#flashpoint productions

[hms-no-fun]

What's your opinion on the new HS^2 update? I'm really excited it's back but I'm a little worried. Like, the fandom has had a real problem with pretending all the horrible shit that caused it to end in the first place never happened. Is this just gonna sweep that under the rug even more? Is James Roach heading the project because he's less "problematic"? I love James roach and I'm sure he'll do great but what about all the transphobia? I just hope they finally fulfill the Toblerone Prophesy and make June Egbert cannon.

short version is, i'm cautiously optimistic! but this is a loaded question you've given me on a lot of fronts, so i'm gonna try to take it piece by piece.

to start with, the sudden revival of Homestuck^2 (now minus the squared) took me by surprise because to my knowledge, it was entirely dead in the water. my involvement with anything Official ended at Pesterquest, and pretty much the entire post-canon crew i was friends with in 2019-20 has moved on to greener pastures. i share a similar sentiment with @pochapal in that i would have put money on hs2 staying dead forever. i have, quite frankly, dreaded the inevitable day when official Homestuck media would resume production, because the fandom at large seems quite eager to sweep the ceaseless harassment and transphobia that ended hs2 under the rug and pretend that it just, like you said... never happened. when that california cafe used older Pesterquest-like character designs that omitted short chubby Terezi and black-coded Roxy, however well-intentioned and ultimately harmless that was, it felt like a sign of things to come. that, as you fear, the sharper & more personal queerness that we tried to bring to this series would be erased, in favor of something meant to simultaneously appease both tenderqueers and redditors, two sects of the fandom most responsible for the aforementioned harassment.

luckily, that really doesn't seem to be the case!

to your worry that James Roach was made director because he's "less problematic," i'll just say that's entirely the wrong way to look at it. it's not like WP (such that it even still exists) were cruising to get HS2 back up and running. by all accounts, James is the only reason it's happening again in the first place. i can't stress enough just how small an operation this Homestuck business actually is (or, at least, was when i was involved). this is not a Huge Corporation making cynical cash grab decisions. this is someone who cares about the material pushing to get something made where otherwise there would be nothing. check the new About page, where the principles of the so-called Homestuck Independent Creative Union are laid out in plain terms. this is something the original hs2 team fought for, so for this new version to start from there as square one is huge and a good sign of the possible longevity of the project.

next, let's talk about the question of this new team erasing the legacy of the old one. Kate Mitchell is on the record that she was reached out to about this new hs2, approved it, and declined to be involved. i don't know if the other writers were reached out to, but i have no reason to believe they weren't. this is a tremendously important gesture of good faith and goes a long way towards easing some of these worries.

but let's look at the composition of the team itself. do you remember The Perfectly Generic Podcast? originally hosted by future hs2 writer Kate, pgen became a flashpoint for community discourse, often opening doors between official homestuck and homestuck fandom. what made that show special was that, rather than relying on the imo tired genre of the liveread, pgen focused on a different topic each episode and explored it with one or two qualified guests. Kate's goal with the show was to encourage a more adult and quasi-academic discussion of homestuck, of its successes and its failures. if you weren't there, the weight i'm putting on pgen might seem overblown (not least because you can't find it anywhere anymore except on the internet archive). but it's not! when they decisively criticized the wild contents of the Skaianet debacle in episode 19, Andrew listened and worked to bring a more diverse group of creators into the fold. in the months after the Epilogues were released, Andrew issued a statement through pgen on episode 52 about how the Epilogues are meant to create bridges and offramps for the post-canon fandom. it's an essential piece for understanding the epilogues and their relationship to fanworks! that it wasn't included as the author's introduction to the Epilogues in the book version remains to my mind an astonishing oversight, but whatever. point is, pgen mattered to the folks in charge.

so let's look again at the writing staff of this new crew. James Roach first guested on pgen in episode 7, and would go on to be a regular. Haven, who did the Vriska and Roxy sprites in Pesterquest (and probably more stuff i don't remember), guested in episodes 81 and 87. Miles guested on episode 87 as well (unless it's a different Miles, i'm not familiar with their work and ugh this damnable linkrot). Floral, creator of one of my favorite hs fanworks & huge godfeels influence Liminal Space, first guested on pgen in episode 47, and would go on to be a regular (including once during my tenure as host to talk about Jade). on the technical staff side, Kohi built the hs2 website and has remained a backend mainstay both on the WP side and on Vast Error.

all of which is to say, if you were looking for a crew to cynically erase the past and appease the haters, these probably aren't the folks that'd be at the top of your list. of course, if you *really* wanted to cynically erase the past and appease the haters, you wouldn't bother reviving hs2 in the first place!

and that's the crux of the matter here. what cash is there to grab? what clout could possibly be chased? i struggle to think of a decision less obviously profitable and popular than continuing hs2 with a new crew right where it left off. i have to believe this is happening because the people involved want to make it.

so, yeah, i'm cautiously optimistic. i like this crew, i like the contents of the first upd8, and i'm glad as hell it's not a reboot! i'm grateful that by reviving hs2, the hs:bc crew have instantly yanked the epilogues & the post-canon project back into relevance in the broader community. and i always liked hs2 a lot! i was excited to see where they were going! i'm really looking forward to seeing more YIFFY!!!!!

but the thing is, this won't be the hs2 i wanted. i know that, and i'm not expecting it. my greatest hope for hs:bc, for this crew, is that they get the chance to take up the reins and drive this thing in whatever direction they feel most passionate about. if that winds up looking like the hs2 that was originally planned, great-- but more than anything, i want everyone on this team to feel just as empowered to leave a profound and personal mark on this series as the original team did, as i did working on Pesterquest. i hope the outline changes! i hope they take some really wild swings! i want to be surprised!! i want to be challenged!!!

above all, i want them to have the chance to pick a course, sail it, and see it through to the end regardless of what the public thinks. they deserve the chance that the original crew didn't get.

i have plenty of bitterness and cynicism in my heart over the events and circumstances of 2019-20, but as far as i'm concerned it has no place here today. i would never, ever wish the trauma and stress of that era on anyone. let the fandom at large react in whatever way it will, but i want things to be different this time. this is a second chance-- not just for hs2/hs:bc, but for all of us. even people who hate homestuck post-canon! this is an opportunity for everyone to choose to be better this time, and to push back when others might squander that opportunity. this team is not a group of celebrities, not an abstract fiction on the other side of the world, they are human beings who took a job. they've earned the opportunity to do that job, and they deserve to be treated with the respect and dignity that was so often absent a few years ago.

as to your last point, about june egbert and the toblerone. i've been saying for years that andrew's confirmation of june was less "the granting of a wish" than it was "a spoiler shared without input from the creative team." that there is any doubt about june's providence in hs2 can only be attributed to willful, aggressive ignorance on the part of people who refuse to engage with the written word in any way other than plodding literalism. the original team didn't unveil june ~immediately~ because they didn't think of june as a wish, they thought of her as a character in an ongoing story who needed time to develop naturally. i have never not felt entirely crazy about how thick everyone has been about this!

but will the new team make june canon? obviously i have no way of knowing for sure, but i'm gonna go out on a limb and say that probably the answer is "yes, when they're good and goddamned ready." just, please, for the love of god, don't go after every upd8 like "where's june? where's june? why hasn't june yet????" this was one of the worst results of the toblerone spoiler and it put INSANE pressure on the hs2 team. so just... just let this story be what it is. let this new team make the homestuck continuation they want to make.

and in the meantime, if you're really hungry for june... there's always godfeels :)

#homestuck #homestuck 2 #hs2 #homestuck beyond canon #hsbc #upd8 #pgen #homestuck renaissance #sarahposts #what pumpkin #hom3stuck

[xamiipholia]

okay y'all seemed to like the last one so here's a few more Horizon 3 thoughts:

Aloy won’t die. It would completely upend the series’ themes and just be really nihilistic.

Since Nemesis is a gestalt entity I think it’s a safe bet that we’ll see Sam Witwer, Carrie-Anne Moss, etc again. I’m curious how they’re going to do it because at least structurally, it’s basically a reaper. Maybe it’ll use different Avatars when communicating like the Leviathan in ME3. 

It's gonna take some work to make a flashback/dream/vision not contrived but I would love to see Varl and Rost again. I think we deserve that.

Minerva is gonna have its work cut out for it blocking access to both the dormant Faro Swarm and the ZD terraforming system. 

I wouldn’t be surprised if Nemesis has some sort of corruption function that becomes the equivalent of the corruption in HZD. It would be a really fun tech showcase if GG uses Zenith nanotech for machine corruption and leans into mechanical body horror.

If we’re going to Ban-Ur I really really hope they do the work to make the Banuk less problematic and more fleshed out as a culture. A quasi-Spartan society absolutely would not survive in an extreme environment, *especially* without megafauna to hunt. The Banuk characters are lovely and well-written; they deserve a society as well thought out as the Utaru or Carja. I’m honestly fine if there’s retcons or revamps to the cultural lore because the whole “outsider barges in and becomes chief” is rooted in racist, colonial tropes and we just don’t really need that imo.

The most recent footage of Death Stranding 2 (also running on Decima) has me SO excited for the visuals. GG’s gonna knock it out. The facial rendering and animation that Kojima Productions are doing looks industry-peak and I’m sure GG’s gonna match that. Aloy’s Gay Panic™️ scene on the beach in HBS is already top-tier nonverbal storytelling through animation. Digital Foundry actually just posted a really cool tech breakdown of the current Decima engine. I’m especially excited about the environmental stuff. The ocean simulations in HFW are already incredible and I hope they increase verticality in the world. I can’t wait to see the Sacred Lands in current gen graphics. 

I really love Kotallo’s DIY arm and it’s so so important to his development but Beta and Gaia now have access to Zenith nanotech, maybe give your buddy a sick upgrade hmm?

Speaking of, I can’t wait to see Beta come into her own. She’s one of the best parts of HFW and Aloy’s character absolutely shines in a sibling dynamic. 

