Legend of Yunqian (云芊传)
Dec. 30th, 2020 21:05tl;dr a currently "airing" GL (f/f) show, where each ep is 4 min long, showing only the tropey relationship and plot highlights.
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The Legend of Hei
Dec. 29th, 2020 16:23An animated movie that tells the story of Xiaohei, a cat demon, whose forest home has been destroyed by human activity. He goes on a journey to ~find a home~ in a world where humans have dominated the environment. This is a prequel to a webseries that I haven't seen, so I may be missing context from that, but it stood well enough by itself.
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tl;dr I enjoyed the characters and acting; the plot is a complete mess. Some interesting thoughts on unreliable narrators and perception that don't go far enough.
The premise: Zhong Meibao shockingly dies in her apt in Horizon Tower. Several suspects emerge, all of whom were in love (to varying degrees of platonic/romantic) with her. Although the framing device is a police procedural, it really is a set of eight mini stories, each two episodes long, from the point of view of an unreliable narrator on overlapping events.
Spoilers ahead!
I especially enjoyed the earlier episodes where you keep seeing the same events, getting more information each time, learning how seemingly unreliable the narrators are. At the beginning, I thought there was a lot of social commentary on how Meibao was kind of a blank slate that men would try and project their desires on. I also did like the relationships between characters -- the theme of found family especially, and how far people would go to protect their important people. I also found the acting to be top notch; some extremely good and emotional acting in here!
I felt that the main problems were that it tried to tie itself too seriously to the police procedural framing device, and dropped all the unreliable narrator themes that were so good in the beginning. It's severely let down in the second half by massive plot holes. The interesting tidbits and scenes from the earlier episodes are just... retconned as needed. The setup with Lin Dasen was so fascinating and then just went nowhere. I uh, didn't find the Wu Mingyue ~metaphorical novel~ interesting at all, and honestly it could have just been cut for all it did to move the plot forward or tell us new information. Just, in retrospect, a lot of fluff scenes that didn't drive plot or character development.
It also tried (and imo failed) to tackle large societal issues about poverty and abuse. I actually like that we don't really know what Zhong Jie was really thinking, how good of a mother or how calculating a person she really was. But what it didn't address is the massive resource imbalance between how much effort the police spent to solve the mystery of a middle class woman's death vs a poor woman's death. There are so many plot holes, but the most glaring to me was how plot convenient the police's abilities to investigate a crime were. They just kept... not asking important questions? They couldn't get Yan Yongyuan on any other crimes?
I honestly feel like the story would have been considerably better and tighter if it wasn't in this police procedural frame. The side stories about the police characters were significantly less interesting (and less screentime was devoted to making them interesting), and by adding this requirement to driving the plot, it made everyone seem very stupid.
I guess despite all the complaints, I did still enjoy watching and don't regret it. (My bf disagrees and hated it. The plot holes were too much for him.) I just feel like it could have asked more interesting questions and been significantly tighter as a story.
The premise: Zhong Meibao shockingly dies in her apt in Horizon Tower. Several suspects emerge, all of whom were in love (to varying degrees of platonic/romantic) with her. Although the framing device is a police procedural, it really is a set of eight mini stories, each two episodes long, from the point of view of an unreliable narrator on overlapping events.
Spoilers ahead!
I especially enjoyed the earlier episodes where you keep seeing the same events, getting more information each time, learning how seemingly unreliable the narrators are. At the beginning, I thought there was a lot of social commentary on how Meibao was kind of a blank slate that men would try and project their desires on. I also did like the relationships between characters -- the theme of found family especially, and how far people would go to protect their important people. I also found the acting to be top notch; some extremely good and emotional acting in here!
I felt that the main problems were that it tried to tie itself too seriously to the police procedural framing device, and dropped all the unreliable narrator themes that were so good in the beginning. It's severely let down in the second half by massive plot holes. The interesting tidbits and scenes from the earlier episodes are just... retconned as needed. The setup with Lin Dasen was so fascinating and then just went nowhere. I uh, didn't find the Wu Mingyue ~metaphorical novel~ interesting at all, and honestly it could have just been cut for all it did to move the plot forward or tell us new information. Just, in retrospect, a lot of fluff scenes that didn't drive plot or character development.
It also tried (and imo failed) to tackle large societal issues about poverty and abuse. I actually like that we don't really know what Zhong Jie was really thinking, how good of a mother or how calculating a person she really was. But what it didn't address is the massive resource imbalance between how much effort the police spent to solve the mystery of a middle class woman's death vs a poor woman's death. There are so many plot holes, but the most glaring to me was how plot convenient the police's abilities to investigate a crime were. They just kept... not asking important questions? They couldn't get Yan Yongyuan on any other crimes?
I honestly feel like the story would have been considerably better and tighter if it wasn't in this police procedural frame. The side stories about the police characters were significantly less interesting (and less screentime was devoted to making them interesting), and by adding this requirement to driving the plot, it made everyone seem very stupid.
