#also I think the adult female characters are all undermined by their sexuality

[vonkarma2]

ultimately my enjoyment is hampered because it is low key sexist bc it takes place in an alternate universe where Sigmund Freud is real. though I did still like it for the most part but I hate Sigmund Freudddd Utena better

[wickwrites]

Wonder Egg Priority Episode 4: Boys’ and Girls’ Suicides Do Mean Different Things (But Not in the Way the Mannequins Want You to Think!)

So, let’s talk about this for a second. After I got over my initial knee-jerk reaction, I realized I wasn’t sure how to make sense of exactly what the mannequins were arguing for here. So let me rephrase their statements to make the argumentative structure more explicit: Because men are goal-oriented and women are not, because women are emotion-oriented and men are not, and because women are impulsive and easily influenced by others’ voices and men are not, boys’ and girls’ suicides mean different things – girls are more easily “tempted” by death, and therefore, more likely to require saving when they inevitably regret their suicide. While Wonder Egg Priority, so far, seems to agree with the vague version of the mannequins’ conclusion, namely that boys’ and girl’s suicides mean different things, it refutes the gender-essentialist logic through which that conclusion was derived.

The mannequins choose a decidedly gender essentialist approach in explaining the difference between girls’ and boy’s suicides; they argue that the suicides are different because of some immutable characteristic of their mental hard wiring (in this case, impulsivity, emotionality, and influenceability). Obviously, this is a load of bull, and Wonder Egg Priority knows it. The mannequins are not exactly characters we’re supposed to trust, seeing that they’re running a business that is literally based on letting these kids put themselves in mortal danger. As faceless adult men, they parrot and possibly represent the systems that force these girls to continue to be subjected to physical and emotional trauma (it’s probably more complicated than this, but four episodes in, it’s hard to say more). So, we’re probably supposed to take what they say with great skepticism. Also, the director, Shin Wakabayashi, has recently said that in response to these lines, Neiru was originally going to object, “When it comes to their brains, boys and girls are also the same,” (which unfortunately is not exactly true and is somewhat of an oversimplification, but the sentiment is there). While that line ultimately did not make it in, Neiru does reply with a confused and somewhat indignant, “What?!”, a reaction that gets the message across.  Neiru is not a fan of gender essentialism, and as a (more) sympathetic character, we’re supposed to agree with her.

That is, the differences between boys and girls is not something inherent to their biology or character, but something constructed by culture and experience. This rejection of gender-essentialism is apparent in Wonder Egg Priority’s narrative, which takes a more sociocultural perspective on the difference between boys’ and girls’ suicides. It says, well of course boys’ and and girl’s suicides don’t mean the same thing, that’s the whole reason why we’re delving into the experiences specific to being a girl (cis or trans) or AFAB in this world – to show you how girls’ suicides are influenced by systems of oppression perpetuated by those in power (ie. the adult, in this specific anime).

And all the suicides we’ve seen up until now tie into that somehow. For instance, Koito is bullied by her female classmates who think that Sawaki is giving her special treatment. This is a narrative that comes up over and over again, in real life as well: that if a young girl is being given attention from an older man, then it’s her fault – that she must want it, or at least enjoy it somehow, and that it signifies a virtue (eg. maturity or beauty) on her part. And if Koito is actually being given such treatment by Sawaki, an adult man in a position of power over her, that is incredibly predatory. 

And we all know that child sexual abuse is something that overwhelmingly affects girls, with one out of nine experiencing it before the age of 18, as opposed to one out of 53 boys (Finkelhor et al., 2014). Regardless of whether Sawaki was actually abusing Koito or if the students only thought that he was, Koito’s trauma is ultimately the result of this romanticized “love between a young girl and adult man, but not because the man is predatory, but because the girl has some enviable virtue that makes her desirable” narrative. Similarly, in episode 2, Minami’s suicide is driven by ideas related to discipline and body image in sports, which while not necessarily specific to female and AFAB athletes, is framed in an AFAB-specific way. For instance, take the pressure on Minami to “maintain her figure”. Certainly, male athletes also face a similar pressure, but we know that AFAB and (cis and trans) female bodies are subject to closer scrutiny and criticism. We know that young girls are more likely to suffer from eating disorders. And Wonder Egg Priority situates Minami’s experience as decidedly “about” AFAB experience when her coach accuses her change of figure due to her period as a character failing on her part.

