserves love, yes, but not more than anyone else and loving her should not mean hating other people, which this fandom and the book have a hard time realizing.

Amren... sigh... I don’t like her too much but for the thread I’ll continue. Amren is probably the only reason anything gets done, realistically, because at least she’s always thinking about the logistics of things. She’s horribly rude, and doesn’t seem to care about anyone’s opinion, but she’s 15000 years old or what not. Emotions probably have to be beneath her at that point, but that doesn’t mean I have to love her, and that doesn’t mean she’s an unflawed characters. She’s very flawed and I think that’s acknowledged but I don’t think any character has really held her accountable for being who she is, they brush it off and are like “Amren’s Amren.” But she’s morally grey for sure, getting to be a darker shade if you ask me (i.e Tyrant Amren). But I acknowledge that even though I hate her, she’s not ALWAYS horrible.

I don’t know what it is, maybe it is the narratives insistence that the IC are good that makes everyone go off their rocker, but my god, I think I would love all of these character’s more if there wasn’t this insistence that they’re the “good guys” and just have them make mistakes, have them eat their mistakes equally, and have them move on, learn to do better, maybe fuck up again. That’s life lol that’s interesting, morally grey characters. But I write this post not to say they’re all horrible, but to say that it is unnecessary to point out the flaws of other characters in defense of another one. They’re all horrible. Acknowledge it, breathe it in, love them or hate them anyway, but know (whispers for dramatic effect) they’re all horrible. And that’s okay, because that is not all they are.

Have a good day.

#nesta archeron #cassian #feyre acheron #elain archeron #rhysand #mor #azriel #amren #acosf #acotar #acofas #acomaf #acowar

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writing-with-olive · 3 years

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Hello Olive! 👋🏼

I don't know if you're still taking requests but I would love your help ! 🙃

So in multiple POV books, sometimes two scenes from two different POVs happen simultaneously. Usually, it’s much easier to portray this in movies and tv shows by cross-cutting scenes and interspersing them using the ocean's novel formula I think, to create suspens and tension in fight scenes or backstories parallelism.

In a book, my wip for example, I find it much difficult to convey the same feelings and tension in words.

Any tips and/or guidelines plz?

Could you plz add an example of your own creation just to see the result something like a cheat sheet /not that I'm using it, just to understand how I can go through it/?

Thanks in advance!!!

💕

Hey anon!

Quick disclaimer - I write in single pov, so the advice below is based off of what I've seen, and how I would tackle it theoretically if it was something I was thinking of writing something like this. Similarly, because multi-pov is not something I particularly enjoy writing in (personal preference, nothing inherantly wrong with it), and it would probably take me several hours to produce a new work that was of much quality, I'm not going to include my own final example, though there are little tidbits below, as they became relevant. Also, this got long, hence the read more.

Alrighty into the good stuff!

So the first thing to consider is why it seems easier to pull off more rapid pov switches in movies. The main thing is grounding. Oftentimes, movies will put characters in situations where their background is at least somewhat different, and sometimes they'll mess with the music a bit (though not always). This makes it really easy for the audience to place where the characters are in a split second, which in turn means producers don't have to spend a ton of time re-establishing where each person is. This helps to keep tension up.

The thing with books is that we only have words to work off of - no visuals to provide readers with instant grounding. That means if you want to pull it off well, quickly grounding readers every shift is essential.

Parallel backstories are probably going to be a lot trickier to pull off in writing than they are in movies. The reason they work in cinima is that a) like we mentioned before it takes a lot less time to do the whole grounding thing, b) parallels are a lot more aesthetically pleasing when you can see them, but they can come across as repetitive when read, and c) dramatic time shifts like flashbacks are easier to pull off in movies where you can see that characters are visibly younger, but they tend to be disliked by readers, as it tends to disrupt forward momentum.

Intercutting stories with regards to backstory pretty much means you need to be right there with your character to see the backstory unfold. Which means flashbacks.

In some books, flashbacks are a key part of the narrative, especially if it's in a story where time is more fluid. However, if you only have one or two cases where you need to jump back, it has a much greater potential to look lazy. More often than not, it's generally considered a stronger story if you can find a way to intersperse backstory throughout the story.

