#who are even the blorbo side characters?

[5hrignold]

this is all i got

#Tiny side ramble in the tags its what i do best #in the interview they mention charlie feeling way more like developed in s2 and I. if that’s really true iM SOOO happy and somehow #even more excited for it bc of that Because ive mentioned this before obviously ive always liked charlie #but like. im unable to really get into him the way i can do with pim. like there’s nearly Nothing about him that tells me anything about hi #character which AGAIN IVE SAID. IK THATS THE POINT and ur not even like. these aren’t even like designed to be blorbo type characters so- #-who cares BUT LIKE. I STILL WANT TO LIKE HIM AS MUCH AS I LIKE PIM YA KNOW #well not As much. he could never compare to pim in my personal mind #but yknow what imean. so im happy that probably means we’re getting more of him kinda in s2 #Aauauuaau so excited #Also i still hate drawing him #never wont #smiling friends #pim pimling #charlie dompler #Dumb name … stupid guy… #💝 #charpim is soo scary to actually tag like woah guys who said anything about all that.. hey now #odieart

[moeblob]

I normally don't repost my art like this but since most of these are just posted as one picture I also don't wanna reblog a lot of posts. So! Please look at my Dream Wardens. I love them so much.

For the outfit meme thing btw, I would like to point out they don't really need sleep and they exist to work so no need for fun outfits. HOWEVER! Marcus and Colette's ties are the other's eye colors. Sil and Luce have gray ties because Luce was more recent (still a hundred years of partnership) so it's pretty much "you're being scored to make sure you can keep the job" and they eventually would get ties to match the other's eyes color.

The basic premise is! They live in a realm filled with dreams which they have to keep watch over to make sure don't escape. Whether dreams or nightmares, they must be contained. So it's kind of like a prison - each person has a cell that contains their dreams. There are.... a lot of wardens. But each "floor" has eight wardens and it's a circle where the wardens work in pairs. So Marcus and Colette are the focused pair and then they make rounds, they'll end the shift in a rest area where they either hang out with Luce and Sil or Sophia and Ruby. Those are the four they interact with while those four have another duo that they meet on their rounds.

The wardens cannot die. Literally impossble. They can get injured but it heals really quickly. So while Marcus would prefer to not be impaled (again) it wouldn't actually kill him. He'd just be sore.

They also just do not age. So they're centuries old. That said, for a while Colette had a different partner who retired and she got Marcus... and Marcus was incredibly quiet and reserved and scared of messing up for like 10 years before he started to warm up to her. (Time do be feelin' different there) And then he opens up a bit to Sil and Robert who was his partner at the time. And then hundreds of years pass and Marcus is super comfy with them (Sophia and Ruby still intimidate him a bit but that's different) and suddenly! No more Robert. Now it's Luce. And Marcus spends five years avoiding any and all conversations with him because oh no he's hot. Sil gets interrogated by Luce because "have I offended him in some way? he won't even look at me" and Sil is just "dude's shy. took him ages to warm up to me and my previous partner" and eventually Marcus laughs at something Colette says and Luce is like "ohhhhh nooooo I'm doomed he's so cute". While the entire time Marcus has been refusing to attempt conversation because "no he's handsome I'm doomed since I'm bad at conversations".

And they mention Robert sometimes (Colette, Marcus, and Sil) around Luce and Marcus seems chill about it. But then Marcus gets a serious injury that will recover but it would impact his job too much to patrol without a head so they send a temp replacement and it's Robert. And Sil is like "oh oh trade you Luce for my old partner give him" and Colette "are you kidding? you had him for sooooo long I wanna patrol with Robert now! it's only gonna be a little while!" and Robert just .... doesn't wanna be there. And when Marcus is fit to return he begs the people in charge of their routes to NOT LET ROBERT LEAVE until he can say hi and they let him. Unfortunately it involves Marcus busting into the break room saying "ROBBIE ROB!" and Robert sighing but standing up and extending his arms for a hug. Two pats on Marcus' back. and "okay bye". Luce is left in absolute despair cause he's never seen Marcus that happy oh boy.

Anyway my dream wardens mean a lot to me and I really miss them now.

