averageace

[averageace]

The problem with me and our suicide hotline is that it requires you to speak. But the only time I have the desperation to call them is when I'm in really deep and dark inside my thoughts and that's when I'm so overwhelmed that I can't speak. So I just let the familiar "How may I help you?" intro spiel wash over me and immidietly hit end call because I am having trouble speaking. I'm doing what I can, registering to all free pychiatric services I can find (three now, one scheduled me on August the other two silence), hoping that it won't become too much. It won't be a surprise if I did end up dead. What can people offer me other than words? I'll try my best to stay alive because I despise the thought of ending up as just a number unfortunately it seems that is where I'm heading. This is not fun.

#real life woes #mental health #tw suicice

[averageace]

I would like the reviewer who called the loki and sylvie fight a jumping off point for "perverse" fanfic to see you alligator orgyfic. he'd faint lol

lol inorite? XD

It's particularly funny to me because I am fairly sure one of the first fics I started writing in this fandom (and, gah, I don’t think I even finished it lol), way back in summer of 2011, was a lokicest + thorki fic involving Loki's use of magical doubles, because fandom saw his ability to create illusory duplicates and immediately went "huh, but he could probably also make solid ones, right? he is a powerful sorcerer and all that. OK, time for selfcest!" This fandom has always embraced the weird shit. 

But it was more than that: fandom embraced the weird shit and using it for deeper exploration of the characters. Whether that was kinky selfcest pr0n that almost always came along with some really deep, dark, fascinating stuff with Loki’s self-loathing, his position as a liminal outsider in Asgardian society, his socially unacceptable interests and desires, or anything else. This fandom has done so much interesting, character-driven stuff with the weird premises, the far-out-there kinks, the most taboo material. I know that is true in other fandoms as well, but this fandom really shone at it for several years (probably somewhat due to the fantasy-mythology setting that gave such leeway for those possibilities, and somewhat due to the fact that the fandom flagship was sibling incest so, I mean, you’re starting from a basis of accepting that fiction is allowed to explore taboo areas). 

And that’s why I can’t help but feel that there’s something missing from the way we’re all responding to Disney apparently going the selfcest route in the show: because it’s not Disney introducing something that fandom was doing a decade ago and having the purity brigade suddenly flip their shit over it. Disney, with their massive and ever-expanding cultural influence and their family-friendly oeuvre, is NOT doing what fandom was doing. Disney has somehow managed to create sanitized, politically regressive fuckin’ Lokicest. Lokicest that (they believe) portrays a ~*healthy, healing relationship!*~ (because everything needs to be a safe and wholesome depiction of What Is Good In Real Life, never an exploration of the darker parts of our psyches, the perils of enforced social norms and the repression that results from it, etc.). Sanitized selfcest. I mean, yikes. That’s amazing and horrifying.

And I’m sure someone will object here that I can’t possibly think Disney would ever create anything as dark or controversial as fanfic circa 2012, because that would just be too far! Disney has to make sure their content is safe for children to consume! And... yeah. That’s my point. They absolutely wouldn’t, and given the wide swathe of media landscape Disney now controls, and how much viewers seem to be accepting and internalizing those limitations as not just the limits of appropriate content for 9-year-olds but as defining of appropriate content in general, for everyone, in fandom and otherwise, that’s, uh. That’s a problem.  

[averageace]

A guide to commonly used honorifics in 魔道祖师/The Untamed

OK - so, I’ve actually seen some confusion floating around on specific honorifics commonly used in 魔道祖师 and I figured I will put a post up to address some of this - especially the situations when they get used. Hopefully it’ll be helpful for fic writers or whoever else out there that’s getting turned around by the various translations.

As with most of Chinese vernacular, there’s a TON of similar, but different situations in which it may be permissible to use certain titles/honorifics, so bear in mind this is not an exhaustive guide. Also, I don’t have a PhD in Chinese honorifics or anything, I’m just a Chinese person that watches/reads a fair amount of historical dramas. So if I missed anything/if there was anything that was kind of unclear in the novel or drama, feel free to let me know!

公子 / gongzi/ master

Let’s start with the hardest so I can get this out of the way. You will see this translated in a variety of different ways - master, young master, sir…and they are all correct! Congratulations, you’ve hit the jackpot - depending on the situation, gongzi can be a whole hodgepodge of things.

Master: The most commonly used version in MDZS. This is a separate meaning of master from some of the honorifics discussed below - it is specifically used to address either:

Your literal master if you are a servant in the household

A somebody from a distinguished household in a polite way

General honorific: Gongzi can also be used between strangers/acquaintances as a respectful term. Gongzi is, in some ways, an indicator of respect of the other person’s status. So oftentimes you’ll find two young masters from different sects referring to each other as gongzi politely, but you wouldn’t find two beggars on the street calling each other that. and it’s usually used to address someone younger or a similar age as you. If you‘re talking to someone who is clearly your senior, use 前辈 or 先生.

