#using incorrect for tags when its in fact very correct
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Slay
#tolkien#shitpost#silmarillion#tolkien memes#slay#first kinslaying#second kinslaying#third kinslaying#fëanorians#noldor#teleri#sindar#incorrect silmarillion#incorrect tolkien#using incorrect for tags when its in fact very correct#crack
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I remember thinking this earlier and then forgetting but the recent asks reminded me:
In that post where you briefly mentioned not correcting people when they tag stuff as Islamophobia with regards to you (bc you’re actually Coptic), I get the point your making and yeah they’re wrong in just assuming that as an Arab you’re automatically Muslim but it’s still Islamophobia, no? Like you don’t have to be Muslim to be the victim of Islamophobia, because Islam is viewed, at least in the west, as intrinsically linked to Arab identity. If you’re Arab/middle-eastern, people automatically assume you’re also Muslim because that’s the archetype most people have in their minds. Like I doubt most Americans have any idea that ~10% of Egypt is christian because that doesn’t fit into their (racist) worldview. Muslims are Bad because Islam is practiced by those Evil Backwards Arabs in their war-torn desert wastelands, and Arabs are Bad because they’re Fanatical Muslim Terrorists. The people who say hateful things to you on the internet do so because you are Arab, and because you are Arab they perceive you as Muslim which is a Bad thing to be (in their eyes). So it’s still Islamophobia, they bring are Islamophobic even though you are not personally Muslim
Ik this is kind of nitpicky and you probably didn’t mean much by that saying that, but it stuck with me (and this isn’t like a callout or anything, ily Mina and I’m sorry for going on this long tangent)
No worries! I've had this discussion before and part of the reason I don't correct others when they call it islamophobia is because they're not incorrect either. The Arab identity and Muslim identity are very deeply intertwined partially because it's the predominant religion of our region and partially because the Western lens views the region as Brown People Cultural Soup with no intent to further learn of its intricacies.
To answer your question: if someone has a violent/hateful reaction to hearing the Arabic language, they are anti Arab. This person may *think* due to their ignorance that this hatred entails Muslim people exclusively but in reality every Arab suffers from this hatred.
The thing is that racist person *doesn't care* if you define their hatred as anti Arab racism or as Islamophobia. These are *our* words. These terms exist for the sake of *us* to help us define, discuss, and explain the prejudice we face - and I would much rather we establish these definitions on *our* terms (us, who know the difference) rather than relenting to the racist's terms (they, who don't know the difference), because if we don't put in an active effort to acknowledge and include religious minorities then we are complicit in their erasure. If we don't contend the notion that Arab = Muslim then it will never be deconstructed.
You're right in saying that almost every instance of anti Arabic racism entails Islamophobia, and this is why I don't correct people when they describe the racism I face as Islamophobic. The description isn't incorrect at all - but it is incomplete. It is *part* of a broader image, because non Muslim Arabs aren't only discriminated against for their proximity to Islam. Even outside of this conflation, and even with full knowledge that we aren't Muslim, we still face racism (a clear example of this is Biblical Orientalism, whose very basis is the fact that we are Arabs who aren't muslim), so it's not quite accurate to attribute all our struggles as tangential to Islamophobia, and in the end we can still acknowledge our shared struggles and the way they intersect without contributing to the erasure.
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so using circumstantial evidence to accuse an entire group of fans of being responsible for anonymous harassment is bad when it happens to you guys, but it’s ok when you guys do it to people who hate izzy?
circumstantial evidence
noun
: evidence that tends to prove a fact by proving other events or circumstances which afford a basis for a reasonable inference of the occurrence of the fact at issue
Now, Anon, I'm not sure what definition of 'circumstantial evidence' you are going by but this is the one I'm going by and given it's backed by Merriam Webster I'm gonna assume it's the correct one.
So.
'Circumstantial evidence', in this case would be:
'I made a post that was negative about Izzy' ➡ 'People who are Izzy positive responded to it' ➡ 'I am later doxxed' ➡ 'Izzy fans must be the ones who doxxed me'.
If you'd like to compare:
'We make posts that are positive about Izzy' ➡ 'People who are Izzy negative respond to them' ➡ 'One of us was doxxed/we receive anon hate' ➡ 'Izzy antis must be the ones who doxxed them/are sending them'.
On the surface they do look similar, I'll give you that, but Anon? We have direct evidence that the doxxing on our side and the anon hate we receive comes from Izzy antis.
Direct evidence meaning 'proof of fact'.
The content of the messages we receive explicitly tells us why it's being sent to us. They directly mention Izzy and our enjoyment of him as a character. The person who got doxxed on our side? Their doxxer admitted to sending it because they enjoyed Izzy (and 'dead dove content') and they explicitly expressed intentions to do it to other Izzy fans.
Now, again, unless there is some context missing from op's posts about the content of the message they received, nothing about said message says anything about why it was sent. The screenshot I've seen says some variation of 'your full name and address are xxxxx' and that's it. No mention of Izzy or fandom in general.
Direct evidence vs circumstantial evidence.
All that aside: we don't, actually, 'accuse an entire group of fans of being responsible for anonymous harassment'. If any of you listened at all when we speak about it you'd know this. We may compare the repeated interjections of some of you coming onto our posts/into our tag to harassment, because to some degree it is, but that's not 'an entire group of fans' that's a very specific few of you who go out of your way to make sure other people can't have a good time when they could just block the people who enjoy and post about the things they hate instead (which is something we do a lot of on this side, the blocking).
Something we actually do, and this I suspect is what you might be implying, is point out how our serial harasser uses some of your in-group's favorite talking points. This isn't to say that they are one of you but simply that they repeat your rhetoric and that it's worth examining on your end if someone spewing such consistent hate is agreeing with you on their biggest talking points.
We also ask your end to condemn the anon hate because, as they primarily agree with most of your talking points, seeing that they're not welcome in the groups they clearly want to be in is incentive for them to stop sending hate. It shrinks their platform. The more people going 'hey, that's not okay' the more likely they are to stop because they either 1. realize they have nobody in their corner or 2. realize that there's a reason they're not in the majority and that its because what they're doing is actually morally incorrect.
You'll notice, if you care to pay attention, that every single Izzy fan that's spoken of the doxxing on your end has condemned it. Not a single one of us wants someone like that in our spaces. Every single one of us has acknowledged that it's a horrible thing to go through and that we wouldn't wish it on anybody.
We do not get that same response from yall.
I'll leave you with this: doxxing is a crime. Levying an accusation of a serious crime at people on, at best, circumstantial evidence is dangerous to the people being accused. It could inspire retaliation. It's also dangerous for the op to be assuming that this is all fandom related when they, in the very next breath, speculate it could be their ex who 1. has a history of stalking them, by their own admission and 2. again, by their own admission, knows where they live.
Brushing it off as some petty fandom drama when they could be being targeted again by their ex is dangerous and they should be focusing on their own safety. If it was fandom related then that's a much less serious situation because these types of things don't tend to move beyond scare tactics. It's still awful and still something to be concerned about but it's not as serious or concerning as someone who they know potentially has access to them and who has gone to those lengths before.
And one more time, let me reiterate: If the person who doxxed them is in our circles? That is unacceptable behavior and you are not welcome here.
#the dork is being a dork#the dork answers#the izcourse#this is the last time i'm gonna speak on this#if you've got more to say anon then fucking argue with the wall
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Because i’m writing a crossover fanfiction, between pokemon and Monster hunter, I’ve decided I should probably write down a few of my general headcanons. Since i’m pretty new to the series, and lore seams incredibly sparse to begin with, I figured this is a good way to try and organize my thoughts. and let others correct me on some of my incorrect assumptions.
A lot of these are also specific headcanons, just to fit in with the story i’m trying to tell,, and not actually backed by anything specific. Just ‘I think thats how this works with what the games presented to me’.
Trigger warning for Hunting, pain, injury, animal death, human death, taxidermy. Nothing is written with any sort of detail. More theorizing how the Monster Hunter Universe works. However, these things can be unsettling for many people, so I wanted to tag them. If i’ve missed anything, let me know.
After the near apocalyptic events of the past, humanity basically split into two or more separate camps. The largest of them being Riders and Hunters.
Hunters sought to coexist within nature. Not to fight against it or to overtake it, but to simply be, alongside of it. Riders, meanwhile sought to cooperate with nature. To seek friendship and companionship with all/most monsters, not just a select few.
Hunters work strictly within the Hunting Guild’s rules, trying to find a balance with nature. As a rule there is no such thing as trophy hunting, nor are trophies kept, apart from things that might theoretically be used.) Taxidermy probably exists, but often only for researchers/scientists trying to study these monsters, or for educational purposes. (like showing children and novice hunters just how large a monster is. )
Hunting is only done if the following conditions are true:
-The Monster itself is a direct threat to Humans, or the Local Wildlife.
-The Monster’s loss will not drastically impact its population, or their monster societies. Though this might be ignored, should the monster be threatening to cause enough damage. (A smaller village might be evacuated/abandoned, if the monsters species’ population is direly low. Villages can be rebuilt, but extinction can’t be reversed. If the monster is threatening an entire region, a major stronghold, or a massive settlement, then the monster needs to be dealt with.)
As an Example: A gammoth being hunted might create a power vacuum within the heard. If they are a particularly noteworthy member, loss of that member might result in a new gammoth leader taking over the heard, which might then encourage the heard to travel elsewhere. This migration might put more people/farms/travelers at risk. Or the lack of a Gammoth herd might encourage different monsters to move in. Things like this are carefully considered.
-Hunting the monster is a direct act of Mercy(A monster is known to be ill/injured/suffering, and that it is certain that the creature will not survive. )
Riders meanwhile, while they will hunt monsters for the same reasons, prefer to try and coexist with monsters whenever possible. Monsters might be driven away from the homes, but there are several that will in fact live and coexist within the village proper. Riders rarely kill a monster, when they can repel them instead. They still hunt, but it is on a much smaller scale!
Riders get their monster friends (Dubbed ‘monsties), by finding and hatching eggs. These eggs are ones found in the wild, and ones that probably are the descendants of the monsties already apart of the village. They have stones which will hatch a monster egg, and often have rituals tied to hatching these eggs. (Dances, prayer, ect).
The monsters are very strictly friends. They travel with their partners, but with the exception of riding them, these monsters are never used as beasts of burden. They don’t plow fields, they don’t pull carts, ect. Theres nothing saying they cant, but they aren’t there to be used as tools by such humans.
Riders had lived in a self-imposed isolation for a good period of their existence. Interacting only with other rider villages, or actively hiding their existence as best they could. I imagine that Riders might actively join the hunter’s guild, in order to get money and also to obtain resources that might otherwise be difficult. These riders would likely leave their monsties at the stables in their home village.
This self-imposed isolation worked thanks to the general danger that surrounds a rider’s village. Not only are monsters are not controlled, they frequently outlive their riders. At which point, they frequently stay by the village or return to the nearby wilderness to live out the rest of their lifespan.
However, it is a common pastime for riders to combat each other. The humans never fight each other: They always fight the opponent’s monster. In addition, many skilled riders take part in gene experimentations and fusions, resulting in things like monsters that resist their weaknesses, or status ailments, or can use attacks instinctive to other monsters.
As a result, you basically have a large number of semi-tamed monsters, who are familiar with how hunters fight. They might be immune to their usual weaknesses. They might be capable of utilizing elements that they typically cant use! They might know attacks, many different attacks, that their species otherwise could never know.
Even skilled hunters would have problems traveling in such territory. Even assuming they survived, the risk of injury is high. The hunters guild is only going to send so many hunters and researchers before they decide that somethings amiss/dangerous here, and would attempt different approaches, or attempt to study from afar.
Its also easy to imagine that early meetings with hunters and riders often were met with violence and miscommunication. A hunter would likely see a rider and presume they’re some sort of poacher. A Rider is likely to see a hunter as a threat: if not for themselves then for their partners. A hunter has no reason to believe that any monster they see isn’t a threat to themselves, and everyone else around them. (But without prior approval of the guild, they wouldn’t attack that monster. A rider may not know this, and a hunter might still have prior approval, so the concern is both valid and justified. )
Of course, the hunters and riders are familiar with how dangerous these monsters are. How even one could destroy a village without a second thought. The hunters however, on a whole have had a lot more bad experiences with monsters. Getting injured themselves, seeing their friends injured. The idea of traveling next to a creature that can so easily injure you, is not a concept that the average hunter would immediately trust.
#monster hunter#monster hunter stories#monster hunter headcanons#monster hunter musings#me thinking about video games too much#longpost#tw hunting#tw death#tw animal death#tw injury mention#tagging for safety
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EDIT-AS-I-GO-ALONG-JUSTIFY-ALL-MY-ACTIONS-POst
First started February 10th, 2024 in the middle of the night of course. Although I am 22 years old so I should really be saying-- "it all began 22 years ago when I was born"
Sometimes I write rants that are way too long, and I dont feel like editing or deleting it in full, I'm just going to call this what it is:
A very long diary entry I can come back to later. Its got some good stuff I wont lie to myself. But its also probably incomprehensible at times so ignore it as anything but a very rough rant for now
I also plan to invite new-to-the-site people to read my blog (no doubt being exposed to the horrors within my own blog and past). I'm talking bout people who have probably never typed in the letter T, U, M, B, L, R in a row ever once, and boy howdy are they in for the time of their fucking life
For anyone who is reading this right now, and is worried that they might find something truly scarring to their good christian sensibilities on this site, then I heavily recommend using tags, and content filters before delving further down in the dnd dungeon of my blog, or especially the higher level dungeons on the rest of the site for the first time, where the algorithm will absolutely assume you are ready for the same things the rest of the demographic here wants to see.
(Its a lotta porn. Okay? I'm talking about different unique genres of drawn, or whatever medium of porn mainly. Thats scary to a new person)
So grandma-- buckle up. Jesus take the wheel. Have faith in me & humanity. Its going to be a ride to get there but I truly believe you are capable of it
The whole philosophy I'm preaching is about expanding horizons in a respectful way, so please do so.
With that in mind, in order to prepare any newbies to this site in an engaging and fun way, I had to poke fun in what might be taken in a bad way at the site. I dont mean that. I love this site. I liken my words of preparation to what you might say before bringing your transphobic family into your home full of very queer friends
If you really wanna get mad at me, please do, I love hearing dissenting opinions.-- "Life is full of contractions" as they say.-- But please do so in truly, humanizing, empathically good faith. On every. Single. Post you see. Not just mine of course. Theres a lot more to be said on methodology of public discourse that is a huge part of my philosophy so this post really delves into this
Last thing for now before this post gets even more nitty-gritty:
This is really important, but only for any person who at any point doesn't understand something I'm talking about, and is discouraged by that fact to continue reading up on this philosophy. Don't let that discourage you. I made a perfect science ACT score way back when, and it was all thanks to (and literally nothing else) the simple, but persistent learning skill which is: ignore everything you dont know for now. If you start to notice it happens more than once on something you don't deem irrelevant, than ask questions, but often times people get bogged down by big words, but really do get the gist of an argument. And thats more than enough understanding for a first read. Learning takes many attempts. People learn different materials at different rates and thats a fact
Disclaimer 1: I think the other things counted as number ones but I'm starting here with the numbering
Disclaimer 2: I'm wrong. A lot. I talk with varying degrees of confidence because all language capable humans in existence do that, but literally quantum mechanics--the core principles of our universe as we understand them today-- teaches us that everything acts with a bit of a standard error. Theres no coincidence in the universe why statistics is a field of study.
My standard error is +/-50% on being 50% correct. My point is dont @ me for using an incorrect degree of confidence, because as a trained financial analyst I can attest they are all fucking wrong all the time just like me. However, none of them are wrong about most of the things they say, they simply draw the wrong conclusions most of the time
However, if you believe that the ideals which I, and others like me, are preaching are true than you should in good-faith contribute to making this philosophy more refined, not just be a toxic asshole on the internet. I think most sensible people are past that by now, come on.
I think the last thing I can think to say on this specific point about being wrong (there will always be more to say later), is that a lot of us are inclined, in this world, to only trust things when we've really tested & read into every possible source. And that's for every right reason in the world. But there is no denying that there is gate keeping to science. Huge barriers to entry. Exponentially balooning costs to scientific study. Not to mention just like.. paywalls on every site nowadays. Everyone.
I believe that in this year-of-our-lord-mr-krabs 2024 we need to turn back to philosophy to understand all of our problems, more specifically all of our greviences with capitalism. With the important caveat that we do, in fact, have probably thousands or millions or billions more questions answered than our favorite old philosophers. Fuck yes thats exciting! Because that only makes philosophy today work even better. I think it will help us answer trillions more
Disclaimer 3: I also justify myself. A lot. I'm doing it right now. And now. Every word.
This is an edit at the top after reading over disclaimer 3 once: I think I'm defining justification the same way a scientist thinks of evidence. Also context. It really is just all the same thing. I just needed to add that because I wasnt clear about my definition below
I think as time goes on, people will probably justify themselves more, and more, and more, but while also finding ways to better communicate those justifications in a quicker, more efficient way. Like how encryption and decryption science is a super cool and fast growing study. Kinda cool and star trek if you really think about it far enough
The reason I justify justifying myself is that we have, in fact, learned to encrypt and decrypt many things through our own brains and language. If I say a word that someone else knows, than I save time by not having to jump into every possible nook-and-cranny of explaination. This bit of framing about language being an efficiency/encryption/decryption thing will come back a lot in my writings
I read that over, and told myself: "okay bennet I think you lost the point there" so I need to circle back and say that when we speak we are trying--- desperately -- to find a way to decrypt the crazy encryption that is our thoughts. And because trial and error is effective, we often just jump to saying a bunch of things that have worked in the past, in the hope that the listener will respond with the rewarding joy of 2 people in understanding. A puzzle solved, if you will.
