#long post when expanded

[starberry-cupcake]

An uncle told me my tattoos were in "clumsy" places because the skin would sag there when i get old. I told him: i plan on gaining weight every year so the skin doesnt wrinkle anywhere on my body.

And he didnt know what to say to that. Asshole family members need to keep their mouths shut!!

That's a good response! It's hard to stand up for oneself sometimes in these kinds of situations.

Long thoughts on fatphobia and body perception under the cut...

In my case, I know they didn't mean any harm, I know they love me and I feel kind of guilty venting about it online, but I needed to let it out in the moment because it was sad and I don't think I deserved it. We kind of talked it over it a little bit and they took it back, but I know this is an issue (their perception of my weight) that's been present my whole life and it's not gonna go away, at least now it isn't as bad as it was when I was a kid or a teen.

I was trying to make them understand that I was never thin and I never will be thin, because they witnessed first hand everything I was put through since before I was even 10 yo to lose weight, without absolutely no success. All the doctors, specialists, wellness gurus, diets, products, fasting, tools, etc etc I was put through until I reached an adult age in which I stood up for myself and was like "enough, this is me". They were there when I was hospitalized as a kid for pneumonia and, even if I barely ate anything, I wasn't putting down weight at all. My body and my health situation are like this and I will never be thin, the moment I accepted that, my life changed.

I can be more active, I can be more aware of whatever habits can be better for me (a lot of which I normally do and I pointed it out to them in the conversation). But this is how my body and metabolism are and I have enough from doctors who don't believe me when I tell them what I actually eat, because it's easier for them to act like I'm a liar than to realize their methods don't work for me, so having someone who sees it first hand to be like "do you want to inject yourself, then?" is a low blow.

I realized, through a lot of therapy, that a big part of the things I go through mental health wise have to do with my relationship with my body. Even though it might sound easy enough to realize, given the state in which the world has always treated fat folk, it wasn't as easy for me to see.

I realized that I'm scared of my body.

It's hard for me to be aware through my bodily perception or to listen to the warning signs of my body when I fear it and I feel, somewhere deep within, even if I've never hated myself for my fatness, that it's something to be guilty about. Every sign of discomfort is an alarm I feel I have to run away from and it comes with the pain of knowing doctors will think I deserve it for being fat, because it's what I've been told many times before.

There's fear and shame and guilt all mixed together in an OCD cocktail.

What I realized today though, was that the perfectionism and "not good enough"-ness that I feel also has a lot to do with my context's treatment of my body throughout my life. It's not the only factor, but it's a bigger factor than I ever understood. Because, through all of it, what my head learned is that, no matter what I achieve or what I do or who I become, I did it while "being fat", and that's "not good enough". I might be, for example, a University graduate, but I'm a fat University graduate, so there's always going to be that "stain", in the context that I grew up in.

The hardest part of this unlearning process is that, in fat activism, a lot of the work that is done to value yourself and to process your feelings about your body are rooted in two things I never cared about: attractiveness and aesthetic value. It's focused on being desired/ wanted or feeling pretty.

When disorders are discussed, or when body perception is discussed, a lot of it has to do with value and worth in the perception of beauty or attraction, and that has never affected me so, for the longest time, I thought I was ok with my body. If I didn't care about feeling desired (because I'm aroace) and if I didn't care about people's perception of my aesthetic sense (because I have full confidence in the things I like), then that meant I was ok with my body.

But that's not necessarily true.

There isn't enough conversation about the fear you can learn to have due to the constant health warnings and how they make you feel that, if you are sick in any way, you "brought it upon yourself" and "you deserve it" because you're fat and that is "your choice" and "not enough willpower".

They don't talk enough about how things that are unrelated to your body, like achieving something, can also be tainted by the fact that, when fat, you always are seen as "not good enough" by default, no matter what the achievement is and whether your body even has anything to do with it.

So, I've been learning all the ways in which my relationship with my body affects my mental health, when I thought, for the longest time, that it didn't. And still learning, every day, how to be kind and compassionate to my body, even when others aren't.

Learning that having confidence in my clothes or not caring about how people see me aesthetically doesn't mean I am confident in my body, when I have an anxiety episode every time an infection starts rearing its head and I am mortified and ashamed of losing control of my body instead of treating it with kindness, patience and compassion.

Because I know that if I had the guarantee that, whatever happened with me regarding health or life, I would be treated with compassion and not blamed for it, a lot of that pressure would be lifted from me. If I had full confidence that, whatever happened to me, I wouldn't be blamed for my pain and would be taken care of with kindness, a lot of my fears would be less severe.

I'm walking my own path one step at a time but I also have to accept that not everyone will understand it the way I do.

[starberry-cupcake]

Some thoughts about media consumption, fanwork and fandom issues that came about while pondering the Welcome Home situation.

I want to think out loud about how wild and complicated this situation seems to have gotten due to the way in which online fandom has normalized media-consuming practices, to the point in which it's become automatic and homogenizes art and media, regardless of where it comes from.

Fanwork hasn't only become an expected part of fandom activity, fans these days know how to monetize content before learning about intellectual property or developing any nuance on the origins of art, perceived in a depersonalized way as just "content".

In the past decade, it became customary on tumblr for Fandom Elders and Not So Elders to receive hate whenever they pointed out that, for example, adding self-profiting links on fics in AO3 is not allowed for legal reasons.

There was a very famous tumblr take that went as far as to suggest that fic writers "couldn't charge for and successfully sell" their fics because "writing is dismissed" in fandom, in comparison to fan art. This take didn't acknowledge that both forms of profit are actually illegal (added note: public domain in some countries still is legally bound to a tax payment), or that fanfic was historically more attacked by mainstream authors, which reinforced the culture of copyright understanding, or that fan art tends to be more easily separated from canon due to visual likeness differences, etc.

The general perception became that profiting from fanwork is "a safe thing to do" even if, in reality, profiting from copyrighted material without the legal authorization of the copyright holder is a decision fans should make knowingly of the legal consequences it carries for themselves and the fanwork community and platforms.

There was a fandom push and pull with this reality because of moral grounds and a popular perception of unequal footing between the fan part and the canon part.

It was perceived, in general, that fan content comes from an independent creator and canon comes from a Company or a Professional Author with Company Backing (publisher, studio, etc.) who wouldn't miss the few coins an indie artist can take from a piece of art.

