No title available
Jules of Nature
if i look back, i am lost
wallacepolsom
AnasAbdin
Keni
Today's Document
@theartofmadeline
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
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Love Begins
Kaledo Art
dirt enthusiast
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
cherry valley forever
h
Andulka
🪼
titsay
styofa doing anything
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Netherlands
seen from United States
seen from Finland
seen from Germany
seen from Canada
seen from Chile
seen from United States
seen from Spain
seen from Switzerland
seen from Singapore
seen from United States
seen from Japan
seen from Finland
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seen from Canada
seen from Italy
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seen from United States
@mostlyforthegame
Furina truly character of all time she's literally just what would happen if Marie Antoinette was an influencer and also Jesus.
My very own Furina playlist, by request:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/13Q8Kvqa8e5WdccnzN4KkE?si=UHxWQGb7SaymPOIrWm8x6w&pi=a-UhvG2Y_TRbCc
@mostlyforthegame hope this works <3
Tysm!!<3
The vibes are so Furina I love it.
Cloud retainers quest really reminded me of how much I love Shenhe. Literally the personification of the 'shes at that age where girls have only one thing on their mind' meme
its criminal how underutilised the fact that lwj is just wearing mourning clothes all the time is in fandom. wheres my victorian widow lan wangji
Also i have been considering this and the most one to one transcription of lwj to a modern au would infact be as hot scary antisocial goth
I just know wei wuxian's bereal account would be crazyy
tfc is such a special book tho like normally it would take a few chapters to completely fall in love w the main character but w neil josten ur in the second sentence and suddenly ur holding adoption papers and u have no idea that in a few hours ur gonna be tryna make ur way as a single parent of 9 broken misfits in a cruel world of ravens imaginary sports and the japanese mafia like wow thats Special
I'm going so insane rn I have such a good idea for a Renison fic but unfortunately I cannot write.
If the fic in my head actually existed it would fix me
Potion Vendor FAQs:
What’s your name? I am the Honorable Alchemist Zykocea the Radiant, but that’s mostly just a PR thing. My friends call me Zoe.
Do you sell love potions? No.
Do you sell potions of invisibility? No.
Do you sell fire resistance potions? No.
Why do I have a suitcase? Fuck if I know. Cool outfit though. Very goth.
Do you sell a potion to treat brain hemorrhaging? No.
So what CAN your potions do? I sell health potions.
Are you sure these are health potions? They do something to your health.
Is this just ditch water with some pink glitter? No.
Really? I’ll have you know I added some fruit juice too.
Why is this starting to sound like a conversation? Oh just you wait. We’re just getting started.
Hey MDZS fandom. I want you guys to be careful interacting with this person.
If you don't already know, Chinese people have had a long history with cultural erasure when it comes to taking on English-language names. It started with imperialism, and continues as a way to "assimilate" and avoid mockery of our language in western countries.
For Chinese diaspora like myself, it's another form of racism we face, to the point where some of us are reclaiming our names in everyday life. Here's an article about this movement happening across Asian diasporas in the United States -- just to name one instance out of many.
The responses to this post reflect that:
You can see that my comment assumed "good faith." However, OP deleted these comments and blocked me. (That didn't stop other people from calling it out as well, though I have to assume that if OP was so offended by my comment, the next few people will receive the same treatment.)
I honestly didn't like whipping up the diaspora statement -- that I wrote with multiple Chinese diaspora fans of MDZS, all of us hailing from multiple different countries and backgrounds, our ancestry coming from completely different regions of China -- because it meant that we were encountering another microaggression.
If you ever wonder why MDZS and danmei fandoms in general seem to be so bereft of Chinese diaspora voices, that's absolutely because of these microaggressions: Someone makes a joke, writes a story, writes some meta, that is culturally ignorant at best, offensive and harmful at worst, and when we gently correct them, explaining why it's racist, the person in question shuts us down, dismisses us, gets defensive, or worse.
Regardless of where you are -- fandom, social media, on the street, at work, at school -- as long as you are interacting with other people, your words matter and affect other people. That includes being racially offensive, even if you didn't intend to be. It's how you respond to the people you've insulted that reveals your character, how willing you are to be complicit in their mistreatment.
My rule of thumb has always been this -- if multiple people, including those of the culture you've just made a microaggressive joke about, find it unfunny, racist, or harmful, then you listen. Dismiss or ignore them, then yes -- you absolutely are racist.
Thank you for speaking up <3
For those who need another example, please read this personal essay by a Vietnamese-American author from the New Yorker about this very thing. I've put a gift link below. You can also find it here.