For example, if you engage with my post and I perceive that engagement to be positive, than I will probably, uncontrollabley get a rush of dopamine that cocaine only wishes it could give. You know this is true, because you've felt it too
Disclaimer 3a - mistakes are really cool. I finally know why the Japanese have that thing where they highlight mistakes in a piece. Its about making. It. Memorable. I have a great story example on a post here, but I think most people can agree with my position that its easier to remember when you are wrong-- than right.
What that means-- this is super duper uber wuper sluper important. Things that are memorable are part of the decryption key to language. There is a way that we are all figuring out how to communicate where we utilize what some percieve as mistakes to draw in attention, then listener either remembers the key or has to find it, then both move forward, happy having solved the issue of decrypting a bunch of literally just electricity and sound waves coming from a very real human in front of you. How cool is it that we can apply the framework of humans as puzzle solvers to better communicate our crazy thoughts?
To wrap that up-- this doesnt include all forms of language, of course. But I think its a humanist framework for understanding how we can be more effective communicators.
I read over that whole 3a thing and I already had plenty of questions and dissents for myself. Going to just add for now that if we extend our definition of the word mistake, to include ANYTHING that catches the attention more than expected, than yes, this framework makes more sense.
The next time I read that over I thought I could add that people are drawn by knowledge. Something which isnt new to us just isnt interesting. We know this already, but I'm connecting it to this point.
3b - the fact that I bring up humanist arguments for encouraging memory promoting activities brings to mind that it IS HEALTHY FOR US AND HELPS US AVOID NEURODEGENERATIVE DISORDERS
Disclaimer 4: Like most people on this site, most people who arent depressed (I call tired depressed I was told I'm bipolar its what I do), and honestly all leaders, influencers, artists, actors, scientists, innovators, most entrepreneurs---- yatta yatta yatta everyone okay. Bascially, arguments sake, I mean every human being on the planet. I am capable of great, sometimes too great, emotion. If I wasnt Id be dead. If that emotion seems overwhelming, or too much, then please just take a break, or take a step back and try and reframe everything I'm saying as a deperate plea for help from a very young (I was born in 2001), very hungry, person. More on this later
Disclaimer 5: I'm ex mormon. I come from Texas. I use a LOT of religious sounding talk. There is good reason for that and there's good reason I'm giving this it's own disclaimer. Theology & philosophy go hand-in-hand and theres a quadrillion combinations of words I could barf up from the deepest pits of my mind to discuss.
In the interest of keeping the top of this disclaimer an actual one I'm going to stop for now by saying I think I'm correct in using this language so liberally, for now, because it really does work as a way to connect with people who are used to hearing that language. Most #religiouslytraumatized people I know do the same, and Ive yet to find a good reason to stop. But if someone does get triggered from my religious verbiage at all, please let me know. I'm sure theres a way we can work it out that will make both of us feel better. Probably would just be me watching my damn satanist mouth or something
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Facebook video player for mac
#Facebook video player for mac how to#
#Facebook video player for mac mac os x#
#Facebook video player for mac movie#
#Facebook video player for mac update#
#Facebook video player for mac android#
#Facebook video player for mac mac os x#
It may surprise you with its capabilities, no matter you want to create a professional-looking video or just rotate Facebook videos (we have talked about the process in Part 1, It's definitely an effortless solution, right?).Platform: Mac OS X (macOS Big Sur), Windows (Windows 10)įeatures: Play HD/UHD videos, DVDs, music Stream audio video download online videos ( 1000+ sites)ĥKPlayer may be new to many users, but it still gets the gold medal for video playback on Mac (or Windows). Among all of the Facebook video rotate software, Filmora Video Editor stands out of them. There are a great number of video rotate tools on the market.
#Facebook video player for mac android#
If Facebook really intends to abandon this feature, the only workaround solution is to rotate the video on your devices (Windows, Mac, iPhone, Android phone or others) before you upload it to Facebook. If Facebook has added the video rotating feature, you can follow the steps in Part 2 to easily rotate video on Facebook. Maybe you can't find the rotating video option on Facebook it is because Facebook has changed its functions again. Privacy: In the Friends section, you are allowed to select who you want to share the video with. Location: This section enables us to enter the location where the video was taken.ĭate: This section allows you to add the exact date when the video was taken. Tags: You are able to the people appeared in the video int his section. The description of video might be optional because this part mostly introduces the things related with the posters, not the videos. It is better to select a name that can attract people's attention.ĭescription: This is a description of what is happened in your uploaded video. If you don't write a title for the video, the video will be automatically titled with the timestamp of when you recorded and uploaded it. Title: Generally speaking, you'll want to enter the name of the video you upload. When you edit Facebook video, you can take the following aspects into consideration so that you won't miss the information you want to edit. Wait for a few seconds, and the Facebook platform will adjust your video direction directly. Click on it and select "Rotate Left" or "Rotate Right" as your requirement. Then, move your mouse on the video, find the "Option" button on the button right side of your video tool panel. To rotate a video uploaded to Facebook, you need to play your video firstly, check the orientation, and determine whether you should rotate it left or right. Follow these easy steps to rotate a video on Facebook After all, you may find the "Options" menu back someday. Thus, Facebook may bring back the video rotation feature to correct orientation in this year or someday in the future.Ĭonsidering this fact, I want to also show you the steps to rotate a video on Facebook after posting, which is before Facebook removed the rotate video button.
#Facebook video player for mac update#
This update annoyed thousands of its users. But you already have some comments and likes, don't want to adjust it and upload it again (which will lead to the loss of the comments and likes)?Īs we know, Facebook always updates its features on the platform it has removed the "Options" menu since 2018. When you upload your video to Facebook, find it's in the incorrect orientation. How to Rotate a Video Uploaded on Facebook : If you encounter the same orientation issue in creating Facebook live video, please remember to Turn Off Portrait Mode of your smartphone screen before you start your broadcast. These features are essential for achieving a high-quality video in a very short time. It manages to gather a wide variety of useful features. Rotate Facebook Video with Filmora Video Editorįilmora Video Editor for Windows ( Filmora Video Editor for Mac) is quite a cheap video editing software, which is also the best video rotator for users to rotate all kinds of videos, including Facebook video. Rotate Facebook Video with Filmora Video Editor While there are many ways for rotating videos before uploading to Facebook, these are what you need. Now, we know it is impossible to flip a video on Facebook for the present.
#Facebook video player for mac how to#
So, how to solve this Facebook video angle issue? Also, it is inconvenient to watch vertical videos on their laptops. Since Facebook removed the Video Rotation Option, Facebook users are annoyed that they should check twice to rotate videos to the proper orientation before upload videos to Facebook. 'Please put the rotate button back, Facebook' 'Hi Facebook team: you're losing live video customers when people have to watch vertical videos on their laptops.' This menu is no longer available how can I rotate a video on Facebook?' 'There used to be an "Options" menu on the video settings that would allow you to rotate the video.
5.2 Rotate Video in Windows Media Player.
#Facebook video player for mac movie#
5.1 Rotate Video in Windows Movie Maker.
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ostrich birkin 22
Hermes Rose Pink Terre Cuite Ostrich Birkin 30 Kelly
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SWEET DREAMS ARE MADE OF THIS: The Mechanics of the Infection
welcome back to feral’s essay tag where the hot takes don’t stop from keep being hot!
this particular meta has a Lot of citations from canon, and my plan is to have them as actual footnotes in the dreamwidth mirror when that goes up (as i always crosspost my meta there in case my layout text is too small for any folks accessing these from computer and not mobile).
CONTENT WARNING FOR TONIGHT’S PROGRAM: This essay contains discussion of body horror, cancer, and many of the darker aspects of Hallownest’s society.
ALSO, AS USUAL: I read Hollow Knight as anti-colonialist fiction and all of my meta approaches the text from that angle. This essay is strongly critical of the Pale King and Hallownest, and affords sympathy to pre-Hallownest societies & native characters, including Radiance. If you come from a Christian cultural background (regardless of whether you currently practice the religion or not), some of the concepts I am going to discuss may be challenging for you. Please be responsible in your choice whether to engage with this content, and also, be respectful here or wherever else you’re discussing this essay. Thanks.
SWEET DREAMS ARE MADE OF THIS: The Mechanics of the Infection
If you’ve ever looked through my Hollow Knight tags, you have probably seen me joke about the Infection like a lot, usually along the lines of Radiance casting Level 9 Inflict Tang on Hallownest, or “(radi voice) the End of EVA will continue until you Let My People Go” or some such. In addition to being some of the most beautiful body horror I’ve yet seen in fiction, its appearance also makes it a veritable meme factory.
It is also something that inspires a lot of very wild theorizing amongst fans, because canon tells us WHY the Infection exists but doesn’t ever directly explain WHAT it is. To name just a few of the guesses I’ve seen, people have posited that it could be some sort of pupa juice, or maybe some type of parasitic fungus.
I have my own guess, though, and it’s based on hints we can find in-game. I would like to share it with the class today, so let’s take a quick look through the sauce, starting with what we already know!
WHY
We learn why the Infection happened from Seer and Moss Prophet, and this is also summed up more directly in Team Cherry’s dev notes attached to Seer.
The Pale King wanted to be the only god of light in the crater,* so he tried to kill Radiance by thralling her children - attracting the moths with his light and making them forget about her,** assimilating them into Hallownest. Radiance survived because some moths still remembered and tried to preserve what they could of their original culture,*** and eventually she attempted to reassert her existence and communicate with the bugs of the crater by speaking to them through their dreams. However, the Pale King realized what was happening and ordered his worshippers to shut her out.****
Radiance did not give up, and continued to broadcast her message through dreams. This unstoppable force VS immovable object conflict could not last forever - something eventually had to give, and what gave was the mortals.***** The Infection was an accident that Radiance did not initially intend, but presumably chose to weaponize after the fact as a way to attempt to pressure TPK into releasing the moths and leaving her alone (or, barring that, a way to thoroughly destroy his kingdom at the very least).
SOURCES:
* “No blazing kin. Only one light shall shine against the dark.” - Lore tablet hidden beside the Pale King’s throne in the White Palace.
** “None of us can live forever, and so we ask those who survive to remember us. Hold something in your mind and it lives on with you, but forget it and you seal it away forever. That is the only death that matters.” - Seer’s 1200 Essence dialogue.
*** “But the memories of that ancient light still lingered, hush whispers of faith... Until all of Hallownest began to dream of that forgotten light.” - Seer’s 2400 Essence dialogue.
**** “The King and the bugs of hallownest resisted this memory/power and it started to manifest as the infection.” - from Team Cherry’s dev notes attached to Seer.
***** “Light is life, beaming, pure, brilliant. To stifle that light is to suppress nature. Nature suppressed distorts, plagues us.” - Moss Prophet's dialogue.
HOW
Now that we’ve recapped why the Infection exists, let’s examine the process of how the Infection works. We see some examples of this with various characters in-game, and the Hunter also shares his observations of the Infection’s mechanics in his commentary on the Infected Crossroads entries.
Since we’ll be bringing up the Hunter's Journal here, I want to first examine three entries to establish its dual authorship and how trustworthy it is: The Shade’s entry, the Lightseed’s, and Radiance’s.
We know that the bottom section of the Hunter’s Journal is the Hunter’s personal notes on each creature because the game itself tells us so. So who writes the notes on top that give a brief explanation of what each creature is? It’s a common fan theory that Ghost writes these, which I believe is indeed the case.
First let’s look at the Shade, which is automatically unlocked when we receive the Hunter's Journal in-game regardless of whether we have died and fought the Shade or not. Mechanically this is important because if the Shade weren’t unlocked by default it would be impossible to attain the Hunter achievements without dying at least once - this would REALLY suck for anybody who likes to suffer enough to try to complete the journal in Steel Soul mode.
The Shade’s entry reads:
Echo of a previous life. Defeat it to retake its power and become whole.
-
Each of us leaves an imprint of something when we die. A stain on the world. I don’t know how much longer this kingdom can bear the weight of so many past lives...
Notice that the top text knows exactly what the Shade is and how it works. In story terms, this would imply that Ghost has died and come back enough pre-game to understand the mechanics of how their revivals work.
The Lightseed’s entry reads:
A single-celled organism, completely infected. Scurries about simple-mindedly.
-
Strange air has been seeping down from above for years. Some of the air became liquid, and some of that liquid became flesh, and some of that flesh came to life. I don’t know what to make of it.
In this entry, the top text assumes that Lightseeds are a Lifeseed-like creature that has been infected, and the Hunter’s notes reveal that this is incorrect and the Lightseeds were actually born from the Infection itself. From this we learn that the top text isn’t omniscient and can be mistaken: It’s written from a limited perspective.
And here’s Radi’s entry:
The light,* forgotten.
-
The plague, the infection, the madness that haunts the corpses of Hallownest... the light that screams out from the eyes of this dead Kingdom. What is the source? I suppose mere mortals like myself will never understand.
Here, the top text has information that the Hunter doesn’t, and which only a handful of bugs are privy to anymore.
From these three examples, I believe it is safe to say that Ghost is in fact the author of the journal entries’ top segments.
It’s important to remember that the observations these characters make can be not wholly correct, and I’ll bring that up when I believe it to be relevant, but for now let’s build a picture of how a case of the Infection generally progresses by looking at the Hunter’s commentary on Infected Crossroads enemies, and at a handful of characters whose Infection we directly observe: Bretta, Sly, Myla, and Moss Prophet.
The Hunter describes the broad arc of Infection progression in the Violent Husk's entry: “First [the bugs of Hallownest] fell into deep slumber, then they awoke with broken minds, and then their bodies started to deform...”
The two NPCs who we can save from becoming Infected, Bretta and Sly, are initially found emitting orange fog and mumbling to themselves. In Bretta’s case, when listened to, she initially talks about being left behind and forgotten** as she assumes that all people will treat her this way even though she craves affection and attention; Dream Nailed either before or after being listened to, she mentions a “shining figure”.***
Meanwhile, Sly speaks about his pupil Oro and someone named Esmy, and when his symptoms subside he identifies that he was led to the Crossroads village ruins by a dream.****
Listening to Bretta and Sly completely brings them back to reality, after which they leave the underground area entirely to return to Dirtmouth. However, when the player encounters Myla after defeating Soul Master and obtaining Descending Dive, listening to her does not cause any change in her condition despite that she is not yet hostile.
During these encounters, Bretta is surrounded by orange fog, Sly is surrounded by orange fog and his eyes have also begun to turn orange, and Myla's eyes are glowing but there is no fog around her. So, we can deduce that for as long as the orange fog is present, a bug may still be awoken and cured (Bretta and Sly both show no signs of relapse over the course of the game), but once the fog disappears the bug can no longer be saved by external means.
The "deformation" that the Hunter mentions in the Violent Husk entry refers to the large blobs of Infection that develop on the bodies of creatures that have been infected for a long period of time. We observe these upon the Infected Crossroads enemies, as well as on Hollow and the Moss Prophet. We also see that these Infection tumors can eventually kill bugs once they grow too large and impede bodily functions, just like real cancer: The Moss Prophet and Mossy Vagabonds are all discovered in this state after the Crossroads become infected, as are the Husk Guards in the Crossroads.
So, the progression we can see here is that bugs become infected through their dreams, and while they can initially be woken, if left alone they will fall into too deep a sleep to wake up. Some time after this they will start to move around again but will be hostile to any creatures that are not infected. And, if left in this state for a very long period of time, they will develop tumorous growths which are potentially fatal.
Potentially fatal. This is an interesting contradiction to a basic assumption that most players - and even Ghost and the Hunter - seem to hold about the Infection: That is, that the Infection functions like a pop-culture zombie plague, and infected creatures are all undead (reanimated dead things that can't be killed); thus that the enemies that respawn after resting or going offscreen are the same ones that Ghost just murdered, and have simply been reanimated by the Infection once again.
But infected creatures can die of the Infection. What’s more, bosses and unique instances of generic enemies (such as Myla and the Moss Knight at the pier of Unn’s lake) do not respawn once killed. And it’s definitely not that Ghost killed them that counts: Traitor Lord dies whether Ghost fights him solo or whether Cloth is brought along, in which case she always gets the final blow. This creates the argument that the respawning generics are NOT in fact the same individuals reanimated over and over, but different individuals of the same enemy class, and that their different respawn rates speak to how plentiful those creatures are - small animals respawning faster because a new one will arrive in the recently killed one’s territory sooner, for instance.
Ghost and the Hunter both seem to assume that infected enemies are all undead - many creatures are identified as “husks” or “the remains of [whatever specific bug]” in the Hunter's Journal. But we’ve already established that sometimes Ghost and the Hunter are wrong.
So, if infected creatures aren’t undead, then what are they?
SOURCES:
* I find it a very interesting tidbit of characterization for Ghost that they refer to Radiance as the Light, as native bugs do, rather than calling her the Old Light, as Hallownest bugs did. This has some fascinating implications for where Ghost feels their allegiances to be, but that's neither here nor there right now lol.
