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elaine19day · 4 days

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To those who are confused as to where and how to buy OldXian's new artbook and merchandise, let me try to break it down for you.

A few days ago, OldXian announced the pre-sale of their new artbook which comes in two versions.

Variant A (regular) includes: - the new artbook - a poster - 2x postcards

Variant B (deluxe edition) includes: - the new artbook - a poster - 2x postcards - 4x buttons - a shishiki board - a sticker sheet - a 24 page booklet

Furthermore there's two new acrylic standees which can be purchased separately. A tianshan and a zhanyi version.

All of these items are available for purchase in their taobao store now, under this link: https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?ft=t&id=786971367604

But if you have trouble creating a taobao account or your country isn't on the (very short) taobao shipping list [China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand] then you have several other options to get your hands on these new items.

1. You could use aliexpress, koonbooks or any other China-based shopping app/website to buy these things from a 3rd party seller.

Now, keep in mind that these sellers obviously want to make a profit, so you will pay more than in the original taobao shop. However, on the plus side, they usually offer free shipping, which is nice considering that items like artbooks are heavy and shipping costs are based on weight, so if you pay over, some of that money also goes towards covering the shipping costs, which is not bad.

The risk of ordering with such a website is obviously that the independent seller could turn out to be a scammer and keep your money and not send you the goods. I have no idea about koonbook's policies, however in the case of aliexpress you are at least protected by such practices and should you not receive what you paid for, you will be refunded and get your money back.

Also keep in mind that the artbook and merch is still in production at this point! But Old Xian said the merch will be shipped out BEFORE May 20th. That's less than 4 weeks from now.

That being said - in some cases the merch will be cheaper on aliexpress after official ship-out, because there will be more people offering it, competing for best prices.

However there's obviously also a risk that the deluxe edition will sell out before that or that these re-sellers only ship the artbook itself with none of the extras.

Here's two links where you can have a look at potential resellers, but carefully think about all the pro's and con's I gave you before you consider to buy. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006893284852.html https://koonbooks.com/products/old-xian-19-days-art-collection-3-chinese?variant=46493038674166 2.

The other option you have is using a taobao shopping agent. If you google that, you'll find dozens of websites offering their services. I myself have used parcelup, 42agent and superbuy before. Here's links to all of them: https://www.superbuy.com/ https://parcelup.com/ https://www.42agent.com/ What all of these agents have in common is that you need to create an account BEFORE you can start searching and shopping. All you need for that is a valid email address. I'll show how it works with superbuy screenshots here. After you signed up, you can copy the taobao-link I gave you earlier and paste it into the search-field.

What will come up is an embedded view of the taobao listing where you can pick which variant you want and then add it to your shopping cart.

Once you have added everything you want, click on the shopping cart and simply follow all further payment instructions.

They will also ask you if you want them to keep the original packaging or if you want them to remove anything unnecessary and repack everything in order to make it weigh less so shipping will be cheaper. It's up to you. You will then be asked to pay for items, domestic shipping (so mosspaca studios can ship the goods to your agent's warehouse) and in some cases a service fee. For example, superbuy has no service fee, however they stopped offering paypal as payment method recently so you'd need a credit card or other online methods to pay for your order and everything. Parcelup, however, still offers paypal, but they also charge service fees. (They are fairly low though, if you ask me.) So after you paid for your goods, they will order the items for you and then you'll have to wait about 4-5 weeks for them to arrive, because keep in mind - like I said earlier - everything is still in production and Old Xian aims to ship everything out before the 20th of May. There's hundreds, if not thousands of parcels arriving to all agent's warehouses every day, so it will take them a few days to sort through things after your order arrives. You need to be patient!! They will get back to you with pictures of your order, trust me. When this happens you need to look at the pics and if everything is okay, you can reply to them to proceed. You will then be presented with shipping quotes. Usually they offer more than one shipping method and some are tracked, others are untracked, some will take only a week or two until they arrive at your doorstep, others will take 6 weeks or up to two months. Choose wisely which method you want and consider what is in your budget. (Obviously fast shipping with tracking is more expensive than slow shipping without it, however personally I'd always recommend a tracked service.) Just to give you an estimate on what to expect when it comes to international shipping - parcels with that amount of merch and weight, will always cost me about 50 USD or more to ship from China to the UK, where I live. (So keep that in mind before you order. International shipping is very expensive!) But once you picked a shipping method, you pay for it (that's your 2nd payment) and once they have processed that - your goodies will be on the way to you within a few days. And that's it. Sit down, eat your food and wait patiently for it to arrive. If you have further questions, just plop them into the comments and I'll try to answer them.

#19 days #old xian #tianshan #mo guan shan #he tian #zhanyi #zhan zheng xi #jian yi #merchandise #guide

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motianz · 14 days

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19 days Timeline - He Tian's departure

Ok so, lately I've had a few people asking me about when does HT come back after leaving, and why is everyone assuming he goes away for years, so I'm making this post to explain the time-line for anyone who's confused about it.

First of all, 19 Days is mainly told through 2 timelines. The first one (1) is the present, when the boys are in college. The second one (2) where most of the story takes place, is in the past, when the boys are in middle school.

The story starts in time-line 1, with Zhang Zheng Xi talking about how Jian Yi used to be with him all the time, disappeared in high school and then came back, (remember, high school and middle school work differently in different countries) then he starts to think about the time before all of that happened, during middle school (timeline 2). So the main story in 19 Days is actually a flashback, where Zzx of time-line one is thinking about time-line 2.

We mainly get timeline 1 during Christmas specials. And we know that timeline 1 is during college because after Jian Yi comes back, he talks about still being in high school while everyone else is in college (chapt 224), and because he talks about wanting to get into the same college as Zzx.

Now, in the same chapter (224) we see that while Zzx and Jy are having this conversation, Mo is working and He tian comes back for what is implied to be the first time. Here we see that 1 Mo and Ht haven't kept fully in contact, and 2 He tian was gone (and gone to another country on top of that)

Jumping ahead to the next Crishtmas special (chapter 271) (still in timeline 1) we get more proof that He tian has been gone for a long while:

1 - He tian doesn't know where Mo's living (so he's been away for at least as long as Mo has lived there) 2 - He quite literally says he has been gone for a long time.

So, we know He Tian only comes back after everyone is around 18 or older.

And why does everyone think he's leaving now?

We do know a little of what Ht was doing while being gone, and can get a a few hints on when he leaves because of that. In the most recent Christmas special confirms He tian was working to be able to take care of Mo.

Now, we have seen he tian struggle to become someone strong enough to protect the people he loves for a while now, and we know he wants to do it apart from his family, but recently we have seen him come face to face with the fact he still can't do that yet (chapter 406). So he is finally at a point where his mentality is "I can't do anything without my family, so I need to grow my own legs" aka, start his own business to support little Mo.

On top of that, currently He Cheng is chasing He tian so he can transfer schools (the boys are on the last year of middle school, about to go to high school) (we've seen Zzx and Jy talk about wich high school they want to go).

