#The TV show creators that I mentioning are absolute trash so this is really more so just an excuse to mock them more than anything else

[skinnypaleangryperson]

What's been making me chuckle lately is watching the few TV show creators that I've followed over the past couple of years literally scrawling and sobbing metaphorically and literally and being sentimental and sniveling and begging for their TV shows to be renewed, and talking about the very few meager years that their TV shows were on air like it's the "good old college days of their prime" (a literal quote in an article that I read tonight), and even when it was on the air were very delicately and carefully crafting every little last minute finite detail of every single season and making sure that it was perfectly culturally relevant and would be received well by its consumers like it was a literal scientific formula, and sweating over every last possible critique or rant that could come out with literally every single line or episode essentially.

..meanwhile, the creators of South Park have dropped and even outright said that they want it to get canceled, wouldn't care if it did get canceled, and dedicated an entire season begging for it to be canceled, and it's still not canceled because some people are truly too talented for their own good.

[romancing-lady-whistledown]

Just wanted to comment on your last post - there was no frustration and drama for me when I was watching Elu and Skam and Skam France before I made the huge error of looking for the fandom and joining it. Now I realise it was a big mistake, I have to constantly block people on Tweeter for hating on my faves and I've come to really hate another remake which I only didn't care about before having to deal with its stans. So I totally understand what you're saying. Me, I wish I'd never joined.

So this got long af so I’m gonna put it under the cut lol

Oh I absolutely feel you, when I say frustration and drama, I am refering to the live-watching experience and all the fandom drama that comes with that. I have a very polarizing feeling about being in the online fandom personally. For me the positive aspects have been so big that I can’t say that I wish I’d never joined personally, but especially if the positive aspects I’ve experienced haven’t been part of your fandom-experience I definitely see how you can get to the point where you wish you never joined in the first place, especially in the past year, because the negative aspects...they’re rough, and they do make the experience of the actual show different from if you just watched it on your own or you watched it as a casual viewer in the country it’s airing in, rather than as a part of the fandom on Tumblr and/or Twitter.  

I watched the original Skam as a casual Norwegian viewer, I was in a Facebook-group with other casual Norwegian viewers, there was never any drama about anything, not the clips, not the characters, not the actors and not the creators of the show. It was just watching the clips, often someone commenting about how the clip was cute, funny, sad ect, and then everybody moved on with their day. There would sometimes be a thread with questions like “Where do you think William is?” or “What do you think is up with Even?”, but it was always very casual. Sometimes I think the online fandom forget that the majority of the remake-viewers are the casual local viewers, the ones who only casually watch that one remake as a show on it’s own, not as a part of the “Skamverse”. The international Twitter/Tumblr-fandom is just a little part of the people watching the show and the opinions we see here don’t necessairily reflect those of the more casual audience (as one can often see in for example reaction-videos on Youtube where the reactors watch alot of shows at the same time and might not even blink at something that might’ve been a big deal in the online fandom). 

Being a casual viewer worked so well for me with Skam, the whole viewing experience was very chill and enjoyable. I did the same thing with Skam France S1 and S2, I watched the first episode of every remake, and Skam France was the only one I felt compelled to continue watching. It wasn’t the most exciting experience plotwise since it was just the exact same as the og, but I love the cast, I love the French language and it was overall pleasant and fun enough that I kept watching both seasons all the way through. As someone who has no attention span for TV-shows, the fact that they did keep my attention without anyone to push me to keep watching is enough for me to not concider them bad in the way alot of people do. Not very exciting after having watched the og, sure. Do I prefer the og S1 and S2? Yes. But bad? I personally wouldn’t say that. If I came into the fandom before I started watching on my own I know I would’ve been told to either skip S1 and S2 or skip Skam France altogether, and that obviously wouldn’t have been very good advice in my case, although it might be for someone else. That is why, when someone shows up on Tumblr saying they wanna start watching the remakes and ask for advice, I never ever tell them not to watch a remake. I could be robbing them of something that might deeply touch them, just because it didn’t touch me. 

This brings us into one of the aspects of being in the online fandom that can be both really positive and really negative, that being the way it can affect your experience of the show itself. On the positive note, there’s no way I could’ve gone through Skam France S3 in the casual way I went through the original Skam or S1 and S2 of Skamfr. No way. Having someone to talk to about all the amazing moments with was an actual need for me. Hell, two years later and I still need that. Not to mention the fan art and fics that has kept Elu alive for me ever since S3. There was this whole detective-work in the fandom about finding Eliott’s Instagram during S3, finding out about the Instagram-posts David and Niels made about the S3 clips, being in the online fandom actually added to the experience of watching S3 for me, and even now almost two years after S3 I’m left with some actual friends, friends that aren’t even in the fandom anymore but who I still talk to almost daily, as well as some lovely bloggers who are still invlolved in the fandom and who’s blogs I prefer to visit rather than visiting the tag.

But then there’s the negative side of this. While being in the online fandom certainly can add to the experience, it can also affect it negatively. That was what happened with S5 and S6 for me, to the point where I had to switch between staying completely off Tumblr and delete the Twitter app from my phone. While S5 had a couple of plotlines I didn’t like, it also had alot of amazing moments when it actually was dealing with the main theme of the season. S6 did not give their plotlines the proper exploration and conclusion they deserved, but on the other hand the reason why that was so frustrating to me was because I found those plotlines so interesting and actually wanted to see them explored properly. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have cared if the plotlines were dropped out of nowhere, like ofc it would’ve been weird but if the whole Tiff-plot suddenly disappeared I wouldn’t complain. While they were flawed and nowhere near the level of S3 for me, I did enjoy so many of the clips and Skamfr S3, S5 and S6 are the only remake-seasons I have downloaded on my computer knowing I will rewatch them regularily. If I didn’t overall enjoy them, I wouldn’t wanna rewatch them. I don’t hate-watch anything. I could barely get through Skamfr S4 (a season I genuinely didn’t like) and I could not get through Wtfock S4, (which I liked even less). So the flaws Skamfr S5 and S6 had didn’t turn the seasons as a whole into trash for me, but I know they did for alot of people and going to the tags while in the middle of the live-watching experience couldn’t just be a bummer, it could almost transfer some feelings and opinions that weren’t my own onto me just from seeing them repeated so many times. I appreciate nuanced discussion, which does include constructive criticism, and there was alot of that too, but there were also alot of posts that I would not concider that. In this case, when I got some time and distance away from the live-watching experience and got the space to think for myself, I realized that as often is the case, my feelings about the seasons weren’t black and white, or in this case, masterpiece vs trash. Yes, I don’t like certain plotpoints (like the love triangle and car-scene from S5 or the Tiff-plot and the overly rushed conclusions to the otherwise interesting plotlines in S6), but that doesn’t mean that I personally think S5 or S6 as a whole are trash, not when the good episodes and clips were as good as they were to me personally. The online fandom experience has also, just like for you, completely turned me off from another remake that I otherwise felt neutral about and at one point even liked, which really is a shame.

So yeah this turned into a long ass essay just to say, the online fandom-experience is a true mixed bag for me. Although the positive experiences I’m taking from it, mainly the lovely and talented people, the friends I made and the full Skam France S3 experience, ultimately made it worth it for me, I can totally see how, especially if you didn’t have those experiences, you would simply wish you never joined. When it’s a pain, it’s a pain.

[regrettablewritings]

Podcasts, Youtubes, and TV Shows to Distract Yourself With Because Why Not, and Also Because I Wanna Blab About Some of These

Since I can’t go to work and horrify my coworkers/make them realize I’m a mess and/or nerd by telling them about the type of media I’m into, I’m foisting my recommendations on all of y’all who choose to read this. I frankly do not care how many people have actually heard of these things because I’m also sure there’s plenty of people who, like me, are very slow and oblivious to entertainment, or who have heard of the property but were never that convinced.

Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts

Type: TV series

200 years after a mysterious yet earth-shattering event, much of humanity has taken to living beneath the surface in communities called burrows, wherein life goes on, if effected somewhat by the bizarre fauna that exists above them (referred to as “mutes”, short for “mutant”). One burrow girl, Kipo, founds her world turned almost literally inside-out when she finds herself not only separated from her father and the only world she’s ever known, but on the surface, no less. What ensues is her trying to find her way back home with the help of a stony-faced little girl with a massive chip on her shoulder; a music enthusiast and his literal gadfly friend; and some . . . unusual allies that only an oblivious optimist like Kipo could make. All to a kickass soundtrack, a beautiful backdrop of art, and a world where animals have basically evolved into gangs under a looming threat known as Scarlemagne. If you can’t already tell, I love this series to bits and now is the perfect time for people to get into it and encourage another season of it. Just . . . don’t think too hard that whatever happened to cause the Event in the show happened in October 2020 . . .

Available on: Netflix

My Dad Wrote a Porno

Type: Podcast

This should go without saying, but this podcast is definitely meant for more mature audiences. Or somebody with a strong stomach. Not that it’ll always be easy to tell with the type of content this series gives. When Jamie Morton’s father handed him his manuscripts for his self-published books, he had no idea he was being given a pinnacle of a polished turd: It was erotica. Really, really, really bad erotica. But the ear’s trash is the heart’s pleasure with this bad girl, as Jamie enlists the company of friends Alice and James to provide commentary on “Rocky Flintstone”’s series Belinda Blinked, a drama chronicling the sexcapades of Belinda Blumenthal as she climbs the ladders (and men and women) both in and out of the cut-throat world of pots and pans sales. What follows is a goldmine of awkward metaphors, strange bedmates, and just an overall stampede of whiplashing events that somehow exceed expectations. Listen in if you dare . . . And make sure you’re in good company for it. Fun Fact, though: Daisy Ridley, Ben Barnes, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Michael Sheen, Mara Wilson, Elijah Wood are but a few well-known fans of this series! Nobody is safe . . .

Available on: Wherever podcasts can be found

Lore

Type: Podcast

Sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction. And what better way to be reminded of that, then to have the dulcet tones of Aaron Mahnke tell you about the lighthouse incident that the 2016 movie The Lighthouse was loosely inspired by? Suffice to say, this podcast could also be interpreted with some advised discretion, but definitely in a way that’s different from My Dad Wrote a Porno. In the centuries humankind has existed, we’ve managed to create a menagerie of beasts, both fictional and in ourselves. Lore explores all the many different kinds of events and persons and creatures we have to offer. In any given episode, we could be talking about anything from the bizarre story of a lady who convinced 18th century physicians that she was giving birth to rabbits, to something more disturbing like the life of H.H. Holmes. Or something as relatively innocuous as the relationship between gremlins and flight. Regardless of the subject, however, you’ll definitely walk away knowing something new, if bizarre. And perhaps slightly terrifying.