It also means it's often more interesting to show their backstories, but let the audience come to the conclusion on their own that they're actually kinda parallel, and see how that affects how the characters turn out.

The next thing to consider when maintaining tension is pacing - the pull and push of scenes or even smaller beats that keeps a story dynamic. Even within faster scenes, you have places where you still make your audience wait, or else it'll be over too quick. Slower scenes still need to have some faster bits to maintain forward movement.

Each time you switch povs, you are creating a little bit of waiting time for the "non-active" pov. This is not a guarantee to establish tension, but it does help. To balance it out, make sure what's happening on the page keeps moving. Give your characters time on page to rest sometimes, but largely keep moving forward.

Another thing with pacing for multi-pov is that the longer you bench a certain pov, the longer it takes to get back in their head. So make sure to give all of your pov characters similar page time. They don't have to go in a specific rotation, but they should be balanced.

Some thoughts about making pov shifts that don't disrupt the forward momentum as much:

1 - Establish location before it becomes vital. This is actually something that is key to a lot of action scenes, because nothing breaks tension and immersion like the author saying "oh wait here's this detail that i forgot to tell you until now." Basically, set up the general layout and other necessary details when things are calmer, so the reader has a chance to set up a mental map of the place, and when things are more tense, keep readers spacially grounded by referencing what you've already established.

2 - To make it clear that things are happening at the same time, use references that can pop up in both povs. For example, maybe all the lights go out, or maybe in one scene, a character shoots a gun, and in the next (because pov switch), a character hears a gunshot going off. You're going to want a time, place, and pov reference right away to ground your readers (if you're doing third person, the pov reference could just be saying that person's name), and you're going to want to have a few space and time references as you go through the scene, so that when you do your next pov shift, readers can slot it into the correct chronological spot.

3 - Similarly, make sure that timing matches up. Your audience will notice these things. If two reference points in one pov happen three minutes apart in world, the same reference points have to take three minutes in the other pov too. Something that I HIGHLY suggest is before splitting up your povs, create an outline of what happens from an omnicient point of view, so you can make sure to get characters to the right place in the right amount of time

4 - You don't have to make each character's scene start and stop at the same in world time. This is what makes the aforementioned time references so important. However, if you're going to skip something like a character going from the kitchens to the dungeons because nothing really happens, you have to show that intention before you cut away, or else it's going to take a lot longer to re-establish where a character is.

5 - To keep tension up, mini cliffhangers can work in your favor. Maybe a character gets captured and they're about to discover who his captor is, but then you cut to the other character in a cell, trying to pick the lock before anyone notices.

6 - Remember that in situations like these, your readers will often have a better idea of the overall picture than your characters. If you reveal something in one pov, remember that you don't have to reveal it again in the other, unless it's a means to reveal more necessary information. Going to the example from point 5, maybe in the next scene, the captured character figures out that it's a trap, and that if anyone else walks through the door it will blow up. But the lockpicking one doesn't know that. So she's trying to get there and rescue him. Tension is created both because she has to do it without getting caught, but we as readers would know that if she manages to follow through, it will be devastating. The trick is that the thought shouldn't really cross her mind, because she has no way of knowing it.

7 - Choose your povs with purpose. Does the reader need to know something for the chain of events to keep making sense? Which pov will be privvy to the most knowelege? Does there need to be something ominous (like maybe a body falls past a window), but revealing why that happened would kill some of the suspense? Which pov would reasonably be near the window, but wouldn't be able to see or hear what was happening above? Also consider where it makes sense to bring in povs that haven't been in the spotlight for a little while.

8 - Remember that you can't cut as fast between povs at the same speed you can in movies because of that whole grounding issue. Give each pov at least a full scene to themselves, and sometimes a few so that we can actually see things unfolding, and then switch. If you create things that other povs can reference, even if only in passing, it will still maintain the experience of things happening at the same time.

Hopefully all of this made sense and gives you a better jumping-off point. Happy writing!

