#regardless if chinese fandoms are anything like japanese fandoms in that regard

[unforth]

Sometimes I wish I could drive home just how little of Chinese fandom culture actually makes it onto Tumblr at all, much less circulates in western Tumblr circles, and I've finally got a solid example.

On this list I reblogged a not long ago, Poyun, which I started reading on Bilibili the other day, has the 93rd most popular ship on all of Lofter, with over 15,000 posts. By comparison, the 93rd most popular ship of that same year (2020) on Tumblr was from Haikyuu, and from 2021 the 93rd most popular was from Miraculous Lady Bug - which is to say, even if you're not into, it's a fandom you've almost certainly heard of if you move in fandom circles at all. Like, those are two fandoms with known, huge followings. Likewise, Yan Xie/Jiang Ting is a big deal ship on Lofter.

I started reading the manhua a few days ago, so I know I'm gonna be posting some of the manhua art to @cnovelartreblogs so I was like, I should check the main tags and queue the art (even if it means I might be exposed to spoilers), and then I won't accidentally duplicate other people's art posting efforts or anything.

Now, granted, I've seen some evidence that tag search is more broken than usual the last few days, but even so...

#po yun: there are maybe 30 posts in "most popular"

#破云: there are maybe 20 posts in "most popular," and they're basically all the same (as in, people tagged both)

#poyun: about the same number, and the only 3 pieces of fanart I can find on the whole platform (@drawulan you don't know me but you are a BLESSING to C-Novel fandoms with small followings on Tumblr. A BLESSING, YOU HEAR? I LOVE YOUR ART.)

Y'all, we have no idea how little we actually know and see about what's popular in Chinese fandom.

#unforth rambles #This is one of the hidden costs of Western fandom being...the way Western fandom is. #idk where i'm really going with this #and i will say some of what's different i wouldn't see change #like my experience with the way top/bottom stuff gets treated in east asian fandoms #while my personal experience is mostly with yaoi fandoms #regardless if chinese fandoms are anything like japanese fandoms in that regard #i'd do basically anything to NOT see that infiltrate western fandom #but we get some of that anyway #i saw a post in the mdzs tag LITERALLY TODAY complaining that people in the bottomji bang #weren't tagging their bottomji and that the poster (oh horrors) #was finding out when they opened the fic and read the a/n #and how DARE people not tag it #so yeah it's not like i can escape stupid toxic top/bottom stuff #which to be clear isn't about people having a preference but is about how people talk about those preferences #but anyway i want all the good parts and not the parts i don't like lmao #like all the art and meta #but we can't have nice things because white people #standard disclaimer i am also white people

[teaveetamer]

As someone who is currently learning Japanese, I often wonder if the majority of the people who make the "in Japanese, Character X actually says this"-argument (happens in a lot of Japanese-media-related fandoms) have even the most basic understanding of the Japanese language to be honest.

Thing about Japanese is, it works completely differently from not just Indogermanic (meaning European, Indian and some Middle Eastern), but any other languages out there, even the ones it's closer related to like Chinese and Korean. That's why it's so difficult to learn Japanese: you basically have to forget everything you know about language.

Honestly, I don't think it is an inheritly bad thing this happens in fandom a lot, because in 90+% of the cases, it's about trivial stuff and can actually spawn some pretty cool fanon things. However, once someone claims they write serious meta and do not have an understanding of how Japanese works as a language (not saying all meta-writers are that way, I've seen plenty who seem to have a really good understanding of Japanese actually), it can become problematic because it not only leads to (mostly unintentional but sometimes deliberate) misinterpretations and misunderstandings, but also gives people a completely wrong impression of the language and by extension, the culture. Language and culture go hand-in-hand after all.

Of course we're all human, and mistakes, misinterpretations and misunderstandings happen. That is okay, and I don't want to tell anyone to not write Meta that takes the original Japanese versions of their source material into account. After all, plenty of people are also learning Japanese and this can be a great help. However, I think a meta should never be regarded as "more valid" because it takes the Japanese version of something into account. I also think that anyone who doesn't have Japanese as a first language and includes it in their meta should disclose this, especially if using someone else's translation to go by.