And we know He tian getting transferred has something to do with his father and the family business (chapter 348, timeline 2)

Wich means 1 He tian will be more involved with his family after the transfer, and 2 He tian will gain more power/influence because of that.

So if there ever was a time for He tian to dissappear, get his own business and stand on his own two legs, it's now.

So the status of the characters are:

Timeline 1

Zzx - College. JY- High school trying for college. Mgs - Working. Ht - Working/coming back to China.

Timeline 2

Zzx- middle school about to go to high school. Jy -middle school about to dissappear. Mgs - middle school about to go to high school. Ht - middle school about to be transferred and disappear (family business).

TLDR: He tian goes away now and only comes back during college years. Jian Yi goes away during the second day of high school and comes back during college years as well.

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yamayuandadu · 9 months

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The real life inspirations behind new characters in Touhou 19 (Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost) While I haven’t been posting much about Touhou as of late, I felt obliged to put together the customary post about the inspirations behind the new characters. The new game genuinely renewed my interest. In contrast with similar write-ups pertaining to previous games the research is not entirely mine - some of the sections are a result of cooperation between me and @just9art. Without further ado, let’s delve into the secrets of the new cast. Find out if Biten is the first “Wukong impersonator” ever, when a tanuki is actually a badger, and why Hisami both is and isn’t an oni. Naturally, the post is full of spoilers. Also, fair warning, it's long.

1. Biten Son - sarugami + Sun Wukong

Sarugami means “monkey kami”, the monkey in mention being the Japanese macaque.To my best knowledge, the term is actually not used commonly in English - the results on jstor and De Gruyter are in the low single digits, Brill outright has nothing to offer. Translations are much more common.

Sarugami are particularly strongly associated with Mount Hiei. You might have heard of it because of its association with Matarajin, though in this case he’s not exactly relevant. Instead, it is believed the monkeys act as messengers of Sanno (the “mountain king”), Sekizan Myojin and Juzenji. Sanno himself could take the form of a monkey according to medieval texts, while Juzenji can be accompanied by a deity depicted as a man with a monkey’s head, Daigyoji, known from the Hie mandala. Sarutahiko is also associated with monkeys based on the similarity between his name and the word saru. Bernard Faure notes that despite the clearly positive portrayal of monkeys as semi-divine beings in service of these deities, their perception in folklore and mythology can nonetheless be considered ambivalent, because they could be viewed as aggressive. There are even examples of sarugami being portrayed as monstrous antagonists to be defeated by a hero. The best known tale of this variety is known simply as Sarugami taiji. It is preserved in the Konjaku monogatari. Here the sarugami is a fearsome monster who terrorizes a village and demands the offering of one young woman each year.

In contrast with the sarugami, I do not think Sun Wukong, one of the protagonists of the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West, needs much of an introduction. We reached the point where even in the west he is recognizable enough to warrant toys based on him (there’s a Lego Wukong on my desk right now). Biten's design has many callbacks to traditional portrayals of Wukong, including the staff (which in the novel is a pillar stolen from the undersea palace of a dragon emperor) and a very distinctive diadem (in the novel making it possible to pressure the unruly Wukong into obeying the monk he is meant to protect). As a curiosity it’s worth noting that “fake Wukong” is not a brand new idea - in the novel itself, one of the enemies of the heroes, Six-Eared Macaque, actually impersonates him for a time. Wukong is effectively himself a “divine monkey”, seeing as despite his origin as a literary character he actually came to be worshiped as a deity in mainland China, Taiwan and various areas with a large Chinese diaspora. The topic of Wukong worship itself came to be an inspiration for literature, starting with the excellent The Great Sage, Heaven’s Equal by Pu Songling, a writer active during the reign of the Qing dynasty, in the early eighteenth century.

2. Enoko Mitsugashira - “immortal yamainu” + Cerberus

Enoko gets the least coverage here, because there really isn’t much to say. Yamainu, “mountain dog”, isn’t really a supernatural creature, it’s an old term for either the extinct Japanese wolf, a type of feral dog, or a hybrid between these. It can also be used as a synonym of okuri-inu, a youkai wolf believed to accompany travelers at night.

There’s actually a distinctly Journey to the West-esque component to Enoko’s backstory, but I have no clue if this is intentional. In the aforementioned novel, many of the antagonists, who are generally demonic animals, are motivated by the desire to devour the flesh of the protagonist, the Buddhist monk Tang Sanzang, because it is said to grant immortality. Granted, given the obscurity of the figure Zanmu is based on - more on that later - perhaps this is an allusion to something else we have yet to uncover. Cerberus, being probably one of the most famous mythical monsters in the world, does not really need to be discussed here. The illustration is included mostly because I like Edmund Dulac and any opportunity is suitable for sharing his illustrations. I do not think it needs to be pointed out that Enoko's bear trap weapons are meant to evoke Cerberus' extra heads.

3. Chiyari Tenkajin - tenkaijin (+ mujina) + chupacabra

While my favorite animal youkai not yet featured in Touhou is easily the kawauso (otter), I was very pleased to learn we sort of got a mujina since I wanted to cover this topic since forever, but never got much of a chance. Technically Chiyari is actually meant to be a tenkaijin, which is not a mujina but a slightly different youkai (a will-o-wisp or St. Elmo’s fire-like creature, specifically) who in the single tale dealing with it takes the form of a mujina after dying, but as there is not much to say about it beyond that you will get a crash course in mujina folklore instead.

Today the word mujina is pretty firmly a synonym of anaguma - in other words, the Japanese badger. The animal does not substantially differ from other badgers, so I do not think much needs to be said about its ecology. However, historically the term could be used to refer to the tanuki regionally, or interchangeably to both animals, so in some cases if insufficient detail is provided it is hard to tell which one is meant. This ambiguity extends to the folklore surrounding them, and generally if you know what to expect from tanuki tales, which I’m sure most people reading this do, you will instantly recognize many of the plot elements typical for mujina ones. In other words, it is yet another yokai which typically takes the role of a shapeshifting trickster. Some supernatural phenomena could be basically interchangeably attributed to mujina, tanuki, kitsune or kawauso. Mujina are commonly described taking the form of Buddhist monks, which is one of the many similarities between them and tanuki.

The most famous depiction of a shapeshifting mujina comes from Toriyama Sekien’s Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki (The Illustrated One Hundred Demons from the Present and the Past). The accompanying text compares the creature to the supernatural versions of kitsune and tanuki, and states that the artist relied on a tale according to which a mujina was able to successfully impersonate a Buddhist monk until accidentally revealing its tail.

What makes the mujina special is that it is actually the oldest recorded example of a youkai of this sort. A mujina tale already appears in the early Japanese chronicle Nihon Shoki, dated to 627. It reports an incident of a mujina transforming into a human and singing somewhere in the Michinoku Province. I feel like this alone is a good example of why you should be wary of people who seek to present Nihon Shoki or Kojiki as historical truth. Western audiences as far as I know were first introduced to mujina by Lafcadio Hearn. To my best knowledge, the fabulous shapeshifting badgers however failed to gain the popcultural recognition enjoyed by tanuki and kitsune. They did appear in Shigeru Mizuki's stories every now and then, and I found a mascot character based on them, but overall there isn't all that much beyond that.

