@mdzsnet 24 August 2020 Lan Jingyi Birthday Event (ฅ'ω'ฅ)

皮皮/pipi is one of priest's nicknames!

having a preference is totally understandable! i just think it's maybe a little unreasonable to accuse the 7s translators of missing/deleting sentences/paragraphs when they've stated upfront that the manuscripts that they're working from are different from what's been posted online. after all, it's not like they can go and arbitrarily add in the stuff that pipi deemed extraneous enough to delete while polishing her manuscript. 😅

I will fix my typed-annotations right now. Thank you!

Thank you, Butterfly!

all right so here's the schedule of when dracula daily will be updated, as gleaned from the archives

please share this, it was a pain in the ass

New Meme Alignment Chart came to me in a fit of Mania this morning. Have fun kids!

Ever see a depiction of St. George and the Dragon? It's pretty fair to say if you've seen one, you've seen them all: Georgie on a horse stabbing a flailing dragon creature, princess piously kneeling in the background, vague landscape alluding to the homeland of the artist's patron.

The most varied part is the dragons. No one had a real definition for the thing, it seemed. For your pleasure and entertainment, I have ranked some medieval depictions based on how impressive George's feat seems once you see the dragon.

Paolo Uccello, 1456

This is a terrifying beast. The hell is that. Uccello was one of the first experimenters with perspective, so the thing also looks surreal, like it's taking place on Mars, or a Windows 95 screensaver. I would not want to fight that, I would not want to be tied to that. (Sometimes the princess is tied to the dragon for some reason.) 10/10

Horse thoughts: Maybe if I look at the ground it will be gone when I look up

Unknown artist, c. 1505

This is a rare change of form for the dragon; it's the only one I've seen actually flying (or at least falling with style). It doesn't look particularly deterred by the spear through its throat, either. Also, George looks appropriately nervous. On the other hand, it hasn't got teeth, it seems to be fuzzy rather than having scaly armor, and George is bolstered by his army of Henry VII and his children, most of whom definitely didn't actually die in infancy. Still, wouldn't want to fight it, wouldn't want my pet sheep near it. (Sometimes the princess has a pet sheep for some reason.) 9/10

Horse thoughts: I am so glad I wore my mightiest feather helmet for this

Raphael, 1505

We are coming to Dragons With Problems. This guy looks about comparable in size to George, and does have wings, but doesn't seem to be using these things to his advantage (and has he only got one wing?) And how does he deal with the neck? He does have a comically small head, but holding it up with such a twisty neck seems complicated at best. But most egregiously, he is doing the shitty superheroine pose where he is somehow simultaneously showcasing his chest and his butt, with its unnecessarily defined butthole (more on this later) (regrettably). 8/10 bc it's Raphael

Horse thoughts: AM I THE BESTEST BOI? AM I DOING SUCH A GOOD JOB? WE R DRAGON SLAYING BUDDIEZ

The Beauchamp Hours, c. 1401

We had a spirited debate about this one at work. Again, the dragon has gotten smaller, and this one hasn't got even one wing. He's basically a crocodile. So the debate became: would you want to fight a crocodile if you had a horse and a pointy stick? Would the horse trample the animal, who can't get on its hind legs, or freak out and throw its rider? Would the pointy stick be enough to pierce the croc's thick hide? In this case, George seems to be controlling his horse and putting his pointy stick in the dragon's weak spot, so we can be impressed by his skill and strategy. However, his hat is dumb. 7/10

Horse thoughts: Dehhhh

Book of Hours, c. 1480

Here we have the same kind of croco-dragon, but George's focus on his strategy has gone out the window. He's flailing around, not even looking at his target, he's about to lose his pointy stick, he hasn't got a hand on the reins, and his sword seems to only be poking the invisible dragon over his shoulder. All he's got going for him is that his hat is slightly less dumb. 6/10

Horse thoughts: Yay, new friend! Come play with me, new fr- what is happening

Final dragons put behind this Read More for your safety:

Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1432

I'm thinking this guy is at least semi-aquatic. Webbed feet, wings that seem more like fins, bipedal but top-heavy, jaws that seem more for scooping than biting. Maybe she's crawled up here from the nearby body of water to lay her eggs, and this is all a big misunderstanding. Moreover, George's dagged sleeves seem entirely impractical for the situation. 5/10

Horse thoughts: i got my hed stuk in a jar and now it is this way forever

Unknown artist, c. 15th century

I hate this. I hate everything about it. Why has it got human eyes and teeth. Why is its nose melting. Why has it got a dick on its face and balls under its chin. The fin/wings are back but they look even more useless. Also, George is shifty as hell, schlumped over in his saddle with his bowler hat thing over his eyes. The baby dragon at the bottom eating some hapless would-be rescuer is kind of metal. 4/10 at least the thing is gonna die

Horse thoughts: I Have Smoked So Much Crack

Book of Hours, c. 1450

Remember what I said about the buttholes? First, sorry. Second, yeah, we're back to that. I'll admit this one is less about the danger from the dragon itself than the very specific choices the artist has made. They didn't need to do that. It's a lizard. They don't even have. And it's like they had an orifice budget and they skipped an exit wound for the spear to focus. Elsewhere. It's so detailed. And George had an even dumber hat. 2/10 take it away

Horse thoughts: I Have Smoked So Much Weed

Book of Hours, c. 1415

This is just bullying. There isn't even a princess. That is clearly an infant. Look at that smug look on George's face as he swings his sword that's bigger than the whole little guy. This is the equivalent of when DJT Jr. hunted those sleeping endangered sheep. 1/10

Horse thoughts: ....yikes

And this is the previous one, but now the baby dragon is cute. He's chubby. He's got toe beans. He's Puff the Magic Dragon. His eyes have already gone white, implying that George is just kicking its corpse around for funsies. What's the difference between the dragon and the lamb in the background? That the dragon is dead, like our innocence. This George is truly deserving of the dumbest hat of all. 0/10 plus one more butthole for the road

Horse thoughts: Perhaps it is we who are the buttholes.

Still trying to figure out why I like this look so much…

Would you be willing to talk about how standards of masculinity and femininity in Asia differ from those in Europe/North America? I know, it's a ridiculously broad question but I think you mentioned it in passing previously and I would be really interested in your answer especially in the context of the music industry and idols. I (European) sometimes see male Asian idols as quite feminine (in appearance, maybe?) even if they publicly talk about typically masculine hobbies of theirs.

Hi Anon,

Sorry that it took me over a month to get to this question, but the sheer volume of research that is necessary to actually answer this is significant, as there is an enormous body of work in gender studies. There are academics who have staked their entire careers in this field of research, much of which isn’t actually transnational, being that regional gender studies alone is already an incredibly enormous field.

As such, in no way can I say that I’ve been able to delve into even 1% of all the research that is out there to properly address this question. While I can talk about gender issues in the United States, and gender issues that deal with Asian American identity, I am not an expert in transnational gender studies between Asia and Europe. That being said, I’ll do my best to answer what I can. 

When we consider the concept of “masculinity” and “femininity,” we must first begin with the fundamental understanding that gender is both a construct and a performance. The myth of gender essentialism and of gender as a binary is a product of patriarchy and compulsory heterosexuality in each culture where it emerges.

What you must remember when you talk about gendered concepts such as “masculinity” and “femininity” is that there is no universal idea of “masculinity” or “femininity” that speaks across time and nation and culture. Even within specific regions, such as Asia, not only does each country have its own understanding of gender and national signifiers and norms that defines “femininity” or “masculinity,” but even within the borders of the nation-state itself, we can find significantly different discourses on femininity and masculinity that sometimes are in direct opposition with one another. 

If we talk about the United States, for example, can we really say that there is a universal American idea of “masculinity” or “femininity”? How do we define a man, if what we understand to be a man is just a body that performs gender? What kind of signifiers are needed for such a performance? Is it Chris Evan’s Captain America? Or is it Chris Hemsworth’s Thor? What about Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark? Do these characters form a single, cohesive idea of masculinity? 