** “Ohhh... please... don’t leave me behind! You... forgot about me...? I knew you would... everyone always forgets about me...” - Bretta’s dialogue, Fungal Wastes encounter
*** “...Shining figure...So bright...” - Bretta’s Dream Nail dialogue, Fungal Wastes encounter
**** “...ugghh, Oro you oaf.... You wield your nail... like a club... ...Esmy... how much deeper do we have to go... Oh! What?! Who are you?! ...I see. This old village. What a strange dream, to have led me down here! If you hadn’t found me, I don’t think I would’ve ever woken.” - Sly’s dialogue, Crossroads village encounter
WHAT
In a move very on-brand for Hollow Knight, there’s actually a line from Seer that gives the whole game away - and I mean this incredibly literally, she declares her loyalty to Radiance and says Fuck Hallownest and also hints at what she hopes for from Ghost all in two breaths!! - except that most players are never going to see this line because Seer only says this if you screw up platforming in the Forgotten Dream and yeet yourself off a platform before picking up the Dream Nail.
I do not doubt that I could wring a whole essay out of this one line by itself (and Seer deserves an essay from me so maybe I will), but today the part we’re concerned with is the third line of this dialogue, i.e. how she describes the Dream Nail to Ghost: “The power to wake this world from its slumber[.]”
Its slumber.
The Infection doesn’t only spread through dreams. It is a dream.
To put it in a more meta/video game mechanics sort of way, the Infection is a status ailment. Sleep exists as a common status ailment in RPGs, strategy games, and even some adventure games and platformers. Usually the status ailment of sleep is a mild nuisance that wears off after time, when a character is struck, or if the requisite curative is used; in comparison the Infection is Sleep But Bass Boosted. Appropriate, for a glorified status ailment that’s inflicted by the literal actual god of dreams.
The Infection can only be cured in the very early stages. Once an infected creature has fallen into a coma, there’s no longer any hope of a third party breaking the curse... and also, infected creatures sleepwalk. Violently.
This may also provide an explanation for why mummified bugs in the catacombs have been infected, too: If they were freshly dead and their lingering spirit was still attached enough to their corpses, and that lingering spirit retained enough of a mind to dream...
Aside from those mummified bugs, though, I believe it likely that most if not all of the infected enemies in-game are very, very much alive.
Beyond all the dialogue and lore crumbs pointing to the Infection simply being a cursed sleep, this explanation makes the most sense when thinking about Radiance as a character. She is the literal embodiment of dreams as well as the sun, so inflicting eternal slumber with bonus malignant sleepwalking is a natural extension of her power and a way to use it offensively without being directly violent.
(I've written about this at length elsewhere, but signs point to Radiance having been a pacifist prior to the Pale King’s invasion. Short version: The Moth Tribe were pacifists and Radiance was the center of their culture so it would be odd if she were an exception; she is incapable of inflicting any physical harm whatsoever in a game where lack of contact damage from an active enemy indicates helplessness and such enemies always flee from Ghost unless they have a tool they can use to fight with; her behavior in her boss battles indicates a lack of combat experience, and her nail-generating spells seem to be based on Hollow’s abilities. Real-life adult moths cannot fight - they defend themselves with flight, camouflage, mimicry, and I’m Poisonous So Fuck Off coloring.)
Now, I don’t want to downplay the harm the Infection causes - it doesn’t have to turn bugs into literal undead zombies to be devastating. What we can glean of Hallownest’s ruins suggests that as a state it was heavily dependent on labor to run its industry, so incapacitating the laborers would have turned the whole country on its head, especially because those laborers cannot be woken. The Infection also created an intense atmosphere of terror throughout Hallownest as bugs tried to discover ways to cure it or at least protect themselves. And as the Hunter observes,* because of how the Infection is caused, the harder you try to block Radiance out, the worse the Infection will get.
(A sidebar: Interestingly, the Infection's progress seems to be very slow when a creature willingly accepts it; Moss Prophet has Infection tumors when met but doesn’t die of them until the Crossroads is infected, though many Crossroads bugs are found dead of tumors immediately. Traitor Lord and his followers opted in to the Infection long ago, but Traitor Lord is still at the “orange fog” stage and could theoretically be cured, if he wanted to be. Both Traitor Lord and Moss Prophet are still completely lucid, too.)
Radiance may not have committed any direct violence against Hallownest, but the Infection does incite violence: infected creatures become hostile to and will attack the uninfected. And as we’ve discussed, the Infection itself can become fatal once it’s progressed far enough for tumorous growths to form.
A god smiting the shit out of her people’s oppressors by nonviolently but thoroughly disrupting their kingdom, Especially if that kingdom is a genocidal colonialist slave state,** as a Let My People Go And Leave Me Alone :) ultimatum is not unreasonable. (And Moss Prophet tells us point-blank that literally just listening to Radiance in the first place would have prevented the Infection before it began!) But despite that Hallownest as an institution is unambiguously awful, Hallownest bugs victimized by their own state (such as the maggot slaves and other menial workers) probably saw much less benefit from Hallownest’s genocides than the rich and nobility, and likely deserved the smiting way less than said rich and nobility.
Meanwhile Hallownest’s neighbors - all native nations who are just as much victims of TPK’s bullshit as the Moth Tribe - did not deserve to get caught up in the smiting at all.
Lateral harm in Hollow Knight is another topic that deserves its own essay - and more than that, lots of in-depth conversation! - but, again, that’s not the topic we want to focus on today. I do want to make it clear, though, that infected creatures being alive and theoretically wakeable if the curse should end doesn’t suddenly mean the Infection was actually no big deal. If you want your jimmies rustled, try Dream Nailing enemies that pull from the generic Dream Nail dialogue pool: They are on some level aware that they’re dreaming and can’t wake.***
Clues that the Infection is literally a dream are littered all over the game, from Elderbug’s initial dialogue**** to the name of ending 3, Dream No More - not only named that because that’s the ending where Ghost sacrifices Radiance’s life as well as their own to end Hollow’s suffering rather than only sacrificing their freedom.
Some of what Bardoon and Moss Prophet have to say about the Infection is suggestive of the nature of this dream, though. Moss Prophet appeals to their audience to find unity through the Infection,***** and Bardoon also remarks on this, though he cautions that this comes at the cost of being reduced to instinct.****** Dreaming does tend to come hand in hand with lack of inhibition and suggestibility, but I’m more interested in what Moss Prophet and Bardoon mean by unity, since infected creatures’ thoughts are different depending on what they are and what they were already doing while awake.
There's less specific hard evidence for this aside from how we can observe that Infection blobs are connected to Radiance, transmitting her heartbeat and birthing the Lightseeds, her unintended creations. But given that those blobs do originate from Infection fluid according to the Hunter... Radiance is not just the embodiment of dreams but the heart of THE Dream. So could the Infection be a forcible pseudo-immersion into that capital-D Dream, the Dream Realm itself?
Whether my hunch here is right or not, I can’t in good faith end this essay without bringing all y’all’s attention to absolutely my favorite bit of The Infection Is A Dream foreshadowing: The way multiple parties mention the fact that the Infection smells and tastes sweet.*******
You know... it’s sweet... it’s a sweet dream... get it.........
And now that you can no longer unsee that brilliantly awful pun, I think I'll see myself out!
SOURCES:
* “The infection that swept through Hallownest so long ago... they say that the harder you struggled against it, the more it consumed you.” - Hunter’s commentary, Slobbering Husk Hunter’s Journal entry.
** I’m referring, of course, to the maggots. See: “Weakest members of the kingdom of Hallownest. Generally looked down upon and forced to do menial labour.” (Ghost’s commentary) and “If they try to bargain for their life, just ignore them. They have nothing to offer.” (Hunter’s commentary) from the Maggot Hunter's Journal entry as well as False Knight/Failed Champion’s backstory. Remember also that maggots are the larval form of flies like Sly (you’ll see the resemblance if you compare Sly’s features to the maggot siblings’), meaning Hallownest employs child slavery. In more cheerful news Sly’s backstory must be absolutely goddamn wild.
*** “I’m not...Dead..” “Am I...Sleeping?” “I can’t....Wake up...” - Dream Nail dialogue from generic Hallownest bugs (Wandering Husk, Leaping Husk, Horned Husk, Husk Bully, Husk Warrior) and from God Tamer for some reason
**** “Perhaps dreams aren't such great things after all...” - Elderbug’s initial dialogue
***** “Embrace light! Achieve union!” - Moss Prophet’s dialogue
****** “Theirs is a different kind of unity. Rejection of the Wyrm’s attempt at order. I resist the light’s allure. Union it may offer, but also a mind bereft of thought... To instinct alone a bug is reduced...Hrrm...” - Bardoon’s dialogue (Listen four times, not counting other dialogue flags)
******* “A thick orange mist fills these walking corpses. It has a sweet, sickly taste to it. I find it foul. After you kill these creatures, I suggest you do not eat them.” - Hunter’s commentary, Husk Bully Hunter’s Journal entry, just for one example.
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Israel 'defending itself' is a laughable phrase when they have all the military power and technology and respond to whatever attacks Palestinians initiate with homemade rockets and rocks tenfold with more civilian deaths. they wouldn't have to defend themselves if they weren't occupying palestinian land and brutally suppressing its people. the fixation on Hamas which was created YEARS into the conflict, long after Israel had already been perpetrating war crimes, is just a way to deflect from the reality that Israel is a colonial project that is killing Palestinian babies in the name of self defense. consider why you want to justify IDF soldiers shooting at people who are running away from them, surrendering. these people live in a prison. they have no clean air or water. Israel controls everything - their electricity, their sewage systems, controls where they come and go. they have no freedoms. it is not even a remotely comparable situation. Israel has ALL the power, Palestine has NONE.
I will answer you thoroughly because I want you to take the time and read this response, there are MANY incorrections and misconceptions here that I hope are the results of being simply misinformed and not something way worse.
not gonna flood your feed so I’m putting everything under the tag.
“Israel 'defending itself' is a laughable phrase when they have all the military power and technology and respond to whatever attacks Palestinians initiate with homemade rockets and rocks tenfold with more civilian deaths.”
The asymmetry you’re talking about - tech and military wise - being your justification as to why Israel just has to endure ‘homemade rockets and rocks’ is fucked up. First of all, these are NOT just homemade rockets.
Hamas has multiple types of rockets - and let me tell you - they are NOT homemade. Hamas is the third wealthiest terror organisation according to forbes. They receive money from Qatar and Jordan, as well as many other countries that think they fund help for the Palestinian. They don’t, Hamas uses all that money to launch thousands of top notch rockets and missiles to Israel, instead of helping the people of Gaza. Do you think homemade rockets look like this? do you think they can do this? maybe this?
this?
or that?
I wrote about the rocks Palestinians throw at soldiers and civilians here, last week, an Israeli Jewish man was beaten to death and murdered by rocks in Lod by radical Israeli Arabs who identify as Palestinians. This is only the most recent occurrence - but it happens all the time and poses a serious life threat since the rocks thrown aren’t cute little beach stone, they’re big chunks of rock meant to kill, and using them as weapons is illegal in multiple countries around the world because of how dangerous it is.
Gaza has more civilian deaths, that’s for sure. Again asymmetry that raises the brutal question - why there aren’t more Israeli people dying?
Now, Israel does have a better system and way better protective measures against missiles and rockets. Do you want to know why? Israel invests millions in shelters, protective spaces and most of all - the Iron Dome. Hamas invests the same amounts of money in arming itself with missiles they launch at Israeli civilians (Jewish, Arab and Christians). Also, Hamas launches missiles and rockets from civilian areas so when they malfunction they also blow up around the same areas.
“they wouldn't have to defend themselves if they weren't occupying palestinian land and brutally suppressing its people.”
Do you realize that they wouldn’t have to ‘defend themselves’ if they weren’t shooting at Israel in the first place? They are NOT defending themselves, Hamas has been continually sending missiles to Israel with no regard to human lives - not Israel’s nor theirs. Also, Israel has withdrawn all its settlements in 2005 with the exception of some parts in the Gaza strip, so not so much for your occupation, unless you believe the entire land of Israel is an occupation, and in that case - you’re historically incorrect.
“the fixation on Hamas which was created YEARS into the conflict, long after Israel had already been perpetrating war crimes”
The ‘fixation’ on Hamas is the direct result of the pure fact they are actively trying to MURDER Israeli civilians every single day. You are correct by saying the conflict is way older than Hamas and way more complicated than them (you see, that’s why you DON’T get your info from infographics folks) but before Hamas there was the terror organisation Hezbollah from Lebanon (that very recently decided to join the party and fire missiles from the northern border to Israel as well), the Muslim Brotherhood and of course, ISIS. They are the terror organisations that continuously try to wipe Israel and everybody in it for good, committing endless war crimes. You all shout war crimes when Israel is the only country trying to minimise and prevent the harm done to Palestinians, often on its own expanse - like here, yesterday Israel tried to ship some resources to Gaza but the shipments were attacked by Palestinians.
“a way to deflect from the reality that Israel is a colonial project that is killing Palestinian babies in the name of self defense.”
You guys love that argument - Israel killing Palestinian babies. Well here and here you can see well planned attacks on Hamas HQ and offices that were called off last minute because it was revealed civilians and children were present. This is something the army tries to avoid at all cost, even if it means losing millions, as well as months and sometimes years of intelligence gathering. That’s because Israel values human lives more than anything! Every possible effort to eliminate the threat to innocent lives WILL be made on the expense of anything. Except, Hamas doesn’t play by those rules, they have been known to deliberately hide Intelligence HQ, offices, and even high level terrorist amongst civilians, as well as schools, hospitals - and our newest example - news buildings. Putting human lives in danger because they use Israel’s refusal to kill civilians as an advantage. Unfortunately, that also means many time Israel doesn’t know about the presence of civilians there and horrible deaths happen. That’s very much on Hamas.
“is just consider why you want to justify IDF soldiers shooting at people who are running away from them, surrendering. these people live in a prison.”
Listen, IDF soldiers are rarely allowed to shoot anyone - most of them don’t even carry any weapons but pepper spray. But the ones who do suffer very severe consequences if they misuse their weapons and they need to justify themselves in a court marshall . For example a couple of years ago a 19 years old soldier shot a terrorist that tried to stab his friend, he went through multiple court marshalls and even a civil trial, as well as months in prison. Believe me, this is not something any soldier would want to go trough unless their life was in grave danger and they had to shoot. (maybe America could learn a thing or too).
“they have no clean air or water. Israel controls everything - their electricity, their sewage systems, controls where they come and go. they have no freedoms. it is not even a remotely comparable situation. Israel has ALL the power, Palestine has NONE.”
Lastly, please do your research. First of all, Gaza is currently controlled by Hamas. And has been since its election almost 15 years ago. They control the resources Palestinians get or don’t get, and again - they choose to spend the billions they get in funds by buying missiles and weapons. The only thing Israel truly controls is the border with Israel, and like any other border it’s monitored and controlled, especially since it’s a favoured place for terrorist to execute attacks. Don’t forget there’s a border with Egypt as well.
We’re not talking about Israel vs Palestinians. We’re talking about Israel vs Hamas - a blood thirsty, antisemitic terror organisation that has no value for human lives whatsoever. And still, Israel is the one who gets blamed and condemned.
(and i have to thank @mysteryspotillusions because she did such a great job and I link to her posts several times!)
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ok ur top faves wangxian fics go
hey yati! 🥰️
alright, so first things first, here’s a big wangxian fic rec list i made a while ago, if you wanna check that one out too! consider the list below part 2. these are all my faves so far since my last rec list (as you'll quickly see, i have a LOT of faves).
and just a fyi/psa/disclaimer for anyone reading this: some of these fics have disturbing themes and/or kinky/freaky sex! make sure to check the authors’ tags and notes before reading. also, much like my first rec list, there’s going to be a mix of mdzs and cql canon, characterizations, dynamics, etc., so bear that in mind.
....ok GO
live from new york by varnes | rated E | 87K words | THE snl au fic!!!! yes, by snl i mean saturday night live. this is perhaps the best and funniest story i've ever read, period. varnes is a fucking genius. read this fic.
Wei Ying lets out a long, ugly groan. “I am fine, Lan Zhan. Everybody is overreacting, it’s so embarrassing for all of you.”
“You had undiagnosed pneumonia, which you walked around with for weeks until you passed out during dress,” Lan Wangji corrects him. “It got a big laugh, until everyone thought you were dead.”
He keeps his voice even and does not tell Wei Ying that it had been Lan Wangji who caught him, who called the ambulance, and who rode with him to the hospital, where he was yelled at by nurses who wanted to know why he hadn’t noticed that Wei Ying couldn’t stop shivering or string proper sentences together.
“Rumors of my demise have been vastly overstated,” Wei Ying says. “Anyway, I’m already feeling much better. Basically fine. Really almost completely back to normal, so stop babying me and tell me why the fuck you let your stupid brother hire the worst man in the world to host our show.”
-
OR: the one where they all work at SNL, Yanli's ex-boyfriend is hosting, and that's just the beginning of everybody's problems.
swiss cheese theory by varnes | rated M | 19K words | sequel to snl au fic!!!!!! another must-read.
The Swiss Cheese model of accident causation likens human system defences to a series of slices of randomly-holed Swiss Cheese arranged vertically and parallel to each other with gaps in-between each slice. Defences against failure are modelled as a series of barriers, represented as slices of the cheese. The holes in the cheese slices represent individual weaknesses in individual parts of the system. The system as a whole produces failures when holes in all of the slices momentarily align, permitting "a trajectory of accident opportunity," so that a hazard passes through holes in all of the defences, leading to an accident.
OR: Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian go to the courthouse.