#my characters #listen this isn't even all of them but holy moly i love them so much #this doesn't even show colette's gf! who has freckles! #also not pictured is robert whomst i fucking love and hes not there in plot often lmao #you really can see .... my art has changed..... very vaguely..... since i started drawing them and how it is now #there is too much under the read more and im so sorry i did try to contain it for those that arent interested #gonna draw for today now but just wanted to info dump my silly lil guys #my lil dream blorbos #it would be fun to make more image dumps thematically but maybe i will do that and shove them onto my side blog instead of here #you guys might not wanna see me dump ocs here #i mean depending on how long you've been here then lol you might have already seen it all

[pointsfortrying]

Ah lads here we go again. Chat, who's going to tell them

#dungeon meshi spoilers #<- for the beloveds #head in hands #when characters are written well (complex) but ppl Neeeed to be able to 'they're a bad person' bc they did a bad thing #failing to realize that literally EVERYONE has done bad things--- #the characters have depth! thats whats compelling!!! #yes this is bc the anime reached toshiro and we are once again seeing the waves of 'i hate shuro he's an awful person' raghhhhhhh #i fucking love laios he's an incredible character but raghhhh #chat they (fandom) don't know about the microaggressions #grahhh cultural differences and arguably clashes of nd bc i can see toshiro also being nd but even if not raghhh #yes toshiro should have handled things better but also laios should have and its wrong to baby either of them raghhh #also toshiro hasnt eaten or slept in days and is all over the place at this point and Laios Even Acknowledges It raghhhhhhhhhhh #raghhhhhhhhhhhh #ghhhhhhh knows that the later scenes will probably hopefully make some ppl better understand but its going to ten ten trillion years to get #there and raghhhhhhh #oh boy i cant wait to see th fucking. racisms. #ghhhhhhhhhh #me when idrc ab toshiro but the sheer scale of hate directed towards him makes me want to blorbo him out of spite rahhhhh #<- me when i have been in situations where im both laios and toshiro and it sucks from both sides #and thats! the! point!!!!!!!!!!!! #you can hurt ppl you care ab!!!!!!!! #grahhhhhhhh #the cultural part is one that just. grah. #ryoko kui does such an incredible job establishing and showing that different cultures exists and just the fandom ignoring that gh. #also stop calling him shuro raghhh <- thats a pet peeve one but god as someone who's irl name has been made fun of #So many times bc it's not 'local'. #ghhhhh laios ily but the panel where you were going 'HUH? SHURO? NICE TO MEET YOU EVERYONE THIS IS SHURO :D'. pain and agony #ryoko kui has absolutely been there before as most asian ppl when white person #<- this was me just having a moment bc goes into tag and sighs. #toshiro you're an asian side character standing in the way of the blorbo mc and blorbo yuri you never stood a chance.....

[skipblebee]

Reijooo my skrunkly scrimblo scrambled egg blorbo beloved ough

#Skipsart #reijo #oughh da blorbo #moomins #moomin fanart #HELP WHAT DO I EVEN TAG THIS AS 💀💀💀 #art #this is for me and the few other people who like the side characters <3 #brainrot is so strong rn fr fr #He is just. a guy. in love with a magical fairy girl. chilling in a lighthouse. sobs

[cauldronofmorning]

How to say “we need to start trusting creators again” without sounding like “canon is god-tier” nerd.

#just maybe the creator is thinking as much as you are #maybe they know how gay their show is even if they have to code it #maybe the conflict and your blorbo showing their worst side is good writing actually #maybe the female character who has a role to play in the narrative is better than background dude number five #maybe the good things in the show that you’re noticing are on purpose

[ofdreamsanddoodles]

Track 6: Hungry Dog In The Street—The Taxpayers Words: 2.1k

“If that’s what he needs to do to eat, I’m not judging,” Hobie says. “Jess says he mainly goes after the ones who target kids. I can respect that. Not the easiest way to clean up the street, though.” “Should we… help him?” Gwen asks. “I mean, if he hates being a Peter enough to change his name, he’s probably like—traumatized. And stuff. He should know that there are actually adults in the world who want to help him.” Hobie stares at her. “We’re not adults,” he says. “He’s thirteen,” Gwen insists. “When I was thirteen, my dad still packed my lunch. He shouldn’t be— no one should be on their own at thirteen, no matter how fancy their apartment is.”

recognition of self through the other (you are a homeless teen & i am assuming you have so many issues because i am a homeless teen and i know i do)

