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unforth · 3 years

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So, English-Speaking Danmei Fandom, You Want to Support Authors...

...and so do I, so here’s my dumb white English-more-or-less-only (I speak a small amount of Japanese...it vaguely sort of kind of helps) speaking ass, doing a little homework that hopefully will help others? This is not exhaustive, not complete, not better than resources others have made, but I checked things I personally cared about, and since I’ve done the research, I figure I might as well toss the info out into the wild.

First - as Suika linked, HERE IS AN AMAZING GUIDE TO HELP YOU MAKE A JJWXC ACCOUNT and it teaches you how to use it. It was created by Shoko Translates and it’s incredibly clear and easy to use and you should use it and trust anything they say over literally anything in this post, because I only have the vaguest idea what I’m talking about but they know their shit.

Google translate on Chrome works decently to make the site English...but doesn’t work well in any other respect; overall it functions WAY better on Firefox even if it’s umpteen times harder to figure out what anything says.

Use the guide to make your account; I couldn’t get it to successfully send my phone a text, but I had zero problems when I switched to e-mail. Chrome translate is definitely easier for making the actual account, but then it’s better to switch.

Once you’ve got the account and you log in...

...so, I have no idea what either of those two I’ve circled say (USE THE LINKED GUIDE, IT’LL TELL YOU) but I know that if you click either of them, you get a huge list of authors and book titles, with genre notes, hits, publication date, etc. More importantly, you get a search bar - you can see it right below my silly black circle.

Congratulations, you can now find the things you want to support using search! The first option in the search drop down is book, and it brings up the actual book but also a lot of superfluous stuff. I had way better luck searching by author, which is the second option on the drop down menu.

Now that you know how to search - when I sat down with this today, my goal wasn’t yet to actually pay for anything, I just wanted a sense of how many points things would cost, and I wanted to be able to look that up. So, that’s this post’s goal, and sorry I’m a little disjointed in presenting that out, I got like no sleep last night. Anyway. The point is, based on that link I provided (DID YOU USE IT YET? YOU SHOULD):

10,000 points on JJWXC cost approximately USD 17. Convert as needed for your own currency. Or, one point costs 0.17 cents. (To be clear: that's about 2 tenths of a cent, not 17 cents.)

With that basic conversion, once you have an account, you can see how many points things cost, and therefore calculate how much they’d cost you in $$$ to support the author. Anyway, I haven’t actually figured out ANY of the money parts of this yet, because I wanted to figure out how many points the books I would want to support were before I even attempted money stuff. My thinking with this post was - if you, like me, were holding back cause you were wondering about expense...well, here, have some answers about expense, and probably in a day or four I’ll sit down and try to figure out the money part, and I’ll do another post then. Or, you can just use that guide I linked. Cause that’s what I’m going to do.

So, what/who do you want to support?

Priest (search for author: priest)

镇魂 (Zhen Hun/Guardian). Point cost: 1,742. In USD: $2.96

天涯客 (Tian Ya Ke/Faraway Wanderers/Word of Honor). Point cost: 943. In USD: $1.60

有匪 (You Fei/Legend of Fei). Point cost: 3,031. In USD: $5.15

默读 (Mo Du). Point cost: 3,506. In USD: $5.96

杀破狼 (Sha Po Lang). Point cost: 2,673. In USD: $4.54

七爷 (Qi Ye/Lord Seventh). Point cost: 934. In USD: $1.59

(This is not an exhaustive list, but you can search for others - the Priest Wikipedia page gives a full list of Chinese names, translations, adaptations, etc.)

