#People say they want nuance and moral ambiguity but I'm beginning to think that only characters they like are allowed it

[spear-carrier-number-three]

the rampant kant hate in this fandom isn't surprising but it is exasperating.

[kurtcobainindresses]

Hey sorry if this is annoying I don’t speak French and I couldn’t understand your post about cuties. I haven’t watched it yet but I know it received a lot of backlash so I just wanted to know what you were saying.

Hey, not annoying at all! i'll try to make a more structured and less angry post than the french one. So what i was saying is that people seem to respond to cuties in a very uninformed and blatantly ignorant manner considering that:

it was based on the director's, a black, muslim french woman's PERSONAL experience

she interviewed little girls for a year before making her movie because she wanted it to be as accurate as possible a depiction of the hypersexualization of girls in contemporary society

As a black french woman who grew up in a muslim family, some scenes in the movie resonated with me in ways that simply couldn't to someone who hasn't had that exact experience. Did some scenes make me uncomfortable? Extremely. Was it necessary in the context of the movie? Absolutely.

From the beginning of the movie to the end, the director makes it very clear that this is a child's reaction to being so scared of one extreme (patriarchal islam and polygamy when she sees her mom cry because her father took a second wife) that she desperately throws herself into another (hypersexualized persona, she starts twerking after watching music videos on youtube, lets her hair down etc....). At that age, she simply doesn't have enough perspective to realize that these aren't her only choices. At the end of the movie, the moral statement is made very clear by the director and there is absolutely 0 ambiguity.

Personally, I think that american crowds are used to seeing everything cater to them and to their taste when some things clearly aren't made for them. And I think that's the case for cuties. At the end of the day, french and american visual storytelling styles are extremely different. The french approach is a direct approach that rejects bashfulness and almost never shies away from showing things (i mean have you seen a french film? there's a 90% chance you'll see a pair of tits or a penis).

So yeah this turned out really long and i'm really sorry but that's basically my take on this whole debacle: people should learn what nuance is and stop thinking everything is made for them to understand

EDIT: also the fact that the wave of outrage started from 4chan tells you everything you need to know about how unwarranted the hate towards the director was

[majimemegoro]

I see. Thanks for answering my question about Park. I apologise if I came off as judgemental. I saw your post about how Park haters are blind, deaf and dumb, so I assumed that you were overlooking her nastiness when you said you liked her character. I'm satisfied to hear that you do take her flaws into account, and that they're actually why you find her compelling in the first place. (Though I agree with HanzoPresentingTiddies in that her dream should never have been Haruka's responsibility.)

(There's also an issue with the way the other characters view Majima and Park's flaws and crimes. For Majima, the characters (like Kiryu) acknowledge that he's a wild card with moral ambiguity. But for Park, practically all the good guys (like Akiyama and Haruka) consider her a paragon who's admirable and worth emulating (and her dream of being an idol and performing at the Japan Dome worth risking people's lives for), and they don't ever bring up her immoral actions and business practices.

Nah, I hear you. Memes are all in good fun but they can lead to a very un-nuanced mode of communication. Despite what that meme explicitly says, I don't harbour any ill will towards people who don’t like Mirei, and I don’t think any less of them - as long as they aren't being sexist. I apologize if my dumb meme made you feel like you or your opinions were unwelcome. I do love talking about this stuff and I like to have my interpretations challenged and refined, so I appreciate hearing from people with differing views. 

Part of my instinct to defend Mirei so vehemently comes, I think, from the fact that there are lots of people who hate her only because of the suffering she caused to Majima. Which, cry me a river. It was a thorny situation and she made a decision, and Majima’s suffering as a result can be real and important without causing us to be misogynistic and treat Mirei as a mere prop to male characters. This is the kind of view I am reacting against when I make ‘Mirei is perfect and amazing’ posts. I do think critiquing her is warranted, but the discussion that surrounds her is overwhelmingly negative in a way that it isn’t for other characters, and it can get frustrating. 

As for the your latter point, I both concur and offer a complication/revision. *BIG Y5 SPOILERS FOLLOW* I agree that it is completely inappropriate and incorrect for the other characters to uncritically accept Mirei’s vision, especially given her unsavoury methods and the unpleasant way she often treats Haruka. However, I also feel that in subtext the narrative condemns Mirei’s prioritization of career over family, and presents Haruka’s choice to give up her idolhood as a ‘correction’ to this error. (To be clear, this is what I got out of it, and not something I agree with. For one thing, the situation with Mirei and Majima did not represent a safe and stable family situation worth sacrificing for, and IF the narrative really meant to suggest that she made the ‘wrong’ choice by having an abortion and separating from Majima, well. There’s not much of anything positive I can say about such a deeply horrible perspective.) I would propose that if we want a Watsonian/in-text account of Akiyama’s and Haruka’s approval for Mirei’s expectations, we should look to their psychology. I understand doodlysquat about Akiyama, but I might tentatively suggest that Haruka���s main role model (Kiryu) has a history of giving his main role model (Kazama) respect and obedience that, perhaps, was never earned. Haruka also has self-effacing tendencies (see the beginning of y6) that would make her vulnerable to getting sucked into someone else’s projects. And maybe she would be especially vulnerable to her first close female role model.