#spiderverse #hobie brown #gwen stacy #including a very special blorbo in this one #(character who only shows up in one side comic & then like never again) #he doesnt even talk in this chapter lmao #writing

[here2bbtstrash]

My only thought when I saw that impossibly hard poll (other than GOD NO HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO CHOOSE) was 'thank god baby star candy isn't on here 😌😌😌' Please do not get any ideas from that though, M, because I would literally not hesitate to kill anyone for him. In the end I had to pick drip yoongi because I just have a deeper connection to everyone else (although the fact that qe literally call him a god really says something huh)

You're still mean for making us choose though 😗😗

i'm considering having the ultimate side character showdown of baby star candy JK vs. TSOYB yoongi but that feels...... almost too cruel 🤣

not gonna lie i picked squirt god yoongi too 👀 maybe that's why i feel some type of way about him being in last place lmaooooo

i love being mean it's fun 😈

#btscontentenjoyer #mbox 📮 #i don't even know who i would pick on the side character one 😭 #those are my two emotional support blorbos!!!!

[crazyw3irdo]

you alreayd know who im gonna ask. give me the bingo on the little prison boy

MY BELOVED

#those top right ones are just slightly valid hence only slightly colored in #wasted potential because he is just a side character and not even a plot relevant one but he deserves so much more imo #done dirty is only slight because mark redeemed himself with iswm. before that it would’ve been full. #that ahwm livestream where mark said yancy doesn’t love y/n and is a bad person who only cares about being in prison.. how dare he #and the popular ships one is cause like. i still don’t understand why ppl shipped him with illy for a while there #it’s not. bad. it just. is strange to me #but god yes the blorbo of all time my beloved little guy 100% listening to songs thinking about him #may or may not have a playlist for him whose to say #he’s never done anything wrong ever. yes he killed his parents yes he stabbed people regularly but also that’s fine actually #my little guy with like 15 minutes of screen time my best friend my pal my homeboy my rotten soldier my sweet cheese my good time boy #and god his character arc;; my guy;; going from believing he’s this terrible irredeemable guy to *applying for parole* god i love himmmm #i’m shaking him violently look at this DUDE he’s so good he deserves the world #crazwaz posted #audience participation

[20w14a]

I’ve been watching this one really good yet depressing anime film and I kid you not I saw this one side character and went: wow this guy is worm man coded, he is, oh, so pathetic

And not even 30 minutes later they show him again later with this other character and my entire face just goes

#player.text #/seed #i mean he's worm man coded bc he literally wants to be a hero yet in the process is so horrible at his job that he can't really save #or protect anyone that he almost gives up on said dream #the second character gives me ex vibes but i didn't fully understand that until way later when they literally show the two interacting #there's like a whole scene where the guy goes maybe i should quit my job blah blah #and the other character tells him that he is stupid and that he did save someone's life #and he goes who #and they say me you idiot #and to say i almost lost it was a understatement #this movie already had me crying for 30 mins straight at the begining bc it was like the movie up levels of sadness #but then they hit me with the whole hero side arc bs and i started screaming #also another point the guy's name literally starts with a w too so i find that even more hilarious #sorry not sorry needed to scream abt this film and blorbos for a sec

[rpgchoices]

The WINNER of the Tournament of fav tumblr rpg male romances is...

The Master of the Vollante

The Babe of Frontiers

The Heart of the Gate

WYLL RAVENGARD

Enjoy this two minute FANVIDEO DEDICATED TO HIM (don't miss the final quote, it is my favorite), I used the most appropriate song ever. Congrats, Wyll with a y!

(he is the hero, but he also needs a hero to sweep him off his feet, get it?)

With about 1235 votes, Wyll beat Garrus in the finals of the tournament. This gives him the title of best tumblr rpg blorbo and babygirl.

(more under cut about the Wyll's sweep and his character)

Wyll jumped into the tournament qualifying among 69 total characters, and being the most voted of his section in round zero! Wyll was also the most voted OVERALL in round one where he got about 6420 votes against Cullen (88% of votes). Round two saw him winning a very close competition against Zevran, and in round three he won with almost double the votes against Astarion! Again with double the votes he won against Dorian Pavus in the semifinals!

Very appropriate for him to win as his character is truly a romantic at heart and his actor even revealed in an interview that the romantic scenes were his favorite to film.