Available on: Wherever podcasts can be found

The Amelia Project

Type: Podcast

Congratulations: You have been made aware of The Amelia Project. If you’re not interested in this, exit the page. Now. If you continue, there’s no unhearing it. Good choice! A new interest awaits. If you don’t enjoy it, please consider the whole thing a hoax. Okay but in all seriousness, there’s no way to do The Amelia Project justice in just a simple description. The plot sounds quite simple, really: People want to disappear and start a new life, The Amelia Project is there to help – with a price. And that’s if you can actually get a hold of them! What really makes the show, however, are the people and the writing, and I’m not just talking about the almost childlike Interviewer with an obsession for hot cocoa. I’m talking about the clientele: I’m talking about the macabre-obsessed theme park owner who’s out for revenge; the cult leader who’s in way over his head; a Santa impersonator stuck in a miserable marriage with his own manager; an actual podcast character trying to outrun his creators. And obviously this would all be nowhere without the spectacular writing! I really can explain this series without blabbing on and potentially spoiling things; The Amelia Project is an experience!

Available on: Wherever podcasts can be found

LegalEagle

Type: Youtube channel

To be frank, I just like learning for the sake of learning, even if I may not always necessarily understand the topic or have any plans to use it in the foreseeable future. The big difference here being that at least this channel makes learning about the law fun and breaks it down. Headed by a certified lawyer (because what an age we live in, where professionals actually take time out of their lives to teach us common folk), there’s a multitude of series D.J. Stone uses to help break down the complex world of law, from reviewing the realism of procedural favorites (Law & Order, The Good Wife, HTGAWM, etc), to analyzing real-life situations, to even watching childhood media that has nothing to do with the law and determining how much money, say, Willy Wonka would owe in a lawsuit. In short, it is one of my worst subjects done in one of my favorite ways to learn! Plus, Stone hates business students and is perfectly willing to poke fun at law students so it’s all fun, frankly.

Available on: Youtube

Nando v Movies

Type: Youtube channel

Sometimes, movies are bad. Sometimes, they’re good. And sometimes, they could use a few adjustments in hindsight. Especially the nerdier movies where the directors may or may not have tried way too hard or way too little. And that’s where Nando comes in: Whether it’s explaining why a different villain might have worked better for a hero’s origin story movie, or analyzing how one seemingly small adjustment could’ve potentially made more sense in explaining characterization, this channel is always providing a new perspective on a movie or show you’ve probably seen and maybe weren’t necessarily too pleased with. (Or maybe you were – I enjoyed Justice League okay but I love the version he rewrote more.) Oh, yeah: Sometimes he does rewrites of movies or even series. So if you’re anything like me and you’re way into that, this is a channel you don’t want to miss out on.

Available on: Youtube

DEATH BATTLE!

Type: Youtube channel

Does anyone remember Deadliest Warrior? No? . . . How about that one time during lunch where you and your friend got into it over who would win in a death match between Superman and Goku? Good news: A buncha geeks did the math for you and have come out with the results! Specifically, hosts Wiz and Boomstick have analyzed the weapons, armor, and skills of each combatant in every episode, resulting in an ongoing series of absolute nonsense and satiation of bloodshed. The description is admittedly nothing crazy, but the amount of detail applied is honestly where it’s at: From calculating how loud Black Canary’s screams are to approximating Scrooge McDuck’s speed (I’m not kidding you), there’s actual thought put into the characters being assembled and how they might fair with their respective combatant. And it all comes together for an actual fight, often animated but always amazing. So if you’ve ever wondered if Thor could beat Wonder Woman, or if McGruff the Crime Dog stands a chance against Smokey the Bear (I’m…I’m being honest), then this is the show for you!

Available on: Youtube

Sideways

Type: Youtube channel

If there is music in that movie or show, it will be analyzed to a degree that, unless you’ve been trained in music, you would’ve probably never thought about. There isn’t necessarily much rhyme or reason to Sideways’ videos in terms of themes beyond music, but really, must they? Is it not enough that this man is screaming to the internet these wack and awesome trends he’s noticed in certain pieces associated with movies and musicals and the genius behind them? Could life not just be him explaining the symbolism of the instruments associated with the Crystal Gems of Steven Universe, or breaking down the cultures explored by way of the Black Panther soundtrack? Also, here’s a fun drinking game: Take a shot every time he mentions leitmotifs or the Dies Irae.

Available on: Youtube

Craig of the Creek

Type: TV show

In the woods of suburban Maryland, there exists a kid’s utopia: A place where horse girls are free to roam the fields, where a boy can be a king of garbage, and where children travel the sewers completely unsupervised. That is, until the dinner horn rings; then they have to go home until the next time they can return to The Creek. The show focuses on one specific trio (Craig, JP, and Kelsey) as every day, The Creek (and their own childish naivete) brings them new hijinks to experience. There’s a blissful lightheartedness to the show, in addition to a lot of creativity that feels like it was ripped straight out of your own imagination as a child (robots made from cardboard boxes, building portals using lights, etc). But beneath it all, there’s something just plain wild brewing. I don’t want to spoil anything, but CotC has some G-rated GOT shit going on the further along the series goes and I can’t wait to see how it all unfolds!

Available on: CN app, wcostream.com

And that’s probably enough for now, I think. Lemme know if you want any other suggestions, or how you’re findin’ ‘em if you take any of them up! Stay safe, stay healthy my dudes!

[500wordtheology]

Detour: The Good Place Conclusion

    Please forgive me, I’m about to break protocol. Normally this blog is dedicated to theological topics and I strive to keep each post at around 500 words. Today’s post will certainly be theology related, but it is extremely unlikely I will be able to keep it brief. Should you want to skip this post, feel free to click here to advance to the next blog entry.

    The TV show “The Good Place” has now concluded. If you haven’t seen it, close this window and go watch the first season. It’s great. Possibly one of my favorite single seasons of any TV show ever. Genius creative work, and brilliant comedy and heart.

    I cannot say the same for the final season, and especially the final two episodes. That is what this blog post is about, and in case it wasn’t obvious:

    COMPLETE SPOILERS FOR “THE GOOD PLACE” AHEAD.

    I will not recap the show’s four seasons here, nor even the episodes being discussed. This is written for those who have already seen them. Instead let’s jump into exactly how, unfortunately, the conclusion of the show failed both morally and creatively.

    Please understand I do not write this as some stuffy critic. I lived the life of a stuffy critic in my younger days, and while it is a lovely boost to the ego, it is empty and dumb. I’ve learned that much at least. The reason for my critique here is because we as human beings need to KNOW this stuff. We need to not be tricked into shallow thought.

Where It All Falls Apart

    The Good Place made a number of mistakes with the final two episodes. Let’s discuss the errors and try to make clear where things went awry (and how/why they were hand-waved away).

    The penultimate episode, “Patty,” introduced the idea that an undisclosed amount of time in Paradise would cause you to become a boring, intellectually-stunted zombie. Apparently even the greatest thinkers who ever lived who managed to get into the Good Place only ever wanted milkshakes and orgasms, and instantly abandoned all big questions about the Universe for simple Hedonism. (And yes, it’s very true that Hedonism is empty and meaningless.)

    This outcome makes very little sense, and I am unsure if it was a result of running out of episodes (which would be a shame, because the early bits of the final season were often dull and it would have been far better spending more time exploring these later concepts instead of cheap laughs at the expense of stereotypical, hollow characters introduced and then thrown away) or if it was simply bad and unimaginative writing. Considering the fantastic writing of Seasons 1 and 2, and sometimes 3, this is extremely puzzling. At any rate, it shows a serious lack of creativity.

    Here is an important truth that was almost totally avoided in these final episodes: The question “Why?” does not disappear simply because you can conjure up a Coke and some sunglasses any time you want. Those questions remain. They might even move more to the forefront of the mind. Why are things the way they are? Unanswered, unexplored. Not just unexplored by the writers, but unexplored by the characters like Patty who were set up to have been in the Good Place for an undetermined amount of time (but “long”).

    This is the ultimate problem with exploring Philosophy without also exploring Theology alongside. Interviews with the creator of the show consistently have him bringing up things like Buddhism or Hinduism, but strangely absent are Monotheistic religions. Why is this? For starters, I expect it is because many of the loudest voices in the modern Western world do not care for such concepts. They don’t like what it entails. If we are not in charge of our own ultimate destiny, which is the case when God exists and has made you with a purpose of his intention, our ego gets a slap in the face.

    And it should, because that is what our ego deserves when it is out of order, but that is another post.

    Anyway, it is possible this choice was made to avoid ruffling feathers of media and the societal elite. It is easier to play it safe, even for a show that tackled some very large concepts like morality.

    It is also possibly because studying such religions requires a great amount of work. Heaven, in Christianity, is not a fluffy cloud where you get everything you ever wanted (like margaritas and monkeys in go-karts), where you sit and play a harp (or guitar) all day and also, hey look, your childhood dog is there. That is a foolish, childish caricature of Heaven, but unfortunately has become widely accepted as true simply because people refuse to go study further. So mistruths are believed due to ignorance. Cartoonish ideas are thought to be accurate, because non-cartoonish ideas are hard and sometimes extremely uncomfortable.

    It’s more than a shame.

    Not only is Heaven infinitely better than such a stupid caricature, but it isn’t even the final destination! New Earth and bodily resurrection comes after. However that is Christianity, and The Good Place makes its own version of heaven instead. A cartoonish one. Fine. But even ignoring that, the problem The Good Place’s ending faces is in the mantra “Death makes life meaningful.”

    Here’s the kicker: That’s not untrue. And because it is not untrue, we can quickly and easily get extremely confused. In fact, go read some reviews of the final episode from a number of popular websites and you’ll find they herald this truth. Because in our earthly life, it is right to say death makes this part of our existence precious.

    The problem, and it is a HUGE one, is they then transpose the earthly lesson onto eternity. Ignorantly (and forgive me for this is not an insult but a statement of why they claim it, they simply don’t KNOW and I realize even saying such a thing is unpopular) they claim that eternity would be “like this life but longer.” And yes, if that was eternity they might have a point. However even within the universe The Good Place has created that is not accurate! We are shown concepts like The Time Knife, and IHOP, and Janet, and the Judge. These things alone make eternity not simply Earth-life-but-forever. And here arises a major problem, because the writers suddenly go from thinking reasonably large to thinking utterly small, right at the end when thinking big is so important.

    Creativity is boundless. The Good Place was certainly not short on creativity! At least… up until the end. At the end what you had was creative bankruptcy. A nihilistic conclusion that there is no real meaning - except this conclusion gussied up with terms like “peace” and “love” before folks walked off to their annihilation. It is, in fact, the gussying up that I have the biggest problem with. It is a flat-out lie, paraded as some virtue.

    This is detestable. Tricking the viewer into believing such ridiculousness as “if you’re ready to die, you should do it and your suicide is a good thing. The best thing, even. The only way to be happy forever.”

    I am sorry, but this is not only trash, it is dangerous trash. I hope I do not need to go into detail as to why.