A relevant quote, emphasis mine:
I can’t write about my name without writing about racism, and I can’t write about racism without writing about violence. I remember being a kid and hearing my dad and uncles whispering about the murder of Vincent Chin, in Detroit, in 1982. Today, I talk to my kids about the murder of six Asian women in Atlanta. I’m teaching them about colonization, Orientalism, and anti-Asian immigration laws. About what happens when Asians and Asian-Americans are made invisible except as targets of derision or as ideals of behavior—as ways to create fear, enforce compliance, and shore up racism against Black, Latinx, and indigenous people. Of course, my children worry. We’ve all been worried for years. These days, we are extra careful when we leave the house. Yet, all my life, America has told me that I’m overreacting. That it is still O.K. to laugh at Asian names, still O.K. to make fun of Asian people—those weird foreigners who all look the same and have those hilarious, ugly accents. I know that it’s still O.K. because it keeps happening, in media and in real life. And, when it does, and Asian people express anger about it, they are countered with “you’re too sensitive; it’s just a joke.” I get it—the joke is more important than our existence.
Reblogging this to add that while I did vent about this personally last night when I saw that post cross my dash, this is a good writeup. Read the stuff in the writeup! The rest of this is kind of just still me going :/ at personal experiences.
(For the record, the top comment in that last screenshot that has yet to be deleted as of my writing this is mine. I fully expect the OP of that post to delete it bc it's unfairly aggressive or w/e).
I have seen people in my follows list and an author I previously quite respected (who has in fact, interacted with my work) in the notes of this post, blithely thinking nothing of this casual racism. Most ironic are the people who have "End OTW Racism" set as their profile photos interacting with this post like it's "oh haha funny."
The two biggest things that people hounded and bullied me over irl from 6th to 12th grade was 1) my obviously not white person name that I refuse to substitute with my white person middle name in public spaces and 2) the food I brought in when I brought lunch from home. I could tell you appalling comments and stories about plenty of these things but that's too heavy on main probably! Understandably, I now have a hair trigger temper for both these two things! Who knew that seven years of being made fun of for these things would lead to this? Shockedpikachu.jpeg.
People do not see the racism being perpetuated against Asian diaspora as "real racism." Often, we are told to shut up and go away, or that we're being too "sensitive" when we bring up, quite gently, that these issues are real and that they're important to us. So so often, we are lumped into this model minority mindset (upper middle class/upper class/wealthy/goes to good colleges/unfairly taking up too many spaces in post high school education/academia/etc) by everyone as some sort of diet lite white people, without any recognition that our lives are still, no matter how seemingly privileged, shaped by systems that are unfairly stacked against us, that we are no monolith and that actively works against us.
No time has this been more true than in the wake of Covid. I don't want to get too heavy on main about it, but the Chinatown Riots in the city where I was born and grew up which were directly sparked by angry anti-asian sentiment whipped up by politicians for political benefit have been incredibly difficult to deal with. My dad works in the city once a week. We have longtime friends who live there, who were there in their living spaces above the shops, when windows were being smashed downstairs.
This might be a microaggression but the real aggression and danger never goes away.
I thought that like, as a fandom, we would at least have some concept of this and that hey! maybe this is bad!, since it's 2023. But overall I'm just bitterly disappointed.
Thank you guys for the above.
I just want to add that we keep referencing Asian American experiences and works, because, well, this is a USA-made, US user-dominant site and that's what many of us are, but it absolutely happens outside of this country as well. As long as you are Asian in the west, you will face anti-Asian, anti-Chinese racism.
I have lived in North America and western Europe, and the everyday microaggressions, discrimination, and racial harassment I faced have been the same. (Here's an article that goes deeper into it, and the same dismissiveness we face throughout different regions of Europe.)
Reblogging this for personal story time.
Reading this post and the replies made me think of my own father, who left his home as a young man to find work in a western country. My father found a job as a paralegal in a very old and famous law firm, where he was the only Chinese person in a sea of white men (this was the 60s/70s where law firms were considerably more male-dominated). There, his white boss and coworkers constantly belittled him and made fun of his name. No one was outrightly physically violent — it was a “professional” industry after all — but he suffered many indignities there. They’d not-so-subtly freeze him out of conversations and opportunities, speak louder and slower in his presence as though worried he had trouble understanding, and arguably worst of all — bestowed upon him an English name without his consent.
In one single instant, my father stopped being Hong Siguang, and became Edward Hong instead. (not real names) He never agreed to the name, never capitulated to the badgering to let them call him “Mr Guang” instead of “Mr Hong”, never retaliated when they pronounced his given name in nasal singsong voices and put their hands on the corners of their eyes whenever he walked into a room.