I do think that we, above all, need to remember that even people who have been speaking the language for years with a relatively high competency level can still make mistakes just because of how opaque Japanese can be sometimes.

I think it's absolutely irresponsible for someone who doesn't know much, if anything, about the language to try and use it like this without confirming with someone who does know the language really well. And I think it's obvious to everyone who saw that take that either the guy had no knowledge of Japanese and tried to read/use it anyway, or he was getting some really bad advice from someone who doesn't have a very solid understanding of it.

And mistakes happen! Mistakes are fine, so long as you correct those mistakes when they are pointed out to you, as soon as they are pointed out to you. To not do so is just irresponsible and honestly kind of offensive in this particular case. Like, you're literally treating this language and culture like a prop for your argument, regardless of what it actually says or how all of the people who have corrected you feel about it.

[yourultraarchive]

Hey! I had a quick question. I didn't want to do anything without asking. I was wondering if its okay for a white person to name their mha oc a japanese name? I don't want to like accidentally offend anyone.

Disclaimer, I am no authority on this (and I’m not Japanese). But my thoughts on the matter?

Yes, it’s okay. In regards to creating a non-white character in general, it’s no different than Kohei Horikoshi creating non-Japanese characters (ie. Aoyama who is French, Pony who is American, and Hiryu who is Chinese) as long as you’re respectful of the culture and not using it as a punchline or being racist about it. (Though admittedly Horikoshi kind of loses points there since, while those characters have depth and actual personalities and stuff, sometimes their foreign attributes are exaggerated for comedic purposes. It’s a common trope in all media, but whether you interpret it as innocent or malicious is up to you.)

In regards to naming an MHA OC with a Japanese name, it’s actually in line with the MHA canon that they can have a punny quirky Japanese name even if they’re not Japanese themselves (ie. the same characters I listed earlier, also possibly All Might since he originally came from America too if I’m remembering the first volume correctly, though in regards to Hiryu his name is doubly punny since Chinese also uses kanji/hanzi and thus he has an actual Chinese name/name reading too). There could be a lot of reasons for this, but whatever you headcanon (whether the whole world decided to speak one language because of all the quirks bringing them together, or that these characters simply just adopted Japanese names upon coming to Japan much like how foreign exchange students in America change their names to make it easier for Americans to address them), it’s most likely that these characters have Japanese names to match the naming style of the rest of the characters. So, again, if you want to name your character with a Japanese name regardless of ethnicity, in this one case (for MHA OCs!) it’s fine.

To get more general about the whole matter (ie. in regards to naming/designing/creating non-white characters as a white person for other media/fandoms/writing/etc. that’s not related to MHA):

It’s still okay to write non-white characters because that’s how you get diverse casts and representation. Often it’s the white creators who have the loudest voice (simply because of how American culture specifically kind of grew due to the history of racism and all that) and it’s usually the only way some identities get to be put before an audience (it’s getting better now of course, but in the history of filmmaking and animation and everything else? yeah that was a thing). It’s like the creators of ATLA making Asian-inspired characters and story even though they’re not Asian themselves--and also they went about the right way of doing it because they consulted with people who were of the ethnicities they were writing about or were experts in the culture/mythology/fashion or what-have-you.

Or in a less race-related example, Rebecca Sugar creating Adventure Time and Steven Universe with so much sexual diversity and representing a lot of LGBT communities in doing so (and yeah, she’s also LGBT too, but she wasn’t out of the closet at the time of those being created so the fact of the matter was that a white, apparently cis voice got noticed and heard), though yes she did represent race really well too. For more examples of very diverse casts created by people who are mostly white or white-adjacent: Orange is the New Black is a Netflix Original that features women of all ethnicities and backgrounds and originally baited people by making them think the main character was a white woman, only to turn the story to focus on all the other women in the cast; Sense8 is all about diversity seeing as their main characters live on like 5 different continents at the same time and have varying sexualities and religions and traditions; Miraculous Ladybug is a French show that has characters of Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Moroccan, and Martinique descent (among others!) as well as LGBT characters (even if they’re not allowed to outright say so because of the broadcasting networks); and How to Get Away with Murder is a show that, while mostly focused on Americans and American law/politics, had characters that were bilingual/mixed race, had a gay couple get married on screen, and had characters of different classes fairly well-represented (one of the main characters was basically the scholarship kid who got into the elite college and lives in a run-down neighborhood and all)--you don’t really get poor people represented well by rich white people, but sometimes they can highlight those issues and hopefully do it well.