Naturally, there isn't much mujina in Chiyari's design, and she instead most likely owes her distinctly spiky appearance to the other inspiration behind her character, the chupacabra. Mujina are not really portrayed as bloodthirsty, but the poorly documented tenkajin apparently is, which is presumably why ZUN decided to connect Chiyari with the chupacabra, the best known modern blood-drinking creature, who first appeared in tall tales from 1995 and subsequently took popculture by storm after spreading from Puerto Rico to mainland USA and Mexico. I am not a chupacabra aficionado so I have little to offer here, sadly.

4. Hisami Yomotsu - yomotsu-shikome

Judging from what I’ve seen on social media and on pixiv, Hisami is shaping up to be one of the most popular new characters (she’s my fave too). In sharp contrast with that, her basis is pretty obscure. So obscure that there isn’t even any historical art to showcase, as far as I can tell (note that this blog claims night parade scrolls might have something to offer, though - I was unable to verify this claim for now, sadly). As we learn from her bio, she is supposed to be a yomotsu-shikome. They’re called the “hags of Yomi” of Yomi in Donald L. Philippi’s Kojiki translation. The term shikome can be literally translated as “ugly woman”. Nothing about them really implies femme fatale leanings we are evidently seeing in Touhou but I’m not going to complain about that. Yomotsu-shikome appear only in the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki, and in both of these early chronicles they are portrayed as servants of Izanami after she died and came to reside in Yomi, the land of the dead. Nihon Shoki states there are only eight of them. The distinct grape vine motif present on Hisami’s clothes seems like an obvious reference to Izanagi’s escape from Yomi following his meeting with Izanami, portrayed in the myth recorded in both of these sources. When the yomotsu-shikome started to pursue him, he threw a vine he used to hold his hair at them. The plant instantly bore fruit, which the entities started to eat. They later resumed the chase, but were once again held back, this time by a bamboo shot. According to the Nihon Shoki, they eventually give up after he creates a river from his piss (sic) to keep them away.

Yomotsu-shikome are sometimes compared to oni by modern researchers. Noriko T. Reider in her monograph about oni argues that alongside hashihime and yamanba (pictured above) they can be effectively grouped with them. Another researcher, Michael D. Foster, is more cautious, and states that despite clear similarities it’s best to avoid conflating oni-like female demons with female oni proper, especially since the latter have a distinct iconography and a distinct set of traits. Norinaga Motoori, the founder of kokugaku or “national learning”, a nationalist intellectual movement in Edo and Meiji period Japan, claimed that oni were based on yomotsu-shikome, which is a pretty dubious claim. It is ultimately not certain when the term oni started to be used, but it is safe to say it has continental origin. And, of course, oni permeate Japanese culture in a way yomotsu-shikome do not.

5. Zanmu Nippaku - Zanmu

This was the toughest mystery to solve, and I am fully indebted to 9 here, since they figured it out, I am merely depending on what they directed me to. Research is still ongoing, and it feels like we just started to untangle this mystery, so you can safely expect further updates. Zanmu appears to be based on the Buddhist monk… well, Zanmu. You can learn a bit about him here or on Japanese wikipedia; it seems there are quite literally 0 sources pertaining to him in English, and even in Japanese there is actually very little. Their names are not written the same, ZUN swapped the sign for “dream” from the original name for one which can be read as “nothingness”. If the unsourced quote on wikipedia is genuine, the reason might be tied to the personal views of the irl Zanmu. What little we’ve been able to gather about him is that he was active in the Sengoku period, and apparently was regarded as unorthodox and eccentric. This lines up with Zanmu’s omake bio pretty well. Seems the real Zanmu was also unusually long lived, and was able to recall events from distant past in great detail, though obviously the figure of 139 years attributed to him in a few places online has to be an exaggeration.

Yet more puzzling is the reference to Zanmu’s familiarity with Ikkyo you might spot in the linked article. Whether the famous Ikkyo who you may know from the tale of Jigoku Dayu is meant is difficult to determine. The chronology does not really add up; on the other hand the logic behind associating one eccentric semi-legendary monk with another in later legends isn’t particularly convoluted. As 9 pointed out to me, if ZUN was aware of this link, and the same Ikkyo really was meant, it is not impossible the connection between Zanmu and Hisami is meant to in some way mirror that between Ikkyo and Jigoku Dayu. As you can easily notice, it’s pretty clear the historical Zanmu was male. It does not seem his Touhou counterpart is, obviously. I would say we should wait for more info until declaring that we have a second Miko situation on our hands, with a male historical figure directly reimagined as a female character without any indication we are dealing with a relative rather than the real deal. There’s still relatively little info to go by so I would remain cautious (though naturally this is not meant to discourage you from having headcanons).

Neither me nor 9 were able to find any connection between the historical Zanmu and oni… so far, at least. Therefore, what motivated ZUN to make Zanmu an oni remains to be discovered. As a final curiosity, on a semi-related note it might be worth pointing out that while not as common as their male peers, female oni are not a modern invention, and already appear in setsuwa from the 13th century. A particularly common motif are tales describing a woman turning into oni due to jealousy or anger. Further reading:

Jason Colavito, The Secret Prehistory of El Chupacabra (2011)

Bernard Faure, Gods of Medieval Japan vol. 1-3 (2015-2022)

Michael Daniel Foster, The Book of Yokai. Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore (2015)

John Knight, Waiting for Wolves in Japan. An Anthropological Study of People-wildlife Relations (2003)

Noriko T. Reider, Japanese Demon Lore (2010)

#touhou #touhou spoilers #unfinished dream of all living ghost #udoalg #touhou 19

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beardedmrbean · 1 year

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Who knew? Nearly three and a half years after Covid-19 first appeared on the scene, the World Health Organisation has declared the pandemic officially over.

And there we all were thinking it had ended more than a year ago, when the UK and much of the rest of Europe abandoned the last of their Covid restrictions.

Late to recognise Covid as a pandemic, the WHO has also been late to acknowledge that thanks in large measure to Western medicines and vaccines, it is also now essentially part of history.

Perhaps that's because of the continued influence of China, which only very recently abandoned its zero-Covid policy.

As long as a major economy was still imprisoning its citizens at the slightest sign of infection, then I suppose it was indeed hard to declare the disease no longer a public health emergency.

For most of us, the pandemic has nevertheless been over for a long time now.

The grimly dispiriting legacy is, however, still very much with us.

In the UK, the national debt is a fifth of GDP higher than it was, inflation has soared to double digits, economically sub-optimal work from home remains deeply entrenched, labour shortages abide, and many people still complain of long term sickness – much of it unrelated to Covid as such but seemingly triggered by the pandemic's deprivations – with record numbers claiming out of work benefits.

The Government's response to Covid always looked to me like a ruinous over-reaction, and I became something of a lockdown sceptic.

