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phantom-le6 · 6 months

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Ramble of the month November 2023: 90’s MCU phase 4 – The Secret Wars, the Defenders and putting French and Saunders in a comic book film

As we come into the first of our last two monthly rambles for 2023, I’ve decided to go back to unveiling more of my alternate superhero film franchises. I could go for more topical issues, but those will likely stress me out if I go too in-depth on them, and by sheer happenstance, episodes I’m presently reviewing from the last season of Star Trek: Voyager will cover these a bit. So, that being the case, I figure I might as well close out 2024 by going for subjects I can enjoy talking about instead of anything winding me up.

By now, I’m sure anyone reading these rambles on a regular basis will know the drill, but for any new readers, let’s recap. At the moment, I’m showcasing two hypothetical superhero film universes. One is a DC film universe where Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins was the launch point instead of Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, the other is a Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) that begins from 1992 instead of 2008. The change in time period means Marvel would have all their film rights still to hand (those weren’t sold until 1995), and a lot of casting and story choices would change because the source material would be different. To complete the re-cap, let’s check out the titles of films in the first three phases and do a quick plot summary.

Phase 1:

1992: Fantastic Four, Hulk, Iron Man

1993: Thor, Spider-Man, Ant-Man & The Wasp

1994: Captain America: Fantastic Four 2, Iron Man 2

1995: X-Men, Avengers, Daredevil

Phase 2:

1996: Spider-Man 2, Thor: Land of Enchantment, Silver Surfer

1997: Hulk vs Wolverine, Fantastic Four: Doomsday, Iron Man 3

1998: Captain America: Society of Serpents, Daredevil 2, X-Men 2

1999: Avengers 2, Spider-Man 3, Doctor Strange

Phase 3:

2000: Fantastic Four: World War III, Thor: Ragnarök, Daredevil 3

2001: Hulk: Rise of the Leader, X-Men: Fall of the Mutants, Avengers: Under Siege

2002: Doctor Strange 2, The Captain, Spider-Man 4

2003: Captain Britain, Fantastic Four: Enter the Negative Zone, Ghost Rider

Phase 1, as most could probably surmise, is very much about establishing the MCU and its characters. The Fantastic Four are done first to mirror their points of distinction from other superhero groups that hold true in the comics, with the Avengers and X-Men coming later on. Phase 2 then expands and develops those characters and brings about an early mantle change, with Tony Stark going down the route of alcoholism as in the comics and Rhodey having to become Iron Man, again as in the comics. We also see the death of Gwen Stacy, having built up to Norman Osborn becoming the Green Goblin in the films instead of rushing that arc in one film. Phase 3 then brings out a lot more of the third-film-loss trope we know from the real MCU. At the same time, we also get a lot of new characters introduced, bringing us to the slate for Phase 4.

Phase 4:

2004: Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Secret Wars: Part I

2005: Excalibur, Defenders, Ghost Rider 2

2006: X-Factor, Secret Wars: Part II, Heroes For Hire

2007: Namor the Submariner, Doctor Strange 3, Iron Man: Enter The Mandarin

With this phase, you can see we’re really trying a lot more new titles compared to past phases. This is because much of the cast of the MCU to date is tied up in the events of the two Secret Wars films, thereby leaving a lot of room for other characters and teams to be given the spotlight. How does this all pan out in practice? Well, let’s start looking at the films of phase 4, beginning with Black Panther…

Black Panther (2004) Directed by Tim Story

T'Challa/Black Panther = Chadwick Boseman

Shuri = Tatyana Ali

Ramonda = Alfre Woodard

T'Chaka = Courtney B. Vance

W'Kabi = Chiwetel Ejiofor

Okoye = Nia Long

Zuri = Joseph Marcell

Ulysses Klaue/Klaw = Andy Serkis

M'Baku = Idris Elba

As those who read my August ramble will know, my alternative MCU introduces the Black Panther via the Fantastic Four film World War III, in homage to the comics version of the character having the same debut. However, just as the real MCU version went on to a solo film after getting his cinematic debut, so too does this version of T’Challa. I’ve kept Chadwick Boseman in the main role as he could still play an adult King T’Challa back in 2004. The same can’t be said for Letitia Wright with Shuri, and some other roles would also need shifting around, hence the case above. The only other actor from the real MCU to retain their casting is Andy Serkis as Klaw. As for the plot, it’s strictly T’Challa versus Klaw for him murdering T’Challa’s father years earlier, so there’s less focus on challenge rites in this film.

I’ve also retained the real MCU’s depiction of M’Baku as a voice of dissent to T’Challa’s rule, but with the full intention of taking him full villain at a later point. As for why no Killmonger, I wanted to build up to him and not use up all of T’Challa’s most notable foes in one film. For direction, I felt it was important that it still be a Black person in the director’s chair, so from the directors active at this time, I picked Tim Story, the man who directed Fox’s Fantastic Four films. The first of those wasn’t too bad, and with a better studio to work with, I bet Story could do a good job on a property like Black Panther.

Captain Marvel (2004) Directed by Roland Emmerich

Mar-Vell/Captain Marvel = Jude Law

Yon-Rogg = Colin Salmon

Carol Danvers/Ms Marvel = Melissa Joan Hart

Ronan The Accuser = Ray Stevenson

Zarek = Avery Brooks

Talos = Dominic West

Emperor Dorek VII = Ray Winstone

Empress R'klll = Teri Hatcher

Now for the comic book neophytes wondering why Carol Danvers isn’t Captain Marvel, this is one of those plot-points that is only supported by a more recent selection of Marvel’s comic-book lore. The original Captain Marvel within Marvel’s source material was the Kree character named Mar-Vell, who was gender-flipped and played by Annette Benning in the 2019 Captain Marvel film, leaving Jude Law to play the villainous Kree Yon-Rogg. Carol Danvers was first turned into Ms Marvel following events in the original Captain Marvel comics, only to cease using the title after loosing her original powers to the mutant known as Rogue. Following adventures with the X-Men, Carol Danvers gained new powers and joined a group of space pirates called the Starjammers as Binary. Later, she came back to Earth and went back to her old Ms Marvel codename, then her old Air Force callsign of Warbird, before finally becoming Captain Marvel.

Now while I can’t say precisely when Carol became CM in the comics, I do know it’s sometime in the 2010’s, so a 2004 film won’t support her being the first Captain Marvel. Instead, this film goes back to the early comics and makes Mar-Vell the original title-holder, telling a fairly simple first contact story with Carol as the audience POV character. Rather than go for any obvious film actress of this time period, I decided it would be cool to see Melissa Joan Hart take on the role of Carol Danvers opposite Jude Law. We then have a mix of great actors, including Trek alumni in the form of Avery Brooks (DS9’s Captain Sisko). As we’re going down a first contact route without any Trek overtones, I opted for Independence Day’s Roland Emmerich to helm this one.

Secret Wars Part I (2004) Directed by Steven Spielberg

Steve Rogers/Captain America = Brad Pitt

Thor = Dolph Lundgren

Janet Van Dyne/Wasp = Catherine Zeta Jones

Clint Barton/Hawkeye = Kevin Costner

Vision = Casper Van Dien

Scarlet Witch/Wanda Maximoff = Kate Beckinsale

Quicksilver/Pietro Maximoff = Robert Sean Leonard

James Rhodes/Iron Man II = Samuel L Jackson

Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk = Lucy Lawless

Reed Richards/Mr Fantastic = Tom Hanks

Johnny Storm/Human Torch = David Spade

Ben Grimm/Thing = Bryan Cranston

Crystal = Dina Meyer

Storm/Ororo Monroe = Halle Berry

Polaris/Lorna Dane = Jeri Ryan

Havok/Alex Summers = Kevin Bacon

Wolverine/Logan = Tom Cruise

Peter Rasputin/Colossus = Henry Cavill

Remi LeBeau/Gambit = Zachary Levi

Peter Parker/Spider-Man = Wil Weaton

Beyonder = Ian McShane

Victor Von Doom/Doctor Doom = Goran Višnjić

Wizard/Bentley Whitford = Alan Rukk

Trapster/Pete Petruski = Eddie Jemison

Sandman/Flint Marko = Dwayne Johnson

Titania/Mary MacPherson = Amy Christine Dumas

Electro/Max Dillon = Eddie Cahill

Lizard/Dr Curt Connors = Dylan Baker

Magneto = Ian McKellan

Calisto = Carrie-Anne Moss

Sunder = Kevin Nash

Sabretooth = Tyler Mane

Pyro = Hugh Jackman

Mentallo/Marvin Flumm = Brad Dourif

So, what is Secret Wars? Well, there’s been at least three instances of stories with this title in Marvel’s history, at least going by the comics. The original was a mini-series in the mid-1980’s, where a being known as the Beyonder created a planet called Battleworld from pieces of other planets (including a suburb of Denver, Colorado for reasons I can’t totally fathom). He then transported a selection of Marvel’s heroes and villains to Battleworld and offered to grant whichever side won whatever they desired. Despite a brief usurpation of the Beyonder’s powers by Doom, the heroes apparently won and returned home. The second story was Secret Wars II, in which the Beyonder went to Earth and assumed human form in an effort to further his understanding of life in our universe. Frustrated by what he learned, the Beyonder almost destroyed reality.

More recently, around 2015, there was a new Secret Wars which was similar to the first mini-series, but involved some kind of multiversal crossover, the apparent idea being to amalgamate some of Marvel’s other comic book continuities like the Ultimates comics with the main Marvel comics continuity. For this film and its sequel, I’d be looking to do an adaptation of the original, but with greater emphasis on the war aspect. In this case, the Beyonder pulls off the same creation of Battleworld, but like the adaptation of the story in Spider-Man: The Animated Series, he gives the super-villains a little head-start to better challenge the heroes.

Now the bulk of the cast for this film is carried over from past MCU films in my alternative continuity, but there are a few new characters in the mix. In particular, Colossus and Gambit make their first MCU appearances, having both joined Storm’s band of X-Men since the events of Fall of the Mutants in the last phase, with Colossus being a returning former student whereas Gambit is a total newcomer. I chose Cavill for Colossus because he can look the part and is capable of doing other accents than his own, while Zachary Levi gets the role of Gambit due to being a native of Louisiana, not to mention he once played Fandrall the Dashing in Thor: The Dark World. As such, I can easily see Levi modifying his hair and accent just slightly to pull off a perfect Gambit.

On the villain side, the Frightful Four, Lizard, Electro and Mentallo are all new additions, the last character being part of Magneto’s Brotherhood for this film. Indeed, as Magneto ends up among the heroes to start with, Mentallo and Calisto set up a mutant-ruled fiefdom on Battleworld in this film, and for Magneto, the question asked of his character is whether he’ll tear it down or try to take it over. As the films will also be taking the war part more seriously, don’t expect the heroes to all walk ok by the end. This is also why Steven Spielberg gets to direct; who better than the director of Saving Private Ryan to handle superheroes having to get into a war?

Excalibur (2005): Directed by Christopher Nolan

Brian Braddock Jr./Captain Britain = Jamie Bamber

Betsy Braddock/Psylocke = Lena Headey

Meggan = Sienna Miller

Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler = Daniel Brühl

Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat = Selma Blair

Banshee/Sean Cassidy = Liam Neeson

Courtney Ross = Rosamund Pike

DI Dai Thomas = Mark Lewis Jones

Detective Kate Fraser = Kate Winslet

Dr Moira Mactaggert = Olivia Williams

Mojo = Jim Carrey

Major Domo = Hugh Laurie

Spiral = Eva Green

Gatecrasher = Dawn French

Yap (voice-acting) = Jennifer Saunders

Scatterbrain = Clémence Poésy

Thug = Donal Logue

Ferro = Jason Isaacs

China Doll = Miranda Richardson

Longshot = Ben Foster

Alison Blaire/Dazzler = Julia Styles

Having given Captain Britain a solo film and scattered the X-Men in the last phase, the timing would then be right in this phase to bring about the British off-shoot of the X-Men that is Excalibur. As this MCU has yet to uncork any time-travel for its films, we substitute Rachel Summers of the original Excalibur comics for Brian Braddock’s twin sister Psylocke in the film version. At the same time, while Banshee does appear in the film, he’s taken out early and is then kept to the side-lines.

However, the plot still tries to echo the original Excalibur graphic novel; the interdimensional tyrant Mojo is hunting someone, and uses Gatecrasher and her group, known as Technet, to grab them. With Rachel Summers not being used, Mojoverse native and rebel hero Longshot is instead the target, along with his mutant girlfriend Dazzler. When the hunt spills over to Britain, Captain Britain, his sister and his girlfriend team up with Nightcrawler and Shadowcat of the X-Men on an inter-dimensional rescue mission, and thus Excalibur is born.

Casting-wise, everyone down as far as Detective Kate Fraser is reprising from past films. From Dr Moira MacTaggart on down, the cast is new to this film. Much like with Captain Britain’s solo film, I’d want a lot of British talent to be involved, which accounts for most of the casting choices. However, since a lot of the characters come from another dimension, there can be more flexibility regarding accents. This accounts for why the likes of Jim Carrey, Donal Logue, Ben Foster and Julia Styles enter into the film. I also cast French and Saunders here, though in a somewhat atypical fashion. Here, Dawn French would likely be in either a mo-cap suit or heavy make-up to play Gatecrasher, whereas Jennifer Saunders would be voicing a small talking creature named Yap, who is usually clinging to Gatecrasher’s shoulder. Add in the likes of Hugh Laurie and Miranda Richardson, both alumni of the Blackadder sit-coms, and we have some real British comedy gold in the line-up.

Direction-wise, it’s back to Christopher Nolan to keep the film British behind the scenes as well as in front of camera.

Defenders (2005) Directed by Sam Raimi

Dr Stephen Strange = Johnny Depp

Namor McKenzie/The Submariner = Christian Bale

Bruce Banner/Hulk = John Cusack

Silver Surfer = David Wenham

Valkyrie = Diane Kruger

Kyle Richmond/Nighthawk = Josh Duhamel

Patsy Walker/Hellcat = Mena Suvari

Wong = Will Yun Lee

Clea = Keira Knightley

Yandroth = Sullivan Stapleton

The original Defenders comics revolved around a superhero “non-team” that would unite when the need arose, but lacked a standing headquarters, charter, etc. like the Avengers had. This made the group something of a haven for the outsiders who formed it, namely Doctor Strange, Namor the Sub-Mariner and the Hulk, with the Silver Surfer becoming an honourary founding member later on. The team also gained a few more dedicated members in the forms of the Asgardian Valkyrie, wealthy industrialist Kyle Richmond, and superhero fan girl turned superhero Hellcat. This film basically shows the Defenders forming against Doctor Strange’s one-time foe Yandroth, in part because Yandroth unleashes some chaos while many other heroes are missing due to the events of Secret Wars.

Only the top four Defenders, plus Wong and Clea, are retained from past films in this MCU. The rest of the cast are new additions, but really, it’s combining the likes of Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, John Cusack and David Wenham into the core of the team that’s the real excitement. Mind you, the rest of the cast are all well-known and highly skilled actors as well. Direction-wise, I figured that since Strange and Yandroth are both on the mystic horror side of the Marvel world, a horror director of note like Sam Raimi would be good.

Ghost Rider 2 (2005) Directed by Tim Burton

Johnny Blaze/Ghost Rider = Connor Trinneer

Roxanne Simpson = Jessica Alba

Mephistopheles = Jeffery Combs

Orb/Drake Shannon = Michael Rooker

Blackout/Ray Carrigan = Johnny Whitworth

Karen Stirling = Jamie Alexander

Cynthia Randolph = Kirsten Dunst

Senator Stirling = Tim Robbins

Mark Crane = Nicholas Cage

Closing out 2005’s portion of this alternate MCU is a sequel for Johnny Blaze’s iteration of Ghost Rider, with Tim Burton back at the helm for obvious reasons. Only the top three roles are retained from film 1, while the rest is fresh casting. Story-wise, it’s a bit of a mash-up of a few different elements from the original Ghost Rider run into a single narrative. Following the events of film 1, Blaze is living a bit of a drifter’s existence as he tries to deal with the demon spirit within him always taking over. His girlfriend Roxanne is searching for him, and her scenes in the film are basically a kind of “will-she-won’t-she” break from the A-plot.