I guess despite all the complaints, I did still enjoy watching and don't regret it. (My bf disagrees and hated it. The plot holes were too much for him.) I just feel like it could have asked more interesting questions and been significantly tighter as a story.
I think I'm going to DNF this, unfortunately. There were enough fun scenes and little moments to get me to the end of ep 15, but at the end of the day I just don't like the characters enough to push through.
I went in without reading the synopsis, and so was highly startled at the end of ep 1 when it was revealed to be ~time travel~ allowing the two main characters to communicate across 11 years. Past!MC is Xiao Feng, in the year 2008, when e-sports are not yet a Big Deal, and he is set to become a famous e-sport player. Present!MC is Lu Xiaobei, who has a tragic dead big brother. Both are at the points where they're struggling to put together or keep together a team in order to win championships.
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I went in without reading the synopsis, and so was highly startled at the end of ep 1 when it was revealed to be ~time travel~ allowing the two main characters to communicate across 11 years. Past!MC is Xiao Feng, in the year 2008, when e-sports are not yet a Big Deal, and he is set to become a famous e-sport player. Present!MC is Lu Xiaobei, who has a tragic dead big brother. Both are at the points where they're struggling to put together or keep together a team in order to win championships.
( Read more... )
The first scene I saw as a kid that made my heart go pitter-patter.
I... think I need to play with ffmpeg some more bc getting it compressed enough seems to have left some weird dithering artifacts
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I... think I need to play with ffmpeg some more bc getting it compressed enough seems to have left some weird dithering artifacts
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Fighting Demons by S.L. Huang
Dec. 19th, 2020 20:51This is a sequel short story to Hunting Monsters, both available on the internet, and there is a sequel novella (that I've not read yet -- impatiently waiting for it to come in!!)
In short: this was incredible. It takes some familiar fairy tale characters -- Little Red Riding Hood and the White Snake -- so there's a strange half-known background pulling from both Western and Eastern myths, while really telling the story about how the second generation grapples and comes to terms with their heritage and place in the world.
It's not very subtle in how it presents the arguments about filial piety vs independence, about how culture shapes your world, about the push pull of growing up in a different world than your parent. Of course, I'm probably exactly the correct target audience for this, so I cannot like, objectively judge its merits, but I loved every moment of it.
Read it here: http://www.thebooksmugglers.com/2015/09/fighting-demons-by-s-l-huang.html
Thanks to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophia_sol for reccing the book and enabling me to find this short story!
In short: this was incredible. It takes some familiar fairy tale characters -- Little Red Riding Hood and the White Snake -- so there's a strange half-known background pulling from both Western and Eastern myths, while really telling the story about how the second generation grapples and comes to terms with their heritage and place in the world.
It's not very subtle in how it presents the arguments about filial piety vs independence, about how culture shapes your world, about the push pull of growing up in a different world than your parent. Of course, I'm probably exactly the correct target audience for this, so I cannot like, objectively judge its merits, but I loved every moment of it.
Read it here: http://www.thebooksmugglers.com/2015/09/fighting-demons-by-s-l-huang.html
Thanks to
sophia_sol for reccing the book and enabling me to find this short story!AO3 collapse tags/fandoms
Dec. 18th, 2020 18:49FYI, if you want to collapse long lists of tags or fandoms on AO3 and don't want to manually add it to AO3 savior, you can change your site skin to add a scrollbar to it.
What you do is:
1. Go to https://archiveofourown.org/skins
3. Go back to https://archiveofourown.org/skins and go to My Site Skins
4. Click Create Site Skin
5. Keep the type as "Site Skin" and add a Title
6. Paste all the CSS you copied in step 2 into the CSS text box
7. At the very end of the CSS, add the following lines:
9. Done! Now fandoms or tags that are longer than 10em will be turned into scroll bars! You can adjust that number as you like.
What you do is:
1. Go to https://archiveofourown.org/skins
2. If you already use a site skin and want to preserve those preferences, you should go find it on the list of public skins, then copy everything under CSS. In this image, you can see it will start with the line #outer .region, and then copy everything after that to the end of the page of CSS.
4. Click Create Site Skin
5. Keep the type as "Site Skin" and add a Title
6. Paste all the CSS you copied in step 2 into the CSS text box
7. At the very end of the CSS, add the following lines:
li.blurb .fandoms {
max-height: 10em;
overflow-y: auto;
}
li.blurb .tags {
max-height: 10em;
overflow-y: auto;
}
8. Click Usemax-height: 10em;
overflow-y: auto;
}
li.blurb .tags {
max-height: 10em;
overflow-y: auto;
}
9. Done! Now fandoms or tags that are longer than 10em will be turned into scroll bars! You can adjust that number as you like.
