#Especially if you're religious OR are like me where you aren't but are still fascinated by more human takes on biblical figures

[bonefall]

NGL: Stuff like Brambleclaw being a terrible namer is like. really fun but also kinda hits with the 'he;s not some meglomaniacl villain hes just a shitty guy'. like. you could see squirrelflight finding that really endearing. IDK if this is some mastermind shit, or if i'm just reading wayyyyy to into this, but i like how you give characters that are pretty bad dudes very humanising qualities. Especially when they're silly/cute. Kinda reminds you that like. theyre like. a person. well. cat but yknow. and they chose to do bad shit, with influence from their past, rather than being inherently terrible. 👍

YEAH MAN, that's what I'm SAYING

Abusers, ideologues, and other terrible people are not masterminds. They aren't born evil. They're not inherently smart OR stupid. They can love, they can be funny and polite, they do things they believe are justified and want to be good people. They don't think of themselves as villains.

Evil isn't complex. It's really, really not. I feel like that's the #1 cause of confusion when I get a question like, "Why does this person do this malicious act, when it's bad/inconsistent/mean?" The answer is always simple;

They wanted to control someone.

They wanted something and didn't mind who they hurt.

Spite and short-sightedness.

Look for anything deeper and you will not find it. Heroics are complex, being a good person is ongoing and changes over time. We're in a constant state of growing. Malice is childishly simple; it feels good to get what you want.

With Bramblestar especially... it always goes back to what I said here, when talking about the idea of an Evil!Bramble. He's a person, and you ruin everything that's so interesting about him by stripping away that nuance. Squilf and Bramble loved each other, truly, and legitimately. He can be charming. He can be nice. He still hurts her. Reconcile with this.

He is not wiser for what he went through, as a child. His pain doesn't make him better. Man's just a jerk... that's it.

[canmom]

Animation Night 188: Gisaburo Sugii and his cat films

Let me introduce you to a fellow.

Gisaburō Sugii, born 1940, is one of the oldest school animators still working in the industry. His early filmography is something like a history of anime, or at least MushiPro: he started on Hakujaden [AN149] (where he did inbetweens), but he was one of the leaders of the Toei exodus over the rubbish working conditions and union busting (Sugii's close friend Rintarō was among the first to follow him), especially when Tezuka appeared on the animation scene with a place to land.

So from the earliest days of Astro Boy/Tetsuwan Atom, Sugii was a core Tezuka guy. (Thanks as ever to Matteo Watzky for presenting such detailed histories in English!) He helped clean up Tezuka's rough animations in an early form of the layout system, moving to his own satellite studio, worked on all sorts of projects. In fact, we saw a number of them when we watched Tezuka's short fims on Animation Night 83. For example, Sugii animated the moth in Tales of a Street Corner.

Before too long, Astro Boy was wrapping up, and the time came for Sugii to direct his own series: this was Goku no Daibōken and in the words of Matteo Watzky, it represented "a complete and unconditional rejection of everything Mushi - or rather Tezuka - had done so far" - gags over story, extremely limited animation. Adapting Tezuka's manga version of Journey to the West, the project had some rather grand ambitions:

It was rather in the writing and direction. Sugii was extremely ambitious: not only did he want to do a complete break with what Mushi had done before, he wanted to broaden the general “animation culture” in Japan [14]. He therefore focused entirely on the gags, trying to make them all as absurd as possible and breaking all sense of narrative continuity. This was the reason he had chosen Boku no Songoku in the first place: the road trip structure made it possible to completely change the setting each episode and make things different each time [15]. He refused to compromise on anything and was an extremely harsh director: he himself admitted how many conflicts he had with scriptwriters and storyboarders, whose work he kept rejecting until it had lost any semblance of sense or continuity [16].

Goku no Daibōken's story touches on another major figure of anime history: Osamu Dezaki (AN95) appears here as an episode director, though you'd likely not recognise his work - he closely followed his mentor Sugii's wacky style. Unfortunately, the show did not really do much to broaden anything, and was pretty roundly rejected by audiences, and even Tezuka himself publicly said it was too avant-garde and needed to change and the show ended up a sore memory for everyone involved.

But Sugii did not quit, and continued to work with the increasingly ailing Mushi Pro up through Belladonna of Sadness (AN69). This last-ditch effort was not enough to save the troubled studio (a story told elsewhere, check Watzky's articles for a very detailed version) and MushiPro went under. So, coming into the 70s, Sugii left the anime industry to go travelling.

But not forever.

Now, let me introduce you to a book.

Night on the Galactic Railroad (銀河鉄��の夜, Ginga Tetsudō no Yoru) - written in 1927, and published posthumously in 1934 - is a classic Japanese fantasy novel by Kenji Miyazawa in which two boys go on a strange journey across the galaxy. It soon becomes apparent that the train that the boys ride on is kind of a psychopomp train. It has that fascinating blend of early science and odd religious overtones you often get in novels from the early 20th Century, with such themes as the difference between Buddhist and Christian ideas of heaven, as well as all sorts of odd adventures.