Said A-Plot is that a small town is being terrorised by a cult that has claimed the life of the son of a prominent senator. When Blaze arrives, it isn’t long before his flaming alter ego is up to his fiery skull in their business, resulting in cult leader Mark Crane making a deal with Mephistopheles to imbue two of his henchmen with demonic powers. Also caught in the mix are the senator’s daughter and a visiting reporter, each of whom is attracted to Johnny and reacts differently when he becomes the Ghost Rider.

X-Factor (2006) Directed by LeVar Burton

Cyclops/Scott Summers = Patrick Swayze

Jean Grey = Milla Jovovich

Warren Worthington III/Death/Archangel = Neil Patrick Harris

Beast/Hank McCoy = Alec Baldwin

Robert Drake/Iceman = Michael Weatherley

Angelica Jones = Lindsey Lohan

Xi'an Coy Manh = Katie Leung

Julio Richter = Alfonso Herrera

En Sabar Nur/Apocalypse = Faran Tahir

Plague/Pestilence = Gates McFadden

Caliban/Death = Joe Pantoliano

Autumn Rolfson/Famine = Bryce Dallas Howard

War = Joel Kinnaman

Raven Darkholme/Mystique = Connie Nielsen

As 2006 begins, we get another X-Men off-shoot, this time focusing on the original X-Men as the comics reckon things becoming X-Factor. The team is given some very different origins this time round, but it’s still the classic team membership fans of the original X-Factor comics know. In the film, Warren has lost his wings following injuries sustained in the events of the X-Men: Fall of the Mutants film. Consequently, he is duped into becoming part of the Horsemen of Apocalypse as the mutant known as Apocalypse rises to attack humanity. The rest of the X-Men alumni (Cyclops, Jean, Iceman and Beast) band together with encouragement from a government operative who is really the mutant shape-shifter Mystique, plus a trio of X-students currently in the team’s charge.

After the five mutants of X-Factor, we get mostly new characters to this MCU and thus a lot of new faces. In terms of character selection, that’s mostly about trying to honour the comics when it comes to the Horsemen, since only the 90’s animated series has ever done so with these villains. The whole original idea of the Horsemen was to evoke their biblical counter-parts, so anything not doing that isn’t doing the job right, at least not for the team’s original incarnation. Plague and Caliban, as former members of the Morlocks, are reprised roles from X-Men: Fall of the Mutants, while Famine and War come into the film new. As for working in Mystique, that’s someone we’ll certainly see in future films. Direction-wise, I like calling on Trek alumni to direct given some of the thematic overlaps between X-lore and Trek, hence my selection of Levar Burton.

Secret Wars Part II (2006) Directed by Steven Spielberg

Steve Rogers/Captain America = Brad Pitt

Thor = Dolph Lundgren

Janet Van Dyne/Wasp = Catherine Zeta Jones

Clint Barton/Hawkeye = Kevin Costner

Vision = Casper Van Dien

Scarlet Witch/Wanda Maximoff = Kate Beckinsale

James Rhodes/Iron Man II = Samuel L Jackson

Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk = Lucy Lawless

Reed Richards/Mr Fantastic = Tom Hanks

Johnny Storm/Human Torch = David Spade

Ben Grimm/Thing = Bryan Cranston

Crystal = Dina Meyer

Storm/Ororo Monroe = Halle Berry

Polaris/Lorna Dane = Jeri Ryan

Wolverine/Logan = Tom Cruise

Peter Rasputin/Colossus = Henry Cavill

Remi LeBeau/Gambit = Zachary Levi

Peter Parker/Spider-Man = Wil Weaton

Beyonder = Ian McShane

Victor Von Doom/Doctor Doom = Goran Višnjić

Wizard/Bentley Whitford = Alan Rukk

Sandman/Flint Marko = Dwayne Johnson

Titania/Mary MacPherson = Amy Christine Dumas

Electro/Max Dillon = Eddie Cahill

Lizard/Dr Curt Connors = Dylan Baker

Magneto = Ian McKellan

Calisto = Carrie-Anne Moss

Sabretooth = Tyler Mane

Pyro = Hugh Jackman

Mentallo/Marvin Flumm = Brad Dourif

Zsaji = Eva Mendes

By the time Spielberg brings us part 2 of Secret Wars, we’ve lost Quicksilver, ideals are getting blurred and our heroes are struggling, which isn’t helped by Doom managing to usurp the powers of the Beyonder. When this brings an unexpected peace to Battleworld, the heroes face the question of whether or not they should try and challenge Doom, assuming they can. The film will also honour the original comics by making it the origin of the Venom symbiote, something no adaptation has ever done. The one other change is the incorporation of the alien one-shot character Zsaji from the original Secret Wars, though in keeping with taking the war more seriously, she has a stronger role than just being a random healer and would-be love interest to Johnny Storm or Colossus.

Heroes For Hire (2006) Directed by Paul McGuigan

Luke Cage = Tyrese Gibson

Danny Rand/Iron Fist = Neil Jackson

Shang Chi = Garrett Wang

Misty Knight = Rosario Dawson

Colleen Wing = Olivia Munn

Jessica Jones = Christina Ricci

Willis Stryker = Bokeem Woodbine

Harold Meachum = Bill Pullman

Davos/Steel Serpent = Kevin Durand

Batroc = Georges St-Pierre

Scimitar = Jason Mamoa

Clay Quartermain = Patrick Wilson

Daisy Dugan = Hayley Atwell

Zebidiah Killgrave/Purple Man = Tom McCamus

Most of the characters Marvel and Netflix put in the Defenders streaming show would originally have been members of, or been acquainted with, the little-known Heroes for Hire group, primarily formed in the comics by Luke Cage, Iron First and Misty Knight. This film works in a few more street-level members, including Shang-Chi, Colleen Wing and Jessica Jones. The team consists of various for-hire vigilantes and volunteers who are trying to keep the streets of New York safe following the apparent retirement of Daredevil. When an enclave of organised criminals attempts to eliminate them, SHIELD agents Quartermain and Dugan reach out to unite the heroes into a team.

This is a new film and new cast, with some roles leaping readily to mind while others have taken a bit more thought to select. Again, I’ve gone for at least one Trek alumni by picking Garrett Wang of Voyager fame to play Shang-Chi, and I’ve also looked to sci-fi series Mutant X for another bit of casting. Tom McCamus, who played Mason Eckhart in that show, takes up the role of Killgrave for this film, though the character appears only in flashbacks, as I feel that’s sufficient for the film’s plot to showcase where Jessica is mentally and emotionally as the team comes together. Direction-wise, I picked Paul McGuigan based on the work he did on the film Lucky Number Slevin.

Namor The Submariner (2007) Directed by Gore Verbinski

Namor McKenzie/The Submariner = Christian Bale

General Krang = Tim Curry

Lady Dorma = Katie Holmes

Vashti = Naseeruddin Shah

Attuma = Danny Hutson

Llyra = Rachel Leigh Cook

Dr Walter Newell/Stingray = Rider Strong

Kicking off the 2007 films that conclude this MCU’s phase four is a solo entry for Namor the Sub-Mariner, who like Black Panther got his introduction via Fantastic Four: World War III in recognition of his first Marvel appearance (the character previously having existed under the company’s pre-1960’s name of Timely Comics). Having also appeared in the Defenders film earlier in this phase, this solo film has Namor return to Atlantis to find his throne under threat by a coup, involving the Nemurian Llyra and a traitor from within his imperial court. The film includes at least two other characters who have betrayed or openly opposed Namor in the comics to keep fans guessing and work in a little defiance of expectation. The film also works in another undersea superhero in the form of Stingray to give audiences a POV character for delving into Namor’s world.

Namor, Krang and Lady Dorma are reprised roles for this film, while the rest of the cast is new. For direction, I decided to look into the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise for directors with experience of filming anything at sea with fantastical elements, and based on this chose Gore Verbinski as he directed the entire original trilogy of that franchise.

Doctor Strange 3 (2007) Directed by Sam Raimi

Dr Stephen Strange = Johnny Depp

Wong = Will Yun Lee

Clea = Keira Knightley

Jericho Drumm/Brother Voodoo = Doug E. Doug

Valkyrie = Diane Kruger

Baron Karl Mordo = Michael Dorn

Dormammu = Bernard Hill

Umar = Ruth Wilson

Dweller-In-Darkness = Colin Firth

In this third and final solo film for Doctor Strange, our title hero tries to help his fellow Defender Valkyrie acclimate to life on Earth, and is also visited by fellow sorcerer Brother Voodoo. The time he devotes to his guests puts a strain on his romantic relationship with Clea, but when Baron Mordo returns with the backing of Dormammu once more, battle takes precedence. However, the battle is not all it seems, as Dormammu’s sister Umar and the mysterious Dweller-In-Darkness are lurking in the shadows. By the film’s end, someone will have to be sacrificed to keep Earth safe from a grave mystic peril.

A lot of the casting is retained from prior films, but Brother Voodoo, Umar and DID are all new roles. Ruth Wilson and Colin Firth are both chosen for the gravitas their villain roles need, while Doug E. Doug is my choice for Brother Voodoo based on the more serious moments he had at times when playing Sanka in Cool Runnings. For direction, I think it’s a good idea to stick with Sam Raimi on this one to keep things consistent with the Defenders film that precedes this one.

Iron Man: Enter The Mandarin (2007) Directed by Jon Favreau

Tony Stark/Iron Man = Tom Selleck

James Rhodes/Iron Man II/War Machine = Samuel L. Jackson

Justin Hammer = Christopher Lee

Bethany Cabe = Julia Roberts

The Mandarin/Xin Xhang = Chow Yun-Fat

Arthur Parks/Living Laser = Josh Dallas

Whitney Frost/Madame Masque = Alice Eve

Boris Bullski/Titanium Man = Alan Tudyk

Douglas Scott/Razorfist = Joe Manganiello

Kathy Dare = Cameron Diaz

So, let’s recap what we’ve had by way of Iron Man lore in this alternate MCU. The first two IM films are directed by Steven Spielberg with Tom Selleck playing Iron Man, dealing with similar story arcs to the first two films of the real MCU, prior to forming the Avengers in a team-up film under director Andrew Davis. IM3 then shows Stark fall victim to his alcoholism and Samuel L Jackson’s Rhodey taking up the Iron Man mantle, with Sam Raimi directing. After that, Rhodey’s Iron Man features in a second Avengers film under Davis and the Secret Wars two-parter with Spielberg. Here, we get the director of the real MCU’s first two Iron Man movies on hand to guide a film showcasing the comeback trail of Tony Stark and James Rhodes becoming War Machine, all to face Iron Man’s arch-foe the Mandarin.

For this film, a lot of things are different. First, while the Mandarin has his proper ten rings from the comics, he is still developed beyond a stereotype, being presented as a Chinese businessman first and foremost who is using alien tech rings to try and conquer what his corporate efforts cannot. He avoids some of his comic counterpart’s more flamboyant attire, but nonetheless has a fondness for China’s dynastic era and opposes its modern-day government. Second, we’re done with Happy and Pepper, and while Bethany Cabe is retained from IM3, we also include the insane stalker girlfriend Kathy Dare for the purpose of misdirecting the fans. After all, if we’re not doing it with the Mandarin, we might as well do it somewhere.

And that concludes our look into phase 4 of our alternate MCU. Next month, we’ll check phase 4 of the alternate DC movie universe. Until then, ta-ta for now.

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pinkarachnia · 1 year

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Lesbian Anime Review #4 - Otherside Picnic

I picked this one to watch after I read the interview with Iori Miyazawa, who wrote the source material novel. I would have a beer with Iori.

The setup here is that there are two girls (great start). They’re adults who drink beer. Both of them have, through different circumstances, found gateways to another world that they call The Otherside (urasekai). I don’t think this anime is an isekai though. The Otherside doesn’t function like your usual isekai fare with the expected suite of fantasy tropes. It’s a dark reflection of earth populated with monsters that just want to kill you or make you go insane. The girls meet up and then decide to make a living from going to the Otherside to fight monsters and then sell the spoils to a researcher they know back on normal earth. Then they start falling in love because why else would I be here

I’m happy that the characters aren’t in high school. Huge plus for me. I don’t think they ever say exactly how old they are but I think they’re university students. They must be at least 20 because they drink alcohol. I like that they use very mundane methods for fighting monsters. The method is guns! These girls are carrying weapons around that they would for sure get in trouble for if someone found them out. Good for them, you love to see some crime in your gay anime.

I think the Otherside is cool. It gives me kind of a dark souls vibe because all the creatures there are extremely hostile and it looks like an ancient version of earth that’s fallen to ruin. I don’t know if they explore any more of it later in the story, but it seems so far like the monsters can’t be communicated with and they always turn to violence immediately. The protagonists never seem to question whether it’s right or wrong for them to shoot to kill, but then they’re usually attacked first. It might be cool to see them do more with that if they animate more of the novels.

I don’t have many criticisms, but a few things stuck out to me that could be improved. The show is presented from the perspective of one of the two girls, the one that’s presented as being plain looking and introverted. Her love interest is outgoing and spontaneous. Kind of get manic pixie dream girl vibes from her.

I don’t think they do a good enough job of letting the main character be her own character. She has a backstory that I won’t spoil, but it’s not a happy one. Despite that she just acts like a normal person aside from being an introvert and not having any friends. She’s practically an audience self insert character, which feels disappointing to me. If you’re going to give your character some kind of trauma, maybe let that define them just a little bit? I feel like I don’t know anything about this character as a person.

My second and more major gripe is with the CGI. I don’t have an issue with anime that uses CGI where appropriate. I get that if you want to animate a crowd of people or complicated machinery or combat scenes it can be a lot more convenient to use 3D models, but I think they use them way too much in this show, and what’s worse is that the models just look bad to me. It’s really easy to spot when it changes from 2D to 3D and they do this for any shot further away than medium distance when the main characters are doing a physical activity. It makes for mediocre looking scenes and really breaks my immersion.

I’d love to see another season of this. Since it was only 2021, I'm still holding onto some hope. While I have my issues with the quality of the presentation at times, I still liked this enough to recommend it. The yuri elements are present through the whole narrative since the main character is only really subjecting herself to horrors on the reg because she has a crush.

If I can find a way to read the books for this, I'd be interested to see where they go with it. I might come back to this review once I can do that. Or I might not.

Pros

ADULTS

Be gay

Do crimes

Dark Souls

Cons

Bad CGI

Main character too bland for me

And I’m giving this one a 7/10

#lesbian anime review

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liu82stephens · 2 years

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bukojuiice · 3 years

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— genshin boys as your late night study buddy

ೃ ft. childe, diluc, kaeya, zhongli, xiao and albedo x gn! reader

ೃ 200-299 words per character! (they are your bfs in this! bc MAN do i desperately want one of the genshin boys to cram school works with and shower me with luv and affection.) ♡

ೃ tags: college au, modern au, and lots of fluff.

ೃ thank you so so much for 1k notes on my very first batch of genshin hcs! i appreciate all the luv it received and i can never thank all of you enough 🥺 i’ll be making a genshin masterlist soon to compile all of my current and future works so pls stay tuned for that!