(no subject)
Dec. 17th, 2020 11:26Recapping and expanding on my thoughts from Erin's recent tweets, I'm actually thinking about how the norms of academic have a point wrt requiring literature review and knowledge of the wider field before contributing, and how that relates to the new norm creation of "credit for everything." Also, worrying about how like-- one of the key parts of grad school is learning those norms and how that serves as a gatekeeping mechanic, if this is going to have a chilling effect on fandom.
There are two discussion points: 1. how fandom memory is so short and having to keep having the same conversations over and over and 2. this new norm of crediting everyone who is involved in the creation of a creative work. (No value judgement on #2 is intended)
Because one of the results of the current infrastructure of fandom makes it hard to do a lit review, to make a longer complete post that people can refer to and discuss, thereby making it harder to be having the same conversation across large swaths of fandom. Having to have the same conversation over and over is exhausting, but like, the audience keeps changing, so is the repetitiveness a net gain or loss?
I'm thinking specifically here about Racefail and its aftereffects, when it's a painful or traumatic topic to keep dredging through. Racefail happened when I was still young enough that the surrounding essays and meta introduced me to many new concepts and is fundamental to how I frame difficult discussions. Without long term fandom memory, when we go over the same arguments again, it'll introduce new people to those concepts.
But at the same time, in academia, we would point people to a review article that summarizes everything, which enables the conversation to be carried forward. We get mired in relitigating the same points because we don't have that fandom memory and it's difficult to link someone to a zillion tweet threads.
However, we don't have this existing norm to cite everything in fandom, and to pretend that it already exists is a bit disingenuous. I'm not going to argue one way or another about if it's good to have an extremely robust citation system, but the way fandom infrastructure is set up, it's hard to do so if this becomes the fandom norm. It also privileges those who do come from academia and have that intrinsic instinct to packrat away references. Lit reviews are hard work!
I am worried that presenting such strict new norms will have a chilling effect where non-diaspora fandom will avoid engaging with diaspora meta or the fandom as a whole because of the ambiguity of if You're Doing It Right. I'm not opposed to a norm change -- as Erin pointed out to me, Plagiarism Is Bad was not actually total fandom consensus it is now before Cassie Clare, and fandom trends are 100% always present in every fandom.
There are two discussion points: 1. how fandom memory is so short and having to keep having the same conversations over and over and 2. this new norm of crediting everyone who is involved in the creation of a creative work. (No value judgement on #2 is intended)
Because one of the results of the current infrastructure of fandom makes it hard to do a lit review, to make a longer complete post that people can refer to and discuss, thereby making it harder to be having the same conversation across large swaths of fandom. Having to have the same conversation over and over is exhausting, but like, the audience keeps changing, so is the repetitiveness a net gain or loss?
I'm thinking specifically here about Racefail and its aftereffects, when it's a painful or traumatic topic to keep dredging through. Racefail happened when I was still young enough that the surrounding essays and meta introduced me to many new concepts and is fundamental to how I frame difficult discussions. Without long term fandom memory, when we go over the same arguments again, it'll introduce new people to those concepts.
But at the same time, in academia, we would point people to a review article that summarizes everything, which enables the conversation to be carried forward. We get mired in relitigating the same points because we don't have that fandom memory and it's difficult to link someone to a zillion tweet threads.
However, we don't have this existing norm to cite everything in fandom, and to pretend that it already exists is a bit disingenuous. I'm not going to argue one way or another about if it's good to have an extremely robust citation system, but the way fandom infrastructure is set up, it's hard to do so if this becomes the fandom norm. It also privileges those who do come from academia and have that intrinsic instinct to packrat away references. Lit reviews are hard work!
I am worried that presenting such strict new norms will have a chilling effect where non-diaspora fandom will avoid engaging with diaspora meta or the fandom as a whole because of the ambiguity of if You're Doing It Right. I'm not opposed to a norm change -- as Erin pointed out to me, Plagiarism Is Bad was not actually total fandom consensus it is now before Cassie Clare, and fandom trends are 100% always present in every fandom.
tl;dr: Where should the line of going too far in chinaboo behavior be? When is it gatekeeping? The particular example I've chosen to illustrate is sajiao WWX.
I want to be careful and say upfront that this isn't directed at anyone in particular and that fandom is ultimately everyone's own experience. I also have complicated feelings on this topic and haven't fully worked through everything, so I would actually love to discuss this further to develop ideas etc. Or if anyone has relevant meta/essays to link, I would enjoy reading those.
MDZS/CQL has attracted a lot of people for whom this is their first Chinese source fandom. This is cool! It's nice to be able to share something with so many people. I love the community feeling of fandom, where you can squee over fun things and throw around headcanons. There's also a big contingent of English speaking Chinese diaspora folks, which is also nice! It's fun to learn about culture and tease out the differences in everyone's experiences.
I'm going to use the trope of WWX being cute / pouty / xianxian is three! here, bc it's the one that caused me to start thinking of this topic and for a concrete example.