It does not star anthropomorphic cats. But then again, it doesn't say anywhere that its characters aren't anthropomorphic cats, right? If you're Gisaburō Sugii, that's enough!

In the early 80s, Sugii returned to Group TAC, a studio largely consisting of former MushiPro staff, full of memories of travel. He started out directing adaptations of the baseball manga Nine, but soon he ended up directing an cataptation of Night on the Galactic Railroad, which came out in 1985.

Jokes aside, the book is deliberately ambiguous about what its characters look like, so Sugii came up with the cat thing as a way to preserve Miyazawa's intent. His approach to direction heavily emphasises the landscape, embedding the characters in dark spaces that reflect their feelings and build the generally omnious mood as they journey into death. And it works! The result is a film widely regarded as a classic by those who've seen it.

One notable feature is the film's fascination with the constructed language Esperanto, among the earliest aspiring universal languages. The film features all kinds of Esperanto text and an esperanto subtitle track, and even has an alternative Esperanto title, Nokto de la Galaksia Fervojo. This was a fascination of Miyazawa's, though I don't believe it features in the novel particularly prominently, but Sugii evidently wanted that to be part of the tribute...

In the wake of that, Sugii... went back to directing sports anime, this time the series Touch about Tennis, as well as a number of other projects including a Street Fighter film in 1994. He didn't abandon literary subjects though, adapting the Genji Monogatari, a foundational work of Japanese lit, in 1987 - though I can find little more about this adaptation. He even directed a Lupin III film! But none of those films are about cats, so we're gonna skip right over them.

In 2012, Sugii - now 72! - returned to books and cats with The Life of Budori Gusuko, adapting another novel by Miyazawa - this time at MushiPro successor Tezuka Productions. The animation is certainly more elaborate...

The film follows abandoned child Budori Gusuko in a world frozen by strange storms. Left to fend for himself, Budori's problems mulitply as his sister his kidnapped, leading him on a journey into dreams as he tries to get to the bottom of all of it.

The story is notable for anticipating the idea of the greenhouse effect, albeit in a way that rings rather odd in the context of present climate change. It generally doesn't seem to be viewed quite as favourably as Galactic Railroad but it's too good a thematic pairing not to do, so tonight the plan is to watch both films! Elaborate old weird anime, we're so back. And not a boob in sight, so twitch should chill out.

All being well, Animation Night 188 will be starting at 22:00 UK time, which is about two hours from this post - we're back on twitch.tv/canmom, thankfully they didn't ban me for long. Hope to see you there!

[gothicprep]

i started writing this and it ended up way longer than anticipated. apologies in advance.

a movie called "you're so not invited to my bat mitzvah" has been on netflix's top 10 for the past couple of weeks now. i thought, "i wonder what this is", looked it up, saw it was review bombed, and thought to myself. great. now i have no choice to watch this.

i'll just write my review of this, and then get into what i found odd about the review bombing.

this is the latest adam sandler production for netflix. it's a coming of age story, kind of a modern take on "are you there god? it's me, margaret?" sort of thing. deals with all the difficulties of modern life – phones, tiktoks, hip rabbis, etc – and the eternal difficulties of life – puberty, getting your priorities in order, why god allows evil, hip rabbis, etc – in a way that's both familiar and specific. it's familiar in part because sandler casts people from his regular orbit, but also a very specific movie because it's about a very specific milieu. which is to say, upper middle class jewish girls and their parents, and tension between a religious event which involves a lot of intellectual preparation for an adult responsibility, and the consumerism involved with bar/bat mitzvah inflation in families that can afford to celebrate on that scale.

i found the specificity charming, especially in the depictions of the protagonist (played by sunny sandler, adam sandler's daughter) and the various difficulties she has with her father (played by her irl dad). although, i'm grading on the netflix curve here, which i'd define as "was this a movie you can watch while you're looking at your phone and still be entertained by even though you're not paying close attention to" and it's pretty much that. i'd say a little bit better than average, because the performances of the young actors really nail it. sunny sandler is great in this. she's not afraid to come off as totally ridiculous, especially in one scene where she's wearing overdone makeup and trying to take selfies. she seems genuinely bereft when her friendship with her best friend unravels. her character does some things which are genuinely cruel, even by the standards of teen movie stuff, but she has a lot of potential as a physical comedian.

it's easy for a movie like this to be a total nepotism project, but it also does not work if sunny sandler isn't good in her role, and she is. and the kids who play her friends are also good in their roles.