OR: “Sweethearts,” the city clerk had said, very gently, “you’re already married.”
best friends forever by varnes | rated T | 17K words | alright, so like, strictly speaking, wangxian isn't the focus of this fic, BUT. this fic is so good!! it is seriously so good, and it made me fall in love with jin ling/lan jingyi. also, it's varnes, so read it!
It happened like this: Jin Ling was a sect leader now, which was, and Jingyi really meant this, fucking hilarious. There were few things funnier, in his honest opinion.
Because he was young, and inexperienced, and also — it had to be said — a real shithead, there was apparently some belief amongst his advisors that the best way forward, to promote the picture of a stable, mature sect leader who absolutely did not cry at the drop of a hat, was for Jin Ling to get married.
-
OR: Jin Ling and Jingyi get engaged.
Things spiral from there.
For a Good Time, Call by ScarlettStorm | rated E | 171K words
The picture is of Wei Ying, that much is clear. It’s of a lot more of Wei Ying than Lan Zhan is used to seeing. He supposes that, technically, Wei Ying is dressed. It’s a bare technicality, since one of Wei Ying’s hands has rucked up his black tank top practically to his collarbone, showing a long expanse of abdomen and one nipple. Sweat beads on his sternum, catching the light like jewels. His other hand is--Lan Zhan feels his eyes widen, as though unable to look away from a train wreck--on his hip, one thumb tugging down the waistband of a pair of red briefs. Wei Ying is biting his lower lip and looking directly into the camera, sultry, his eyes dark and inviting. His erection is obvious, outlined against the red of the briefs and framed carefully with the hand on his hip. Lan Zhan’s brain goes wildly, screamingly blank.
Or: Lan Zhan accidentally finds his best friend's OnlyFans account and has an ongoing emotional crisis.
love, in fire and blood by cicer | rated E | 360K words | i actually haven't finished this one since i was reading it when it was a WIP, i need to reread it and catch up fjdskl;fjsd, but i love it very much!!!!!! oh my god he wanted to look nice for his husband..... 🙃 [screams with mouth closed]
"You want Wen Ruohan dead," the Patriarch continued idly. "You want his corpse puppets eliminated. You want his halls burned to the ground and his soldiers disemboweled and begging for mercy. Have I about covered it?"
He gave another knife-edged smile.
"But what will you give me in return?"
"We would be willing to offer quite a bit in return for Wen Ruohan's defeat," Lan Xichen admitted. "But I'm afraid we don't know what an immortal such as yourself desires. Please advise us."
The Patriarch waved at hand at the front of the tent. "I want Second Young Master Lan."
(In which the Sunshot Campaign ends through an arranged marriage to the Yiling Patriarch, and Lan Wangji suffers the mortifying ordeal of falling in love with his own husband.)
how to fall in love with a catfish: a guide by wei wuxian (disaster rat) by bwyn & Yuisaki | rated T | 55K words
A new plan hatches in Wei Wuxian’s head. If this nocturnal, bottom-feeding, slimy, invasive mudcat posing as a beautiful actor thinks he can sway Wei Wuxian with animal pictures and a sob story and an unbelievably stilted way of texting with still no dick pictures in the first five minutes of conversation, he has another thing coming. Wei Wuxian’s got it, alright, he has this in the fucking bag.
~
Wei Wuxian plots to expose a catfish using strategic memes and turtle pictures while wiggling his way out of family dinner. Lan Wangji just wants companions.
there’s no promised goodbye here by Yuisaki | rated T | 54K words
Jiang Cheng stares at him. “Didn’t you say you broke up five months ago?”
“Yeah.”
“So why do you have a picture of you two kissing taped to your fridge?”
“Because we’re too broke for magnets,” Wei Wuxian explains, then considers that statement. “Well, I’m too broke for magnets. Lan Zhan probably refuses to buy them because he’s trying to have lofty ideas about the moral failings of materialism.”
~
Wei Wuxian navigates the trials of living with his ex-boyfriend in apartment 1301.
paint smears on sunny days by SnowshadowAO3 | rated E | 54K words
To say that he runs to his car would be incorrect, as he is a Lan, and running is both undignified and unnecessary unless in immediate danger. Nor does he slam his key into the ignition, or aggressively swerve around the cars on the freeway, or have a mild panic attack at the fact he is picking A-Yuan up late from school for the first time ever.
He comes close, though.
By the time he arrives, it’s 4:35PM, and he has imagined about fifty different worse-case scenarios. The door is partly open when he gets to it, a messy label of 104B—Art Room scrawled with chalk on a placard next to the faded wood. As he opens it fully, he expects to see a wailing, terrified child, or perhaps a scene of utter misery and betrayal.
What he finds is his son, hands covered in paint, being sung to by a beautiful, dark-haired stranger.
“Ducks live in the pond, yellow ducks, happy ducks!”
Lan Wangji stops in his tracks.
(Or: Falling in love with your son’s art teacher, in five parts)
a paper friend by sunzu | rated G | 5K words
Lan Wangji finds a paperman far from its body and helps get it home.
-Or-
Lan Wangji unknowingly meets Wei Wuxian for the first time.
All Caught Up by brooklinegirl | rated E | 37K words
"Betrothed," Wei Ying says indignantly.
Lan Wangji can't stop his gaze from darting up to him. Wei Ying understands. Wei Ying is looking at him, wide-eyed and upset on his behalf.
"And you don't even like her," Wei Ying says.
"I don't even know her," Lan Wangji says quietly.
"But even if you did—" Wei Ying starts.
"I wouldn't want this," Lan Wangji finishes.
Lead Me On Through by mrsronweasley | rated E | 55K words | oh look another canon-era practice kissing fic fjdskfl;ds
"Who do you think your betrothed is?" Wei Wuxian asks, sprawling out in front of Lan Zhan and enjoying the prim thinning of his lips at the question. He shouldn't be sprawling—they're in the library, for one, and Lan Zhan is studying, for another—but he can't help himself. Wei Wuxian is a sprawler.
"I do not believe this to be of importance," Lan Zhan responds, without turning his gaze away from his book.
"What!" Wei Wuxian sits up. "How can you say that? Of course it's important! This is the person you'll be with for the rest of your life, Lan Zhan."
I Started From the Bottom/And Now I'm Rich by x_los | rated E | 58K words | ok so i know that in my spiel above i said to mind the tags, etc., but actually pay no mind to the first two relationship tags for this fic. i PROMISE that this isn't that sort of dead dove fic fjdksl;fjs;lifkj. i. it. it's wangxian. don't sweat it. don't even trip. just—this fic fucking rules. it's completely insane and it slaps. wei ying is a girlboss and a bitch and i like her So Much
“First, you get the money. Then you get the power, respect - hos come last.”
Wen Qing traps Wei Wuxian in the Demon Slaughtering Cave, but Wei Wuxian isn’t interested in being the beneficiary of the Wen Remnants’ noble sacrifice. His efforts to free himself accidentally send him back to the beginning of the Sunshot Campaign. Coreless but armed with demonic cultivation, knowledge of the future and his wits, Wei Wuxian takes advantage of this opportunity to come out on top of both the war and its aftermath—before either has a chance to happen—by marrying and swiftly burying the cultivation world’s worst men.
Lan Wangji is confused, hurt, and uncomfortably aroused by Wei Wuxian’s improbably elaborate series of Sect-themed bridal negligees.
rather cruelly used and rather reserved by x_los | rated M | 14K words
In the month between Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian leaving Yi City and their attending the cultivation conference in Lanling, Wei Wuxian discovers a locked room in the Jingshi. It is a mystery that clever and curious Wei Wuxian is doing everything in his power to avoid solving.
But the rose was awake all night for your sake/Knowing your promise to me by x_los | rated E | 8K words | resentment tenties~
The resentful energy occupying Wei Wuxian's body like an enemy army is very interested in giving him Lan Wangji, tied up with a bow.
Wei Wuxian is hoping that Lan Wangji (who is far too noble and very keen to save Wei Wuxian's misguided soul) doesn't find out about any aspect of that.
Mo Money, Mo Problems by x_los | rated M | 3K words
After the Mo family perishes in distressing and mysterious circumstances, Wei Wuxian, still reeling from his reincarnation, tries to dip back into their manor for a little travelling money. (Forward planning! What a concept!) Lan Wangji catches him immediately, and is highly unimpressed (read: furious) with Wei Wuxian’s decision to run away from him in the first place.
Standing Engagement by x_los | rated M | 18K words
Lan Wangji believes he and Wei Wuxian are essentially engaged. While they search for his missing betrothed, he accidentally reveals as much to Jiang Wanyin. Now everyone in the cultivation world knows about the imminent marriage, except for Wei Wuxian himself.
Coming Back to Yourself by acernor | rated E | 22K words | genital swapping for fun and nonprofit!
Lan Wangji gets cursed with a ~woman's body~ and has to orgasm to go back. Since he's 1) a virgin 2) super repressed and 3) SUPER gay, he has no idea what to do.
If only he had a super nosy friend who's read lots of erotic novels who could help him figure out what to do... hm...
Save a Sword by etymologyplayground | rated E | 5K words | a fic inspired by the above fic!
Lan WangJi presses a kiss into his throat, which draws a shivering whine from him. "Like this," he agrees, his voice so low. Then he slides one warm elegant hand down Wei WuXian's chest to his belly, and then to his — to his —
--
fan ending for acernor's fabulous masterpiece "coming back to yourself" because i'm a huge goofball and that fic fucks
Our Eyes on the Road by etymologyplayground | rated E | 23K words | brought to you by lore (the author) and Orville Peck's hit song Drive Me, Crazy
Lan Zhan is silent for a long moment, and the van's speakers quietly pipe the second song on the album into the empty space between them. Then Lan Zhan shifts his hand a little on Wei Ying's leg, presses his fingers once into the meat of his thigh. "Alright," he says.
"Alright," Wei Ying echoes in a wheeze.
"Is that better?" Lan Zhan checks, because he is a good boy. Then he spreads his fingers out a little wider, because he is evil and must be stopped.
-
Lan Zhan is driving to Chicago. Wei Ying tags along.
Worship you till morning comes by feyburner | rated E | 7K words
A meet-cute, a first date, a sleepover.
Let's take a ride round the curves of desire by feyburner | rated E | 6K words | yeah........... uhh, yeah.
Wei Ying was sprawled on the floor in front of the oscillating fan when Lan Zhan got home from work.
The Roots Grow Riotous by hansbekhart | rated E | 105K words | a beautifully crafted, emotionally harrowing fic. i should warn you (since it's not quite tagged as such) that while wangxian is endgame, the overall story doesn't have the sort of happily-ever-after ending you might expect. i’ve seen it described as open-ended but hopeful and cathartic, which i find to be a pretty accurate assessment
Sometimes Lan Zhan doesn’t work through lunch. Sometimes he makes conversation with coworkers in the halls. Sometimes he goes home instead of spending the last hour trawling through Grindr. But mostly, that’s exactly what he does. The sameness is comforting. His life spools out in easily measured increments: capsule collections, yards of hand dyed textiles, ninety day lead times, sell through figures, cost of goods sold.
Every date in manufacturing can be calculated backwards and forward from a single horizon point: the date that the goods must arrive into the country where they'll be sold. Other than that, nothing else really matters.
总有一天; a place to hide (can’t find one near) by yiqie | rated E | 76K words | i can't recall a fic ever affecting me as much as this one did. one of the best stories i've ever read. so, so, so crushingly beautiful. it's viscerally distressing/upsetting at times, especially at the start, so please heed the tags and author's note (they provide a way to skip the beginning scene if needed)!
That’s just the thing, isn’t it? Wei Ying feels nothing. He doesn’t feel anything, and this emptiness should scare him. He knows he should be scared. He wants to be scared. He isn’t. Fear itself is never scary; fear is just a response. It means that your body wants you alive. It’s the absence of terror that scares him.
请兔子吃晚饭; treating a bunny to dinner by yiqie | rated T | 3K words | read this one to recover from the above fic
It’s not really about the food. Being able to share it in the same space is its own kind of magic.
爱不释手; never let me go by yiqie | rated E | 69K words | and then read this one to feel harrowed again, this time in canon-verse!
Wei Wuxian has certainly hoped so ardently in his two lifetimes, for so many different things, in so many different ways, that he could have summoned the demon to his front door with his bare hands. His eyes wander to Lan Zhan, settle on the back of his head, the blue-black curtain of his hair. Oh, how he has hoped.
在此恭迎夷陵老祖; to yiling laozu, the great and venerable by yiqie | rated M | 7K words | read this one to recover from the above fic (this time in canon-verse)
“You don’t know? In Yiling, there’s a tree at the edge of town, one that stands at the fringes of where the city ends and the Burial Mounds begin, called the Lover’s Tree. They say if you write a letter and nail it to its branches, Yiling Laozu will receive it, and he’ll reply.”
你的阳光下; wanna hide in your light by yiqie | rated T | 2K words | :')
Lan Zhan shuts off the water before it can start getting cold, because Wei Ying still needs to take one. Any other day, Wei Ying would have slunk in, pretending to be annoyed that Lan Zhan started without him, and neither of them would have want for hot water, but Wei Ying is still asleep.
From my heart's ground. by orange_crushed | rated E | 38K words | get (orange) CRUSHED!!!!!!!
After a while he can feel a palm against his face, gentle fingers soft and soothing. It’s not real, not exactly: he can tell the difference between a ghost’s touch and a living person’s, between a spirit-vision and an overactive imagination. His education has been thorough. But the beating has also been thorough, so for now he forgets what he knows and leans into it, into the hand cupping his cheek. It’s soft and dry as those forgotten petals, as the touch of a pillow. He can smell wildflowers, can taste blood and dirt. My baby, his mother says, and he closes his eyes. My treasure. He barely remembers the sound of her voice, but the feeling of it is just the same. Just the same as ever.
[In which Lan Wangji loses almost everything, plants a garden, and grows a second chance.]
Pentimento. by orange_crushed | rated E | 73K words | this fic briefly gave me a serious case of career envy :/ ......but seriously, this is an absolute must-read!!!
When Wangji was eighteen he’d walked into the first class of his fall semester painting module and there’d been a boy in a hilariously ugly floppy knit hat sitting cross-legged on the floor at the front of the room. He’d had a sheet of canvas paper taped to his board and his board clamped between his legs and a tackle box of brushes and tubes—a real fishing tackle box, with a fish-shaped logo on it that said BASS, not one of the nice art supply storage boxes they sold in the campus bookstore, like the one Wangji was carrying—open beside him. Everyone else had settled into the rows of stools and easels, but that boy had stayed on the floor for the whole two hour and thirty minute studio. Wangji had looked at him and thought, that idiot’s back is going to hurt.
[Former best friends Lan Wangji, paintings conservator, and Wei Wuxian, art handler, meet again and realize... neither of them were actually in unrequited love.]
Many happy returns. by orange_crushed | rated E | 25K words
His fingers are still clasped between Wangji's. In the mirror Wangji watches him tuck his coat between his thighs so that he can fuss with the tucked-in hem of his shirt, tousle up the side of his hair, all one-handed. "I hope what I'm wearing is okay."
"It's good," Wangji says. "You look good."
"I guess I must," Wei Ying says, and then he smiles and bites his teeth into his bottom lip for a second, devastatingly, and before Wangji can drop dead the doors to the elevator slide open, and the hostess station appears.
[In which lonely businessman Lan Wangji meets the right wrong person and changes the course of his life.]
The dreamers. by orange_crushed | rated E | 17K words
“Stop mothering me,” Wei Ying protests. “Why don’t you ever listen?” He scowls at Wangji, but then the lure of the clean water is too much; he sits grumbling and strips off his vambraces and loosens the collar of his robes and wipes himself down in the steam. Wangji sits on a stool and watches him, and after a while Wei Ying slaps the rag into the bowl and glares back. “Are you going to sit and stare the whole time?” he demands. “You want to see me strip naked and give my filthy evil self a good scrubbing, huh?”
Yes, Wangji thinks.
[This is a story about a horrible war and a beautiful dream; about grabbing happiness where you can find it, and not letting go.]
mercy, tear it down. by orange_crushed | rated E | 31K words
“You want me to call you good?” Wangji says. “To make you feel good?” Wei Ying makes a wretched, soft, surprised sound in the back of his throat. “Then will you be good?”
“Uh,” Wei Ying says. His lashes flick down again, nervously. “Good how?”
Wangji hasn’t quite thought that far ahead.
Kingfisher Feathers by Anonymous | rated E | 83K words | WIP (7/10 chapters, last updated 4/13/21) | omg omegaverse!!!! @/ this anon author... keep up the great work! also i have feelings for u
With an almost trance-like detachment, Wei Wuxian touched his own neck, his fingers skimming over the fresh mark. The bite wound had stopped bleeding, although he had no doubts it would open again if agitated.
Bonded.
He was bonded for life.
"Shit," he whispered. He looked over at the sleeping form of Lan Wangji—the Second Prince of Gusu and, until his brother was found, the sole heir to the throne. "Oh, shit. Lan Qiren is going to kill me."
----------
Lan Wangji goes into a fevered rut and accidentally bonds with Wei Wuxian. When they next meet, he remembers none of it, and Wei Wuxian is determined to keep the bond a secret—even when he's sent to the Cloud Recesses to be a consort in Lan Wangji's harem.
(tl;dr concubine!wwx is already married to emperor!lwj, who has no idea. drama ensues.)
Pull out game weak by 74243 | rated E | 23K words | featuring the hottest meanest dom top lesbian lwj of your wildest dreams. i hope ao3 user 74243 is having an amazing day
Wei Ying swipes right.