ೃ if you want to be a part of my taglist, answer this form! ♡

ZHONGLI:

– Zhongli would be a very chill study partner. He will always keep his cool and focus, never letting his attention stray away from less trivial things. If he can focus, he’ll focus. There’s always this sense of comfort surrounding him that brightens up your mood and productivity. The both of you are sat in this long table, papers, books, and cute matching pencils are sprawled about. You lean your head on his shoulder, as he serenades you with his deep and butter voice, explaining all the formulas to you. Being able to study in peace and quiet with him is always a blissful experience. He never fails to brew you green tea (as it helps the brain function) even if that meant going down to the kitchen at 2 in the morning. He always brings a small humidifier and some essential oils with him that can help brighten up the study mood and that emits a wafting vanilla pinecone scent to keep you happy. (He’s just fancy like that.) When he doesn’t understand the concepts right away, he’d turn to you, his sharp amber eyes gazing at yours with nothing but innocent and love, and asks: “(Y/N)... what reference is this supposed to be? pepe the frog? kermit the frog? here come dat boi? aren’t they all just amphibians? what are the differences between them? I am very intrigued.”

CHILDE:

– Childe loves a challenge. An academic challenge. He loves the thrill of finishing school works the night before the deadline, he loves studying for a pop quiz twenty minutes before the bell rings, and most importantly, he loves to pretend he doesn’t know how to solve point a to point b if that means getting to spend time with you as you tutor him on how to do so. He’s at the top of the class, He’s popular and friendly, He’s the captain of the Archery Team, and one of the vice council members of the Fatui Club. But, no other title will ever come close to being your study buddy. You and Childe always chill on the bed whenever you study. Especially when the both of you have the sudden urge to just laze around. Well, it is the wee hours of the night, so just lounging around and trying to resist the urge of sleep is pretty understandable. Sometimes, the two of you would take power naps in between study sessions. This meant cuddle times! Childe will always cuddle with you, (he’s the big spoon and you are the smol spoon) and often times you would be immersed into your textbook while he’s scrolling through his phone and looking for some of the current and popular memes. He’d poke you on the cheek and show you what he’s found. It was quite annoying sometimes and you would reprimand him for it, but it never fails to make you laugh. You jokingly suggested one time that the two of you sneak in the library after closing hours, and your chaotic boyfriend turns to you with the biggest smirk plastered on his face. “Let’s do it baby. I know the law.”

DILUC:

–You and Diluc are the cutest pair of night owls. So, studying late at night is never a problem with him because with the help of each other, the both of you are unstoppable. An actual power couple. Batman and his love interest who? I only know (Y/N) and Diluc. Mondstadt University should be giving you the title of #NoSleepGang for the “Campus Cuties” awards because the two of you are able to ace every test still despite lack of sleep. You and Diluc are very very organized. The both of you own matching couple planners (that the both of you had gifted to each for Christmas) and have your entire study schedule planned out already. Since the two of you prefer to study at night, your dates are usually done during the day. Which meant never having to worry about the upcoming finals whilst you’re at a cute little café with him. The both of you have respective desks whenever you study together, but you never fail to gaze at your crimson-haired boyfriend with the cutest pout and biggest puppy eyes. He always gives in and next thing you know, your swivel chairs are practically glued next to each other and the both of you are cuddling in your seats. One thing that Diluc never fails to do is pamper you with comfort food or little gifts that you love after a long and tiring week of hell (aka exams) It’s such a sweet gesture and the blissful relationship that you have can’t get any better than this.

“I got you some boba and that necklace from Pandora that you’ve always wanted. I-I’m so proud of you (Y/N). You did great, my love.”

KAEYA:

- You are the Lawful Good to Kaeya’s Chaotic Evil. Kaeya is always tempted to ask for answers from your professors. He’s quite the teacher’s pet, but with good intentions. That’s just how he rolls. Every time he jokes about going to the faculty to help out and the answer sheets are just out in the open, waiting to be snatched, you always glare at at him and punch him softly on the arm, every time he tries to bring up the idea. To which he would always reply with, “I’m kidding. Just kidding my love.” You and Kaeya have amazing study hacks. He is always able to find a movie that is somewhat related to the topics that the both of you are currently studying about. For example, when the topic was an introduction to different branches of science, Kaeya chose Big Hero 6 as the “Educational Movie Of the Day.” He is always able to find something fun and informative for the both of you to watch. Well, Kaeya does find fun and interest in everything. Another effective strategy that both of you do is every time you or him get an answer right, you reward each other with either a kiss on the cheek or a bear hug. Both of these affectionate gestures give you butterflies in your stomach anyway, so it doesn’t matter which is which. With the ideas that Kaeya constantly makes up every single day of your study sessions, there’s a high chance that you’ll never fluke a test ever again.

“Oh. That’s pretty cool of you (Y/N). You got 30 correct answers! If we count everything, so I basically gave you 15 forehead kisses and 15 bear hugs. Congrats! I know we’re going to ace our finals!”

XIAO:

– Xiao is extremely intelligent and talented in a myriad of things. However, he lacks self-confidence. You’ve sworn to your boyfriend that you’d help him gain confidence in his academic abilities. Which is why you became study buddies in the first place. It served as dates with him too! Although he stubbornly refused at first, his reasons being that he can do things by himself and he doesn’t need any help. You continued to encourage him that this was going to help the both of you and it was a way for the two of you to bond, and Xiao hesistantly agreed right after. As the captain of the soccer team, “The Liyue Adepti”, The only free time that Xiao has was during the evening which is the reason for your scheduled late night studies with him. This brought so much more intimate and sweet moments with him though! It meant sleepovers with him, midnight snack runs, and casual early morning strolls in the park. It became sort of a routine. Your hand interlaced with his, the crisp morning air, the little chirpings birds, and the tranquil swaying of the trees brought so much comfort to the both of you. Xiao would be the type of student to not speak up unless he’s called. Even if he knows the answer. The both of you sit on some floor pillows whenever you would study. So, whilst you read aloud, Xiao always hugs you from behind, resting his head on your shoulder.

“I don’t deserve the patience and love you give me, (Y/N). I am eternally grateful for everything you’ve done for me. I hope you know, that I’ll always be here for you.”

ALBEDO:

- Being the university’s library assistant has it’s perks. Access to infinite knowledge, quiet solitude within the library walls, and being able to hang out with your boyfriend. It was truly a perfect deal. After classes, Albedo would be heading straight over to the library to do his work. You’d meet him there and wait until he gets his work done, and then the two of you head home together or have dinner. Albedo likes to plan things in advance. He’s quite busy, being a part of university’s alchemist group and as a library assistant, but, he will always study with you. He even brings Klee with him at times too! She’s always an energetic and cute addition, + she tattles on and on about how in love Albedo is with you and how he would never shut up about you at home. Albedo puts a lot of effort into creating review materials for the both of you. He makes very intricate drawings of modules, dioramas of certain science models, and has all the formulas memorized for him to list down. He’s a genius after all, and although you’ve constantly told him time and time again that he doesn’t have to make a review paper specifically catered to you, he still insists. He always gifts you one whenever it’s exam week (he adds extra detail to them during your finals) The cutest thing about these papers are scribbled about in all of the pages. The cutest doodles of the two of you with hearts and flowers drawn all over. Albedo + (Y/N) is even written in the last page, along with a heartfelt message:

“I put all my faith and belief in you, (Y/N). I know you can do this. I’m proud of everything you’ve reached so far, my beloved. and I know you’ll reach greater heights. Let’s continue to excel and thrive together. I can’t wait to spend the rest of this journey with you.”

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audreydoeskaren · 3 years

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Reviewing Nancy Duong’s Fashion Timeline of Chinese Clothing

If you like historical Chinese clothing and have an internet connection chances are you have seen these drawings. They have been spread around so much but for some reason I was only able to find out the author yesterday (at time of writing), Nancy Duong from @nannaia. Her website is nancyduong.com. These drawings are so iconic and famous but I don’t really see anybody talking about their accuracy? So I thought it’d be fun to review the drawings as well as the sources used. Ok clickbaity title here, I’m only going to talk about the segments on Ming, Qing and republican era because I know nothing about the others.

Quick disclaimer: none of what I am going to say is a criticism of the artist or her research abilities, as we will see Duong obviously put a lot of efforts into the research and this project was absolutely epic; this will just be a nitpicky review of some of the details which I hope some of you will find useful or enlightening. Also the fact that this was made in 2013 still blows my mind, like I was still a wee child then.

Without further ado, let’s get into it.

Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)

*I’m not yet so familiar with the minutiae of Ming fashion so if anything I say is whack feel free to correct me.

I’ll begin with Fig 12 which is the beginning of the Ming Dynasty. This doesn’t really look like what we think of as early Ming fashion nowadays because I think the reference material she used was likely a 仕女画 shinvhua, a genre of literati painting that featured highly stylized female figures in historicist clothing. The costumes were meant to be excessively flowing and adhering to people’s imaginations of deities or historical figures, meaning that they had little to no connection to what was actually popular in real life. This is a very common misunderstanding for earlier scholars of Chinese fashion history, they just weren’t aware that 仕女画 were not realistic. In her post, Duong mentioned that one of the books she consulted was 5000 Years of Chinese Costume published in 1987, which is very dated and kind of notorious for using a lot of non realistic art as reference for real fashion... In recent years there has been more awareness about what paintings could be used for research and what could not, but in 2013 that was probably too much to ask. So this is more of a sign of the times.

Source here

Ming Dynasty shinvhua by 仇英 Qiu Ying (1492-1552), a renowned painter. For some reason the costumes in most shinvhua feature an apron of some kind tied to the waist and a 披帛 pibo or shawl, perhaps it was a reference to Tang Dynasty fashion. If you see a painting from the Ming Dynasty or later featuring women wearing an apron and a shawl, it’s a huge red flag that the clothing is not realistic. From the Ming Dynasty onward, women wore robes outside of skirts, meaning the waistband shouldn’t really be visible.

Source here

Closeup of 真武灵应图册, presumably made in the early 15th century, showing the more realistic way of dressing for women in the early Ming.

The other thing here is the caption “restoration of native rule, Yuan customs are abolished”. While that is true on paper, in practice early Ming fashion was full of leftovers from the Yuan Dynasty. A popular decoration style was 织金锦 zhijinjin or gold brocade, a textile manufacturing technique presumably of Persian origin that was immensely popular among the Mongols. I can understand why the first emperor of the Ming would advertise himself as the restorer of Han customs for legitimacy and power, but personally he was a huge fan of gold brocade too ;)

Ok next panel.

Fig 13 is probably traced from this painting below, which is very legit. The only minor qualm is that Duong seems to have added two 裙襕 qunlan or decorative horizontal strips to the skirt, which are not present in the painting itself. This style of qunlan was common in the early Ming (you can see it in the previous painting) but I’m not sure if it would be acceptable on this particular outfit.

Source here

Next one.

Fig 14 is where it gets interesting and where my niche area of expertise comes in. Duong didn’t specify which part of the Ming Dynasty each outfit was from, but there is at least a 200 year gap between fig 13 and 14, because fig 14 is from the Qing Dynasty... I mentioned this in my review of Evolution & Revolution, I’ll just repeat here. A lot of early historians bought into the rhetoric that the “late Ming aesthetic” continued into the Qing for a couple of years before being obliterated by a mystical form of Manchu inspired dress (something that looks like fig 15 probably). In reality though, that so called “late Ming aesthetic” persisted well into the 18th century until the Jiaqing era when it began to be replaced by a new style, which also wasn’t the stereotypical Qing Dynasty outfit; that didn’t solidify into a thing until the 1840s, at which point the Qing was seven decades away from death. Because of this, fashion from the 18th century often gets mislabeled as Ming. It could be potentially considered hanfu but it’s definitely not Ming... I feel like 17th and 18th century clothing represent the Qing as much as the 19th century does, the Qing is not just the 19th century.

Fig 14 specifically reads very much as Yongzheng era (1720s), with the back heavy hairstyle, tight fitting 披风 pifeng, robe with standing collar and the white skirt. This confusion really isn’t Duong’s fault but more of the book’s. If I analyzed this as Yongzheng era fashion, it would be pretty accurate with the only problems being the sleeve length and button placement. The sleeves are way too short for that era. Before 挽袖 wanxiu or folded cuffs became a thing in the Qianlong era, the sleeves of most Chinese historical clothing were made longer than the wearer’s arms, meaning they had to grab the cuffs to use their hands, creating very beautiful folds and creases when doing that. Also the sleeves commonly had a decorative border similar to that at the collar. The lower button was usually placed at the very bottom of the collar because that would actually connect the collar and the neck area. You see what I mean in the below image.

Source here

A painting from the series 雍亲王十二美人图, made in the 1710s/20s. These paintings are full of mysteries and we aren’t even sure who the women (or woman) portrayed really were, but they did depict Han aristocratic women’s fashion realistically. Some of the details resemble late Ming fashion, such as the metal buttons, soft standing collar and parallel collar pifeng, but this is undeniably Qing.

Source here

I think this illustration is from 5000 Years? It’s categorized as Ming Dynasty in the book which is what led a lot of people astray.

By the way, this hairstyle that looks like poop, is from the Yongzheng era as well.

Source here

Also from 雍亲王十二美人图.

Now I can’t just tell you what Ming fashion is not and not tell you what it is. Duong actually neglected huge chunks of the Ming Dynasty in the infographics, like fig 13 is 14something and fig 14 is 1720s. The 16th and 17th centuries are completely missing, which is a shame because they were very beautiful. @ziseviolet has a Ming Dynasty tag with plenty of images, I don’t have a lot of primary images for the Ming so please just enjoy these two:

Source here or see watermark

A very particular look from the Wanli era (1572-1620).

Source here

Late Ming, possibly Chongzhen era (1627-44) illustration showing the fad for big sleeves.

Now that I have the drawings out of the way, let’s take a look at Duong’s notes on her research:

“The clothing for women in the Ming Dynasty consisted mainly of gowns, coats, rosy capes, over-dresses with or without sleeves, and skirts. These styles were imitations of ones first seen in the Tang and Song Dynasties. However, the openings were on the right-hand side, according to the Han Dynasty convention.” ((5,000 years of Chinese Costume, pg. 147)

I don’t have this book with me but I think this was pulled from early Ming Dynasty regulations on dress. This is kind of vague; I think the more precise term used in 2021 would be 袄裙 aoqun or robe and skirt, to describe the most common combination worn in the early Ming. “Rosy capes” sounds like a literal translation of 霞帔 xiapei, which was a garment reserved for formal dress and weddings. I don’t think your average woman would roam about the street in a xiapei. The part about the source of inspiration being the Tang and Song is also true on paper, but visually the early Ming was a very different style to the Tang and Song.

Also the thing with the openings on the right hand side. Theoretically everybody in the Ming should wear the openings on the right but in the early and mid Ming because of Yuan customs carrying over, many women still wore robes with closures on the left. It gradually began to be phased out by the mid Ming but was still occasionally practiced well into the Qing and 20th century.

Source here

A Ming portrait featuring a woman in a robe with left closures. I don’t know which decade this is from because I suck at dating Ming clothing uwu I’m opening up about my weaknesses.

“The formal dress for commoners could only be made of coarse purple cloth, and no gold embroidery was allowed. Gowns could only in such light colours as purple, green and pink; and in no case should crimson, reddish blue or yellow be used. These regulations were observed for over a decade, and it was not until the 14th year of Hong Wu that minor changes were made.” (5,000 years of Chinese Costume, pg. 147)

Is this turning into a review of 5000 Years of Chinese Costume... Whatever. Again this is also likely pulled from sumptuary laws which people had completely stopped observing in the mid to late Ming. For the early Ming this does hold true though.

Qing Dynasty (1644-1911)

Not to be rude or anything but wow I didn’t know the Qing Dynasty began in the 1860s. I mean, fig 15 is legitimate Qing fashion and drawn very well but the fact that it’s placed at the beginning coupled with the caption “China is conquered by the Manchurians” suggests that this is what Qing Han fashion looked like since the beginning, which is not true. This look only came into its own in the Daoguang era (1820-50), 180 years after the establishment of the Qing Dynasty. Also the lady is shown with natural feet but foot binding was supposedly at the peek of its popularity in the mid 19th century; although a lot of women didn’t bind, it’d be a more accurate representation of the fashion ideal if bound feet were drawn.