another thing that i also found fascinating about this wasn't just the specificity of the jewish experience that's depicted in it, but also the specificity of the current situation where teenagers aren't just presenting themselves on their phones all the time, but in which they're recording each other on their phones all the time. we've all been cautioned about what we share online, but there isn't yet conventional wisdom about documentation we have of other people outside of, idk, "you shouldn't share other people's nudes". and it does a good job of blending a specific cultural milieu with a specific generational experience.

it's not ibsen or anything but it's, like, fine.

so. the review bombs. i think this might have gotten a lot of traction on tiktok, because a lot of the 1 star reviews are prefaced with "i am [12-14] and jewish and i didn't like this". i'm not here to pick on them, but a lot of them share a common gripe about it which is... i'll just pull some quotes from them:

"As a young woman, myself, I was extremely disappointed in the oversexualization and generally offensive depictions of teenagers (especially the girls) in this film."

"With the barbie movie just coming out, I thought we were past sexualising girls. But here comes along a movie AIMED AT KIDS and teaches them that incredibly revealing outfits and quite sexual pictures are correct and even possibly supported for kids!"

"I also noticed that it sexualized teenagers after the amount of times they said “hooking up” after reminding us that they are only 13 years old"

"Second off this show “shows off” 12 year olds in a very dirty way in some parts of the show and some parts are absolutely disgusting."

"Stereotypes, sexualising of 12 and 13 year olds, and teaching people that this is how Jews are"

i'm not going to be like "these dipshits in middle school do not understand the language of film, unlike me, a 28 year old woman who is very smart". but there's nothing remotely sexual in this movie. there's the scene where sunny sandler's character is taking trying to take IG type pictures with her friends, but the audience isn't invited to ogle at it. like, one of her friends is holding a floor lamp so it functions as a ring light, and the dialogue is, like, "how do i look?" "like your goldfish just died :/". and stuff like "they kissed and i heard he touched her underboob" is no more salacious than the sort of juvenile gossip that you'd find in an actual junior high school.

that all said, it's very jarring to me to hear people in that age group using "it sexualizes teenagers" in their critical vocabulary. i don't think that would even cross my mind when i'd be that young and watching a comedy. and i could be reading too much into it, but the ongoing moral panic about sex ed and kids seems like it's driving kids nuts just as much as it is adults.

all of this is a long winded way of saying, this culture war shitstorm has gotten a lot of coverage in terms of the parents who want to ban books, but maybe it'd be prudent for someone to pitch a piece that focuses on how this whole thing is impacting young people who are no doubt absorbing some of this through osmosis and tiktok.

[windvexer]

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I'm not even quite sure how to articulate what I want to ask. I have religious trauma- specifically Christian- and am presently in an environment where this is being aggravated on the daily. When it comes to spirit work and witchcraft, in spite of a deep fascination with and desire to explore these practices, I feel like... to welcome them into my life on the level that they require would also be to open myself to the magical thinking inherent in this religious paradigm, and all the ways I would be violating it (and am already doing so by simply existing in ways seen as deviant, or sinful). I'm prone to succumbing to scrupulosity, and am perhaps wondering if you have any advice or experience in this regard. How to overcome it, or perhaps your opinion? I've been following you for some time, and you seem like a very intelligent, and level-headed person; I would value and deeply appreciate your feedback on the matter.

Previous anon (hopefully)- on that note, how much of magic do you think can be explained by confirmation bias? Thank you, again, for your time.

Hello, Anon.

Let's start with the easy bit!

I believe in literal magic. That is to say, I think magical power, spirits, & so forth, are actually real.

Therefore, I think no magic is explained by confirmation bias. If something is just confirmation bias, it isn't magic. I think there are very interesting discussions to be had about the intersection of personal perception and tinkering with reality, and I don't mean to disregard the nuances of the conversation.

I think there is a chance that what you might be asking is, "how often do people think they are doing Magic(tm) but are just experiencing confirmation bias?" to which I say, probably quite a lot.

I have very specific beliefs about how to accomplish magic, especially Witchcraft, which is one kind of way to work magic. I think very many people who are intending to do magic, aren't.

[...] to welcome them into my life on the level that they require would also be to open myself to the magical thinking inherent in this religious paradigm

When you say "this religious paradigm" do you mean Witchcraft, or Christianity? I suspect what you're saying, but I'm not 100% sure, is that to embrace spirit work and witchcraft is to also breach a barrier you've built to protect yourself against your scrupulosity.

I think this prior ask might be helpful to you.

I don't at all mean to try and speak in a general theological sense, but only out of personal experience:

I was raised Christian and it did leave me with Problems, one of those being the tricky matter of love.

I recall in Sunday school, we watched a video with puppets or something, that taught us how to correctly think about love, and how to correctly feel love. This was twenty years ago or so, and I don't remember the details, but it was like this:

"You might say that you love a cheeseburger, but do you? NO! You like a cheeseburger, but you love God. "You might say that you love watching TV, but do you? NO! You like watching television, but you love God."