This behavior is called "sajiao" in China; it is analogous to "aegyo" in Korea or "aikyou" in Japan. The most direct translation IMO is "to act coquettish," but despite what a google search will have you believe, is NOT exclusively girls flirting with their boyfriends. It's used by both genders as an affectionate gesture towards family or friends. Lest I overcorrect against the Orientalist articles, it is most definitely also used to flirt.
I love sajiao, and do adore when WWX sajiaos. It's an aspect of flirtation is totally natural to the character! And accordingly, I love when it's incorporated into fic.
What makes me a little uncomfortable is how this occasionally ventures into fetishizing territory. I'm trying to be careful here to not cast judgement, but rather analyze my own impulses and feelings. A lot of this stems from growing up in the US, where yellow fever is definitely a thing and how as a result, I will always be hesitant and wary of people fetishizing Asians. So when I see sajiao used in ways that are tonally wrong, I have the impulse to recoil and (in my head) chalk it up to them being a chinaboo.
(An interlude: the diaspora, grew up as the minority perspective here is key. Asians-in-Asia, especially East Asians, grew up as the dominant culture, and so their baseline concept of racism and fetishization is very different. I'm explicitly calling this out bc it's an important distinction. Someone Chinese from China would probably view the same thing that bothers me and go "oh it's nice that they're trying" or similar.)
At the same time, there's the competing thought of: is it gatekeeping to say something like that? Why must everything be precise to my personal boundaries of chinaboo behavior? If someone in a non-Chinese fandom went around pouting all the time and acting cute, would I just consider it OOC instead of going to the "fetishizing!" place? There is also obviously considerable variation in how people behave, when is it just exaggerated for effect or the joke, am I being humorless by feeling uncomfortable?
I'm extremely unlikely to start calling out specific examples, by the by, and I picked sajiao as an example bc there isn't IMO a black and white answer on it. I am more interested in thinking about how fandom, as a social group, navigates the line between "this is a thing that I find cute/hot/compelling" to "this is fetishizing but in a way that doesn't harm anyone" to "as a dominant view in fandom, it distorts our perspectives on the culture." Additionally, how we navigate this without lurching from wank to flamewar. (Are those terms outdated now? I'm old.) I don't think it's useful to gatekeep, or to say "thou must not xyz," especially since it rarely results in shifting opinions.
I want to be careful and say upfront that this isn't directed at anyone in particular and that fandom is ultimately everyone's own experience. I also have complicated feelings on this topic and haven't fully worked through everything, so I would actually love to discuss this further to develop ideas etc. Or if anyone has relevant meta/essays to link, I would enjoy reading those.
MDZS/CQL has attracted a lot of people for whom this is their first Chinese source fandom. This is cool! It's nice to be able to share something with so many people. I love the community feeling of fandom, where you can squee over fun things and throw around headcanons. There's also a big contingent of English speaking Chinese diaspora folks, which is also nice! It's fun to learn about culture and tease out the differences in everyone's experiences.
I'm going to use the trope of WWX being cute / pouty / xianxian is three! here, bc it's the one that caused me to start thinking of this topic and for a concrete example.
This behavior is called "sajiao" in China; it is analogous to "aegyo" in Korea or "aikyou" in Japan. The most direct translation IMO is "to act coquettish," but despite what a google search will have you believe, is NOT exclusively girls flirting with their boyfriends. It's used by both genders as an affectionate gesture towards family or friends. Lest I overcorrect against the Orientalist articles, it is most definitely also used to flirt.
I love sajiao, and do adore when WWX sajiaos. It's an aspect of flirtation is totally natural to the character! And accordingly, I love when it's incorporated into fic.
What makes me a little uncomfortable is how this occasionally ventures into fetishizing territory. I'm trying to be careful here to not cast judgement, but rather analyze my own impulses and feelings. A lot of this stems from growing up in the US, where yellow fever is definitely a thing and how as a result, I will always be hesitant and wary of people fetishizing Asians. So when I see sajiao used in ways that are tonally wrong, I have the impulse to recoil and (in my head) chalk it up to them being a chinaboo.
(An interlude: the diaspora, grew up as the minority perspective here is key. Asians-in-Asia, especially East Asians, grew up as the dominant culture, and so their baseline concept of racism and fetishization is very different. I'm explicitly calling this out bc it's an important distinction. Someone Chinese from China would probably view the same thing that bothers me and go "oh it's nice that they're trying" or similar.)
At the same time, there's the competing thought of: is it gatekeeping to say something like that? Why must everything be precise to my personal boundaries of chinaboo behavior? If someone in a non-Chinese fandom went around pouting all the time and acting cute, would I just consider it OOC instead of going to the "fetishizing!" place? There is also obviously considerable variation in how people behave, when is it just exaggerated for effect or the joke, am I being humorless by feeling uncomfortable?