Wyll is a companion and romancable option for any gender in Baldur's Gate 3. You will meet him while he is in pursuit of a devil, just to find out that the honor and code he is trying to live by might be clashing with the path he could be choosing.

Wyll's romance has a kiss that has been nominated (and won) for "favorite kiss ever in a rpg game by me and for my opinion only and I just love it".

Man who will crack a joke when you least expect it

EVEN WHEN IT REALLY IS NOT THE TIME

Just to turn around and offer you the most heart shattering and unwavering support

Monster smasher (in all senses) hero, who truly needs someone at his side who makes sure he fights his own battles too, not just the trials of the coast!

Very happy to see he is currently (with all the biases and limitations of such polls, of course) the favorite romance in the rpg fandoms here on tumblr (for male characters)!!

Please, make sure to also jump in the female characters tournament!!

Also, CONGRATULATIONS TO GARRUS who came second in the tournament, and FENRIS who came third! (as he had more votes than Dorian, in the semifinals)

*In the fanvideo there are the seven clips that are not from Wyll games. I wanted to write them down as this is supposed to be a rec for his romance, so I don't want to trick people!

00:16 I modded Wyll into Karlach and used Astarion as player character (Karlach romance scene act 3)

00:38 Astarion romance scene, I played as Wyll but I flipped the character with the ring of metamorph mod so Wyll could pick up Astarion

00:50 Like the first clip, this is Karlach scene from act 3

00:51 I modded Karlach into Wyll, this is her scene from act 1

00:53 I modded Shadowheart into Astarion and I was playing as Wyll, this is Shadowheart romance scene in act 1

00:59 This is Astarion romance scene in act 2, I was playing as Wyll

01:07 The hug is from Astarion romance, epilogue, where I was playing as Wyll

#wyll ravengard #blade of frontiers #wyll #bg3 wyll #wyllstarion #babe of frontiers #baldur's gate 3 #poll #i conveniently have hours of wyll footage on my pc #tournament of rpg male romances #final round results

[dduane]

Ms Duane tumblr needs to know how you feel about being a playable character in Write n Fight. Neil Gaiman & Chuck Tingle have weighed in, now we just need you and Seanan McGuire for Blorbo Bingo

https://www.tumblr.com/treemaidengeek/743634729677570049?source=share

I'd happily be a playable character if I could be one who uses a sword. (An Oakeshott Type XIII by preference. A katana would be very much a second choice [even though I have a lot more training with those] since iaido tends to make for very short fights that leave the viewers going "wait, what just happened there??".)

Otherwise I would prefer to be an NPC who leans against the nearest wall critiquing the fighters' style and making side bets on how long they'll last. :)

#write n fight

[galactic-rhea]

WDYM Anakin is Luke and Leia's dad

I dunno if this post will reach the Star Wars fandom but I hope it does because I'm sure you all will get a good laugh at me.

As of recent I have developed a good hiperfixation for Star Wars, the thing is I knew nothing. NOTHING about Star Wars besides the fact it had aliens and...a war...in space? And funny swords. And main character is Luke or something, I spent over 20 years ignoring anything about Star Wars and somehow missing most references out there.

And recently, literally less than a month ago I saw a gif and said to my partner "oh this guy this guy looks cool, this gif looks nice" and he said "Oh well, he's a good character." And it all developed into me watching Clone Wars, the animated series you know and...and I was kinda blown away, on my opinion the show IS GREAT. And I love every character and their interactions, I love how much they focus on side characters, and they all seem very well written. I got hiperfixated really fast and saw Anakin and I was like "Omg, babygirl. He's a blorbo now."

And because of the show, this was super unexpected, but somehow I also got, really got, into the ship with Padmé because omg, cool woman. Literal happy squeaky noises of someone who was in a bad state and needed some good ol' distraction and comfort.

Now, like I said I knew nothing about Star Wars as a whole. And I still haven't watched the movies, besides the ocassional gif?

So imagine my shock, my surprise, my...bewilderment when I realized.

"Wait a minute, LUKE IS ANAKIN'S SON?! HOLY-"

Ladies, gentleman, and others, I think I came very late to this party and I don't even know how it took me so long.

Not only that, but because of this sudden love for the series, I went to my friends circle like "BESTIE, GUESS WHAT, I HAVE A NEW BLROBO AND A NEW FAV SHIP AND EEEP"

And my friends are like "omg that's amazing, what is it?"