Extra Time by Anonymous | rated E | 28K words | fic inspired by the above fic! seriously good
How Wei Ying learned to stop worrying and love the strap (an AU of 74243's Pull out game weak)
Superfan by 74243 | rated E | 19K words | ao3 user 74243 writing banger after banger as per usual
“I’m not going to apologize for my job,” Wei Ying said, “so if you want to give me some kind of lecture--”
“No,” Lan Zhan said. “You misunderstood. I am...” she paused, as if considering the best way to put it. “I’m a fan.”
Spit in my mouth, look in my eyes by 74243 | rated E | 7K works | i'm just going to list all of ao3 user 74243's fics, ok? that's what's gonna happen here
Wei Wuxian was a little surprised herself, although she felt bad for being surprised. Of course it didn’t really mean anything about you, how you presented, Wei Wuxian knew that better than anyone, but all the same it was hard to reconcile Lan Zhan as an omega.
(wwx makes an error of judgment)
If the shoe fits by 74243 | rated E | 8K words
Wei Ying loses a bet.
the And they were roommates series by 74243 | rated E | 19K words total
That was the other thing, when Wei Ying had moved in. She’d scented Lan Zhan immediately, the sandalwood and smoke rising off her, almost before she’d taken in Lan Zhan’s straight posture, her narrowed eyes. She’d known that Lan Zhan could tell, too. At the end, when they’d talked about the rent and Lan Zhan’s nearly finished PhD and Wei Ying’s working hours, Wei Ying had said, casual and effortless, “And you don’t mind that I’m an omega.”
“No,” Lan Zhan said.
Chef's kiss by 74243 | rated E | 7K words
Wei Ying said, “You know, in some ways I’m kind of depressed. I took your biggest dick on my first try. Now I don’t have anything to build up to.”
“There are bigger ones available,” Lan Zhan said lazily. “I can pay for express shipping.”
(Lan Zhan works the late shift.)
Gold-palmed Warrior Quest! by 74243 | rated E | 13K words
When Lan Wangji suggested that they camp along the way to the Unclean Realm, rather than staying at inns, Wei Wuxian had been sceptical.
Dway! by 74243 | rated E | 6K words
“Hm,” Wei Ying said. “You like it rough, though, right? You seem like that kind of alpha.” When she saw Lan Zhan’s expression she raised an eyebrow. “What? Was I wrong? Are you tender and sweet? Do you cry?”
“You were not wrong,” Lan Zhan said. “I do not cry. Do you?”
tgif by 74243 | rated E | 17K words
Today Lan Zhan says that if Wei Ying cannot control her mouth then she will have to tape it shut.
On the ground by 74243 | rated E | 5K words
“I think you will like it,” Lan Zhan said.
Does your mother know by 74243 | rated E | 5K words | editing this rec list on a monday morning to add this brand new fic fresh off the presses. thank u ao3 user 74243 for feeding us so well 🙏
“Lan Zhan is such a well-behaved girl,” Madam Yu said.
all that and more by Euphorion | rated E | 20K words
Wei Wuxian locks his phone and puts it down, blinks at his ceiling, and picks it up again. The pictures are still there.
His first thought is that Lan Zhan meant them for someone else. That he just woke up at—he checks the timestamp—6:30 am on a Sunday and decided to go absolute full nuclear seduction option on some poor boy he met on Grindr, who would now be missing out on the best thing to ever happen to him because Wei Wuxian had a bad habit of distracting—of—oh.
Pieces of last night start to resurface and paste themselves together in his head. He winces.
The Golden Cutsleeve by syrus_jones | rated E | 77K words | of my faves, this is one of my favorite... faves. top faves. incredibly fun and silly and hot. just... oh my GOD, wei YING!
“I know! Why don’t you try it? Let me go and I’ll lend it to you!” Wei Wuxian bribed hysterically, desperate to escape from this encounter by any means necessary. And then, his eyes blew wide, realizing what he just said. ‘Wait— just what am I offering Lan Zhan?!’ he thought. How was he so stupid, how did he just offer that without thinking—
“You want me...to use it… after you?” Lan Zhan asked, his voice unusually faint.
~*~
Wei Wuxian's test of mysterious, literally magical sex toy goes awry when Lan Wangji finds him in the woods 'experimenting' with it and it ends up in Lan Wangji's possession.
Unfortunately, neither of them is aware that the toy is anchored to Wei Wuxian's body. Too bad Wei Wuxian invited him to try it.
Boy Trouble, We've Got Double by saltyfeathers | rated E | 60K words | !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! this is a really good fic
Lan Zhan stands there in his immaculate, cloud-patterned Lan robes, watching him calmly, one fist tucked up against his back. “I am betrothed.”
Wei Wuxian blinks. “Are you…” He tries to laugh. Again, it sounds inhuman. “Is this about last night? Are you mad at me? I only remember some of it, Lan Zhan. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I’m sure whatever I did I was just—” He gestures uselessly. He remembers being warm in Lan Zhan’s lap. He remembers fitting snugly in Lan Zhan’s lap. Wrapping his arms around Lan Zhan’s neck. Nosing at his jaw. “…playing around.”
“This has nothing to do with you, Wei Wuxian.”
none in the forest so bright as these by saltyfeathers | rated E | 6K words
Wei Wuxian puts a hand to his head, brain lost in fog. “Lan Zhan,” he pants. “Why are we here? Are we on a hunt?”
As Lan Zhan tries to remember, his brow furrows. He shakes his head slightly. “I don’t know.”
“This is bad,” Wei Wuxian says. When Lan Zhan cups his cheek again, sparks burst behind Wei Wuxian’s eyes. “Or maybe it’s not,” he says unthinkingly. Sighs, almost. Lan Zhan looks at his own arm like it's betrayed him. Wei Wuxian closes his eyes and presses his face into Lan Zhan’s palm. “Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan,” he murmurs. “What’s happening to us?”
out in the garden, there’s things you hid away by saltyfeathers | rated E | 121K words | oww oww oww 😣😣😣💘
There is a man with empty eye sockets and tears of fire in Wei Wuxian’s dreams. Tendrils of smoke curl around him in sleep, pressing at his most vulnerable spots, seeking entrance, slipping between his ribs.
When he ignores Lan Zhan's offers of help, he declines rapidly. He will die. Or, he should. Anyone else would.
Instead, he flees. And transforms.
crawling through your door by saltyfeathers | rated E | 12K words
Lan Wangji kisses him. When he pulls away, he speaks into the silence between them, because when he is with Wei Ying, he so rarely considers. “Why don’t you touch me anymore?”
Lan Zhan Works for the Historical Society by saltyfeathers | rated E | 7K words | some real real good lesbian action up in here
Pretty Lan Zhan. Beautiful Lan Zhan. Ice queen Lan Zhan. So intimidating and femme and coldly polite in public, yet meaner than a man in the bedroom. Wei Ying has slept with men before and none of them were mean-nice to her like Lan Zhan.
threadfic by saltyfeathers | not rated (each chapter rated/tagged individually) | 34K+ words | WIP (11/? chapters, last updated 3/15/21), but it’s a collection of stand-alone oneshots
semi cleaned-up wangxian twitter threadfic.
【已經打動我的心】So Sing To Me All Night by aroceu | rated T | 10K words | arrow writes wei ying so exquisitely well. i was weepy the whole time read this fic. for the best experience, i recommend following along with the accompanying spotify playlist.
No one listens to the radio in this day and age, but somehow from a bunch of left clicking and right clicking, through Facebook and Twitter and Youtube, Wei Ying finds himself on the WQHS homepage—the UPenn student radio station, promising eclectic tastes from a variety of hosts. Wei Ying can't remember giving a shit about his old college's student radio before he dropped out, but it's eleven at night and he has nothing else better to do. He clicks on the button that says Listen Here! and waits to be impressed.
get wild by aroceu | rated E | 24K words | 🔥🏀🔥 BASKETBALL FIC 🔥🏀🔥
He was looking for a specific reaction—to get Lan Zhan to lash out. All hard edges and demanding, the same way during the first scrim, Lan Zhan's dark voice had made him loose and obedient, itching to both rebel and obey at the same time.
It's them, whatever it is, but it doesn't belong on the basketball court.
~
Wei Ying didn't expect to enter a weird... something-with-benefits-plus-power-play with the captain of the Gusu basketball team. He's not sure if it's worth it.
without a warning by aroceu | rated T | 10K words | 🥺️🥺️🥺️
“Blegh,” Wei Ying says. “I hate being sick, Lan Zhan… my throat is so sore… why do I talk so much?”
“Stop talking then,” Lan Zhan says.
“You don’t mean that,” Wei Ying says, in his half-asleep daze. “I know you’ll never admit it, Lan Zhan, but you like it when I talk.”
your honor i’m a freak bitch by aroceu | rated E | 6K words
Wei Ying gestures to his outfit. His hands are buried deep within the hoodie; he’s mostly gesturing with the sleeves. “Well, it works with the whole get up, you see?”
“The…” Lan Zhan looks down at where his fingers are toying with the top of Wei Ying’s thigh highs. Wei Ying pretends he is not shivering. “…skirt. And these stockings.”
“Thigh highs, Lan Zhan!” Wei Ying says, batting at him with the end of a sleeve.
Play It By Ear by aroceu | rated T | 7K words | MY HEART !!!
In the virtual airplane flying over the island, appropriately called Yiling, Lan Zhan watches as bits and pieces of the island load in. There are many Statues of David, a gothic teacup ride, and, from what Lan Zhan can see, an entire field of spoiled turnips.
hanguang-jun @/hanguangjun
Do you need turnips to sell?
timmy and tommy in a trenchcoat @/yilinglaozu
oh! no haha! 😅 those are from a while ago but my brother insists i keep them there
for the ~aesthetic~
the key that our souls were singing by aroceu | rated M | 5K words
“I haven’t seen you since—Gusu, was it?” Wei Ying says. “Oh my god, it’s been so long. I didn’t even know you were LGBT! Unless you’re here as an ally, which is also totally cool—”
“No, I.” Lan Zhan coughs. Her throat feels dry. “I am a lesbian.”
abort retry fail by aroceu | rated E | 21K words
Lan Wangji must miss his husband over this amnesiac of a man Wei Wuxian has turned into. Well, Wei Wuxian will show him! He'll be even better—or at least, try to be just as good of a husband as he would be, without his memory loss.
Blackout If You Were Mine by aroceu | rated E | 9K words
Wei Ying likes to wear chokers a lot. So Lan Zhan buys some for him. Then, testing their limits, collars.
Wei Ying wears those, too.
-
Or, the one where Wei Ying and Lan Zhan accidentally stumble into a BDSM relationship.
eleven thousand meters & airborne by aroceu | rated E | 5K words | 😎✈️😎
Lan Zhan and Wei Ying join the mile high club.
many fox given by defractum | rated E | 24K words | can't go wrong with foxxian and dragonji content 🦊🐉
Lan Zhan is glaring at him. That's probably fair.
The last time they'd seen each other, Wei Ying had been digging through Lan Zhan's garbage. They'd made eye contact over the shredded bags, the week's trash scattered around him like stinky, oversized Lego.
Lan Zhan's eyes had been wide with horror, and Wei Ying's had been equally wide with feigned innocence. He'd reached out slowly, maintaining the eye contact, and then flipped over the food waste bin full of onion peel and carrot skin as a distraction and slunk off into the night. Probably not his finest moment.
-
Modern AU dragon!LWJ meets fox!WWX.
the tamed by defractum | rated E | 12K words
If the Second Jade of Lan insists on bringing the Yiling Patriarch as his guest to the next Cultivation Conference, he must first demonstrate a control over the Yiling Patriarch and his unnatural abilities.
The letter lies on their desk for days.
-
Post-canon, Wei Ying is invited, sort of, to a Discussion Conference.
us in a king-size, keep it a secret (say i'm your queen, i don't wanna leave this) by matcha_ado | rated E | 3K words
People always said Wei Ying was a royal pain in the ass. They were absolutely right, of course, just not in the way they thought.
it is wednesday my dudes by jelenedra | rated M | 4K words
Wednesday nights at Cloud Recesses strip club are always a little weird, but usually they're not this horny. Whatever Wei Ying and Lan Zhan get up to, Mianmian is not going to be the one to clean it up.
i'm the one for your fire by occultings | rated E | 43K words | cherry magic au! love it
Wei Ying, virgin and noted heterosexual, gets hit with a curse of an unusual nature on his 30th birthday — through physical contact, he can read the minds of others around him.
Enter Lan Zhan, hot former rival and current coworker, whose true thoughts about Wei Ying are nothing like he expects. (A loose Cherry Magic AU)
a thousand teeth, yours among them by darkredloveknot | rated E | 11K words
A one night stand in the time of zombies.
hoe to housewife pipeline by lanzhancore | rated E | 5K words
“You type fast,” Wei Ying murmurs, making a futile attempt at conversation while he waits for him to be done with… whatever. “Not to be pushy, but do you plan on fucking my ass anytime soon?”
or: wei ying has been thirsting after lan zhan for three slutty slutty years
can you feel it by lanzhancore | rated E | an instant classic
“What’s wrong?” Wei Ying asks finally, eyebrows drawn together. “Is everything okay?”
Thumbs stroking circles into his skin as if to comfort him, Lan Zhan says, “Don’t panic.”
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says, sitting up on his elbows. “What did you do to my ass?”
“Nothing,” Lan Zhan says, convincing nobody. “But we need to go to the hospital.”
or: wei ying really should have sprung for the model with the flared base. he learns this lesson the hard way.
because you're mine (i walk the line) by lanzhancore | rated E | 8K words
Wei Ying is freshly cream-pied and still trying to remember where his legs are when Lan Zhan outlaws masturbation.
or: wei ying fucks around and finds out
payload by lanzhancore | rated M | 3K words | babysitter wwx + dilfji, what more could you need
Wei Ying has a whole five hours and thirty-six minutes to calm down but when he hears Lan Zhan’s key turning in the front door lock later that evening he has to cling to the couch cushions to keep from marching into the laundry room to retrieve the briefs so he can wave them in Lan Zhan’s face and demand to know who owns them.
or: lan zhan's self-restraint is not limitless
the to the brim series by verseau | rated E | 14K words total
Wei Ying wants to rob him, but it wouldn’t even be satisfying, since this guy is just—giving away money. With his nice fingers. Maybe Wei Ying will just bite his fingers, and that will give the same endorphin rush as robbing him. / a day told across five parts.
get that message home by verseau | rated G | 2K words | ohhhhhhhhh myyyyy godddddd 😭
Sizhui's father cannot haggle. It is a shame on Sizhui’s honor to have such an honest father.
Author's note [i'm including it here because it's golden]:
there is a scene in arrested development where lucille, who is on the opposite spectrum of humanity as lan zhan, asks, "it's a banana, michael. how much could one cost? ten dollars?" there are no bananas in this story.
dreaming and getting a glimmer by verseau | rated E | 27K words | a particular favorite of mine 🔥🍆💦🕳🔥
Wei Ying discovers himself.
trust your fingertips by plonk | not rated (but really rated E) | 15K word | 🥵️🥵️🥵️🥵️🥵️ plonk you’ve done it again!
Lan Wangji must suppress a shiver at every brush and press of Wei Wuxian’s fingers.
Under different circumstances - less public ones - he would welcome touch, given that his body is in such an aroused state.
Alas, his circumstances are these: sitting quietly while Wei Wuxian, the famous (infamous) Doctor of Yunmeng, digs his fingertips into Lan Wangji’s shoulders and chest and sides and hums thoughtfully.
Doctor, Doctor by YunmengLotus | rated E | 4K words | mmmmhmm!
Wei Ying needs to get a prostate exam. How ever will he deal when the world's hottest doctor walks through the exam room door and tells him to bend over?
TAKOYAKI by ariskamalt | rated E | 3K words | lan zhan gets jealous of his own damn appendages. meanwhile, wei ying is just having a good time.
Lan Zhan…cannot always feel or tell what his tentacles will do.
His free hand curls into a fist. Underneath his skin, the tentacles give a little squirm, as if aware of the challenge he has just issued them. No touching Wei Ying unless he says so, because he wants to touch Wei Ying first. They squirm again, as if to say, Tentacles: 1, Lan Zhan: 0.
That will just have to be remedied.
Or, as phnelt first described: Tentacle-ji with the semi autonomous tentacles getting jealous of his tenties for touching Wei Ying in places he hasn't yet
Outage by SugarMilkTea | rated E | 3K words | [cough] 😳😳😳
The power goes out in Lan Zhan and Wei Ying's rural home in the countryside. Lan Zhan takes advantage of the darkness to give in to one of his baser urges, and Wei Ying's first rural power outage experience is about to get a lot more interesting.
big hands (i know you’re the one) by martyrsdaughter | rated E | 8K words | NICE. 🔥🔥🔥
“Not a big talker, hm?” Wei Ying tilts his head to one side. “That’s okay, I’ve been told I’m a good enough conversationalist for three. My tongue is multi-talented and—”
He has just enough time to feel her palm on the back of his neck and think, oh, her hands are so big, before his words are being stolen into her mouth.
darling, am i a chore? by martyrsdaughter | rated E | 7K words
“Are you done playing around?”
Knowing that’s not what either of them actually wants, Wei Wuxian reaches up to tickle under Lan Wangji’s chin. Soft little scritches, coaxing motions—Lan Wangji is weak to all of them.
“You know what I want,” Wei Wuxian purrs, reaching up on his tiptoes to throw his arms over Lan Wangji’s shoulders. “Call me gege, won’t you? Call me and I’ll stop.”