I wouldn’t get your hopes up for a romance mechanic. Everyone’s feelings on that aside, it would be really odd from a game development perspective to just overhaul part of how the narrative develops Aloy’s character in the last act of the story. Yeah, there are flashpoints but I would argue that the presence of choice in Horizon is smoke and mirrors- cosmetic at best. Kentucky Route Zero (which you should play) does something similar where the player is given a certain amount of control over the substance of individual conversations and scenarios and it does absolutely nothing to alter the plot, by design. I think it’s the same here - this isn’t really a choice-based RPG, the flashpoints don’t really affect anything plot-wise or for Aloy’s character development. Olin is still out of the story, Nil lives, Regalla still dies one way or another. Aloy’s character development is pretty firmly on rails (think Jin Sakai, not Shepard - you get to guide some momentary character reactions but that’s it). I don’t think HBS is a testing ground either - If they were gonna introduce a romance mechanic I think they’d just do it, and not spend two years making a direct continuation of HFW’s main quest and establishing a specific romance hard-baked into the plot, complete with multiple leitmotifs for the character relationship (which is something they haven’t done before afaik) just to introduce a side quest mechanic coming in 5 years. I genuinely can’t think of any game or dev that has beta tested a major alteration to upcoming game mechanics that way - it doesn’t really make any sense in terms of developer resources, and these games are extremely time-consuming to make. I know this is a thing a bunch of people want and I can totally empathize with that! I just think it’s probably not on the table. 

I would bet money the series will bookend itself and the epilogue will involve a) the naming of Zo and Varl’s kid and b) Lis’ pendant. 

Mostly I'm just looking forward to being surprised. One of my favorite things that Horizon does is use carefully established elements in the world to pull the plot in unexpected directions and keeping the world grounded while they lean into speculative science fiction. I can't wait to see what Guerrilla is cooking up

#horizon 3 #horizon zero dawn #horizon forbidden west #horizon #hfw #aloy #guerrilla games #hzd #horizon burning shores #horizon theories #well not so much theories as observation and vague speculation #and some zesty takes #I love this world though #erend #sylens #varl #kotallo #beta #alva

[bet-on-me-13]

The DC Universe is a product of the New Book, A Glitch In Time

SPOILERS FOR A THE ENDING OF A GLITCH IN TIME

So, at the end of AGIT, we see a new timeline is created.

One where the Disasteroid was dealt with without the help of any of the Ghosts. Because of this, Ghosts are still hated, Danny is seen as a Villain, and there are apparently a bunch of changes to History that CW couldn't fix.

So, how did the world manage to deal with the Disastroid? Well, what if in this timeline, the Justice League finally exists?

In the original Timeline, none of the Heroes ever gained their powers, or at the very least the JLA was never formed (maybe similar to the Flashpoint timeline?).

But because of the new changes in time, there are finally actual Heroes that managed to deal with the Disasteroid without the need for Danny.

What if the JLA is wondering why Danny isn't mad at them for never helping with the Amity Park Situation, and Danny doesn't know who they are?

JLA: We are so sorry we never helped with Amity Park. We were so busy dealing with setting up the team that we never managed to get to you to help!

Danny: Who tf are you?

#Dp x dc #Dpxdc #Dc x dp #Dcxdp #Danny Phantom #Dc #Dcu #Agit #A Glitch In Time #Danny Phantom: A Glitch In Time #Danny is wondering who these guys are #There were no other big heroes in the other timeline #It was basically the Flashpoint Timeline but without the Wold War #Maybe that's what Flashpoint is? #Flash accidently fixes one of the damaged parts of time by saving his mom and resets the world to a previous version #But with a World War because the rest of the timeline is still damaged so fixing one part of it messed with the rest of it #Clockwork is mad that this guy just messed up all his hard work

[aalghul]

Saying that what fans (and post-flashpoint) make Jason is what Helena already is always gets one of two reactions: I hate Jason and this is true, I love Jason and this is completely wrong. Everyone's losing with that btw.

Helena and Jason are fundamentally different enough that it can't be exactly true. Helena and Jason's backstories don't have much in common either. Helena's involved betrayal, schemes and fights for power. Jason's was a product of Park Row being continually failed by Gotham. Jason also has a history with the Bats specifically, as the second Robin and a son of the family, that Helena doesn't. There is an appeal in that that's not transferrable; Jason's been a Bat and has had his own various roles since his he was created pre-crisis, not just since his resurrection or since he got a softer role post-flashpoint. He doesn't get to just not be a bat character.

In going "fanon Jason is exactly like Helena" you're also ignoring her time on the JLA and BOP, because remember that fanon thinks Jason sits around staring at his wall angrily until his family tell him to stop being a brainless killer OR runs around half-assing missions with his brothers friends because he has none of his own. It's honestly a disservice to her to pretend that brand of fanon Jason could ever be her.

However, Helena is the one who fought to be trusted by the Bats and compromised on killing because of them (whether that be due to the aforementioned struggle to fit in with them, or, at low points, because they know her identity). Jason did not due this pre-flashpoint, and even those abandoned attempts in Countdown didn't begin with the main timeline's version of Bruce. Pre-flashpoint Jason was not asking for anyone's trust or for a seat at the table. That's not even to say that any interpretation of Jason that has him reconciling with the Bats if a rip-off of Helena, it's just that Jason put himself on the outskirts of the family because he has personal issues with them. It's not just them making that decision. The role that Jason now occupies is very much the one that Helena had.

I'm not going to sit here talking about all the similarities and differences, or how they got tangled along the way. I just want to say that people who act like Jason was dealt a good hand by being given Helena's characterization by fanon and post-flashpoint are never going to be able to prove their point because you're focusing on the wrong thing (something that isn't even true). People who refuse to accept that the Jason they're talking about is a whole different character are going to miss out on any of the many interpretations of Jason that aren't just knock-off Helena's. And they're all pissing each other off in the process.

#it's just. you are biting at each other about something you will never agree on because you're approaching the conversation with goals that #go beyond the characters. you simply dislike a character too much or like a version of another too much to see what the other's saying #i don't think i could make it clearer: i'm not disagreeing that so much of jason in batfamily fanon is just helena. before anyone jumps me #helena and jason are more than just the black sheeps of the batfamily actually. i understand why arguments fall back on things like that #when youre frustrated and trying to prove a point thats what happens. but it ends in helena getting reduced to things that dont define her

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Is It Really That Bad?

I don’t think I’ve ever felt like the universe actively conspired against something until I witnessed the production of The Flash.

Since 1991 there have been quite a few proposals for Flash movies, but they never really got off the ground for whatever reason. Following Barry’s debut in Justice League, a movie finally was announced before multiple delays due to rewrites, in particular to cut Ray Fisher’s Cyborg from the story after he went public about the awful shit he had to deal with under Joss Whedon. Things seemed hopeless until It director Andy Muschietti came onboard, at which point production on the film finally started to go smoothly. Sure, there were rumblings about Ezra Miller having episodes on set, but that’s just typical actor nonsense, right? Surely it couldn’t get any worse!

Look, I’m here to review a movie so I’ll keep this brief: Miller committed crimes. Lots of crimes. So many, in fact, you’d think they were method acting for the role of Reverse-Flash. The thing is, despite all of this, Miller was basically given a slap on the wrist by the studio, being forbidden from doing promos and press tours (oh no! The horror!). And as if the situation wasn’t already a fucking mess, while Miller’s crime spree was ongoing WB canned the nearly-complete Batgirl movie that featured Michael Keaton and Academy Award-winning actor Brendan Fraser while simultaneously inflating The Flash’s budget to nearly $300 million with reshoots. It seems baffling to cancel a movie that was nearly done and that people were marginally interested in for the sake of a movie that people were losing interest in quickly due to its star’s erratic behavior, but remember: Leslie Grace isn’t white, while Ezra Miller is. WB is never beating those racism allegations at this rate.

With a normal movie, this is where the nonsense ends. BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

This film was meant to smooth out the clusterfuck continuity of the “Snyderverse” with a soft reboot, with Henry Cavill filming a end-of-movie cameo alongside Miller, Gal Gadot, Keaton, and Supergirl’s actress Sasha Calle to establish the new direction of DC going forward. Unfortunately, the hierarchy of power at DC changed, and Gunn shot that down. While this meant the ending would probably not get people confused with regards to upcoming projects, it also meant the movie wasn’t going to really have any closure for the old universe. Affleck, Cavill, and who knows who else are just gone, and the future is just a big old question mark. At least Aquaman is safe, maybe?

Literally none of this news was very reassuring to fans. Nothing above is any good for a film’s perception to audiences under normal circumstances, but here we have all this news coming to a fanbase that genuinely did not want this fucking movie. The DCEU was already divisive when the film was announced, and Miller’s portrayal of Barry doubly so; the fact it was adapting Flashpoint was seen as lazy and uninspired, not to mention its not really a story that lets Flash stand on his own merits, making it seem more like this movie was just an excuse to reboot; it was a multiverse story in a day and age with an abundance of such stories, and it was releasing around the same time as Across the Spider-Verse to boot; and Gunn’s reboot plans meant this story was likely a narrative dead end. This movie had an uphill battle the likes of which haven’t been seen since Sisyphus.

But much like that mythological figure, the boulder came crashing right back down when the numbers came in. The movie would likely need to gross $500 million at minimum to break even after factoring in the reshoots and advertising, and it only managed half of that with a pitiful opening weekend followed by a massive 73% drop. It now sits alongside films like The Lone Ranger and Mortal Engines as one of the most expensive bombs in history, to the point where WB would have saved more money by cancelling it like they did with Batgirl. And despite glowing praise from the likes of Tom Cruise and Stephen King, it received middling reviews from mainstream critics.

Audiences haven’t been any less mixed, but considering most people weren’t particularly excited or invested in this film’s existence this is basically a miracle. Sure, there’s plenty of people out there saying this is the “worst comic book movie ever” like they do every time a new superhero movie drops, but even more people are saying they enjoyed the film… although even they tend to have some severe criticisms.