墨香铜臭 (Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, search for author: 墨香铜臭)

天官赐福 (Tian Guan Ci Fu/Heaven Official’s Blessing). Point cost: 5,270. In USD: $8.96

If 魔道祖师 (Mo Dao Zu Shi/The Untamed) and 人渣反派自救系统 (Ren Zha Fanpai Zijiu Xitong/The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System/Scum System/Scum Villain) are on there, I wasn’t able to find them - someone who knows more than I, and has the time to the research right now, will have to explain more to help with those, but for starters, they’re on the publishers website - Scum Villain; MDZS)

肉包不吃肉 (Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou/Meatbun Doesn’t Eat Meat, search for author: 肉包不吃肉)

二哈和他的白猫师尊 (Er Ha He Ta De Bai Mao Shizun/The Husky and His White Cat Shizun/Hao Yixing/Immortality). Point cost: 7,246. In USD: $12.32

余污 (Yu Wu/Remnants of Filth). Point cost: 4,245. In USD: $7.22

梦溪石 (Meng Xi Shi, search for author: 梦溪石)

千秋 (Qianqiu/Thousand Autumns). Point cost: 2,783. In USD: $4.73

(There are many others.)

漫漫何其多 (Man Man He Qi Duo, search for author: 漫漫何其多)

当年万里觅封侯 (Dangnian Wanli Mi Feng Hou/Those Years in Quest of Honor Mine). Point cost: 1,551. In USD: $2.64

(Again, there are many others.)

I could go add titles for years, but, well, it’s my post, and these are the stories I was most interested in supporting personally. Doing ALL this research, AND writing it up for this post, took me less than an hour, and once you’re in the website and have bought points, you can select all chapters with a single click, it’ll tell you the final point cost, and with another click - bam, you’re done, you’ve bought the raws. You’ve supported the original creator. You’ve done what translators have been begging us to do for ages. And, if it’s a story that’s not all out yet - you’ve got the raws! You can mtl them! You can read them before the translators are done! Or, if you’ve got a fave author? You can read their work in progress! You can learn what’s coming next! Even without speaking Chinese (I don’t speak a word of Chinese!!!) there is NO DOWNSIDE HERE.

(also, can I point out how INCREDIBLY SMALL some of these dollar amounts are? Some of ya’ll are acting like this is bank-breaking, I mean seriously, COME ON.)

Google is your friend. Find the carrd for your fave. Copy and paste the author’s name in Chinese. Use the JJWXC search. Find the thing. Support it.

English danmei fandom, this is our chance to do better.

PLEASE, can we do fricken better??? It’s so easy. And so cheap. And these fandoms have brought so many of us so much joy.

Go forth, and do the thing.

I’m doing it.

(edited: I DID do it! Part 2!)

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sleeplessincairo · 4 years

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[ dating bucky barnes would include: ]

warnings: a somewhat vague sexual outline and a few cusses

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Him walking around with a notebook everywhere. Bucky got the idea from Steve when he saw him writing new things to his modern day to-do-list, so Bucky decided to do the same except fill his notebook up��with his old memories instead; anything he could remember from his life before being The Winter Soldier. At first, there were only a few pages filled but as his life starting to include domestic and mundane-as well as a healthy environment-activities, he started having spontaneous and soon-to-be-frequent flashbacks that, later on, contributed to dozens of notebooks filled with not The Winter Soldier, not Prisoner #56898, not White-Wolf, but James Buchanan Barnes.

You never mentioned the notebook to Bucky nor asked to read it-Bucky was a private person, and you understood and respected that-but you still started carrying a pen with you, just in case he ever needed one.

At first, the notebook(s) was/were filled with solely memories of his past-No matter how insignificant. Whether it was that time the toilet got clogged in his shabby little apartment and had to stay with Steve and Sarah Rogers for a week because he couldn't afford a plumber or that time he lost his shoe in bar brawl and some swanky chrome-dome gave him a few bucks to buy some shoes and a sock without a hole in it. He wrote everything his mind could clearly grasp. But as the two of you got closer, he started filling it with memories he had with/of you because-even if he would never admit it-you made him feel right at home.