I say “something of” because in the initial stages of the pandemic – call it the “we're all going to die” phase – something fairly dramatic was obviously called for, watching the TV images of emergency hospitals being built in Wuhan and overwhelmed ICU units in Northern Italy.

Politically, it would have been virtually impossible for the UK to have stood alone in remaining open even as virtually the whole of the rest of Europe was closing down.

The Government would have fallen within weeks if it had stood by and done nothing.

Even Sweden, which seems to have got its approach about right, eventually implemented a watered down version of the restrictions imposed elsewhere.

Instinctively, Boris Johnson, then Prime Minister, was against lockdown, preferring instead the idea of “herd immunity”, but then he became seriously ill himself, and ended up fully embracing the made-in-China response.

For some, such as the former Supreme Court judge Lord Sumption – who would regularly warn of police state authoritarianism – the objection was on principled libertarian grounds.

This was, however, very much a minority position. One of the most remarkable things about the whole sorry affair is quite how compliant the country proved, and how quickly we succumbed to instruction.

Somewhat alarmingly, it turned out that supposedly freedom loving societies are remarkably willing to submit to authoritarian rule, especially if paid to stay at home, as was the case with furlough in the UK.

Even the Government was surprised by the obedience.

Yet it was always abundantly clear that these were essentially temporary, wartime measures that would be lifted once the emergency was over, so on those grounds at least, most of us were initially willing to go along with the heavy handed approach imposed.

No, what worried me was not so much the loss of liberty as the economic impact, and once the case mortality rate was confirmed at less than 1 percent for advanced economies, the lack of proportionality and cost benefit consideration.

I could never quite accept the argument that what was being done was similar to putting the economy into a medically induced coma, with the patient reawoken as if nothing had happened once the pandemic was over.

As we can now see, the lasting damage was monumental.

It would no doubt have been disastrous had the health service been overwhelmed, but when the main justification for lockdown becomes the rallying call of “protect the NHS” you have to ask yourself what the whole thing was really all about.

Insulating the health service from a sickness it is there to treat?

You cannot put a price on life, it can be argued, and therefore almost any cost is justified. It is also true that in the fog of war, mistakes are bound to be made; over-reaction is possibly better than under-reaction.

All the same, it now seems abundantly clear that the treatment was in many ways worse than the disease itself. We'll never know the counterfactual, or just how many lives were saved by imposing a strict series of lockdowns.

Most epidemiologists will tell you that it was a lot.

But they are not paid to think about the wider consequences, and it is now patently clear that the lasting damage to education, the economy and to wider public health was off the scale.

What are the lessons? We don't need to wait for the results of the official inquiry, still years away, to know some of the answers.

Let's make a start by examining the death toll, reported on a daily basis during the pandemic as if in some kind of international competition for how effectively each country was dealing with the crisis.

For a long time, Britain seemed to be bottom of the class, which in turn instructed the severity of the counter measures thought necessary.

The worse the numbers looked relative to others, the more draconian and prolonged the restrictions became.

Given differing methodologies and reporting systems, the best way of measuring the impact is not through recorded deaths from Covid, but via the excess death rate over and above what would normally be expected.

On this measure, most major advanced economies ended up in much the same place.

Britain was slightly worse than Germany and France, but not significantly so, and actually quite a bit better than Italy and Spain, according to estimates published in the Lancet.

This was not the impression you got at the time, when the British response was widely viewed as uniquely incompetent.

What is more, Scotland did worse than England, notwithstanding the plaudits the first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, received for outbidding Westminster on the countermeasures needed.

The same is true of Wales, whose first minister, Mark Drakeford, was similarly lauded for a more restrictive and therefore seemingly capable approach.

Well, not according to the numbers.

Culture wars, I'm afraid to say, are as likely to determine your view of the efficacy of lockdown as the underlying facts of the matter.

What we now know, however, is that lockdown is an extraordinarily costly way of dealing with a pandemic.

It is to be hoped that this lesson at least has been learned, and that the response to future pandemics will therefore be better calibrated to the severity of the disease.

A 1pc case mortality rate scarcely seems to justify what was done, even if it was admittedly much higher in older age cohorts.

A more consensual approach that keeps people properly informed but allows them to make their own choices on the degree of risk they are prepared to run must be the way forward.

#nunyas news #who knew?#lots of people did and you censored them #anyone that spoke out was ejected from the room

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tomorrowusa · 22 days

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It's not exactly news that Republicans are regurgitating Russian propaganda. The leader of the GOP is himself a Russian asset.

The new twist is that at least a few Republicans are starting to bring this up in public.

GOP Rep. Mike Turner said Sunday that Russian propaganda has taken hold among some of his House Republican colleagues and is even "being uttered on the House floor." "We see directly coming from Russia ... communications that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor," Turner, chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said in an interview on CNN's "State of the Union." "There are members of Congress today who still incorrectly say that this conflict between Russia and Ukraine is over NATO, which of course it is not," he added.

Yes, Republicans are spreading Russian propaganda on the floor of the House. And Rep. Turner is not the only one who has called this out.

His comments come on the heels of remarks House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul made this week about how Russian propaganda has taken root among the GOP. McCaul, a Texas Republican, told Puck News that he thinks "Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately, and it’s infected a good chunk of my party’s base." Turner and McCaul each tied Russia and its leader, Vladimir Putin, to other authoritarian leaders, including President Xi Jinping of China and Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea. "[The propaganda] makes it more difficult for us to really see this as an authoritarian versus democracy battle, which is what it is," Turner told CNN, adding, "President Xi of China, Vladimir Putin himself have identified as such." McCaul described explaining to colleagues that the threat of Russian propaganda is similar to threats made by other U.S. adversaries. "I have to explain to them what’s at stake, why Ukraine is in our national security interest," he said. "By the way, you don’t like Communist China? Well, guess what? They’re aligned [with Russia], along with the ayatollah [of Iran]. So when you explain it that way, they kind of start understanding it."

It's all good of Michael McCaul and Mike Turner to call this out. But what are they doing to get badly needed aid to Ukraine? They need to show that they are more than just do-nothing passive observers.

Last week, Rep. Don Bacon said on NBC News' "Meet the Press" that he had commitments from Johnson and McCaul that they would allow a bipartisan Ukraine military aid package to advance to a vote. Rep. French Hill echoed this point on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday morning, saying he believes Johnson will bring Ukraine aid to the floor "immediately after completing the work on [the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] and FISA's extension — that deadline of April 19 makes it a priority for the first few days we're back." "I believe he's fully committed to bringing it up to the floor immediately thereafter," Hill added. But Bacon, R-Neb., also warned that Johnson could face a vote to oust him from the speakership if he moves forward with Ukraine aid.

With a tiny majority and Marjorie Taylor Greene nipping at his heels, Speaker "MAGA Mike" Johnson is in a weak position. House members not wanting to make the US a vassal state of Vladimir Putin need to take advantage of this weakness.

If you live in the districts of these representatives, contact them and urge them to back uo their words with some action on aid for Ukraine.