Even though I knew most of what was going to happen in the movie going in, I wasn’t really sure what to expect given everything surrounding the movie. But you know me, I’m willing to give almost any movie a chance, and bombs this big don’t happen every day, so even before it was voted on I was trying to make time to check it out. So sit down, microwave yourself a snack—

—and watch as I try and determine if The Flash is really that bad.

THE GOOD

The biggest shock of this film is that Ezra Miller is actually really good here.

Their Barry is still a bit of a goofball, but he’s clearly matured as a character since his precious appearances. They managed to make him much more charming and likable than he ever was, and this gets compounded when he interacts with the younger Barry and gets confronted with how annoying he was before. I think young Barry could have come off as really insufferable, but the fact he annoys everyone around him and also ends up maturing makes him a lot more endearing.

Miller really kills it with the emotional moments, particularly the ending encounter with Barry’s mom and the scene where old Barry snaps at young Barry. The film is really carried by the dramatic, emotional moments far more than any of the superheroics, and Miller manages to sell a lot of it very well. It was to the point where I started thinking, “I really wouldn’t mind if they stick around.” Then a scene where Barry says the Justice League has no real psychiatric help or where his younger self ends up repeatedly exposing himself in public by accident happens, and then I remembered, “Oh yeah, aren’t they a mentally unwell criminal?”

Unsurprisingly, Michael Keaton absolutely kills it in his role as Batman, but much more shockingly is that Ben Affleck's brief return as Bruce is pretty great as well. I always thought Affleck, much like Henry Cavill, was desperately trying to give a great performance while weighed down by bad writing; here, he gets an actual poignant scene where he talks to Barry about how dwelling on tragedies isn't the way to do things, and you should try and move forward instead. It shows he really could have been great if given better material to work with.

Okay, enough being nice to Affleck, I wanna talk about Keaton again. As much as the marketing hyped him up and as much as he is obviously the most blatant fanservice possible, it's still so cool to see him in the suit again. I am not immune to nostalgia pandering, and as corny as it could have been from anyone else, the zoom into his face when he says The Line really is a highlight of the movie. Keaton has a great deal of charisma, and while there are issues with Batman they aren't his fault at all. Most impressively, he doesn't steal the show away from Miller like I thought he would; he enhances the scenes he's in without stealing the spotlight completely from their performance. I feel like this is a problem in a lot of movies like this, where the lead gets overshadowed by a hyped up character, but somehow The Flash of all things managed to avoid this.

And as bad as the cameos could get, this movie gave two of the greatest cameos ever put to film with the return of the GOAT George Clooney Batman and, best of all, Nicolas Cage Superman from the unmade Superman Lives, fighting a giant spider to the death just as God intended. I am not immune to the charms of Nicolas Cage.

Overall, this movie presents us with a solid story, plenty of fun moments, great character dynamics, and more... for the first two acts, anyway.

THE BAD

Once this movie hits the third act, it basically just loses any and all focus and becomes a big dumb video game-esque battle against Zod and his forces in a bland desert landscape. While both Barrys admittedly get some pretty cool moments sprinkled in and Keaton’s Batman’s second death is actually a well done emotional moment, Supergirl ends up being completely wasted, with her sole role being to angrily scream and then die repeatedly.

This actually highlights the problem with Kara in this movie: She’s basically nothing but a plot device and has zero personality, and a good 80% of her dialogue is just angry screaming. As hot as Sasha Calle is and how much she obviously wants to make Kara compelling, she is given so little to work with that her efforts end up being fruitless. She does nothing of consequence after helping Barry get his powers back, and could be replaced or written out of the story and it would still make perfect sense.

Zod’s inclusion is pretty baffling as well, especially since they chose to water down one of the only good things from Man of Steel into a boring, generic doomsday villain. You can really feel that poor Michael Shannon would rather be doing anything else, and his bored performance just highlights how poorly implemented Zod is in the plot. Like, the Fladh has some of the best and most colorful DC villains in his rogues gallery, one’s that are often overlooked because Batman’s villains sell more toys. Why not highlight some of them instead of taking a Superman villain and stripping him of all personality to the point the actor clearly has no passion for the role? Cutting Zod would make cutting Supergirl even easier, and then two of the biggest problems with the movie are gone!

The third act does manage to mostly rerail itself once it goes back to Barry trying to unfuck the timeline, with only a disgustingly egregious bit of fanservice that I’ll discuss in the next section hampering it. But at the end, despite the incredibly based George Clooney cameo, there’s just so many unresolved and unanswered questions, with the biggest one being who killed Barry’s mom? Considering her death is what kickstarted the whole plot, you’d think this might come up, but it never does. A lot of other things come up and get dropped too, like whatever was going on with Batman in the opening, but maybe I’m just crazy for wanting elements introduced in a plot to have significance beyond just being there to be cool.

Even beyond that, there’s the fact that Supergirl and Keaton!Batman’s final fates are never really resolved, something that apparently wasn’t a problem in early versions of the film since they showed up alive in the final scene. As much as I loved seeing Clooney, I think trading him for getting some closure for Keaton and Calle would have been more satisfying.

Everyone harps on how bad the CGI is—and it absolutely is, don’t get me wrong—but for the most part I found it endearingly bad. Like the opening with the CGI babies? That’s too goofy for me to hate. But once the movie revolves into bland grey and black CGI bad guys and creepy deepfake celebrity cameos, I stop being quite so forgiving.

Oh, and on the subject of cameos, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one as pointless and unfunny as Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman showing up out of nowhere (complete with theme music) to make Bruce and Barry look like dumb assholes. Imagine thinking this was a good idea.

THE UGLY

The biggest point of contention surrounding this movie is the CGI necromancy used in the aforementioned cameo clusterfuck from the climax, which gives us George Reeve, Christopher Reeves, and Adam West posthumously reprising their DC roles in non-speaking appearances (there’s archived audio from West, but his cameo isn't really focused on to the point you can barely tell it's him) where they just stand there before the camera swoops around like in that Saul Goodman gif.

I think this is one of the very few times where I actually think the outrage is mostly justified. To be clear, I’m not getting mad on behalf of dead celebrities I never knew, and as long as the filmmakers went through the proper channels and the estates of these stars were properly compensated, I don’t have any legal objections. All of my distaste is coming from a subjective, moral standpoint.

I have never liked this CGI necromancy ever since Rogue One popularized it. I find it really gross and distasteful, and in most cases I think finding a lookalike actor would be preferable than playing Weekend at Bernie’s with a computer generated facsimile of a dead person. In The Flash, I understand having lookalikes would diminish the wow factor of the crossover, but there was an extremely easy workaround to this: Have cameos from all the living DC stars.

Was Brandon Routh not available to put on the Superman tights? Would it have been so bad to let Grant Gustin pop in for a cameo? They acknowledge Helen Slater, so why not Melissa Benoist? Hell, if you want to reference bad, campy movies, have Shaq show up as Steel or Josh Brolin pop in as Jonah Hex! Or even Ryan Reynolds, I’d bet he’d be down to return if you gave him a real suit this time!

Like there’s just no excuse for ghoulishly parading around dead guys when there’s so many alive guys you could use instead. People can complain all they want about the fanservice and cameos in the past few Spider-Man films, but at least they only had returning characters played by living actors. And when this movie already has the niche, out-there Nic Cage Superman cameo, proving they were down to do things as out there and inoffensively creative as reference unmade movies, it’s really just inexcusable. It doesn’t ruin the movie for me, but it makes me lose a bit of respect for the people who okayed this over less offensive cameo ideas.

IS IT REALLY THAT BAD?

To my surprise, this film actually turned out to be pretty good. Not “great,” not “the best superhero movie ever,” but genuinely mostly good and enjoyable.

My opinion is that the movie is good in spite of itself. The third act is truly a hot mess, the stupid desert battle against Zod is awful and boring, Supergirl is depressingly pointless, so many plot points are just dropped or otherwise forgotten, and the CGI necromancy is nothing short of ghoulish. But the rest of the movie is truly a lot of fun. Barry and his younger self have a fun dynamic, Keaton really manages to take what little he’s given and show that he’s still got it as Batman, the Clooney and Cage cameos were delightful, and most importantly the emotional moments are actually effective.

I think with a bit more polish this film could have actually lived up to the hype around it. There is a great movie in here being suffocated by fanservice and CGI but still managing to get a few gasps of air regardless. I think if they’d kept the conflict more grounded or made Reverse-Flash the primary antagonist, things might have turned out better.

I think its score is pretty fair. My friend @huyh172 described this as “the worst good DC movie,” and it’s an assessment I fully agree with. It’s not as good as Aquaman, Wonder Woman, The Suicide Squad, the Snyder Cut, or Shazam!, and it’s definitely not as bad as stuff like Wonder Woman 1984 or Josstice League. It’s also a bit too enjoyable to be mid. It’s just a really solid movie held back from true greatness by some damning flaws… and really, that makes it the perfect capstone to the "Snyderverse," a cinematic universe that had some solid movies but was held back from greatness by incredibly bad ones.

#Is It Really that bad? #IIRTB #review #movie review #The Flash #The Flash 2023 #Ezra Miller #andy muschietti #DC #DCEU #Snyderverse #Michael Keaton #Batman #Sasha Calle #Supergirl #Barry Allen #superhero movie

[bonefall]

'Ello, found your BB AU a couple days ago and am already heavily immersed in it asdvcsdv

Iirc WindClan (maybe others but esp them) uses flax as a building material, and linseed oil in some cases? How do they handle the possibility of the linseed oil just. exploding/catching on fire?

Had another thing to ask. too but my brain went yeet with it so sdsfsd if i remember I'll come back XD

Linseed oil has to get really hot to self-ignite and be surrounded by flammable things like rags and kindle to cause damage. The notoriously low flashpoint of linseed oil is caused by a metal salt catalyst, which Clan cats don't use. RAW, normal oil without a catalyst has a flashpoint around 200F/93C.

This is also, remember, really far north geographically. 100F/38C is recordbreaking heat in this area, only seen a handful of times through history including now. This place is cold; on average you're looking at a winter temp of 40F/5C and a summer temp of 60F/16C.