That you’re worried about whether making a character of another race is a good thing actually! It means you’re thinking critically about how you’re representing another race/culture that isn’t your own, and if you’ll do it well. Keep doing that. If you’re planning to write a serious story with a diverse cast, it’s good practice to do research (at the bare minimum) on a culture you don’t know well--whether that means looking up AAVE to make sure you’re writing a black character correctly (or if you should be using AAVE at all), researching different versions of a myth to make sure you’ve got your facts straight or pick a canon (there’s different versions of many Greek myths for example, but also Norse and Japanese and so on), or finding some anecdotes about what it’s like to be an LGBT identity or part of a religion. If you want to deep dive into it, it’s also good to talk to people of that race/religion/sexuality/gender/etc. and find out the little anecdotes (like everyday living in another country, customs and traditions that may not be easily found online, etc.) and issues those identities face (hate crimes, stories about people being wary of them, etc.) and ask them to help you with your character development (like, be straight with them about it too--it’s probably rude to ask them all these things and then they find out you’ve basically made a character based on what they told you). Talk to multiple people if you can, too, since one person’s experience isn’t universal. (A really good example of this is actually Lilo & Stitch! I think you can look up the story about that, but the writers got input from actual Hawaiian people who were members of their cast/crew/staff, so they got a say in what their characters did/said!)

If you’re also worried about the aesthetic side of creating a character and not just the writing side, it is definitely a plus to be worried about misrepresenting a race/culture visually. I’ve seen a lot of character design blunders that often get people up in arms--stuff like an Asian character having not-so-Asian features like large round eyes (or too-Asian features like exaggerated slant eyes or small noses--it’s kind of a double-edged sword here), or Jewish characters having That Nose Shape, or black characters either not having the “fat lips” or having too much of it (a LOT of Japanese anime/manga is guilty of this, actually--like Mr. Popo from Dragon Ball Z, ChocoLove from Shaman King, and Sister Krone from The Promised Neverland--those exaggerated fat lips come from a blackface stereotype), or characters with an ethnic hairdo when they aren’t that ethnicity (like Afros, cornrow braids, and dreadlocks/locs), or the use of tribal tattoos or indigenous/sacred/religious imagery/ideology just because it looks cool (there was that controversy with Cyberpunk 2077 using a Maori tattoo on non-Maori characters). Just be careful of stereotypes and if they’re harmful or not (maybe read up on their history if you can), but again it’s one of those things where you should either study people/characters with those cultural identifiers or just talk to the people of those identities yourself and ask them for advice or tips on how to improve your character design.

There’s a fine line between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation, but I remember reading something years and years ago--an article about a white woman wearing a kimono and doing some Japanese traditions like New Years stuff and getting accused of cultural appropriation--but the answer she gave was that no, she wasn’t appropriating anything because she had been invited into that culture and they shared those things with her (while she was living abroad for work or study or something--I think her host family taught her those things and gave her that kimono). I think that’s where the line is drawn--it’s the difference between stealing something and being given something. People will always be excited to see more characters like them being represented on the screen or the pages of a book--but the uproar comes from when the characters who look like them aren’t anything like them (how they act, being the butt of the jokes, exaggerated features, etc.)--so you shouldn’t need to ask to depict them. You just have to genuinely want to represent them, and not a caricature of them.

The tl;dr is: just because you aren’t a certain race/sexuality/identity doesn’t mean you can’t write about it or create characters of that identity. Just do the appropriate research and always be mindful and most importantly respectful of the race/culture/identity you want your character to have!