I still think about this sometimes. We were a lot of children in a room, being taught that the only true love that's acceptable to feel is towards this specific deity (I think parents got a piece of the pie, which was nice for them).

We learned lots and lots about love, and how God's love is perfect and human love is flawed, and how we should love, and... a whole big thing, you know?

And later on when I realized I had to stop being Christian, there was this problem of love again:

That there is no more pure or unconditional love in the universe, and that turning away from God and Jesus meant that I would never experience unconditional love ever again. That there was no other being or force in the universe that would want to protect me and cherish me as much as God did.

Well. Imagine the stress. I was someone out there who knew my toes were in a stream, but what a lonely stream it was. And it took me a while to figure it out, which is:

Witchcraft - the kind I practice, at least - is all about love. It's about the love of finding your Family, and living as an active member of that family.

Figuring this out was wonderfully healing to me, because all of the sudden a big piece of that Christianity thing started to make a lot of sense.

Sure, God is love. But to me, he's a specific kind of love. His kind of love isn't home to me. And when you go out there and start touching all these spirits, and pagan gods, and powers in ourselves and in nature, I think you might come to the same conclusions I did:

Love abounds. Pure, true, unconditional love is as common as water. It fills the sky like clouds, like vapor, like rain. Unconditional love, true benevolence, and deep spiritual acceptance infuse the world. The world around us is overflowing with it.

The problem is, not each of us are kin with the same spiritual families. The rainforest pond that nurtures my damp frog skin may be suffocating to you, if you're a jackrabbit. If you're a jackrabbit, you've got to get yourself over to a nice chaparral zone. The good Christian God is an ancient oak tree, and the perfect home to many.

But jackrabbits don't live in oak trees. Neither do rainforest frogs. Sometimes I seek out the shelter of his shade (depending on the angle of the sun), and I know exactly where to go if only an acorn will do.

I'm a spiritual critter. I have spiritual needs. And spirit work and witchcraft can just be fucking around with the otherworld to do sorcery, sure. I don't even mean that in a derogatory way - sorcery is great, and doesn't have to be deeply spiritual, or whatever.

But spirit work and witchcraft is also finding where you belong, and learning how to be an active member of your personal spiritual microbiome. And we all deserve that. We all deserve a chance to live spiritually with our true spiritual families, in our natural spiritual environments.

The oak tree doesn't judge the rabbit for living in a burrow. From time to time the birds get confused about the situation, but that's quite alright.

Lots of room to hide from birds in burrows.

You can mess around with sorcery, if that's all that interests you. But if you're someone who senses, or dares to hope, that Home is still out there somewhere -

What deviancy can there be in trying to find it?

[the-consortium]

To Duco:

How are the lil ones doing? Will you give them any names?

"You've really taken a shine to these birds, haven't you?" Duco grins and lowers the datapad.

He's been trying to visualise these Harlequins since the first mysterious messages. They certainly aren't like Veilwalker's troupe. And that's basically all the Night Lord knows about Harlequins. Not that he knows much about the rest of the Eldar in general. How to kill them. Of course. Where their dangerous ends are (everywhere). Also, of course. And a vivisection or two. But that's no good when it comes to culture and their religious values. Especially not the kind that isn't either running away from Slaanesh or in a strange co-dependent relationship with the Dark Prince.

But one thing is certain: they all have a magical knack for turning up where you wouldn't expect them.

Like in his private messages, for example.

An Apothecary is curious by nature. Anyone who is not constantly interested in things has no place in the Consortium. And Duco is interested in why the Knife-Ears suddenly have such a fondness for the resurrected goose breed.

So he answers. To see where it leads.

"In behavioural research, you have to stay out of the lives of your research subjects, otherwise you won't get any usable results because you're constantly influencing what you actually just wanted to observe. In the case of geese, however, this is relatively difficult as they are busy conquering a new habitat - and they share this habitat with us. So we are a constant factor for them. And they for us. Well, not for all of us. I keep them out of the Chief Apothecary's hair. I have no idea if he even knows they're still here. He's probably trying to forget they're existing. Well, good luck with that! He'll meet them all again when he does his next routine check of Diomat. And he'll probably be bloody furious about it. Might be healthy for me if I stay in the outer ruins for a few days afterwards. Until he's digested the fact that Diomat considers the birds his squad and refuses to give them up."

Duco raises his pen briefly, grinning into the middle ground before continuing. "Which brings me to the names … from what I gather, Diomat refers to them by alternate names of long-dead Emperor's Children. What will that do to the birds? We'll see! Fascinating stuff." With that, he clicks "Send" with a muttered "I hope you chaotic people like this!"