Flax and its products have been used for tens of thousands of years (stone age!) by various cultures and it's not like they were constantly spontaneously combusting. Linseed's combustibility is one of those things that is both a modern problem, and gets played up to alarm people lmao.

SO to answer the question directly, they deal with it with basic fire safety. You're not allowed to bake or fry alone unless you're a well-trained warrior. They also work with the oil in sandy areas, to kick up dirt if there happens to be a greasefire. For anything treated with linseed oil, like shawls or construction, the flashpoint is simply not a problem.

#Clan culture #flax #linseed oil #Better bones au

[dankwebofficial]

Want to play old flash games and animations? Here are a few ways.

Note: links are underlined, all links are to webpages except for the two purple links where noted. These link to directly to file downloads. This isn't an install guide, just a list of resources and the occasional tip. Please use caution. I cannot stress this enough. Flash was killed as it had a lot of security issues and a lot of work to fix. Some of these solutions are still just as dangerous as ever.

TLDR Quick Links: Red links are not secure. Use caution.

Ruffle // Flashplayer Executable (needed to run most of the red or orange things) // Waterfox Classic // Pale Moon // Basilisk* // Danknet Explorer // Standalone Player // Newgrounds Player // Puffin Browser // Windows 7 ISO (for flash security, see below, but also be careful. ISO's are dangerous) // BlueMaxima's Flashpoint (actually has a player which I missed. See my reblog.)

Ruffle

Ruffle is a flash emulator that seeks to run flash with higher security than old flash player. This is much safer than the other ways listed below but for now it doesn't have an amazing range. Basically nothing developed in 2010s is certain to run and much of it doesn't work. But it's a cool project so if you can consider donating to them as that can seriously help speed the development along. This is the only Linux solution.

Classic Browsers

There are a few browsers that still support the flash plugin. Since these use the original flash program, they are far less secure than before so please know the risks. Flash was a poorly-sandboxed monstrosity and that has not changed in the slightest.

First, you'll need to download and install flash player: (note: these links will start downloading immediately) Win Mac

(courtesy of Gaia Online. I'm sure they're also archived somewhere.)

Waterfox Classic

Waterfox is a really good browser that I use on some of my computers. It has a really clean UI. Classic, however is similar to the two below. It is also the only apple friendly option (y'all have gotta stop buying apple products I swear to god you're killing indie devs). Do not try to update Waterfox classic as that will remove flash support.

Pale Moon / Basilisk

These two are more or less the same and are developed by the same team(Basilisk is now developed by a different team). They are forked from an old Firefox repository and are built up to work with modern systems. There are differences between them but those aren't really relevant. Both have flash support. In cases where Waterfox classic hasn't worked, these browsers have worked (like for me).

Update: Pale Moon, as I have recently discovered, has a flash sandboxing tool that you can install that was apparently integrated into the browser. You can still use the tool, but they state it isn't necessary. This means that flash should be a lot more secure than it used to be! Pale Moon is perhaps the best option, though note that it still depends on the original flash application meaning that while running flash in Pale Moon is secure other applications could still take advantage of the flash software.

*basilisk is no longer being developed so no idea how long it will last.Basilisk is now being maintained by a different team but as I understand no major features have been added.

Danknet Explorer

Those of you who follow me have heard me bring this up a few times now. I'm working on a clone of the Pale Moon browser that revives old IE6/7 aesthetic and features. Of course, as a result of being a Pale Moon clone, using their exact code base, DNE runs flash also! So, really, this is the best browser to play flash on >.> I'm want the browser to bolster the indie web community so if you are a webmaster or a frequenter of the indie web, suggest a feature through this google form or do so as an issue on the github repository and I'll try to make it happen!

Honorable Mention: Puffin Browser

Puffin is a really safe solution to flash. As far as I understand it they basically play the flash animation/game on their servers and return the results to you. This makes it safer for you as none of the flash stuff is ever handled on your computer. So why did I only give this an honorable mention? I haven't used it myself so I can't confirm anything about it really and I've heard that this is only available through a subscription service. There may also be other limitations. I don't know what's true but I wanted to give it a mention. I just don't know enough about it so you will have to look into that yourself. It felt wrong to not include it though.

Standalone Players

Flash Standalone Player

Flash had a standalone player mostly for debugging. If you download the SWF file of a game you can open it with the standalone player. I think you need the flash program installed so see above. Keep in mind this is also original flash player so it is just as unsafe as with the classic Browsers. Use at your own risk.

Newgrounds Player

Another standalone player, this one is a little nicer. Probably recommend it more than the official flash one. No certainty on how sandboxed it is.

Final Note

For future proofing, consider downloading and setting up a Windows 7 virtual box and running through that. Action/timing flash games will suffer a lot but at least many games will be playable via the above methods. If you want to get around action/timing game issues consider dual booting an old system or getting an garbage laptop that runs an old windows version. Here's a Windows 7 iso from internet archive.

Windows 7 also has security issues since it's past end of life so use cautiously. Safest bet is just to have it on a completely different system.

All you have to do now is find things to play

Feel free to reblog with anything I've missed

#flash #tutorial #shockwave #adobe flash #old internet #old web #2000s internet #y2kcore #internet nostalgia #2000s web #early internet #webcore #ruffle #pale moon #basilisk #flashpoint #waterfox #old tech

[balanchine-ballet-master]

The Story of the Original "Tea" Dancer

There was a delightful story in the Times on February 4th about George Lee, on whom Balanchine created the Tea variation in The Nutcracker. Here it is.

From Ballet to Blackjack, a Dance Pioneer’s Amazing Odyssey

George Lee was the original Tea in “George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker.” A documentary filmmaker found him and a lost part of ballet history in Las Vegas.

By Siobhan Burke Feb. 4, 2024

Among the blaring lights and all-hours amusements of downtown Las Vegas, in a sea of slot machines at the Four Queens Hotel and Casino, George Lee sits quietly at a blackjack table, dealing cards eight hours a day, five days a week, a job he’s been doing for more than 40 years.

Lee, 88, was likely in his usual spot when the filmmaker Jennifer Lin was sifting through old photos at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts in 2022, wondering what had become of a dancer with a notable place in ballet history. Pictured in a publicity shot for the original production of “George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker,” in the role known as Tea, was a young Asian dancer identified as George Li.

For Lin, a veteran newspaper reporter turned documentarian, the picture raised intriguing questions. In 1954, when the photo was taken, it was rare to see dancers of color on the stage of New York City Ballet, the company Balanchine co-founded. Who was this young man, this breaker of racial barriers, this pioneer? Was he still alive? And if so, what was he up to? “I became absolutely obsessed with trying to find out what happened to George Li,” Lin said in a video interview.

In just over a year, that obsession has blossomed into a short film, “Ten Times Better,” that chronicles the unexpected story of Lee’s life: from his childhood in 1940s Shanghai, where his performing career began; to a refugee camp in the Philippines, where he fled with his mother, a Polish ballet dancer, in 1949; to New York City and the School of American Ballet, where Balanchine cast him in “The Nutcracker” to “Flower Drum Song” on Broadway, his first of many musical theater gigs; and ultimately, to Las Vegas, where he left dance for blackjack dealing in 1980. (He changed the spelling of his last name in 1959, when he became a United States citizen.)

The film will have its premiere on Feb. 10 as part of the Dance on Camera Festival at Film at Lincoln Center. Lee, who last visited New York in 1993, will be in town for the occasion, an opportunity for long-overdue recognition.

“So many years I haven’t done ballet,” Lee said over coffee at the Four Queens on a recent Sunday, after his shift. “And then suddenly Jennifer comes and tries to bring everything up. To me, it was like a shock.”

George Lee today. He has been a blackjack dealer in Las Vegas for more than 40 years. Photo: Saeed Rahbaran for The New York Times

But Lin’s interest has been welcome. “Jennifer is so perfect, she knows exactly everything,” he said. “She knows my background more than I do.”

Lin was not the only one who had been searching for Lee. In 2017, while organizing an exhibition on “The Nutcracker,” Arlene Yu, who worked for the New York Public Library at the time and is now Lincoln Center’s head archivist, was puzzled by the relatively few traces of him in the library’s vast dance collection.

“I think I’d tracked him down to 1961, but after that, it was really hard to find anything,” she said. “Whereas if you look at some of his peers in ‘The Nutcracker’ in 1954, they went on to careers where there was a lot more documentation.”

Lin’s fascination with Lee emerged through her work on another film, about Phil Chan and Georgina Pazcoguin, the founders of Final Bow for Yellowface, an initiative focused on ending offensive depictions of Asians in ballet. The role of Tea, a divertissement historically rife with such stereotypes—in Balanchine’s canonical version of “The Nutcracker” and others—has been a flashpoint in those efforts. Chan, too, had been struck by the 1954 images of “The Nutcracker,” which he came across during a library fellowship in 2020.

“I’m like, wait, there’s actually a Chinese guy,” he said — as opposed to a non-Chinese dancer with the saffron makeup or heavily painted eyes or even the artificial buck teeth worn in some old productions. “Who is this guy? And why do I not know about him?”

The "Tea" variation in The Nutcracker at City Ballet in 2015. The dancers are Ralph Ippolito, Claire Von Enck, and Baily Jones. Photo: Andrea Mohin for The New York Times

Lee, in his heyday, was a dancer to know. At just 12, he was already winning public praise. In a preview of a recital of the King-Yanover School in Shanghai, the North China Daily News called him an “extremely promising young Chinese boy, whose technique is of a very high standard.” A reviewer wrote that he “already may be said to be the best Chinese interpreter of Western ballet.” (Lee saved these newspaper clippings and shared them with Lin when they eventually met.)

Born in Hong Kong in 1935, Lee moved to Shanghai with his mother in 1941, when Shanghai was under Japanese occupation. During World War II, his father, a Chinese acrobat, was in Kunming in western China; he died in an accident on his way to visit Lee in 1945.