Source here

Export art from the Daoguang era (1820-50). This is earlier than fig 15 hence the higher collar and simplistic fabric.

Next panel.

Fig 16 looks 1880s, which is great in that it shows the progression of time since fig 15. I love that it shows aoku, which was the more popular combination in the late 19th century. The round hair ornament is there (though the tassels are somewhat unnecessary). The bound feet are there. The robe even has the split front trim design, a very nice period detail. The collar is a bit weird though like 1) it should be much lower 2) it should be able to close completely; this kind of collar gap did not become a fashionable thing until the 1900s, but even then the bottom would still be closed because it was made by simply not buttoning the collar not a deliberately designed gap. The sleeves are also too short for the 1880s. Even then this is a well done drawing.

Source here

Aoqun ensemble from the 1870s or 80s. The robe has the split front trim like in fig 16, while the skirt is more like that shown in fig 15 with the rectangular area of embroidery and trimmed pleats.

Source here

The lady on the left is wearing aoku ca. 1885.

My bone with this one is again mainly the caption “The Manchurians attempt several bans on foot-binding but are unsuccessful”. It refers to events at the very very beginning of the Qing, which appears somewhat anachronistic when placed under a drawing of the 1880s... As the Qing progressed the emperors increasingly came to the realization that Han women’s fashion was too powerful to be regulated and just gave up on banning foot binding :0

Although it’s probably not fair to judge this series for what it did not include, I still think it’s really sad that there are only two drawings for the Qing and both of them from the 19th century... I’ll photobomb you with early to mid Qing fashion.

Source here

Kangxi era (1661-1722) painting.

Source here or see watermark

Early Qianlong era (1730s or 40s) painting.

Source here

Mid to late Qianlong era (1750s-90s) reverse glass painting.

Source here

Jiaqing era (1796-1820) wallpaper.

Source here

Daoguang era (1820-50) reverse glass painting.

After fig 15 there should still be two looks, the 1890s and 1900s, for which I have an individual post.

Source here

1890s or 1900s aoku. I think this is from the Hong Kong Museum of History?

Now onto the writings:

When China fell under Manchurian rule, Chinese men were forced to adopt Manchurian customs. As a sign of submission, the new government made a decree that men must shave their head and wear the Manchurian queue or lose their heads. Many choose the latter.

Legit, nothing to see here. Maybe the phrasing of the last part is overly dramatic, since the majority of men opted for the queue and survived.

On the other hand, Chinese women were not pressured to adopt Manchurian clothing and fashions. “Women, in general, wore skirts as their lower garments, and red skirts were for women of position. At first, there were still the “phoenix-tail” skirt and the “moonlight” skirt and others from the Ming tradition. However the styles evolved with the passage of time: some skirts were adorned with ribbons that floated in the air when one walked; some had little bells fastened under them: ...

First sentence completely legit. The red skirt bit is slightly unfounded, the most popular skirts during the Ming-Qing transition were white. “Phoenix-tail” skirt and “moonlight” skirt are probably literal translations of 凤尾裙 fengweiqun and 月华裙 yuehuaqun, neither of which were from the Ming. In fact, I have not yet seen either appear in mainstream fashion before the mid 18th century. Both of these terminologies are kind of vague and to this day I still haven’t found literature giving solid explanations of what they are.

Phoenix tail skirts were likely made by attaching embroidered ribbons of different colors to a waistband. The “ribbons that floated in the air when one walked” and “little bells fastened under them” did not evolve with the passage of time, but were a part of the construction of this garment to begin with. I think they were more of an overskirt meant to be worn over an actual 马面 mamian skirt? Extant examples of phoenix tail skirts from the 18th century existed because they likely took inspiration from theater costumes, notably skirts from the 宫衣 gongyi ensemble worn by royal female characters. I don’t think they became everyday fashion until the mid 18th century, even then they were pretty rare.

Source here

Phoenix tail skirt from the Qing, presumably 19th century.

Moonlight skirts were structurally the same as mamian skirts but every pleat or vertical section was a different color.

Source here

Moonlight skirt, presumably 19th century.

Source here or see watermark

Detail of a Jiaqing era painting showing the lady on the left in a moonlight skirt.

...others had their lower edge embroidered with wavy designs. ...

The “wavy designs” embroidered at the lower edge is somewhat unclear, as it could refer to qunlan used since the early Ming or specifically the wavy shape of the hems in Guangxu era (1875-1908) 花神衣 huashenyi?? It was a type of theater costume and not everyday wear, and also I’ve only seen this wavy design on robes not skirts. If it were actually referring to qunlan or border binding, that has always been used in the Ming and Qing, albeit in different styles in each era.

Source here

Guangxu era huanshenyi costume.

...As the dynasty drew to an end, the wearing of trousers became the fashion among commoner women. There were trousers with full crotches and over trousers, both made of silk embroidered with patters.” (5,000 years of Chinese Costume, pg. 173)

Yess aoku was very popular. It became “fashionable” in the beginning of the 19th century but working women like maids wore them in the 18th century as well.

Republican era (1912-1949)

Ok so republican era fashion was extremely fast changing and convoluted which is why I wrote a whole series on it. If you’re interested in the looks not covered by these drawings do check them out :)) I’m kind of tired of going back and forth and linking all the posts I wrote so if you would like to know more about a specific decade just come back to the masterpost here.

With fig 17 we’re already in the mid 1920s, a decade after the revolution. This is a pretty good drawing, mostly showing the aoqun ensemble correctly. It has the half length flared pagoda sleeves or 倒大袖 daodaxiu, the stiffened collar that closes with one button and the curved robe hem, which are all accurate details. The black mary janes are correct, albeit slightly basic and stereotypical; there were so many cool shoes in the 20s (but hey it’s great that Duong didn’t draw T-straps the arch-nemesis of historically accurate flapper footwear). The hair with the section of bangs is extremely 20s and deserves a medal. There seems to be a low bun at the back of the head, I mean women with long hair did roll up their hair to emulate the short bob but it wouldn’t be so big and rest so low on the head. The skirt is appropriately gathered and flared; however it seems a tad too long for the mid 20s, since most mid 20s skirts were knee or at least calf length. It could also work for 1926-28, but then it would have a more tubular silhouette and the top needs to be shorter and more form fitting.

Source here

Song Qinling and Sun Yat-sen ca. 1926-28. I think this is the vibe Duong was going for? If the skirt were less A-line it would be perfect.

Another (very) minor issue is the lack of binding on the right side of the figure’s neck. It’s very possible that Duong traced this photograph where it isn’t visible because of the shadow, but all Chinese clothing prior to the 1950s had the binding/trim go all around the neck.

Source here

Painting from around the same time, you can clearly see the trim on the right side of the neck. And look at their gorgeous shoes!

I’ll just quickly address the caption: “1927: Natural Breast Movement; Native attempts on banning foot-binding remain unsuccessful”. The natural breast movement is something people talk about a lot, but aside from their moralistic discourse I’d like to also bring fashion into the perspective. Basically since the Ming Dynasty, Chinese women bound their breasts to flatten them, and in the republican era some people started to think that it was unnatural and unhealthy, so they started to advocate for “natural breasts” in the 1920s. Unfortunately for them, because Chinese women wanted to be more or less on the same page as Western women on fashion and the popular silhouette in 20s Western fashion was also flat chested, Chinese women’s breast curves did not begin to show until around 1933 in high fashion, when breasts were again emphasized in Western high fashion. That’s not to say that individual women did not take off their breast binders, it’s just that the high fashion ideal did not switch to having boobs until the 30s. Changing fashions did what doctors and “progressive” activists couldn’t do for decades, I live for that.

On my usual feminist tangent here, I really don’t like the idea that “natural breasts” is interchangeable with “curvy”? Some women naturally have the flat 1920s silhouette and it’s not like their bodies are invalid. If you want to say normalize curves just say normalize curves, wearing bras and having big boobs are not inherently “natural”...

Still this one is pretty good, next one.

Fig 18 is the cheongsam rendition of the same silhouette as fig 17. In the late 1920s, four styles of womenswear with the same silhouette coexisted, namely 1) the two piece aoqun shown in fig 17, 2) three piece aoqun with vest, 3) long vest with sleeves derived from 2 and 4) the one piece cheongsam derived from 3. The caption is that age old myth about cheongsam being Manchu we can just throw that in the trash. I don’t blame Duong for this at all this myth is extremely widespread. While the cheongsam visually resembles Manchu changyi from the 19th century, it did not evolve from that. Manchu women didn’t give a shit about cheongsam and never wore it either, cheongsam and changyi or chenyi belonged in two very different systems of dress that evolved independently from each other at the time. Also, foot binding became very obsolete among urban “fashionable” women in the 1910s already. It was a very regional practice so it was still done by some women in rural areas or whatnot well into the 20th century, but the high fashion ideal has long switched to natural feet.

The drawing itself is very accurate though, it’s a standard late 20s cheongsam. The hair looks ok as well. The binding is all around the neck this time which is very good. The collar could be slightly higher, especially if approaching the end of the 20s.

Source here

Late 20s cheongsam.

Just gonna quickly show you the 20s three pieces aoqun and vest with sleeves looks not included here.

Source here

Left: three piece aoqun. Right: vest with sleeves.

Moving on to the next panel :3

With fig 19 we arrive in the 1930s. With the slightly lower height of the collar and low slits it appears more like the second half of the 30s, maybe 1938-1940ish. This drawing is overall pretty solid. The cap sleeves are there. The binding is in the right places. The shoe shape is appropriate. The rounded edge collar with two buttons is legit. The brush out curls are great.

Source here

Annay May Wong in a late 30s cheongsam.

One minor issue it that due to the T shape in which the cheongsam was cut, the pattern at the sleeve part would run horizontally instead of vertically when the arms are down.

Source here

This is what I mean. This image of Xu Lai is from the early 30s.

Let’s look at the caption: “Dress is further westernized, tailored to flatter body shape. 1949: foot-binding is eradicated”. I guuueeesss you could call the 1930s cheongsam westernized in the sense that it was inspired by the Western evening dress silhouette in that it was long, flowy and slender, but that is not to be confused with “using Western tailoring techniques”. 1930s cheongsam were made completely using the Chinese dressmaking method (平裁 pingcai or flat tailoring). Also “tailored to flatter body shape” is somewhat of a generic and reductive statement, since clothes could show the body shape in a variety of ways using optical illusion and different cuts. The 30s cheongsam was not extremely form fitting to the point that it required negative ease by way of corsets or girdles, it just hugged the body very softly but still left plenty of wiggle space.

I wouldn’t really say that foot binding was “eradicated” anytime anywhere because it was a continuous process not an on or off one, as explained in Dorothy Ko’s Cinderella’s Sisters. Parents stopped binding their daughters after the republican era that’s true, but many older women who had bound in their childhood and found bound feet more comfortable than let out feet continued binding for their own convenience.

Now onto the textual explanation by Duong.

“Ever since the Tang Dynasty, the design of Chinese women’s costumes had kept to the same straight style: flat and straight lines for the chest, shoulders and hips, with few curves visible; and it was not until the 1920’s that Chinese women came to appreciate ‘the beauty of curves’, and to pay attention to figure when cutting and making up dresses, instead of adhering to the traditional style.” (5,000 years of Chinese Costume, pg. 214)

This gives me a stroke. This book is true vintage from the 80s and it never ceases to (negatively) surprise me with incorrect takes. The “straight style” was very much not a thing in the Ming, the authors would know if they looked at the right sources lmao. Curves, what curves in the 1920s? Did you see any curves in the pictures I included of the 1920s? The 1920s flapper silhouette was notoriously flat, unless the flared pagoda sleeves count as curves, in which case most of the Ming and Qing would also be curvy. This is an erroneous stereotype. If you mean “curves” as in showing the shape of the body, in my opinion the 1910s showed a lot more body than the 1920s did. If you mean it as in “curvy” or “hourglass”, then the 1930s was the beginning. If you mean “extreme hourglass”, then the 1950s would be the beginning. More on the 50s later.

Source here

Ca. 1915 fashion, note how tight the robe and pants are.

Source here

1920s aoku, noticeably more relaxed. Still very much flat though.

“The most popular item of a Chinese woman’s wardrobe in modern times was the qi pao. Originall the dress of the Manchus, it was adopted by Han women in the 1920s. Modifications and improvements were then made so that for a time, it became the most fashionable form of dress for women in China.

Already addressed the origin issue: cheongsam was not Manchu. Also aoqun and aoku representation matters.

Two main factors account for women’s general preference for the qi pao: first, it was economical and convenient to wear.” (5,000 years of Chinese Costume, pg. 214-215)

That’s... not true. It was slender and consumed less fabric than older clothing styles so it was more economical for women who were middle class or upward, but the tight, long skirt made it difficult for working women to wear. The cheongsam was largely a phenomenon for privileged women, working women adored the aoku and continued wearing it to the present day. I don’t understand why class issues are seldom addressed in cheongsam discourse.

Women traditionally bound their breasts in the Ming and Qing dynasties with tight fitting vests and continued to do so in the early 20th century.

“The vests were called xiaomajia ‘little vest’ or xiaoshan ‘little shirt” “used by Chinese women as underclothing for the upper part of the body.” (Changing Clothes in China: Fashion, History, Nation: Finnane pg 162) “Doudu [is] a sort of apron for the upper body […] in former times the doudu had been worn by everyone, old and young, male and female. The young wore red, the middle-aged wore white or grey-green, the elderly wore black. A little pocket sewn into the top was used by adults to secrete them money and by children their sweets. When a girl got engaged, she would show off her embroidery skills by sending an elaborately worked doudu to her fiancé, decorated with bats for good forturne and pomegranates, symbolizing many sons.” (Changing Clothes in China: Fashion, History, Nation: Finnane pg 162)

This part is incredibly legit, mostly because Duong cited more reliable sources. Thank you for releasing me from the hell that is 5000 Years.

A ban on bound breasts began in 1927, in which the government started advocating for the “Natural Breast Movement”. Despite this, bound breasts still widely continued into the 1930s. The government also banned earrings as it fell under the criteria of deforming the natural body. The 1930s also saw the introduction of the western/French bra come to Shanghai.

Ok I didn’t even know about the ban on bound breasts, most fashionable women had quite flat breasts up until 1933. The earrings ban too, like earrings seemed very popular throughout the republican era.

“The little vest was designed to constrain the breasts and streamline the body. Such a garment was necessary to look comme il faut around 1908, when (as J. Dyer Ball observed): ‘fashion decreed that jackets should fit tight, though not yielding to the contours of the figure, except in the slightest degree, as such an exposure of the body would be considered immodest.’ It became necessary again in the mid-twenties, when the jacket-blouse—a garment cut on rounded lines – began to give way to the qipao. At this stage, darts were not used to tailor the bodice or upper part of the qipao, nor would they be till the mid-fifties. The most that could be done by way of further fitting the qipao to the bosom was to stretch the material at the right places through ironing. Under these circumstances, breast-binding must have made the tailor’s task easier.” (Finnane 163, Changing Clothes in China: Fashion, History, Nation)

Woww this part is actually really good I’m impressed! Yess the little vest was worn to alter a woman’s body to fit the fashionable flat silhouette. I love how Finnane acknowledged that darts were not used on cheongsam until the 50s and shaping could only be achieved by 归拔 guiba, stretching the fabric and ironing the shit out of it. I’ll explain it in more details when I post about making a 30s cheongsam (still waiting for the pankou currently 😠).

Successful eradication of bound feet would not come until the 1949 when the People’s Republic of China came into power.

Already addressed, foot binding was never eradicated as in it died in a blast or something.