Retirement for All

    Let me jump slightly sideways for a second and point out something extremely telling: The “solution” that everyone got on board with at the end of it all was The Eternal Shriek.

    Think about that for a second. That is what their solution was. The thing that in Season 1 and 2 seemed (rightfully) so horrific.

    Now immediately one might say “Oh, no, that is not the same at all! The Eternal Shriek was a forced thing, the pretty gate in the forest was a willful decision.” 

    Really? 

    WAS it?

    This is the response the writers want you to have, and it is one, again, of shallow thinking. This is the trick of the pretty forest scene and the constant throwing around words like “peace” and “calm” and “love” at the end. What we learn from the show is that the Forest Gate ends up being everyone’s ONLY ultimate option. Tahani, after mastering demonic/angelic architecture, will be left with the same ending. She will “be ready” but only because she has no choice but to eventually be ready. It is no longer a choice, but, as Eleanor says in the show itself in Season 2 “It’s a crappy deal, but it’s the only one we get.” Even after all they’ve learned (and have the potential to learn, let’s never forget that aspect) they play God (but far worse, because they are not God) and give humanity the *same deal* they say is crappy and lament how it is the only deal they got.

    You might also say “Oh, no, the Eternal Shriek had all that awful stuff like having your soul scooped out with flaming ladles.” Yeah? What of it? You’re not conscious anymore (otherwise Michael wouldn’t have lamented “no more me” when he had his existential crisis) so the desecration of your esense and the atoms of your body are as meaningless to you as if someone dumps your cremated ashes in the forest vs. in the ocean. Or, yes, even in a rubbish bin.

    Note the throw-away joke of the creature Derek has become. In his final speech (before getting rebooted again against his will) he mentions the heat death of the Universe. Let’s not ignore that. We are left by the writers (manipulated, really) with warm fuzzy feelings as one of Eleanor’s golden particle-thingies lands on a person who then does something decent instead of cruel. But what is not shown (because it would harp on our buzz) is that man will die. Michael will die. They will be annihilated and then, eventually, all humans will die, the earth will die, the universe will die, Derek will die, Janet will die, the Good Place will die, the Judge will die, and the final pretty gold sparkle will no fall on some new person to help them improve, but instead cease to Be entirely and have absolutely no meaning at all. It will all amount to exactly the same in the end as if the Bad Place guys ran things.

    To use the pretty analogy of the show, “The wave will still be water and return to the ocean,” but then the ocean will disappear entirely for no reason or purpose and even the wave and water will be worth nothing. (They don’t note this second half, because that second half doesn’t make you feel good. Yet it lurks there, undiscussed and ready to pounce and surprise.)

    This is the stark, awful truth of a purposeless universe and existence. It is an awful thing, but it is the truth if that is the worldview we’re exploring. (A reminder this is not the truth of God, though. God loves you, and you do not exist for no reason. A necessary reminder because when we start to really dig in and explore nihilism it gets “real dark real fast.” We need to hold onto the Light at such times.)

    At any rate, what then seems to separate the Eternal Shriek from the Forest Door is only that the last fleeting moments are located in a peaceful looking (though ultimately doomed) place. The results end up being identical. The final option of The Good Place ends up being the worst-possible-option of The Bad Place: Annihilation. This is the “solution” the writers came up with. The one they themselves made fun of in previous episodes (rightfully so, because it is terrible.)

    And yes, it is that big and important. The *foundation* of ideas is precicely where they either stand firm or topple and crush everyone around them. We must dig deep when it comes to what we think and believe.

Selfishness and “Love”

    Here I will break and tackle another awful, awful thing these final episodes support: Complete selfishness as somehow compatible with Love.

    Jason is not all that bright. But generally he seems to have a good heart, particularly for those he cares about. Yet after completing a single perfect round of a video game, he chooses to leave the not-a-woman he loves forever. To abandon her, because he just doesn’t feel like sticking around anymore.

    What?

    But okay. It’s Jason. I was willing to suspend some disbelief for the sake of the character, who is a few crayons short of a box.

    Then Chidi does the same thing.

    WHAT?

    This is utterly absurd. Here the writers want to write what they want to write, rather than be honest. It is one of my biggest convictions that an author must be honest. He or she may nudge things in certain directions, but if the author of a story ever forces a character to do something against their character, that is not only poor writing but completely dishonest. It is the lowest form of storytelling to do such a thing. And we find it here.

    Chidi, by his own admission, has a sense of calm and peace. Chidi is just fine. Yet he knows his choice to kill himself (annihilate, really, because we need to be crystal clear on that) will hurt Eleanor deeply. It will cause her extreme pain. He still chooses it.

    My friends, that is not love. That is also not Chidi.

    Love sacrifices for the beloved. And in this case, Chidi wouldn’t even be sacrificing much if he stayed, because we’ve already established he is at peace and internally calm. So rather than maintain this feeling, or even work to be better IF other feelings arose in the future, he checks out on Eleanor. Quits on her. Deserts her. (Leaving her a hedonistic even if hilarious calendar, no less. Fun joke but morally what the fork.)

    Loving relationships in our modern age have taken a severe hit. One reason may be that we think this is how you should treat someone you love. “Me first” has become the battle cry of the age. 

    No, my friends. Love first. Always.

    I anxiously await Heaven and New Earth. But also I love my wife, family, and friends. If I must stay here to support them, I will. Even if “there and then” is better, it doesn’t matter. I love them. I will remain for them. (I will even eat kale and exercise if it means I get to remain here to support them a little longer than if I only ate bacon and browsed Twitter from bed all day.)

    Beyond that, I will remain because God has me here for a purpose. But since The Good Place did not deal with such topics, resorting instead to vague concepts of “helping people is good, so totally do it” and the like, I will even abandon this particular train of thought for this discussion. Even if it was ONLY my wife, family, and friends, they are worth it. Love is big enough to cause me to keep going for them.

    Yes, Eleanor was noble in letting Chidi go. But Chidi was completely ignoble for going when he knew, without a doubt, she wanted him to remain. That she was not ready.

    I think this may be one reason after thousands of years (or whatever a Bearimy is, they keep it vague on purpose and that is very clever of them) Chidi and Elenor are still calling each other “boyfriend and girlfriend.” They REFUSE to commit. Why? Because a husband does not walk out on the wife he loves and we know it. We all know it. Deep inside we know that is not what a husband is meant to do. That would make Chidi a horrific husband. But walk out on a girlfriend? Eh. Sure. Not great, but okay. The world says that’s not so serious. Walk away, dude, no one will care.

    Sorry, Good Place writers, I care. I care deeply.

Why?

    Here is where we get to the meat of it. WHY do I care? (Especially as a number of people point out to me “it’s just a TV show.”)

    I care because I have SEEN what real love brings with it. Bliss. Not hedonistic happiness, but JOY. Ecstasy beyond frivolous ideas like orgasms. Delight beyond mere milkshakes and talking pandas. Glory. Perfection. Eternal Good with no end.

    It is better, and it is worth striving for.

    What happens when we accept and perpetuate ideas like “It is totally fine to abandon people you love as long as it is in your own best interest” is that it degradates our concept of love itself. Love becomes lesser and watered down. This is the same with divorce. Divorce is never easy. Sometimes it is necessary. But it SHOULD never be easy. And honestly? It SHOULD never be necessary. It’s because of our sin that the necessity arises. Here we see the problem not with eternity, but with eternity WITH sin still permitted. Yes, eternity breaks when we are simply “us” but “forever.” (Even if it is slightly-better-than-on-earth “us.”)

    Going back to the idea of love, when we chip away at love and redefine it to mean something lesser we open the doors wide for awful things like what Chidi did and what Jason did. Selfish things. And newsflash, for anyone who didn’t already know, WE WANT TO BE SELFISH. It is in us. We desire to look out for number one, and always have number one be us. This is why the great command is “Love God, and Love your neighbor as yourself.” Because we already know how to love ourselves. Loving ourselves is “I don’t feel like being here in paradise with you anymore, bye.” We are called to do better than that.

    Real love is epic, you guys. Real love is flippin ridiculously good. It redefines GOOD itself. We shouldn’t settle for the “this is nice” false love that is tossed around these days as if that is the bar. That is a garbage bar! Raise that puppy to where it belongs!

    When you experience the utter glory of God and his love, it changes everything. The cheap love the world peddles becomes laughable. But not just laughable: sad. After I watched the finale and read review after review online where people heralded this idea of “eternity would be boring without death” I cried. I laid on the floor and cried for a world that doesn’t know God. That thinks this is all there is, or that boredom could ever come about from true paradise. Forgive me, but what shallow thinking that is! What despair, without even knowing it.

    Alas, this is what people are taught. Let us never forget that Story does not just entertain us, it teaches us. It molds us. This is, sadly, the emptiness The Good Place ends up teaching as its last lesson. “Do good, because it’s good (don’t ask why), but then abandon doing good if it means you get what you want.” Hedonistic Nihilism is the conclusion they offer, spit-shined so you don’t think too hard about it or feel too bad. Yes, feel a little bad, they want you to do that. But not bad enough to really think about how the hope and golden particles of light in a peaceful forest are a trick to shy away from ultimate meaninglessness and selfishness behind it.

    This is the final moral of the show, and it is desperately sad. This is the emptiness of Philosophy without God. And when it is sugar-coated like they sugar-coated it, it is a cyanide pill that tastes great and goes down smooth. 

    You know, until it kills you.

[kopykunoichi]

The Legacy of Star Wars: An Open Letter to the Writers and Creators of A Galaxy Far, Far Away

“Suddenly the Rebellion is real for you. Some of us live it. I’ve been in this fight since I was six years old!” ~ Cassian Andor

I saw a great meme once that played off that quote, meant to depict an older fan describing to a newer fan how they had been invested in the story of Star Wars from childhood. I could relate. Though I am not old enough to have seen the original Star Wars movies in theater, they were a significant part of my childhood. I remember renting the original theatrical VHS from our local video store all the time when I was little. Then we bought the digitally remastered Special Edition VHS Box Set and I spent the next decade wearing them out! We would have popcorn and Star Wars marathons all the time. My friends and I would always pretend we were in the story. My swingset was the Millennium Falcon. I was that 11-year-old girl who would argue with my friends over who was hotter - Luke or Han. (The correct answer is Han, of course!) My mother would read the Expanded Universe novels to me in the afternoons and we would talk about the characters. All my spending money went to Jedi Apprentice books and 6 inch action figures. In short, I loved Star Wars. 

I was 13 when The Phantom Menace hit theaters, and I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to get to see new stories from my favorite fictional universe play out on the big screen. Though I struggled a bit with some of the acting, the story was absolutely amazing to me. Star Wars felt all the more real to me with the amazing graphics and intense action sequences - not to mention the layers of politics and the complexity of the story. I watched Revenge of the Sith several times in theaters, and though it broke my heart to see Anakin’s fall, I never considered it to be a sad ending overall, when taken as a whole with the original trilogy. 