Lee’s mother, Stanislawa Lee, who had danced with the Warsaw Opera, was his first ballet teacher; as a child, he would follow along with her daily barre exercises. Shanghai had a significant Russian population, and with that a robust ballet scene. To earn money, Stanislawa arranged for her son to perform in nightclubs—“like a polka dance, or Russian dance, or sailor dance,” Lee said. The clubs would pay them in rice.

Little George Li in his Shanghai days. Photo: George Lee private collection via the NY Times

Fearing the Chinese Communist Party’s takeover in 1949, the two evacuated to the Philippines. An expected four months as refugees turned into two years. In 1951, an American friend of Lee’s father sponsored them to come to New York, where he introduced Lee to the School of American Ballet, City Ballet’s affiliated school.

As Lee narrates these twists and turns in the film, one memory anchors his recollections. Before they immigrated, his mother issued a warning. “You are going to America, it’s all white people, and you better be 10 times better,” he recalls her saying. “Remember that: 10 times better!”

The footage of Lee in his 20s suggests he took that advice to heart. In television appearances — with the company of the ballet star André Eglevsky, and in a number from “Flower Drum Song” on the Ed Sullivan Show — his power and precision dazzle.

“He was good; he was really good,” Chan said. “Clean fifth, high jump, polished turns, stick the landing—the training is all there. He’s already 10 times better than everybody else.”

In a 1979 interview heard in the film, the former City Ballet soloist Richard Thomas, who took over the role of Tea, raves about Lee’s peerless acrobatic jumps: “He was wonderful! Balanchine choreographed a variation for him that none of us have ever been able to equal.”

As Lee remembers it, Balanchine spent 15 minutes with him in the studio. “He said, ‘What can you do good? Show me what you can do good,’ so I show him something,” Lee said. “I did things like splits and double turns, down and up, turn again like a ball, and that’s it. He picked up some things and put them together.”

George Li as a student at the School of American Ballet. Photo: George Lee private collection via the NY Times

He recalled that during a “Nutcracker” dress rehearsal, the City Ballet makeup artist put him in full yellowface, and Balanchine insisted he take off the makeup. “He is Asian enough! Why do you make him more?” he remembers Balanchine saying. Lee was costumed in the Fu Manchu mustache, queue ponytail and rice paddy hat often associated with the role, now widely critiqued as racist caricatures. But he said he didn’t take offense. “Dancing is dancing,” he said.

Lee performed in “The Nutcracker” as a student; he was never invited to join City Ballet. But he clearly excelled in his classes and onstage. For that, he credits his strong foundation of Russian training in China — and his mother’s exacting standards. He can still see her standing in the studio doorway at the School of American Ballet, observing closely.

“She was watching the class and then would go home and tell me, ‘You did this wrong or that wrong, you got to do it this way,’” he said. “So I really worked hard, and I was good.” (His favorite teacher at the school was the demanding Anatole Oboukhoff: “He always wanted more, and that’s why I liked him very much.”)

To make a living Lee turned to musical theater, performing in shows like “Baker Street” on Broadway and the cabaret “Carol Channing with her 10 Stout-Hearted Men,” which opened in London. He pieced together jobs for more than 20 years, often unsure of what would come next.

Lee in flight in a production of “Flower Drum Song” in Las Vegas in the early 1960s. Photo: George Lee personal collection via the NY Times

He was dancing in a Vegas revue, “Alcazar de Paris,” now in his 40s, when a blackjack dealer friend suggested he go to dealer school. “I can’t dance all my life,” he remembers thinking. He decided to give dealing a try and soon landed a job at the Four Queens. Aside from four years at another casino, he has worked there ever since.

In December 2022, he got a voice mail message from Lin. With her reporting skills and some crucial assists from Yu, she had determined that he lived in Las Vegas. Of the five phone numbers she found for George Lees, four led nowhere; his was the last she tried.

When they finally connected, she put her other project on hold to focus on his story; she and her small creative team had a final cut by November. “George is 88, and I wanted him to be able to enjoy this moment, where people recognize him for his dancing,” she said.

As he prepares to return to New York, Lee said he felt gratified, most of all, for his mother.

“I’m proud for her that I didn’t let her down,” he said. “It makes me feel better to look up at her and say: ‘Look, mother, now you see what’s happening, what you did for me. You gave me all the good foundation, everything. Through you, I’m here now.’”

George Lee today. Photo: Saeed Rahbaran for The New York Times

#Balanchine #George Lee #George Li #Nutcracker ballet #Balanchine's Nutcracker #Asian stereotypes #Nutcracker Chinese Dance #New York City Ballet #NYCB #Ten Times Better #ballet film #Saeed Rahbaran #Andrea Mohin

[danothan]

i hope batlantern and halbarry enjoyers get along, there’s a lot of potential with this messy string of dynamics

i like the idea of hal and bruce being a short-lived but meaningful fling, like a “right time, right moment” situationship. seeing as they’ve both had their “we’re more alike than you think” and “you’re getting in your own way” observations abt each other, it could be productive and therapeutic to sort out their feelings thru their reflections of the other. they don’t have the compatibility or even desire to make this a lasting commited relationship, but i just think if they fucked, they could chill tf out lmao

i don’t need to go into halbarry, i feel like it speaks for itself loud and clear lol. long story short, they’re endgame to me and the most likely to be committed to a relationship, which is rly saying smth consider half of this dynamic involves hal. but regarding how they connect to batlantern, i just think it’d be rly funny in the context of JL:war. barry obviously had a crush on batman upon introduction, immediately inciting hal’s petty jealously (seriously, how do these 3 not get talked abt all together as a trio). so if we go by the idea that hal and bruce had a fling, i can only imagine what kind of conversation that would be once hal and barry got together

- B: “you slept with BRUCE? as in THE batman bruce??” / H: “yeah, it was a while back.” / B: “WHERE WAS I IN ALL THIS”

bruh as far as barry is aware, hal doesn’t even like bruce and even got mad at BARRY for not hating him too. and then he goes ahead and sleeps with the guy smh the double standards, barry’s gonna be up thinking abt this one for a few nights. tfw your boyfriend and your crush got together without you </3 hey, at least it’s fantasy-fuel right?

as for bruce and barry, their relationship is i think the most complicated of the three. they clearly have smth special, and while i do think barry’s little crush was one-sided, i also think bruce treats barry differently from the rest of the team. he already had a lot of respect for barry to begin with, but the letter barry delivered from bruce’s dad in flashpoint HAD to have changed their dynamic. if you haven’t read it, thomas credits the flash for teaching him that he can’t live for the people he’s lost, he has to live for the people he still has, and so he passes on this lesson to his son. how would bruce feel abt that?? how would he feel abt his DEAD dad telling him to cherish his living relationships, meanwhile having barry as the only thread between both?? that his friend got to meet his dead dad and become his reason for living? that the words of wisdom his dad is passing on to him were essentially from barry himself? barry’s probably gotten over his starstruck phase with bruce by now, and he’s got too much integrity to pry or even know what impact he’s had on either of their lives, but i think bruce WOULD learn to cherish his relationships from this. i think barry has a soft spot in bruce’s heart in a way that no one else does ;__; lord knows what barry sees in him or hal, but the guy’s got a good heart, so he must be doing something right

#batlantern #halbarry #batflash #<- mostly platonically? it’s one-sided and they don’t get together but i like their dynamic #batflashlantern #barry allen #hal jordan #bruce wayne #the flash #green lantern #batman #dc #meta #danbles #god this went on for a lot longer than i planned #i was just trying to make a little haha barry has batlantern fantasies joke but apparently i have a lot of thoughts on batflash #also hi im new here idk what the surrounding conversation around these ships in relation to each other are like #but i hope we’re all getting along bc there is sm to work with here ^__^

[dameronology]

angst prompt #3 with eddie please i am begging on my knees i will give you my first born

of course of course

eddie munson + ""i said i needed space! this is not space!"

You didn't like being away from Eddie.

Even more than that, you hated fighting with him.

Sometimes though, it was inevitable. Eddie went into every thing headfirst, with the assumed bravery of his Dungeons & Dragons alter-ego but very much with the common sense of his real world self. It was just that it was not much common sense; in fact, you weren't sure he had any at all. For a man who was oddly insightful at times, he could also be so fucking stupid. Saying and doing things that lacked any explanation - almost as though he had meant to say that one very specific thing to piss you off.

So...space. You'd asked for space after a big fight. There had been yelling and shouting and Eddie's trademark over-dramatically flailing arms. Most the time you loved how he put his all into everything, but being stood in the kitchen at 3AM being on the receiving end of said all was like a flashpoint moment for you. You needed to get away from him; from the trailer, from the fight, from your relationship. It was probably a product of spending every second of every day with him, barely leaving this place, that suddenly made you so desperate to get out.

"I need space," you'd said. "I just need to get away.:"

You'd promised to call him before leaving for Robin's house. You didn't know then that would be, but as soon as you left the house with your overnight bag you felt some sense of relief. Not necessarily at the idea of leaving Eddie, just more at the fact you could think clearer about the situation now. There was no doubt in your mind that you'd work things out but for now, you just needed to get away.

Twelve hours had passed, and you were sat in Robin's bathroom getting ready for work. You hated the early shift, and you hated even more that Eddie wasn't about to kiss you goodbye before you went, but you were so angry at him. Sleeping on it had only made things worst. Again, that was just another thing that would pass with time but the healthiest thing was to let yourself simmer.

You frowned when you heard a knock on the door - Robin's parents were out of town and there was no chance in hell that any of your other friends would be up at this time. Throwing your hairbrush to the side, you left the bathroom and headed downstairs.

Eddie Fucking Munson. Who else?

"Eddie!" you exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"

"You said you'd call and then you never did," he pouted.

"For fuck's sake!" you snapped. "It's been twelve hours!"

"Exactly!"

You took a deep breath. "I mean twelve hours is a short time, Ed."

"That's the longest we've been apart since we were sixteen-"

"- I said I needed space!" you cut him off. "This is not space!"

He frowned. "I have given you space."

"Not enough," you replied. "Go home, Eddie. I'll call you when I'm ready to talk, okay?"