#anonymous #asks #replies #archivist #tips #names #character design #getting started #Anonymous

[earthbovndmisfit]

I hope this isn't too weird of a message to send, but doesn't it seem like Jonawagon doujinshi are pretty uncommon? I've only seen maybe 3 posted online & I have a copy of a SpeedJona doujin but aside from those I haven't come across any. Is it like a rare pairing or something? I thought they were fairly popular

It isn’t weird at all, anon! All the opposite actually, cause I love getting asks even if i'm not always around or it sometimes takes me a hot minute to get to them gfjhkjh

This is gonna be long and probs gonna have bits that might sound rant-ish to some, but I hope that’s alright! :'D

For starters, sadly, jonawagon/jonaspeed/speedjona or however you call the ship is quite an underrated ship. This has to do partly with the wrong perceptions some folks have built around it and around the characters as well (that them both and the couple itself are the epitome of "purity" and "innocence", sometimes even labelling them as "boring" as a result even though both characters are far from that, that "it could only be a one-sided thing" on Spw's end despite both showing and sharing a certain bond/closeness towards each other -closeness that sometimes Jonathan didn't show towards anyone else-, etc), partly because of the many timeskips in PB and all the scenes the anime cut out and people wrongly assuming that the main events happened in the span of a few days and thus people dropping the ball on the ship/characters when Jonathan and Speedwagon actually knew each other for as long -sometimes even longer- than other more popular characters/ships in jjba did, partly because neither Jonathan or Speedwagon are as popular as other characters in the franchise as a whole, and also partly because, as sad as it is to say this, the ship lacks a LOT of support, especially from it's own fanbase. While jonawagon is a popular and well liked ship overall (in the sense that even general fans who don't care much about shipping, or those who are still on the fence about mlm ships, or those who just don't actively ship jonawagon actually like and support the ship or the idea of it upon seeing the actual dynamics between the characters and their potential and the fact that the ship can actually coexist with jonaeri without altering the characters/making them ooc, nor altering the story and so on), it still lacks a lot of support from it's fans. I often see most other ships/characters get lots of reblogs and exposure from their fans on literally any and all platforms, helping those ships/characters reach new audiences and gaining more popularity and drawing interest from potential new fans, while jonawagon stuff as well as solo Jonathan or Speedwagon stuff usually only get likes and a few reblogs at most from their fans, which is nice and all, but it doesn't give the artists/writers any exposure nor get those works or the ship any farther than that and just keeps them within part of the already existing fanbase at best, which often times makes the artists/content creators lose interest in continuing to create stuff for the ship/characters. This is also why I always strongly ask -almost beg at this point ngl- for people to support the artists/writers/etc via reblogs!! The ship having a bunch of different names also might have an impact on all of this, as it's not always as 'easy' to tag/find contents if you don't know how to tag/search for it. Jonawagon (normally used in the western parts of the fandom), JonaSpeed/SpeedJona (Western version of the ship's most popular names in Japanese: ジョナスピ/スピジョナ or JonaSupi/SupiJona respectively], SpeedStar (a name that became a bit more popular more recently after a mini jonawagon event in 2019), being the most common ones afaik, asides from the standard JonathanxSpeedwagon/SpeedwagonxJonathan ie and others. In short, Jonathan and Speedwagon as well as jonawagon are quite well liked and even popular to an extent, but they lack a massive amount of support from the fans, which also usually translates into artists and content creators for this ship losing interest in continuing to create new material for it and thus end up not making any more contents.

In regards to doujinshi more specifically, I’m a bit disconnected when it comes to Jojo doujinshi in general, but it seems to be a bit like that for most of the non "crazy popular" Jojo ships if you ask me, which is kinda normal considering the massive amount of characters in the whole series. Putting my experience as example, if it helps, I used to collect doujinshi from one of my previous fandoms, which had a shit ton of them for plenty of it’s ships and it was somewhat easy to acquire hard copies of despite it being an “old anime” basically while most Jojo doujinshi (especially anything that is not parts 3, 4 and 5) seems to be a bit hard to come across regardless of the ship(s) in them, even in auction sites or places like pixiv that sell digital copies if the author puts them up on sale, which is understandable since the aforementioned parts are some of the most popular parts in Japan, where most doujinshi is created, and thus take most of the fandom's interest -authors’ and readers’ alike-, as well as the hype for parts like Phantom Blood being long dead (with it being dead/dormant since the original airing of the anime ended in 2013, and it coming back ocassionally whenever there's a 'special' re-airing of PB in Japan or when events such as the Joestar Radio take place), so maybe my parameters on the whole subject are somewhat disproportionate?