Mike Turner (OH-10) Michael McCaul (TX-10) French Hill (AR-02) Don Bacon (NE-02)

#russia #russian propaganda #us house of representatives #mike turner #michael mccaul #french hill #don bacon #house republican caucus #“maga mike” johnson #ukraine aid now #russia is a terrorist state #vladimir putin #russia's war of aggression #the evil empire #genocide #stand with ukraine #россия - террористическая страна #владимир путин #путин хуйло #путин - военный преступник #путина в гаагу!#добей путина #трамп - путинский пудель #союз постсоветских клептократических ватников #руки прочь от украины!#геть з україни #вторгнення оркостану в україну #деокупація #слава україні!#героям слава!

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gogojetters · 1 month

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GJ Families - Headcanon Mini-Post

I’ve wanted to do this for a while, but because I’m very busy at the moment, it’s hard to find the time to make big posts. So, I’m trying my best to be okay with making smaller, more simple posts, and this is kind of testing that format. And what better than sharing some headcanons about what I think the Go Jetters’ families are like?? It’s been a long time coming, haha.

For now, I’m only doing the Funky Five (Xuli, Kyan, Lars, Foz and Tala), but maybe in the future I’ll drop a thing or two about the others. Each character has their own little section, with a mini-Drabble about what I think their family structure is, and maybe even some little HCs about some of the members. I hope you like this layout, and feel free to ask questions ! Any rude comments will be deleted.

XULI

Xuli is adopted! She has two mothers, Alejandra and Lina, who adopted her when she was two. Additionally, she has an older brother, Sol, age 19- who is her biological brother- and a younger sister named Aurelia, age 12, who is also adopted. Xuli’s family is upper middle class, her Mum (Alejandra) working as a lawyer, and her Mama (Lina) working as a hairdresser. Xuli’s family is very loving and supporting of her endeavors, and she has her Mum’s stubborn personality and her Mama’s love for sightseeing !

KYAN

Kyan was raised in a multi-generational household, living with both his parents and his grandparents in California. His grandparents and parents are all immigrants from China, with Kyan being the first of their family to be born in the states. His Father, Mako, along with his grandparents, run a popular Chinese restaurant on a boardwalk, which Kyan used to work at as a child, while his mother, Daiyu, works as a dentist. Kyan is particularly close with his grandparents, who were very supportive of his athletic dreams in particular.

LARS

Lars grew up in the countryside, on a small farm, with his single Dad, Dominic, Aunt Cheryl and Uncle Benjamin, as well as his little sister, Juno, and his younger twin cousins, Aria and Piper. While living on the farm instilled a love of animals early, his love for machinery came from there too, watching how the different machinery there worked, and learning to fix tractors and farm gear by watching his uncle- and quickly becoming better than him at it! Lars is very close with his family, but has a specially strong bond with both his sister and cousins.

FOZ

Foz is from a richer family, and is an “age gap” kid- meaning that there’s at least 10 years between him and his siblings. He lives with his Mother and Father- the owners of a jewelry company, and an emerald mine, while his three older siblings, Stephanie (27), Andrew (23) and Austin (23), have already moved out of home to peruse their own careers. Foz isn’t particularly close with the rest of his family, having attended boarding school before the GJA, and not growing up alongside his siblings.

TALA

Tala’s family is very well off- after all, with a family history as incredible as the Glitches have, how couldn’t they be? Tala lives with her father, Gabriel Glitch - who is Grandmaster Glitch’s twin brother, and her mother, Reagan Cade-Glitch, as well as her half-brother on her mom’s side, Callum Cade, in the Glitch Estate, which has been in their family for years. Tala spend much of her time as a child in the garden, talking with the family’s gardener about new and fun plant or bug facts.

Thank-you for reading all the way through !! Again, I hope that you guys find my personal headcanons fun and interesting! I wanted the GJ to all have different kinds of family groups, as opposed to just having “nuclear” families, because I think that it’s just boring if they’re all very similar, and different kinds of family representation is important to many people, including myself !! Feel free to ask any questions you may have in the comments, and I’ll try my best to answer them ! (:

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sangahnomiya · 6 days

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little known fact (I have literally only ever yapped abt this to 5 people) but ever since I watched the donghua of cinderella chef last year, I've been brainstorming a crossover AU with apothecary diaries, yona of the dawn and snow white with the red hair.

(will it ever get written? ONLY GOD KNOWS but I'm dumping my brainrot here anyway)

the cast of characters:

yaoyao and chunyu (cinderella chef)

maomao and jinshi (apothecary diaries)

shirayuki and obi (snow white with the red hair)

yona and hak (yona of the dawn)

other characters who appear in this AU (even if I haven't worked out what they do yet), bc you should not separate them ever: ryuu (AnS), and the happy hungry bunch (YotD)

the team dynamics:

in my HC shirayuki is the oldest of the group and seems (SEEMS) to be the most level-headed, while maomao and yaoyao are definitely evenly matched in levels of unhinged. yaoyao is canonically around 18-19, so she's most likely the second oldest

yona is the youngest at 16. however, she is also the only one of the group with a kill count. naturally the older girls are somewhat concerned but they're supportive anyway, and maomao later on offers to help make poison for yona's arrows. (it's her way of showing friendship)

yaoyao is the only one of them who's ACTUALLY married, and so she probably assumes that the other girls are also married to their respective tall, dark, handsome companions. shirayuki's avoiding eye contact, yona is flustered, and maomao... is not amused.

yaoyao and maomao are the kitchen powerhouse duo. if they combine their forces with yoon, then they become truly unstoppable

yona and shirayuki are definitely mistaken for the other girl by multiple people, due to their red hair (and dark-haired bodyguards/love interests). this could lead to a case of mistaken identity where shirayuki gets chased by soldiers bc they mistook her for yona, who's a fugitive

when the four girls get absolutely caught up in brainstorming a plan, the four guys have no choice but to trail after them and wait it out till they're done. obi is the most used to this behaviour from shirayuki while she works so he's already accustomed to it, and hak knows yona well enough to know that she'll explain it to him after, but chunyu and jinshi are still somewhat baffled. sucks to be them lol

like shirayuki, obi is the oldest out of the four guys and he takes care of them in his own way. big brother obi to the rescue!!!!!

the worldbuilding:

I will not lie, I only thought of this AU bc I wanted to put yaoyao and maomao together and have their nicknames be xiaoyao and xiaomao. but like everything else I start bc of something ridiculous, I ended up thinking way too much abt it so here's what I got so far

geographically speaking obiyuki would be coming from the west (AnS is set in a European-styled setting), while maomao and yaoyao would technically be in the same area. if we're going off of the assumption that yotd is set in pseudo-korea, then the kingdom of kouka would probably an ocean away from the empire of Li.

given the settings, it's not uncommon for foreigners to pass through Li, and since obiyuki canonically travel around n stuff they would probably pass through Li at least once

in terms of timeline, I'm very, VERY ROUGHLY guesstimating that cinderella chef and yotd were set in around the same time period (western jin dynasty in China, and the three kingdoms period in Korea).