"That's what I'm scared of," Eddie began. "What if you're never ready? What if you decide you like space and never want to come home? I really don't like being away from you."

You gave him a soft smile. "I can tell you now that none of that will happen. I love you, but right now I'm really fucking angry with you. I just need you to respect my boundaries for a few days and then we can talk."

"You promise?"

Sticking out your pinky finger, you nodded. "I promise."

#asks #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson imagines #eddie munson x you #eddie munson reader insert #stranger things x reader #stranger things imagine #stranger things imagines #stranger things x you #stranger things reader insert #eddie munson #stranger things

[vikenticomeshome]

Cyberchase: How It All Started (Episode 3)

This comic was later renamed to Cyberchase Web Adventures Episode 3.

This is third episode, so let's make the intro more abbreviated.

The only credit for the production was a general copyright by the Educational Broadcasting Corporation. It used to be available for free online. Now, I am archiving it for the fans.

I will use the original 2001 version of the panels with the dark blue border when possible. However, if this is unavailable, I will use the redesigned version with the light-blue border.

If you want to see the comic with the simpler animations, go find my curation from Blue Maxima's Flashpoint Archive Project. I can't reproduce the animations on Tumblr.

I'll save my thoughts for the end, unless I absolutely need to make editor's notes.

Go.

Narration: Having escaped from the clutches of Hacker, Digit returns to Motherboard, and is greeted warmly by Dr. Marbles.

Dr. Marbles: Welcome home, Digit. While we cannot reformat the past - we can upload a brighter future.

Digit: I couldn't have said it better myself, Doc!

Narration: Hacker is furious that Digit changed sides and returned to Motherboard.

The Hacker: Nobody - not Motherboard, not Dr. Marbles, and certainly not that traitorous tin turkey will stop me from becoming the new ruler of Cyberspace!!!

Delete: Yeah, right boss! The new ruler!

Buzz: Gulp! Whatever you say, boss! Right!

Narration: Meanwhile, on Earth, three kids who don't know each other are about to have the adventure of their lives.

Narration: Meet Jackie, who has her own sense of style...

Jackie: I gotta organize this stuff!

Narration: ...and her own way of doing things!

Narration: Matt lives on a farm with his family, and dreams of being the homerun champ. Little does he know he'll soon be a hero of a different kind.

Narration: Matt is into Greek Mythology big time!

Narration: This is Inez - A computer whiz.

Narration: She loves to visit the Cyberworld of the Internet - But never imagined she could really go there!

Editor's Note: Yeah, I still don't know why they made Inez white here.

Narration: Inez has to get to the library before it closes, but she has a bunch of errands to run first.

Inez: Oh, no, this is not good at all!

Editor's Note: There is a later version of this page where they decided that Nezzie needed a helmet. Safety first.

Editor's Note: And now, we play a flash game called "Bike Route".

Inez: Oh Boy! I've got a lot of errands to run and not much time!

Inez: I've made a map that shows all of the places I need to go. Let me show you.

Editor's Note: Her checklist consists of Home, Betty's House, Post Office, Video Store, and Library

Narration: Inez needs to figure out the shortest number of blocks to get all her chores done and get to the library on time. Can you help her do it?

Narration: Here's a map to use. Inez can do the chores in any order, but she has to end up at the library.

Narration: This box shows the number of blocks you have left to get to the library in time.

Narration: These are all of the errands Inez needs to do.

Narration: Click on the blinking dots to move Inez around.

Narration: Well done!

Narration: You got to the library just in time! Now let's go on with the adventure...

Narration: Back in Cyberspace, Hacker works on a plan that will shut down Motherboard's computer circuits once and for all.

Buzz: Grumph mumph gurgle glunk

The Hacker: Charge me up, boys! It's time to wreak some Cyber-havoc!

Delete: Right, boss, right away!

Narration: Inez, Matt and Jackie are about to meet for the very first time.

Inez: Cool! I made it to the library in time!

Jackie: Man, I've got a ton of homework!

Matt: I can't wait to find out more about that Cerberus!

Editor's Note: The books in Jackie's hands have the writing backwards. The larger one is titled "How to Dye Your Own Fabric". The smaller one is too blurry to make out the title.

Narration: Dr. Marbles is busy giving Motherboard a routine upgrade.

Digit: Here we go, Doc. The Didge has whatever you need!

Narration: Meanwhile, inside the Grim Wreaker, Hacker discovers Inez, Matt and Jackie inside the library.

The Hacker: Yes.. Yes! Pay attention you degradable dunce-buckets, Motherboard's hard drive is about to crash!

Narration: Check out the adventures of the Cybersquad Online & on TV

Narration: Check TV Schedule

Editor's Note: This is another case where I believe the original background for this panel has been lost. This panel states "Check out the adventures of the Cybersquad online & on TV". However, the alt text states "STAY TUNED! THE NEW ADVENTURES OF CYBERCHASE ARE STARTING ONLINE & ON TV JANUARY 21ST!"

And that's the end of the comic.

So, what did I think about it? I enjoyed it. They made some odd choices with some of these panels. The first panel shows Motherboard with the background she got after the virus infection during Season 1 Episode 1 "Lost My Marbles". The second panel clearly shows the Crystal of Calamore that The Hacker retrieved during Season 1 Episode 11 "A Day at the Spa". If this is still canon, then that is a very confusing detail. Of course, with all the expansion to The Hacker's backstory on the show over the years, including contradictory information, we don't know whether this is still canon.

I don't understand why they made the library look like a circus tent. I see circles, squares, and triangles on the railing and trees. They must have adapted a screenshot from the Poddleville Pilot. I can't tell what's sticking out of Matt's bag on that panel. It almost looks like The Map from Dora the Explorer. I wonder if that was an easter egg.

#cyberchase #2000s #cartoon #nostalgia #pbs kids #2000s childhood #inez #jackie #matt #digit #web comic #cyberchase web adventures #cyberchase how it all started #how it all started #longpost #archived web content

[dailyanarchistposts]

Gender, Dress, and Capitalist Discipline

In the current revolutionary movement in Iran, women appear to be in the vanguard, whether this be in the workplace, classroom, or community. The radical feminist character of the current revolutionary movement is one of the main features that distinguishes it from past revolutionary movements. Although women have been an important presence in all past struggles, today it is young women who constitute its vanguard, shaping the very nature of the struggle, its ideas and aspirations. The current struggle has also reached deeper into student life than ever before: although universities have always been a center of radical activity in Iranian politics, the present struggle has seen this participation expand not only to high-schoolers but to children in middle schools and elementary schools, who defy authorities and tear up the pictures of the supreme leader.

Culture is a terrain of struggle in Iran, as it is everywhere. As a flashpoint in this conflict, the hijab is not merely a religious symbol, but is also about ideological allegiance. The cops that enforce its use — often women — identify with the ideology of the state, and see their enforcing of these laws as their role in upholding it. In this case, it is pro-regime women who police and control other women. These enforcers often harbor resentment toward those who flaunt such norms and who mock their ideology. The struggle against the hijab is therefore not primarily against people who wear Islamic dress out of piety or religiosity, but is rather political in nature, since it concerns the freedom to choose. By defying the hijab mandate, one is challenging an ideological pillar of the state, one which has, since the revolution, worked assiduously to incorporate lumpen and poorer women into its repressive apparatus.

The Islamic Republic is an instructive reminder that even laws that seem to have no rational economic logic can nevertheless be incorporated into the logic of capitalism and play an important role in its reproduction. Gender oppression is linked to capital accumulation in a way perhaps not apparent at first sight. It has long been observed that labor taking place outside the formal workplace, particularly women’s domestic labor, is vital for the existence of wage labor and capital. In many regions, moreover, women’s labor includes both unwaged domestic labor and waged work, both the production of commodities for sale on the market and housework. Sometimes both are done within the same space, a phenomenon that is becoming increasingly commonplace in both core and peripheral countries, often driven by the force of necessity. In such cases, the distinction between waged and unwaged labor no longer corresponds to a distinction between two distinct or non-overlapping sets of workers, thereby challenging the distinction between “economic” and “extra-economic.”

Since the 1979 Revolution, the state has led a concerted campaign to encourage women to be primarily domestic caretakers, pushing womens’ role as mother to the forefront of official state ideology. Yet capitalist accumulation also requires women’s participation in production. The result is a labor system aimed at enabling this participation, without directly challenging patriarchal state ideology. In this system, a sizable sector of Iranian women does productive labor in its classical sense, but must do so under the cloak of invisibility.[24]

This is an important characteristic of Iranian capitalism, and is indeed a common feature of capitalist production everywhere. It was the case during the Shah, but has been exacerbated by neoliberalism. One of the main reasons that trade unionism, or even the more radical syndicalism, become difficult concerns the uneven nature of production: Iran is an island of large modern production surrounded by a sea of primitive and traditional production. Even in large scale industries such as oil and petrochemicals, an increasing number of workers are precarious and work on temporary contracts.

The introduction of a strong gender division within the working class complicates conventional lines of class struggle, from which women’s issues are often dismissed as external. The small workshops typically found in the textile industry — particularly in rural areas — were the first to be excluded from all labor legislation, whereas for women working at home there has, of course, never been any protection. This is one of the “advantages” of employing women: they are easily exploitable, as their connection to the labor market proper is never more than casual, and officially regarded so by the state. This also demonstrates how intimate and symbiotic the relation of class and gender can be. It becomes hard if not impossible to draw a sharp line between exploitation and domination, and between questions of gender and class.

The Islamic Republic reveals the inability of state ideology to overcome the contradictions inherent to capitalism. From its inception, the ruling order has tried to construct an order in which ideology, repression, and state control could be used to suppress the contradictions and crises inherent to the system. But if the global history of the past four decades has shown us anything, it is that what we call neoliberalism is nothing other than the inherent contradictions of capitalism manifesting themselves. Such is undoubtedly the case in Iran. Many of the laws and regulations that may seem to have no economic bottomline turn out to be intimately bound up with particular forms of labor discipline. Iran’s regulations around gender offer a case in point.