Post republican era

The cheongsam in fig 20 has the right idea but could do with some more extreme proportions. It’s titled 1940s to 1960s but the 1940s were a very different silhouette to the 1950s and 60s in that it didn’t use Western tailoring techniques and had a very very low collar. The hair is difficult to decipher as it doesn’t vaguely resemble anything worn in the 1940s-60s? I’m gonna interpret this as 1950s and 60s because of the caption “The qipao/cheongsam survives as everyday wear in Hong Kong until the late 1960s”, suggesting that it was already “extinct” in the mainland according to legend (it was not though, see my post on 1950s mainland China). A 50s/60s Hong Kong cheongsam would have a much, much more extreme hourglass shape, even for everyday wear. The boobs would be pointy not round because of bullet bras. The waist would be violently (positive) cinched in. The hips would be emphasized and the skirt hem would taper inward. The collar is on the right track with the v shape gap but could be a tad taller. The stiletto heels and the slit length are appropriate as well.

As for hairstyles, large brush out curls forming a round coiffure was popular in the 50s while tall beehive hair dominated the 60s.

Source here

1962 Hong Kong cheongsam.

Text time.

Under the People’s Republic of China, very few mainland women wore the cheongsam, save for ceremonial attire. Clothing became de-sexualized for mainlanders.

Stereotypes, stereotypes, stereotypes. Cheongsam has always been worn by only a few (privileged) women, it’s just that in the republican era they were overrepresented in popular media. The bulk of the Chinese population consisted of peasants who wore aoku. In the Mao era, urban housewives continued wearing cheongsam into the 60s because that was a part of their lives. I wonder what is meant with “de-sexualized” cause no item of clothing from the republican era was sexualized to begin with?? Maybe they meant sex as in gender, in which case no clothing in the mainland was not unisex, if you were a guy wearing a dress (platye in the 50s) you would probably be stoned on the spot (over exaggeration here to describe the dangers of transphobia).

Source here or see watermark

50s mainland housewife in a cheongsam. You can also see with the children that the girl is wearing a skirt and the boy a pair of pants, gender denominators were not dead.

Another feminist tangent because this is my blog. I hate how fashion historians describe the masculine looking uniforms and “Mao suits” in the communist era “androgynous” like no they weren’t fucking androgynous they were masculine. Androgyny means showing both masculine and feminine elements but somehow feminine fashion is never represented in “androgynous clothing”. Don’t try to pull that “uhh feminine clothing is not practical” card, like so what? Does the definition of “androgyny” include “practicality”? Obviously not, it’s just an excuse to exclude femininity. It’s that age old misogynistic thing of treating masculinity as the neutral norm or “not having gender” and femininity as the cursed variation with gender added to it. If clothing in the communist era was truly unisex or androgynous, why do we have no evidence of cis guys roaming about the streets in cheongsam or platye?? I think a lot about this video on androgyny by Jade Fox.

It was the flip side in Hong Kong, as the cheongsam continued its function as everyday wear which lasted until the late 1960s. The cheongsam in the 1950s and 1960s became even tighter fitting to further accentuate feminine curves. Western clothing became the default after the late 1960s, though the cheongsam continued to survive as uniforms for students (who donned a looser and androgynous version), waitresses, brides, and beauty contestants.

This is all pretty standard and correct, my only two bones to pick are the “feminine curves” and “androgynous version”. I already explained my problem with modern interpretation of androgyny, a looser cut does not equal androgyny. The thing about feminine curves is true on the surface but if you think deeper about it the 50s/60s cheongsam doesn’t show the “real”, biological female body but rather an hourglass ideal artificially created by shapewear that people are taught to perceive as feminine. The Hong Kong cheongsam didn’t accentuate feminine curves so much as invent them, because curves are not a necessary prerequisite for femininity anyway. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, fashion is all about different silhouettes, but can we just stop giving inanimate pieces of fabric or shapes gender like all of this belongs in r/arethecisok.

I’m not gonna analyze fig 21 because everything was possible after the 1970s and this drawing looks pretty good. That’s all :))

Conclusion

Woah this got long. I had a lot of fun reviewing these drawings and I would say that overall Duong did a very good job for 2013 (please do not kill me I mean no harm :.3). The main takeaway here is to not consult 5000 Years of Chinese Costume for anything ever, it leads only to pain and tears... I guess this post also functions as a partial review of 5000 Years then? I should rate it too. Solid 3/10 from the passages included here, would not recommend. If you want to learn about Chinese fashion history, read more recent books, at least from 2000 onward the bar is very low.

#historic fashion #chinese fashion #ming dynasty #qing dynasty #republican era #hanfu #清汉女装 #cheongsam

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frosted-night · 3 years

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Jack Frost Designs Review

Yes it’s finally his time. This is going to include his book designs including previous incarnations in said books. There are more movie concept designs than book so, let’s dig in shall we?

This was in fact the first ever Jack Joyce designed while he came up with The Guardians Of Childhood. He even comes with his own backstory! (Which was cut. Sorry Joyce posts walls of text so it’s a girthy read.)

So instead of a young mischievous trickster, we got a much more depressing story of Jack. (Jack by default is sad obviously) but this one... It kind of hits differently and almost reminds me of the story he crafted for Pitch. A dad who tried to defend his family but through tragic events was ripped from them and changed completely. Design wise, he’s a lot more tree than snow. There doesn’t exist a colored version of this so we’ll never know if he sported winter and dull dead leaf colors rather than grassy greens.This Jack has a weird presence to him, I can’t put my finger on it. Rating: 6/10 He’s really neat! Just a little too Autumn feeling rather than a blend of both Autumn and Winter.

Nightlight feels like the baby evolution if Jack was a pokemon and that's what I’m gonna stick with. Below is a more recent version of him colored.

In all honesty that one is easier on the eyes proportion wise because sometimes Joyce has ‘interesting’ anatomy choices but we aint going into that today. It’s interesting how his hair somehow looks shorter and longer than Jack’s at the same time. Could be because the longer strands float seamlessly but star boy hair physics what can ya do. It’s a little hard to tell what is his skin and what is his armor, so that is a casuality in making a character only have one or two colors in their color scheme. I love other artist’s depictions of Nightlight but the canon one feels a little weak color wise. Rating: 5/10 Sorry, get some better LEDs and then come back.

Here we have a book Jack but I can’t entirely recall if this was used in the books or not. I digress. This design looks like him still wearing very Nightlight-esque armor/clothing and slowly growing into his new persona as Jack Frost. The intricacies are hard to make out but we’ll work with it. This one is very interesting to me because he very much looks like an older teen close to young adult. His hair looks very fluffy too. Not many complaints about this one but not much praise either.

Rating: 6/10 Not great but doesn’t stand out that much.

Remember when I said Joyce had ‘interesting’ anatomy decisions? Jack looks like he has half a head here and it bothers me GREATLY. This is the adult Jack design he went with. Supposedly he likes the opera and he sure looks it. This! Exists!! Kind of wish it didn’t. The outfit is nice but it just doesn’t fit Jack as a whole. This just screams to me that it’s someone else with a similar-ish hairstyle.

Rating: 3/10 Guess he’d be the...Phantom Of The Opera. (I’ll go home and so should he.)

And finally the final Jack. This is the one that almost exactly resembles the Jack we got in the movies(Probably because it was made after the movie but w/e) but just add a cape on him. I can’t really tell if hes got a hoodie and a cape, or just a cloak+hood on top of a sweatshirt. It isn’t too important because my thoughts on this one are obvious. Rating: 10/10 Edna Mode would have a field day with you boy.

MOVIE DESIGN TIME

Joyce claims this is a design he drafted when Leonardo DiCaprio was considered to voice Jack and I can kind of see that with how his face is drawn here. This Jack looks a lot more like a warrior and less of that trickster look. I can’t say I’m a fan of the weird antenna his hood has but his sword is really cool looking.

Rating: 4/10 Nice bow and sword but it can’t save your fashion choices.

This looks like a lanky 11-13 year old who would put rocks or slugs in my shoes and relish in my disgust. He has the exact look of a snot nose kid and I’m unsure how to feel about it.

His various hairstyles drafted here sort of make him softer looking or just more of a snot nose, no in between. Maybe even an Anime Protagonist.

The top right one almost looks like Hiccup from How To Train Your Dragon if you squint. It’ll be a little hard to rate them all as one individual but why not.

Rating: 5/10 I don’t hate them but they aren’t my cup of tea.

AH- IS THAT A FUCKIN GREMLIN?

Oh wait no it isn’t he looks like a 10 year old. Whatever don’t feed him after midnight. The staff’s design of not being shaped like a G is an interesting tidbit but the whole design looks like he’s really young or like a troll etc. This Jack looks like he thinks girls have cooties uses outdated slang.

Rating: 4/10 This is me being generous.

It honestly looks like he hiked his pants up all the way to his chest. A late teen with horrid fashion choices once again. Not many other thoughts here.

Rating: 2/10 Get a sweater on or something.

This is one is very interesting looking to me. His clothes looked a lot more leather based and very human-like. The tatters, tears and frays all make him look like he was a victim of an accident that never changed his clothes. It makes me wonder if this Jack had the same death as the final movie Jack or something else entirely. Either way, this one looks like hes a mid to late teen which really adds to my intrigue.

This was another image that greatly resembled the design so I included it here. It almost looks like his skin is blue here which is pretty neat to me at least. He’s also got leaf motifs here, which from the first Jack design Joyce made, we can see a pattern here.

Rating: 8 /10 I was originally weirded out by his head but now its not so bad.

This Jack is definitely dressed more like a nature boy rather than him having human influenced fashion and it’s an appealing touch. The tiny leaf sprouting from his staff is also kind of cute since the designers seemed to want to put leafs somewhere on his designs. His hairstyle is also very cute but it reminds me of Sasuke Uchiha in a sense. (Not a setback for me at least)

Rating: 7/10 13 year old Jack is going thru a phase.

I thought this Jack didn’t show up again in story boards but I was wrong!

They look a little different from each other but just similar enough to pair together, so bare with me. The first one obviously has looser pants, slightly longer sleeves and got his leaf motif going. This second Jack is a VERY green. It gives the impression that this Jack made his clothes out of plants and natural materials. Again I’m not wholly sure if greens fit his color scheme but they sure went for it for a while. I can’t say I’m a fan of it because it heavily reminds me of Peter Pan.

However a very similar looking Jack could be found in this storyboard. It doesn’t look as green as the other storyboards made it out to be and looks more like dead grass. Which is a pretty nice touch.

Rating: 5/10 I don’t hate it but it just doesn’t vibe yknow.

Speaking of a vibe...hoo this certainly has one. This Jack isn’t old but certainly doesn’t look very young, maybe in the 20-30 range, thats just me. He has facial features that remind me of Pitch but resembles the Jack Frost of Santa Clause 3

That being said, I wondered if him looking similar to Pitch was in the storyline of them being brothers.(Which was a scrapped thing, who knew.) He’s a bit more menacing in this design but certainly seems like he relishes in his work.

Rating: 4/10 I’d make it a lower score but I gotta give it props

NOW THIS JACK IS KINDA INTERESTING. This one looks like he’s 16 and going through a grunge phase. He’s gonna play Nirvana loudly and not turn it down even if you tell him too. His staff itself has mini icicles hanging off of it and leafs look stuck to his shirt. Did you glue or staple those on Jack? His hair also looks much longer than his other designs and I kind of dig it( Shut up I’m bias.) I’m not wholly sure why else this design has stuck with me but it just has something about it that I just love. I wish there was a full body drawing of it.

(He also kinda has the same hair as the Jack Frost in Runescape but I wont go on about that hoo hoo)

Rating: 9/10 *Bad Boy by Cascada plays in the distance*

This one definitely feels like middleschooler trying to be in a band. His sticks just resemble drumsticks to me what can I say. I’m a big fan of his shoes and his color scheme screams a hibernating tree in winter. His hair also looks like it’s covered in frost rather than it being wholly white, which is very neat!! He looks like he wants to fight but has slight hesitance. Overall a very balanced Jack.

Rating: 8/10 He’s ready for band practice

Not many thoughts here, I just found these tiny Jack designs cute. His hoodie being a jacket instead just adds to the charm of this one.

No talk to him he angy.

Rating: 6/10 fun sized boi

Now this Jack resembles the one earlier that dressed entirely in leather brown colors, however he clearly is different than that one. I’m gonna say it, he looks like a zombie or undead in this design and its pretty fucking gnarly. I don’t know whats going on with his hair but I’m gonna assume it’s just the wind making it look like that. He just has the vibe that he was once human but was turned into something else entirely. It isnt in uncanny territory but borders that. This version of Jack meeting Pitch and the others would have been *very* interesting. Rating: 7/10 Eat a twinkie Jack you’ll feel better.

The final design! I can’t complain much about this one. The way his staff subtly has a G shape and a hexagon(his signature shape) is a wonderful touch. Additionally, the way the frost is gathered mostly where his hand is such an intricate detail. His signature hoodie is iconic at this point so I can’t bad mouth that either.(I can’t anyway because there's no complaints from me here.) Although, I never understood the leather straps that his pants had or their functions. I couldn’t find any colonial outfits that resembled Jack’s pants so its a total mystery to me at least.

And I can’t go on about this design until I mention the snowflake pattern in his eyes

Pure beauty. It’s at a hue of blue that almost looks impossible to have, combined with the electric blue color of the snowflake in his eyes. The amount of detail in this movie amazes me to this day. Rating: One Great Blizzard <3/10

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the-insomniac-emporium · 3 years

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Dimitrescu Daughter HCs

I thought this would only take a few minutes. I was so, so very wrong. Anyway, some of these are somewhat exclusive to my fic (Serenade), but they’ll make sense even if you haven’t read that.

Daniela:

Others have already talked about how Daniela reads a ton of romance novels, so I’m not really going to go into that very much, just saying that I agree 100%, I mean c’mon, it’s practically canon.

While she mainly sources books from her family’s library, there are a few she’s “acquired” over the years that she keeps locked away in her room. These tend to be a bit, ahem, steamier than her mother would approve of/let her read under normal circumstances.

How did she get these? Well, there has to be someone who delivers goods to Castle Dimitrescu (Duke, perhaps?), seeing as the Maidens need, like, actual food to survive. Sometimes Daniela manages to convince them to order books for her, usually just asking for books by authors she likes, or ones she’s heard maidens whispering about.

No, the delivery person does not read the book’s summaries or reviews, they have a feeling (based on titles and covers alone) that they don’t want to know.

As for her experiences with actual romance… she’s so very, very excited about it, all the time. Wants to kiss every cute Maiden she sees, and sometimes daydreams about a beautiful woman fleeing from lycans who comes to the castle for shelter, clinging to Dani for warmth and protection, and it’s love at first sight, and they kiss and kiss and right as it gets to the good part-! Someone interrupts her daydream (usually Cassandra).

However, her actual experiences are fairly limited. Sure, she has kissed Maidens, but she tends to get over excited. Like in Serenade, she starts to rush the process, and usually ends up draining her “lover” aka victim before anything more intimate happens.

She’s definitely done sexual things, just, well, not with other people. Private things. Usually during or after reading one of her special books. You get the picture.

Because of this, and her aforementioned love of romance novels, Daniela has become somewhat obsessed with the idea of her first time. She wants everything to be perfect. The setting, the timing, who she’s with… Hence her reaction in chapter 3 of Serenade. It’s not that she didn’t want to continue, just that the circumstances didn’t feel right. She’s very particular!