I'm extremely unlikely to start calling out specific examples, by the by, and I picked sajiao as an example bc there isn't IMO a black and white answer on it. I am more interested in thinking about how fandom, as a social group, navigates the line between "this is a thing that I find cute/hot/compelling" to "this is fetishizing but in a way that doesn't harm anyone" to "as a dominant view in fandom, it distorts our perspectives on the culture." Additionally, how we navigate this without lurching from wank to flamewar. (Are those terms outdated now? I'm old.) I don't think it's useful to gatekeep, or to say "thou must not xyz," especially since it rarely results in shifting opinions.
pet peeve: pinned butterflies
Dec. 10th, 2020 12:46
As
jo_lasalle and co. found out during the tgcf watch party, the pet peeve that I will now share with everyone so you can never unsee it: most butterfly portrayals look like dead, pinned butterflies instead of living ones. https://emilydamstra.com/news/please-enough-dead-butterflies/ has some examples images of real butterflies, but the short answer is that most butterflies will hold the top edge of their wings much further down than commonly depicted. The reason we think of them as holding their wings all the way up like that is bc when they’re dead and set for display, they’re moved in that position for easier identification and consistency.
My AO3 reading history
Dec. 9th, 2020 22:11~Inspired~ by the end of year memes, I was curious what my actual AO3 reading history was like. These data were directly scraped from the history page, so they're only as accurate as that. Namely, AO3 only gives you the date you last opened a fic and dynamically updates things like word count; also, some fics I might have opened without reading all the way through etc etc. So pretty fuzzy here.
Some interesting graphs for my own edification:
The number of works that I've read this year looks like a substantial increase over previous years, BUT remember that only the most recent visit "counts," so if I had a long fic that I most recently read in 2020... (I say to myself to make myself feel better.)

( Read more... )
Some interesting graphs for my own edification:
The number of works that I've read this year looks like a substantial increase over previous years, BUT remember that only the most recent visit "counts," so if I had a long fic that I most recently read in 2020... (I say to myself to make myself feel better.)

( Read more... )
1. I didn't mention it in the first post, because it doesn't quite fit (NHS is the acknowledged heir), but NHS fits into a well known trope, that of the artistic/literary younger prince. Historically, this was done to ensure that said prince wasn't seen as a threat whoever was meant to be inheriting (to sometimes bad ends when the younger prince did end up inheriting and oh, hadn't learned how to rule). Jacytheblue pointed out that post-timeskip, NHS is definitely playing this trope up for comedy (as it is often used).
2. Let me potentially dabble into controversy. I was a bit !!! at my bf about why this post got popular and he pointed out another reason why NHS may be often read as feminine. And that is, because he's physically the weakest one. I uh, hope that this isn't a motivating reason for fandom, but cannot help but think that it must contribute? (This would be a bias that crosses into the cdrama world too, from what I can tell)
3. Now I can make a very biased, anecdotal observation into patterns of engagement on DW/tumblr/twitter. (Though: still baffled why /this/ was such a popular post.) Namely, it's the hardest to have a conversation on tumblr: a few people put some followup comments in the tags, but uh, I see no way to respond to them? Nor did it seem like it invited response.
DW, of course, was the easiest to have a short conversation in, and despite having the fewest eyeballs on it, probably had the highest reply-to-read ratio (obviously an assumption, but based on the number of people who could have possibly seen it...). Posting on the comm (thanks rekishi for suggesting!) was not the crickets I was expecting either!
Twitter's notifications became completely unusable (the mentions tab stopped working, and over on tweetdeck, it only aggregates the last X notifs), which made it much harder to follow conversations. At first, there were very few replies-that-invited-conversation, but when I woke up this morning, there were more, which was excellent. I remain confused if -- QRTs are inviting conversation with me + the person's followers or just the person's followers? I assume a reply to my thread, as I am @'d is explicitly an invitation.
2. Let me potentially dabble into controversy. I was a bit !!! at my bf about why this post got popular and he pointed out another reason why NHS may be often read as feminine. And that is, because he's physically the weakest one. I uh, hope that this isn't a motivating reason for fandom, but cannot help but think that it must contribute? (This would be a bias that crosses into the cdrama world too, from what I can tell)
3. Now I can make a very biased, anecdotal observation into patterns of engagement on DW/tumblr/twitter. (Though: still baffled why /this/ was such a popular post.) Namely, it's the hardest to have a conversation on tumblr: a few people put some followup comments in the tags, but uh, I see no way to respond to them? Nor did it seem like it invited response.
DW, of course, was the easiest to have a short conversation in, and despite having the fewest eyeballs on it, probably had the highest reply-to-read ratio (obviously an assumption, but based on the number of people who could have possibly seen it...). Posting on the comm (thanks rekishi for suggesting!) was not the crickets I was expecting either!