This idea was reinforced by the fact that there were times in which big corporations shut down fan projects (even non profit ones) to later copy those projects themselves and profit from the idea. It happened with Lionsgate in the Hunger Games days, it happened with Disney and Etsy sellers, it happened in many places with many things.

The idea that, even if illegal, the practice of profiting from copyrighted material from corporations or certain authors could be seen as justified grew to a point of normalization.

So, the era in which the fanfiction battle that established the concept of non profit as a condition for allowing fan content to exist, had ended. It gave way to an increasingly normalized perception of it being allowed.

This also happened at the time in which online monetization of content became more accessible.

Sites like ko-fi or patreon could be used to pay for content creators "in general" rather than tying them to the profit of sales of specific content that contained copyrighted material. These loopholes allowed creators to successfully profit through fan content that was otherwise illegal to be monetized.

The problematic repercussions of this normalization, like I said, was that people learned to monetize before they learned what they could monetize. Or what they should.

Around 2018 there was a situation in which some rpdr queens got into arguments with fan artists who were selling their fan art as unauthorized merch.

These artists were doing what they were accustomed to do in the past years in fandom, do art of media they enjoyed and sell it online.

They didn't stop to think that they were actually selling products of indie artists whose primary source of income after performing is merch, nor did they think about the fact that drag performers are real people and not blorbos from shows. They didn't think that they were reproducing the likeness of a person (as curated as a drag persona can be) and selling it, feeling a sense of entitlement to the art that carried said likeness.

Normalization of media consumption in which you produce work and then sell it was so ingrained that the source didn't matter anymore. A mainstream Big Company like Disney was seen in the same way that an indie drag performer who asked fanwork creators not to profit from their identity.

Media is exchangeable and fanwork is created in the same way for anything, no matter what it is. Everything is a blorbo we feel automatically entitled to the moment it hits our orbit.

And I say this as a person who has been in fandom for ages and who values fanwork immensely. This doesn't come from a place of judgement, it comes from a place of care and of questioning the space around me.

In any case, cue 2023 sudden sensation Welcome Home.

It isn't just that Welcome Home is an independently created piece of transmedia, run by one single individual. It's also that said piece of media is, as of the moment of this situation, mostly developed via artwork.

Contrary to drag performers, webseries or podcasts, which can also be independently produced and become subject of massive fandoms, Welcome Home's source material is, at the beginning stage, mostly non-contextualized artwork and breadcrumbs of lore.

So, it skyrocketing to fandom fame and getting massive crowds of people from different walks of fandom life (the kids from the lost media reddits, the creepypasta youtubers, the fnaf kids, the tumblr puppet lovers, the puzzle enthusiasts, etc., etc.) while being a meta media piece (a transmedia piece about a made-up lost media piece) blurred the lines of source and fandom like nothing I've ever seen before.

How do you establish which art is canon when there are fan artists posting fan content that looks exactly like the real thing? And when you, as an indie creator, use the same platforms to showcase your work as they do to share their fan art?

How do you establish canon products (like puppets or dioramas) if you can't show yet the ones you made and fans are posting theirs already in the same platforms?

How can you put boundaries on what is or isn't part of the puzzle when overnight you have millions of people hungrily looking through your professional portfolio for clues that aren't meant to be there? Making you part of the puzzle because they single-handedly decided that your passion project is an ARG?

How do you stop the people who are profiting from cosplaying your characters for personal donations, selling fan art of your work in merch or using your characters and universe for commissions?

People who are, again, posting their photos and art and links on the same social medias you do and using for their monetization the same platforms as you do?

How do you set yourself apart from people impersonating you in social media, sometimes even unknowingly, because they're using your artwork for their profiles without permission or clarification?

How do you establish your ownership and identity without compromising personal information that you weren't thinking of sharing at all?

How do you keep your canon clear of outside influence if people are posting fanfics and roleplays faster than you are meant to tell your story? In the same platforms you use for work and enjoyment?

You know how, in Disney Parks, adults aren't allowed to cosplay out of special ticketed events because they want to avoid little kids from confusing a random person with a character performer, who is trained to accommodate and be accessible to little kids? Because they're responsible for how kids are treated in the parks by their employees and character performers?

Imagine fan art that is so much like the canon art, which didn't even get time to be set into clear boundaries and context yet, depicting things you didn't intend to depict for the audience you're aiming for, in a way in which it looks exactly like yours, posted in platforms that you use for your work.

How can you establish the boundaries of what is or isn't your canon content or your responsibility? If you're just one person? And this thing exploded overnight?

The normalization of fan content practices and, in tow, of profit from it, went faster than the story could be told.

Even outside of the very serious issue of people profiting from the work of an indie creator, from characters they've worked on for years and were excited to share with the world, there's also the fact that this exploded so much and so fast and with something in such an early stage of development that it's insane to think of how you can even start to draw lines of what is and isn't your work, as a singular person trying to put your idea out there.

Not just for the sake of storytelling, the sake of your art, the sake of your integrity as an author and the sake of your creative process, but also as the one responsible for the thing itself with a clear idea of what you're presenting and to whom.

It's overwhelming just to think about it.

I don't have answers, and even if I have opinions, I'm not trying to tell anyone what to do or how to behave, you're all responsible for your own actions. Objective information is out there, each fandom platform has its own rules and regulations, fandom has its sources of legal advice, and there are official guidelines from the WH author that are clear as to what they would like you not to do (1, 2, 3). Each piece of media is different, each person's way of interacting with it is different, I'm not your mom, there's the info, do whatever you want.

All I have is mad respect to an author whose work I'm enjoying immensely, my best wishes as someone who wants to be a storyteller, and my support.

Still, I just had to stop and think in some length about this because it's A LOT. It's wild. It's a situation I've personally never seen before in this extent.

And it's disorienting how fast we got here and where we're going. So I needed a space to think out loud to the void.

[starberry-cupcake]

So, here’s the thing that doesn’t work for me about Wednesday, in terms of the Addams Family narrative I enjoy (emphasis in “for me” and “I”, this is a personal opinion).

I feel like Wednesday wasn’t Addams enough for me. 

The thing I like the most about the Addams Family is that it works by contrast of absolutes. This opposition uses the Addams as a contrast of another more “normal” reality, established within the realm of domesticity, for whichever medium it’s working with. Some mediums did the adaptation better, some did it worse.  