#writing #writing advice #writeblr #writing reference #multi pov #action scenes #tension #suspense #writing tips #ask #writing questions #dual pov #long post #movies #fight scenes #escape scenes #spacial grounding #olive's writing vibes

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robininthelabyrinth · 4 years

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How would you describe your version of the Jiangs?

See, this gets tricky, because I often write my fics in close-person perspective and that means I write them as how the POV character perceives them to be rather than how they really are. So a fic written in the POV of Jiang Cheng will have a very different Jiang sect than a fic written from Wei Wuxian or a third person’s POV - even though their actions wouldn’t be in any way different.

That being said, my version of Jiang Fengmian and Madame Yu (excluding Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli because that would take forever):

Jiang Fengmian is a calm, introverted, laid back person who tends to go with the flow. He hates confrontation and drama, and just wants to be happy, which is reflected in his preference to surround himself with happy people who similarly believe in not letting things bother them. He rarely pursues anything too aggressively because he thinks that’s just setting yourself up for disappointment, and tends to deal with difficult situations by looking for a solution where everyone will leave him alone/continue to play nice, without really thinking too much in the long term or too deeply about questions of right and wrong. If someone starts an argument with him or is annoying him, he will leave rather than engage; if someone does something that only harms him tangentially, he will ignore it in the hopes that it will go away by itself. He is a private person who does not generally share his emotions.

He does not have a happy marriage - he likes his wife a great deal, actually, but their communication styles are so utterly different that he honestly thinks she hates him, even when she’s trying to show affection, because he does not understand that anger/scolding can show care. His own methods of showing affection are often rejected by her (because she in turn doesn’t understand him), and he believes this means that she does not love him. He believes he was in love with either Cangse Sanren or Wei Changze or possibly both, he’s not entirely sure himself, and he regrets their deaths more than anything else in his life - except maybe the realization that his wife does love him, always has, and that he only figured it out right before their deaths.

He is, objectively, a bad father. He favors Wei Wuxian and neglects Jiang Cheng, and lets Jiang Yanli bear most of the emotional burden from that. He does not think of himself as a bad father - he doesn’t really think of himself as a father much at all. He doesn’t see anything wrong with what he is doing because he treats his children like adult friends, so he thinks it’s fine to spend time with the people whose personalities he likes (Wei Wuxian) and less time with those he doesn’t (Jiang Cheng). He is, unknowingly, rather misogynistic, and assumes that Jiang Yanli, who fits his image of a proper woman, is fulfilled by caring for her brothers and not burdened by it; ironically, the women he actually appreciates most are the ones who break his expectations.

Madame Yu, Yu Ziyuan, is a lonely, highly introverted woman with an extremely strong sense of pride. Her personality is cold and standoffish, coming off as disdainful, and she doesn’t have any mode other than fully engaged and intense about everything. She does not suffer fools gladly, and has a truly nasty turn of phrase that does more damage than she realizes. She is extremely aware of etiquette and class divisions, and is especially angered by disrespect. She was an excellent cultivator in her youth and is an excellent trainer for the Jiang sect, remaining highly respected by her peers, although less so now that she no longer goes out on night hunts; she did not want to stop, but felt she had no choice once she became a mother. She is resentful of the fact that her husband does not involve her more in sect politics, and believes she would do a better job if given the chance, but she would never lower herself to ask because it would risk being rejected. She misses her home very much, in part because she was last truly happy there, but she’s also extremely proud of being part of the significantly stronger Jiang sect.

She expresses affection through worry (often manifesting as scolding) and through acts of service, such as by trying her best to improve the sect’s reputation or make people stronger. As a result of her own experiences, she believes people need to be toughed up to deal with the cruel realities of the world. She is in love with her husband, who she believes does not love her - she interprets his gifts as trying to buy off her anger, which only makes it worse, his acts of service as condescension, and when he says sweet words to her she is convinced that he is only trying to use her as a ill-fitting substitute for the person he really loves, which also makes her angry. This is in large part because he persists in treating her like she is a soft woman who likes pretty things for the sake of being pretty, which she is not - she is highly practical and likes to look good because she knows it’s another weapon, not because being pretty is fun. Her best friend - who became Madame Jin - has an equally unhappy marriage, which she thinks should give her a cynical view of marriage, but in fact she’s still secretly a romantic at heart.