You may or may not have stolen his dog tags from the Smithsonian museum just as a reminder that even after all the pain, despair, manipulation, and torture he still managed to be the good person he was all those years ago. He was still James Barnes, local heartthrob that volunteered at the soup kitchen during his free time, that fought a war and lost an arm during the process, that dreamt of flying cars and a future without all fights and wars, that had a soft spot for a certain trouble-attracting boy whose heart was too big for his body.

“Jesus doll, I didn’t know I was dating a thief.” “Oh James, I thought you’d already realized that when I stole your heart from right under your nose.”

Bucky’s not big on talking or directly verbally professing his love, but that’s okay; His eyes tell you everything. There was always something about Bucky’s eyes that were so mesmerizing, so captivating, you could instantly tell how he was feeling. Before you, his eyes resembled a pale arctic blue that were as cold as glaciers-His eyes were hollowed and empty, scratched raw from any emotion but your growing presence thawed them out, they warmed through the cold exterior of what was once The Winter Soldier and reminded you that the hottest fires burn blue.

He does, however, reference quite a few interesting slang choices from the 40′s, which is his own little way of demonstrating verbal affection, ranging from calling you ‘Doll’ & ‘Sweetheart’ to calling you ‘The Cat’s Meow’ & ‘Butter and Egg Fly’

He’s never been very invested in hygiene. It never really was something important for him since he was in the Army and BO was a pretty normal thing, and then he became The Winter Soldier and HYDRA never exactly gave him a bathtub-Not that he was in the right mindset to to care about it anyway-So you usually have to remind him to shower everyday-Not that you mind, it would usually end with the both of you showering together and you having the opportunity to wash his hair yourself.

Soon enough, Bucky gets real invested in hygiene, he starts reading about self-care routines, exfoliating, conditioning, and gets completely hooked. Secretly, he does it because he likes the routine, something mundane and fixed to do to keep him busy.

You’re the only one that gets to call him James. Something about the way you say it warms his heart, he’d focus completely on the way your mouth moves as you say it-It reminded him of the way his mother would say his full name before busting his chops about coming home all dirty but then later ruffling his thick hair and offering a plate of strawberry jam sandwhiches, or how the word was always lurking in the dark corners of his mind like the silhouette of a ghost he couldn’t seem to recognize until you brought it to life.

Him always reaching out for your hand when he feels out-of-place, outside, or honestly just all the time because it helps him feel secure and grounded.

Steve third wheeling the both of you all the time. No seriously, literally all the time. He spends more time in the apartment you and Bucky share more than his own to the point where you and Bucky wonder if he actually has one.

Steve has a key to your place-Even though, the both of you never gave him a key in the first place-and has a habit of interrupting the both of you or walking in on the worst possible moments.

“Hey guys, what are ya doi-Oh...Sorry I didn't know-Buck, you don't need to throw-Jesus, okay, okay I’m going.”

“Who the hell does it look like I’m doing, Steve.”

Bucky being very insecure about his arm, he even refuses to touch you with that arm-Subconsciously, he’s afraid he’ll accidentally hurt you. At first, he only ever wears long-sleeved shirts and a glove even on the hottest days as if he’d somehow forget that there was a metallic limb under all the cotton, but slowly like molasses he starts accepting it. He starts wearing open finger gloves, then discarding the gloves, then wearing 3-quarter sleeves, then short-sleeved shirts, then sleeveless shirts, then finally feeling comfortable enough to take off his shirt in front of you which leads to a night filled with discarded clothing, the sounds of soft murmurs and reassurances, the rolling of each other’s names off each other tongues like a prayer, and the rustling of the blanket against the delicate movement of your intertwined bodies skin-on-skin, skin-on-metal as the both of you unravel thread by thread in each other’s arms.

Truth is, you love his metal arm, you love the way it’s cool against your warm cheek on hot summer nights, you love the splashes of light that kiss it every morning making it sparkle, you love the soft and soothing whirring noises it lets out breaking the silence in your room, you love it because it’s a part of him and God knows how much you love everything about this man.