For the original comic version, the way to do this was through single panel domestic humor. Comics that use, primarily, one panel to tell a story tend to use reader expectation to subvert or complete the joke, with the text being the punchilne. A one panel cartoon in a periodic publication such as The New Yorker used the domesticity expectations of their readership and the Addams had the opposed more macabre point of view to subvert it. The humor is in the clash of opposites but the Addams Family isn’t any less of a family or any less domestic for being spooky, macabre and dark.  

The 60s tv show translated that perfectly because they turned the domestic newspaper format and swap it for what the audience was looking for to obtain domestic representation at the time: the sitcom format. The Addams sitcom triumphs in its humor built on the clash of opposites but develops the family in a way in which their demeanor is always tied to being unaware of their out-of-place-ness. They develop the family in the context of their daily lives as a sitcom would do, but they aren’t an “other” in their own view: unsuspecting visitors, salesmen and neighbors see them as such and the audience is aware of both sides to get the full picture. 

The 90s movies, with a different format, had to find a more complex narrative within the domesticity of the perspective. There are things about the movies I like less than others, but they are evidently successful in what they do. Even when generating antagonists to oppose to the family, and even when these antagonists tend to come from a context that is perceived as more “normal” than the Addams, their antagonistic nature turns them into part of the joke, much more successfully with Joan Cusack’s iconic Debbie. 

What doesn’t work for me is when we can’t successfully sustain that and try to make the Addams fit the mold of a regular hero storyline. What I call “The Elphaba Problem”. 

It seems to be incredibly difficult as of late for media to be able to make a protagonist that isn’t a hero, or on its way to becoming one. In order for a character that used to be a villain, or that is simplistic in its definition, to be a protagonist, they seem to need to be a regular hero in disguise, maybe because they incorrectly think that’s an effective way to avoid being problematic. They need to go Elphaba, Megamind, Wreck It Ralph, Disney Live Action Villain. 

Wednesday Addams isn’t a villain or an antagonist, but she is part of a family of opposites and, after the 90s films, has been irrevocably depicted as the most serious, gloomy, emotionally unavailable, unimpressed and unbothered of the bunch. 

This series, trying to fit her into the world of a teen show, asks of her to fit into boxes she wasn’t meant to fit and it doesn’t work successfully for me that they try to patch it up as they go. The world she’s immersed in doesn’t clash with her with uninterrupted opposition, it asks her to change in order to move on as if she was meant to be part of a regular coming of age show. 

They call her out repeatedly for being a loner, too serious, not emotionally vulnerable and not understanding social cues she’s supposed to fit in, showing her also manipulating others and repeatedly judging her as responsible of things because of what makes her the character she is, and what makes the Addams who they are. 

The narrative gaze shows Wednesday as having to be responsible for the way in which her Addams simplicity impacts with their teen drama reality.

There are even two guys single-handedly deciding she gives them mixed signals (oh how I wish she had been aroace only to allow for that conversation of allo expectations vs aro perception that could have worked so well in one particular scene, even if I know it would generate discourse depending on the Wednesday version we’re talking about and how emotionally available she seems to the viewer, but still). 

I love the cast, I love Luis Guzmán as Gomez, Catherine Zeta Jones as Morticia and Wendnesday’s relationship with Pugsley was so much better than what they did in the last animated film. But. Gomez and Morticia get caught in the same situation Wednesday does and the whole murder mystery they’re involved in is out of character in many ways by trying to fit the Addams into a narrative they can’t thrive in. 

It’s not impossible to develop the Addams, but the essence of their Addams-ness is important for them to work, in my eyes. Trying to placate their opposition to expectations by inserting them in society’s boxes through regular drama doesn’t allow them to thrive. 

Once we were studying Edward Gorey in University and my professor said something I hadn’t really considered about his work: his macabre humor works if the exaggeration isn’t the norm. 

The Happless Child, for example, works as dark humor as an exaggeration of the type of book Gorey was intending to comment on: a children’s story in which the protagonist needs to be good, docile, privileged and unresponsive to get good things in return. The escalating and exaggerated drama in her life that ends in tragedy works as macabre humor because it’s exaggerating in its darkness. However, if you read it in the context of a socially aware standpoint of 2022 and what can actually happen to children out there, it might not be read as funny. It’s not a matter to cancel Gorey or to think badly of his books (at least, I absolutely don’t, I love him) but to see that, in humor, especially dark macabre humor with a touch of social commentary, the social perspective is very important. 

If the Addams are in on it, if they perceive themselves as bad people for being framed for murder, because murder is taken as seriously as it is taken in reality and not as an exaggerated opposition to cardboard domesticity or the reason to make a serial killer like Debbie attractive to Fester, then you stop seeing their macabre as an opposition to work in humor and start seeing it as a problem to solve narratively. For Gomez to be incapable of murder, for Morticia to not be guilty, for Wednesday to have to be emotionally vulnerable to her teen friends, in order to be hero leads. 

They try to compromise, to give a middle of the road solution, but it doesn’t work enough for me so far. I didn’t hate it enough to stop watching it but I was hoping for a better outcome. Not that I think Tim Burton post late 90s has given people the reason to still trust him blindly with anything remotely monochromatic, but the cast was good enough for me to keep going and I hope it becomes more Addams if it goes on. 

[starberry-cupcake]

hey, I don't know if I'm gonna word this right but I remembered you talking about historical accuracies criticisms for Disney movies should take into account the era it was produced in (something to that effect?), I wonder if you have talked more about it? Just suddenly reminded of it and it's interesting to see a different take than the ones on YouTube I've seen

Sorry it took me a while to get to this and thank you for your interest in my often inconsequential rambles ♥ I'll edit on "read more" because of length, if tumblr allows it to work this time.

Yes, I was talking about costumes in that post, I believe, about how there are so many critical videos on "historically accurate corrections" for outfits in Disney films that I feel miss a huge opportunity to discuss how animators are inspired by much more than that.

Because, not only it's rather pointless to try to trace a time and place for a fairy tale, when most of the Disney-adapted ones can be tracked to a compiler or adapter but not an "origin" per se, but also the time in which the movie was produced has a super interesting influence in character design, not only in clothing but also in depiction, as well as other important animation-specific decisions (such as color, movement, personality, etc.).

A very very long time ago, when Disney did some messed up redesigns for the princesses, I searched for fashion magazines, patterns, runways and photoshoots of outfits from the year each movie was released in, to compare with their design and the redesign, and see if there was relevance in the fashion of the time rather than just history or character. Even if the post is very old, it got some interesting results.