She is, in many ways, a bad mother. While she loves her children, she also sees them as key to her position as mistress of the Lotus Pier, and anything that challenges that position is disrespect to her - a sore spot. She does not understand how Jiang Yanli seems to be happy with what she is given, a domesticity almost to the extent of acting like a servant, but since it seems like Jiang Yanli likes it, she tries not to interfere. The fact that Jiang Fengmian won’t quash the rumors about Wei Wuxian makes her anxious that he is, in fact, planning on disowning Jiang Cheng in favor of Wei Wuxian, and she hates the fact that Jiang Fengmian prefers Wei Wuxian. She gets this anxiety and anger out by trying to make Jiang Cheng do better in the hope that if he is truly exceptional, the way Wei Wuxian is, Jiang Fengmian will finally like him - and maybe also her. She is aware to some extent that what she is doing is futile and hurting Jiang Cheng, but she cannot seem to stop herself.

She does not hate Wei Wuxian himself, nor does she mean him any harm - if only her husband were not so partial to him, she would be very pleased with how he’s done as head disciple. She makes sure he has the best possible training and wants to cultivate him to be as strong and smart as possible, in large part because she thinks of him as her son’s future right hand. The main thing that bothers her is that he leads her son in trouble - the issue being lead. If Jiang Cheng were leading Wei Wuxian into trouble, she wouldn’t mind it, but she foresees that it will be a problem in the future; she doesn’t want her son to be a hollow sect leader who is a puppet for Wei Wuxian.

#mdzs meta #jiang fengmian #madame yu #yu ziyuan #Anonymous

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violetlunette · 3 years

Text

Originally, I stuck this to a re-blog of another post, but then I decided it would be best to make my own. Below features anti-Bakugou and Bakugou Critical. I’m being polite and hiding it under the ‘keep reading tab.’ As always I try to be fair, but this is based on opinions and the like. I’ll also admit that this is coming from a slightly bias POV. You have been warned and if you choose to continue that’s on you.

There seem to be a lot of reasons people relate to Bakagou. Some people relate to Bakagou being unable to express his emotions properly. Others relate to wanting to be a winner or strong, but never quite reaching their goal. (There are also fanon reasons, but I won’t go into too much detail on those. Everyone has headcanons and theories. These are fine to have so long as you don’t get them confused with canon or attack others who feel differently.)

However, I believe one of the biggest explanations lies within the manipulation of the narrative;

Something that’s not often talked about outside of writing circles is how important “tone” is for stories. The characters move the story, but the narrative controls how they and their actions are perceived by the viewer (YMMV).

At the start of the manga Bakagou’s actions are presented as horrible as they were. Even with the whole class on his side, the story shows that this isn’t right. Bakagou’s attitude is shown as bratty. His attack on Izuku, backing Izuku against a wall, burning his shoulder, destroying his notebook, threatening him not to go to UA just because it threatens the narrative Bakagou’s trying to make, the scene where he tells Izuku to jump off the roof—all of these actions are shown as antagonistic. Not only that, but it displays it in a way that so powerful a lot of people can’t forget it. For whatever reason, personal or otherwise, it STICKS with them. All because the tone does all it can to show these things in that light.

But then all that changed.

For whatever reason, the narrative seemed to switch sides. Throughout 300-200 chapters (depending on your view when it happened) it downplayed Bakagou’s actions. Suddenly they were presented as no big deal and played them for humor (or tried to). Meanwhile, whenever Bakagou felt bad in anyway it hyped up those scenes and showed them as raw as it could to make people sympathize with him.

The story also uses the other characters to manipulate the audience as well. Whenever someone calls Bakagou out on anything he does this person is treated as being in the wrong, or an asshole. As a result, most readers will ignore what they say, however valid they are. Meanwhile, it uses characters the audience does like to praise Bakagou or wave his actions as no big deal, such as All Might, Aizawa, or even Izuku.