When the Clone Wars aired in 2008, I was ecstatic. Here was an Anakin I could actually get into (sorry, Hayden). I loved him. I adored Ahsoka. I wanted to marry Rex. The character development and the plot deepened my attachment to that era, and made me question everything I had previously taken for granted as good and bad. The whole system was flawed - the Republic and the Jedi. It wasn’t just a matter of mistakes being made and the wool being pulled over their eyes, there was deep rooted corruption in the side that I once felt was “good”. The light side and the dark side were not as black and white as I thought. I found myself strongly disliking some of the “good guys” and deeply sympathizing with some downright detestable people (I don’t know how you got me to care for Maul, Filoni - but well done). While the series had not yet ended, we knew where it was going. But still, we had already lived through the pain of Order 66, and we knew that the story would eventually culminate in a victory at the end of Return of the Jedi.

I couldn’t believe our luck when the first installment of the sequel trilogy hit the theaters in 2015. It had some of the feelings of a reboot, but I was beyond thrilled to have a series of Star Wars movies that I could now share with my children, as my parents had shared them with me. Though it was hard to say goodbye to the first love of my life, Han Solo - I just knew that Ben would be redeemed and Han’s sacrifice would be worth it...

2016 brought us Rogue One. We knew how that one was going to end too, but we still ate it up. I fell in love with a whole new set of characters, only to see each and every one of them die in the end. Talk about tragedy. But Leia’s line about hope reminded us that five minutes later, a whiny little farm boy was about to have his whole life upended in the best sort of way...so it was okay. Sort of.

Four years of Rebels ended in 2018, and it was so, so lovely - but it hurt so, so much. My perfect, beautiful space family had been torn apart with Kanan’s death. Ezra was missing. Rex was a 29-year-old man who should have been in his prime, but was instead struggling with the wear and tear of a 60-year-old body. Ahsoka was separated from him - AGAIN - and then she left with Sabine to look for Ezra. The ending still held the promise of the fight to come with the Empire, but the majority of our characters were left in a place of grief and brokenness.

2019 brought an end to the sequel trilogy. Once again, we had characters who pulled at our heartstrings, and an interesting struggle between “light” and “dark” that reminded me of the complexities introduced in The Clone Wars. It became more apparent than ever that balance in the Force did not mean the light triumphing over the dark, but instead a harmony between the two. At least, that’s what I thought. Until I watched every person I loved from the original trilogy die, Palpatine come back (and die) again, and the same exact ending of Return of the Jedi played out before me - except not as happy. Why? Because Anakin’s legacy had been reduced to ashes - his rise, fall, redemption, and sacrifice rendered null and void. The last Skywalker was redeemed and promptly killed, just like his grandfather. But because Rey Palpatine decided that she identified as Rey Skywalker, it was supposed to be okay. She then went to go hang out (or live?) alone on Tatooine because that’s where it all started. I was dumbfounded. This was the satisfying, hopeful, ending we were promised? How? 

Believe it or not, I’m not here to trash the sequels - I enjoyed them very much - right up until the last 20 minutes. But in that space of time, the entire legacy of the Skywalker family went up in smoke, and the legacy of Star Wars along with it. Since Return of the Jedi, there have been no happy endings to a Star Wars movie trilogy or TV show. And with the ending of The Rise of Skywalker, that one happy ending we did have was ripped from us as well. Star Wars is now a never ending series of tragic endings. The lessons we are left with: Don’t fall in love in Star Wars, it will end badly. Your actions ultimately result in failure. As soon as you turn good, you die. There is no balance in the Force, just a pendulum swinging back and forth for all time. 

Then The Clone Wars finally got her last season. I didn’t think Order 66 could have hurt worse, but Filoni set out to prove us all wrong...and succeeded. I’m still not over it. And once more, the bitterness I felt over the ending to the sequels (which had begun to subside) flared up all over again. What was it all for? All that pain. All that sacrifice. No happy endings. 

I still love Star Wars. Nothing can take that away from me. No amount of bad writing can change that. And there are still plenty of good writers and creators working on Star Wars content. But good writers spinning tales of tragedy and endless pain negates the power of good writing. The Star Wars of my childhood is not the Star Wars of today. We wore out those VHS tapes because we loved the stories and the people. But my kids are not going to wear out DVDs where everyone they love dies or ends up alone. They aren’t going to queue up those digital movies and series over and over - because who wants to subject themselves to that kind of torture?

Just about the only safe space for Star Wars fans right now is fanfiction archives where the people who love the characters are busy writing fix-it fics to squeeze some sort of satisfying ending out of the canon content. The Mandalorian is literally our last hope for a Star Wars story that has the potential to end well. I swear, if Din Djarin ends up dead or alone at the end of this series, I’m going to lose it. The overwhelming sentiment of the Star Wars fanbase - from original trilogy fanboys to Tumblr blogging Reylos, and everyone in between - is that of dissatisfaction with canon content (with the exception of The Mandalorian). So much so, that many fans are just saying “screw it” and churning out a myriad of fanfiction AUs because there is no way to salvage what has been written. Half of Tumblr is in therapy after The Rise of Skywalker ending and the last episode of Clone Wars - but they weren’t exactly stable to begin with. The other forums and social media platforms are not much better, though.

It’s not just about the quality of writing - because Filoni and co. have done exceptional work with The Clone Wars, Rebels, and The Mandalorian. It’s the tragedy, guys. We can’t take it anymore. Is this really what we want the Star Wars legacy to be? Sadness? Despair? It’s a story about war - people are going to die. I get that. Victory comes at a price, but the cost can’t be worse than the victory. I want to sit down with my kids and watch Star Wars over and over again. The Mandalorian has given us a taste of that - but I’m almost afraid of where it will go. We’ve been burned so many times, I’m beginning to know what Anakin felt like on Mustafar - writhing in agony and screaming “I hate you” to someone he once loved. 

I remember happier days when Luke and Leia and Han were laughing and smiling with their friends while Yoda, Obi-Wan, and Anakin looked on. I want that back. Filoni. Favreau. Creators. Writers. Producers. Directors. You are our only hope for canon content. Use The Mandalorian wisely. Use Din’s story to bless other characters. Here’s some ideas:

Let Din have a happy ending! Preferably with someone he loves and respects at his side (like Cara). 

Let Cara become a Mandalorian - and put Paz Vizsla in charge of her training (we need to see them spar).

Let what’s left of the Tribe establish a new Mandalorian colony - and let Sabine Wren lead it. And give her that Darksaber back - she earned it. 

Let Ezra come back from regions unknown with a deeper understanding of the Force, and have him train the child in the new colony. 

Forget the Jedi and Sith, let’s start a medical training center/hospital run by Force users who can help heal people when modern medicine fails! 

Ahsoka can use her talents for that too. 

Find the rest of the child’s race and bring any of their Force sensitives onboard. 

Let Boba Fett and Din have their epic showdown, but then use a sample of Boba’s unaltered DNA and some mystical Force healing to restore Rex’s body to what a 43-year-old should be (and then he can marry Ahsoka so we can have the Clone/Jedi couple we always wanted...thanks to you, Filoni).

Let the Mandalorians partner with the New Republic in the Outer Rim as law enforcement instead of bounty hunters, so they can get their reputation back. 

They can train new recruits and pilots, just like Fenn Rau trained clones. 

Let them keep their autonomy and traditions, while helping keep the New Republic honest.

Let them be a force for good in the galaxy, for once. 

The Mandalorian could serve as the vessel to give a lot of characters with unresolved or tragic storylines some closure and better endings. If not The Mandalorian, then other new shows. My 6-year-old daughter wants nothing more than to be Ahsoka Tano. My 3-year-old son asks me to watch The Mandalorian every day. My 18-month-old daughter walks around in her brother’s Mandalorian helmet babbling “Way”. Please let me share the Star Wars legacy that I grew up loving with them. Let me show them the happy endings I enjoyed. Let me show them that even in the midst of conflict, not every life has to be ruined. Let me show them a Star Wars story with a satisfying ending. Hope. Redemption. Love. That’s what Star Wars means to me. 

May the Force be With You (and your pens),

Rebekah, A Star Wars Fan

[zerochanges]

Valentine’s Chocolates and Glass Masks

The romance genre in anime is a little weird, and honestly on the whole the majority of the genre in anime is probably a bit too slow for its own good. “Will they or won’t they” is something most romantic fiction is guilty of, but I think you’d be hard press to come across 150 episode TV series dedicated solely to that premise anywhere else. And this has nothing on the pure silliness that can come with the genre; hand holding, indirect kisses, masked secret admirers, all that good stuff. Really, I’m not here to trash talk romantic anime though, but as I sat down and tried to think about writing a Valentine's Day blog post I just couldn't help but think to myself how romance anime might be the hardest to explain to anyone not in the fandom. I mean, I think I’d have an easier time explaining the plot of any given saga in DBZ than I would explaining “Notice me, senpai” to somebody.

You know what though, I kind of ironically enjoy all of this. Yeah, pure romance anime can be cheesy, but it’s just the right amount cheese that it’s like, c’mon, how can you not enjoy this? Perhaps the worst (or best!) offender of this are older shoujo titles where they can seem almost downright like a soap opera at times. Shows like these are just so full of bizarre, off-the-walls, and over-the-top melodrama that they manage to suck me completely in. They’re heartbreaking, they’re engaging, and the times when they fail at being those things they are hilarious. 

My most recent experience with an older shoujo title like this would have to be studio Eiken’s 1984 adaptation of Glass Mask. Now Glass Mask (or Glass no Kamen as it is known by some) is a manga that started life in 1976 and to this day has yet to be finished, with the manga creator Suzue Miuchi stating she would like to finish it soon, but hasn't quite figured out when that will be (move over Hunter x Hunter fans). Having been one of the earlier shoujo titles starting back in the mid-70’s the series is full to the brim with pretty much every cliche and trope you can think of for shoujo anime, and to a modern audience it can often be almost hilarious at times to sit through. It is important to remember that for its time Glass Mask was a trend-setter and arguably if not the creator than certainly the reason why a lot of these cliches became cliches in the first place. Over the years Glass Mask has received its fair share of adaptations and even parodies, and currently has 3 different animes as well as a live action drama series and real life stage plays based on it. I heard the most recent anime, the 2005 TMS adaptation of Glass Mask, does a pretty great job at modernizing several aspects of the series, but unfortunately I have yet to watch that to weigh in so all I can say is that I was inundated with more cliches than I could count and laughed a ton while watching the 1984 series and I loved every minute of it. 