emphasis on the rough guesstimate bc the show never explicitly mentions at what point in the past she's sent to, so I'm making do with what I can gather from the style of clothing and the architecture used in the setting. but I can only do so much since the show took quite the artistic liberty with historical events and other things like that

on the other hand, the apothecary diaries APPEARS to be set in 15th century China, but it's also not confirmed either so yes. this is fine. [strained smile]

so yeah! that's all I got for now JSJSJFHG I really want to write this AU but first I've got to pin down the dates and historical time periods bc my brain is weird like that. hope you enjoyed 🫶🏼

#snow white with the red hair #akagami no shirayukihime #akagami no shirayuki #obiyuki #the apothecary diaries #apothecary diaries #kusuriya no hitorigoto #jinmao #cinderella chef #adorable food goddess #chunyao #chunyu x yaoyao #yona of the dawn #akatsuki no yona #hakyona #not hakyona and obiyuki having basically the same poses LOL #ngl I don't like chunyu too much w yaoyao and that's why we're fixing him in this AU #giving him the character development he DESERVES #he will grovel

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9w1ft · 1 year

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I was looking through old jewelry stuff and found a necklace Karlie wore for about 6 months, from about Sept 2019-April 2020. It was a gold disk that was engraved with “I can and I will” on it. As our resident jewelry expert, any theories on what that may have been about?

hello hello

thank you for your inquiry 😌

so this necklace is something that i assume was bought along with two other pieces from the same brand because they appeared around the same time and she wore them often interchangeably, and frequently together. the necklace is by Zoe Chicco.

in addition to this disc with the mantra “I Can and I Will” inscribed on it, the necklaces i associate it with are a strand of graduated gold disks and a ‘sunbeam medallion’ which she actually wore a ton on its own.

the mantra necklace was most frequently worn within the set of these three and at the time it felt very much like just, idk, a trendy layered look, and she wore them so often that honestly i did not keep track of the necklaces well. so i had to do a little bit of poking around.

so, for your perusal, here is an incomplete list of times she has worn at least one of the three pieces, based on an account that was documenting her looks at the time (link) and StarStyle (link):

she starts out wearing either the graduates discs or the sunbeam necklace, from september 2019

9/5/2019 in china for the world cup

9/8/2019 to the US open

9/18/2019 papped outside in nyc

9/21/2019 papped in rome (scooter was around)

10/10/2019 on her instagram outside in nyc

10/21/2019 papped outside in nyc

10/30/2019 papped outside in nyc

then the mantra necklace appeared and there was a period where she started wearing the three as a layered look more often, sometimes two together, and sometimes just the mantra necklace:

11/1/2019 promoing adidas on her insta

11/15/2019 papped outside in nyc

11/26/2019 at the elk in nyc

12/8/2019 papped outside in nyc

12/21/2019 yachting in st. barthelemy

1/27/2020 when karlie was in LA

2/18/2020 amex valentine’s day dinner

4/23/2020 instagram live w katie couric

4/28/2020 the today show

4/30/2020 met gala bts video

5/1/2020 exercising on instagram

5/1/2020 on wes gordon’s instagram

5/5/2020 the tonight show

5/17/2020 instagram from her nyc place

5/19/2020 klossy video about how falling on the runway can help your career

from this point forward she started wearing the necklaces separately instead of all three at once (not the mantra medallion though as far as i could tell) from mid 2020 up through mid 2021. for the sake of brevity i won’t list everything up, but you can check StarStyle from the above link.

~~~

as for what the mantra means, you know, this is just a loosely formed thing but… i will offer a quick thought

in retrospect, she wore the necklace along with the other two during a very specific time period, right? a little after taylor’s masters were bought by scooter, all the way up until she headed for LA a few months into quarantine. so if you think about late 2019-early 2020 as being this time where everyone thought karlie further betrayed taylor and where karlie went to places or events where scooter was and such… and how following this period of time scooter’s infidelity was eventually exposed and he divorced and a lot of his business dealings soured, and we got songs like mad woman, vigilante shit, and karma —songs that i do believe show that karlie stuck around scooter and got dirt on him for taylor— then, within that context, i think that the mantra “i can and i will” is pretty… badass 🙈 like, if the amulette de cartier was for dark seasons of life that require courage, this mantra feels much more something suitable for… playing offense 😏

#jewelry #zoe chicco

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pernillemagda · 10 months

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Finally managed to translate the full thing😅

1:30 - In 1971 when Denmark won the unofficial WWC the Danish commentator asked "Is there still anyone who dares to say something downgrading about women's football. Pernille "Yes, unfortunately. But luckily less and less in the past years, and when she hears it, she often just ignores them as she won't use her time on negativity.

4:30 - A typical day in camp is breakfast, training, sometimes media, treatment, some social activities and then early in bed (at least most of them she says)

5:00 - She "fears" most playing against England, and don't know what to expect from China and Haiti

6:00 - He believes Denmark can get out of the group but will meet a hard opponent. He thinks Pernille will be a key player. Pernille herself says the team will be disappointed if they don't get out of the group

8:00 - She thinks she's fit enough to play a full 90 minutes, and if she's tired after 80, she will still play the last ten (said with a smile)

9:00 - Talks about her injury and how she dealt with it mentally, ex. meditation but nothing knew

11:40 - Already when she laid in the dressing room, she knew it was a long injury

14:30 - Fun fact, she both played with Barbies and was a "tomboy"

14:50 - Talks about her short hair

15:00 - She knew very early that she was better than the others and talked about her essay. When she started to get on region teams and U-National teams she started to believe she really could go far.

16:50 - She's asked if it's only talented or also hard work. She thinks it's a mix of both and doesn't think anyone can be the best in the world if it's only talent.

17:15 - Henrik Lindinger talks about Pernille and how she's a "complete player" and how opponents have wanted pictures with her and everyone know who she is no matter where in the world she have played

19:30 - When she was 15-16 years, her big goal was to come to Germany to play which she would achieve through Sweden

20:30 - Talks about how it's nice to see different cultures and how to adapt to different team cultures

21:10 - The Bayern coach days he sees Pernille as a 9/10 which she agreed with

21:20 - Plays a clip from when she wins Danish player of the year 2015 and she says she won't be satisfied before she have won best in the world 5 times in a row. It wasn't a real goal but a meteor for achieving her full potential and be the best she can be.

23:30 - Talks about all the sacrifices she have to make when moving out from Denmark and generally be a football player.

23:50 - Her family is good to support her and visit her often, so she sees them a lot.

24:20 - Talks about a "package-deal". They never officially said they only would go together but i ly had said to their agents they would like to sign for the same club but it wasn't a demand. But she's really happy that a club like Bayern can use both of them

25:40 - We apparently got 2 times unofficial world cup Champions. The first time wasn't with a national team and Denmark didn't have any, instead a club called "FC femina" and the year after, we had a real national team who also won the WWC

26:00 - Plays a clip from the match and interviews with the former captain

27:00 - She think it's interesting to listen to the old sound files with the national team in the seventies and that they, when she was born, 20 years later, still wasn't public known.

NEW PART ADDED

28:50 - One of Pernille's goals was to make women's football more visible, she thinks she has achieved it partly, and Henrik Lindinger.

30:00 - Pernille's debutant match wasn't sent live, it got broadcaster later instead. It wasn't. until the semifinal 2013 it was broadcasted

31:00 - How was it to score a hattrick in your debutant match? Pernille: I was really nervous before the game, so after the game with a hattrick i was okay satisfied.

32:00 - Talks about the new fan club which she's very grateful for

33:50 - She's asked if she's an ambassador for women's football, and as humble as she is, she answers she is in Denmark, the host then adds she's also out of Denmark. Pernille says she's very grateful for her fans and she tries after a match to give back some of her time in the form of pictures and photographs for all the hours the fans use.

35:00 - A small feature from Helle Thorning Schmidt (Former prime Minister in Denmark) on Pernille's bravery to be herself and say her opinions

36:40 - The women got 1 million less than the men for reaching the final in 2017 compared to the men's euro in Russia. The women got 82.000 DKK. And Pernille's answer is clear NO it's not fair.

37:30 - She thinks it's hard to demand the same salary as the men, but at least the training facilities could be the same she thinks.

39:00 - Last season the average salary in the best women's League in England was 417.000 DKK and in the premiere League its 73 million DKK (174xthe women's yearly salary)

40:00 - Talk about the missed world cup in 2019 and the cancelled match against Sweden. She hadn't thought it would go that far so DBU would cancel a match for "as little as they asked for"

43:00 - Henrik Lindinger talks again about how Pernille had used her voice and how she after "the famous kiss" realized she had a platform. Pernille don't add something new about it

44:30 - It was after the kiss they both realized the platform they had as many people wrote to them how much it meant to them. She also adds about the Hangout

47:00 - Talks about how it's "normal" to come out as a women but not as a man

50:00 - she's asked what she wants to do after her football career, she has started to think about it as she's getting "older" and it should definitely still include football but she doesn't exactly know what it should be yet

50:45 - Clip with Junge. She says Pernille is a very down-to-earth person and not someone who has to be centre of attention

52:00 - After her career, she will not only think back on her football career but also her friendships around the world and how people see her as a person. She gets touched by Junge's words but as she's from Jutland (known for not showing emotions) she says she's not while smiling)

54:00 - She choose the ending song - Lykkeli with "I follow rivers"

#podcast #pernille harder #sofie junge #translated

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thebest-medicine · 26 days

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how about 19 and 20?

19. Tickle fights, yes or no?

YES YES YES YES YES YES YES let me struggle and maybe win for a bit it’s so thrilling (I still wanna lose at least maybe for a while though lol)

20. If money were not a concern, what would your ideal vacation look like?

Oh man, so I spent 2 years right after college living in China and traveling all over Asia (I worked at an international school as a teacher) and….honestly basically what I did then.

Backpacking, exploring, renting motorbikes and hiking and going through small towns and multi-day hikes… I loved it so much and it was such a lovely experience I miss so much in this post-covid world. I had my first ever paid vacation time when I had this job and I spent 7 weeks during chinese new year hiking, exploring, and biking through southern China, Bali, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. I would love to do more trips like this in other areas of the world. I don’t think I would care as much about expense as I would length of time? I would love to spend a few months a year exploring a new country or continent each time if money were no issue at all.

Another place I would love to go but that is too expensive right now is to do a small explorer cruise to Antarctica!

#answered #anon #tickling #personal #ask meme #tickle ask meme

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floralcrematorium · 8 months

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5, 19, 35

35. Post a Hetalia sketch or draft you want an excuse to share.

I'M SO GLAD TO HAVE GOTTEN THIS ONE!!! Putting this one first bc I'm excited about it

I'm meant to be working on the DTIYS templates I've made (and the one I keep mentioning but won't post bc I want to actually finish it before I release it), but a friend requested this out of the blue. Took me FOREVER to figure out those shoulders and I'm not even sure they're. Correct. ANYWAY if I paint this for him I get $10 (it's not really a commission it was more of a. He requested art. I said I'd make it Even Better if he gives me ten bucks lol).

Lol I put a cut so I had an excuse to tag this with Hetalia tags

5. Opinions on how accurately your country is depicted?

Alfred's fine. I don't really have anything else to say about him. When I write the characters I tend to like. Make my own little versions of him, but aside from Migraines in Margaritaville, I usually tend to write Alfred similarly to how he's depicted in canon.

19. Who owns the shittiest phone by choice?

France.

Honestly any of the older nations (China, India, maybe Vietnam?) could have clunky phones, but in their cases I think instead of having shitty phones and insisting its fine, they have newer phones that they simply don't care about. They're not my area of expertise, but I at least think that China knows how to use contemporary tech. Man's been alive for such a long time and is able to adapt to keep himself alive, he knows his way around a cell phone or computer.