(or: five times Lan Wangji paid special attention to Wei Wuxian’s interest in being his gege.)
put him on his knees, give him something to believe in by dustyloves | rated E | 2K words | if the title is quoting WAP, then you should know by now it’s gonna be some of that good filth
The next time Wei Ying kisses him, Lan Zhan is careful again. Wei Ying seems determined to make it very difficult.
the hard way by dustyloves | rated E | 9K words
"Anyway, you make it sound like something lewd is going on," Wei Ying complains. "It's all totally above board. She's just being a nice person. It's just one kind alpha grad student offering one room of her huge house to one beta undergrad in need, what could be more appropriate than that?"
// Wei Ying makes a mistake and finds out the hard way.
Exhibition by sevenless | rated E | 5K words
“Oh?” Wei Wuxian raises an eyebrow. “The forbidden section, Lan Zhan?”
“Mn.”
“You’re not afraid of being heard?” Wei Wuxian thinks aloud. A smirk creeps onto his face, eyes glinting. “Or could it be that Lan-er-gongzi actually wants to be heard? Seen? Caught?” He skips in front of him, blocking his way. "Disciplined?”
Lan Wangji’s ears, as always, betray him.
a history of the body by northofallmusic | rated E | 14K words
Wei Ying's body hurts sometimes; she lets Lan Zhan help her.
A fic about the complicated nature of having a body, and also the versatility of sex toys.
(our friendship) up against the ropes by daltoneering | rated E | 36K words
The reboot completes, and Wei Ying’s brain smashes this information together into two mind-shattering thoughts. Number one, he knew very well already, and is now further seared by defined muscles and a mouth-watering tattoo into his every waking moment: Lan Zhan is the hottest fucking person on the planet.
Number two: that guy wasn’t visiting Lan Zhan’s neighbour, he was visiting Lan Zhan, which means:
Lan Zhan fucks. Lan Zhan fucks. Lan Zhan fucks.
;
Lan Zhan has been Wei Ying's best friend for years. Literally, years. How did he not already know? How has he missed this most important of facts? And more importantly, how is he ever going to get over it?
watching my heart go round by typefortydeductions | rated E | 38K+ words | WIP (2/4 chapters, last updated 5/2/21) | lan zhan i love you baby 💞
Lan Zhan falls apart. As it turns out, that's not the end.
~
oh man this list is so long sd;jfkdsjfhhh
yati, i hope you find some stuff in this pile here that you’ll enjoy! it's not an exhaustive list, so check out the authors’ other works and bookmarks for more goods, if you feel so inclined 😙💕
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A Refutation of Telltale’s “Is the Jedi Order a Cult?”
I was directed to this video that claims that the Jedi Order is a cult during a discussion on reddit earlier, and while the person who linked it respectfully asked to end the discussion we were having, I figure the video is worth addressing on its own, separately from that discussion. So I’ve cleaned up the points I made over on reddit and stripped out the stuff relevant to that conversation, to explain just what I took issue with with this video.
To the video-maker’s credit, he does acknowledge that the Jedi are presented as correct within the narrative of the films. Having run into one too many “the point of the prequels was the flaws of the Jedi” across the Internet, I have to say it’s refreshing to see Jedi-critical arguments made without that assumption.
I still disagree with pretty much all of the points made in the video, and found it to be uncharitable, blatantly incorrect at times, and almost completely lacking in concrete examples and evidence of his claims, but he has a right to his own interpretations, especially in that he acknowledges that they’re not the intended takeaway. But I hope that my response will show that it’s not something actually reflected by the source material, and that the Jedi are not actually a cult, even setting aside creator intentions.
Disclaimer – I’m not familiar with this video-creator’s other work, but from what’s said in the video, it does seem that this isn’t his usual kind of material, and that he intended this as “lighthearted” video. With that in mind, its lack of robustness and misinformation is forgivable – this response is mostly meant as something for me (or you, if you want) to point to the next time someone brings this video up to support their position, not as a criticism of this video-creator or his work in general. If you choose to engage with the video directly, please be kind.
He begins his arguments by claiming that the Jedi erase people’s identities by having them block their emotions completely - this isn't true; what we see the Jedi say is "be mindful of your feelings" (Mace Windu, TPM), and "don't let your personal feelings get in the way" (Obi-Wan, AOTC), and "don't let your feelings cloud your judgement" (several times). All of that requires acknowledgment of one's emotions and dealing with them appropriately.
He then claims that those who leave are shunned - this is again, blatantly untrue. For instance, at the beginning of AOTC, Dooku is still spoken of highly long after he has left the Order - the Jedi are reluctant to even entertain the idea that he could be behind the attack on Padmé. The Sith are for one thing, not necessarily ex-members of the Order, and for another, they’re "shunned" because they're going around torturing and murdering people, not because of heretical views on the Force. We see in TCW that the Jedi Order co-exists peacefully with other Force traditions, even dark-sided ones like the Nightsisters.
Another claim he makes is "There aren't any checks and balances for the Jedi Council", which is again, untrue - the Jedi are accountable to the Senate, and, if anything, that arrangement is skewed in favor of the Senate, because the Senate is not truly accountable in turn. The Jedi Council is ultimately pressured into decisions against its will, especially as the war goes on – most notably, Anakin’s appointment to the Council in ROTS.
He is critical of the Jedi taking in children, but the same can be said of any adoption - simply taking in children is not, in of itself, cult behavior, or else every adoptive family is a cult. The approach the author of this video takes to this category is too broad and does not adequately establish how to distinguish cults preying on children from healthy child-rearing.
He then claims that Jedi are expected to obey unquestioningly – but I disagree that this is evidenced in the source material. The Jedi are expected to respect their elders but we don't see harsh punishment for disobedience or dissent, merely disapproval. For instance, the most trouble Qui-Gon, as a noted maverick, gets is some exasperated side-eye. Similar to the previous claim, the approach the author takes is too broad and doesn’t distinguish a cult’s expectation of obedience from a parent’s expectation of obedience.
He claims that the Jedi control clothing and hairstyle - this is misleading at best. While the padawans all are expected to wear the braid, the hairstyle isn't set beyond that (many species don’t even have hair!), and even with the Jedi sporting a traditional outfit, we see their robes and tunics come in many different shades and colors. Some forgo the traditional robes all together, such as Ahsoka Tano, Luminara Unduli, Aayla Secura, some of them even wearing the ornamentation of their homeworld cultures on top of that (again, Ahsoka, Luminara, and Barriss Offee, and Depa Billaba, and Shaak Ti...).
Sith are, again, not ex-members as the video-author implies, and again, the issue with them is the torturing and murdering and enslaving people, not simple philosophical differences. The Jedi are perfectly allowed to speak with outsiders and presumably critics of their Order; they just don’t want to let a bunch of genocidal despots have their way with the galaxy. The video also makes an unfair assumption that Jedi can't get information from outside sources; there is no evidence for this – in fact, we see in AOTC that Obi-Wan turns to an outside source when he can’t get the results he wants from the Temple droids, and even trusts that outside source over contradicting information coming from within the Temple’s information base (i.e., the existence of Kamino – he does not simply accept that Kamino doesn’t exist, he seeks further wisdom on the matter).
The video-author completely omits the fact that Palpatine is arrested not merely because of being "on the dark side", but because the man had orchestrated a war for his own sake and was attempting to turn the Republic into a dictatorship under his control. That is a very good reason to arrest someone.
Regarding the good versus evil section - first of all, the Jedi in the first six films never once refer to "the light side". Not once. I don’t recall if it came up in TCW (aside from the beings on Mortis, but they are not Jedi), either. Luke does refer to the "good side" in the OT but his teachers don't call it that. This point also goes against the visual metaphors that Lucas makes use of: “Color plays an extremely important part. The bad guys exist mostly in a black and white world; the good guys live in an organic world of browns and greens. Philosophically the bad guys live in an absolute world of black and white, where the good guys live in a more naturally nuanced world.” - George Lucas, the Making of ROTJ. The Jedi’s belief system is more nuanced than “this is good” and “this is bad”, and their rules and Code are not purely about morals.
The video goes back to the identity thing – but as I've already said, several Jedi are seen wearing the garments and ornamentation of their birth cultures. They also keep their birth names, and seem to value names highly given how they approach the clone troops under their command. Here’s a good post going into that even more.
The "Code" and swearing-in ceremonies he cites are not used in the films or TCW. I’m not sure where the swearing-in is sourced from, either, and the “Code” is a meditation mantra.
The things the Jedi say are not to stop complex thought – his example of Obi-Wan even at once point telling Anakin to “use the Force! Think!”, indicating that he would like for Anakin to think things through – he echoes this later in ROTS, trying to get Anakin to consider the Chancellor’s suspicious behavior. There’s also the fact that the way Yoda speaks is by George Lucas's own words, designed to get people thinking about what Yoda is saying.
Comparing meditation to hypnosis is...completely uncharitable.
And again with the emotions thing - at no point are any emotions labeled evil, nor do they avoid them - they are expected to be mindful (i.e. cognizant) of them, and to not let those emotions rule their actions. There is nothing to indicate that their teachings are the most uncharitable and extreme interpretation you can take from their words (as this video does) instead of a reasonable and healthy approach to self-control that is actually valuable psychologically.
His final claims repeat the earlier claim of “shunning” - again, there is no evidence for this behavior towards non-believers, especially as we see them having friends outside the Order. And at no point does anyone say that there is no happiness outside of the Order.
I hope I addressed all his points and sufficiently explained why they don’t match up with what we see in the source material. If you want further reading on how the Jedi actually function, with robust sources, I recommend checking out @gffa’s reference guide for the current continuity. There is also my “in defense of the jedi” tag, which collects my and others’ meta posts on the Jedi, their philosophies, and actions.
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hi ok i watched petscop a while ago & found ur art in the tumblr tag (so amazing btw u have such a cool style) & i really like petscop but a lot of the plot is still difficult for me to understand bc of the mysterious nature of the narrative, so i was wondering if u would ever consider writing out your interpretation of the plot / characters, or if you have any links to other people's explanations of the story that u think are good. thank u & take care!!
hello! thank you very much for your kind compliments! im always glad to help out with things like this because i love any excuse to talk about petscop lol. its totally natural and expected to be confused! i think a lot of the story is best experienced through being confused and puzzling things together yourself. when it comes to helping people understand petscop i tend to recommend resources in one of two ways: if you want to put in a little extra legwork and solve things for yourself, that's one way, and i'll link a few resources that might help with that! on the other hand, if you want a more straightforward explanation, i also have something that can help with that n_n here they are
two big links for solving it on your own:
petscop comprehensive progress document - this is an extremely thorough long-standing guide containing pretty much everything you could ever need to know about petscop. it lays out all the objective evidence as well as pretty much every available theory. that being said, its over 100 pages long, so i don't recommend reading the whole thing obviously ; you might use it to look exclusively at the theories , or to fact check information on specific characters or topics!
petscop by piece order - petscops upload order doesnt accurately reflect the actual series of events. watching through a second time in this speculative chronological order might clear up some confusion! in general i find that rewatching the series once or twice after your first go through is a lot of help in either order, but thats a lot of commitment, so i wont just say "watch it again" haha
i also havent personally watched them, but trusted confidantes tell me that nightmare masterclass's videos on petscop are pretty good + cover a lot of bases. the catch is they're very long and were released while the series was coming out, so there might be a fair amount of missing / incorrect information in the earlier videos.
additionally if theres anything specific you want cleared up, im happy to answer any questions you might have , just shoot me an ask! i would write out my own interpretation, but it would be like, 2000 pages long, so i tend to only be able to answer things that are somewhat speicfic (i.e concerning only one or two plot points, characters, concepts etc at a time)
(im fuzzy brained rn so i might edit this later with some additional stuff n_n)
if you want it laid out really simply for you though, the best place to go for that is this amazing video by my friend oliver! (hi oliver)
its a really informed retrospective that i agree with on nearly every single point, and he somehow managed to fit it all into 10 minutes. there's also a couple additional resources he links in the description that might be useful as well.
no one reading of petscop is objectively correct so i hope you will have fun figuring out what interpretation of the story means the most to you! feel free to ask anymore questions you might have, and you take care too!! :)
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This is a post on the cheating accusations around dream mostly surrounding his response video.
If you don’t want to see this or any of these posts then blacklist the tag #discourse
SO I’ve been doing a lot of digging into what dream has said in his response to Geosquare’s original video and report, which was compiled and conducted by the Minecraft Java mods on speedrun.com.
I won’t talk about that original report in detail, but basically: the mods came to the conclusion that Dream had a 1 in 7.5 trillion chance of getting the pearl bartering rates and the blaze drop odds that he did within the 6 streams he did. As in, someone would need that luck to replicate what dream got. Therefore, he cheated.
I’m going to put this into a sort of ‘point form’ in according to topic, attempting to put it in chronological order.
Dream’s Initial Tweets
Ok so first like. these are bad. these tweets are what he said (on twitter, excluding in the speedrunning discord) directly after the video was Uploaded to Geo’s channel.
worth noting he did apologize later, although i wanted to talk about these two instances so i felt the need to include it.
there’s a lot of interesting wording in the apology tweet itself too. I personally find that when he apologizes he tends to still be very subtextually angry in them with the tone, but more specifically. where he says ‘although i have reason to be upset’, that’s kinda weak and really unneeded. Alongside the ‘intense criticism’, it reads as him trying to say he’s still in the right. kind of like “im sorry i was rude even though I had reason to be rude’. Its an apology sure but he’s not saying sorry for how he really reacted; its justified to him.
Dream’s Response Video
Dream posted a response on his side channel DreamXD on the 22nd, along with the report he had a supposed astrophysicist conduct. I’m going to talk about the report separately from the video for reasons I’ll explain.
Frankly, the video doesn’t really summarize or explain the report in a meaningful way. At most, it takes some points from it but tends to twist the numbers around, misunderstand the probability and math, and also what the report itself concludes.
Essentially, dream’s video insists that the numbers found by the mods are wrong and therefore he didn’t cheat at all, yet the report concludes that the numbers found by the mods weren’t entirely accurate, however they’re still extremely unlikely. This is also all under the assumption that the report is entirely correct (ill say how its not next)
His first point is that only his 1.16 run (that was at 5th place two months ago, would have now been 16th) was deemed cheated. This is true; the mods have said that he isnt banned outright and theres no reason to question the legitimacy of his 1.15 runs.
He also concludes that Geo’s statement that Dream didn’t cooperate with them, and that he deleted 1.16 mod folders, was false. This one is a little more complicated. It could more be chalked up to a miscommunication, although it’s relevant. Geosquare posted screenshots of the specific conversation they had:
Essentially it wasn’t entirely clear, i can understand how geo and the mods interpreted it in such a way. Altho April added in a quote retweet thread that dream didn’t supply the folder she asked for, so he didn’t supply everything they asked for like he states in the video
Essentially: yeah, misleading and weird on both ends. I dont think this is really anything quantifiable, although dream talked about this in the video heavily.
Out of this though, Geo DID correct himself in the description of the mods’ video. Dream shows this in his own response, but it crops out some of what geo says. here’s from dream’s video
that Update 2 is where he corrects himself. literally why the fuck would you crop it like this and put it in the video i mean this looks so weird and genuinely doesnt provide anything. Here’s what geo actually said
Dream specifically cut it before the line where geo mentions how he said he deleted his specific 1.16 speedrun profile. This one is just so dumb to me. I’d say ‘why not include that’ but either i feel its a) so there’s no potential for people to say what he had actually said could be interpreted otherwise easily or b) doesnt want people to know he got so upset he deleted files (ego wise yknow). Again, I dont think this is definitive of anything but god. it feels scummy lmao
The Video: Incorrect Representation of His Own Report
Dream straight up doesnt present the report’s numbers properly. In fact it makes the entirety of his visuals forfeit, i.e. the gold block analogy that goes on for like 20 minutes.
The mods said his luck was 1/7.5 trillion. Dream’s report says its 1/10 million (with the addition of 5 other streams) or 1/100 million (only the 6 streams).
I’ll only consider the 1/10 mil odds, since its all dream really brings up. but Basically; there’s not much difference between 1/10 million and 1/7.5 trillion.
Dream says that the difference is 7.5 trillion minus 10 million, aka 7.4999 trillion. This is what his entire visual with the gold blocks is based on. This is absolutely incorrect, i cant stress that enough.
You can’t find the difference of fractions by subtracting only the denominators. Like. this is elementary school math. it just doesnt work.
It’d actually be calculated as: (1/10 000 000) - (1/7 500 000 000 000) = (74999/7 500 000 000 000)
If the mods are wrong, they’re only wrong by 749999/7.5 trillion. that’s literally only 0.000000099999866666667.
Dream no doubt saw the numbers, considered 10 million vs. 7.5 trillion, and used these big numbers to hold his own point. PROBABILITY DOESNT WORK LIKE THAT. I really think he was just taking advantage of the seemingly big numbers here and wrote it out in a way that favoured him. The gold block analogy in the video played throughout the entire video practically, jokes were made on it, and he made a point of it being ‘so big the game crashed’.
It’s just plain wrong. even so a difference in the odds doesnt prove shit. He’s downplaying his own odds that he found too. 1/10 million isnt a small number. Even though the legitimacy of that calculation is in question, it is still significant enough to proclaim he cheated.
Some quick points before I move onto the report; these aren’t as significant in my eyes but it adds to the picture
there’s been criticism of his joking manor throughout the entire video, very specifically the Bill Nye joke. Considering he doesnt actually have a name to provide for his astrophysicist, this joke doesnt feel right
the mod he had a voice clip from (willz) even believes that he cheated and has agreed with the mod team the whole time.