Glass Mask is the story of a young 13 year old girl Maya Kitajima, who has a dream to be a great theatre actress. Unfortunately for Maya she’s from a very poor family, and even more unfortunately for her, she is incredibly average looking with no flair--and don’t worry, the anime will remind you of that fact countless times every episode. Despite her damnable curse of “just looking kind of average” Maya will stop at nothing to pursue her dream and eventually runs away from home after getting a scholarship for an acting school. There, the enigmatic Chigusa Tsukikage notices Maya’s talents and takes her on as her protege. Soon, Maya learns that her mentor Tsukikage was once a legendary actress thought to be truly one of the all time greats who due to a tragic Phantom of the Opera style accident had her face hideously scarred and retreated out of the spotlight. 

Tsukikage is looking to pass on her talents to the future generation and eventually pass on her greatest possession, the rights to the elusive Crimson Goddess play--a supposed legendary masterpiece that has not been seen by anyone in decades; not since Tsukikage’s career ruining accident. For some reason the director and creator of the the Crimson Goddess play saw it fit to beseech all the rights to his masterpiece to Tsukikage and thus nobody else has been able to produce this elusive phantom play since. It won’t be easy for Maya and the Tsukikage acting school, as media conglomerate and mega corporation Daito Entertainment will stop at nothing to get the rights to the Crimson Goddess, and isn't afraid to sabotage them at every step of the way. Perhaps Maya’s greatest rival however is the young Ayumi Himekawa, the daughter of an already famous actress who is said to be the favorite to inherit the Crimson Goddess role, and is everything Maya isn't; beautiful, rich, famous and well loved by all, and while not a student of Tsukikage she is more than willing to pass on the rights to Himekawa if Maya fails to prove herself.

It’s easy to already see the cheesiness just from me trying my best to summarize the basic plot, and we haven’t even gotten into the romances yet. Maya’s relationship with the young Yu Sakurakoji is fairly simple at first, as he helped rescue her from a feral dog and despite being in rival acting schools--one affiliated under Daito no less, he’s a pretty chill guy that enjoys spending time with her and doesn't care about all that stuff. It’s only after Maya starts to take off in her career that Sakurakoji starts to spiral into this insane inferiority complex centered around her, where he thinks she has become too good an actress for him to be around anymore and starts to give her the cold shoulder all because of his own make-believe shortcomings. It’s very odd and sudden, and the entire thing is blown out of proportions as Maya clearly does not think that and Sakurakoji eventually has to be lectured by bad boy Masumi of all people to come around and start spending time with Maya again. Even after this however it isn't like the old days anymore and the gap that was created from his own complex still lingers.

And oh boy, don’t get me started on Masumi, he’s quite the character. Masumi Hayami is the 24 year old son of the president of Daito Entertainment and is currently running the corporation in his father’s stead. Masumi serves as both an antagonist and love interest (because of course he can be both) in the early parts of the story and is often behind some (but not all) the sabotage done to Tsukikage’s acting school. Masumi will eventually take a more reasonable approach when it comes to trying to yank the rights of the Crimson Goddess away from Tsukikage’s hands as the anime progresses, often just by having his acting school beating Tsukikage’s students in contest and the like, and it’s here where we usually see Masumi’s employees that work under him being the more underhanded characters instead of Masumi directly engaging in the conflict.

Despite being on different sides, so to speak, Masumi catches one of Maya’s earliest performances, her role as Beth in Little Women, and falls in love with the young girl, impressed by both her potential as an actress and her fortitude for going on with the show despite suffering from a dangerously high fever and immediately being rushed to the doctors after the curtains fall. From this point on her takes the role of “Mr Purple Rose” named for the bouquet of purple roses he sends to her at every show. As her secret admirer and the first fan Maya has ever had he means a lot to her yet as his true identity of Masumi he’s an enemy that Maya cannot stand to breathe the same air as. So in short, Masumi is just your average 24 year old CEO of a mega corporation crushing on a 13 year old girl from a small acting school he is trying to ruin and also her secret admirer. Somehow Masumi is one of the best characters in the series, and is my best boy. Only in shoujo!

So far I've been having some cheap laughs at the expense of the 1984 Glass Mask anime but it’s not all like this. The over-the-top bombardment of old school shoujo cliches and the laughs I got from them may be one of the most memorable component of my viewing but there’s actually a lot more to this anime than that. When you get beyond the silly age gap romances and the flowery melodrama of young teenage love, Glass Mask is a story of artists trying to pursue their passions and dedicating their everything to them. Maya may be cursed to forever be “only average looking” but I really respect her drive to dedicate her entire life to theatre. 

Well, that is to say, the times when she isn't acting like punching bag to the rest of the cast (Glass Mask has a tendency to make Maya into a Cinderella surrounded by tons of wicked stepsisters). When Maya is written not as a Cinderella she’s fiercely determined, and never backs down despite some straight-up abusive behavior she is put through. At times her mentor Tsukikage is absolutely savage, regularly beating Maya and putting her through some training that is definitely highly illegal, at least for today’s standards. For instance she once threw Maya in a shed and locked the door refusing to let her out until she finally understood her character she was assigned. Did I mention it was in the middle of the freezing cold winter and snowing out and Maya only had the clothes on her back for warmth? She was out there for days with no food, water, or even warmth. But don’t worry, she had her script to read and that made it all okay. Like goddamn, somebody call child protective services on this lady.

Speaking about “the art” and everyone’s passions, the more you watch the series the more it becomes obvious that the creator, Suzue Miuchi, really cares for theatre and isn't just using it as a vehicle to propel her own story. There are countless renditions of classic plays shown in Glass Mask, such as the mentioned already Little Women, The Miracle Worker, and Wuthering Heights, just to name a few. Some of these plays are presented without any changes while others may have reinterpretations made to them by the characters who are trying to give their roles a life of their own away from the original source material. Miuchi very much understands theatre and does a great job converting many famous plays into a more compressed and easily digestible form of entertainment that can be viewed on a week by week bases. The analysis characters give about the plays and other characters’ performances, the ways characters interpret their parts, and how the plays that we are privy to see in the series end up all show a deeper understanding of the medium. Watching Glass Mask is almost like taking a beginning course in theatre that covers all the classics, only with way more melodrama and over-the-top romance than you will find in your local theatre group. I hope.

What’s the most impressive however goes beyond just Miuchi’s renditions of other classic works and instead are her own plays that she creates herself. As not only does Glass Mask use pre-existing plays it also has its own original productions that will spring up in-between the real world plays. A lot of these self created plays are very enjoyable too, and some feel way more fleshed out than they have any right to be and you often find yourself regretting that you are only privy to a small part of the performance and not able to just sit there and watch the entire play like the characters in the anime do. Maybe that’s why it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that some of the plays Miuchi has created for her manga have later been adapted into real life plays in Japanese theatres. This is probably the greatest testament to the series’ popularity right there, where its own fictional works are turned real. I can’t think of many examples of something like that happening before.

I’d be remiss not to mention the visual aspect of this series before wrapping up my thoughts on it too. While certainly no powerhouse in animation, Glass Mask 1984 goes for a more picturesque route, and does a great job with tons of beautiful still shots and intricately detailed background images. It’s a humble production but with the right use of lighting a lot of scenes can really shine (pardon the terrible pun it was an accident), especially the night shots which can be pure art. Hang it in a museum, I say. I’m almost surprised we don’t see more “aesthetic” anime blogs mining images from this series. Veteran director Gisaburo Sugii (Dororo, Touch, Osamu Tezuka’s Phoenix) leads the production with skilled marksmanship you would expect from his previous (and future) pedigree, and along with legendary animator the late Shingo Araki (Ashita no Joe, Galaxy Express 999, Saint Seiya) the series has a wonderful 80’s flair to it that just fills any retro anime fan full of nostalgia whether or not they have seen the show before.

Studio Eiken’s 1984 Glass Mask adaptation is a short, briskly paced 22 episode series that is easy on the eyes and not hard at all to still sit through for modern audiences. It’s full of tons of laughs (both ironic and sincere) as well as tons of melodrama and over-the-top romance. Most importantly though, it’s a full of passion; lots and lots of passion. During its short episode count the series watches Maya progress as an actress and grow older, with her finishing middle school and beginning high school while also balancing full time acting jobs on the side. The ending is left open--and let’s face it the manga hasn't even ended some 35 years later still--but there’s enough forward momentum in the series to really feel like your time with the characters wasn't wasted and that they were able to accomplish something--not to mention the ending spot is a pretty decent one leaving the viewer wanting more but enjoying a satisfying conclusion to one of the more interesting story arcs adapted. Overall I think anyone who enjoys cheesy anime romance can sit down with this series and have a fun Valentine’s.

[centuriesofexistence]

I understand your point on support and agree but what has Emily Andras done that was so bad to be deemed unworthy compared? I think she’s done insurmountable good for lgbt tv representation.

Nahhh. This is gonna be long, but… “insurmountable good” my ass.

But first off, I want to point out that I wasn’t *exactly* pitting Emily Andras and Nafessa Williams against each other. It wasn’t an either or. It was more pointing out the discrepancy between the support for a straight white creator who only deals with white ships and says incredibly questionable things about LGBT+ characters, tropes, and even real people, and the support for a black actress portraying a groundbreaking black lesbian lead character. It was a call-out post for fandom, asking people to do better and try to expand their horizons and the people they support, rather than leaving it up to the amorphous and scapegoat idea of “some things are popular and some aren’t, you can’t force people to like something” which only carries so far as an excuse.

At the same time, separate from that issue, Emily Andras is trash and here’s why.

Throwback to the day after Lexa’s death, to the quote most people know about: “I am seriously impressed with #The100’s writers’ lady cojones. And I don’t even watch the show! #Iwillnow”

So after writing on lost girl and writing and filming her entire first season of Wynonna Earp…homegirl is so excited by the courageous use of the BYG trope that she’s gonna start watching *because* Lexa died.

She doubled down on being totally ignorant and insensitive a few weeks later: “Look, this is the absolute truth and people don’t like to hear it, but what the fanbase wants is not always what is best for drama. First of all, I’ll just say that without making apologies. If you are on a show where danger is ever-present, and the stakes have to be that anyone is expendable, sometimes you have to put your money where your mouth is, and I don’t think someone should not be expendable just because they happen to be a girl who likes girls”

There was also the time she ended up on a panel of LGBT+ creators talking about their work…and she was the only straight woman, taking up a space that could have gone to an LGBT+ person.

And since then, she has had various issues on twitter, such as flippantly using the word “queer” despite being straight, misgendering someone and refusing to apologize until dozens of people applied pressure, and dismissing LGBT+ fans’ questions and concerns about rep.

But the worst thing? It’s something I’ve kept to myself for a while, but I really don’t care anymore.