My father still bears the name Edward to this day. He refuses to let go of it, simply because people are more likely to spell it correctly and less likely to make fun of him. Yet, the source of convenience remains a source of deep pain. When I was born, my father insisted on writing an English name for me on my birth certificate. “To make it easier,” he’d mumbled, when I asked. “Choose your own name so they can’t choose one for you.”
I’m not going to lie. My English name has opened doors. It has helped me make friends and form connections, particularly when I studied abroad in a western country. I was a person, someone who was seen and remembered and invited along for outings, because of my name. When I give my English name, especially in a western context, I am much more likely to be treated with respect.
I still live in Asia where I was born. But still the roots of generational hurt run far and deep. Even here, outside of the west, there are people being forced to erase their given names; the names that give them the connection to their own culture and history. (Here’s an article that touches on on the erasure of Chinese Indonesian names) I’m so disappointed to find that these attitudes and microaggressions that plagued my father in the 70s still pervade even today, in fandom, and especially in a fandom centered on our very language and culture.
And yet. I will always be jing to myself, and to my closest friends and family, and especially to my parents, who intended the name as a wish, but who knew what would happen, and who worried about my place in the world as I bore it.
Jing's post brought up a lot of feelings for me so I guess it's Panda story time too.
I was born in China and immigrated to Canada when I was pretty young. I never took on an "English" name so the only name I have is my Chinese name. I was brought up in a pretty non-diverse suburb, but there were a few other Chinese kids in my year. Invariably, at the beginning of each new school year, I had to hear the teachers fumble my name and ask "Do you have an English name?"
I grew up in the 2000s/early 2010s.
I had the whole shebang of kids asking me if I eat dog, pulling the corners of their eyes to make them look slanted, say that all Chinese people look the same, "Ching Chong Yin Yang," making terrible puns on my name, etc. This all happened in the mid to late 2000s.
The pronunciation of my name always trips people up. When people ask me how to say it, I tell them it's exactly as it's spelled - except it isn't exactly as it's spelled, it's just how teachers and kids and people chose to pronounce my name when I got to Canada and that's what's stuck to me. These days, I mostly introduce myself by my last name which is also easier to pronounce (and always pronounced incorrectly lol), but even as recently as a couple years ago, I had a supervisor ask me if I had an "English" name. At the time, it didn't even feel offensive, just more of what I was used to! I never did take an "English" name in the end - no name ever felt as right to me as my given name, though I have considered it over the years. When people ask me my name for orders, I've chosen to give an initial rather than take the time to spell it, then hear them get it wrong. I'm lucky that I've never been put in the position of Jing's dad who was given a name and stripped of his identity, but I sometimes wonder how much I strip myself of it by conceding to making life easier for others.
I've also had the opposite happen where someone demands to know "how it's really pronounced" even though I've introduced myself. I know that comes from a good place, but that also always makes me uncomfortable - I know they won't say it right unless they've studied tonal languages and most of the time, the people saying this have not. It puts me in a weird position where it feels like I owe them gratitude for doing something like this? But I'd really rather they just not?
There's been lots of talk about racism of late, and though I wish I could say all the overt racism I've faced was in the past, it isn't true. I was in an Uber to the airport one week ago when I, a visibly East Asian person, was forced to listen to my driver rant about how "the Chinese are buying all our property and driving the prices up," as if 1) we aren't even allowed to live here and 2) it hasn't already been debunked and addressed. Then the guy turned around and asked me "so, what's your background?"
I really hope that the younger generations of people with "ethnic" names face this less and less. I really hope that people can become more open-minded to people from all kinds of backgrounds, but I'm not holding my breath. I gave my little brother an "English" name when he was born for a reason.
I originally didn't want to get too into the personal details of this because it's always been a sore point for me, but Jing and Panda's stories have shaken something lose here, that I feel is...important to share, so I guess it's further story time from me too.
My family is like a lot of families in this thread.
My parents, like many other people in this thread, immigrated to the United States in the 90s, they brought with them my three year old older sister. Over the course of being here, they've often struggled with the English speaking world. My dad, for many reasons because he talks to a lot of white people, took on the name "Ed" for ease of interaction with both his colleagues and his customers. I have never asked him where Ed came from, or why Ed, but I feel like given the corporate environment he used to work in and the way that his own name is "difficult" to pronounce phonetically, that likely his experiences were similar to Jing's.