What about Ezra Miller’s Barry Allen? Miller is nonbinary - does their superhero status make them more masculine? Or are they less “masculine” because they are nonbinary? 

Judith Butler tells us in Gender Trouble (1990) and Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex” (1993) that what we call gender is inherently a discursive performance of specific signifiers and behaviors that were assigned to the gender binary and enforced by compulsory heterosexuality. She writes:

Insofar as heterosexual gender norms produce inapproximate ideals, heterosexuality can be said to operate through the regulated production of hyperbolic versions of “man” and “woman.” These are for the most part compulsory performances, ones which none of us choose, but which each of us is forced to negotiate. (1993: 237)

Because gender norms vary regionally, there are no stable norms that coalesce into the idea of a single, universal American “masculinity.” What I mean by this is that your idea of what reads as “masculine” might not be what I personally consider to be “masculine,” as someone who grew up in a very left-leaning liberal cosmopolitan area of the United States. 

What I am saying is this: Anon, I think you should consider challenging your idea of gender, because it sounds to me like you have a very regionally locked conception of the gender binary that informs your understanding of “masculinity” and femininity” - an understanding that simply does not exist in Asia, where there is not one,  but many different forms of masculinity. 

China, Japan, and South Korea all have significant cultural differences and understandings of gender, which has a direct relationship with one’s national and cultural identity. 

Japan, for example, might consider an idol who has long, layered hair and a thin body to be the ideal for idol masculinity, but would not consider an idol to be representative of “real” Japanese masculinity, which is epitomized by the Japanese salaryman. 

South Korea, however, has a very specific idea of what idol masculinity must look like -  simultaneously hypermasculine (i.e. extremely muscular, chiseled body) and “feminine” (i.e. makeup and dyed hair, extravagant clothing with a soft, beautiful face.) But South Korea also presents us with a more “standardized” idea of masculinity that offers an alternative to the “flowerboy” masculinity performed by idols, when we consider actors such as Hyun Bin and Lee Min-ho. 

China is a little more complex. In order to understand Chinese masculinity, we must first understand that prior to the Hallyu wave, the idea of the perfect Chinese man was defined by three qualities: 高富帅 (gaofushuai) tall, moneyed, and handsome - largely due to the emergence of the Chinese metrosexual. 

According to Kam Louie:

[The] Chinese metrosexual, though urbanized, is quite different from his Western counterpart. There are several translations of the term in Chinese, two of the most common and standard being “bailing li'nan” 白领丽男 and “dushili'nan” 都市丽男，literally “white-collar beautiful man” and “city beautiful man.” The notion of “beautiful man” (li-nan) refers to one who looks after his appearance and has healthy habits and all of the qualities usually attributed to the metrosexual; these are also the attributes of the reconstituted “cool” salaryman in Japan, men who have abandoned the “salaryman warrior” image and imbibed recent transnational corporate ideologies and practices. 

[...]

In fact, the concept of the metrosexual by its very nature defines a masculinity ideal that can only be attained by the moneyed classes. While it can be said to be a “softer” image than the macho male, it nevertheless encompasses a very “hard” and competitive core, one that is more aligned with the traditional “wen” part of the wen-wu dyad that I put forward as a conventional Chinese ideal and the “salaryman warrior” icon in Japan. Unsurprisingly, both metrosexuality and wen-wu masculinity are created and embraced by men who are “winners” in the patriarchal framework. 

The wen-wu 文武 (cultural attainment – martial valor) dyad that Louie refers to is the idea that Chinese masculinity was traditionally shaped by “a dichotomy between cultural and martial accomplishments” and is not only an ideal that has defined Chinese masculinity throughout history, but is also a uniquely Chinese phenomenon.

When the Hallyu wave swept through China, in an effort to capture and maximize success in the Chinese market, South Korean idol companies recruited Chinese idols and mixed them into their groups. Idols such as Kris Wu, Han Geng, Jackson Wang, and Wang Yibo are just a few such idols whose masculinities were redefined by the Kpop idol ideal. 