Despite being the assassin that killed JFK, managed to get away with it, and mind boggle conspiracists for decades he’s a bit clumsy. He has a habit of accidentally breaking things and later on, not telling you about it.

"James Buchanan Barnes, I thought I developed super strength-and even asked Stark to do some tests on me, but apparently you just happened to forget to mention and explain why the fuck doors are falling off their hinges!"

Losing sleep with Bucky. He tends to have very frequent and graphic nightmares which leads to various panic attacks and the inability to sleep, and you're more than happy to stay up with him and comfort him. Sometimes you’d talk while he listened and watched the way your lips moved or the way the pony tail you had gone to bed with loosened and hundreds of strands escaped the grasp of the hair band or the way a yawn would escape your lips and your hand would momentarily rise to cover your mouth but get lazy halfway, other times you’d lay in each other’s arms in complete silence while you traced patterns on his chest and trail kisses across his skin.

You being his anchor. You holding him tightly and assuring him that he’s okay, that you're here, that you're real, that he’s out, that he’s safe, and many other tender 3-worded sentences uttered over and over again like a mantra until he’s murmuring them back into your chest.

Sometimes, when he has really bad nightmares and panic attacks you grab his notebook and start reading the memories out loud while you lay his head on your lap and run your hand through his hair in a calming manner until he calms down. It soon becomes a regular thing where you read him a memory before he goes to bed like a bedtime story.

Bucky Barnes is a man who was tortured and tormented for years, a man whose life was ripped right from his very arms along with his very own arm, a man who has gone through a long and unforgettable journey where he has learned to cope, grow, accept, and embrace himself and now he’s made it his mission to encourage and help others to do the same, whether they're struggling with their sexuality, amputation, mental illness, gender, or general self-acceptance.

You educated him about women’s rights because things are a lot different then in the 1940s; women are no longer obligated to get married, cater to a man’s every whim, have children, and other traditional gender roles. At first, Bucky’s very confused and doesn't understand why feminism is so important-I mean, lets face it, Bucky was raised in a traditional society and was later on manipulated to being a bloodthirsty assassin and now suddenly, he can think on his own and his life has turned completely upside down from thinking his own thoughts without HYDRA around to thinking past social constructs and norms so its normal for him to be a bit weary. However, you're there to explain thoroughly about how unjust society still is and how women may have won a few battles but still have a war to fight in a society where they are hyper-sexualized, mistreated, and controlled, and Bucky immediately thinks of Peggy Carter and how the men used to catcall her, how they raked her body with inappropriate stares, how she was ignored and seen as a pretty face, and then he finally understands.

Dozens of articles about mysterious beatings of assaulters around New York.

His metal arm is decorated with dozens of pins, magnets, and stickers of all the movements he supports. Oh man, you should see him during Women’s marches and Pride fairs, considering all the black he usually wears seeing him dressed in bright colors or a pink shirt that says ‘On Wednesdays, we destroy the patriarchy’. It’s a sight that truly belongs in the history books.

Bucky breaking hold of the toxic masculinity he was subjected to in the 1940s and advocating for men to be able to display their God-given emotions freely, to not feel obligated to put on a tough guy front, to telling boys its okay to cry, to feel, to act, to wear, and to be whomever they please to be.

Bucky visiting youth centers and giving advice and support to the kids there. Every kid he meets reminds him of Steve, whether its in their stubbornness, taste for trouble, lostness, or the glimmer of potential he sees in every single one of them. He remembers every single name of the teenager he meets and later on, uses them as a mantra whenever he’s undergoing a panic or anxiety attack as well as use SHIELD’s equipment to check up on them every once in a while.

Bucky going to children’s hospitals every week to cheer up the little kids there. He ends up being quite the inspiration and their ‘Favorite Superhero’ for the kids with amputations there and they end up being one of the very few people who are allowed to touch his metal arm. Something about the way their eyes shine with hope and their hands melt at the feeling of the metal warms his heart and his insecurities.

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