I tell them, and of course they all know these characters and they all react like they know this very bad secret fact and I got told several times already "Please, don't watch the episodes 2 and 3 alone, it will hurt."

I feel like blissfully walking among rainbows and blue skies while everyone else know that my future is doomed. Somehow.

(Uncomfortable silence)

Not only that, but then I spent a whole deal of time thinking "Where the heck I have seen these guys" cus there was some fmailiarity I couldn't just point out and then one day I woke up, brushed my teeth and of all sudden I realized and it was such a shock.

Do you know how SURREAL is to get very into a character, and into a ship, and then realize they're the same from that super widespread meme that has been around for who knows how much time?

I swear I thought that meme was from some old medieval fantasy movies or something.

But alas, Star Wars now is EVERYWHERE. People do references to Star Wars ALL THE TIME and it's just now I'm catching them.

I got spoilers. From a meme. In a youtube review that had nothing to do with Star Wars hah. Everything is a spoiler, the world is an apparent spoiler. Now I'm here, trying to avoid spoilers from something everyone seems to know, even my family knows. It's so surreal and I wouldn't have it any other way 😂

Anyways, if you read until here, know that a wild ride still waits me, cuz I'm only starting Season 3 of Clone Wars and I don't plan to watch the movies until I finish the series.

And yes, I made this blog just to ramble freely about SW and draw stuff because it sparked my inspiration after a long art block.

Have this doodle I drew after watching the two first episodes, my offering for you reaching this far.

Note: Wouldn't Anakin and Padmé's ship name be Animé? Cuz that's hilarious.

#rambling #star wars #star wars fandom #anakin skywalker #darth vader #the clone wars #sw tcw #tcw #tcw fanart #clone wars

[starofnyra]

in love with the idea of the db's followers being as remembered in history as the db themself. imagine:

engineers, for generations, mumbling the formula called 'Remiel's Constant' under their breaths as they develop machinery, because it's such a foundational discovery on Remiel's part for a new age of engineering

in contrast, future alchemists agonizing over Xelzaz' thousands of alchemical discoveries a night before their finals, bemoaning why he was so diligent in cranking out formula after formula because now they have so much to memorize

historians and casual history buffs alike locked in discourse on whether or not the last prince of the Thalmor actually colluded with the Dragonborn in the Second Great War to help bring down the Dominion, with vaguely-worded correspondence for evidence

adaptations of the tale where every single follower is at least someone's 'blorbo'

the ballad of Inigo the Brave being a cultural touchstone for Khajiit rep and spawning Tamriel's version of the rogue, underdog hero archetype. even when it's a totally fictional work, if the protagonist (or charming side character) is weirdly charismatic, roguishly handsome, and with a heart of gold, chances are the creator was inspired by Inigo's legacy.

the massive misunderstandings of the dragonborn's original history. Thanks to anti-Thalmor sentiments long after the Second Great War, Nebarra was deemed as a traitor figure to the Dragonborn, but this sentiment was overturned centuries after uncovering contemporaries' journal entries on their friendship

when you ask someone who they think Sir Kaidan was to the dragonborn, there's an equal chance of them firmly believing he was their lover, platonic best friend, or loyal but professional lieutenant. they will have reams of evidence to back it up, no matter which stance they take.

many who have felt that they never perfectly fit into the demands of their faith or community, not just bosmer, resonating with Auri's story. realizing that while they may be an outlier in their own eyes, they can still do a lot of good in the world, and that has to count for something.

common sayings based on (real or not) stories of the followers. if a place is crowded, it's common to joke, "guess the dragonborn's in town."

just. yeah.

#skyrim custom followers #remiel #xelzaz #caryalind thallery #inigo the brave #skyrim nebarra #kaidan 2 #auri song of the green

[befuddledcinnamonroll]

Top 10 Things I Love About the QL Tumblr Community 2023

I'm loving everyone's end of year lists, and decided to make up one of my own.

I haven't been on Tumblr for very long and was originally just lurking. 2023 marks the year where I finally started posting, after I read a take that made me feel compelled to come to a fictional character's defense. (Saengtai, my poor little blorbo).

So in commemoration of my first proper year of active tumblring, I present what I love about this community (in no particular order).

(Side note - Technically I know this is still primarily a BL community, but I like to say QL because I am trying to manifest more lesbians for us.)