But it’s been several years since I watched y5. All of this merits further investigation, and further overthinking. Thanks for the asks, comrade, and for listening to my rambling! 

[coldalbion]

This is a tricky religious question, but I'll try to encapsulate it in an ask. I feel a strong connection to Odin, but I also want to make that spiritual connection more firm in the landscape I /already/ inhabit, if that makes sense? Unfortunately, as a white person in a land that was never my own, I feel it would be disrespectful. My "ancestors" are from across the sea and I cannot claim to know them, either. Whiteness has colonised and homogenized culture. So I'm unsure how to proceed.

Imma be upfront here: What you want and feel doesn’t automatically have primacy when dealing with other beings. We don’t own the land, the land owns us.To think otherwise is a manifestation of that same colonial, homogenising, reflex which has married itself to rapacious capitalism and set about obliterating nuance and intimacy and depth.So, listen, I’m assuming you’re White here, but - Hwaet!: The land has its own needs, its own desires. The beings that populate it have theirs, and you don’t get to decide what’s respectful, and what’s not. To do that, you have to go and find out. You have to put yourself out there and say: “Hello. Here I am. Are you up for maybe building a relationship? A relationship that’s between us, even with all the shit people with my shade of skin have pulled?”They may very well say no. And, in the spirit of being up front? That. May. Be. Easier. If they say no, then you’re done.But if they say yes? That’s when the hard bloody work begins. Because you have to cobble together something from the ground up. And you have to do that, situated within the horror of Whiteness, because Whiteness actually homogenised and destroyed many of the vast number of differing and rich variations that North West Europeans and their descendants had for interacting with the world. It was deliberately constructed by those in power to level internal resistance and then turn that animus on POC and indigenous peoples. It created an ‘US’ to pit against ‘THEM’.As White folks, we and our ancestors have perpetuated, and continue to implicitly take part in a set of systems which have perpetuated atrocities across the planet, and continue to do so.And it is the absolute right of those beings, human and non, to hate us on sight. It hurts, and is upsetting, and if we’re decent people, we want to make it right. But we don’t get to decide how and whether that’s possible.Having said all this - the crimes perpetuated by folks with our shade of skin do not automatically disqualify us from anything - unless we’re told otherwise. But neither do they qualify us in advance.

 This is the lie (some) of our ancestors bought, the one bearing the rubric of Whiteness. Whiteness, the lie goes, is a thing to aspire to - because Whiteness is better, being White makes you better automagically.(And yes, I more-than-half-believe that Whiteness is an imperialist magic spell. Seriously.) Because there was a time when ‘white’ was merely a simple descriptor of skin colour. And then it was made into something else.; I’d equate it with the ancient and very real magic of Roman citizenship, except for the fact that the Roman Empire was, at least at beginning, a polytheist culture.I’ve said above that Whiteness doesn’t automatically disqualify us unless we’re told, but I want to emphasise that ignorance is not an excuse either. Seek out those qualified. Do your research.Whiteness may have once only been a skin descriptor - but now it’s so, so, much more complex. We do not get to complain building healthy and fruitful relationships is hard, that Whiteness makes things difficult, and so we can’t do anything.That’s the lie speaking, trying to persuade us to leave Whiteness-as-is, as a monolith that can never be pulled down and replaced with a memorial to all those whose lives and lands it oppressed - just as say, Germany pulled down the statues of the Reich, and erected holocaust memorials.Germany has not absolved itself - it is flawed, and imperfect as an example. Yet, it has acknowledged what was done and moved forward, but not on.  Those memorials are meant to stand as moral checkpoints. Thing that exist as reminders, as-never-again.Leaving Whiteness-as-monolith is simply ignoring the shadow it casts. Instead, we should blow it up, reconfigure, deconstruct it - whilst at the same time never forgetting where it comes from.Whether we acknowledge them or not, we are our ancestors, emanating their genes, the products of their actions, here and now. Even if we seek to deliberately excise them, that very excision is relation to them. If we cut out a family member due to their behaviour, they influence us in terms of what-not-to-do.Negative space, emptiness, is still a phenomenon, and everything is connected.