Of course that taking this into consideration can showcase the positives and the negatives, how a character or an archetype is viewed and perceived in a specific moment in history. They can let you see amazing conceptual choices but they can also show how prejudice, problematic or outright bigoted notions of "the other" bleed into a certain time period. This is also useful to see how things have changed (or not) in those depictions.

Accuracy is important, in my opinion, in cultural depiction rather than a "historical" basis. This is a good intersection to observe, especially comparing movies in which there is a white American depiction of a culture (like in Aladdin, for example, and the use of certain clothes or items just for their problematic western appeal) versus movies later on in which they had a group of specialists from the culture and place to make corrections (in Moana this happened a lot, for example when the Trust suggested changing her clothes' design, which was historically accurate, to one that would be more appropriate for sailing, even if less detailed).

Narratively-wise, we can observe a similar thing. Disney films tend to be hated by most fairy tale and children's lit focused academia because, they say, they "sugarcoat" the stories they tell, or they modify them too much. These people forget not only that times change and stories change as well, but also that whether they like the movies or not, there have been several generations growing up with them already. Pretending they don't exist makes them miss a huge opportunity for analysis of what's become the prime access to fairy tales that children get.

The way in which each time period decided to adapt stories, or create new ones from existing folklore, doesn't only speak of the medium it's adapting to but also what is important and relevant in each time period for an audience. Again, not only in what is successful, but also in where it fails. This is a good indicator of what has changed in the perception of certain topics, archetypes or plots with time. In one of the workshops I taught, I picked some fairy tales and then Disney adaptations and worked through some of those changes in narrative.

Naming examples of this would take entirely too long but, to give just one: the characterization of the Beast in Villeneuve's story versus Beaumont's story versus Jean Cocteau's version versus the Disney 1991 version were developed with entirely different narrative needs from an audience at different times. The live action ruined the progress, but I digress.

Again, there are successes and there are failures, but when something doesn't work or isn't enough, it's important to note why. Focusing more on Pixar, for example, Brave did amazingly in its first half to depict a mother-daughter relationship in a much more complex way than fairy tales, both traditionally and within Disney, had done before. But then, they took the movie away from Brenda Chapman and changed the focus of the film. That is a whole field to discuss and to understand the effects of storytelling and depiction, rather than just focusing solely on what would be historically accurate for the movie to do with Merida's marriage or if you like the movie or not just on the surface.

At the same time, when it comes to criticism, sometimes people in general tend to evaluate all Disney films as if they were being released today, and that criticism also misses a lot of opportunities for growth. People are discussing the depiction of consent in Snow White from the late 30s in the year of 2021, as if the movie had been released today. They also fail to compare how, even if problematic, Disney's Snow White had a lot more agency that the one from the Grimms, which is the one they were adapting. It's not about overlooking issues that were always there, but of using them to understand how we should grow narratively to accompany the growth we aim at in the perception of the world. Especially when it is for kids.

When I made my post, I was ranting about those videos that I find lazy and uninspired and I'd rather talk about how many different inspirations animators had to design a character, or concept artists developed for the production design. But, also, when it comes to narrative, it can also hinder any worthwhile analysis of the stories. Just like we can study fairy tales to understand the time and place in which they were adapted and compiled (or, sometimes, created), we can do the same with Disney films, which have become the way we have received fairy tales most often for the past 80+ years.

[starberry-cupcake]

The Chinapuri finale and its montage aka censorship who?

I decided to do all of this in one post and read more, so that the 95% of my followers who are uninterested on this particular drama/source material can easily skip it. Here are 7 relationships showcased in the montage ranked and 2 bonus (a family relationship and an extra). 

Note: I’ll speak about the relationships as they were portrayed, whichever the form of relationship chosen to display in this version. Also, I’m glad that everyone was aged up in this version, kinda wild but very much appreciated that some of these actors are my age or somewhere around there lol 

#7 Lu Xia (Echizen Ryoma) and Qi Ying (Ryuuzaki Sakuno) 

This drama was a bit more romantically-inclined in terms of these two than the anime/manga was, but some of that may be also influenced by them giving their version of Sakuno more room (which yay!) and having them be older. 

For this to stand alone as a drama, it was a needed step, I believe. I found Lu Xia to be more vulnerable than Ryoma, he doesn’t feel quite as ~cool~ and it doesn’t take away from the character that he has moments showing internal struggle (in tennis as well as at home). These two were sweet and adorable, which gave the drama probably more of an expected appeal for a wider audience, to make it stand on its own as a drama and not only an anime adaptation. 

#6 Yan ZhiMing (Inui Sadaharu) & Liu Lian (Yanagi Renji) 

Kinda mad they didn’t do this for Fuji (Zhuo Zhi) and Saeki (Zuo Xiaohu) but they did good with these two. I didn’t know at first why they started to build up their relationship so early, but it ended up being a good emotional plot point during their match, which is, as we all know, a determining factor in Seigaku’s (Yu Qing) win against Rikkai (Hai Guang). 

I don’t remember being as invested in their match in the anime as I was here, maybe I was just too focused on the Fuji match at that time, but what they did to build that game as a decisive point in the season finale was so well developed, I was impressed. 

#5 He XingLong (Kawamura Takeshi) & Ya JiuXin (Akutsu Jin) 

This is a relationship that can get complicated and even problematic if handled incorrectly. Akutsu’s journey through the anime is pretty long and takes a while for him to be on a healthier place, but the added element of aging the characters could have gone really wrong here if they had done him exactly as in the anime or manga. I think they did pretty well with the time they were given, showing his turmoil and learning curve. 

XingLong was allowed to have a more in-depth journey being older and about to graduate, it made more sense for him here to think about his career at this stage and added the gravity of this being THE moment to decide whether to keep pursuing the sport or take over his dad’s restaurant (they even adapted the type of food they cook to match the cultural impact of the family-owned business, which was great). 

I think the two complemented each other really well and worked interestingly together, in a way I didn’t think the drama was gonna give them time to do, so I’m really pleased. 

#4 Qiao Chen (Momoshiro Takeshi) & Zhang BaiYang (Kaidoh Kaoru) 

My younger self is thriving with this one being included tbh. These two were so much fun in the anime, two rivals and opposites that represented the future of the team upon their elders leaving. 