Dream never has a name for the mod who is apparently on his side (more understandable), the minecraft developer he quoted, or the astrophysicist (most damning)
Dream states that fabric is used by most speedrunners which is true, but fabric and fabric API are different; dream also had the latter installed. my knowledge of how theyre different is limited, all i really know is the API is what can enable editing of the code while fabric is more a modloader. im not entirely sure on this
Dream has said at the end of the video that all funds will go to the mod team so they can make a client that will regulate cheaters. this has been noted as feeling manipulative or like a ‘bribe’, but it definitely puts the mods in a bad position.
either they accept it and look like they ‘gave in’ to dream and therefore acknowledge him in the right
they deny it and look selfish/taking dream’s kindness for granted
geo said they would insist it goes to a charity instead
Dream constantly disregards the mods as young, inexperienced, ‘just volunteers’ etcetcetc, despite the fact that theyre analysis has been discussed by people with confirmed PhDs without much criticism
Dream’s Report
The report itself is extremely interesting, in that it’s very questionable, but even so it doesn’t come to the conclusion that dream didn’t cheat. The tone between the video and the report is drastically different.
This is from the “3. What are the goals of this document?” section:
It essentially says this isnt intended, from the very beginning, to completely exonerate dream of cheating. Also note that the author says the mods’ report was mostly correct.
This is at the end of “9 Conclussions”:
It does notably say cheating isnt the only explanation, but it doesnt actually go as far to say that it’s not possible that he cheated.
But this can be argued to not matter if we consider the validity of the report as a whole
Dream’s Report: Criticisms
Possibly the first and most known debunking of the report is by u/mfb on reddit, although there’s been much more such as this programmer criticizing the code provided at the end of the report (partially due to how the author of it stated that piglins barter 4-7 pearls, which is incorrect: it’s 4-8), Andrew Gelman, an actual statistician professor from harvard, commented on the original mods’ report as ‘impressive’ while Dream’s report is being regarded as something funny in the comments, and even analysis of dream’s behaviours and his argument by a law student
But what u/mfb posted is what i’ll focus on. Some background into the user; he’s a particle physicist, is moderator in subreddits like r/cosmology and r/astrophysics, he’s regarded as a reliable source on r/askscience and r/askreddit. Basically, multiple other people have vouched for him and before all this he had many posts in these fields.
that’s already better than the unnamed astrophysicist.
The post is better speaking for itself but here is a few exerpts from it;
Essentially, the report’s methods are debunked by u/mfb-, alongside that a moderator of r/statistics regarded the report as ‘nonsensical in its application of statistics’ and linked to u/mfb-’s comment.
i’m going to end this here. Partially because severe backpain or whatever,.
but I want to say at this point its practically definitive that dream cheated, that he lied to us, and that he continues to do so. Much more could be said on his video such as his tone, intentions, the overt emphasis on the ‘biases’ of the mods.
I havent even mentioned that the ‘astrophysicist’ themself may be a scam; they are sourced from a website that is extremely sketchy, has no names attached to it, and was created less than a year ago (with practically no traffic on it until maybe a month ago).
But i hope this is coherent. I have interest in this so if theres questions im always open.
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holy fucking shit, just another syscourse got to y’all huh? their entire response isn’t true whatsoever, as expected, and has so many incorrect facts it’s overwhelming. i do want to correct one, though.
they changed it because they didn’t believe DID/MPD was real, to decrease its popularity, and as y’all said, to de-pathologize our existence by adding a significant dysfunction criteria*. - https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/saving-normal/201401/multiple-personality-mental-disorder-myth-or-metaphor
*nobody is saying that you can’t be high functioning and dysfunctional at the same time, just that your dysfunction has to interfere with your daily life in order to qualify for a diagnosis. this is yet again an attempt to lump us with DID/OSDD systems when that’s the very thing we’re against because most of us don’t need help like DID/OSDD systems do.
the way they disrespected y’alls religion is despicable as a system who’s also very spiritual. there was absolutely no reason for them to go that far.
anyways I hope you guys are okay, they’re not worth the time as they have proven time and time again they’re not interested in hearing our side but to make us all look bad and call us vile things. they’re the ones who should be ashamed.
They tagged me in my very own call out post. Those are always fun.
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The Argument Against and Defense of Hetalia
Let me preface this by saying that I have not watched the show or read the manga in a few years now, and thus I am working mostly off of memory and what fan content I see these days, which is not a lot. Also, I am a gentile, and I don’t claim to know a lot about the Jewish community or traditions. I am, however, a writer and I have plenty of practice analyzing and criticizing works of fiction from multiple angles. With that in mind, this essay is an attempt to explain everything that is wrong and not wrong with the show, the comic strips, and the fandom.
I’m putting this under a read more for sheer length, this was 11 pages on Google docs.
Let us start with the list of grievances assembled largely from one post, the majority of which I had to go digging for as the original person in this post who mentioned Hetalia said, and I quote, “i dont feel the need to link a source for [hetalia] because…” and then listed two things, one of which is incorrect entirely. But I digress, I will address each one at a time. The list of grievances is as follows:
It is called ‘Axis Powers’ Hetalia
One of the main characters is a personification of Nazi Germany
The entire point of the series is:
Advocating for eugenics
Racial fetishization
Advocating for fascism
Nazi sympathizing/propaganda
The entire franchise is terrible due to rape jokes, racism, and Holocaust jokes
Hetalia fans are all terrible due to rape jokes and other issues
Death of the author cannot apply to this fandom
There may be more that are in other reblogs of the post in question, and I may add addendums further in this essay, but for the time being, I will address each of these grievances and explain the validity or non-validity of each, from a position understanding of both fans and of non-fans. Thus, in order:
‘Axis Powers’ Hetalia
When people talk about Hetalia, they usually are referring to the anime due to its widespread popularity. However, Hetalia began as a series of strip comics posted on a forum by Hidekaz Himaruya (and I spent a while trying to actually find the original comics, but I can’t, there are links to his blogs there in what I’ve provided). It later was formatted into a manga, and then later became an anime. While it was originally titled Axis Powers: Hetalia and the first two seasons of the show are named as such, it usually is only referred to as Hetalia. The anime seasons after said first two seasons have all been ‘world’ focused: Seasons three and four were titled World Series, season five was titled Beautiful World, season six was titled World Twinkle, and the upcoming season seven is titled World Stars.
For the purposes of tagging everything, I tend to see the tags ‘hetalia’ and ‘hws,’ which is short for Hetalia: World Series. This name of the third and fourth anime seasons is the most widely accepted and used name for the series as a whole. While it is true that, years ago, people referred to it as ‘aph’ for Axis Powers Hetalia, the fans and the series have put that behind them, for good reason. It is understandable, even righteous, to not accept the title ‘Axis Powers.’ It does draw focus to the WW2 era, and place the fascists and nazis as the ‘main characters,’ or even, ‘the good guys,’ which is not the case. Obviously, the Nazis were terrible and the entirety of the Axis Powers did horrible, unspeakable things during the war.
It must be noted, to anybody who has not seen the show or read the manga, that the first one to two seasons do have a ‘focus’ on the WW2 era, per se, but it largely talks about interactions between countries, as they are the personified party, and makes extremely few allusions to the war itself, and none to the Holocaust. I will address that in a later section. For now, the point to make is that after these original two seasons, Hetalia branches out into a much wider worldview, adds several more characters, and focuses more on said characters in individual arcs and offerings of historical facts - as generalized as they may be. Nobody claimed that Hetalia was correct in everything it said, but it aims to play out some historical information in a simplified and humorous way. This is due to the fact that the characters are all singular people meant to personify entire countries, which leads us to point two.
The Personification of Nazi Germany
This is the second complaint of the strand of the post in question that I was presented with, quoted as “one of the main characters is a personification of nazi germany.” This is an entirely incorrect statement. ‘Nazi Germany,’ as people call it, is the state of Germany during the era leading up to and of World War 2. The country is still Germany, the people were still German, the Nazi part comes from the political regime in power, a real world nightmare. In the Hetalia series, the characters are called by their country names, because that is who they personify. This may change at times. For example, the character now known as Turkey was previously called Ottoman Empire. They come to be when civilization starts or a colony is introduced to a place. This can be seen in the strip or episode where China ‘finds’ Japan as a small boy and begins to teach him reading and writing - and Japan thereafter invents hiragana. It can also be seen in the comic where a young child, Iceland, questions who he is and why he knows his people are “different beings” than him. The country that speaks to him (I only have the comic here in my likes in that list, the name isn’t mentioned and it’s been a while, but it might be another of the Scandinavian countries) explains that he is Mr. Iceland, they don’t know why he is Mr. Iceland, but they know he is.
What I am attempting to explain with all of these other examples is that there is no ‘Nazi Germany’ character. There is a character called Germany (or Mr. Germany), and all of his adult life, he has been called Germany. He is never addressed by anything else. He does, however, look remarkably similar to a childhood friend of Italy’s, Holy Roman Empire (or just Holy Rome), but as far as it has been explained in canon, Holy Rome went off somewhere and, later on Germany and Italy met as strangers. The general consensus is, due to the area where the Holy Roman Empire used to be is around-ish Germany, the characters are the same. But never, in any of the comics, anime, or movie, is Germany referred to as Nazi Germany. I don’t believe the word ‘Nazi’ appears at any point in time, even, though I cannot claim I have seen every shred of content, so I may be wrong. But I doubt that very much, as it is not in the nature of the series to do such a thing. Moving on.
Advocating for Eugenics
I will start and end this section by saying that Hetalia was, in the original post, roped in with Attack on Titan, of which (as far as I know) the author advocates for eugenics - or the idea that certain people should not be allowed to produce offspring due to their race or other factors. There is no example of Hetalia content wherein this disgusting opinion is ever mentioned or supported in any way. This is at worst a flat-out lie, and at best lumping Hetalia in with a much worse show that does do this (but I won’t get into that, I have never seen more than a few episodes of Attack on Titan and I don’t care to see any more of it. Throw your opinions or defenses elsewhere, I care 0% about it entirely). I have no more need to prepare a more detailed response to this accusation. It simply is not true.
Racial Fetishization
This particular accusation is a difficult one. Fetishization may be a strong word, as the series is largely a comedy. Everyone gets their turn in the spotlight, so to speak, so I find it hard to plainly state that any one character is fetishized or displayed as the most powerful. There is, of course, Rome, who only appears in small segments as Italy’s grandfather and is, in the series, touted as an amazing empire who had it all. I do not believe this is what the accusation is referring to. This accusation seems to be some sort of insistence that the show and creator believe that white people (or possibly just Germans/Nazis/the Aryan race?) are touted as the most powerful and nobody else can compare. I can confidently say that while that is never said anywhere, there are a few issues. Hetalia, particularly the animated series, had (and may still have) a longstanding issue of whitewashing countries that should not be white. This includes Egypt and Seychelles (who both later got a darker skin tone, probably still not dark enough though) as the worst offenders, and even Spain, Turkey, Greece, and Romano (southern Italy), and so on. Yes, this is a big problem. There is no defense against that. It should not be the case. These characters obviously should have darker skin. I will note, however, that many fans are already completely aware of this, have been complaining about it since the beginning, and tend to draw these characters with more correct skin tones in their fanart. This is a case where yes, the original content is not good, but the fans make their own fixes. If you are angry at Hetalia for whitewashing, good. You should be. But I do not believe this should reflect on the entirety of the content and the fandom (And note that I am not linking any particular fanart here, because I want nobody to go attack any fans).
It is also important to note that yes, a large majority of the series builds upon stereotypes. No, stereotypes are not good. No, you should not assume that the personifications of the countries encompass all citizens of said countries. The entire premise of the show is one person = the embodiment of a country, and that person changes and adapts with the times in terms of uniform and personality. It is extremely hard to do this without stereotyping. Most serious fans are aware of this, and do not in any way believe that these characters represent everyone from these countries. It may be true that much younger fans used to, and it may be true that people do not want to watch the show because stereotypes are, arguably, bad. But do remember that this is a comedy, and every character is picked on. Every one. And it is understandable if this branch of humor is not for you. I, personally, don’t like Family Guy or South Park or any shows like that for their humor. I also don’t attack the people who do. I ignore it.
Advocating for Fascism
This is another area wherein I believe the accuser is simply lumping Hetalia in with the original poster’s subject, Attack on Titan. Again, I will not defend or attack that show, as I do not care about it at all. However, regarding Hetalia, I can confidently say that it does not advocate for fascism. While the first two seasons are (sort of) set in WW2 era, as previously mentioned, the fighting is not really a big part, and nobody is touted as correct - only struggling in the conflict. For example, there is a scene where Germany, post WW1, is shown making cuckoo clocks by hand and lamenting the fact that he has to make so many thousands in order to pay back France. This is by no means painting fascism as a good thing, or explaining anything about how poverty and other struggles lead to the formation and rise of the Nazi party. It is simply a scene where we see a man frustratedly making cuckoo clocks and complaining while France’s big head jeers at him in his imagination. The surrounding scenes and the end of this one are making note of how Italy keeps coming over to his house to try and be friends and Germany keeps kicking him out because Italy is annoying and whiny. The episode further goes on to mention that Germany is attacking France again, and Italy has suddenly become his ally, and he is not happy about it for the aforementioned reasons. Again, this does not in any way paint Germany as being ‘right.’ The purpose of the segment(s) is/are to show him disliking the annoying Italy (whom the show is named for) and trying to get him out of his house before eventually giving up and accepting that they can be friends. Is it all 100% historically accurate? No, not by a long shot. Does it paint him as sympathetic? Sort of, you feel bad for the guy making a thousand cuckoo clocks, but only in the sense that he is one person doing a lot of work, a completely fictional situation. But Italy - and the audience - obviously know that attacking France again is not a good thing, so does it advocate the Nazis or fascism? Also no.
Nazi Sympathizing/Propaganda
I pretty well covered this in the previous section, but I will expand. I have alluded to the first two seasons as “focusing” on WW2, in a way, and also mentioned that this is a generalization of sorts, so here I will attempt to clarify. The first few episodes do, indeed, touch on ‘the way they all met’ in a sense; Germany is starting a war and he reluctantly becomes allies with Italy, and less reluctantly becomes allies with Japan, who examines both of them and decides he is content with this situation. However, none of it is very serious, and these ‘formalities’ give way easily to more humorous personable interactions, such as Italy hugging Japan without warning and the touch-anxious Japan pushing him off and getting flustered, Italy petting a cat and then freaking out when he is licked because a cat’s tongue is rough, the two of them ‘training’ by doing your regular old exercising and jogging and Italy being late, etc etc. Stupid, personable jokes.
On the flip side, the show covers the Allied Powers quite a bit too. A lot of this is the five big ones - America, Britain (/England/UK), France, Russia, and China - all meeting around one table and squabbling about various things. I fondly recall one scene where China arrives late and has a bunch of workers suddenly building a Chinatown in the meeting room because he was hungry and wanted his own food, and the others protesting. They are then offered food and become okay with it, because food. Other such nonsense plays out in other, similar meetings. There is also a segment where the Axis powers are all stranded on an island for… some unknown reason… and they set about attempting to survive via campfire and fishing and such. Twice (three times?) the Allied powers ‘attack’ them on this island via China whacking them each with a wok and, as the three of them are in a sad heap, something interrupts the scene to make the Allies retreat. One time, it is Rome’s sudden and also unexplained entrance across the sky singing a song, and another time, it is England’s preoccupation with a cursed chair. Also, at one point, Austria is playing a piano. Does any of this magic logical, real life sense? No. It’s stupid and funny and has nothing to do with war. These are just personable characters thrown into weird situations so they can be funny, with some extremely mild historical context along the way.
I will note again that WW2 is pretty much completely dropped after these two seasons, with the war hardly addressed at all, and future seasons focus more on other characters. The Scandinavians get to all have fun together, the Baltic trio is mentioned, there is a lot about Switzerland taking care of Liechtenstein (wow I spelled it right after all these years, go me) and being stiff and formal with Austria. There is also plenty about people mistaking Canada for America, and England and France squabbling throughout the years, and Spain finding Romano cute but also very grumpy, etc etc… This series is largely Eurasia-focused, yes, and it can be criticized for not being as diverse as it should be. But boiling it down to ‘Nazi propaganda’ is outright, obliviously false.
I don’t know if this is the best place to put this particular note, but I couldn’t think of anywhere else to place it, so here it will go. I would like to mention that in the series, some characters, like Germany and Russia, express outright fear of their ‘bosses’ in certain points in history. It is important to realize that Germany, Japan, America, etc… these characters are not the actual, real-life humans in charge of these countries, but people of a fictional, separate species than humans who grow up as the nation grows and have lives that are affected by these world leaders (we even watch in the show America shooting up from child to young adult as the colonies expand, and England comments on how quickly he grew up - but not as quickly as his people, of course. We’ll get to Davie later). The president of the United States is America’s ‘boss,’ and naturally, that boss changes every time the president changes. The emperor of China is China’s ‘boss.’ It follows, thusly, that at one point, Hitler was Germany’s ‘boss.’ The terrible person himself was alluded to, as far as I know, exactly one time, not by name, and no face was shown. In a very brief scene, Germany laments that his new boss is scary and he was just ordered to go force Austria to come live with him. Said boss is shown as, I believe, an evilly laughing shadowy figure. That’s it. That’s the scene. There is no other mention of Hitler, nor is there any mention of the Holocaust anywhere. One could argue that the show is then trying to say that the Holocaust didn’t happen, but I think such an accusation is frankly absurd. It’s a comedy, it was always a comedy, and what in the fuck would be comedic about a mass genocide in any way? Nothing. None of it is funny. Of course it is not brought up in a comedy.
