#*commentary

[thequeenofsastiel]

It didn't occur to me how much this would make me miss my dad. He was always so optimistic. I wish he was here to offer wisdom, and hope that perhaps this isn't as bad as I fear. But he isn't here. And I genuinely think we're fucked. Yes, things for women, immigrants, and queer people are about to get much worse, and who knows all the other horrible things that will happen if the Republicans gain control of the House along with the Senate. They'll control all three branches of government.

But the worst thing is the environment. Republicans don't give two shits about combating climate change or preserving the environment at all. They'll make things as bad in this country as possible just so they can make money and stay in power. And many countries will follow suit. Frankly I don't see the human race surviving. Enjoy all the luxuries you have right now. Water will become scarce, as will food when crops burn and die as the temperature increases. Entire towns will continue to be destroyed by wildfires. Southern states and countries near and along the equator will become uninhabitable. Whole countries will be wiped out as the sea level rises. There will be a refugee crisis. And I'm sure many other horrors will happen that I can't think of right now.

I'm sorry to be such a downer, but we need to be prepared. Enjoy every bit of privilege you have now. It's about to get much worse.

[portland-polycule-archive]

New reaction image just dropped!

[appendectomy]

i dont think iwtv couldve communicated the utter horror of claudia's situation better than in that scene of her being dragged on the floor by louis. its genuinely frightening to watch. it really hammers home the emotional horror that exists in louis and lestats relationship - revealing the depth of louis despair, so awful that it would make him do something like that, beg the way he did. lestats own strange panic, unsettling. and the plain, unobscured, violent horror of claudia's burned body being pulled around like a doll, never to have autonomy ever again. its not romantic, not from any point of view, not anymore. it is just horror.

[sillylotrpolls]

I would now like to change my vote.

[satelliteantenna]

no nuance. and assume they're of age

[notcaycepollard]

wishing every member of the disney-mcu marketing team a very happy screaming crying throwing up as they learn that despite every algorithmically targeted test audience development by market analysis megahit they attempt to manufacture, tumblr will collectively decide without forethought or discussion that the new fandom obsession is a non-existent scorsese film premised entirely on the tag label on a pair of knock off boots

[conejo-ess]

(notes by @mildly-salted )

youre very correct. im so glad i have him to do mermaid control for me. theyre a big problem in my house. i dont know how they keep getting in!

he plays with anatomically incorrect mermaid skeleton i got for halloween

[lexyscross]

William I guess had the decency (???) to at least have some emotion in his face after stabbing Vanessa. But really, it boils down to the fact that he intentionally stabbed she own child, he looked her in the eyes while doing so, and then after his flash of emotion he seemed to have the resolve of "Well, it had to be done."

God, the Complex Toxic Characterization lover in me is frothing at the mouth about this. I wanna study them both like bugs. (x)

[horse-girl-anthy]

Revolutionary Girl Utena: Gender in Context

beneath the cut, I discuss the RGU's portrayal of gender in the context of 1990s Japan.

in Ikuhara's interview with Mari Kotani, he stated that in traditional Japanese society, "prince" meant "patriarch." the same is true in Western societies--there was a time when a prince would be an heir to a royal line. by 1997, this meaning had died out of large parts of the world. even the association between princes and traditional masculinity was fading. Saionji, the weakest, most pathetic man in the show, is a parody of historical Japanese masculinity, with his kendo and his blatantly regressive beliefs about women.

in RGU, prince may still mean patriarch, but in a far more subtle fashion. Ikuhara and Kotani discussed the changing expectations for men in the latter half of the 20th century--it became gauche to fight over a woman with one's brawn, so instead, power struggles were played out in the arena of looks and sex appeal. one can see this reflected in the character Akio, whose power as a prince arises from his ability to turn "easy sensual pleasure based on dependency" "into a selling point with which to control people."