I was surprised to see them so focused here, because it’s not a relationship most adaptations put emphasis on (their loss), but it paid off immensely by the time their game against Bunta and Jackal (Jin WenTai & Ke Jie) came around. 

Kaidoh is a tough one to adapt most times, and they did him so well in this one, I think this is my favorite live action Kaidoh in any adaptation, and I’ve watched a whole bunch of tenimyu in my day. They really captured the ambiguity of his character, how he balances a tough exterior with a sensitive core. Qiao Chen maintained his feelings for Xu Xingzi (Tachibana Ann) but that didn’t stop them from showing these two every time they could. 

#3 Mu Siyang (Tezuka Kunimitsu) & Ji Jingwu (Atobe Keigo) 

Oh, these two. Hyotei (Xing Yao) wasn’t featured as much as one would probably expect (I’m a Fudomine fan and with Yu Feng I got more than I even was expecting, but I admit Hyotei is a riot and I always live my best life when they show up). Still, they did the Tezuka/Atobe match justice and then some. 

Mu Siyang was incredibly compelling as Tezuka, and had a vulnerability to him that made me worry for his health more than I probably did for his anime counterpart. Maybe also the fact that he was older than his anime version yet looked younger than him made it sink more that his injury was something to worry about. I wish we had time to include anime!Tezuka’s issues with yips with Siyang, because I know the drama would have pulled it off, but that was further down the line in the story. Maybe for a season 2. 

Anyway, the Atobe/Tezuka game is one of the best games in tenipuri history and the drama knew it. The game felt like it earned its gravity with the development of both Siyang’s injury and Ji Jingwu’s determination to play against him. Then they sprinkled the camp on top, as the anime does, with Ji Jingwu paying for his every expense and calling him to get updates, which is 100% canon compliant imo. 

I feel like Ji Jingwu didn’t have enough room to be as much of Atobe as he could be, but then again, that’s not easy for anyone to pull off. Not even Kato Kazuki can do Junichi Suwabe as well as Junichi Suwabe.  

#2 Bai ShiYan (Yukimura Seiichi) & Tian ZiLong (Sanada Genichirou) 

So, it’s tough to feel for Rikkai (Hai Guang) at this point of the story. You learn about Yukimura’s health and it’s difficult, but you just met them and the first impressions haven’t been great. 

However, the relationship between Sanada and Yukimura has always been something pivotal for the way the team is constructed (they were named that way for a reason, two parts of a same hero and all that) and they sustain the team in a way other teams don’t have to. They are the mom and dad of the team, the coaches, the leaders and the pillars. They have a balance of severity and permissiveness, of strictness and instinct. They are like a couple who has been married for 25 years. 

How on Earth, I asked myself, will they achieve that with censorship on the way? I don’t know, but they did it, the mad bastards. 

It really does come through 100% the importance of their relationship and the way in which the captain’s health affects the team and, more than anything, their vice captain. It reaches a crescendo during the final match, before ShiYan’s operation, and they manage to pull it off with the time they have. 

Also, their scenes are like shot for a contemporary romance drama and I appreciate that vibe. 

#1 Tang JiaLe (Kikumaru Eiji) & Chi DaYong (Oishi Shuichiro) 

Oh boy. Look. I still own Golden Pair merchandise from my Days, ok? These two hold a special place in my heart. I saw actors who portrayed them grow up, succeed and pass away, sadly. I still sing Depend On Me sometimes. There is a cheerful vibe with these two, a sense of overcoming obstacles and finding balance, I don’t know. Fuji is my favorite character but these two are special in their way. 

This freakin’ drama just went full on Golden Pair. The level of content was off the charts. The moment they came on the screen, the second they talked about their doubles, it was already setting the tone of how deep their relationship was going to go. I am a bit amazed that they avoided to get closed down for this ngl. And I appreciate the risk because it paid off.

They have a body language communication that is captured in every shot. Even when they’re not the focus of the scene, they’re close, touching or holding each other, arms around each other, hands on each other’s shoulders, grabbing each other’s clothes. When they fight, that language changes drastically, and the distance they take feels intense and cold. You go through it with them and the team shows it as well. There’s an entire episode I had screencaps of and never posted when the team falls apart because they do. 

My favorite part, though, ironically, isn’t what they did with them together but what they did with them apart. They took time to develop them as individual characters with their own issues, their fears, their worries and weaknesses. They were allowed to be flawed and wrong and have to mend their ways. 

What really got me and impacted me deeply was the fact that they chose DaYong to talk about mental health. They gave room to speaking about the physical implications of anxiety disorders and about how self esteem issues can give more magnitude to ongoing issues with your mental health. Again, the age of the characters being changed helped add a depth to some issues that get developed with more intensity in a drama of this kind, and the way in which it takes TIME to get resolved, it isn’t a one episode thing, it’s an underlying issue that spans the season...*chef’s kiss* 

Even though there’s a specific tenimyu incarnation of these two that I hold dear and will always remember fondly, I think that Xu Ke and Zhu ZhiLing are the most successful and best portrayed live action Golden Pair I’ve ever seen. 

Bonus that was in the montage but it’s specifically about a family relationship: The Zhuo Bros

I have said Fuji has always been my favorite and his relationship with Yuta as an older brother (albeit he’s not the eldest sibling like me) is one I always felt close to. 

In the anime, the two have a rocky relationship that gets developed throughout, but the drama is very good at establishing not only Zhuo Yu’s (Fuji Yuta) self esteem issues, the subsequent use of that Guan Yue (Mizuki Hajime) does and Zhuo Zhi’s (Fuji Syusuke) attempts to breach the gap between the siblings, they also use it to develop Zhuo Zhi’s character and his reticence to show weakness. 

It’s tough to get Fuji towards a place of vulnerability without breaking character, but they used family and the care he provides to his brother as a point to further his story, and I appreciate that a lot. They managed to build Zhuo Zhi up with this sibling bond as one of his core elements, and that gave a lot of dimension to his games and his character. 

Bonus that wasn’t in the montage but I’m including in some capacity: Mu Siyang (Tezuka Kunimitsu) & Zhuo Zhi (Fuji Syusuke) 

I thought these two deserved a place in the list, even if they weren’t grouped much in the montage, because the drama did make them share moments together that I feel gave more depth to their characters. 