1) The Gifmakers

Y'all are a good 70% of the reason I joined Tumblr in the first place. There are so many show moments that I want to relive, but without having to search through videos. Sometimes I want to appreciate the aesthetics. Sometimes I want to remember adorable or goofy moments. Sometimes I just want to see cute boys eating each other's faces. Our gifmakers give all of that to us, with the addition of so much creativity and style.

There's too many amazing ones to mention everyone, but I have to shout out @sparklyeyedhimbo, because the way your brain works makes me so happy.

2) The expertise

The other part of why I joined Tumblr was to learn more about what BLs were out there and what I might be missing. And holy hell. Y'all are putting in the work. Not only lists and resources for finding all kinds of QLs, like these fabulous monthly breakdowns by @gunsatthaphan, but also amazing posts that add additional context, like @absolutebl's incredibly helpful breakdown of Asian honorifics. There is so much research people do, for fun! And then they share it!

3) The meta analysis

I frickin love reading people's takes and analyses on series. I love learning, I love seeing perspectives from people with different cultural backgrounds to my own, it's all so fascinating! There's so much context we can miss due to our own privileges, or lack of knowing about various cultures, or due to whatever bubbles we've been living in. People here are just so smart, and nuanced, and willing to reflect and think about things, and also push back at each other, but generally with respect (except when you call out the dumb shit you see, usually on Twitter or TikTok, where people are being reductive and dumb about gender and sexuality).

And I've seen a few takes where people complain about analyses, and say that the director/production doesn't do everything deliberately, and we're all reading too much into it. To which I say, eh, lighten up. How people connect to and relate to media has relevance beyond what was intended. The point is we get to think and discuss and learn and grow. That doesn't happen if we don't analyze.

Special shout out here to @respectthepetty because colors mean things!

4) The wild theories

The other side of the analysis coin, the clown cars y'all drive around in with the wildest of theories. I have happily climbed into an occasional clown car, and usually I am utterly wrong (*cough* Saifah *cough*). But it's a super fun ride. I love seeing how people's brains work. I love it when y'all are wrong. I love it when y'all are right. It's beautiful.

5) Immediate acceptance

I am one of those people who knows that I have a lot of good qualities, and also, always kind of expect rejection. Blame the childhood bullies, I guess. Anyway, whenever I delve into a new space, I still feel like a total dork that no one will want to talk to. It's kind of a fraught way to move through the world, but I manage.

Anyway, I started posting my thoughts as they came up, and people are just totally cool with it. People even follow me sometimes. Even my silliest thoughts and dumbest jokes get at least a couple likes. It's so validating.

And my very silly joke about gay mafia in Kiseki has over 800 likes. I feel very seen.

6) Mutuals

I still kind of can't believe I have any. This ties in to the dork feeling above, but seriously - they are soooo cooooool. They're smart and awesome and funny, and they somehow find me worth following back, which is baffling yet wonderful. I want to squish their faces and give them many kisses (if they're into that kind of thing).

7) The self-exploration

I really appreciate how it's become more talked about how a lot of people are discovering queerness through BL, because that is so the case for me. I think it's both that I was in a bit of a hetero bubble before, and also that I'm evolving a bit as I age. I had figured out I was demi, and maybe a little bit gay, before getting in to BL, but being in this community, and seeing so many of you share so openly and freely, has made me realize it might be more than a little bit.

Either it was a new realization, or being around y'all has made me more gay. Win win, either way.

8) The weirdness

I'm weird. Y'all are weird. I love it.

9) The thirst

So many in this community are thirsty as fuck, and as someone who is in that same condition, I love that it's not just me. There are not many places where I can freely admit how horny I am as a part of my general existence.

Here? I could post about wanting to lick some random BL actor's face, and it would get a bunch of likes and some tags like #lickable, and it's just not remotely a big deal.

Also the gifmakers understand this, and give us beautiful cuts of our spicy scenes. They are genuinely too good for us.

10) The communal watching experience

There is absolutely nothing like watching along with people in the community. It is so worth the torture of having to wait week to week for new episodes. Seeing the show trend, watching the theories fly fast and furious, or the way everyone collectively loses their minds over particular moments. In a world that can feel very isolating, it's a very warm experience.

So there you go. Thank you all for being you. Here's to another year of QL shenanigans and losing our collective minds!