Once that crossover occurred, China’s idol image shifted towards the example South Korea set, with one caveat: such an example can only exist on stage, in music videos, and other “idol” products. Indeed, if we look at any brand campaigns featuring Wang Yibo, his image is decisively more metrosexual than idol; he is usually shot bare-faced and clean-cut, without the “idol” aesthetics that dominate his identity as Idol Wang Yibo. But, this meterosexual image, despite being the epitome of Chinese idealized masculinity, would still be viewed as more “feminine” when viewed by a North American gaze. (It is important to note that this gaze is uniquely North American, because meterosexual masculinity is actually also a European ideal!)

The North American gaze has been trained to view alternate forms of masculinity as non-masculine. We are inundated by countless images of hypermasculinity and hypersexual femininity in the media, which shapes our cultural consciousness and understanding of gender and sexuality and unattainable ideals. 

It is important to be aware that these ideals are culturally and regionally codified and are not universal. It is also important to challenge these ideals, as you must ask yourself: why is it an ideal? Why must masculinity be defined in such a way in North America? Why does the North American gaze view an Asian male idol and immediately read femininity in his bodily performance? What does that say about your North American cultural consciousness and understanding of gender? 

I encourage you to challenge these ideas, Anon.  

“Always already a cultural sign, the body sets limits to the imaginary meanings that it occasions, but is never free of imaginary construction.” - Judith Butler 

Works Cited

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. New York, NY, Routledge, 1990. Butler, Judith. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. New York, NY, Routledge, 1993. Flowerboys and the appeal of 'soft masculinity' in South Korea. BBC, 2018,  Louie, Kam. “Popular Culture and Masculinity Ideals in East Asia, with Special Reference to China.” The Journal of Asian Studies, Volume 71, Issue 4, November 2012 , pp. 929 - 943 Louie, Kam. Chinese, Japanese, and Global Masculine Identities. New York, NY, Routledge, 2003. 

Stars of Chaos 杀破狼 Vol 1, Notes 2

Pages 86 - 146

More translation and cultural notes:

It’s obvious in Chinese that Priest just means “his eyes were red with hatred,” but really eloquently.

More under the cut.

Yup. Priest fit in a pun/joke related to male-exclusive anatomy, and it’s just really cute.

It’s a cute turn of phrase where Shen Yi is being appropriately humble as a servant of a prince, and Chang Geng is using the exact same phrasing but saying “I’m not a prince.” And it’s all very concise.

There’s this thing called 歇后语 which Pleco translates as “two-part allegorical saying” and is really just yet another type of cultural inside joke. They’re so fun.

This one is 老寿星上吊 — 活得不耐烦了, for those who can read Chinese. (The translation is pretty spot-on, too).

Yet another nice way to talk about death and the dead.

Yah. I had to look that up.

Stars of Chaos - All The Notes List

All The Seven Seas Books Masterlist

Rec: The Phenomenon called “Qin Shen Shen”

What is “Qin Shen Shen”?

Qin Shen Shen is a singing duo formed in 2019, in the 1st season of a Chinese music competition show called “Wo Men De Ge” aka “Our Song”. It’s made of Zhou Shen and Li Keqin, two experienced solo singers who met for the 1st time on the show. “Qin Shen Shen” is their team name.

But who are they?

1) Zhou Shen: 

A singer from mainland China, mostly known for singing OSTs of C-dramas and movies, including CQL (Xue Yang’s theme) and DMBJ ChongQi.

28 years old. (5 yrs old, when together with Li Keqin)

Famous for his naturally high-pitched voice, similar to a soprano or mezzo-soprano.

Wants to lower people’s expectations, but keeps blowing people’s minds, so he’s stuck in a vicious circle of growing expectations and one-upping his past self. 

Most famous song is called “Big Fish”. 

Self-professed insecure.

Talks a lot.

2) Li Keqin:

A veteran singer from Hong Kong, who debuted 30+ years ago.

53 years old but is secretly 8 (3 yrs old, when with Zhou Shen) 

Is known for having such great vocal stability when singing live that he earned himself the nickname: “CD-Qin”. 