There was a very interesting moment in which they showed Mu Siyang and Zhuo Zhi establishing their differences when approaching tennis, and how serious Mu Siyang is about taking the team to victory. I think that strengthened the character as a captain to me, in a way that shows it rather than tells it, and allowed for his guidance to still be present when he wasn’t physically there. His determination ultimately influenced Zhuo Zhi to take things more seriously, and that was a pretty interesting development to see. 

All in all, I should, at some point, go and do a serious review for MyDramaList but I wanted to leave in my blog how much I appreciated this adaptation. I wasn’t expecting much and I was delivered everything.

[starberry-cupcake]

LGBTQ+ Online Short Literature Recs

I spent June reading short stories, poetry and essays by and about lgbtq+ identities offered online for free, and I wanted to share for those interested. 

My sources include several masterlists by the incredible @coolcurrybooks​ (who you must follow if you aren’t already), Electric Literature and Puntos Suspensivos. I will link all specific posts, masterlists and further sources for extra reads but first, I’ll list my personal favorites among the many all of them recommended. 

The stories will be linked and have a short description, further details (such as genre, specific elements, types of relationships, etc.) and content warnings for each work in which they apply. 

Enjoy! 

Stories in English

1. Seasons of Glass and Iron by Amal El-Mohtar

A maiden is cursed with seven pairs of iron shoes she needs to walk free of. A princess is cursed to wait atop a glass hill for her eventual prince. Unexpectedly, their paths cross, they meet and the fairy tale doesn’t go as the rules would want them to.

Details: fairy tale, fantasy, romance, main wlw couple. CW: mention of domestic abuse, animal curses, descriptions of wounds.

2. Graveyard Girls on Paper Phoenix Wings by Andrea Tang

The keeper of a graveyard who lives surrounded by the companionable ghosts of the women buried there uses her magic to save a mysterious stranger fallen from the sky.

Details: fantasy, romance, trans woman lead, lesbian side character. CW: minor character death in flashbacks, non permanent death for lead characters, transphobia mentioned in flashbacks.

3.  Avi Cantor Has Six Months to Live by Sacha Lamb

Avi Cantor finds the title of this story written in a mirror of his high school. He hasn’t told anyone yet that his name, his true name, is Avi. When a boy who has never spoken to him before begs for him to listen, things begin to change.

Details: high school setting, urban fantasy, magic, witches, demons, spells and curses, romance, trans boy characters, mlm couple. CW: multiple conversations about suicide and death (but no suicide or death happens), instances of misgendering. 

4.  Nkásht íí by Darcie Little Badger

Josie and Annie set to investigate a strange death that may involve more than they expected. Sometimes the love that heals isn’t romantic and bonds that are strong are those chosen.

Details: urban fantasy, folklore, suspense, aromantic lead character, main platonic relationship between female characters. CW: minor characters deaths, accidents, the death of a child is mentioned, domestic abuse in flashbacks.

5.  Flor by Natalia Borges Polesso (original in Portuguese by the title Flor, flores, ferro retorcido compiled in the book Amora)

A little girl overhears her family calling her neighbor a word she doesn’t understand. She grasps the negativity, the conflicting messages, but doesn’t get what is wrong about the neighbor and takes it upon herself to understand.

Details: contemporary fiction, lesbian characters (not a couple, different ages), coming of age. CW: homophobia, minor violence.

6.  Between Dragons and Their Wrath by An Owomoyela and Rachel Swirsky

Dragons destroy in more ways than one would expect. Domei has lost memories, has lost a life, but is finding a sense of self amid the destruction.

Details: fantasy, adventure, non binary lead. CW: minor character death, violence, mention of the death of children, mention of operations on children. 

7.  Suradanna and the Sea by Rebecca Fraimow

In her first venture by sea, Suradanna finds herself shipwrecked and survives through water of a source she deems safe. The captain of the rescuing vessel promptly informs her that, because of it, she is now immortal, and the Captain herself also is.

Details: fantasy, pirates, adventure, wlw main couple, slow burn romance. CW: minor character death mentioned, panic attacks, naviphobia.

8.  Little Boy by Marina Perezagua (originally in Spanish by the same name, compiled in the book Leche)

Upon meeting a woman she calls H., the narrator embarks on the intense history that was etched on her before and after the bombing of Hiroshima, the things the bomb took away and the things that it created.

Details: contemporary fiction, World War II flashbacks, drama, trans woman lead character (not the narrator). CW: violence and descriptions of death and radiation, talks about death of children, mutilation due to bombing, infertility discussions. 

9.  The Gentleman of Chaos by A. Merc Rustad

A King imprisons a sibling with the intention of creating a guardian that would save him from the unfathomable Gentleman of Chaos. He thinks he knows who the sibling is, trapping an identity and a body, but doesn’t know that sometimes the truth liberates even in chains.

Details: fantasy, adventure, suspense, knights and royalty, magic, trans man lead character, mlm relationship.  CW: family abuse, violence, minor character deaths, obliged pregnancy.

10. The Book of How to Live by Rose Lemberg

Efronia is a simple whose incredible inventions are overlooked by the fact that she was born without magic. Zilpit-nai-Rinah is part of a society in which she isn’t valued because she was born without magic. In this novelette from the author’s Birdverse, the two meet and their paths change.

Details: fantasy, steampunk, gray-romantic asexual character, homo-romantic character in a past polyamorous relationship with other women, slow burn relationship between women. CW: instances of classism and racism depicted, political persecution mentioned. Notes: The story can be read as a stand-alone but it has a lot of world-building and details that occur elsewhere in this universe, which may render the ending as a cliff-hanger of sorts. Still, I liked the characters and dynamics too much to leave it out.

11. Sun, Moon, Dust by Ursula Vernon

A young man inherits a sword with tree spirits that should help him learn to be a warrior, but the he just wants to be a farmer. And one of the spirits might want that as well.

Details: fantasy, domestic adventure (is that a genre? it should be), mlm couple, slow burn hint towards romance. CW: minor character death mention.

12. Kin, Painted by Penny Stirling

The narrator can’t find a place in a family that seems so determined, so certain, painted each in a specific way. A poetic prose filled with magic and the colors that we paint ourselves with, which can sometimes change with time.

Details: poetic prose, fantasy, aromantic lead character, trans male character, non binary characters. 

13. Seventh Day of the Seventh Moon by Ken Liu 

Girlfriends Yuan and Jing have to say goodbye the day of the Zhinu Goddess festival but, as they prepare to separate, they meet the gods who had to do so as well, many moons before.