My family can trace the pressures of assimilation and westernization through the names of its three daughters though all of us share the same generational stem as our cousins back in China. My older sister, born in China, has a Chinese first name. I, born several years after my parents immigrated to the United States have a Chinese first name, and an English middle name given to me by my older sister that these days I only use at Starbucks. My younger sister has an English first name and a Chinese middle name that no one uses or even really knows about.
Like Panda, I grew up seeing people pull the corners of their eyes up at me, being mocked relentlessly for refusing to share my middle name (my previous tormentors decided that it was probably "chew chew" for I guess, chow mein or something along those lines), told I would turn into a rice ball when I was three and the preschool teacher got tired of heating up my packed lunch, at one memorable occasion dressed down for not wearing a wedding ring by an old woman who thought I was married to my father (I was thirteen at the time). The list goes on.
These things...endure. At one point, I thought that growing up would mean change, especially as I moved away from the predominantly white area I was raised in. In college, I have been told I speak English well ("I can barely tell you have an accent!"), as if this is...a compliment, when in fact, I am an American citizen. I have always been an American citizen, and I have lived in this state all my life, the same as many of my white peers. My accent, therefore, is standard for this area, but even compliments force me to defend my identity.
In college, too, I have been told by one professor, that my nonfiction writing about my family and my father's hometown in Hubei reads as "exotic." My ties with my identity are...complex. As I've said before, I've never lived in China, and yet it's always an integral part of me, my hobbies, my fandoms, my writing, my food, my family, my life. And it's never been something that I've wanted to forget, but so often, I have felt uprooted in American society as well, though it's been the only one I've ever moved through. There's always a sense of othered-ness to it, in a way. No one will ever look at me and assume that I grew up here, the same as they did. I know what it will take for them to meet me on that level, and I know I will never be able to attain it merely from the way that I look.
In the end, I'm not entirely certain what to say about it all, except that I see everyone who's been talking about this lately, and my heart fucking breaks for all of us.
I see you. We aren't alone.
OP here. When I wrote the original post, I wasn't sure how it would be received. I just know I was sick of seeing this pattern of people making racially degrading remarks and jokes about us, then dismissing us when we speak out, burying the evidence and marking us as a mob that can't take a joke, likes to bully innocent fans, or whatever whatever form their gaslighting takes.
I originally took screenshots of my comment and the comments of other people calling it out because I'd seen this pattern so many times. I knew once I commented, it would go one of two ways: OP would have been receptive, acknowledging our misgivings by deleting the post or learning from what we had to say (an apology is not required; I do not chase apologies, but rather an open mind and reduced harm to my community)...or doubling down, dismissing us, painting us as oversensitive antis. And I was tired of seeing the latter happen, with the evidence deleted and no one learning anything. Had OP responded in a non-dismissive, non-microaggressive fashion, no one would have ever seen those screenshots.
Every group that has experienced marginalization knows that we have never been silent about our issues. It's just that people don't want to listen. I'm so happy that the final result of my post was a massive response where we Chinese diaspora (and Southeast Asian, and Jewish, just to name a few of the other groups who came forward!) could lean into each other and share our stories in solidarity and support of each other. The end result was people actually listening.
I am also going to share my own experience as an ABC (American Born Chinese):
Unlike a lot of Chinese in the west, I grew up in an area where we are the majority. Most of us are Chinese, but we are overall filled to bursting with different Asian groups. Yes, we were often harassed for our faces and language. My white neighbors were angry at our mere presence, so they let their dogs shit on our lawns. They would threaten my family by coming to our door with scissors in hand. They painted over our license plates. They told us to go back to our country. They would tell us to "speak English," even when we were. We never stood down. We yelled, we reported them to the authorities, even though of course the cops didn't do anything. What was important was that we never suffered in silence.
And of course, we had each other. Our white neighbors were angry because we spoke to each other in our language and built a community off of it. Our doctors, grocers, mechanics, lawyers, and accountants were Chinese, speaking to each other in Mandarin, Cantonese, English, Shanghainese, Fujianese. We all have our own unique relationship with our identity, but I know for sure that I was never ashamed of who I am.
So hearing horror stories from Chinese people, and Asian diaspora in general, who grew up in white suburbia is frustrating, but understandable. When I went to college in the white suburbs in America, and then lived in western Europe, I was often the only person who protested microaggressions and racism. Nagging, invasive questions like "where are you originally from?" and "are your parents traditional?" Nobody was willing to understand why I would object to these comments. They tried to explain to me why those questions were innocent and harmless, despite the fact that they are rooted in the assumption that my people have never belonged to our own country, that we live "traditionally," AKA with backwards ideals that do not hold up to western progress. They did not believe my experience or personhood were worthy of respect. Most people in the room would whisper about staying away from me, how I was prickly, easily offended, or angry for no reason. You're getting gaslit from all sides. I never stood down, but it was infuriating. So I understand that when Asians who grew up in white suburbia are strangely tolerant of their mistreatment, or make excuses for racist remarks, it isn't because of a moral failing. It is simply because they were trying to survive in their environment.