Francis is supposedly canonically afraid of computers (according to the wikia which,,, you know how fandom wiki is so like take that with a grain of salt) so I like to make him have the most old-man coded tech skills even though I've been writing him age 26-28 humanverse. In my head for nationverse you Cannot reach this man easily by phone. Good luck. Fran's got one of these cases:

I can see Ukraine having a shitty phone because while she can afford a better phone, it's just not important to her. She's gonna use that phone until it doesn't work anymore.

I also see Sweden having a shitty phone???? I genuinely have no basis for this. I just feel it. He's giving his phone upgrades to the other Nordics (I think Den goes through phones like water -- he's constantly breaking them).

I think the real question is who is most likely to fall for a phishing text

#floralcrematorium ask box #hetalia #hws france #my art #hetalia france #francis bonnefoy #art wip

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hockpock · 4 months

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Have you shared your Dashcon memories?

In the generous assumption that this ask is in good faith (cheers to you for asking off anon! ) I have.

My dashcon tag is #ballpit dramacon , I've not bothered to reread it so who knows what cringe lurks in there- it's been 10 years!

The tldr version is that honestly my experience wasn't that much different from any other first year con I've risked doing artist alley at. Maybe a lack of signage. Kinda remember it was unclear which tables were assigned to who, since the overhyped separate dealer's room and artist alley ended up being half of one ballroom.

We did better than most vendors - it was one of the first times I sold my handmade plush, and my partner was selling flower crowns at the height of Hannigram UwU edits. It is not and will not be the only show we've done where the projected attendance numbers did not line up with a depressingly empty dealer's room day of. As a vendor you spend 90% of any given show trapped behind your table. Lucky for us Dashcon imploded after dealer's hall hours! I think I was in a wtnv related panel when the whole round-everyone-into-main-events we need 1700 panic thing happened.

As I've said before and will stand by, the vibes of the actual attendees were great. Dashcon for all it's failures had the absolute lowest creep factor of any show I've ever attended, as a vendor or otherwise. No hentai face shirts, no weird dude hovering over my table and juuust skirting the line of behavior that could justify asking them to leave. I wish more cons had that.

The con runners were a shitshow who handled absolutely nothing with grace and tranquility and from what I was able to gather after the fact shoved most of the actual work and responsibilities (hotel contracts etc) onto a 19 year old. The attendees were just trying to make the most of it and enjoy the convention as best they could. They made the same gamble that anyone choosing to go to a first time con makes.

If I remember correctly there was a first year con that same year that ended up being in open air shelters or the animal barns on an abandoned fairground. Yikes.

Anyway, I digress. I made friends, I made money, I made memes.

I am somewhat amazed at the gullible nature of the internet in general because one of the rumors at the time was that there were tsetse flies in the ballpit. tsetse flies. African sleeping sickness pests in an upscale hotel in the middle of fucking illinois, somehow brought in via inflatable kiddy pool. C'mon, the pool was clearly made in China! Can we at least keep to the same continent with our inflammatory nonsense? Or maybe Tarantulas, those are a classic for "came in with the fruit" scare stories.

So that's some of my dashcon memories for you. The ballpit will live on in infamy but... not all that interesting and in my opinion if wasn't the nerdy queer neurodivergent teenage girl venn diagram convention no one would have given a shit about it 10 years on.

¯_(ツ)_/¯

#ballpit dramacon #pock answers

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s0methingmoonlit · 4 months

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[Dec. 19 2023]

Ok there’s a lot to unpack about the new recent TPOT episode, so hold on tight!

Below is some art and lots of rambling. Beware!

P.S Vote [B]

Pillow was absolutely batshit this episode and I loved it. Despite this however, I think she should be eliminated. It’s clear she has a ton of power over her teammates, and I feel like the others deserve a lot better. Honestly, Just Not is my favorite team in not just The Power Of Two, but in all of Battle For Dream Island history! I really didn’t want any of them to leave, until now where I think Pillow needs to hit the bench and think about her actions. Maybe even get scolded by Pie idk.

Now let’s see, who did I want out this episode? No one, as it was a shame to see Puffball get out since Are You Okay is like, a really great team! But in TPOT 5, I really wanted to see Golf Ball get out. I’m glad she didn’t though! She seems to be getting better and the writers are starting to redeem Tengolf! Tbh I was never a fan of that ship, ever in my 4 years of watching BFDI. But TPOT really do damage to their friendship. I wish they continue acting like this in future episodes and hopefully fully recover their friendship! Cause if not, then, oh well… At least TB has Pen, Eraser, and TV! (Idk about Golf Ball though)

Ok now back to batshit characters. YELLOW FACE!! /POS OMG THANK YOU FOR NOT BEING PURE EVIL!! I loved Yellow Face when he was morally grey. TPOT 8 really rubbed me off the wrong way, I was really scared he’d turn into a complete villain. So, so glad they did not go that route. Even if they did, that’d suck but Yellow Face will NEVER be worse than Purple Face. (As a Purple lover we don’t like that mf)

Uh… there’s like a ton of things to talk about! I don’t want this to be too long so I’ll ramble later. For now, have these doodles!!!

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beardedmrbean · 6 months

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David Liu's gun shop looks unsuspecting from the outside. Nestled into the back of a quiet strip mall in Arcadia, near Los Angeles, Liu keeps the overhead sign of the sushi restaurant that once occupied his living-room-sized shop. He does this to remain discreet, saying the people who need to find him will seek him out.

Liu posts fliers on his windows offering Concealed Carry Weapons (CCW) license classes in Mandarin and English, pasted below his Trump 2020 flag, orchids and decorative fish.

Liu says roughly half of his customers are Asian — primarily Chinese — and conduct transactions in their native language.

Many of his customers at his shop are like friends — regulars who come by for multiple training sessions, paperwork, or to chat. Several of them are new gun owners driven by fears over rising levels of violence and hate crimes, which increased by over 330% between 2020 and 2021, according to a report by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism published in 2022.

Arcadia is a predominantly Asian area just a few minutes from Monterey Park, the site of a deadly mass shooting following a Lunar New Year Festival this year.

A growing demographic of gun owners

Asian Americans traditionally have the lowest rates of ownership than any other measured demographic in the US, but saw a 43% rise in ownership between 2019 and 2020, starting with the pandemic. The COVID-19 outbreak reportedly spurred public scapegoating of Asians in the US. Crimes such as robberies and home burglaries have also increased in recent years following the pandemic and a rapid rise in the cost of living.

Liu says that in the LA area, Chinese people are sometimes violently targeted both publicly and in their homes due to a stereotype of keeping large amounts of cash on hand.

"The situation is getting worse," says Ray Gong, 27, a customer of Liu's. "I just got out of the military recently, and hearing the news, my mind changed."

Gong arrived in the US in 2016 from Hangzhou, an eastern city in China just south of Shanghai. He purchased his first pistol in August and another two firearms in September, hoping to "be ready for anything." ____________________

The correct answer is, it's none of your business why people are exercising their constitutional right to bear arms.

He says that while he hasn't experienced violence related to his ethnicity, he was discriminated against in the military, where he was prevented from taking on higher roles due to being Chinese and was often handed the work that nobody else wanted.

He is also in the process of obtaining his CCW, which typically takes over six months in California. "I'm thinking about carrying it (a gun) all the time."

Gong is now a member of a nearby shooting range and says he works on target practice at least once a week.

In a Public Policy Institute of California survey last year, two-thirds of Californians saw crime as a serious problem.

"Everyone (not just Asian Americans) is buying more guns," says Liu. "People are scared."

Ricky Wong, 44, a legal administrator, says that in the last few years, he survived a violent attack with a baseball bat and two car thefts. The attack, he said, was carried out by other Asians. He was a gun owner before, but the attack and robberies validated his decision to be armed.

Calls for justice system to get tough on violence

One of the solutions to rising violent crimes in California, Wong and Liu say, is to get tough on crime again, citing multiple murderers who were released after what they see as much-too-brief stints in prison.

Chris Cheng, a sport shooter and founding member of the Asian Pacific American Gun Owners Association, echoed the sentiment that law enforcement is not effectively tackling violent crime.

"The lack of prosecution" by district attorneys in major cities, including Los Angeles and his home, San Francisco, against criminals perpetrating racist attacks against Asians decreased the community's confidence in the criminal justice system.

"Combine that with the increased civil unrest with the George Floyd riots and the January 6 insurrection, it should come as no surprise that many Asian Americans began to understand that law enforcement cannot protect them."

However, not everyone feels that firearms are not the answer to rising hate crimes. "The firearms industry and gun lobby are currently targeting minority communities in their marketing in response to long-term stagnation in the traditional gun market of white men," according to a report issued by the Washington-based Violence Policy Center.

"As a result of their increasing size and consumer power, Asian Americans are viewed as an untapped market by gunmakers," it said.

Liu sees the motivation of his customers not as a result of marketing but as a result of fear. "It's just so dangerous out there. A lot of people buying are victims already."

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