Favorite Music Genre: Girl goes wild for an emotional, gut-wrenching love/power ballad. The type to lie in bed and cry while listening to Hozier or Lorde (not that she can hear either of them, considering her limited music options). Doesn’t admit it, though, and mostly listens to indie pop when other people can hear. That and whatever the Maiden plays on piano ;)

Okay it feels weird to joke about her loving music I wrote, anywayyyy

Hobbies: Other than reading there’s not too much I can see her doing, really. She’d be sure to get into anything that her s/o enjoys, though, even if it’s something difficult or time-consuming. Writing is something she’d love, but it’s difficult for her to keep her focus on just one project at a time. Ideally she’d write short stories, romantic ones obvs, and have someone else proofread/edit them. For the most part she’d write within fantasy and historical setting (seeing as she’s got experience in both of those departments).

ADHD, BABY. Bigtime, seriously. Maybe this is just my adhd ass projecting, but I can’t not see her as having it. For her it mainly manifests with hyper-focusing/difficulty staying on task. It’s like a switch with those on either end, flipping back and forth every once in a while. She can spend six hours reading two different books in one sitting, but if someone just breathes too loudly it disrupts her completely. Because of this she’s somewhat prone to abandoning projects. It’s a sore subject for her, and her sisters are aware, normally only bringing it up if they’re really angry with her.

Opinions on the four lords: Thinks Heisenberg is a tool (pun intended), also thinks that he secretly reads super erotic novels. She doesn’t have any proof, though, and would never say anything about it out loud. Just makes fun of him in her head. Doesn’t actually judge him for what she thinks he reads, just judges his personality and the “need he feels to hide his secret”. Loves Donna, and low-key thinks she’s attractive. Daniela mostly bases that off the portrait she’s seen, but, like many fans, also thinks the hands are nice. The puppets don’t bother her, though she also doesn’t really care about them, other than thinking that Donna interacting with them is cute.

Opinions continued: Moreau is… uh… fish boy. Daniela thinks he’s weird, kinda gross, and hardly considers him a “real” lord. Poor boy :( At least she doesn’t actively make fun of him?... Even if that’s only because she kinda forgets about him most of the time. As for Lady Dimitrescu, well, obviously Daniela loves her mom. The whole family is very close, and as the “youngest”, Daniela gets a lot of attention. Sometimes she thinks her mother is too strict, but at the end of the day there’s no love lost.

Bela:

Cleans up after her sisters a lot, but still nowhere near as much as any of the Maidens do. Often agrees to help with messes in exchange for blackmail material. “Oh, Daniela, what a shame you broke mother’s favorite dish… I could help, but you owe me one.” At the end of the day, though, there’s plenty she would slide.

Being the “oldest”, she’s expected to behave the best, and often feels more restricted than her sisters. Being an example is hard! Occasionally she’ll have the impulse to rebel, but this usually only manifests in scenarios like the one mentioned above, aka she’ll simply be more lenient of her siblings for a bit.

Overall far less sadistic than her sisters. Cares more about the quality of pain then the amount of it. Only ever goes overboard if someone full out threatens or hurts her family. Insults towards them still earn her ire, and will get her to punish someone, but it’s not enough to make her resort to torture. Usually.

Gets the most restless out of the three. As cool (and large) as the castle is, it’s all she’s ever really known. If not for her weakness to cold, she’d go out on hikes a lot. Nature interests her, fascinates her, but she’d be a little less fond of most of it in person. Like, oh, waterfalls sound so cool, followed by a hundred complaints about the noise. Thinks deer are the cutest shit ever (second only to humans, maybe).

Unlike Daniela (though that HC is relevant almost exclusively to Serenade), Bela has actually slept with a Maiden before. She doesn’t really care for them enough to consider it a relationship, instead admiring them for their entertainment value. Definitely could fall for a Maiden, simply hasn’t yet. Of the three I feel like she takes the longest to fall in love, and even longer to actually act on her feelings. Sometimes resents her siblings because they unknowingly “claimed” a Maiden that she was starting to be interested in. However, she fully acknowledges that she should have said something if she didn’t want to lose the girl, considering the situation they live in.

Favorite music genre: Classical, full orchestra style, with a soft spot for swing/jazz. Enjoys having music play softly while she reads, and is very particular about the volume. Absolutely would argue with her sisters if they tried to change the music or turn it up.

Hobbies: Reading, duh. Less interested in romance than Daniela by a considerable amount. For the most part she reads non-fiction books, enjoying learning about history and the sciences. Astronomy is at the top of her favorites list, followed by biology, then obscure (and often bloody) pieces of history. Niche=perfect. Also enjoys music, even if she had to rely mostly on self-teaching books. Knows the basics of piano, but doesn’t actively play, much preferring both the violin and harp. Most of the time she’ll only play if she knows her sisters won’t bother her, or if her mother asks her to.

Opinions on the four lords: Admires Heisenberg’s work/his edgenuity, but thinks the actual man is a temperamental child… who smells like wet dog. He’s only been at Castle Dimitrescu a couple times (per Mother Miranda’s request), and both times Bela moved to the other side of the house so she wouldn’t have to acknowledge his existence. While she would never admit it, she’s low-key creeped out by Donna’s dolls, and really only tolerates Angie. However, she would never act on her nerves, out of consideration for Donna’s feelings. She knows that her mother gets along well with the dollmaker, and keeps this at the forefront of her mind.

Opinions continued: “Moreau who? Oh, the fish guy? He’s still alive?... Good for him.” Wants to make Lady Dimitrescu proud, but not as desperately as Cassandra. Unknowingly mimics a lot of her mother’s little habits and ticks, and would be quietly embarrassed if someone pointed it out to her. As mentioned previously, she feels like she has to be an example for the others, and somewhat resents the pressure this puts on her. On the other hand, she does enjoy being “responsible for” (read: in charge of) her sisters. Additionally, she is the most likely to get away with lying to Alcina, though she does not often do so. This isn’t because she’s the most manipulative (that’s Cass), or the best liar (that’s Dani, if she’s trying), but simply because Alcina doesn’t think her oldest daughter would lie. Even if she doubts something Bela says, she’ll usually give her the benefit of the doubt… as long as it doesn’t happen very often.

Cassandra:

Sleeps the most of the three, if only because she’s the most active of them. Not as fast as the others while in swarm mode, but the fastest on foot, partially because she’s more likely to simply walk places. She knows the sound of feet on the floor scares the Maidens, and she drinks their fear with utter pleasure. Additionally she claims that it just feels nice to “stretch her legs”. But she will not hesitate to enter swarm mode when chasing someone. As fun as it is to smell their fear, she can get impatient, wanting to get close and personal to her target.

Tends to hide most of her feelings, sometimes even opting to “convert” them into anger. In other words, think of her emotional state as an ever-filling bottle of water. As things happen, she feels emotions, and the rate at which water pours into the bottle increases. Ideally if the water level started getting too high, she would address whatever is increasing the flow of water. Instead of that, she often uses anger, which is equivalent to shaking the bottle a bit and letting water messily spill out of it. Doesn’t address the actual problem, but let’s her release some pressure/free up some room.

Goes through Maidens faster than her siblings (yes, even Daniela “draining you of blood is romantic” Dimitrescu). Not all of them even die in the basement, sometimes what was supposed to be a “warning” turns into “oh shit the blood won’t stop coming out, this is how I die, in this accursed castle, no friends or family to mourn me, just the painful knowledge that I will not be the last, I will die for no cause, no glory, just the bitter whims of a blood-soaked mistress” or something along those lines.

While more likely to get attached to someone than Bela, Cassandra isn’t one to do much about it. She might flirt, might even try to kiss (or, uh, kiss while also not wearing clothes wink wink), but she won’t (usually) claim someone as her own, or protest if one of her sisters wants to have some fun with them (even if it’s the bloody kind of fun). Technically gets over breakups and “breakups” (i.e. death) easier than either of her sisters. To be fully accurate, Daniela still goes through lovers faster, but she also remembers them and cares for them for longer post-breakup.

Somewhat of a blood kink. Like, more than vampires automatically have. In intimate settings she cares more about the quantity of blood and what she can do with it (loves bloodstains) than what causes the bloodshed.

Favorite music genre: Rock ‘n roll. Leans towards older stuff, as well as heavier songs. Soft spot for symphonic metal, but doesn’t admit it out of the fear that some might consider it a “weaker form” of the genre. Almost exclusively listens to bands that have female vocalists, and gets crushes on them more than she’d ever admit.

Hobbies: Art! Painting, mostly, but dabbles in sculpture from time to time. It’s been too long since I took an art class for me to suggest a style for her paintings, but I imagine her sculptures would be somewhat abstract. Her art would revolve around emotion, the stronger and rawer the better, with viewers often being left uncomfortable. While Alcina buys plenty of art supplies for her, Cassandra is fond of improvising, especially by creating her own “tools” (of questionable efficiency) out of items she has laying around. She is absolutely the one who took her mother’s lipstick. If you don’t know what that means, don’t worry, it’s just mentioned in one of the RE8 notes that Lady Dimitrescu’s valuable lipstick is missing.

Opinions on the four lords: Tolerates Heisenberg more than the rest of her family by a considerable amount. She’s seen glimpses of his work, his steampunk-adjacent style, and actually kind of digs it. While Bela cares more about the science behind his work, Cassandra just digs the aesthetic. Sometimes for her art she also needs things she can’t get from the castle, and are too obscure to get from a merchant, so she trades tools/ideas with Heisenberg in exchange for him making something for her. “Can you make a battery but whenever it’s in use it makes a horrible screaming sound?” “Yes. PS I hate your mother and Miranda.” “I didn’t fucking ask.”

Opinions continued: Doesn’t really care much about Donna, but acknowledges her as a fellow artist, and would be willing to consult her if she talked more (and talked without Angie). Cassandra hasn’t met Moreau, thankfully (he would cry). Knows about him from her sister/mother, and as a result doesn’t care about him. Internally whenever someone mentions him, she pictures, like, a Goldfish Cracker (the snack that smiles back) with legs except also it’s green and moldy.

Opinions cont.: Loves her mother so much. Determined to please her, to make her proud, but often left feeling less loved than her sisters. This strains her relationship with her family, not that she’d ever voice her feelings and talk through the issue. Let’s be real, Alcina would probably feel guilty for not realizing how Cass felt. Nonetheless, Cassandra probably spends the most time with her mother, often offering to assist her with tasks, or trying to get her to appreciate her art.

#resident evil: village #daniela dimitrescu #bela dimitrescu #cassandra dimitrescu #dimitrescu family

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potteresque-ire · 3 years

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

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

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

[TW: feminisation of men]

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

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

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

高貴冷豔悶騷攻 × 邪魅狂狷風騷受

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What, exactly, is this something?

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

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

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

Here’s a list:

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

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

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

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

What has Chinese history said about its beautiful men?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

婦女能頂半邊天 Women can lift half the skies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ah, to be caught between two cultures. :)

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

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gildedmuse · 2 years

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When I saw you made a one shot about the all hearts fic I freaked I was so excited! And while you’re still recovering?! I’m in awe! I hope you’re doing ok!

I love how Law is trying to pretend he doesn’t care (at all, promise!) about his new swordsman but then it’s like… “and I just happened to see this super nice sword so I picked it up for you since you’re a swordsman…no other reason…I didn’t specifically pick it up because I thought you’d like it…” like you’re not that subtle Law. I feel like giving a swordsman a really nice sword is almost a marriage proposal to them or something, so I imagine internally Zoro is just freaking out more and more. I love it!

I think I have in my notes that Law gave him Hio Wakemasu when he made Zoro the official vice captain of the Heart Pirates. So not quite a wedding proposal, but definitely close considering how "practically married" 7 out of 10 captains/first mates are: Benn is Shanks's reasonable husband (Buggy is his unreasonable husband), Killer and Kid are DEFINITELY pirate married, King would have so slept with Kaido given the smallest chance, Ace and Masked Deuce almost certainly dated for at least a few years, and I'm pretty sure Luffy is asexual but that doesn't stop him from being head over heels in love with Zoro. I'm just say, First Mates tend to be gay as hell for their Captains and vice versa.

Zoro definitely freak out in his own Zoro-way once he got a chance to un-sheath Hio and swing it around. Kind of like when he first took Sandai Kitetsu out for it's first real battle during Whiskey Peaks. Although Hio Wakemasu isn't nearly as blood thirsty as Kitestsu. I actually like to imagine that Hio is a lot like Dressrosa Law. Like, it's terrifying, but it's blood lust is very focused, meaning it's less prone to those random murderous outbursts, but it also won't listen to Zoro unless he is very sure of his plan. Hio is pretty much the closest Law could come to giving Zoro-ya a sword babysitter. (On after Grand Line he also gets Harunoumi which Shachi, Penguin and Bepo "rescue" from Jewelry Bonney as a gift for Zoro and it's personality is a honestly more Luffy like; it doesn't listen to him, but it also much less blood thirsty compared to his other swords. Harunoumi just wants adventure! It is so bored after being stuck at the bottom of the sea for decades. Then, right before Sabaody, he picks up Kami Okiruha after (barely) surviving the Death Trails, and Kami is Mihawk through and through. I pretty much have Zoro three different captains as swords....)

I have a short one shot and a small head canon ask for All Hearts I am working on finishing, because I adore anyone who loves All Hearts enough to ask me for more. I'm also (slowly) getting through the next chapter. I'm so sorry it's taken so long, guys! Between work and health, it's just not always possible for me to write everything I want. All Hearts is still my highest priority, though, and asks like this (or the other two prompts) and new reviews really do push me to do my best to get out new material. So thank you! It means a lot to me that people haven't just totally forgotten this little fic, haha.

#one piece #roronoa zoro #trafalgar d. water law #trafalgar law #zoro x law #law x zoro #zolaw #one piece fanfiction #all hearts #fanfiction update #ask and you shall receive #swords #amusing musings #sick so no fun tags #but thank you!#captain x first mate #captain x first mate is always a good pairing

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shihalyfie · 3 years

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Kizuna itself vs. the two versions of the novel

Written on request from a friend who wanted to remain anonymous. This is more of an editorial than a meta, and while I usually have a policy of “this is an analysis blog, not a review blog” it goes into more of my personal impressions and opinions than usual, but it’s something I write hoping to be helpful.

There are basically three “official” full versions of Kizuna: one being, of course, the movie itself, one being the Dash X Bunko version of the novel, and one being the Shueisha Mirai Bunko version of it. While it’s certainly not to say that any of the three is an “incomplete” version of the narrative, if you really want as full of a picture of the story as possible, somehow, each of all three versions of the story happens to have really important information that the other two do not. If I had to pick only one of these three versions to recommend to people, I would of course pick the movie itself; it’s obviously the base story everything else is based off of and was the one the production centered around as a priority, but the novelizations have a surprising amount of info that provide a lot of insight into the movie’s story and themes.

I get the impression that the creation of Kizuna involved making a lot more story and background details than could fit in a 95-minute movie, so these novelizations, which were based directly off the original movie script, ended up being an outlet for a lot of these details (and as much as I could be harsh on the movie itself for being a bit “reliant” on extra material, I have to admit that Adventure and 02 were both like this too -- a lot of our current understanding of the series comes from the Adventure novels and drama CDs -- so frankly I’m thankful we at least got this with a 95-minute movie instead of a yearlong series). On the flip side, while I'm not going to say that the novels are completely and utterly inaccurate representations of the movie, in a perhaps too-close approximation of Adventure and 02's writing style, this is a movie where even the nuances in a single line or split-second moment carry heavy implications, which become much blurrier or harder to identify when they’re presented differently (or not even presented at all) in the novel’s context, especially when they emphasize very different things from what the movie itself was emphasizing.

The short version of this is that I believe the Dash X version contains the greater amount of “plot and story” information but significantly misses out on the emotional themes and presentation, whereas the Shueisha Mirai version abridges and cuts chunks of content but is much better at conveying the intended message. More on this below the cut. (Note that the following post spoils Kizuna’s plot events.)