It was rough, but I have never taken nothing less than what we deserve. Yes, it was hard to make friends in these white-majority spaces, but I did. And my friends from there are the most thoughtful, considerate people I know.
Growing up in my Asian-majority neighborhood, a lot of our teachers were white. (Many were Jewish, in fact!) We faced microaggressions there too, but I always think I'm lucky to have had the overall experience I did. When my teachers came across an Asian name on the roster, they would read it without batting much of an eye. Because we were a majority Asian neighborhood, it was well-known that even if our names on the roster were in Asian languages, some of us adopted English names. So the question was never, "Do you have an English name or something easier to pronounce?" but rather "Do you have another name you prefer?" The difference here is that it was less about shaming us, and more about considering our practices.
Hell, some students even had a reverse situation, where they adopted an English name, but once we found out their Asian names, we would fondly refer to them by that name! And if they preferred their English name, we would switch back to that. Our pronunciation of their Asian names wasn't perfect, but all of this was done out of endearment, not shame or mockery.
So yes. If you think there isn't a better alternative, or that microaggressions are just a reality you have to accept, fuck all that noise. It can be better. I know this because I have lived it.
I’m an transracial/transnational Chinese adoptee. Which means that my Chinese birth name was erased by my white adoptive parents when I was taken to the US as a baby. They kept my Chinese given name as a middle name, and gave me an English middle name, another English middle name, and a very white coded last name.
Even other people of color (but never East or Southeast Asians) — and definitely white people — often ask me what my “real” name is, or “why/how” I have my last name. Even in professional settings! Even at checkout counters! Even by strangers! There’s something immensely painful about knowing this is all literally the legacy of ongoing global imperialism/white supremacy and that I was literally legally human trafficked as a baby across borders with unreliable paperwork, to be separated from my own community and heritage, and yet where I live I’m expected to perform “being exotic” while constantly complimented on my English (it’s my first language because again, where I grew up), asked where I’m “really” from (with all the echoes of racist history/present), or asked by strangers to interpret various East and Southeast Asian languages I don’t speak.
favorite character from any media BUT it has to be a woman. in the tags now go (pls talk to me about your favorite fictional women pls pls pls pls)
all demographics and time periods and geography taken fully into consideration, some people were just born to lose
was thinking of this guy when i made this post. invented the two most environmentally damaging chemicals in history and then got polio and immediately killed himself with a contraption
"one-man environmental disaster"
Honestly the most interesting thing about the renison dynamic to me is how they're opposites, how getting better means the opposite thing to both of them. Like renee whose always lived a life of violence finds solace in kindness and peace even if it means suppressing herself and allison whose always been forced to repress and conform needs to be herself even if it means antagonizing the people around her. Also they're best friends.
and they should kiss
Honestly the most interesting thing about the renison dynamic to me is how they're opposites, how getting better means the opposite thing to both of them. Like renee whose always lived a life of violence finds solace in kindness and peace even if it means suppressing herself and allison whose always been forced to repress and conform needs to be herself even if it means antagonizing the people around her. Also they're best friends.
Furina truly character of all time she's literally just what would happen if Marie Antoinette was an influencer and also Jesus.
reblog if it's okay for your mutuals to message you and create an actual friendship, not just interactions
Yes. Please be a human with me.
Yes. Please. I have hardly any friends and I'm a little weird, but I'd love some company in my strange world!!
why were adams descriptions about ronan in trc low key like:
“wow he’s so sharp and pointy…angular, like a knife. he looks like he could cut you…. he reminds me of a metallic object with the way he could glide among pages. he is like a knife… but also a boy… two knives maybe…”
like?? is ronan a pair of scissors ??
adam parrish being just a little villain-coded is so fun to me. it never stops tickling me that the set-up WAS THERE for him to betray gansey in a worse version of the story — he was the rejected member of the love triangle, he was bitter about gansey's privilege, he's methodically ambitious about getting his in a dog-eat-dog world. in TRB, when he stole the camaro, ran off and killed whelk, that COULD'VE been the beginning of a villain arc.
but he loves his friends too much to let them go, and his friends love him too much to let him go. so he's their fucked-in-the-head sly friend who blackmails people with made-up child murder and scams rich harvard students with fake readings and pathologically lies like he breathes <3 something so wrong with him but he's a good guy <3
has this been done before