#Gender #gender expression #iran #middle east #Anti-imperialism #history #Ill Will #insurrection #Class Struggle #Autonomy #anarchism #resistance #prison abolition #acab #jail #prisoners #autonomy #revolution #community building #practical anarchism #anarchist society #practical #practical anarchy #anarchy #daily posts #communism #anti capitalist #anti capitalism #late stage capitalism #organization

[ghelgheli]

What did you think of the 2022-23 protests in Iran? Were they an attempted color revolution? I've seen that argument which is strange but at the same time it seems like any power vacuum would lead to chaos and a US approved puppet taking over so maybe the protesters were wrong even if sincere

i don't know that i can make any claims about "the" protesters being wrong or right—there was never a unified base in the protests that followed the killing of jina emini, and those involved included such varied groups as ethnic minorities demanding autonomy, ethnic persian feminists (sometimes bourgeoisie) claiming the struggle for themselves, working class demonstrators connecting the ethnic struggle to a broader labour struggle, anarchist blocs protesting the state as a whole, various intersections of these, and yes, certainly some who would have been pushing for american interventionism and something that you might call a colour revolution. in pretty much all of these cases we are talking about causes with long continuity, connected to ongoing movements protesting e.g. the rapidly worsening economic conditions under sanctions and inflation, water food and fuel scarcity, women's and lgbt struggles... the killing was a flashpoint but i do not think i can talk about the subsequent protests in isolation. some of the protesters may have been well-intentioned but ideologically misled, and i am sure that plenty of others knew exactly what it is they needed to do

in any case, what concerns me are claims to the effect of the one here, that revolutionary action is too risky as it will compromise the strength of the iranian state and invite american intervention. i don't know that i'd call myself a third-worldist, but this is strikes me as the precise converse of third-worldism, i.e. the claim that there is no revolutionary potential in the global south until the global north is unseated from its hegemony. and that is imo just wrong. the IRI, as a country with a pretty straightforwardly capitalist economy which has spent the last century undergoing massive industrialization and corresponding urbanization + proletarianization, can only transition into a socialist mode of production by a revolution. afaik the present state of labour organization is very weak, but to take a principled opposition to revolution because it would invite the US to assert its power is pessimistic in the extreme, fatalistic even.

it is the nature of revolutionary struggle in the global south that everything that is done must take into account the omnipresent threat of imperialism, but that is not to say that this is impossible. the '79 revolution was itself an anti-imperialist success, for all of its failures. i don't think revolution is coming soon to iran, but nor do i think it has to wait for the further decline of the usamerican empire; in fact, i think it can play a role in this decline, eventually

#ask answer #sry that this is pretty sketchy #the specifics of contemporary iranian economy are smth i am behind on

[apas-95]

Wealthy Dutch farmowners have been blocking food distribution centers and highways (in a similar situation to the trucker convoys in the US) due to a downsizing of the livestock industry, despite generous compensation. The wealthiest farmowners, being millionaires and receiving hundreds of thousands of euro in subsidy, have attempted to sabotage food supply in supermarkets not only by blockade, but also by buying out key goods.

Escalating violence over the last two years, including attacks on government buildings and the young children of government officials, have demonstrated that these 'petty tyrants' do form one of the most organised of the reactionary blocs in Dutch society. That they also form one of the most reactionary blocs is also demonstrated by their employment of Eastern European labourers in near-slavelike conditions. These farmhands are paid below minimum wage, live in what amount to company towns, and are commonly sexually abused by farmowners. Notably, these poor farmhands are not the ones participating in these protests.

Previously, the farmowners have made little actual impact, despite their willingness to use violence. This is due to their small number, and low total production, which made their protests both largely irrelevant to food security and unable to form a significant force - in short, the opposite conditions to an actual workers' strike. However, their blocking of food distribution infrastructure has gained them attention, which escalated into Dutch police opening fire on a farmowner's vehicle on the 5th of July, firing both 'warning shots' and 'targeted shots'.

In the inevitable context of further economic hardship in Europe, we can expect flashpoints like these to continue appearing, and potentially ignite.

#nederland #netherlands #dutch #farmers #agriculture #gun cw #gunfire #police

[paladin-of-nerd-fandom65]

Billy Batson (Shazam) from DC comics

Cool hero in his own right that’s getting some attention that’s well earned after all these decades (whether the character’s recent cinematic outing is solid stuff or a misses mark is debatable but let’s have it notwithstanding)

Only tiny grip one can have at least for the fans of the Pre Flashpoint era is that his superhero moniker went through what they consider name change into Shazam, a change from ‘Captain Marvel’ though when put into consideration considering the Marvelous competition’s own Captains..it can make some sense

Oh Right as for Headcanon;

Due to the change in tech in modern eras, rather than being a radio jockey for his school, Billy is nowadays a pod caster/YouTuber for said school, often with decent enough production value and often scoring thousand of listeners and views for each episode he does. Most people who comment on said podcasts and videos though point to the resident Tiger plushie on Billy’s desk, Tawky Tawny

Thanks for the ask @spider-jaysart

#billy batson #character asks

[wlwcatalogue]

Queer Women in Qing China: Chen Yun & Han Yuan in Six Records of a Floating Life

(Pak Suet Sin as Chen Yun (left) and Yam Kim Fai as Shen Fu (right) in Madam Yun, dir. Chu Kea, 1960)

Despite being written by a relatively unremarkable man, Shen Fu's (沈復) Qing-era autobiography Six Records of a Floating Life (浮生六記) captured the public imagination for its depiction of an unusually loving married couple - namely the author and his wife Yun - and for being very sad, because the wife died young after a protracted battle with illness and poverty. Their tragic tale has inspired films, TV series, stage plays, Chinese operas, and musicals.

But for some reason (spoiler alert: it's homophobia), as far as I can tell (see note 2 below the cut), the derivative media all fail to mention that while Yun certainly loved Shen Fu, there was also someone else she loved-- a female courtesan named Han Yuan, whom she convinced her husband to take on as concubine. Although there are only a few references to Han Yuan throughout the book, her impact is outsize, making her absence from the various adaptations all the more glaring.

So let's try to rectify things, shall we? Extracted here are all the references to the relationship between Yun and Han Yuan contained in Six Records of a Floating Life - although I haven't included all the other nods to Yun's fruitiness, so do check out the book in full - click below!

Overview

The happily married Chen Yun falls for the female courtesan Han Yuan and the two soon become sworn sisters (see note 1 below). Then, to ensure they can remain together, she manages to persuade her husband to take the latter as his concubine despite his protestations that they cannot afford another mouth to feed. This turns out to have unfortunate consequences: Yun's in-laws, who she was already on thin ice with, are highly critical of the two women's relationship, and have the married couple expelled from the familial home. Further, while Yun and her husband are living elsewhere, a wealthy man pressures Han Yuan into leaving and becoming his wife instead. Yun falls into despair and the heartbreak causes her already-delicate condition to deteriorate, leading to her eventual demise.

Note 1: Sworn kinship is the most widely-available Chinese custom allowing for the formalisation of a relationship between individuals of the same gender, other than those specifically hierarchical in nature (e.g. adoption, godparents, mentorship, etc.). While not primarily romantic in association, there is certainly precedent for it: arguably the most famous Chinese love story, The Butterfly Lovers, focuses on the romance between a man and a cross-dressing woman who swore an oath of brotherhood. Even after the latter reveals that she is female, there are repeated references to their oath, and the man continues to refer to her using familial terms (賢弟/"worthy younger brother" is simply switched to 賢妹/"worthy younger sister"). Note 2: As far as I can tell, Han Yuan really does never come up in the various derivative works. However, there is some (mostly very mild) hinting regarding the in-laws' disapproval stemming in part from Yun's failure to conform to cishet norms; at least three of the adaptations from Hong Kong take as the flashpoint an incident where Yun dresses as a man in order to enjoy the Mid-Autumn festivities with her husband (see the GIF in the header) and is discovered, despite it not having had any negative consequences in the book. (There is such a cross-dressing scene in the 2021 Kunqu opera adaptation, but for some reason, in that version, Yun seems to have been on great terms with her in-laws and there was no disownment at all.) AFAIK the only adaptation that explicitly deals with Yun's queerness is the 1987 dance production from Hong Kong, wherein the disownment happens after a scene which I'll just describe as "the Mid-Autumn Festival incident, but as a boat ride which Yun turns into a threesome between herself, the boat-girl, and her husband". This actually pulls from the source material, as there is a somewhat suggestive episode involving a boatsman's daughter (this is a few pages before Han Yuan is introduced - I did say Yun was fruity)... but it's interesting that the creators decided to depict her queerness through a drunken one-night stand where she's dressed in male clothing (which was not the case in the original, though the boat-girl does still know she's a woman in this version), instead of committing to her much deeper relationship with Han Yuan.

A (probably-incomplete) list of adaptations

Fei Mu/费穆’s 1943 stage play Six Records of a Floating Life/浮生六记 (PRC)

1947 film Six Records of a Floating Life/浮生六记 (PRC) – dir. Pei Chong/裴冲, starring Su Shi/舒适 and Sha Li/沙莉

1954 film Madam Yun/芸娘 (Hong Kong) – dir. Ng Wui/吳回, starring Cheung Wood-Yau/張活游 and Pak Yin/白燕 – full movie

1960 Cantonese opera film Madam Yun/芸娘 (Hong Kong) – dir. Chu Kea/珠璣, starring Yam Kim Fai/任劍輝 and Pak Suet Sin/白雪仙 – full movie; also see my posts on it here and here

1987 dance performance Six Records of a Floating Life/浮生六記 (Hong Kong) – dir. Chan Kai-Tak – full performance

Cantonese opera Shen San Bai and Madam Yun/沈三白與芸娘 (Hong Kong) – multiple productions from different theatre companies across the years – clip

1974 TV drama Madam Yun/芸娘 (Hong Kong)

Zhou Mian/周眠's 2018 Kunqu opera Six Records of a Floating Life/浮生六记 (PRC) – multiple productions – clip 1 | clip 2

Luo Zhou/罗周's 2021 Kunqu opera Six Records of a Floating Life/浮生六记 (PRC) – multiple productions – full performance (w/ English subtitles)

Tian Chenming/田辰明’s 2021 musical Six Records of a Floating Life/浮生六记 (PRC) – multiple productions – clip

2023 Peking opera Six Records of a Floating Life/浮生六记 (PRC) – assorted clips

Extracts from Six Records of a Floating Life, trans. Leonard Pratt and Chiang Su-Hui, 1983, Penguin Books

Part I – The Joys of the Wedding Chamber

(p.48)

In the seventh month of the Chiayen year of the reign of the Emperior Chien Lung I returned from Yuehtung with my friend Hsu Hsiu-feng, who was my cousin’s husband. He brought a new concubine back with him, raving about her beauty to everyone, and one day he invited Yun to go and see her. Afterwards Yun said to Hsiu-feng, “She certainly is beautiful, but she is not the least bit charming.”