Rape Jokes, Racism, and Holocaust Jokes
While I did somewhat address racism already in the section about whitewashing and racial fetishization, I have another clarification to make, especially regarding the jokes. A lot of people complain that there are rape jokes throughout the series, and that there are two Holocaust jokes. I will begin by saying yes, this is all true, those things did happen during the course of the show. However, it is important to note that all of those things happened in the English dub of the animated show, and none of these terrible jokes exist in the Japanese/subbed version, or the original comic strips.
The English dub is, on all accounts, pretty terrible. Everyone has an over exaggerated accent, there are the aforementioned jokes, there are name changes (England referred to as Britain, among them, very confusing), and the voice actors themselves make mention in commentaries that their goal in this job was, to paraphrase because I haven’t listened in a while, ‘to be as offensive as possible to absolutely everyone’ (and one of the English dub voice actors is even a convicted sex offender, but that’s it’s own mess). Not the most glamorous or noble of goals. One could say ‘at least if it’s everyone, it’s not really racism, is it? Just humor?’ There is a case for that. Many comedians will say that they poke fun at everyone to avoid singling anybody out as inherently superior. It cannot be said to be the best way to make humor, but it cannot be said to be the worst way, also. Overall, I don’t like the English dub, I don’t watch it, I prefer the subs. And yes, the subbed version has a few issues of its own, but I can say that at least, no, it does not make any Holocaust or rape jokes. Are those kinds of jokes excusable? Fuck no. They’re completely inappropriate. Should you judge the whole series and fandom based on the grossness of the English dubs? Also no, the people who did the English dubs have zero to do with the original creator, the animators, and the fans. Screw them.
The Fandom Being Terrible
I must again preface by saying I was never super active in the fandom at large. I had my own little niche of friends and I stuck to them and I didn’t often branch out. I did, however, go to cons back in those days, and saw plenty of cosplayers. The main complaint I see regarding the fandom is that most of the fans are completely rabid, make a bunch of rape jokes, and even dress up as ‘Nazi Germany’ (iron cross and red armband and all) and pretend to shoot up synagogues. Now, I have not seen cosplayers do the nazi solute or do such photoshoots, but I can believe that people have done it. I have seen plenty of rabid fans, and some of the OCs created for Hetalia, especially many interpretations of individual states (or Antarctica), were extremely cringey, racist, and overall just not good. And yes, these things are undeniably bad. They are very bad things! Those people should be ashamed. They should know better, regardless of their ages or anything, for fuck’s sake. The nazi salute is not a thing you do jokingly, pretending to shoot people is not a joke. Everyone is aware of this. The people who did, or maybe even still do, those things need a serious sit-down and to be woken the fuck up, because they are acting terrible.
However, it is extremely unfair to paint all Hetalia fans in the same light. That is a very stereotypical thing to do, no? As I mentioned earlier, I stuck to my little niche friend group of fans, and while we all had our own flaws and were younger and kinda dumber, we never did things like that. I never did things like that. Rape jokes were never funny, I never liked them, I never accepted them. I have people I still know who still like Hetalia and they never made those kinds of jokes either. I think, as the years have gone by, a lot of the more rabid fans have died out of the fandom. They’ve either grown the fuck up or they’ve went off to pollute some other fandom. Recognize that, especially in the beginning, the anime was low-budget and had a lot of that old and gross queerbaiting and stuff like that, so it was undeniably a magnet for crazy yaoi fans. But the majority of fanart, fanfics, and just overall fan stuff that I see these days are nothing like that. Overall, the fandom has seriously calmed down. A lot of the focus is much more on taking these characters and applying them to other historical events with more accuracy than the show might give. The history in these fanfics and fanarts may also be of questionable accuracy at times. I personally once wrote a fic where I made allusions to the death of Joan d’Arc and, later, the death of Elizabeth I, but did I add much historic fact? No, do I look like a history major spilling all this? The point of the fic was England - the character - maturing through starting to love one of his rulers and recognizing a terrible thing that he did before. It’s not the best piece of work out there, and maybe someone could point out a few things I did wrong with it, but for what it’s meant to be, it’s harmless. Takes on characters not actually in the series, like Ireland, Scotland, etc etc are generally pretty mature from what I see, fanart tends to just be the characters in various poses and styles. The overall love the fandom has, I think, is in the better character designs and in the very concept of the countries as people who laugh and cry and live through war and peace for thousands of years. And here is where I address the final grievance that I personally saw in the notes of the post which started this whole thought process and essay.
The Death of the Author
A lot of people might not fully understand what ‘The Death of the Author’ means. The death of the author is a belief rooted in the 20th century that the personal intentions, beliefs, and prejudices of the authors of certain works can have no bearing on their produced content, because once it is out in the public, every reader may then have their own interpretation and belief system. By publicizing the content, the author ‘dies’ and the reader is born.
There are some scenarios where this cannot apply. One example is JK Rowling, a very special case of a very problematic woman who happens to be so powerful, and so rich, that consuming any type of official (or even unofficial) Harry Potter anything can and will give her that much more power to spread her TERF bullshit. Let me be frank: Any time that consuming a product is allowing a bigoted or problematic person to gain extra money or extra power that they then use for evil, the death of the author cannot apply. You cannot use it as a moral justification. You might perhaps use it as the reason why you struggle to let go of a fandom near and dear to you, as Harry Potter is to so many people, but you absolutely must recognize that purchasing the books, the movies, or any other official content is outright supporting a TERF.
That in mind, there are dozens of other cases where the death of the author absolutely can apply. The easiest, of course, is with authors who are actually dead, such as Lovecraft. Lovecraft was a complete bigot and racist, an overall terrible person, and his works are saturated in that racism. But he is dead, and his work is very popular, and there are ways to take and use his work that do not contribute further to racism and bigotry. All you have to do is slap a non-racist cthulhu on a page. Make that cthulhu eat everyone equally. That’s a good cthulhu right there, a nice, safe cthulhu.
So where does Hetalia fall in this spectrum of can or cannot have death of the author? I believe it leans more to the side of yes, you can apply it. For one thing, you can definitely find the show for free in some places, and watch it without giving Himaruya a single cent. The comics are also available online for free, and while you might be giving your ‘support’ by being a viewer, I think overall, that’s not only negligible, but does not contribute anything bad? The author of Attack on Titan has many charges levied against him in the post which prompted this, and arguably, giving him any money is bad. But as far as I have seen, while Himaruya might have started out with a flawed premise and may have some whitewashing issues, I have seen nowhere that he funds any kind of racist, nationalistic, fascist, etc anything of any kind. This is not like Chick-Fil-A, where offering any kind of patronage is (or maybe used to be) sinking funds into terrible organizations. This is not supporting literal Nazis, as the complaints claim. This is a largely mediocre series with good parts and bad parts and zero ties to horrific organizations or ideals. Consuming good fan content does not make someone a racist or a bigot or a nazi sympathizer. Even rewatching some old favorite scenes or checking out the new season doesn’t make someone that. By all accounts, the show is flawed but not a means to fund nazis.
The Bad Anything Else
I will now take some time to talk about some other problems Hetalia has, because no, it is by no means flawless. I already discussed the whitewashing and stereotypes and the mess of the English dub, but there is more. I made mention of the fact that battles and seriously bad events such as the Holocaust are not mentioned, and this holds true throughout pretty much all of the series. There are certain points where ‘battles’ of a sort are seen, but only flash moments. One scene in particular that I really enjoyed as a tween and can now see the problems with is the whole revolutionary war scene. This was a scene split into two episodes (for some weird reason, even an unrelated episode in between, like, what? Why??) about a particular (unnamed) battle in the American Revolution where England faced down America, they each had a gun with a bayonet, and England charged America and his bayonet deeply scratched America’s gun, and America declared he was no longer England’s little brother, and the whole thing was played out as an extremely emotional scene. England is lost in the past of seeing America as a cute little kid he took care of, who has now grown up and is being reckless and stupid, and America is all righteous and independent and proving he’s a grown up, it’s all very emotional, I cried, other fans cried, there was much fanart.
This scene is problematic in a way. Boiling down an extremely nasty conflict following lots of really bad laws and protests to this one scene doesn’t do history any justice. It says nothing about the struggles of the American colonists, the struggles of the British empire, the awful things the colonists did to the natives, etc etc. It is one small scene and it focuses on these characters as humanoid, with feelings, and completely ignores the complexities of history. And yes, in a way, that is bad. But it is bad in the sense that nobody can - or at least should - take this show to be the end-all be-all of history. It is not. It is not often entirely correct, and it picks and chooses what points in the past several thousand years to play with, and trying to use it as a map for history is a bad idea. However, this focus on the countries as human-like and struggling can also be a good thing.
It is also important to note that there have been other problems. The portrayal of South Korea, for example, is extremely controversial, and while I do not know all of the specifics, I believe that it was banned in Korea due to this, and the character was entirely removed from the anime, among other things. Obviously, a bad take, a bad character. There are also just straight up not great characterizations in certain cases. I don’t, for example, like anything about how Belarus is portrayed as a crazy psycho constantly begging Russia (her big brother) to marry her? I think that that is ridiculous, and I know nothing about Belarus as a country but I am pretty darn sure that that is not how one ought to go about portraying the country. There are a few other examples, but my purpose here was not to pull up a list of every country and explain what is correct or incorrect about each characterization. It is enough to say that some characters were not portrayed perfectly. But with that in mind...
The Good Anything Else
It is the most important to remember that this, all of this, is fiction. This is a silly, silly fantasy series. The countries are not humans, they are some weird semi-immortal species that share a universal language and know they are not human and are referenced by humans as ‘those people.’ They are fictional constructs. But the good out of all of this is that they explore human emotions. The American Revolution scene should not be taken as how the revolution was, and who might have been right or wrong. But it is a very emotional story of a big brother unable to accept that his little brother has grown up and wants to make his own choices. That, right there, is a heartfelt scene that I’m sure plenty of real people can feel something about. And there are plenty of other scenes that really grab you by the heartstrings, especially given how crazy, stupid, and humor-oriented the rest of the show is. And I will take a moment and enthuse about some of the more popular scenes that I think are, in fact, pretty good.
There is one episode in season 5, Beautiful World, where an American woman visits France (the place). This woman, Lisa, is blond and bears a striking resemblance to Joan d’Arc. While visiting some historical place somewhere or another in Paris, France (the person) spots her and rushes up with an odd look. When she questions him, he apologizes and offers to give her a tour of the area, which she accepts. He then proceeds to lead her around and explain some history and show off some beautiful sights, and he mentions some stuff about Joan d’Arc. She butts in and lists off some stuff she knows, he beams and looks proud and says yes, she’s right. The end of the scene has the two of them standing alone somewhere and him commenting how young Joan was when she was killed, and that he always wished she could have had a better, nicer life. He then states that he is very happy that she got it, while giving this American tourist a gentle smile. She looks away for a moment, distracted by something perhaps, and when she looks back to ask just who the heck he really is, talking about a historical figure like he knew her, he is gone. It’s a very emotional scene in a quiet sort of way, because the watcher/reader understands that he took one look at this woman and instantly believed that she was, in fact, Joan d’Arc reincarnated into a totally different and totally average life, and he is so genuinely happy that a woman he saw as a hero gets this chance to live normally. Whether or not you may personally believe in reincarnation, and regardless of how often other times in the show France is shown as an obnoxious sexaholic, this is an extremely tender scene that lots of fans seriously love. It is very ‘human.’ And I feel like this is what the series as a whole strives to offer. These human moments. They may be peppered in a sort of lackadaisical style in the anime, but they are far more prominent in the comic strips, so it is important to realize that that kind of scene is more of what the creator likes to focus on.
Another very popular and touted scene is the Davie scene. I don’t remember if it was put in the anime or not, I read it as a comic. It was a scene set in colonial America, where the man himself was just a very small child. Little baby America was hanging out in a field with a rabbit and sees this boy, who introduces himself as Davie. Davie brings America to his house and opens up a botany book and points out a blue flower (possibly a forget-me-not) that he wants to see but that isn’t in the New World. America assures Davie that he will find him one of those flowers, and goes off to do so. He fails his search and goes back to Davie, who is older now, but Davie looks embarrassed and turns and walks away. Distressed, America runs to England and explains about the flower, and England says the flower is not there, but they do grow at home, and he will bring some the next time he leaves and comes back. America happily waits, and when England returns with a bouquet of the blue flowers, America takes them and runs off to Davie’s house. He is let in by a boy who looks just like Davie and presents the flowers, and the boy then puts them on (or maybe in) a coffin of an elderly man. America, smiling, does not seem to understand what is going on, and hopefully calls the boy Davie.
This entire scene, in the comic, has very few words. Davie’s name is repeated a few times, but most of the rest of the ‘dialogue’ is in images. The flower, England saying it is not there, etc. This makes the scene extremely poignant, and when we reach the end, we, the audience, realize suddenly that while baby America was fixated on finding a special flower for his new friend, years and years went by, and that friend grew up and got married and had children and eventually died, all while America remained looking the exact same age and understanding the exact same things. Look, folks, I don’t know about you, but that is some angsty stuff right there. I cried. We all cried. We all miss Davie. Mention the name to fans and you will get sobs. We love you, Davie.
Which brings me to my penultimate point, that this series is heartfelt and, while it avoids a lot of the bad of history, can be very poignant about what human nature is like. Human lives are long, very long, but also so very short, they fly by. Some lives end in tragedy, others are mostly peaceful, and maybe we get second chances if you believe in reincarnation, maybe not. Maybe it’s good that our lives are so short, maybe the fate of living forever and watching people you connect with die is tragic. Or maybe it would actually be really fun, having friends for thousands of years that you may squabble with at times but ultimately care for. Maybe nothing is simple and life is about finding joy where you can, and everyone needs to sometimes take a step back and realize that everyone is flawed, and there might be good and evil but the vast majority of people are in a grey area, trying to live their own lives and do what good they can for whatever reason they might give. I want to end with one last topic, one I have not yet addressed this whole time. The big white alien in the room, if you will.
Paint it: White!
There is a Hetalia movie, folks, if you didn’t know it, and it’s called Paint It White. This movie has just as many silly parts as any other Hetalia thing, but it also has a plot! In this movie, strange, all-white aliens are starting to invade the Earth. They arrive and anything they touch, they turn into completely identical white humanoid blobs, even the country personifications. With this scary and seemingly-unstoppable threat, the main eight - America, England, Russia, China, France, Japan, Germany, and Italy - all try to infiltrate the alien spaceship in frankly hideous uniforms to find out more and figure out a way to defeat them. Hijinks and disaster ensues, and at the end, each of them is fighting a mob and gradually being defeated. Italy is the last one standing, and as Germany is slowly being transformed into a blob along with the others, he tells Italy to smile. Italy then finds (or has? the plot isn’t great, it’s just there) a black marker and he suddenly starts going around drawing ridiculous faces on everyone. He draws fitting faces on each of his friend blobs, like a stern face on Germany-blob, a deadpan face on Japan-blob, etc etc. The invaders suddenly stop. They look at each other, marker-faced, and start to laugh. Then their leader of sorts comes out and is basically like “wow, we thought you were all stupid and you have wars and stuff, but this? This is beautiful. Wow. We all look exactly identical on our world, and these faces are cool and new and unique. We’ll turn everyone on your planet back if we can have this magical thingie you’re holding.” And of course Italy hands the marker right over, and everyone is put back to normal, and crybaby, scaredy-cat, useless Italy saves the world.
The plot is, obviously, not super great. It’s not going to win anybody any awards. But it has a very poetic premise. The strength of humans is that they are all unique. Every human has a different face, a different body, a different life. Our differences may cause conflict, but they are also something to celebrate. At the end of the day, Hetalia is an okay show that can get you hooked on history and tries its best to teach you that we’re all only human and there might be war and conflict and bad things, but you have to reach for the good things and find yourself good friends and have stupid laughs and enjoy life, however long or short it may be. I think that that’s a pretty decent message to send out to people.
The Bottom Line
In the end, this is a fandom like many others. Hetalia has its flaws and its cringe moments, and it certainly had its fair share of awful fans. But I truly believe that painting it overall as nazi propoganda and one of the most problematic and harmful shows out there is a blatant lie and disregards… just about everything of the actual content. I think it is difficult for someone to concretely say anything is super good or super bad without seeing at least some of it, or doing some research, and this business of blithely going along with what everyone else says just because they use big danger words does not do anybody any favors. Spreading misinformation is, I’m sure, the exact opposite of what most people want to do. And make no mistake, I am definitely not saying that everyone needs to like, or even watch, the show. If you never ever want to watch this show in your life, that is absolutely fine. Go forth and never watch it. But mindlessly following the herd and yelling overgeneralized, unsupported opinions about it is not a good thing. I beg of you, do research on the things you want to form or share an opinion on, think critically, and for the love of God, do not swipe a giant paintbrush to forsake every single individual fan of a show as a terrible, awful person. By all means, hate nazis, they are pieces of shit. Boycott things that support genocide and fascism, yes, fight for equality, yes. But do not go accusing without thinking, and do not overgeneralize. I leave you with the words of my old laptop bag that I bought years ago at a convention:
Make pasta, not war.
Thank you for reading.
#I wrote an essay#I could probably source this way more#but I've been working on it for hours#Just take it
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