After a certain point, the readers aren’t even really allowed to see Bakagou’s effect on Izuku. In the beginning, we see how the bullying hurt Izuku and made him, the victim, feel—or at least we saw the start. Before we can go any deeper though, all the flashbacks changed. Now the flashbacks are on Bakagou’s side and worked to make him sympathetic. Again, they downplayed what Bakagou did to Izuku. (Not to mention other kids. People tend to forget that while Izuku was the main focus of Bakagou’s ire, he attacked and bullied others as well). When those points are focused on they're used to make the readers feel for Bakagou. Not on his actual actions and how they affected others, but on his feelings.

Now the story has Izuku shrug off whatever Bakagou does and reacts the bare minimum to Bakagou’s attitude. This is supposed to be Izuku becoming less intimidated by the other, but I don’t see it that way. I see it as erasing something that was a big part of Izuku and his arc. Acknowledging it though would place King Explosion Murder in a bad light, so readers are no longer allowed to see it.

With all that in mind, it’s not that hard to see why people feel for Bakagou when the story is going out of its way to make people do just that. It uses every means it can to make them feel that way; tone, lighting, characters, etc.

Personally, that’s why I’m more upset with ‘the narrative’ than Bakagou. The characters can do whatever they want, but it’s the narration’s job to show us whether or not it’s right.

As I’ve admitted however this is fairly bias and I’m not an expert. So, take all of this with a pinch of salt as they say.

#anti-bakugou #bakugou critical #bakugou rant #ugh why do I do this?#I get so anxious with long posts #Am I too rambly #did I repeat myself?#Do I make sense?#Did I get my point across?#am I too aggressive or passive?#You all know the gist right #all in all I do stand by the fact the narrative coddles Bakagou #which is a shame because if handled another way his arc could have been Bojack or Zuko level #ah well #keep in mind all this is subjective #bnha #mha #anti bakugou

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zeta-in-de-walls · 3 years

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Themes in the Dream SMP

Hey guys, I’m kind of into analysis. I tend to like examining character motivations and why they take certain actions rather than speculating on lore and theories. Heh but right now the fandom is flooded with egg speculation. I am very curious about the egg and where the story might lead though! So I thought I’d look at it in terms of themes the story might end up exploring.

Themes are certain ideas/concept that keeping coming up in a work and get explored. Good themes can be traced from the very start of a work and carry on through to the end - they’re like threads that run through a work. Strong themes can help a story to feel more coherent and satisfying with the way they can tie a work together. Now the Dream SMP may be a bit of an improv roleplaying server but somehow a few themes can end up cropping up anyway.

What themes are there in the Dream SMP?

Here’s a few I identified, I guess they are topics that interest me? Also certain POVs may have different themes. I don’t watch Fundy myself but I’m pretty sure his viewpoint has some strong themes that are rather unique to his story. Certain arcs may have very strong themes as well which aren’t explored over the narrative as a whole.

-Power/control. A very common theme in stories. What drives many characters is to seek out power, either to have control over their own lives, or over others. The leadership of L’manburg was hugely important in S1. And now many individuals are hungry for power especially the powerless who have been pushed around by others for so long.

-Corruption. Linked to the above. Often when seeking power, people can become corrupted by it and their ability to control others with it. Dream is an excellent example. Wilbur as well. Technoblade believed corruption was inevitable and that any concentrated power was bad. But is it inevitable? Or were the systems just a little flawed? Is a way to handle power sensibly?

-Words over violence. More of a S1 theme but I’d love to see it explored more. L’Manburg most notable was not wearing armour because they believed in fighting battles with their words, not violence. Technoblade challenged this, believing violence is the only way to be really understood.

-Attachment. This is a very strong theme, one really ties the whole story together well. It’s most explored in the Tommy vs Dream conflict but it’s also noted that every character get attached to things and that’s what so often drives conflict. Yet these attachment can also inspire and unite people. Dream sees attachments as a way to control others. Attachments are both a strength and a weakness.

-Complacency/Neutrality The server is marked by many wars but in every conflict there are those who stay on the sides. Those people may see this as a strength but those who stay neutral are most in danger of being forgotten. Likewise, staying neutral may be allowing disaster to happen. In Doomsday one striking thing was how many people stood on the sidelines. L’Manburg was not merely destroyed, but abandoned. And now with the egg, it’s been in the background for a long time and it’s been overlooked. Now people are finally paying attention but is it already too late?