The movie itself

Since the following parts are more “in comparison to the movie”, I’m not going to go too much into this in this section, but one thing I will say is that the official English subtitle translation for the movie is really not great. Even if you take out nitpickiness about the fact it misses several significant nuances (the difference between “unchangeable fate” and “changeable destiny”, or the fact that Gennai refers to partnership dissolution as a “case” and not like it’s something that happens overall) at really plot-important moments, some lines (thankfully, usually not plot-important ones) are just straight-up incorrect. And worse, there’s evidence the official English dub was based on that translation! (I’m not faulting the people in charge of the dub for this, but whoever handed them that translation to work with.)

The dialogue in the Dash X Bunko version is transcribed effectively word-for-word from the dialogue in the movie (or perhaps vice versa, given that the novel is based on the original script), so I highly recommend checking that version as a reference for dialogue or if you want to do any intimate analysis on it. I don't want to go as far as to suggest not supporting the official version of the movie because of this, but at least please be aware that the translation used there is not entirely reliable.

Dash X Bunko

If you talk about “the Kizuna novel”, this is the one that people usually tend to be referring to, for two reasons. Firstly, it was translated shortly after the movie’s release, and due to the unfortunate circumstances of Kizuna being delayed in accessibility outside Japan for several months, this basically served as the only comprehensive source of info about the movie outside Japan for a very long time. Secondly, in Japan, this one was marketed as “the one for adults” in contrast to the Shueisha Mirai one being “for kids”, which meant that a lot of people assumed that the latter one was just an incredibly stripped down version that was otherwise disposable or replaceable. (This is very, very much not the case, and is extremely ironic when it comes to a movie that partially centers around the dangers of looking down too much on things associated with childhood.)

When it comes to “plot and story info”, this is the one that probably serves as the best reference (especially for fanfic writers or those who need a refresher on certain plot events or to look up something quickly), and probably has the most “comprehensive” listing of plot events surrounding the movie. The dialogue in it is a word-for-word recreation of the movie’s script, and actually includes more scenes than the movie itself does, including two that I suspect to be deleted scenes (a detailing of the specifics behind the initial plan to pursue Eosmon, and a conversation between Koushirou and Tentomon) and adaptations of the first and second memorial shorts within their context in the movie. It also contains some interesting background details and extra context for some things in the movie that you might think would normally be animation flair or something, but take a very interesting implication of story importance if they’re going out of their way to write this in the script. (There’s a scene where Agumon and Gabumon appear in front of their partners when they’d been behind them a minute before, and it’s easy to think this might be an animation error, but not only does the surrounding context make this unlikely, the novel itself actually directly states that their positions had changed.) Given that, I think it was very fortunate that this novel was available to us for those outside Japan waiting for the actual movie to come out, because this level of detail was very important to have on hand rather than fragmented spoilers on social media.

However, the part where I think the novel is significantly deficient in compared to the actual movie (and also to the other version of the novel) is that it describes the plot events in too blunt of a manner and doesn’t bring out its themes very well. (It’s kind of like having a long and very detailed Wikipedia article plot summary; it definitely got all the hard facts down, but the emotion is gone, which is still a pretty significant issue when media’s all about the feelings and message in the end.) While “considering the movie to be more cynical than it’s probably meant to be” happens regardless of which version someone’s working from, I’ve talked to perhaps an unnervingly high number of people who started with the novel and were absolutely convinced that the movie’s message was about adulthood sucking and needing to just accept it, until they saw how the actual movie pulled it off and the surrounding atmosphere and realized it definitely was not. (I think one really big factor here is that a lot of the visual imagery makes it extremely, extremely hard to miss that Menoa’s mentality is completely screwed up and her way of seeing things was dubious to begin with; prose descriptions really just don’t capture the way they slam this in your face with visual and musical cues during the climax of the movie.)

You can figure this out from the novel itself, but you have to really be looking closely at the way they word things, and on top of that it’s hard to figure out which parts you should be focusing on and which parts aren’t actually that important -- in other words, the “choice of priorities” gets a bit lost in there. Even the little things lose a lot of value; it’s theoretically possible to use the novel to put together that Daisuke is wearing his sunglasses indoors during his first scene, but you have to put together the context clues from completely different paragraphs to figure this out, none of which compares to the actual hilarity of visually seeing him wearing the thing in a very obviously dimly lit restaurant because he’s our beloved idiot. (For more details, please see my post with more elaboration on this and more examples of this kind of thing.)

I wouldn’t say that the movie itself isn’t guilty of (perhaps accidentally) having some degree of mixed messaging, but I would say this problem is rather exacerbated by the novel’s way of presenting it due to its dedication to dropping every single plot detail and event without much in the way of choosing what to contextualize and what to put emphasis on (as it turns out, treating practically everything in the movie as if it has equal weight might not be a great idea). So, again, for that reason I think the novel serves as a good reference in terms of remembering what happened in it and knowing the movie’s contents, but I also feel that it’s really not the greatest deliverer of the movie’s message or themes at all.

Shueisha Mirai Bunko

The second version of the novel was not translated until several months after the movie first released, and shortly before the Blu-ray and streaming versions of the movie itself came out anyway, so my impression is that on this end a lot of people don’t even know it was a thing. On top of that, even those who know about it often dismiss it as the “kid version” -- and to be fair, it did baffle quite a few people as to why this version even exists (Kizuna is technically not unacceptable for kid viewing and its plot is still understandable regardless of age, but since the movie is so heavily about the millennial existential crisis, it’s not something kids would really relate to). So a lot of people tended to just skip over it...which is really a shame, because it contains some interesting things that actually aren’t in the other two versions at all. For instance, did you know that, as of this writing, this is the only thing that plainly states the specific explanation for why Yamato decided to become an astronaut, for the first time in 20 real-life years?

While there are still some things that weren’t in the movie proper (mainly the Eosmon initial plan and the adaptation of the second memorial short), for the most part, the actual events are somewhat abridged compared to the movie and the Dash X version, and other than a few stray lines, there’s not a lot of extra information that would be as helpful for referencing the events of the plot. The version of the novel here is rather broadly interpretive of the scenes in the movie, so several things are condensed or taken out (and, amusingly, because it’s assuming that the kids reading this don’t actually know the original Adventure or 02, it has to describe what each character is like in a quick one-liner).

However, interestingly enough, it’s because it’s so heavily interpretive that it illuminates a lot of things that weren’t really easy to glean out of the Dash X version. For instance:

Some scenes are described with “other perspectives” that give you info on someone else’s point of view. (For instance, we see more of Yamato’s perspective and thoughts when he has his first phone call with Daisuke, or a bit more detail in the process of how Eosmon kidnappings work.)

We get a lot more information on what’s going through everyone’s heads during each scene, and what emotions they’re feeling at a given time. (This is something that you could at least get to some degree in the movie itself from facial expressions and framing, but would often be a lot blurrier in the Dash X version; here, it’s spelled out in words.)

When things are abridged, you get a clearer idea of what the intended point and theme of the scene was because it’s stripped down to include only that part. In one really interesting case, the scene with Agumon finding Taichi’s AVs has a “censored” equivalent where Taichi’s pushed to a corner because he can’t find anything non-alcoholic in his fridge -- so when you look at the two versions of the scene and what they have in common, you can figure out that the point isn’t that it was a lewd joke for the sake of it, but rather that Taichi’s forcing himself into boxes of “adulthood” that are actually meaningless and impractical.

Some of the descriptions of the characters, scenes, and background information make it a lot more obvious as to their purpose in the narrative (it outright confirms that Miyako being in Spain means that her personality is getting overly enabled there).

The scene where the circumstances behind Morphomon’s disappearance are revealed makes it significantly less subtle what the point is. In the actual movie, a lot of this involved visual framing with Menoa seeming to become more and more distant, but in this version of the novel they basically whack you over the head with the final confirmation that Menoa is guilty of neglecting her own partner, which contradicts her own assertions that “they were always together” (maybe not emotionally, it seems!) and helps clarify the commonality between her, Taichi, Yamato, and Sora in what exactly led to their partners disappearing.

Bonus: this version of the novel really wants you to know that the ending of the movie is about Taichi and Yamato fully having the determination to turn things around and lead up to the 02 epilogue. (The movie’s version of this involves the extended version of Taichi’s thesis and the credits photo with Yamato obviously next to a rocket, while this novel’s version involves more detailed fleshing out of how Taichi and Yamato decided to use their experiences to move onto their eventual career paths and what kind of hope they still have at the end. The Dash X version...didn’t really have a very strong equivalent here.)

In other words, while this version of the novel isn’t the greatest reference for plot or worldbuilding, it does a much more effective job being straightforward about the intended themes and message of the movie, and even if the scenes in it are much more loosely adapted, it’s much better at adapting the emotional nuances of the things that would normally be conveyed via visuals, expressions, and voice acting. (Although I would still say that the movie itself is the best reference for that kind of thing, of course.) If you just want lore or plot ideas, I don’t think it’ll help you very much, but since this series is so much about characters that had their ways of thinking fleshed out in such incredible detail, and about strong theme messaging, this is all still very valuable information in its own way.

#digimon #digimon adventure last evolution kizuna #kizuna spoilers #shihameta

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stickyy · 3 years

Note

Can I have a gn reader x Aizawa? Maybe a college AU where Aizawa doesn't know how to handle his crush because he was awkward when he was young and ended up a bully who was handsy. Thank you!

EEEE this is my first ask so i hope you like it anon! :D thanks so much for requesting!

DISCLAIMER: i do not condone or encourage any of the behavior outlined in the following text. this is a work of fiction, and should be treated as such. :)

wordcount: 2299

warnings: dubcon, verbal abuse, slight dumbification, forced oral sex, brief mentions of gagging/vomit (doesn’t actually happen), aizawa is an law student asshole, quirkless!AU, ooc? more likely than u think

notes: im not like a writer so when i put this in word count and saw it was 2k words i gasped-

MIDTERM

Without a doubt, Aizawa’s the smartest student in your Civil Procedure lecture. You admire him; you’re both first years, but he already has an incredible work ethic and results to show for it. He works two part-time jobs to help pay for school (alongside his impressive scholarship), studies into the late hours of the night (mostly due to his being kept awake very loud roommate), and, despite a bad habit of regularly showing up to your 8 am class slightly hungover, still manages to produce the top marks in the class.

You’re envious of him, because you’re the exact opposite. Your tuition is paid in full by your parents, you have a wonderfully quiet apartment all to yourself, and you study as best you know how, only to practically fail every assignment. You wish you could be surprised, but the material is a dreadfully bland concoction of boring procedure and esoteric theory that you rarely get further than three or four pages into a chapter. You want to like law, you really do, but there’s something about the intricacies of drafting lawsuits that goes in one ear and out the other. It’s no surprise that you sought out Aizawa’s help, desperate to at least pass the class with a decent grade.

You wish you hadn’t.

You don’t understand what you do that bothers him so deeply, but something about you coaxes cruelty from somewhere dark inside of him. You always scurry towards the back of the lecture hall to grab a seat next to him, doing your best to be quiet and unassuming, but he shoots you a venomous glare or a soft flurry of harsh words. And you get it, to an extent- some days you walk into class chattering a little too loudly on the phone, and on others you loudly shuffle around in your book bag to try finding the notes that you attempted to start for this lecture (if you even brought them that day). You know it’s annoying, but you also know you don’t deserve the downright verbal abuse he throws at you for it.

“It’s hard to take notes if you forget your textbook. Try being prepared for once,” he’ll sigh as he slides his textbook to you. Like a good student, he took notes for lecture the night before, but it still took some convincing for him to spare you his textbook.

“Do you ever shut up?” He’ll interrupt you as you babble about your difficulties understanding the most recent lecture. You want to retort, tell him off for being rude, but the words die in your throat; he radiates an annoying apathy that makes you doubt the efficacy of anything you say to him.

“You wouldn’t fail every assignment if you actually studied. Or maybe, you’re actually just stupid?” He’ll quip as you clutch your paper, a red ‘47’ scrawled in the upper corner of the page littered with your professor's critiques and question marks. By contrast, Aizawa’s paper is pristine, donning a singular red mark of ‘98, nice work!’.

With a well placed glare and the sour baritone of his voice, laced with exhaustion, it’s always enough to make your stomach drop from shame and embarrassment. Under normal circumstances, you’d never allow anyone to speak to you that way, but your grade was a dire situation, and with the midterm upcoming, you forcefully swallow your pride and ask him for his help.

You have to beg, but Aizawa agrees to tutor you the day before the midterm. This grade is a make or break for the class- if you do poorly on this exam, you’ll have to drop the lecture to salvage your gpa, putting you half a semester behind your peers. It’s motivation enough to deal with his poor attitude, and the two of you end up reviewing in an empty studying room on the top floor of the library. You began the session alert and determined to catch up, but studying with him shows you just how far behind you are. The textbook sounds like foreign poetry coming from his mouth; Aizawa is nothing short of eloquent when explaining the complexities of something as boring as filing lawsuits, and you spend most of the two hours spent just zoning out, completely unable to focus.

“You’re just wasting my time at this point.” The break in his cadence snaps you out of your trance, unfocused eyes meeting his tired ones, slightly lidded in annoyance, “Are you even trying to remember the material? Or are you just expecting me to spoon-feed it to you?”

Your throat catches, forcing you to swallow a lump as you attempt to ignore his words.

“I am trying! I just don’t understand why there are two approaches, is all,” You whine, flipping back through your sparse notes to find the section that contained the explanation.

“I went over that almost 3 chapters ago. If you were paying attention, you would’ve stopped me by now. It’s hard to believe that you even got into this school, if this is how you studied in high school. Did your daddy pull some strings with his buddies in admissions?”

Your eyes narrow, searching harder for the correct section in your notes. That’s a pretty low blow, and even if he’s not completely wrong, it still stings. You now know for a fact you didn’t even read this part of the text, but you keep your eyes trained on the page. At this point, you’d do anything to avoid looking at Aizawa, lest you begin to cry.

“Don’t be an asshole,” is all you can muster, voice shaking with unshed tears, “Would it kill you to be a little nicer? It’s hard to focus when all you do is insult me.”

“It’s hard to focus?” He repeats, his tone a sickly sweet mockery of yours. “Sweetheart, I don’t think that’s my fault. You’re a lot dumber than you think, if you even think at all. The midterm is tomorrow, and we’re just now getting into chapter five. Don’t get mad at me for actually trying to study; if I was holding your hand through it all, we’d still be on chapter one.”

Your vision blurs and a single tear hits the lined paper of your notes, causing the ink to blur as the drop absorbs into the page. You clench your jaw and take a breath before standing up, opening your backpack to put you things away. You didn’t have to take this abuse, you could study on your own. Even if you did poorly, you’d have some of your dignity left.

“It’s pretty rude to just walk out on someone trying to help you,” Aizawa says after a moment, closing his notes shut. “Not only do you give me a headache every single morning, but I try to tutor you and you want to leave without even thanking me? I’m busy, you know? I take time that I don’t have to spare just help your sorry ass out, for free, and you’re not even capable of learning anything from it.”

You sling your bag over your shoulder and move to leave, but you find yourself face to face with Aizawa, his tall frame blocking the door, arms crossed over his chest, and a thoroughly disgusted expression plastered on his features.

“I should charge you a fee, just for completely wasting an afternoon. Absolutely ridiculous,” His tone is a juxtaposition to his demeanor; he sounds more amused than annoyed, a jeer underlying the words. It makes you feel sick, and you’re suddenly grossly aware of the fact that you're alone with him, the only method of escape blocked. It feels dangerous, and you want nothing more than to be at home, alone and safe.

“H-how much?” You stutter meekly, eager to appease him. “I don’t really have any cash on me but if you have Venmo-”

“That’s not quite what I had in mind,” Your heart starts to jackhammer against your ribcage and panic sets in. You’re frozen in place, unwilling to ask him to elaborate. You may not be very bright, but you have a good idea of what he’s going to ask for, and you can think of a million things you’d rather do instead.

