citizensun

[citizensun]

One of the things that sucks about being an animation nerd is having to live with the fact that, from a technical standpoint, the Hotel Transylvania movies are absolutely ground-breakingly staggeringly incredible.

[citizensun]

"Absolutely no one comes to save us but us."

Ismatu Gwendolyn, "you've been traumatized into hating reading (and it makes you easier to oppress)", from Threadings, on Substack [ID'd]

[citizensun]

Who controls what territory in Syria?

[citizensun]

Me. Don't ask me which ones. All of them.

[citizensun]

Hey look I actually did a follow up to my Jason stays dead for one hundred years AU (ft. old man McGinnis)

[citizensun]

@elodieunderglass horrible things with legs

(source)

[citizensun]

adios!

[citizensun]

[citizensun]

[citizensun]

This is pure pedantry, but please, folks: it's nepotism if the unfair advantage is because of your relatives. If it's because of your friends, it's cronyism.

[citizensun]

thinking about anastasia trusova paintings again

[citizensun]

♕  The Sleeping Beauty + Prologue

[citizensun]

last night my partner held a somber little passover seder to show me what it’s about and when they got to the part where they were supposed to open the door for elijah they paused, frowned, and said “oh. huh. there is a clown.” and I looked out. and sure enough. there was a clown.

[citizensun]

can you imagine tho. the flying lemurs in atla. they're extinct. they've been extinct for a century. it's like you saw a guy walk out of a freezer and be like "haha yes i'm the lost tsarevitch Alexei and here's my pet dodo"

[citizensun]

i want more nuance to be entered into the discussion of the green girl sorority and how differently cynthia plays elphaba in comparison to those who came before her because while a lot of people are rightfully like "why was elphaba not black from the beginning" and celebrating that she is now being played by a black woman, i think we need to be careful in just writing off all the elphabas of the past as Random White Girls when the role was championed (and often followed/succeeded) by a jewish woman

the pop culture archetype of the Wicked Witch has deep roots in antisemitism stretching faaaar far back. there is a level of reclamation happening in casting idina menzel, a jewish woman, to play the Misunderstood and Maligned young girl who is branded as exactly that. and stage!Elphaba is also written and acted with jewish stereotypes in mind--she is loud, aggressive, no-nonsense, blunt. she is quick to advocate for herself and shut down the discrimination she faces. all of this is very intentional! her personality is abrasive from years of abuse, and that makes propagandizing her easy. this is literally the thesis statement of the musical--it's not about aptitude, it's the way you're viewed.

cynthia's performance of elphaba is fucking INSPIRED despite going in a completely different direction. she's much more reserved, analytical, one of her key character traits is how well she can read people (see her calling out Galinda as insecure/putting on airs in their first scene together, clocking that Fiyero is using his party guy persona as a shield for his own depression) elphaba's attempts to blend in and make herself smaller all fail simply because of her existence, if not that then because she feels empathy so strongly she often struggles to hold back from acting, protecting.

personality wise, though, cynthia's elphaba is very quiet and closed-off, not at all the bullet-to-the-face that she is in the stage show, and... she still gets propagandized and maligned. though this seems to contradict the other interpretation, it tells of the other end of the spectrum of propaganda, one that black women watching (and many, MANY other marginalized folks) are sure to identify with--it does not matter how "nice," how reserved, how small a black woman makes herself. a racist society will still scrutinize her every action for a way to parse ill intent from it, brand her as an angry black woman who is dangerous and wicked, and write off any humanity she has in the process.

these two very different interpretations tell of the lie of assimilation. the fact of the matter is, when you are marginalized, there is no way to sand down your edges enough to make the people oppressing you "accept" you. that is why wicked is a tragedy at its core. whether loud and aggressive or quiet and unimposing, there is nothing elphaba could have done to make the people of Oz see her as anything other than a scapegoat to blame all their problems on.

so while i definitely appreciate that people are excited for black girl era elphaba, i would encourage us all to still show appreciation for what came before--that was not white girl era elphaba. that was jewish girl era elphaba. two houses, both alike in dignity, two stories both worth being told.

[citizensun]

like her name is mirri MAZ DUUR. MAESTER. MIRRI THE MAESTER. not only did she match marwyn’s freak enough that he taught her about anatomy, but her own people either started calling her “mirri the maester” or she started calling herself that and it stuck. she traveled, potentially on her own, all the way from lhazar to asshai and back again, which feels like an incredible feat given the sheer amount of slavers she’d have to get past. and in the end despite her power she brought all that knowledge back home to her tiny village to help her people!!

[citizensun]

the fact that "eco" and "ethical" are two separate concerns in the global north, and that "eco" is a much more popular concern, with many "eco" products being made in actual sweatshops, is a big part of why i am The Joker