Because it has the connotation of youth and aristocracy associated with it, oftentimes innkeepers/sellers may use gongzi to address male customers  (particularly youthful men) because it’s a bit more flattering. Kind of like how the modern day shopkeeper calls you ‘美女’ (beauty) or even ‘亲爱的’（my dear - IDK when this started becoming a thing but if you do any online shopping on Taobao you know what I’m talking about) in China. They don’t actually think you’re beautiful/feel affection for you, it’s just a way of addressing the customer to make you feel good about yourself HA. It’s nice to be called gongzi even if you’re not actually a noble.

There’s variants of this - 小公子/ xiaogongzi is typically young master, although I think some translations just directly use the young master for gongzi. It can also mean the younger master if there is an older sibling in question here (e.g. Wen Chao was referred to as 温小公子 as he was the younger son), although you can also use 二公子 （second master), as many do when referring to Lan Wangji. It sounds a little less juvenile.

This term is used for guys - I would say the female equivalent could be 千金/ qianjin or 小姐 /xiaojie.

Keep reading

#writing reference #china #chinese culture

[averageace]

get your fucking hands up

#fuck #inside #bo burnham inside

[averageace]

Do you write xreader for SVSSS ?

😅 Hello anon! I write all kinds of stuff but if you're commissioning a piece from me the price is $8

#ask #anonymous

[averageace]

Resources For Writing Deaf, Mute, or Blind Characters

 Despite the fact that I am not deaf, mute, or blind myself, one of the most common questions I receive is how to portray characters with these disabilities in fiction.

As such, I’ve compiled the resources I’ve accumulated (from real life Deaf, mute, or blind people) into a handy masterlist.

Deaf Characters:

Deaf characters masterpost

Deaf dialogue thread

Dialogue with signing characters (also applies to mute characters.)

A Deaf author’s advice on deaf characters

Dialogue between Deaf characters

“The Month I Suddenly Went Deaf”

What It’s Like Going Deaf In Your Thirties

9 Women Share What It Feels Like To Lose Your Hearing

What It’s Like Being a Deaf Teenager (video)

Parenting With Sign Language (video)

Deaf Teen Talks About Losing His Hearing To Meningitis (video)

Things Not To Say To A Deaf Person (video)

Deaf Kids Shining in High School (video)

I recently discovered the youtube channel of the amazing Jessica Kellgren-Fozard, a vintage-loving, lesbian, happily married queen, who talks about her deafness in many of her videos.  I can’t recommend her enough.

Black Deaf Culture Through the Lens of Black Deaf History

Black Deaf History

Video: How to Sign in BASL (Black American Sign Language)

Mute Characters

Life as a Mute

My Silent Summer:  Life as a Mute

What It’s Like Being Mute

21 People Reveal What It’s Really Like To Be Mute

I am a 20 year old Mute, ask me anything at all!

Blind Characters:

Things Not To Say To A Blind Person (video)

What It’s Like to Go Blind (video)

The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Blind Characters.

@referenceforwriters masterpost of resources for writing/playing blind characters.

The youtube channel of the wonderful Tommy Edison, a man blind from birth with great insight into the depiction of blind people and their lives.

As does Molly Burke, “a typical sushi and makeup loving millennial girl who just so happens to be blind.”

And Alyssa Irene, who talks about her experience going blind and life as a blind person.

An Absolute Write thread on the depiction of blind characters, with lots of different viewpoints and some great tips.

And finally, this short, handy masterpost of resources for writing blind characters.

Characters Who Are Blind in One Eye

4 Ways Life Looks Shockingly Different With One Eye

Learning to Live With One Eye

Adapting to the Loss of an Eye

Adapting to Eye Loss and Monocular Vision

Monocular Depth Perception

Deaf-Blind Characters

What Is It Like To Be Deafblind?

Going Deaf and Blind in a City of Noise and Lights

Deaf and Blind by 30

Sarita is Blind, Deaf, and Employed (video)

Deaf and Blind:  Being Me (video)

Born Deaf and Blind, This Eritrean American Graduated Harvard Law School (video)

A Day of a Deaf Blind Person

Lesser Known Things About Being Deafblind

How the Deaf-Blind Communicate

Early Interactions With Children Who Are Deaf-Blind

Raising a DeafBlind Baby

If you have any more resources to add, let me know!  I’ll be adding to this post as I find more resources.

I hope this helps, and happy writing!  <3

#writing #sources

[averageace]

Where does the performance end and you begin?