Twitter's notifications became completely unusable (the mentions tab stopped working, and over on tweetdeck, it only aggregates the last X notifs), which made it much harder to follow conversations. At first, there were very few replies-that-invited-conversation, but when I woke up this morning, there were more, which was excellent. I remain confused if -- QRTs are inviting conversation with me + the person's followers or just the person's followers? I assume a reply to my thread, as I am @'d is explicitly an invitation.
Nie Huaisang and masculinity
Dec. 4th, 2020 11:16aka NHS is not particularly coded feminine in MDZS/CQL and I'd like to provide some context why!
I'm sure this has been pointed out before, but I'm not like, really ~with the youth~ aka how do people find meta post-LJ? So I don't know how redundant this post is... First, the caveat that obviously anyone can do what they want and headcanon whatever they want! These are just my thoughts!
I think people are mistaking NHS's love of art and fans as particularly feminine traits, which conflates Western ideals of femininity with what is happening. For reasons beyond the scope of this post, ancient China's ideals of masculinity rest on the ideal of a scholar -- the highest social class for much of imperial Chinese history served as officials and bureaucrats. (Of course, the perfect man was both martially AND academically inclined.) As a result, poetry, painting, these are /not/ coded feminine, because any true gentleman is a master of these arts.
On the topic of fans, folding fans were commonly used as canvases, and so scholars would gift fans etc etc until decorated folding fans were a Big Deal. Some of the aesthetic hanfu blogs say folding fans are masculine and the stiff round fans are feminine, but I don't think this is broadly true through much of history? Like, yes, that is the association NOW, because a lot of dramas will give the young women the round fans and we see men with folding fans. But also there are lots of examples of historical folding fans that were designed to be carried by women, and the round fans predate the existence of folding fans. In any case, folding fans are not coded feminine and may even be a masculine accessory.
In conclusion, I have and will continue to happily read f!NHS and related fics, but mmm how to put it? If you're taking a textual reading of the canon, you need to do a bit more work to explain it?
I'm sure this has been pointed out before, but I'm not like, really ~with the youth~ aka how do people find meta post-LJ? So I don't know how redundant this post is... First, the caveat that obviously anyone can do what they want and headcanon whatever they want! These are just my thoughts!
I think people are mistaking NHS's love of art and fans as particularly feminine traits, which conflates Western ideals of femininity with what is happening. For reasons beyond the scope of this post, ancient China's ideals of masculinity rest on the ideal of a scholar -- the highest social class for much of imperial Chinese history served as officials and bureaucrats. (Of course, the perfect man was both martially AND academically inclined.) As a result, poetry, painting, these are /not/ coded feminine, because any true gentleman is a master of these arts.
On the topic of fans, folding fans were commonly used as canvases, and so scholars would gift fans etc etc until decorated folding fans were a Big Deal. Some of the aesthetic hanfu blogs say folding fans are masculine and the stiff round fans are feminine, but I don't think this is broadly true through much of history? Like, yes, that is the association NOW, because a lot of dramas will give the young women the round fans and we see men with folding fans. But also there are lots of examples of historical folding fans that were designed to be carried by women, and the round fans predate the existence of folding fans. In any case, folding fans are not coded feminine and may even be a masculine accessory.
In conclusion, I have and will continue to happily read f!NHS and related fics, but mmm how to put it? If you're taking a textual reading of the canon, you need to do a bit more work to explain it?
(no subject)
Dec. 3rd, 2020 13:08I was looking through my old photos for one of the lotuses on West Lake, and instead found this, my cousin's dog.
( Picture cut )
( Picture cut )
(no subject)
Nov. 30th, 2020 12:49I was looking at the taiwanese terms for gay/lesbian family members that was making the rounds, and was thinking about how heterogeneous family terms are in China (and obviously the diaspora). More than anything else, I feel like family terms preserve regional differences in topolect. (Especially confusing when the same term means different relatives in different topolects.) I know that for 3 of my 4 grandparents, I use varying degrees of topolect terms instead of standard Mandarin, even though I am generally unable to speak those topolects.
Anyway, how this translates into fic is beyond my abilities, I just wanted to ramble a bit about how fluid the relative terms are compared to how they're often presented. Like, no, I don't have a 外婆wai4po2, I have an a2bu3.
Actually, I think maternal grandmother is one with the most variance across China, with also 姥姥 lao3lao, 阿嬷 a1mo2, 婆婆 po2po, 细爹 xi4die1, 家家 jia1jia1. There was a big kerfluffle a few years ago where some textbooks in Shanghai used laolao instead, and like (I say this with love), Shanghainese people got Very Upset at this northern nonsense. (Waipo is apparently more southern.)
Anyway, how this translates into fic is beyond my abilities, I just wanted to ramble a bit about how fluid the relative terms are compared to how they're often presented. Like, no, I don't have a 外婆wai4po2, I have an a2bu3.
Actually, I think maternal grandmother is one with the most variance across China, with also 姥姥 lao3lao, 阿嬷 a1mo2, 婆婆 po2po, 细爹 xi4die1, 家家 jia1jia1. There was a big kerfluffle a few years ago where some textbooks in Shanghai used laolao instead, and like (I say this with love), Shanghainese people got Very Upset at this northern nonsense. (Waipo is apparently more southern.)