#bl community #ql community #bl series #ql series #thai bl

[rongzhi]

Hi! Love your TikTok translations, they help me learn so much. Sorry if you've answered this before already, but as a language student myself, I was just curious about how you got so good at Chinese - is it a native language for you, or what's your background in using/studying it? Thank you!

I think I answered this a long time ago (like 2021 maybe) so I will just tell it again. It's kind of a longwinded boring post that's very self-centric (😬) and also probably not going to have any helpful advice to the average language learner, so I'm going to put it under a read more!

Background

My family is Chinese so it's my heritage language. I did learn it before English as a baby but then forgot a lot of it. My parents speak Chinese at home but I always replied in English growing up. Part of this is because I have a twin sibling and because we spoke English at school, we also started speaking English to each other at home.

We went to Chinese school on Sundays growing up (this is like a community/cultural school; it included other courses like math, Chinese dance, art, pre-SATs (lol), etc, depending on who in the community was available to teach), but I didn't really pay attention so my Chinese was pretty shit for a long time—like broken conversational level shitty, although I have always had a strong comprehension ability. My dad's side is from Sichuan so I grew up understanding a bit of Sichuanese.

The beginning of my "studying"

I don't actually have much of a background studying Chinese in a formal setting. I took Chinese 101-103 in college as part of a language requirement (specifically chose to start with 101 so I could relearn basics, even though my teachers kept offering to place me in higher levels). I really credit my Chinese 101 prof who was also the college's calligraphy teacher for making us focus on brush stroke order and recognising characters and understanding semantic components, which is something other profs did not emphasise (they were more focused on building conversational skills).

Anyway, that was only my freshman year of college because I ended up changing majors and not having a language requirement anymore (boo). I continued studying a bit of Chinese in the intervening years, but I am not a very disciplined person when it comes to self-study, so much of it was just translating song lyrics for my own amusement. During this time, I also started watching some cdramas, but mostly just Chinese web shows, which maybe helped? (I don't think I was watching enough for it to really make a difference).

Fast forward a couple years to 2020 and I started watching more cdramas during lockdowns, including watching 成化十四年 (The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty), which I was super invested in for about two years (this used to be a fandom blog lol). Basically, hyperfixation led me to rapidly improve my Chinese; I started translating a few behind-the-scenes videos for fandom friends. In order to keep up with Chinese fans and gain access to more material about the show, I started venturing onto Chinese sites such as weibo, bilibili, and eventually, douyin, which I downloaded around October of 2020 (so this was 6 months into my increased interest into Chinese things). At first, I translated a couple of douyins to share with fandom friends as I had done with behind-the-scenes materials, but for whatever reason I felt like some of the videos I wanted to translate would just be annoying to spam into the chat... I couldn't figure out a way to connect them to the blorbos, but I still wanted to translate them, so I started posting them here on tumblr. That's how my douyin translations started out. This was the height of covid-19 related sinophobia, too, so at some point I started realising how important it was to continue translating douyins, and that motivated me to continue even beyond it just being a fun thing to do. On that topic, it was through this blog that I realised how poorly understood China and Chinese people are, specifically on this site. I feel like that has changed a lot, or maybe that's just a comment on insular online spaces, but I have to think not; since I started translating douyins, I've seen a noticeable decrease in sinophobic comments and messages (not that I don't still get them, but it's lessened), and I think that's also thanks in great part to other blogs on here that were posting/have started to post more content from China to help increase exposure to tumblr users.

Improving

In any case, in the beginning, I did a lot of translations mostly by ear rather than reading captions because my Chinese reading wasn't that good.

It's kind of slowly improved with time and repetitive reading, and over the last three years now, I've also gone through periods of taking notes and actively seeking out some vocab lists or grammar explanations... but it usually comes in the process of trying to translate something. My motivations in "studying" (it's more like "figuring out") Chinese is largely based on the simple desire to know what people are talking about... what they're joking about... what they're ranting about and roasting. Related: I also started reading fanfics in Chinese about a year ago. Some fics have been easier to read than others, but some of the best ones I've read were also the ones that challenged me the most, and which I had to take a lot of notes on while reading. I'll admit! There have been times where I just took a fic and dumped that sucker in google translate and have it read the Chinese to me, so I could just listen to it like a podfic. But even so, I would take notes, because I think my improvements in Chinese are heavily connected to my Chinese literacy.