I was one of the original LGBT+ Fans Deserve Better organizers. It was quite a while ago, but back over the late spring/early summer of ‘16 while we were fighting to gain some legitimacy and really help make fandom voice heard following the mass of sapphic characters being killed off in brutal fashion, we actually got some fantastic allies: a couple of queer writers up in Canada reached out to help create the Lexa Pledge. The Lexa Pledge was a promise that creators could make, to treat their LGBT+ characters with the respect they deserved. I won’t get into all of it now, but it was an important, positive, preliminary step toward the positive representation we’re all fighting for. It was created by LGBT+ fans and LGBT+ creators working together, and it gave the LGBT+ Fans Deserve Better movement some real legitimacy. People were listening. The media was listening. The Lexa Pledge was evidence of that.

It was also Emily Andras’s first target when we pissed her off, with LGBTFDB being the other.

During that same time frame, LGBTFDB had a page on our site that listed all of the shitty quotes that showrunners had given during that Bloody Spring of 2016, with all of the lesbian/bi deaths. Emily Andras’s quote, which I mentioned above, was listed on that page. And she hated it.

It was also during this time that Wynonna Earp was running through it’s first season and hadn’t yet been renewed. It was a bubble show, meaning it was at a serious risk of being cancelled, and Emily Andras knew that one major factor that could decide its fate was the strength of her gay fandom. But the fact that she’d outed herself as a dumb straight woman and said those things about BYG and LGBT+ rep, was really hurting the size of her gay fandom. She didn’t like that we had that quote up and we were actively calling out creators who said harmful things…so she retaliated against LGBT+ FDB.

She applied pressure to the LGBT+ creators up in Canada who had helped us with the Lexa Pledge. Emily Andras has quite a bit of weight in the Canadian TV world. The writers who had helped us asked us to take the quote down at her request, and we refused, because we weren’t going to play favorites when it comes to shitty rep. When we refused, the writers told us they had been put in a very difficult position, under pressure from Emily Andras, and that if we didn’t take the quotes down, the Lexa Pledge would be withdrawn and they would no longer be able to work in tandem with LGBT+ Fans Deserve Better.

In retaliation for us standing our ground and refusing to be bullied or cajoled into protecting certain creators, Emily Andras attempted to torpedo the Lexa Pledge and derail the entire movement by applying pressure to the queer writers who had reached out to us. It would have delegitimized the movement, it would have hamstrung our attempts for better rep, it would have severed the connection between queer writers and queer fans…but that didn’t matter. We were making her look bad and she didn’t like it.

I remember sitting in my car and typing out a long, desperate email to the LGBT+ writers who had helped us, explaining the need for their support and how much hope they had given a community who had previously believed they had no voice in the media. The writers were in an understandably difficult position: under pressure from a powerful producer desperate to look good in the eyes of LGBT+ fans, or beholden to the promises and responsibilities they’d made to a bunch of queer fans. Ultimately, we managed to convince the writers to leave the Pledge with us, but the pledge and our work with them never advanced much further.

Obviously, it was not the end all be all solution to our rep issues, but I will absolutely never forgive Emily Andras for her bullshit studio politics game and her completely callous lack of compassion or care for a bunch of LGBT+ fans trying to make a change in the media. She only cares about herself; her “care” for the LGBT+ community extends only as far as they benefit her. She’s trash and I’ll never support her or anything she does.

[coughsyrupcowboy]

Ok let me just explain something. Nobody is upset that Adam is dead and that someones ship didnt become canon. You guys are really simplifying it and not listening to the actual complaints and have your rose tinted glasses on. Yes this is a story of war, people die, ect ect. But that's not the issue, it's much deeper and more insulting than a character dying.

So a few months ago, the voltron crew were like hyping up so much for the new season and its representation. They said shire was gay and had an defiance that we'd meet. And u know if a content creator says shit like they usually explore it.

Cut to when the new season is released. Adam and Shiro have one(1) conversation and they're having an argument. Here's where that is a bad idea from a writing standing point: this has no emotional effect on anyone. Like, first of all it's not even subtexted. They're stiff and mad and just look like roommates. We never see adam before this scene. We have no idea what their relationship was like before. And the general message there, accidental or not, is that gay people cant be happy with their partner. They always butt heads. But I guess they cant give off that message because they're too fucking cowardly to make them even touch each other or look at each other, let alone explicitly state they're gay.

I'm not sayi g u cant be gay without a partner. God, that is not what anyone is saying. I'm saying they're doing shiro dirty and never fucking stated that ANYONE IS QUEER. (This includes pidge, because her gender arc thing was a huge ass cop out. They could have explored maybe a trans man pidge, a trans girl pidge, nonbinary pidge or genderfluid pidge. But no they pulled a classic shes the man and made her a trans coded cis girl.)

The fans arent mad at adam dying. Look if adam had more lines, an actual relationship with shiro on screen, and his death served for some sort of plot or character development, I can guarantee u no one would be as absolutely livid as we are now. He gets two scenes and hes a bitch in the first and dies in the next. The shiro doesnt even liek bat an eye. He monotony says adam at his grave thingy and is on his way like he didnt just lose the man he was gonna marry.

Yes people die in a war. Yes things dont always work out for everyone. People die, people drift apart, some people arent good for each other blah blah blah. But here's the thing, the crew that worked on this show are basically the all seeing gods of this universe ok. They have the power to pick a character off and give that characters death meaning. But here they didnt choose a character to die. They MADE a character only for him to die and they decided the character that was born to die has to be a gay man. They had two gay men and they thought the best course of action after hyping the shit out of their show and clearly pandering to the lgbt youths desperately starving for any kind of positive representation.

Then only to get a slap in the face after getting THAT NONSENSE. yes people die in a war, but they had the power to pick and choose who dies in said war.

If you're cis het, I doubt this hurts as much as it does to the lgbt fans. When I was growing up, lesbian was a bad word. I thought if you said lesbian you would go to hell. On TV everyone was straight and normal, but the gays got made fun off all the time. They were the butt of jokes, used to make a point on how weird and disgusting they are. Very rarely were there gay movies or gay characters in a movie that didnt end up dying from aids, being killed for being gay, separating from their lover cuz being gay "sucks", or realizing they were gay only for it to be a phase. And as a child this sends me the message that if you are gay, you are disgusting and will never be happy. Straight people love getting off on gay misery and thinking that counts as representation. They get brownie points for killing off their gay characters.

But you know what these movies surprisingly do better than voltron did. They actually give their gay characters fucking personality and lines. Sometimes if a Straight is feeling first theylly actually use the word gay! But what voltron did was absolutely unacceptable. I'm not defending the fucking homophobic movies. I'm sayi g the bar is so so so so low that its hitting the ground and DreamWorks thought "hey if I take this jackhammer and make the worst fucking rep that anyone has seen in a while, fhats still representation and the gays will love it!"

I'm not even a goddamn fan of the show and I'm upset. My boyfriend had me marathon with him and we were both so ficking pissed.

AND ANOTHER THING!!! some of yall dont know what queerbating actually is??? Yall seem to think queer baiting is teasing your ship and not instantly becoming canon??? No it's the advertisement team looking at the scraps that lgbt get in regards to media and shoving a huuuuuuge Turkey leg in their face and then proceeding to throw it in the trash. What I mean by this is that when an advertisement team and production team realizes that a lot of queer teens are their main audience, they'll try to like "introduce" gay shit. Sometimes you get sexy lesbians only there for men to leer at. Sometimes it's two very visibly gay coded men who are bffs and then the writers give both girlfriends. And sometimes its telling fans that u have representation only to take it away immediately.

No one's upset about one person dying. No one's upset about a gay person dying. No one's upset that their ship isnt canon. No one's upset that this isnt a show for romance. No one's upset that we didnt "get the queer content we wanted."

We're upset that we didnt get ANY queer representation. We are livid that we only know shiro is gay from word of god and that people who dont have that context wont know that they were a gay couple. I'm mad that they took the only other gay man in the whole entire series, refused to even say anything obviously gay and or romantic and then killed off adam and called that diversity.

The crew seems to think gay people are just bitter or have no personality outside being gay. Once you show me a stable,happy, more than two lines obviously and proudly queer character then I'll shut up.(again if u mention pidge, fuck off)

And to the people sayi g were acting like shiro died, well here's the thing they've killed this motherfucker like 4 times and if that doesnt speak volumes of how much they enjoy making Gay characters suffer idk how to help you. ALSO DONT ACT LIKE SHIRO IS EXPLICITLY GAY BECAUSE HE IS NOT EVEN SUBTEXT GAY OR QUEERCODED SO SHUT UP AMD LISTEN TO THE LGBT PEOPLE WHEN THEYRE MAD.

[jose-carioca]

hmmm I’m going to post a big ramble about my feelings about the reveal of the new show coming in 2019, I’m going to say a lot of negative stuff so if you ain’t into negativity then don’t read it!

Sorry for the salt like normally I NEVER try to be salty on this blog but hoo boy. I want to kind of let people know how I feel about this one.

(quick clarification that i don’t mind when fans don’t know the José Facts, how can they know, esp when Disney Themselves does it wrong in canon. I am mostly angry at Disney not the fans)

ok so like I am actually not anywhere near excited for the new show featuring my boy and like right now I am just dreading it. Until I see a trailer or something that can calm some of my worries, I am not happy about this. I am Worried, and I have NOT been a fan of José‘s cartoon appearances for decades, and it’s weird and alienating to watch people be excited and feel I’m the only one filled with dread so I’m going to do a big rant about my concerns and my feelings. I am just hoping things go better than I expect to. It’s more useful for me to be negative, cynical and assume the worst and to be pleasantly surprised then it is for me to get excited and be crushingly disappointed.

José and Panchito are important, and they represent cultures, and when Disney gets them wrong it stings!!!! And Disney has gotten them wrong before!

The Number One first test of if I view this show as being worth my time even a little bit is simply José pronouncing his own name right. If I saw a clip of José saying his own name, saying it the Brazilian way and NOT the Spanish way, then I would be feeling good. The fact José keeps saying his own name wrong is just. SO DISRESPECTFUL. Disney Doesn’t Know the FIRST and the most BASIC thing about this character, it’s awful. I have NEVER seen anything like this happen to another character. It is just SO disrespectful, SO awful they don’t even know his NAME.

When you watch the movies, when you watch any of the really old material and José has his old voice actor, you FEEL the respect of the culture, you feel that Brazillians  worked on these things, you know it’s right!! In newer stuff, the United States of America completely LOST that respect, they make José pronounce his own name wrong!! Holy crap!!

If the new show has that cultural respect then it will be good. If the show does not have that cultural respect, then I am going to be angry.

I have NEVER seen a fan of these characters from the United States be worked up about these cultural things like me. They’re happy to take any appearance they can get. The only people who get pissed off and angry about José being wrong, saying his own name WRONG, are people from Brazil. And like One close friend I talk to on tumblr. No one else cares. The USA doesn’t care!!!