Details: fantasy, folklore, romance, separation, wlw main couple, bittersweet ending.

14. Alta’s Place by Morgan Thomas 

Cory meets Alta in a dry cleaners and is intent to know her, learn her story and become a part of her life. Still, there are many things about Alta’s life Cory doesn’t even begin to understand, and maybe never will.

Details: contemporary fiction, lesbian characters, wlw relationships (not between the leads).  CW: depictions of homophobia, political persecution, discrimination and racism, chronic illness of a minor character. 

En Español

1.  El viento no es enemigo de Gaita Nihil (pág. 30)

Poesía sobre identidad, cuerpo y la enemistad. 

Detalles: poesía, narrador trans.

2.  Zazen de Salomé Wochocolowsky

Una mujer intenta participar de un retiro de meditación pero encuentra que su paz proviene de otro lado.

Detalles: ficción contemporánea, protagonista lesbiana, relación wlw.

3. Gillette de Rocío Zuviría

Una chica espera el colectivo y conoce a alguien que la impulsa a reacciones inesperadas. 

Detalles: ficción contemporánea, lo extraño, personaje no binarie con pronombres femeninos. 

4. La amiga del Báltico de Lea Marie Uría 

El fluir de conciencia de una narradora que describe su identidad en viaje.

Detalles: relato ensayístico, fluir de conciencia, narradora trans, relación wlw.  CW: transfobia, violencia verbal. 

5.  Relatos contrainmunológicos 7 de Duen Sacchi

Ensayo sobre las identidades, el racismo en tiempos de pandemia y la importancia de la comunidad.

Detalles: Ensayo, narrador trans, mención de otras identidades trans. CW: descripciones de racismo y discusiones políticas de género.

6.  Un@ huésped in/esperad@ de Vir Cano (pág. 65)

Enriqueta escucha música proveniente del departamento contiguo e imagina a su acompañante y el misterio que encarna.

Detalles: ficción contemporánea, prosa poética, personaje de género fluido o indeterminado por quien narra.

7. Santa Trava de Michelle Lacroix (pág. 23)

Ensayo poético sobre la santidad autoproclamada por la identidad. 

Detalles: prosa poética, ensayo, narradora trans.  CW: mención de transfobia y violencia. 

8.  El beso de Susy Shock

Poesía sobre el poder empoderador, desestabilizador y de rebelión de distintos besos. 

Detalles: poesía, narradora trans. CW: menciones de asesinatos y violencia de género. 

9. La Wally posible de Morena García (pág. 79)

Ensayo poético sobre la construcción de sí y el reclamo de la identidad.

Detalles: prosa poética contemporánea, narradora trans. CW: transfobia, violencia.

10. Wachumx de Andrés Nocte 

Prosa poética de transformación y configuración del ser, cuestionado el género incluso del cactus de los Andes. 

Detalles: prosa poética, folklore, género fluido. 

Sources and further links

Masterposts, anthologies and articles consulted: 

From @coolcurrybooks : one, two, three, four

From Electric Literature: here 

De Puntos Suspensivos: Queerentena & Cuirentena 

Some sites with further stories included here: 

Tor

Beneath Ceasless Skies

GlitterShip

ClarkesWorld

Uncanny Magazine

Apex Magazine

The Fantasist

Strange Horizons

[starberry-cupcake]

@shyhinata​ replied to your photoset “Bonus:  tenimyu is QUAKING with the level of golden pair content on...”

I think the part where Jiale clings to Dayong is in my top 10 fave moments. I always loved the Golden Pair, and this adaptation has really hit it out of the park.

I hope you don’t mind I reply on a separate post because I have so many feelings about this I can’t fit a fair amount of them in regular replies. 

My best friend and I are watching the drama one episode a week, so we’re taking longer than it should to go through it, but we want to enjoy it because it’s so so good. 

One of the things I feel works so well for this adaptation is that not only the characters are older, some of the conflicts and personal troubles they have are also more developed because they’re older. This drama understood that it’s not just about which team wins which game, it understood that a key part to Prince of Tennis working is in the character dynamics and their personalities combining together. But they even amphed it up because a drama series and an anime or a manga sometimes have different needs of personal development and how to handle drama. 

A big example of that to me is how they’re dealing with the Golden Pair. 

I am in absolute awe of the fact that they took a small-ish conflict the series had and made it a characterizarion standpoint and included important things to discuss. 

In the series, if I remember correctly, Eiji and Oishi have a fight and then in the match against Hyotei (which here it seems it may be placed in a different order?) Oisihi had an accident (helping a pregnant lady) and Momoshiro had to step in and play with Eiji. 

Here, they’re developing the conflict between Jiale and Dayong by introducing Jiale’s (very Eiji-like and in-character) frustration at lacking in some particular ability, and Dayong is introduced as having anxiety and anxiety-driven medical issues. 

It’s 100% in character for Dayong/Oishi to develop anxiety issues, considering his empathic nature, the fact that he is the vice captain, the fact that he is responsible to a fault and that his captain and good friend is having a lot of medical issues with his arm, which leads him to not only be absent a lot but also not be able to play as frequently as he’d want. 

As someone with anxiety, anxiety-driven medical complications and ocd, but most importantly someone with all that who grew up watching Prince of Tennis, the fact that they chose to include this and address this, especially in how it also impacts competitive sports, is massive to me. 

But, aside from that, all this happens with the core relationship of these two, which has always been one of the most, let’s say, canonically supported to whatever extent. 

Because Prince of Tennis has enough fanon ships to establish an armada, but there are some relationships that in canon transcend the frame of friendship and can be read as something different. Whether that is good friends, queerplatonic partners or romantic partners depends on the beholder, but what I mean is that there are some of these pairings that stand as a couple more so than as individuals because of how important their relationship is to the story, whichever that is. 

The Golden Pair is the prime example of these. And the drama took that and soared with it. And considering it’s an adaptation released in China (with all the censorship issues that have been escalating), I am impressed with how thorough they are being with small details that just show how close they are and how important they are to each other. 

They lean on each other for support physically, they hold hands, they touch each other when they talk, they look at each other in the eyes frequently, they hug each other normally, without reason. And when there is conflict between them that body language also speaks, with Jiale recoiling from Dayong’s touch or Dayong avoiding Jiale’s eyes when he talks, or remaining a few feet away from each other when arguing. 