This is also gonna sound all boomer-like, but I’ve also noticed, or it seems to me at least (still in comparison to the doujinshi from my previous fandom), that doujinshi books as we knew them aren’t /as/ common nowadays as they used to be a while back. Even the works themselves don’t seem to be much that way either. For example, doujinshi anthologies used to be a big thing a while back and, while they still exist, they don’t seem to be too common anymore (these worked as "promo books" of sorts for all the artists featured and they also helped lesser known/popular artists and ships to get some exposure to newer audiences). Nowadays such thing still exists, and I actually recall seeing a Jonaspeed/Speedjona anthology being made “recently” (recently as in 2019, if I’m not mistaken? it was published and sold during the mini Jonaspeed event they held at a Jojo con in Japan that year), but they aren’t nearly as common as they used to be, since now most artists can post any samples they want (much more reduced tho, cause you normally get a few pages instead of a full mini story) in places like Twitter or Pixiv. And it’s kinda the same with regular doujinshi. Before, most doujinkas had to publish a book in order to get their stuff out and get some exposure, so they were always working on new stories and making new books to sell and promoing their stuff, sometimes one after the other and even creating multi-volume stories in some cases. Now, thanks to how "easy" it is to get some exposure on social media, it’s much more common to see doujinkas for any ships/characters making short stories (1-4 pages, sometimes more) or just 1 page illustrations instead and posting them on their social media every now and then as a promo for their works. They also still make and sell their books (a few jonawagon artists on twitter do, at least), and these short stories/illustrations serve to boost their works instead, which is not a complain at all cause I think it's amazing tbqh! But this also translates into less stories/doujinshi being created as many of these artists often opt for leaving those stories that years ago would have been their own book or a mini story in a book as a prompt or a short story only.

As for actual jonawagon doujinshi, while it is not as common as say pt 3 doujinshi, there is quite a bunch of it. Some date from 2012-2013 (when the PB anime was originally aired), some are much older than that and some others are much more recent (as there are still some active jonawagon doujinkas around). There are also "fanfic books" that are also considered doujinshi and that seem to be a thing sometimes, but these contain little to no art at all and are usually written 100% in Japanese. The problem here is that not many of them have been scanlated/translated yet, sometimes because they aren't easy to find on sale online, sometimes because re-sellers who do have them set high prices for them plus shipping costs, sometimes because the artists/online shops won't sell stuff overseas, sometimes because those who do own doujinshi copies don't always know how to properly share them (since scanning a doujinshi in high or decent quality without destroying the book can be hard af) among other reasons.

All that said, there is a bunch of jonawagon doujinshi that has been scanned and is available online! but it can be tricky to get sometimes due to the different names this ship can go by and because of the "translations" of said names into different languages (as some doujinshi can only be found in Chinese sites, or Russian ones, and so on for example, so it can take some serious time to figure that out and have a successful search).

In all honesty, anon, I'm a dumdum and I had never thought about doing so in a more public manner until now, since I've already shared my entire jonawagon collection (pics, doujins, etc) with friends who have requested it more privately, but I can upload the doujins I have scans of if anyone's interested?? (I’d post the links where I found most of them but since my hd is pretty much dead and I can’t access Windows or my windows/mozilla profile, I’ve p much lost all my old bookmarks). They were only like... 8 last time I checked (9/10 if you count the Japanese and English versions of the "Joestarsaaaaan" one), but it's something :D Just be aware that some of them are nsfw! and that a couple are either part of a book that has stories from other ships in them (I only have the jonawagon parts tho) or contain other ships implied or openly shown in the jonawagon story.

I also have about 4 more, but the scanlator of one of them openly requested for the file to not be reuploaded, so Idk if it'd be alright to share it? (and they also deactivated their blog, so there's no way to ask them for permission). The other 3 are scans a friend sent to me of their own doujinshi copies, so I also don't know if it would be okay for me to post them?? (i haven't seen this friend in over a year so idk gfhgjkjlkñ). 2 of those 3 are nsfw.