Like I actually avoid 3 Caballeros fandom because of this (and some other stuff) Where is the unending anger? Where is the worry that the cultures will be properly respected? Disney consistently trashes culture. They do it all the time. Disney takes culture, chews it and spits it out into something wrong. They don’t make stuff with the intent to be respectful a lot of the time, it’s made to be consumed by people who love in the USA.

AND I WANT TO BE CLEAR. José is my main concern absolutely but I am also Very Worried about Panchito. One cool thing José doesn’t need to deal with is like.. People in the USA are so culturally ignorant. They don’t know anything about Brazil and so José can’t be stereotyped. But Panchito? Oh Boy. The USA has a LOT of Mexican stereotypes. There are some times where Panchito is portrayed in a way that starts to activate my Flight Response.

Like I basically defer to my Mexican girlfriend to these things. If she feels like Panchito is a great representation of her culture then it’s good. But if Panchito makes her uncomfortable then. Bad.

I would love José and Panchito to have voice actors from their countries but I absolutely do not expect that to happen. If they had voice actors from their countries that would soothe a lot of my worries. I would know people from those cultures are there, working on the show.

Like the old movies are so respectful to the cultures, you can tell people from the cultures are working on it, you can tell everyone working there researched Brazil and Mexico and they’re trying hard to do it justice, it is beautiful, hardly ANY modern movies in this current day and age have that love and respect when they are talking about another culture.

I’m not even worried about Brazil and Mexico only. If this is a Travel Adventure Show then there can be TONS of cultures who are just portrayed wrong. Not even the depth and the love they deserve. Stereotyped Ignorant United States Garbage cultures. Made to be consumed, not loved. Plenty of Travel Adventure Shows are just a disaster at showing real love and respect to the cultures they’re using. Some Travel Adventure Shows do a GREAT job.

BREATHES

I’m going to say some positive things now!!!

Those little Mickey Mous.e shorts are my favorite animated appearance of José other than the old 1940s stuff. He has a Brazilian voice actor. There is love and respect for his culture present. There’s a shout-out to the Brazilian interpretation of him. One of his nephews appeared in the short. (I sure hope they were aware of and giving a shout-out to Zeca and Zico and that it wasn’t just a coincidence lol) That gives me hope. Disney CAN do this. They HAVE given Joe a voice-actor from Brazil before. They HAVE shown glimpses of his culture in a beautiful and vibrant way.

If this new show FEELS like that good old movie, then it’s going to feel good!!!

Things that would make me lose my mind and adore this show include:

all three boys being like way too touchy-feely with each other, lots of physical affection and love present. LIKE THE MOVIE. I know we ain’t getting kisses in this day and age because “ew gay” and Disney is so not anywhere near making characters look gay because Fuck Disney, but IMAGINE IF THEY DID. IMAGINE. WOULDN’T IT BE BEAUTIFUL.

If there is ANY reference of the Brazilian comics with José I will Lose it. I will Lose My Mind, My Soul Will Explode, I Will Be Able to Die Happy. It can be really small. José says ONE OF HIS BRAZILIAN FRIEND’S NAMES... José has a picture of someone in his wallet! He mentions his nephews in passing! If Nestor, Rosina, Zeca, Zico, Pedrão or Afonsinho had an animated appearance then that would just be. That would just be great.

No one ever acknowledges José’s Brazilian life. In fact, creators who work with José make a conscious effort to ignore it. Like Rosa said it out-loud he was choosing to disregard José’s Brazilian portrayal. He knew about it and he choose to ignore it. Lots of José’s so-called fans also can be disrespectful to the thousands of comics from José’s home country. Which I don’t get. If you love the character you know he’s Brazilian. You don’t have to totally love what Brazil does to him but doesn’t Brazil have more authority over José than someone from the USA?

Like... Guys. I am not even a fan of the United States’s portrayal of Joe. I hate it. I’m a fan of Brazilian José. And his personality is not a Brazilian invention. Walt did comics of José being an obnoxious little con-artist. But like, the United States started rejecting and hating that part of him. People often prefer this version of José with his character stripped away.

Is this show going to show love and respect for José’s culture? If I got a small snippet of his Brazilian personality, that would be SO HUGE. José being himself, IN THE UNITED STATES, for the first time since the 1940s.

I would Actually Cry.

This show has so much potential to be so good, but it’s also got so much potential to be more of the same. More of José saying his own name wrong. More people in the United States NOT KNOWING anything about the truth of this character.

And like, based on Dis.ney’s current history I totally expected more of the Same

but man it would be so great if José got to come back. The José who shows up in all those other TV shows, saying his own name wrong, he’s wrong, he’s a shell of who he was in the 40s. When people who knew and loved the character and love Brazilian culture worked on him.

Yet I am also fully expecting that when this show comes out, I will hate it and have to edit this blog and make it clear to people this is BRAZILIAN José, not the United States Garbage José.

anyway. Boy. I sure care about a cartoon bird a lot, huh? I am Full of Emotions.

[ichigoreiyo]

Taggy

I was tagged by @varrix, @absolute-eruri-trash and @shippingeruri and I’ll answer all of your questions in this post in the order I mentioned your names.

Thank you for tagging me!

The Rules:

1. Always Post The Rules

2. Answer The Questions Given By The Person Who Tagged You

3. Write 11 Questions Of Your Own*

4. TAG PEOPLE*

*I’m not going to do these.

VARRIX: 

Holy moly @varrix-senpai tagged me, but I’m pretty sure she accidentally misspelled the name of the blog she actually wanted to tag, but I’ll take this opportunity. Lmao. Sorry and thank you, senpai. (At least I can feel fame for some minutes, because it’s like senpai noticed me.)

1. Best day of your life

The best is also one of my worst days: The day a letter from university arrived and it read I got accepted to Art Academy. I was so happy, I was close to tears, because it seemed I was good at something I live for. Art has always been the thing in my life I could die for… I was so happy and excited, my hands were shaking non-stop and I could hear my blood rushing through my veins in my ear.  But no one close to me was happy about the news. Neither my family nor my “friends”. Everyone told me I couldn’t do it, because I’m not good enough to become an artist. I cried the whole night, because my love for art died that night.

Another amazing day was yesterday, when my county’s parliament approved same-sex marriage. My friends and I celebrated that day way too hard and I feel like shit today.

2. Earliest childhood memory

When I was three, my late dog entered my room at night and shat onto my lego bricks because he hated me… No shit!

3. Most stressful experience

See above. And everything related to physical exercise. I’m so lazy, even a sloth is more active than me.

4. Most relatable quote

“Some men just want to watch the world burn.” I’m both, the men and the world and everything just burns and is consumed by those flames of hatred.

5. Scariest movie you’ve seen

I’m a slut for horror, thus I can’t give a proper answer to this question. I’ve seen to many films, I guess. But a film that was really scary, because it showed the reality so brutally was “Earthlings”, but it’s worth the watch.

6. Person/people who restores your faith in humanity

My best friend, who’s always there for me, listens to me and supports me as much as she can, although it has been a very rough time lately and literally everyone who’s trying to make this rotten planet a better place.

7. Something you could literally kill for

Some time ago, I’d answer “art”, but at the moment it’s just “getting healthy”. And Pizza. I love pizza so much.

8. Most beautiful person you’ve ever seen

Does Erwin count…? No. Damn. I dunno. There so many beautiful people out there I’d consider as “beautiful”, regardless on gender, skin colour or age.

9. Any phobias?

Too many to list them. Stupidity is one of them.

10. Place you feel most safe at

My bed. I truly and deeply love my bed. If I could I’d marry it right away.  Maybe I’m object-sexual?

11. Last thing that made you laugh to tears.

Earlier this month, my dog and I walked around a little lake, that was full of algae. The surface was completely covered in a very thick and slimy layer of green algae, which totally looked like a new-mowed meadow. All of a sudden, we could hear a frog croaking in the reeds on the opposite site of said lake and my dog, not the smartest one, went berserk and jumped in front of me, thinking the cover on the lake was some safe lawn. I’ll never forget his panicked face when he realised, he wasn’t landing on grass and I ended up cracking up with laughter after I rescued him…

ABSOLUTE-ERURI-TRASH:

Thank you so much, you cute thing! Have a lovely ghost hug: You can’t feel it, but it’s there!

1. What’s a game you used to love when you were younger?

Err, Super Mario, but I never finished any of the games, because I was just too stupid not to die a million of times.

2. What’s your favourite drink?

Non-alcoholic: Mineral water and cola once in while. Alcoholic: Vodka, Gin and Rum. Gin Tonic is my current fave.

3. Tell me about the best vacation you’ve ever been on / your dream vacation.

I don’t have money nor am I in the mood to think about vacation at the moment, though I want to travel to Australia and Japan within the next three years and hope the trips will meet my expectations.

4. What was your favorite subject at school?

History and psychology.

5. Tell me about your most horrible school teacher.

All most all of my Art and English teachers were horrible. Only one art teacher told me I was good at art and helped me with getting better, the others only told me not to waste my time with trying to draw, because I couldn’t draw for shit. But the English teachers were way worse. I wan’t even able to write down one sentence until I was 16 y/o and attended an English course of a native speaker who taught me how to write and speak within a few days. Lmao.

6. What did you want to be when you were younger?

A forensic doctor. 

7. Did you ever have a “crazy” hair colour?

Nope. I have red hair and I think that’s crazy enough.

8. Do you read fan fiction?

Is water wet? Better ask me if I do anything different.

9. Why did you decide to join Tumblr / to create your first Tumblr account?

Eru/Ri was the reason. I was a fan of S/n/K since late 2009 or early 2010 and shipped the Eru/Ris the moment I saw them. I don’t know, but I clung to the vets so much, because I never liked the kids. But I eventually decided to join after I read Sable’s and Skull9′s Eru/Ri djs in 2016. They kinda motivated me to join and constitute to the fandom.

10. Tell me about one thing that’s on your bucket list.

Scuba diving. I already went sky diving and experienced the feeling of flying through the sky, now I want to learn about the opposite.

11. Do you like horror movies?

s. above. Yes.

SHIPPINGERURI: 

Thank you so much for tagging me and asking these interesting questions, my dear.

1. Your role in school: Are / Were you the class clown? The bully? The loner? The diva? Let us know!

Ohhhh, I started as a loner and ended as a loner, but from the 7th to 10th grade I was like one of the cool kids, because one of the cool ones was sat next to me by the teacher and we got quite close after a few days and remained good friends until the end of school. That “cool kid's” clique was pretty cool, to be honest. Most of them were intelligent, funny and chill, okay, some were shit, but I really enjoyed their company.

Ah, and I can be a diva. If I don’t like something I’m not afraid of speaking up my mind and that causes some problems once in a while.

2. If you could change one thing in your life, what would it be and why? (Can be in the present or something from the past.)

…way too many things. 