#people warned me but this show triggered a relapse #so if you're wondering about the radio silence #it's because of relapse #good show #devastating music #go watch it when you're more stable #bo burnham #bo burnham inside #inside

[averageace]

(mo xuanyu voice) help me yelling laozu whoever the fuck you are.. you're my only ho

#me to the volcano gods #mdzs

[averageace]

assert your dominance when writing emails by beginning them with a bold, confident "hiiii ^_^"

#I'm feeling noting so I just might #thanks for the advice #i am an adult

[averageace]

all the tips I found for drawing a fantasy map are like :) “here’s a strategy to draw the land masses! here’s how to plot islands!” :) and that’s wonderful and I love them all but ??? how? do y'all decide where to put cities/mountains/forests/towns I have my map and my land but I’m throwing darts to decide where the Main Citadel where the Action Takes Place is

#world building #writing

[averageace]

humans: i am worthless. i cannot do anything.

also humans: *sings in the bathroom* *writes poems* *provides trees with CO2* *swims* *studies* *reads autobiographies* *proposes to their s/o* *passes a compliment* *stares at the moon* *takes shitty pictures of the sunset* *shouts fuck for no reason* FUCK! *hugs you* *talks* *doesn't like to be touched* *dances late at night* *says i love you* *says i hate you(affectionate)* :)

#okay #it's just the capitalist values telling me I'm worthless

[averageace]

Even if scihub is blocked by your internet provider they have a telegram bot that gives you the articles provided you give them a doi or issn

#sources #important #academic

[averageace]

“Little idiot.”

#why is my eyesight blurry #word of honor #wenzhou #zhang chengling

[averageace]

Hunxi how do BL dramas even get made? I don't believe that censors are just being tricked into letting things go. All they would have to do is type the name of the novel being used into google and it would immediately come back as "a BL novel." Why aren't the stores banned wholesale? Unsurprisingly US sources have nothing useful to say about it when I've tried to find answers.

so there's a distinction between a "BL drama" and a "drama based on a BL novel," one that we tend to collapse in English but is much more distinct in Chinese. BL novels are called 耽美 danmei, and adaptations of BL novels (e.g. 《镇魂》 Zhen Hun / Guardian，《陈情令》 Chen Qing Ling / The Untamed， 《山河令》 Shan He Ling / Word of Honor) are what would more accurately be called 耽改 dangai -- "adapted from" or "changed from danmei."

the problem isn't that the source novel is danmei; the censorship board has zero problems with the original source being gay as hell (well, not zero). what the censorship board has problems with is if the adaptation is explicitly queer.

generally speaking, the audience for a TV show is going to be many, many times that of the audience for a webnovel, so if you're a homophobic authoritarian regime, you're going to crack down on the adaptations that are getting billions of views first before making your way back to the source. Over the past few years, increasingly severe restrictions have been placed on what webnovels can explicitly write about, to the point where MDZS and SVSSS have been locked on JJWXC (i.e. you can't even buy them anymore, they're functionally banned). If you ever see someone making a comment about "nothing below the neck," that is a reference to some of the restrictions put in place by censorship (i.e. authors cannot write about any sexy things below the neck)

I think Anglophone fandom has a tendency to make light of censorship in China, which is... well, I don't think people really understand how sophisticated and all-encompassing it is. The censorship board aren't composed solely of dumb machines that need to be tricked with a quick 'no homo'--there are many more factors at play, from the Chinese history and culture of homosociality (Anglophone viewers thought CQL was undeniably queer; a great deal of Chinese viewers were completely sold on the bromance. and because CQL is dangai, not danmei, you can't say that those viewers are wrong--that is absolutely a legitimate interpretation of CQL), to state-sanctioned queerbaiting (I feel like someone out there must be writing a dissertation about about 炒CP as a marketing tool).

it's not as simple as "this is danmei, and therefore must be banned." there is gray area and room for negotiation; there is an insidious amount of nuance and intelligence involved in the particular kind of homophobic censorship enacted by the authoritarian regime (e.g. if you keep your gays, you have to bury them by the end of the show). there is an unquestionable but undeniable amount of money being exchanged in the process, both under and over the table

tl;dr Chinese censorship is not a joke, even if Anglophone fandom tries to make it out to be

#pats in citizen of an authoritarian regime sympathy #china #censorship #dangai

[averageace]

I've said this before and I'll say it again: it's more important to know and understand fully why something is harmful than it is to drop everything deemed problematic. It's performative and does nothing. People wonder why nobody has critical thinking skills and this is part of it because no one knows how to simousltansly critique and consume media. You need to use discernment.

#media analysis #it's my low self-esteem and belief that I am dumb af that makes me naive and vulnerable to propaganda #trying to be better

[averageace]

#exactly #it's getting mad again at the fact queerphobia in my country is imported by colonizers #lgbt

[averageace]

fanfic speedrun: write the scene you want to write and skip the rest of the fic

(same goes on the reader side of things)

#me right now 😭 #I want to read but this thing got a deadline