I have trouble expressing just how close to my heart hikago is. Beyond just being a great anime and manga, it was my first real fandom, so tied up in my memory of the story are all the layers of long nights of discussing character motivations, reading fic, and making friends. Coming back to fandom after a decade away, it really feels like fate that the cdrama started airing right after.
Luckily, the cdrama is good both in its own right AND in contrast to the animanga. I therefore whole heartedly recommend Qi Hun to both fans of the original hikago and new folks alike.
( Read more... )
You can watch on iQiyi or dramacool. It's 36 eps long, and the last four eps are still unsubbed, but they should be subbed by Tuesday at their normal rate!
Luckily, the cdrama is good both in its own right AND in contrast to the animanga. I therefore whole heartedly recommend Qi Hun to both fans of the original hikago and new folks alike.
( Read more... )
You can watch on iQiyi or dramacool. It's 36 eps long, and the last four eps are still unsubbed, but they should be subbed by Tuesday at their normal rate!
Untamed/MDZS vid recs!
Nov. 25th, 2020 15:32I have to preface this by saying that my vocabulary around vids and general fluency in vid culture is seriously lacking, since I have historically mostly hung out on the fic side of things. As a result, I am less well equipped to appreciate the meta or broader trends in vids, and this recs list is necessarily more biased towards my own idiosyncratic tastes than an already inherently biased recs list of any flavor might be. But I have enough vid recs that I want to talk about them with people!
Bury a Friend by Rhea
I love the use of silence here, and how well timed the cuts and song are. The contrasts between sound / silence and motion / stillness also were really enjoyable. I think because the song choice has multiple layers of action that the vid teases out, I rewatched several times to get more of the clever cuts. I also liked the use of (not sure the technical term?) cutting short scene clips into an unrelated clip to place them in juxtaposition.
double knot by by pingvi
I think by pingvi's sense of timing and repeated motifs are excellent. I find the flashiness of the edit and the rhythmic layering of sound from the source really appealing.
the fault by Pteryx Videos
So there must be schools of vid thought and trends, right? I think Pteryx Videos must belong to the same one as by pingvi, with the emphasis on elaborate cuts and sound layering. There is a sense of -- urgency and motivation through the vid that makes me want to rewatch.
The Black Parade: An Untamed Vid Album by helcinda
First: this is a series of vids to a whole album. As a result of the length, it felt very different to watch, with more space to explore almost? There was much more a sense of storytelling, which -- and this is probably a personal failing on my part -- I am usually too impatient to sit through in a vid format. I guess it just needs to be 45 mins long for me to invoke the sense of falling into a story? I especially enjoyed the WWX one, which gave me more JFM as father feels than I think I've ever had previously.
Fuck this shit I'm out by shati
OK this is only 25 s long, BUT I liked it a lot! Perfectly represents Mianmian's POV lol.
So What. by NKZephyr Edits
Right, so possibly I love this because I love Jiang Cheng, which -- valid crit. But I loved the premise of WWX as uh, the cheating husband, and all the many, many angry JC expressions, interspersed with angsty retrospective scenes of their brotherhood.
Bury a Friend by Rhea
I love the use of silence here, and how well timed the cuts and song are. The contrasts between sound / silence and motion / stillness also were really enjoyable. I think because the song choice has multiple layers of action that the vid teases out, I rewatched several times to get more of the clever cuts. I also liked the use of (not sure the technical term?) cutting short scene clips into an unrelated clip to place them in juxtaposition.
double knot by by pingvi
I think by pingvi's sense of timing and repeated motifs are excellent. I find the flashiness of the edit and the rhythmic layering of sound from the source really appealing.
the fault by Pteryx Videos
So there must be schools of vid thought and trends, right? I think Pteryx Videos must belong to the same one as by pingvi, with the emphasis on elaborate cuts and sound layering. There is a sense of -- urgency and motivation through the vid that makes me want to rewatch.
The Black Parade: An Untamed Vid Album by helcinda
First: this is a series of vids to a whole album. As a result of the length, it felt very different to watch, with more space to explore almost? There was much more a sense of storytelling, which -- and this is probably a personal failing on my part -- I am usually too impatient to sit through in a vid format. I guess it just needs to be 45 mins long for me to invoke the sense of falling into a story? I especially enjoyed the WWX one, which gave me more JFM as father feels than I think I've ever had previously.
Fuck this shit I'm out by shati
OK this is only 25 s long, BUT I liked it a lot! Perfectly represents Mianmian's POV lol.
So What. by NKZephyr Edits
Right, so possibly I love this because I love Jiang Cheng, which -- valid crit. But I loved the premise of WWX as uh, the cheating husband, and all the many, many angry JC expressions, interspersed with angsty retrospective scenes of their brotherhood.