#long post #super long actually oof #sorry about that #i tried to make this shorter #i swear #orz #anonymous

[ctl-yuejie]

opinion on the term bl?

uhhhhhh…very complicated. I might have written a whole rant post before on the topic on this blog on an empty stomach so it was most likely not very nuanced (I think it was about people saying that The Untamed didn’t count as BL).

buckle in, this got suuuper long

tbh i first came into contact with the term in the early 2000s and since the internet didn’t play any role at my age then, the only context I had were magazines (here in Europe) and manga publications.

I knew that BL was a whole genre in Manga and that it featured gay romance and that fans / content creators would refer to themselves at fujoshi. Now, at that time I was only figuring out that I was bi, didn’t know any Japanese and didn’t have any friends with cultural ties to Japan.

So based on the magazines I read, I started to believe that “Fujoshi” literally meant “Rotten Girl” because of the taboo of same-sex relationships and the tantalizing sense of the forbidden that comes with it.

While I read some BL manga (couldn’t tell you the titles anymore), I never referred to myself as a Fujoshi or being into BL because both terms seemed to apply only to Japanese people and the sense of “the forbidden” in regards to same-sex relationships didn’t fit to my reality (having been to a same-sex marriage with my family at age 8 etc) and also felt demeaning to me.

After learning Japanese and living in Japan I didn’t really question my aversion to the terms, since I did have access to the internet now but didn’t think of fact-checking everything I had “learned” pre-internet (I think it is important to note here that the magazines weren’t the highest in quality in terms of journalistic prowess nor scientific in any way. They were just short entertaining articles, aimed at teenagers like me, trying to profit from the still ongoing wave of japanese pop culture in the west) and my only experience with both bl content and real life fujoshi wasn’t that positive:

My feelings on BL and fujoshi culture were heavily influenced by 

- the wave of very sad and traumatizing gay movies in Japan that most of the time ended in double suicides of the main characters

- rape storylines getting romanticized in manga

- pretty heavily stereotyped gay characters in main stream tv series that were only there for comedic relief

- the Fujoshi I knew back then being weirded out by the thought of same-sex relationships between women and basing their thought on gay men solely on the content they consumed 

- not finding the hailed “subversion of traditional gender roles” or discussion thereof in the BL my friends consumed. 

- my gay friends in japan having very frustrating encounters with fujoshi who started to treat them like an open air circus and not making them feel supported in real life 

- people around me making judgments based on attractiveness on whether gay people should get supported, while the hint of a celebrity being gay was weaponized  against them

now, this pretty much sums up, why I tended to have negative thoughts on the subject and felt more sympathetic to the push from some people in the queer community in japan to please retire terms like “uke” and “seme” when talking about real people.

since then, i didn’t intervene when other female friends in japan would use the term for themselves, because it still was a term coined in japan and those people were actually supportive of queer people so i didn’t see how me being preachy about it just because of my experience and not calling myself a fujoshi or fan of bl would be of any help and/or called for.

jump to 2018/2019 and i started to read more papers about it on a whim because i started to watch Crossing The Line and for the first time in a long while I was in a fandom again where people called the genre “BL” and themselves fujoshi/fudanshi.

I came to know that what I assumed the origin story of the term “Fujoshi” to be had been misreported (shocker) by the magazines back in my youth and that apparently the term was also widely used in Thailand, Taiwan and Mainland China. especially the knowledge that apparently TERFs were behind a pushback of the term made me reevaluate my opinion.

Since I have really no insight into Chinese or Thai culture it is not on me to judge whether it is appropriate for people there to use BL as a genre signifier etc and from all I have read, in some cases it is really about finding a way of creating and distributing queer content in a place that is not lgbtqi+ friendly or use it as means of finding expressions for one’s own sexuality etc.

Obv. there are genre conventions I will get annoyed about and criticize (all female characters are evil etc) but those things are also not BL exclusive so there’s not much sense in condemning a whole genre that at least tries to push some conventions.

With the Internet and a global push for more lgbtqi+ rights there is now definitely a strong symbiotic relationship between queer content and real life social changes. so being harder on queer content (in general) because it isn’t perfect doesn’t make anything better for queer people. 

nowadays there has been some wonderful content in japan with a push for real life legal changes as well, taiwan has the marriage for all and thailand is also pushing for a civil union for everyone.

especially in the case of mainland china with strict censorship rules i will congratulate anyone who tries to sneak some ambiguity in. it saddens me that the rules are as strict and that there are even more hardships for lgbtqi+ people in real life but i would never say that not creating any content that could be interpreted as queer should be favoured over trying to do something, regardless of how lacking the result might seem. 