Will make mistakes in Mandarin but look really cute doing it 

Famous songs include “Half-Moon Serenade” and “Great Auditorium Concert Hall”.

Is a good sport. Is good at sports.

*is stressed* *pretends to stay calm* *slays* *rinse and repeat* 

So why should I check them out? 

“Match made in heaven” is the moniker given to them the 1st time they sang together. That stuck for a reason. Li Keqin and Zhou Shen are a “1+1= greater than 2″. In theory, they’re worlds apart, but combining them sets off sparks. Whether it’s their understanding of how a song should be sung, their skills, or their style in singing duets: all match. On top of that, their voices’ timbre are weirdly complementary. Li Keqin’s baritone fits under Zhou Shen’s floating pitch like an anchor grounding them. Zhou Shen’s sound brings both voices to greater heights. The exponential added value they bring each other as a duo is just a rare find in any circle. In short: You’re in for a musical FEAST.

Chemistry. Chemistry. Chemistry. Complementary in some ways, similar in others, how they magically fit like a glove right off the bat is itself a wonder. Zhou Shen’s “prepare-for-the-worst” attitude goes hand-in-hand with Li Keqin’s apparent optimism. When one throws, the other’s there to receive. Sometimes they complete each other’s sentences, other times they’re like night and day…In all cases, what a team.

Laughs!! So many laughs! When they’re not singing, Qin Shen Shen is a full-time comedy duo. Throwing each other under the bus is a skill they acquired in 0 time and make use of daily. And if they’re not the ones throwing the jokes, they sure are receiving well. Dorks.

Cuteness overload. Both are just incredibly likeable and cute individuals onscreen. (yes both) Unbelievable. You have to see it to believe it.

A heartwarming dynamic. At the end of the day, QSS is a duo formed for a competition on TV. But even with the most cynical eyes, what you see is a dynamic between 2 very different singers of different generations, who have to get to know each other enough to collaborate in a short time, within a dynamic that fits. And it works! Boy do they make it work!! 

Where to check them out?

If you’re short on time, some of their songs to pick from: “Under Mount Fuji”, “All the Lovers in the World”, or “Wild Wolf Disco”. 

If nothing else, give their audio clip a chance: Clean vers of “Under Mount Fuji” without audience reactions, and a compilation of clean audios to cherry-pick from. 

If you decided you want to see more of them, they’re a regular on “Wo Men De Ge/Our Song” S1: Ep. 1 with Eng subs. (More info on the show here) 

Give the “match made in heaven” duo a try!! They don’t disappoint!

Xiao Zhan performances 2/12.

All linked to We*bo. for my reference to watch later.

1. BTV spring Festival Gala - to all those people who know my name

2. BTV spring festival gala midnight dream Full fancam

3. BTV Group perf - Meet in Beijing

4. Dragon TV performance 1

5. Dragon TV perf - Running to you with all I have ( AKA my favorite)

😍🥰😍 

↳ gif request for anon  ♡

So during my second time watching Jiang Cheng walk across what I now know is a random mountain to meet Wen Qing, all I could think about was Wei Wuxian, Wen Qing, and Wen Ning’s plan and the fact that they must have been following him, like:

Wen Qing: should he really be walking across that field?

Wei Wuxian: I don’t know, I thought he would follow the path

Wen Ning: should we stop it now so he doesn’t trip and fall?

Wei Wuxian: naw let’s wait a bit, he needs to think it’s difficult

Wen Ning: is this a good place? can I ring the gong now?

Wei Wuxian: I think it’s good. wen qing?

Wen Qing: yeah yeah it’s fine. ring the stupid gong - I’ll lead him to a better spot

Wen Qing: I’m not going to wear the hat

Wei Wuxian: c’mon, you need to wear the hat

Wen Ning: yeah, wear the hat, a-jie

Wen Qing: he’s wearing a blindfold! he won’t be able to see my face anyway

Wei Wuxian: but what if he takes off the blindfold? what then, hmm? the hat is key

Wen Ning: yeah a-jie, the hat is key

Wen Qing: uuuuugh fine I’ll wear the hat