3. Which book / movie / tv show / game have you read / watched / played multiple times?

Book: Harry Potter and various books by Stephen King like “IT”. I used to read those books when I was a child and they still give some nostalgic feels. Movie: The Dark Knight and Requiem for a Dream. Two of my fave all time films. TV Show: Mh… No, I’m too lazy to watch shows and I haven’t seen most of the popular shows yet. Game: Pokémon! I’m one of those old uncool farts who still plays Pokémon. 

4. What is the most important thing or person in your life at the moment?

My bestie. She’s the best friend I could imagine and supports me so much. (s. above) 

5. Do you let creators for your fandom(s) know that you appreciate their work? If yes: How? If no: Why?

Yes, I usually comment on their work on twitter. I used to reblog their fan work with my old blog on tumblr, too, but I try to keep this one clean now. Also, I often recommend artworks or fics to my Eru/Ri friends - and believe me, I like lots of works and creators in this fandom.  I also recommend works of people I’m in row with and that’s many blogs. I think it’s important to support each other, regardless on our personal disagreements.

6. Have you ever sent anon hate? If yes: Why?

Nope. (Okay, I recently sent one ask to @erurilicious, but hey, she knew it was me right from the start, because I even told her I was sending an anon ask to her. Lmao. It was just for fun, but I’d never seriously sent one to someone, because I know how shitty I feel when I get one.)

7. Are you happy with your current occupation? If yes: What are you doing? If not: What would you like to do / be instead?

Nope. If I could I’d rather win the lottery than doing anything to earn money.

8. Have you ever created something for your fandom (art / writing / video / etc.) and haven’t published it?

Oh, a lot. Naked Erwins, ugly Erwins, even uglier Levis, fucking Eru/Ris, weird looking Mikes, strange Hanjis,… And the Pornstar!Erwin fic…

9. What’s your attitude towards pineapple on pizza?

There’s nothing wrong with pineapple on pizza. Pizza comes in so different shades of beauty and all of them are tasty. Stop pizza-shaming!

10. What’s your ideal mix of genres for a fanfic?

I don’t care for genres… so… It depends on the plot and setting.

11. What’s your favourite song at the moment?

Call of Silence

Haaaaah, hope you liked my answers to your very interesting questions! 

[barbecuedphoenix]

200 Followers: 11 Things About Me

So I was re-tagged a week ago by @eldarya-scenarios. (I had no idea I tagged you twice, dear. ^_^ Having two aliases is awfully sneaky.) 

If you’re a little curious on who your friendly fan blogger is behind the Leiftan icon and the barrage of text-winks, feel free to read on. Watch out though: it’s a long post like everything else I write... 

And if not, please continue to enjoy this blog’s smart-assery and the text-winks. ;)

1) Why did you name your blog the way you did? ...Because that’s the screen-name I use for my main Eldarya account. I’m not very creative with names. :( Not to mention that it’s probably very politically-incorrect to say ‘Barbecued Phoenix’ in the faery realm. Huang Hua would not be amused. And my blog is guaranteed to be politically-incorrect as far as folklore and faeries are concerned. ;) My screen-name is actually homage to a Neil Gaiman short-story called ‘Sunbird’, which is still one of my favorites from its double serving of dark humor and culinary catastrophes. And it sounds really funny when you say it out-loud (at least that’s my opinion).

2) What was your last meal? *checks bowl next to laptop* Eh… a fruit salad I scraped together from some Rainier cherries and leftover cantaloupe slices. It’s summer here, and I enjoy my fruits. :)

3) Jeans or skirts? …I must have at least nine different pairs of jeans in my closet, half of which I don’t even wear most days. And just one pencil skirt. Because at least once in my life, I’ll need to go to a court room. So there’s your answer. :)  

4) What’s your favourite letter of the alphabet? In the English alphabet, ‘L’ is my favorite. It just rollllls off the tongue so nicely. :) 

5) Favourite fandom/shipping? I’m a mercenary crack-ship writer. Anything goes so long as characters are in-character. ;) *cough* Truthfully, I haven’t shipped anything in a fandom since I was eleven or twelve, and that was waaaay back when the cartoon series Avatar the Last Airbender premiered. I think that experience has inoculated me to serious shipping. So now, while I enjoy seeing a well-developed, well-paced canon romance (because it means the creators have really thought the story through), it’s never a huge concern for me who’s paired up with whom. Romance isn’t actually the selling point for me for a lot of stories; it’s individual character development and plot direction that counts.   And anyway… fan shipping is really a fabrication. With a bit of imagination, effort, and tactical writing, functional relationships can be spun between anything and anyone, and unraveled in the same way. Even when keeping all parties in character. So why blow a gasket over shipping? To each their own dirty little fancies. ;)

As for my fandoms… they’re a patchwork quilt of games, books, movies, TV shows, anime from a lot of different sources, and it changes every year. For the sake of time, I’ll give a rundown of just the fantasy/supernatural genres I’ve been following for a while (translating some of the titles to English when possible):  

Games: the Dragon Age series, Folklore (also called FolksSoul), Uncharted, the Persona series 

Books: Discworld, His Dark Materials, the Dr. Siri Paiboun series, the Temeraire series, The Tiger’s Wife, Brisingamen, pretty much anything done by Neil Gaiman… the list goes on. With a few rare exceptions, I’ve shifted from being a high fantasy lover (those tropes get old after a while) to an acolyte of more low-key genres like magical-realism, fantasy-historical-fiction, and satirical-fantasy.  

TV Shows: Supernatural  

Anime & Cartoons: the Fate series (even though my fanfiction ends up making fun of it 95% of the time, it’s still a really intricate universe), the Avatar series  

Movies: Practically anything done by Studio Ghibli and Tomm Moore, ‘Coraline’, ‘Corpse Bride’, ‘Therapy for a Vampire’, ‘Let the Right One In’, ‘Groundhog Day’, the very first installation of ‘The Hobbit’   

6) What’s your favourite sport? (You don’t necessarily have to play it) Favorite sport I can’t do, but love to watch: Surfing. Forget berserk football matches; give me a crazy Australian riding a tunnel wave any day. :D  Favorite sport I can do: Bicycling. I’m no Tour de France candidate, but my bike regularly takes its share of unreasonable hills and descents in the city where I live. Personally, It’s a great way to get around. ^_^

7) What’s your idea of a perfect day? Getting everything on my list done with minimal coffee and hair-pulling.  -_- Sorry… I’m still listening to the robot half of my brain. Switching over.  Start the day by making a difference and sharing a good time with both the students I see where I work, and the odd friends and colleagues I do have. Attend a really good lecture. Then take a quiet bus ride to the beach or an aquarium, where I can watch all the wildlife shenanigans I want. Tourists included. Cook something awesome for lunch or dinner, and eat it to discover that it’s still more awesome. End the day with a good book, an avalanche of blankets, and a conveniently-rainy night. And maybe a quick Skype/phone call with my dad.  ;( Oh there I go, listening to the sappy half of my brain. Switching over.  

8) What animal do you hate with all your soul? The logical part of my brain tells me I have no cause to loathe any animal for existing. But the cave-woman part of my brain still gets creeped out by a few of them…. Geckos especially. Because the house where I grew up was infested with them (like a typical equatorial house, actually). The geckos could be found on absolutely any flat surface, even the underside of the table and on the ceiling, so we always had to check right before sitting down that something cold, bug-eyed, and squirmy wasn’t going to drop on us in the middle of dinner. And they also liked to appear in other surprising places: like in your shoes (as my father found out one day while rushing to work), inside drawers, inside trash cans, crushed between door hinges, trapped in the kitchen sink, and inside the refrigerator a couple of times (worst idea ever, for a lizard).      One of the best things that happened to me on moving to this corner of the United States: no geckos anywhere. I can clean my apartment with an easy heart. \o/    

9) Can you dance? Besides some lingering muscle memory from my early days doing classical ballet... no. :(  I’d really like to take up Spanish Flamenco though. Generally, I do better with choreographed dances rather than impromptu club-dancing. As all my friends have told me. I’ve given them so many priceless memories on the dance-floor… 

10) What’s the name and age of your favourite character? (OC or otherwise) I can’t decide on a ‘favorite’ character in media; there’s too many of them. So how about a favorite OC instead? ^_^   Right now among the Eldarya OC cast, my favorite would have to be Zephania ‘Zee’ Tantiango because she’s a magnet for trouble as a protagonist very dynamic heroine to work with. (She’s 23, in case you’re interested.) Zee is actually the latest incarnation of the ‘funny-but-unlucky action heroine’ archetype I’ve spent years working on, and I’m happy with how she’s turning out so far. On one hand, she’s the typical small-town heroine who’s sharp, plucky, energetic, and more than a little kooky herself; the story never stops moving once she starts improvising in a tight situation. :) But there’s a strong undercurrent of tragedy in the way she continues to isolate herself through her pride and her decisions, especially because she’s allergic to either admitting that she’s in real trouble, or cutting herself some slack for her mistakes. There’s a lot of sadness behind that finger-snap smile. I’m still debating on whether to give her a good ending, or a bitter one. :(  No, that was not a spoiler for the fan-fiction that’ll one day hit this blog.

11) What got you into your favourite activity?(i.e how did you start?) Favorite activity? Like… a hobby?  Well the longest-running hobby I’ve ever had is writing (no guesses there). And it was more-or-less self-taught. As a kid, nobody could take me anywhere without a book in my hand, or some other adventure happening inside my own head (which made it awfully inconvenient to get my attention in a mall… but hey, I never wandered off). And writing short stories was always the most entertaining school assignment for me.  But it wasn’t until I started home-schooling at thirteen that I found the time and need to write something for myself, putting to paper those increasingly-complex sagas and fan-fictions that lived in my head (because my short-term recall just couldn’t keep track of all the dialogue and plot twists anymore; I needed to start recording my stories to make sense of them.)   And I haven’t stopped since. :)

Uh-oh. Here come… my questions. For @mentacomchocolate, @areyntheheartseeker, and @the-irish-hoor​. 

Why did you name your blogs the way you did? ;)

What would your honest personal reaction be if you accidentally stepped into a fairy ring, landed in a strange place, and got threatened by a fox-lady wielding fireballs?  

What’s your dream job in this life?  

Is there anyone you have a crush on that you’re still really embarrassed to admit? Would you like to mention them anyway? ;)  

If there’s only one book genre you could spend the rest of your life reading, what will it be?  

What are the top 5 things you geek out over? (Today, at least. ;) )

If you’ve been given a 24-hour advance warning that the world is definitely going to end (i.e. via Death Star), what will you do?

And if you’ve been given an exclusive two-person escape pod during above scenario, what/who would you bring with you to escape the planet? Would you want to?

If your friends can agree on one thing about you, what would it be? Do you agree with them? 

What’s the most embarrassing thing that happened to you this past week?  

What do you remember as your most incredible feat of endurance to date? Physical, mental, and/or social?

*looks up* ...All right, those are some weird questions. I won’t blame you at all if you ignore them.