The level of commitment they’ve put in developing the Golden Pair as a relationship is insane. I will probably post about it more whenever I finish the series, but yeah, I am impressed. 

I can’t wait to see how this situation with Dayong’s anxiety develops, I’m like emotionally moved by how this adaptation is handling this, alongside many other things that are taking a lot of depth in the adaptation, more than in many other prior adaptations that just focused on the sport. 

Anyway, sorry that I took your reply and went with it for a long response but ugh

[starberry-cupcake]

So, yesterday I saw a post about fairy tales and whether or not they’re “gruesome”. I wanted to expand on that in the tags, because a) I’m coincidentally finishing the preparation of the fairy tale history part of my workshop and b) I think there’s a huge part played by the intent of the writer/compiler and the audience it was aimed that, and that’s also very interesting to me; but then decided against adding it. 

Still, @akallabeth-joie and @aurora-australis-tumbles wanted to know what I had to say, but tumblr ate half of my response last night. Here it is again, on read more not to bother those who don’t care about this. 

The original post mentioned how some fairy tales aren’t really as “gruesome” as they’re made up to be and how that varies, in op’s opinion, due to culture or historical time frame. It’s actually not only that, because some very different versions come from the same countries, same time frames and sometimes even the same people.

A big difference in the content, construction and symbology of fairy tales has to do with the intended audience as well as the ideological mindset of the writer/compiler individually and the work the compilation was inscribed in.  

In the post, one of the examples mentioned was Beauty and the Beast, which is one of the best examples of different audiences for the same tale in the same country and similar time frames. 

Villeneuve’s version of the tale was influenced by the French salonnières, like Madame d’Aulnoy, so it was intended mostly to women of the aristocracy to entertain themselves. The part about them being aristocrats is very important, because class was an inherent part of the story, in Villeneuve’s version for example Beauty is secretly a princess, making her the right class to marry a prince.

Beaumont’s version, which is more widely known, was published in a magasin for young women who were getting an education and learning languages, which makes sense because Beaumont was a governess. As a result, a lot of the story is framed into marrying well and putting up with whatever husband you got, basically, but it’s also framed in a different more naive way, if you will. 

A clear difference between the two is the “sexual content”, for example, Villeneuve’s Beast asks Beauty to sleep with him whereas Beaumont’s asks her to marry him, and Villeneuve’s reason for the prince to be turned is because a fairy wanted to force herself onto him and he refused. 

Perrault was put in the post as an example of “not gruesome” because his Cinderella, as opposed to the Grimms’ Cinderella, doesn’t end in anyone being physically punished. Violently so, in the Grimm version, there’s bloodied feet and eyes getting gauged out. That doesn’t mean that Perrault was devoid of gruesome content, though, his Blue Beard is to me the scariest fairy tale ever because it excuses physical abuse towards women, something male translators were absolutely ok with until Angela Carter came in and said “what the actual fuck?”. 

But, in any case, Perrault’s Cinderella doesn’t have a punishment for the stepsisters (the stepmother disappears halfway through) because Cinderella being forgiving and kind and showing the poise to not only forgive her bullies but get them to marry well was proof of her feminine virtue. Because Perrault was writing for the French aristocracy, mostly young women, since he was contemporary to d’Aulnoy but was compiling stories with an entirely different mindset (and hiding the fact that it was him who was doing so). And again, this was for aristocrats, Cinderella was not in Perrault a story from rags to riches, she was born with enough rank to attend that ball, she wasn’t poor. 

The Grimms, on the other hand, were working differently. They were intending to build a compilation of tales to represent German tradition and identity, in a time in which they were lacking it (which is strange to think of now, but even the language was being threatened by the French influence). Their interest was in historical and traditional recuperation originally but the first edition of their selection did poorly and didn’t have much acceptance. 

Their second edition, which they made for children, took off like crazy. The Grimms were publishing in the early 1800s, and it was in the mid 1800s when the concept of childhood as we know it started to take shape. They got to live through the first steps of children being seen as independent beings, the start of a public education and literacy and working rights, albeit shitty ones. So, the kids’ edition needed morals and teachings that would focus on them. They gave Little Red Riding Hood a mother and turned her into a kid, they turned some mother characters into step mothers and they put punishments to showcase how you Shouldn’t Be Bad.

And yes, the punishments were gruesome and violent, but this is the same place that thought, in the mid 1800s, that Der Struwwelpeter was kid friendly fun, so what do I know about anything. 

Of course, like op said, some of this is dependent on history and culture, but also it’s super important to note that, when it comes to collected fairy tales and folk stories, the background, ideology, education and intent of the person writing or compiling the stories plays a big role in what they edit in them.

After the Grimms you’ll have people who are, like them, interested in recuperating stories of a specific place but with a much bigger philological intent which would take them to organize their stuff differently, like Afanasyev in Russia, Laura Gonzenbach in Sicily, Berta Elena Vidal de Battini in Argentina and so on.

Afanasyev compiled over 600 tales and added different versions of the same stories, to show all the variants one archetype could have, which derived into the immortal conservation of super important characters like Baba Yaga. 

Laura Gonzenbach, who spoke 4 languages, interviewed women with little means and collected over 90 stories from Sicilian oral tradition, and translated them while respecting their representations and ideas, as well as the cathartic need of expressing the violence and abuse they had suffered.  

Vidal de Battini had a very big interest on language and tradition, she worked for several decades, traveling over 100 times throughout Argentina and compiled over 3000 texts, including traditional stories, native peoples stories, legends, encounters with cryptids, jokes and tales about famous characters. She included a lot of notes and grammatical representations of dialect variations and explained how sometimes it overlayed with languages such as quechua, mapuche and other native tongues.

This also happened with writers, like Hans Christian Andersen, who was born in a low class, hated aristocracy and was also Very Much Not Straight, so his books and Perrault’s books might fist fight in my bookshelf when I’m not looking.

Anyway, fairy tales and folk stories are, to me, alongside legends, cryptids, horror tales and urban legends, one of the most representative forms of cultural identity. Still, the part that each person responsible for their collection played is also something that sheds light on many elements concerning their conception. It doesn’t taint them, it adds another layer that is fascinating to analyze, but doesn’t necessarily represent what one would think at first sight. 

These people took the stories from the popular imagination and gave them back transformed, and those new versions still keep being transformed within popular imagination again and again.