Reading douyin comments and forums on douban or comment sections on bilibili has been one of the main ways that I've picked up on common phrases and characters. I often write things down but I do so more as a muscle memory practice, because I have never really been the sort of person who reads back notes (this was also how I studied in school, iirc). Branching out and translating things that are written in formal or non-colloquial styles is also a way I challenge myself from time to time, and I do like to look up the etymology of Chinese characters from time to time because it helps me pick up patterns of semantics and phonetic hints when I'm reading (this makes it easier to guess what a character might mean or sound like, even if you've never seen it before). Overall, translation has been the great learning tool for me. I think maybe it comes down to learning styles? I have always learned better from trying to teach others, and I feel like translation works a similar muscle in the mind; translation is about figuring out ways to efficiently communicate a message, and in order to do so, you must be able to grasp the essence of what it is you're relaying.

All this said... And to try and return to your original ask after all my usual Wawa rambling... I actually don't think my Chinese is that good, lol. In fact, there's probably people who follow this blog who are studying Chinese in a more conventional and methodical manner whose Chinese is objectively much better than mine 🤷🏻‍♂️ I mean, if you crunch the numbers, I have really only be self-"studying" for three years. Three years of what is really just vibe-based learning. There's a lot of vocab I still don't know (I mean my English vocab is pretty limited too, sooo.... 😭), a lot of areas that I can still improve on, and am improving on, and try to improve on... when the mood strikes. Again, I am not a very disciplined self-study type.

Maybe this will give any other Chinese diaspora hope, though. I feel like it's never too late for us to start learning. There is probably a seed or language foundation within you already which will make it easier for you to start, and then after that, I think it sort of comes down to finding what interests you and will keep you motivated.

Most of the stuff I talk about on here when it comes to culture or folk art or what have you, I did not know even five years ago! I learned about it because I was interested to find out more. (That's another reason I have to laugh when I get some of the asks I do in my inbox... The stuff I don't answer is dumbfounding at times. You translate a couple of funny videos and people think you're some kind of Tripadvisor cultural ambassador guy! I swear...)

The "study" resources I use regularly are the following:

Pleco

Zh-En browser extension

Yellowbridge (usually to check brush stroke order, since I have Pleco)

Baidu etymology pages / Chinese etymology dictionaries such as hanziyuan

#text #answered ask #about me

[web-novel-polls]

MXTX Side Characters Tournament

[Image ID - two images. The first is a cropped image of Shang Qinghua from the cover of the English Scum Villain novel. He has brown hair tied up in a loose bun. He is wearing a light blue-gray ribbon in his hair the same color as his robes as he glances over his shoulder at the viewer.

The second image is a drawn image of Jiang Cheng from MDZS looking at the viewer with apparent disgust or contempt. He has long dark hair tied up by a silver hairpiece with bangs framing his face. His eyes are a pale blue. /End ID]

Shang Qinghua / Airplane from SVSSS

Submission: He's a sidekick and he's so sidelined that despite creating the universe he's treated as an afterthought - doubly a side character! But also? So relateable. He would absolutely have been on tumblr in his first life, he gets so excited about his blorbo who treats him terribly (until they finally get a happy ending in the extras - also! he has to wait for the extras to get his happy ending! very side-character of him). He holds the fascinating position of being mostly irrelevant to the story and yet without him the themes would totally fail. He deserves a win on something for once, okay?

Jiang Cheng from MDZS

Submission 1: Extremely traumatized yet also somehow the most normal and functional by the end. Huge bitch but I (and at least one of the other characters) think he deserves to be even worse after everything he's been through

Submission 2: Simultaneously badass and the most cringefail man. Extremely funny and stylish but still manages to be very uncool. Cries a lot. Also he's lost a lot of tumblr polls—let's give him another shot! We definitely love him more than his dad did!

Submission 3: He's got mommy issues AND daddy issues. He loves his sister and his shige so much. He's traumatised and incredibly competent. He rebuilt his whole sect! He's an asshole (affectionate). He's purple! He's got the coolest weapon ever conceived. I'm so worried about his blood pressure basically all the time.

["Anti-Propaganda" that attacks other characters is NOT allowed. Please only give reasons to vote FOR a character.]

#shang qinghua #svsss #jiang cheng #mdzs #mxtx #polls #mxtx side characters tournament #mxtx side characters grand finals #queue