The reason why I ranted about BL as a genre term recently was mostly directed at western fans with no cultural ties to any of the aforementioned cultures, but i definitely didn’t stress that enough in my previous post.

Since I still don’t call myself a fujoshi or being into the BL genre I am suspicious of western fans calling themselves as such. because i project my own experience and knowledge on them and there are people out there who definitely emphasize the cheeky “rotten” side of themselves while not knowing (like past me) where the term comes from and that it does’t have to do with any “forbidden fruit”. i assume a certain laziness when straight people will try and convince me that they are allies to me, because they consume BL series, but will still call me “the man” in the relationship etc.

There can definitely be a need for a similar outlet that allows people to write about gender roles, sexualities etc in a similar way but very often the argument of “it is female empowerment to be into BL” is just warping the origin story of the term into an excuse for homophobic statements. I see the term get applied to western shows as well (when there isn’t a need for using a Japanese term, especially not when there’s a missing understanding of its origin) and actual mlm shows in asia being dismissed just because it doesn’t fit the BL genre conventions (point and example: people in the west discounting The Untamed as mlm content because they weren’t explicit about it; What Did You Eat Yesterday getting dismissed because of similar reasons and the diversion from presumed age and beauty standards of BL as a genre). That way western fans made BL feel quite restrictive and not interchangeable with mlm anymore, which just confounds me.

in the end it also comes down to scope: someone writing fanfiction, producing small indie series cannot really be harmful even when they content might seem so. so regardless of what the genre entails it is important to put everything in perspective and whether this is the hill someone wants to die on, instead of leaving space for artistic expression, cultural differences and celebrating the steps into a more loving world for all.

tl;dr: I feel many emotions; there’s always space to learn more and I am grateful to everyone who made posts about the racism in criticizing the terms “Fujoshi” / “BL”; I don’t use the term myself, but only feel wary when westerners use it; personally I prefer to use mlm or wlw as content describers but I am also not 100% satisfied with that as well

ask me my opinion on ______

#ctlyuejie writes #ask game #ctlyuejie rants #long post #lovely mutuals are lovely #this is mostly to sort my own thoughts #thank you for the ask and sorry for the word vomit

[izzyizumi]

* do not reblog ( personal ) [re: Kizuna film early screenings]

regarding the Kizuna early Japan screening on February 4th !

[ and the other earlier screening on Feb 2nd for those in Japan who were lucky ]

* I will likely be following spoilers up to a point at least until Feb 2nd

* a.k.a if Toei decides to grace us with ONE more trailer or such before the official release (as trailers would be official content) I will likely try to cover / attempt to analyze anything new happening in it regardless

* I may also be following spoilers from either of the Kizuna tie-in novels (as they are official sources) or the short story films (provided we even get spoilers)** ** this may be unlikely we’d even get them in time ** however it’s unlikely I’d reblog much of these here before the official movie release too regardless ** IF I DO they’ll be tagged ‘ Kizuna spoilers ’, ‘ Kizuna novels spoilers ’, ‘ Kizuna short stories spoilers ’ etc. or things along those lines

* starting around Feb 2nd - Feb 4th I WILL likely disengage with the wider fandom more

* i.e. if a ton of anti-Adventure sentiment starts happening again you will not see me participating in this

* DO NOT DRAG ME into the above either  [ DO. NOT ] ( especially if you are getting any spoilery info from secondhand sources i.e. double-translated means [such as when spoilers are translated from Japanese -> Chinese -> English], spoilers dropped via certain forums ** etc. etc. ) - I don’t mind “spoilers without context” to an extent but PLEASE understand you may be losing canonical contexts with such spoilers via these means ** I probably shouldn’t even have to say which “”certain forum”” I’m referring to here but like, yeah

* Basically while I don’t mind spoilers to an extent

I WILL BE AVOIDING EXTENSIVE SPOILERS-RELATED DISCUSSIONS UNTIL THE OFFICIAL US RELEASE / OR WHENEVER WE CAN OFFICIALLY SEE THE FILM OURSELVES PLEASE RESPECT THIS

Thank you.