So when I say deconstruct, I mean not simply demolish, not simply raze-as-if-it-never-was. I say use it as fuel, transmute it; look for the cracks in its homogeneity - the things buried beneath - the green vitality that survives despite paving, steal and glass. The way birds fly, flock, wheel, and dive - and most importantly the spaces between.Focus - narrow, and so, so deep. Beneath Whiteness, there is Blood - and though these things are so beloved by white supremacist arseholes? Look at Blood Again. Do not see it as one thing, but note how many cells rush by - notice how many substances, hormones, surge through your veins, how very many things it is.Blood is never pure.And beneath that? Glistening, shining Bone - not white at all, shaded and stained ivory, all honeycombed and filled with marrow. Each heartbeat a rhythmic pulse.For your ancestors are Many, and you see them everytime you look in the mirror, Perhaps you have your Father’s mouth, your Mother’s jaw, your Grandfather’s eyes?But where did they get them?You know them, but you don’t know you know them. Known knowns and unknown knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns.The spell of Whiteness says it is homegenous, because it homogenizes. But it’s a lie, and dig underneath it and you will find white-skinned variety - mixedness, shadowed memory - old ways, localised cultus based on village, town, terroir, field and forest. Mixed races and traditions.

Which of these is supreme? None. They are contextual. They are local. The landscape is not levelled, not concretized. Monoculture has its propaganda. Its siren-song that it it is the only option.But: Things are not gone - their roots remain, buried deep, ready to emerge in new forms.The knowledge of them may be held already, kept sacred by indigenous or closed groups, and if so, so be it. Or, it may lie waiting to be discovered again

And these new-old forms can only come forth if we risk ourselves. If we dedicate ourselves to reconnection, to respect and research, to wholeness and to wilfully acknowledging that we Know Nothing.

And the spell, the Imperial magic of Whiteness is failing, but it’s not dead. It’s cunning, shape-shifting into notions of silos and ideological purity. It says you are either Enough, or Not Enough.Enough is better, Enough is pure.And you are not pure, not clean. None of us are. So Whiteness uses that - creates both White guilt and White Pride - enhancing the sense of helplessness, which breeds sorrow and anger, and thus increasing US vs THEM.It creates toxicity which further perpetuates itself - and the individual can do little to change it, and virtually nothing to change the world. reaching towards purity is good, because purity is a beacon, a nice clear reference point by which we can make sense of the world.

And the Old Man is about as ambiguous and impure as they come. He emanates double and triple meaning - poetry as magic, as weapon, as entertainment, as blood and fury and iron. Knowledge as poison, as drug, as psycho-active substance.In some ways, I think he may find it darkly funny the way neo-nazi scumbags constantly use his name to justify purity and fitness. This one-eyed wanderer who self-harmed and submitted himself totally to the Kosmos because he wanted to Know itAnd not on his terms. On Its.He deliberately put aside all methods of control. He neither ate nor drank. He bled for it, probably even died for it. He sacrificed himself to himself because there was nobody else. Only by being completely Himself, in that environment, and letting whatever happened, happen, was he able to go down to the depths and receive and perceive the runes.Be prepared for the necessity of that. Of setting yourself apart, not as pure or better - but different. Empty your cup, as they say in Zen.Understand that he is the strife-bringer and its soother.If you want to find him in the landscape, first you have to meet him, it - on its terms. The lore says he gave humans breath.So breathe. Realise your Whiteness is not something you can help - you cannot stop being White, and you are enmeshed in the monoculture, but that the monoculture is not what it says it is. It is not the Only One.There are many different ways, and as master interpreter - the hermes in the hermeneutics, the Wanderer has travelled most, if not all of them.His answer to the Seeress’ question is YES. Forever and always YES. And knowing more is not just intellectual knowing, but meeting, knowing someone, carrying them, or a place with you.There’s a reason we call the World Tree what we do. It has roots no man knows, And this? This is the Old Man’s Horse - a tree is his method of travel, is the Great Tree which holds all worlds. The ancestral tree, just as humans were made from wood.The runes are risted with red, stained well with the power of blood and breath; the power of a magic alphabet filled with the rhythms  of life and death.The poetry can crack a world. the root can break stone .A return to new-old ways can acknowledge and suborn your Whiteness, forcing it to undergo a detournement which will never grant some distant absolution, but just may allow the usage of that magical spiritual potency of that spell to benefit you, and others.In honouring Odin, you have the appearance of honouring the same god as some neo-Nazi scum. And yet, you are not, because of the relationship which is (may come to be) betwixt you. And it is that which contains life, death, health and wholeness. That is not theirs, but yours.In doing so, in living a connected life you illustrate, you render a way which was hidden, open. A way which may shift and change - for though the Whiteness was laid upon you at birth, its meaning may change in an unexpected way. You become a thing which is different, and Odin will be in your land, just as he came to be in mine.As to how that happens, only you can tell, but for me, it came to pass with a realization that he has always been there. He was just waiting for me to see his shape in the world - a piece of negative space, which once I discovered it, has become a roaring source of gnosis, a quiet whisper that raises the hair on the back of the neck.A thing to be lived with, and died with, and borne and lifted up and cast down.You are an enforced descendant of a vast criminal syndicate which killed millions, destroyed thousands of cultures, infected its own people with a thought-virus to keep them compliant, and keeps insisting it’s the only game in town.Its not. Be open. Live with who you are, as you are.But who you are is not who you have been told.Good luck.