“I know your pretty little skull is practically an echo chamber, so listen closely, okay? We both know that no matter how hard you try, you won’t be ready for the exam by the end of tonight, and I have to work in an hour and a half. So, if you behave and do what I ask you, I’ll let you copy my exam answers tomorrow. Understand?”

You’re silent, paralyzed by fear. A part of you wants to run, desperately, but your mind drifts to the midterm. You know that without any help, you’ll surely fail.

That’s how you end up on your knees in front of him, tears finally streaming down your face from choking on his thick cock.

“That’s it,” he groans breathlessly, eyes fluttering shut as his head presses back against the door, “I knew you were good for something. I bet this is how you convinced your other teachers to give you a passing grade, huh? A few cocks down your throat-fuck, to save your gpa, I wouldn’t put it past you, dumb slut.”

You hate this- hate being reduced to just a mouth for him to fuck. You hate how he sneers down at you, his eyes alight with sadistic pleasure. You especially hate the treacherous way your spine tingles and heat pools low in your stomach at his amused growls and degrading remarks. He’s just as cruel with the way he fucks into your mouth, disregarding your comfort entirely, hand in your hair roughly guiding your head over his length. He’s almost painfully thick, stretching your lips wide, tickling the recesses of your throat in a grotesque way. You try to wiggle away slightly, just to take a small breath; you’re beginning to feel dangerously lightheaded. You begin to pull your head away but he thrusts his hips upward, holding your head down and forcing your lips to wrap around the base of his cock.

“S’okay, baby, just relax that empty little head of yours, no need to breathe right now,” he sighs, watching you struggle against him with a smirk, watching the fear bloom in your chest and your mind buzz with the lack of oxygen. Your thrashing shifts his cock in just the right way and you violently gag, eyes widening with the painful sensation. You’re almost convinced he’s going to let you pass out, right before he yanks you off of him. You cough violently, gagging a few more times, drool spilling out of your mouth.

“Throw up on me and a failing grade will be the least of your problems,” he growls, and the threat is a sobering reminder of how fucked up this is. You meet his expectant gaze, and reluctantly return to the task at hand. You can hold out just a little longer, you tell yourself; his hips are beginning to move on their own accord and you know he won’t last much longer. All you have to do is hang on and it will all be over soon.

You know that he’s just a bully, that you’re just doing what you have to do in order to pass this class, that you’re worth more than your grades, that you aren’t stupid- but the dark part of your mind questions if he’s right. Maybe you do belong on your knees, because what do you know? Maybe you are just a dumb slut; there’s no need to study if the only thing you’re good for is swallowing.

The shameful thought forces a new torrent of tears to pour from your eyes, gagging once more on both your tears and his cock, and the look of pure despair on your face pushes him over the edge. Aizawa yanks your head from his cock with a curse and you flinch as his hot cum hits your face. There’s a lot of it, the viscous seed slowly dripping down your face. The sensation is downright disgusting. You feel dirty and used, your throat sore, knees burning, lips swollen from his brutal assault. He presses the tip of his cock on your cheek, smearing his load all over your skin with a cruel laugh.

Through your panting, you keep your eyes closed for a little bit, hoping that maybe this is an awful nightmare and you’ll wake up in your dorm, with an extra day to study and a little more hope in your heart.

The sound of a camera shutter rips you from your fantasy, opening your eyes to see Aizawa grinning at his phone. You’re too shocked to say anything, only staring at him incredulously from your position on the floor in front of him.

“You’re lucky you’re cute, you know?” He hums as he tidies himself up and grabs his bag. “So photogenic, I’ll be able to get off to this for weeks. Who knows what good you’d be if you were dumb and ugly.”

You didn’t notice that you had stopped crying, but the fresh tears and sound of your own sobs call your attention to fact.

“Try and clean up before you leave, alright? I know you’re a little too stupid to remember, but I don’t think it’d be a good look for you to walk around covered in cum.”

The door clicks closed, and through your sobs you look around at the room, only to notice that there aren’t any tissues left laying around. You hate him, you hate him, you hate him.

(But at least you get an A- on your midterm.)

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lovelylogans · 3 years

Text

parallax

parallax, noun: the apparent offset of a foreground object against the background when your perspective changes. at a given instant, the moon appears among different stars for observers at widely separated locations on earth. astronomers directly calculate the distance to a nearby star by measuring its incredibly small positional changes (its parallax) as earth orbits the sun.

warnings: staying up late, unhealthy study habits, please let me know if i’ve missed any!

pairing: virgil/logan

word count: 2,211

notes: this is for day 2 of @analogicalweek! the prompt of the day is “song/stars” and i have decided to write about stars! please enjoy!

⁂

“Barlow lens,” Virgil reads off the notecard.

“A lens that’s placed into the focusing tube to effectively double or triple a telescope’s focal length and, in turn, the magnification of any eyepiece used with it,” Logan recites. His glasses are off, his hands are over his eyes, and if not for the absurd amounts of coffee they had both consumed and the bright lights of the empty classroom they are occupying, Logan would probably fall asleep.

If not for the fact that Logan loves astronomy so much, he would gladly fold it in for the night and get some much-needed rest. As it is, Virgil is also in his class, and he does not hold the same inclination for the subject.

And also, Logan has a massive crush on Virgil and would likely do anything he asks, except Virgil doesn’t know that part. He likely thinks that Logan is helping him study because of his deep love of science.

“Good. Me now.”

Logan picks up a notecard at random and squints it, resettling his glasses on his nose. “Nebula.”

“Great clouds of glowing gas, lit up by stars inside or nearby.”

“Dark nebula?”

“Not lit up and are visible only because they block the light of stars behind them.”

“Latin for?”

“Cloud.”

“Good,” Logan says, tucking the notecard at the bottom of the pile, or as close as a pile as he can get. Their study materials have made quite a mess. The notecards that Logan made are sprawled across the table, some tucked under their notebooks, and Virgil’s pens are tossed along the table within easy reach. The whiteboard is already filled up with mixtures of both of their handwriting, highlighting key concepts that they’d wanted to go through in this study session. They’re almost all crossed out—all that’s left is general review of key terms.

“Oh, here’s a hard one for you,” Virgil says. His black hair is sticking up in tufts, because he’s been running his hands through it and tugging at the ends for the entirety of their marathon study session. It makes him look very cute. “Albedo feature, and tell me a prominent one.”

“A large area on the surface of a reflecting object that shows a significant contrast in brightness or darkness compared to adjacent areas,” Logan says. “And Syrtis Major, on Mars.”

“You didn’t even hesitate,” Virgil says. “You’re definitely gonna ace this final.”

“Well, obviously,” Logan says, and it only occurs to him to perhaps pretend at humbleness when Virgil snorts. Logan feels his face heat, and he says, “I mean—”

“Nah, nah, it’s cool,” Virgil says, stretching out his long, pale arms, and Logan hopes he isn’t too obvious as he stares at the subtle lines of his biceps, his triceps, his flexor carpi radialis. He had taken off his hoodie two hours in, and his binder not long after that, leaving him in a loose black cap-sleeved t-shirt. Seeing him in it is its own unique brand of torture. Surely if he can manage to recall terms while staring at Virgil’s collarbones and the hollow of his throat he will be able to withstand whatever foot-tapping and pencil-chewing will occur in the large lecture hall during their final.

“You’re the one who’s gonna go for a doctorate in this, it makes sense that you’re incredible at it,” Virgil says. “I know it’s a big deal for you.”

“It is,” Logan says. Virgil knows this. They know quite a lot about each others’ life stories—Logan is the first in his family to attend college in America, let alone achieve a doctorate here. His parents immigrated from Nigeria shortly after his birth and all of them have worked hard—his parents, to provide a life for him here, Logan, to get into a good university in the first place.

“I’m the one who has to worry about making it out of their lab elective with a decent enough grade.”

He knows that Virgil works hard, too. Their scholarship depends on maintaining a certain grade point average. There is no way Virgil would have achieved this scholarship if he did not work hard, let alone the fact that they have been studying in each others’ presence for the entire school year.

“You’ve done wonderfully this semester,” Logan says stubbornly. “The only way you will fail is if they feed the scantron in wrong while they’re grading and that’s easily remedied.”

Virgil’s brow quirks. “Thanks, specs,” he says, then makes a face, as if realizing how much he sounded like Roman just then.

“It’s just,” Virgil says, then hesitates before he shrugs and looks down at his notebook, avoiding Logan’s eyes. “I dunno. Um, I never really thought college would be an option, ‘till I got my scholarships.”

Logan, familiar with this story, just nods.

“And I,” he sighs, before he says in a whisper, “I really like it here. At university. I didn’t expect to like it so much. I need—if I want to stay, and I do. I need those good grades. And I want to stay, and the scholarship’s let me put aside enough money so I nearly have enough for top surgery, which I won’t be able to do if I lose my scholarship. So. I’m a bit.” A drum of his fingers. “A bit anxious.”

Logan surveys Virgil for a few seconds.

Virgil’s black bangs has swept over his face, obscuring most of his expression from Logan’s view. But he can see the muscle in Virgil’s jaw jumping, his shoulders practically hiked up to his ears. Even without the verbal acknowledgement, Virgil is portraying enough of the physical signs of anxiety that is obvious even to Logan’s emotionally oblivious eye.

Logan pauses, before he reaches across and places his hand on Virgil’s wrist. He likes the feel of it there—Virgil’s skin, chilled from the air conditioning, cooling Logan’s warm palm. He likes the look of it, too, the contrast of them, Logan’s skin seeming even darker against Virgil’s paleness. Considering Logan is black, this is something of a feat, and Virgil would likely have some sort of joke about how he is so absurdly pale that he manages to refract light.

Virgil looks up and chuckles awkwardly.

“But, y’know,” he says. “When am I not a bit anxious, right?”

He does not dislodge Logan’s hand, though. Instead he covers Logan’s hand with his own—his hand is quite large, and it is also cool from the air conditioning. The temperature of Virgil’s hand does not quite explain the jolt in Logan’s stomach.

Logan considers him for a few more moments.

“I have another astronomical term for you to learn,” Logan says decisively, and slides off the desk, standing on his own two feet “But you’ll have to follow me to learn it.”

Virgil’s lip quirks up. “Yeah?”

“Yes.”

Virgil smile widens. “All right, then.”

Logan’s stomach flutters, and he quickly turns his attention to gathering his notecards and notebooks as tidily and swiftly as possible, placing them into his backpack.

Virgil puts all of his things in his own backpack, and when Logan asks him if he’s ready, he simply ambles along after Logan as they walk out of the empty, quiet building on their university campus’ quadrangle.

Logan leads them to the center of the grassy area, looking around, before he nods decisively and sets his backpack on the ground. He opens a pocket and fishes out the compact travel blanket he has in there.

Virgil laughs as Logan unfolds it. “You have a blanket in there?”

“Of course I have a blanket in here,” Logan says, shaking out the blanket before he lays it out on the grass. “Blankets are ideal for providing significant warmth and offering protection from hypothermia and precipitation.”

“You and your Mary Poppins backpack,” Virgil says, but there is a tone in his voice that Logan... hesitates to describe.

Is it, perhaps, fondness?

No. Logan is likely projecting his crush onto Virgil. He has a tendency to do that. Wishful thinking has been studied by various disciplines of thought and it is a very common occurrence for many people.

Logan wishes it would not be so common for him, though.

Virgil sits on the blanket, then.

“So,” he prompts. “That astronomical term you wanted to teach me?”

Logan smiles, just a little.

“Star party,” he says. “A gathering of amateur astronomers for the purpose of observing objects and events in the sky.”

He tilts back so he’s lying down on his back. He would be looking directly up at the sky, but he tilts his head so he can see Virgil instead.

Virgil’s smile has gone soft. “You want to star-gaze with me?”

As an answer, Logan pats the blanket, as a silent entreatment for Virgil to lie back. Virgil grins, shaking his head, before he acquiesces, settling on the blanket.

It would be so easy to reach over and touch him. It would be only a little bit more effort to roll and balance himself on his elbows, so his face hovers above Virgil’s. And from there it would just be the slightest downward tilt—

Logan redirects his attention to the night sky.

Though it is, obviously, not quite as good a view as they would have had in a more rural location—light pollution is a given on such a large campus—it is still quite a nice night. There are very little clouds in the sky and it is late enough that the moon hangs almost directly overhead.

Logan points upward at a slight slant, using his right arm rather than his left, so that he will be able to look over and see Virgil’s face without having to lower his arm. “Polaris.”

Virgil shifts, close enough that it would only take the slightest jostle for their arms to touch. “The north star,” he says, and squints up at the sky. “Which means,” he reaches up to take Logan’s wrist in hand, using his outer arm, not the arm that is nearly touching Logan’s, and directs it slightly and Logan can’t breathe, “that Ursa Minor is right over here. Shame we can’t really see it.”

Logan hesitates, biting his lip, before he directs both of their hands again.

“We can slightly see Ursa Major, though.”

Virgil shifts again, his shoulder pressed against Logan’s. “Huh. We sure can.”

Logan traces the shape in the sky, Virgil’s hand cool, loosely wrapped around his wrist. Logan hopes that Virgil cannot feel how quick his pulse is. “Colloquially known as the Big Dipper.”

Virgil shifts again. Their legs are pressed together now.

Logan continues, trying his hardest not to react, “Though of course, the Big Dipper is only part of Ursa Major. An easy point to find so you can see the rest of the Big Bear, which is—which is a more direct title for Ursa Major.”

“Mhm,” Virgil hums. He can feel the warmth of Virgil’s breath at the shell of his ear. “Hey, I think I see Orion?”

Logan would look up at the sky to continue his quasi-lecture, but instead he turns his head so that he will be able to see Virgil.

Virgil turns at the same time. There is a soft smile on his face.

Logan swallows hard. A hand around his wrist. Continually shifting closer to touch him. What he’d thought might be fondness in Virgil’s voice.

Conjecture: perhaps... Logan isn’t submitting to wishful thinking. Perhaps Logan is simply observing.

“Virgil?” He whispers.

“Yeah?”

“Are you flirting with me?”

Virgil’s eyes crinkle up as his smile widens.

“Logan, I’ve been trying to flirt with you all semester.”

“Oh,” he breathes out. “Okay.”

Virgil lowers their hands from pointing at the sky so their arms rest upon their bodies, and he shifts his hands so that his fingers intertwine with Logan’s.

“I really like you,” Virgil says. His voice is trembling. His hand is shaking in Logan’s.

Logan’s eyes sting. He squeezes Virgil’s hand tightly. “I really like you too.”

Virgil laughs, but it sounds relieved more than anything.

“Um, okay,” Virgil says, looking a little stunned, as if he did not expect this to go as well as it is going. It’s very likely he did not, considering his anxiety disorder. “Cool. That’s—yeah. Great. Um. Wow.”

“I,” Logan says, and he bites his lip. “I do not have much experience with this. Liking boys. Dating, at all. I would like to have that experience with you. Would it be acceptable if I were to kiss you right now?”

“Incredibly,” Virgil says, “Incredibly acceptable.”

Logan releases Virgil’s hand, and carefully rolls so that he is hovering over Virgil the best he can. He has never approached kissing anyone like this before.

He has never kissed anyone before.

Logan takes in a deep breath, swallows hard, and figures he may as well just make an attempt. His heart is thundering in his chest. His hands are sweaty. He angles his face toward Virgil’s and closes his eyes.

Virgil’s hand settles on Logan’s back, and their lips meet.

And very suddenly, the two activities presented to Logan right now are star-gazing or kissing Virgil. And now he is kissing Virgil. He finds that he does not want to stop kissing Virgil.

Star-gazing would have to wait.

#my post #text #my fic #analogical #analogicalweek #sanders sides #sanders sides fanfic #sanders sides fanfiction #virgil sanders #logan sanders

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