Akio has his moments of showboating masculinity, but when preying on Utena, he operates by making himself seem non-threatening and soft.

not only that, but he purports to want to allow students to express their individuality and thus approves of Utena's masculine form of dress. this is a front--by the end of the show, he's telling Utena that girls shouldn't wield swords. thus, through Akio's character, the show argues that traditionalist patriarchy in Japan isn't gone, but instead has only been papered over with false progressivism.

with all that said, there seems to be more to the character. he's taken the family name of his fiance, Kanae, and whatever material power he has in the school is dependent upon her family. in Japanese society, this is considered a humiliating position to be in, something that only a shameless man would do. the show never gives the audience any insight into how Akio feels about this--is he unbothered entirely, or are his actions against the Ohtori family an expression of his repressed anger? does he harm the children under his care to compensate for his humiliation?

this aspect of Akio's character may seem irrelevant in light of the larger, immaterial social forces at work in the show. however, I would argue that it was included for a reason. Akio, despite his status as ultimate patriarch of Ohtori, is in fact a highly emasculated character, to the point where lead writer Enokido even said that he is driven by an infantile mother complex.

to explain why Akio was portrayed this way, we have to discuss Japanese history. the nation suffered a major defeat in WWII and was forced to accept whatever terms the United States laid out for it. for an examination of how the Japanese have never truly processed those events and have plunged into modernity with reckless abandon, I recommend Satoshi Kon's Paranoia Agent. to sum it up briefly, in a very short period, the nation regained its economic footing, and by the 1980s had the largest gross national product in the world. this economic boom may have allowed Japan to maintain a sense of sovereignty, dignity, and power, but it was inherently fragile.

the infamous "bubble economy" lasted from 1986 to 1991. during this time, anything seemed possible; financial struggles appeared to be a thing of the past, and capitalist excess reached new heights. the ghosts of this period can be felt across Japanese media; for instance, think of the final shot of Grave of the Fireflies (1998), where the two dead children look down on Kobe, glowing an eerie green to imply its impermanence. the abandoned theme park from Spirited Away (2001) is explicitly referred to as a leftover from the previous century, when many attractions were built and then tossed aside in a few short years.

the bubble popped in 1992, leaving an entire generation feeling cheated. the bright futures they'd been promised, which had actually materialized for their parents and older siblings, had been lost to them overnight. economic crises are often accompanied by gender panics. to quote from Masculinities in Japan, "The recession brought with itself worsening employment conditions, undermining the system of lifelong employment and men’s status of breadwinners in general. The unemployment rate was rising, and although it never reached crisis levels, men could no longer feel safe in their salaryman status. Their situation was further complicated by the rising number of (married) women entering the workforce."

with this in mind, Akio's character can be taken as a representation of masculinity in crisis in 90s Japan. he's forced to rely on women for his position in life and has failed to save his only relative, Anthy. he tries to escape his misery through hedonism, perhaps an allegorical representation of how men tried to maintain their old standard of living after the economic bubble burst.

but of course, Akio is not the main character of RGU--the story is about girls. mangaka Yamada Reiji discussed the series in the context of the 90s, stating the following:

while I opened this essay by discussing the prince, the same points could be made about the princess. despite the increasing irrelevance of royalty, princess is still an important concept. how does it relate to the socioeconomic landscape of the 90s?

in Yamada's view, RGU is full of relics of the 80s; for instance, the figure of the ojou-sama, an entitled young woman who never lifts a finger for herself. during the economic bubble, it was increasingly common for women to be entirely taken care of by the men in their lives. Yamada names Nanami as a clear ojou-sama type character: she weaponizes her femininity, demanding to be rescued, doted on, and served.

however, by 1997, the ojou-sama could no longer expect to get what she wanted. from the 80s to the 90s, the percentage of women in the workforce increased around 15%; it was no longer viable for most women to be "kept" by their families. as the men experienced the humiliation of not being able to provide for their wives and children, women were undergoing a disillusionment of their own.

Yamada blames Disney for creating the ideological structure which led women astray. obviously, the company is known for its films about princes rescuing princesses. in Yamada's recounting, during the 80s, the company was infiltrating Japan through its theme parks as well; across the country, Disneylands were opening up, and people were buying into the escapism the corporation offered. Japan, as America, became a country of eternal children. its people were waiting for a prince to appear and save them.

but fairy tales can't stave off reality forever. Yamada claims that RGU embodies the rage of young women who woke up one day and realized that they had been raised on a lie. this anger pervades the work from beginning to end.

though RGU was created in a particular social context, its lessons can be extrapolated to any time and place. as the first ending tells us:

I hope this essay helped provide more context for the series. thanks for reading!