“If your husband were to take a concubine,” Hsiu-feng asked, “would she have to be charming as well as beautiful?”

“Naturally,” said Yun.

“From then on, Yun was obsessed with the idea of finding me a concubine, even though we had nowhere near enough money for such an ambition.

(p.49)

[The courtesan Leng-hsiang] had a daughter named Han-yuan, who, though not yet fully mature, was as beautiful as a piece of jade. Her eyes were as lovely as the surface of an autumn pond, and while they entertained us it became obvious that her literary knowledge was extensive. She had a younger sister named Wen-yuan who was still quite small.

At first I had no wild ideas and wanted only to have a cup of wine and chat with them. I well knew that a poor scholar like myself could not afford this sort of thing, and once inside I began to feel quite nervous. While I did not show my unease in my conversation, I did quietly say to Hsien-han “I’m only a poor fellow. How can you invite these girls to entertain me?”

Hsien-han laughed. “It’s not that way at all. A friend of mine had invited me to come and be entertained by Han-yuan today, but then he was called away by an important visitor. He asked me to be the host and invite someone else. Don’t worry about it.”

At that, I began to relax. Later, when our boat reached Pantang, I told Han-yuan to go aboard my mother’s boat and pay her respects. That was when Yun met Han-yuan and, as happy as old friends at a reunion, they soon set off hand in hand to climb the hill in search of all the scenic spots it offered. Yun especially liked the height and vista of Thousand Clouds, and they sat there enjoying the view for some time. When we returned to Yehfangpin, we moored the boats side by side and drank long and happily.

(p.50)

As the boats were being unmoored, Yun asked me if Han-yuan could return aboard hers, while I went back with Hsien-yan. To this, I agreed. When we returned to the Tuting Bridge we went back aboard our own boats and took leave of one another. By the time we arrived home it was already the third night watch.

“Today I have met someone who is both beautiful and charming,” said Yun. “I have just invited Han-yuan to come and see me tomorrow, so I can try to arrange things for you.”

“But we’re not a rich family,” I said, worried. “We cannot afford to keep someone like that. How could people as poor as ourselves dare think of such a thing? And we are so happily married, why should we look for someone else?”

“But I love her too,” Yun said, laughing. “You just let me take care of everything.”

The next day at noon, Han-yuan actually came. Yun entertained her warmly, and during the meal we played a game – the winner would read a poem, while the loser had to drink a cup of wine. By the end of the meal still not a word had been said about our obtaining Han-yuan.

As soon as she left, Yun said to me, “I have just made a secret agreement with her. She will come here on the 18th, and we will pledge ourselves as sisters. You will have to prepare animals for the sacrifice.”

Then, laughing and pointing to the jade bracelet on her arm, she said, “If you see this bracelet on Han-yuan’s arm then, it will mean she has agreed to our proposal. I have just told her my idea, but I am still not very sure what she thinks about it all.”

I only listened to what she said, making no reply.

It rained very hard on the 18th, but Han-yuan came all the same. She and Yun went into another room and were alone there for some time. They were holding hands when they emerged, and Han-yuan looked at me shyly. She was wearing the jade bracelet!

We had intended, after the incense was burned and they had become sisters, that we should carry on drinking. As it turned out, however, Han-yuan had promised to go on a trip to Stone Lake, so she left as soon as the ceremony was over.

“She has agreed,” Yun told me happily. “Now, how will you reward your go-between?” I asked her the details of the arrangement.

(p.51)

“Just now I spoke to her privately because I was afraid she might have another attachment. When she said she did not, I asked her, “Do you know why we have invited you here today, little sister?”

““The respect of an honourable lady like yourself makes me feel like a small weed leaning up a great tree,” she replied, “but my mother has high hopes for me, and I’m afraid I cannot agree without consulting her. I do hope, though, that you and I can think of a way to work things out.””

“When I took off the bracelet and put it on her arm I said to her, “The jade of this bracelet is hard and represents the constancy of our pledge; and like our pledge, the circle of the bracelet has not end. Wear it as the first token of our understanding.” To which she replied, “The power to unite us rests entirely with you.” So it seems as if we have already won over Han-yuan. The difficult part will be convincing her mother, but I will think of a plan for that.”

I laughed, and asked her, “Are you trying to imitate Li-weng’s Pitying the Fragrant Companion?”

“Yes,” she replied.

(Footnote 44 of Part 1, p.153) The Lien Hsiang Pan, a play by Li Yu (1611-?1680). Li-weng was his literary name. Yun’s confirmation that she had this play in mind gives us our principal clue about just what her real relationship with Han-yuan may have been: the play tells the story of a young married woman who falls in love with a girl, and then obtains her as a concubine for her husband so the two women can be together. As van Gulik has pointed out, Imperial China regarded liaisons between women – as opposed to those between men – quite tolerantly. They did not by any means necessarily imply a lack of affection between such women and their husbands (R.H. van Gulik, Sexual Life in Ancient China, Humanities Press, 1974: he discusses female homosexuality on p.163, and the play itself on p.302, where he translates its title as Loving the Fragrant Companion.)

From that time on there was not a day that Yun did not talk about Han-yuan. But later Han-yuan was taken off by a powerful man, and all the plans came to nothing. In fact, it was because of this that Yun died.

Part III – The Sorrows of Misfortune

(p.76)

Yun had had the blood sickness ever since her younger brother Ko-chang had run away from home and her mother had missed him so much that she died of grief. Yun was so distraught she had fallen ill herself. From the time she met Han-yuan, she passed no blood for over a year, and I was delighted that Yun had found such a good cure in her friend, when Han-yuan was snatched away by an influential man who paid a thousand golds for her and also promised to take care of her mother. “The beauty belongs to Sha-shih-li!” I had learned of all this but had not dared to say anything to Yun, so she did not find out about it until one day when she went to see Han-yuan. She returned weeping, and said, “I had not thought Han’s feelings could be so shallow!”

“Your own feelings are too deep,” I said. “How can that sort of person be said to have feelings? Someone who is used to beautiful clothes and delicate foods could never grow accustomed to thorn hairpins and plain cloth dresses. It’s better that we should be unsuccessful now than to have her regret things later.”

I comforted her repeatedly, but having been so wounded Yun still suffered great discharges of blood. She was bedridden and did not respond to any treatment. She suffered relapses, and became so thin you could see her bones. After a few years the money we owed increased daily, and so did the gossip about us. And because she had pledged sisterhood with a sing-song girl, my parents’ scorn for Yun deepened daily.

(p.78)

[…] a messenger arrived. He had been sent by a woman who had been a sworn sister of Yun’s as a child, who had married a man named Hua from Hsishan, and who had heard of her illness and wanted to inquire after her.

My father, however, mistakenly thought he was a messenger from Han-yuan and so became even angrier, saying, “Your wife does not behave as a woman should, swearing sisterhood with a sing-song girl. Nor do you think to learn from your elders, running around with riff-raff. […]”

(p.79-80)

These were Yun’s parting instructions to our daughter: “Your mother has had a bitter fate and emotions that run too deep; therefore we have had many problems. Fortunately your father has been kind to me, and there is nothing to worry about in our leaving. […]”

(p.86)

I returned to find Yun moaning and weeping, looking as if something awful had happened. As soon as she saw me she burst out, “Did you know that yesterday noon [our servant] Ah Shuang stole all our things and ran away? I have asked people to search everywhere, but they still have not found him. […]”

(p.87)

[…] from then on she began frequently to talk in her sleep, calling out, “Ah Shuang has run away!” or “How could Han-yuan turn her back on me?” Her illness worsened daily.

Finally I was about to call a doctor to treat her, but she stopped me. “My illness began because of my terribly deep grief over my brother’s running away and my mother’s death,” said Yun. “It continued because of my affections, and now it has returned because of my indignation. I have always worried too much about things, and while I have tried my best to be a good daughter-in-law, I have failed.

These are the reasons why I have come down with dizziness and palpitations of the heart. The disease has already entered my vitals, and there is nothing a doctor can do about it. Please do not spend money on something that cannot help. […]”

[…]

(p.88)

Suddenly she fell silent and began to pant, her eyes staring into the distance. I called her name a thousand times, but she could not speak. Two streams of agonised tears flowed from her eyes in torrents, until finally her panting grew shallow and her tears dried up. Her spirit vanished in the mist and she began her long journey.

[…] Alas! Yun came to this world a woman, but she had the feelings and abilities of a man. After she entered the gate of my home in marriage, I had to rush about daily to earn our clothing and food, there was never enough, but she never once complained. When I was living at home, all we had for entertainment was talk about literature. What a pity that she should have died in poverty and after long illness. And whose fault was it that she did? It was my fault, what else can I say? I would advise all the husbands and wives in the world not to hate one another, certainly, but also not to love too deeply. As it is said, “An affectionate couple cannot grow old together”. My example should serve as a warning to others.

#sapphic #wlw #wlw recommendations #asian lgbtq #lgbt history #lgbtq history #lgbt literature #lgbtq literature #literature #chinese literature #six records of a floating life #浮生六記 #madam yun #芸娘 #celebrating chinese new year with queers in chinese literature #as one should