In the MDZS novel, MXTX specifies that the Lan strictly sleep from 9 PM to 5 AM. (And WWX strictly sleeps from 1 AM to 9 AM lol) Why this specific time? From the many times my grandma scolded me, this is bc of TCM beliefs. Venturing too far into the internet for this brings up a lot of woo of dubious historical accuracy, so I just called my grandma to ask, and I'm mostly recording this for future self reference.
(Flashback to ABC Chinese class in college when we'd take turns calling our parents for help.)
Anyway, my grandma says each of the 12 blocks of time (that Chinese timekeeping used to use) are associated with specific health implications. Therefore, you have to calm down and get ready for bed at around 9 PM and be asleep before 11 PM and wake up after 5 AM. The hours right before 5 AM are ~important to stay lying down~ so that your blood will circulate appropriately.
But then she went on to say that my grandpa (a professor) would always stay up late bc the late hours are the quietest and best for reading.
(Flashback to ABC Chinese class in college when we'd take turns calling our parents for help.)
Anyway, my grandma says each of the 12 blocks of time (that Chinese timekeeping used to use) are associated with specific health implications. Therefore, you have to calm down and get ready for bed at around 9 PM and be asleep before 11 PM and wake up after 5 AM. The hours right before 5 AM are ~important to stay lying down~ so that your blood will circulate appropriately.
But then she went on to say that my grandpa (a professor) would always stay up late bc the late hours are the quietest and best for reading.
(no subject)
Nov. 24th, 2020 16:07The Mulan short (18 min) from 演员请就位S2 is great! I like that Mulan isn't made up to look pretty, and that the main character she interacts with is another woman. It's not v polished, which almost makes it nicer? There's some potentially triggery stuff about a captive woman and the Ruoran cause is not necessarily treated totally well.
It is, unfortunately, unsubbed, but I think if you read the spoilers below and only watch the fight scenes it would be somewhat enjoyable? YMMV of course.
The spoilery summary is: Mulan, is a high ranking soldier, and some Ruoran attackers have been captured. One is a woman in disguise who is willing to do anything to avoid being killed -- only of course, she's actually an assassin to kill Mulan. A fight scene follows. Mulan then refuses to let her die, bc she likes her (lol); she reminds Mulan of a woman she knows. (The woman is then described, and it is Mulan herself.) Did not like the remaining ending: the assassin has a lover among the captives, he's brought in, she begs him to escape and live a happy life with her, he kills her and attacks Mulan.
It is, unfortunately, unsubbed, but I think if you read the spoilers below and only watch the fight scenes it would be somewhat enjoyable? YMMV of course.
The spoilery summary is: Mulan, is a high ranking soldier, and some Ruoran attackers have been captured. One is a woman in disguise who is willing to do anything to avoid being killed -- only of course, she's actually an assassin to kill Mulan. A fight scene follows. Mulan then refuses to let her die, bc she likes her (lol); she reminds Mulan of a woman she knows. (The woman is then described, and it is Mulan herself.) Did not like the remaining ending: the assassin has a lover among the captives, he's brought in, she begs him to escape and live a happy life with her, he kills her and attacks Mulan.
Four Jiang Yanli headcanons
Nov. 9th, 2020 20:271. She's actually not very good at social planning. She can defuse a tense situation well and keep the peace, but would be terrible at matchmaking. Look at how she handles her engagement with Zixuan: does this look like someone who is good at romance to you? Her main seductive move is to make soup with love. Her contribution to a matchmaking scheme would be to optimistically assume that everything will turn out well.
2. Half the reason she falls in love with Zixuan is that it's a societally approved way to escape her family. Like, yeah, she sees the inkling of the Good Person underneath the Jin face, but it starts because of the dream of having a happy family life.
3. Even though Zixuan is her True Love, she's willing to forgive WWX killing him, because her little brother matters more. Also, they did have a very romantic reconciliation etc etc, but at the end of the day, she wants to protect all the members of her family as well as she can, and that means defending WWX.
4. Honestly, WWX and Yanli are very similar: Big Fans of expressing their love through self-sacrificial gestures, dreamed of having a happy simple domestic life, but when the chips are down, will do anything to protect their family. Including going up against the world.
2. Half the reason she falls in love with Zixuan is that it's a societally approved way to escape her family. Like, yeah, she sees the inkling of the Good Person underneath the Jin face, but it starts because of the dream of having a happy family life.
3. Even though Zixuan is her True Love, she's willing to forgive WWX killing him, because her little brother matters more. Also, they did have a very romantic reconciliation etc etc, but at the end of the day, she wants to protect all the members of her family as well as she can, and that means defending WWX.
4. Honestly, WWX and Yanli are very similar: Big Fans of expressing their love through self-sacrificial gestures, dreamed of having a happy simple domestic life, but when the chips are down, will do anything to protect their family. Including going up against the world.