( note: commenting respectfully/positively is ok )

#izzyizumi blog psa #izzyizumi text #izzyizumi blog rules #izzyizumi blog commentary #izzyizumi blog notice #kizuna #(YEAH BASICALLY THIS.........) #(I will probably follow spoilers up to a point) #(EVERYTHING will be tagged but yeah) #(I AM NOT going to post or comment on extensive spoilers should they show up on a ''''certain forum'''' until I actually see the film) #(for MYSELF) #(THIS WAS A HUGE PROBLEM DURING TRI RELEASES) #(PEOPLE just ... flipping out over spoilers that were dropped COMPLETELY without contexts) #(me ' yeah no I'm not doing that ') #(so like please actually respect what's stated here when it comes to me yeah .....) #(TBH I DON'T LIKE MAKING PSA POSTS LIKE THIS IF I DON'T HAVE TO BUT) #(YEAH JUST FLASHBACKS TO WHEN TRI SPOILERS DROPPED and then lies down with head in hands) #(basically Toei WHY THIS TOEI I'VE BEEN SUPPORTING YOU but yes . US release isn't until March 25th . sobs) #(*THAT SAID to clarify I don't mind if others DO follow the spoilers of course but like) #(yes please just understand you may not have all the contexts etc etc....) #(please understand if you see spoilers from that ''''certain forum'''' that they may be biased especially in) #(biased in overly negative ways etc.) #(this happened during Tri too and it was just . yeah)

[spicedrobot]

I find human Zenyatta to trouble me a little. He isn't human. It's what makes him stand out as an individual. I understand that making him human makes him much easier to write. He can have honestly anything as a robot, just gotta be creative with descriptions. I don't care if he's human or omnic. There is a LOT more human zen out there than regular Zenyatta. Feels like people don't like classic zen at all and want to change him. Makes me sad. Really i just want to see more zen content period!

I’ve been asking around and it seems like at the very least human!zen to canon!zen content is at most 50/50. When you check Ao3 and filter by human Zenyatta, there’s only around 50 fics vs the 800+ ones for the main pairing tag. I’m gonna take a guess and say that human Zenyatta is a minority, even factoring in if the author had neglected to add that tag to their fic.

I’m guessing it could also seem skewed because robots are fucking hard to draw and why struggle when you can just draw a human Zenyatta instead? Consider the genyatta-ss and the genyatta zine that came out in 2017: most of the works featured omnic!Zen with a few human!Zens peppered here and there.

As for his robotic form making him stand out: For me, one of the main reasons I was attracted to Zenyatta in the first place was his personality. I didn’t start out as a robotfvcker. I LOVE wise teacher types that are kind at heart and are attentive to the needs of others but also know when to stand and fight (Mordin, Saint Walker, etc.). To me, that is the true essence of Zen, regardless of how he looks. Zen would still be my favorite character even if he were human, ghost, alien, w/e. Not to say that being an omnic doesn’t add to his coolness, it really gives a neat twist to an otherwise pretty standard archetype. (It’s a shame that other characters weren’t painted with the same creative brush Mer//cy, S//76 who could be from any game series and they wouldn’t be out of place.)

Also in regards to Zenyatta and his human appearance from a inclusivity angle: I love that human Zenyatta is depicted as a dark-skinned (nepalese) asian. Besides Symm, there’s only east-asian asian characters. I almost think it’s a shame that they missed out on that opportunity to include someone from that region, especially since when asians get any spotlight in mainstream media they are almost always korean, chinese, and/or japanese.

I can definitely see where you’re coming from, and I get it may be disheartening that a fandom interpretation is hogging popularity from what is canon. But if I’m gonna be honest, I enjoy human!Zenyatta being popular because I feel it’s a gateway to people liking omnic!Zenyatta a little more (i.e. creating more robofucks like me). 

Also again, having a mouth and cute other human parts for Genji to tease is ALWAYS a draw for me lmao lays down

#en talks #long post #asks #disc horse #maybe #idk i don't mean to be an ass but i just... #feel really protective over human zen because i feel he gets pushback a lot #lays down #anonymous