-Seeking Peace. After all the conflict on the server, many character long for a lasting peace. Both Tubbo and Tommy just want to have a quiet life, with Tommy staying independent and working on his little project while Tubbo builds Snowchester as a safe haven with nukes to discourage any who wish to challenge his peace. Dream also had his vision for a peaceful server by way of him attaining absolute control over everyone, crushing any sort of defiance. And now the egg, it means to take over the world and in doing so will try to unite everyone under its control. The people will lose their free will but it may mean an end to conflict too.

-Choosing People over sides. An interesting yet messy theme which became prominent with S2. When two people are in conflict is it possible to help both? Or are you inevitably choosing a side? Or is this just another impossible view of utopia where everyone is united under the same side, (like Dream envisioned) and there is no need for any conflict?

-Revenge/Forgiveness. When someone hurts you, can you reconcile or should you seek retribution? Once you suffer a betrayal is that relationship broken or can it be fixed? Does you own pain justify hurting others? What is too far? What is justice? Probably not the most consistent theme but I really like the few times when this topic does get explored.

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So, those are a few concepts that stick out to me about the Dream SMP. There’s probably more (like I was kinda thinking on one about history repeating itself/destiny or something about becoming what you hate maybe) also yeah, themes are probably not necessarily consciously thought of by the writers but that doesn’t mean they don’t end up trying to fulfil the themes and ideas that their story has started exploring.

SO that said, i think it’d be very cool if the egg arc really starts to challenge some of these themes. What’s interesting was how Bad, I believe, chose the egg because it had Skeppy and he wantd to be with his best friend. I wonder if perhaps therefore the egg will continue to use people’s desires to control them.

It creates an interesting parallel with Dream, trying to get people attached so he could control them. I wonder if Dream has any connection to the egg. It was discovered a long time ago now, during the Pogtopia arc I believe(?) and maybe that reflects Dream’s descent into villainy when he began to stop caring for his friends. and the eggs been so much more present this season as Dream’s also become increasingly detached. Maybe it means nothing. Either way it’s interesting how love and attachment may be used against the characters again in this fight against the egg. And whether love and trust in others might be a way to defeat it?

I also found something poetic about how they placed vines within L’Manburg’s crater and its one of the places its growing very vigorously. It was once a place with so many memories and with so much meaning and in its place we have the egg.

As I alluded to above, if the egg were to consume everything, there would be no more sides, no more conflict, everyone would be united in one ‘big, happy, family’ and there would be peace. Yet it’s like a warped vision of their beloved SMP. It’s peace, yes, but not the kind of peace anyone wants. The egg is terrifying.

And its spreading and it’s going to affect everyone. (And if they can’t be infected they will be killed.) So the time for neutrality must end! The people couldn’t band together to save L’Manburg because they’d lost faith in it, but it’s not too late to save the SMP if everyone were to band together and fight for the server they all love. Many of them did it once to imprison Dream. To do this, they might have to put old grudges aside, but it can be done.

As to why it affects people differently, I think we’ll be given an explanation. I’d be intrigued if it was to do with attachment or maybe something about power and corruption. (Metawise I’m pretty sure Tommy was unaffected because it woud seriously muddle his character to have a supernatural force messing with his head when his story had been a somewhat realistic depiction of manipulation and you do not want those two to mix and harm the impact of the exile arc.) But yeah, not sure what the reason is right now, but I figure they have one in mind already.

I’m liking this Egg arc. It seems like its been really well-planned and set up so I’m looking forward to seeing it all realised as I bet they have some great plans ahead and they potential for it to fit in with the existing themes would be amazing and again help the SMP as a whole to feel really satisfying and cohesive. If it wants to be wildly different of course, that can be great too, but everything seems very cool. Do love how it involves a huge cast of characters too - it’s very ambitious!

#dream smp #meta #analysis #heh this is how i like to analyse media #fun that it can be done even in new media #there's a lot of love that goes into the smp and it shows #long post #bloodvines arc #the disc war

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