[flyinghellfish]

David Mirkin discussing which of The Simpsons writers are gay

[monalaniussboyfriend]

What "critics" need to understand is that if somebody isn't fit to write a horror series, it's okay! As a fellow victim of child violence (sexual violence specifically), I felt that Cory's painting and the manor of how he was killed was a wee bit distasteful, but it didn't make wanna drop the series at all. It only really made it more interesting, along with the whole episode of PIGS and all the other disturbing aspects of the series.

It's interesting to know that the killers wont stop at ANYTHING to torture their victims. I love having villain characters who are genuinely bad people but have good development and writing. (Take Bill Collins himself as an example of this!)

What people need to do with series' like this is start reading between the lines a little. They see a painting with "questionable" implications, immediately jump the gun and assume that the creator is a total creep. People act like cases this gruesome don't happen in real life, but they totally can. There was a guy who straight up fed customers "people-burgers" made out of human meat! It truly fascinates me how people can immediately assume that because a creator makes their villain characters pure evil means that the creator is "purging their urges" by doing so, and it's not true.

YOU CAN WRITE VILLAIN CHARACTERS WHO DO INCREDIBLY BAD THINGS !!!

THAT DOES NOT MEAN YOURE A BAD PERSON !!!!!

THIS SERIES IS FICTIONAL !! You can do whatever you want with fiction, if you don't like it, don't look at it! (Don't take this out of context because there's a limit to how far that saying goes. Don't straight up post drawn cp/incest/proship shit and say "errr if u dont like it scroll" you're a fucking idiot and you're not understanding what I'm saying)

Thank you for coming to OUR ted talk

TW:for mentions of S.A.

Also I just wanted to mention I mean no disrespect to anyone with this post. I’m just expressing my thoughts. If you disagree that’s totally fine.

Unpopular opinion: I actually really like the painter by urban spook. As a die hard fan of analog horror and horror I found it unsettling. Yes, the names of the portraits and their implications are a distasteful but that’s the only qualm I have with the series. The art,story and music are really engaging and entertaining. Art is supposed to make one uncomfortable. Horror is supposed to make you uncomfortable that’s the whole point of the horror genre. As a victim of child violence I can say that being offended by the mentioning and usage of a certain topic does little to nothing. Don’t like it? Then don’t watch it. You have free will just as urban spook has free will to make his art as graphic as he wants. Do I think he’s a good person? No but I’m here to analyze the art. Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.

P.S. have a wonderful day my loves! Take care of yourself!

[dragonnnfly]

“This is Berk. It’s 12 days north of hopeless, and a few degrees south of freezing to death.”

So, Hiccup is a sarcastic little shit (and we love him for it) we know this. This is clearly a jab at just how terrible Berk’s position in the archipelago is, but, oh, I’d have loved if this was actual names of islands in httyd.

Like, we’d obviously think this is sarcasm, but then one day in one of the tv shows they’ll visit the islands Hopeless and Freezing to death, briefly, and we’d be left going “…..huh….. They exist…”

[edathetublady]

Tumblr for me is like the gay neurodivergent version of Twitter (as someone who has used the app maybe twice?)

The only people I care about keeping up with are on this app (Neil Gaiman)

And I only use it to dump my useless and universally unwanted opinions.

It's the same thing, but instead of talking about politics, people talk about David Tennant.

[merlin-gifs]

Colin: Did you actually fall asleep on that log? Bradley: I might have done. It wouldn’t surprise me. (laughs) Bradley: I was trying to create the image that basically you’ve got this dashing knight called Lancelot, and then you’ve got (laughs) an oaf in the background just … who is asleep, snoring, mouth wide open, just looking incredibly unappealing. Bradley: ‘Cause I think essentially, y’know, Lancelot is the better choice for Guinevere.

MERLIN | 2x04 "Lancelot and Guinevere"

[appendectomy]

I'm gonna need the entire iwtv writers room to read orientalism by edward said before they start writing armand and marius' show dynamic Tbh

[thedawner]

Your A Bug’s Life art is so powerful. I smile every time I see WIPs, your lining brushes are fantastic.

Thank you immensely! This made me very happy 🙏💛