 Likewise, episode 3 delves into suicides related to “stan” culture, this fervent dedication to celebrities that is overwhelmingly associated to teenage girls. And Miwa’s story, in episode 4, explicitly shows how society responds to sexual assault. When Miwa does have the courage to speak up about her assault, she’s instantly reprimanded by basically everyone around her. Her father is fired because her abuser was an executive of his company. Her mother asks her why she couldn’t just bear with it, telling her that her abuser chose her because she was cute, as if that’s supposed to make her feel better about it. Wonder Egg Priority shows that this sort of abuse is a systemic problem, a set of rules and norms deeply engrained in a society and upheld by all adults, regardless of gender, social status, or closeness (to the victim). Wonder Egg Priority says that, yes, girls’ and boys’ suicides have different meanings, but it’s not due to some inherent difference between the two, but the hostile environment in which these girls grow up. Girls are not more easily “tempted” by death, they just have more societal bullshit to deal with.

But Wonder Egg Priority goes further than just showcasing how girls’ (and AFAB) experiences are shaped by sociocultural factors. The story also disproves the supposedly dichotomous characteristics that the mannequins use to differentiate girls and boys (i.e. influenceability/independence, impulsivity/deliberation, emotion-orientation/goal-orientation). If the mannequins are indeed correct, and that girls are just influenceable, impulsive, and emotional, you’d expect the girls in the story to be to be like such too. Except, they aren’t. Rather, they’re a mix of both/all characteristics. This show says that, certainly, girls can be suggestible, but they’re also capable of thinking for themselves. For instance, when Momoe asserts her own identity as a girl at the end of episode four, she rejects the words of those around her who insisted that she isn’t a girl. If she were as suggestible as the mannequins believe her to be, that would never have happened – she would have just continued believing that she wasn’t girl “enough”. But, she doesn’t because she is equally capable of making her own judgements. Likewise, Wonder Egg Priority shows that girls can be impulsive, but they can also be deliberate and pre-mediating. When Miwa tricks her Wonder Killer into groping her to create an opening for Momoe to defeat it, she’s not doing it out of impulse – it’s a pre-mediated and deliberate choice unto a goal. And Wonder Egg Priority continues, girls can be equally emotion oriented and goal oriented. Sure, the main girls are fighting because they have the goal of bringing their loved ones back to life, but those goals are motivated by a large range of emotions, from guilt to anger, grief, compassion, and love. 

Being emotion-driven doesn’t mean you’re not goal-driven, and vice versa. In fact, in this case, being emotional drives these girls toward their goals. In other words, none of these traits that the mannequins listed are either “girl traits” or “boy traits”. Being one does not mean you can’t be the other, even if they seem dichotomous at first. Wonder Egg Priority’s diverse cast of multi-dimensional female characters allows it to undermine the mannequins’ conceptualization of gendered roles, refuting the idea that these (or any) character traits should be consider gendered at all.

As an underdeveloped side thought, I think Wonder Egg Priority’s blurring of gendered roles is also well-reflected in its style. There’s been a lot of talk about whether Wonder Egg Priority constitutes a magical girl series, and I think that’s an interesting question deserving of its own essay. Certainly, it does follow the basic formula of the magical girl story: a teenage heroine ensemble wielding magical weapons saves the day. But it also throws out a lot of the conventions you’d expect of a magical girl story – both aesthetically and narratively. Aesthetically, it’s probably missing the component that most would consider the thing that makes an anime a magical girl anime: the full body transformation sequence, complete with the sparkles and the costume and all that. Narratively, the girls are also not really magical girl protagonist material – they’ve got a fair share of flaws, have done some pretty awful things (looking at Kawai in particular; I still love you though), and aren’t exactly the endlessly self-sacrificing heroines you’d expect from a typical magical girl story. On the other hand, the anime also borrows a lot from shonen battle anime. We get these dynamic, well choreographed action sequences full of horror and gore, the focus on the importance of camaraderie between allies (or “nakama”, as shonen anime would call it) exemplified through all the bonding between the main girls during their downtime, and in the necessary co-operation to bring down the Wonder Killers. That said, this anime is not a shonen; the characters, types of conflicts, and themes are quite different from those that you’d find in a typical shonen. The bleeding together of the shonen genre and the magical girl genre, at the very least (and I say this because I think it does way more than just that), reflects Wonder Egg Priority’s interest in rebelling against conventional narratives about girlhood and gender.

[muninnhuginn]

I saw your post comparing the finales of odd taxi and wonder egg and i agree the odd taxi finale was TIGHT - i was wondering though if you knew about the production issues on wep and that's why they had that recap episode. the actual actual finale just came out today!

Hey ^^.

Yeah, I'm aware of the production issues on WEP and I've seen the proper finale. Just gonna go through my understanding of them below so sorry if I repeat stuff you're already aware of!

(EDIT: This post got a lot longer than I intended so I put it under a readmore but it basically goes into my opinion on the production stuff as well as how the finale contradicts the groundwork previously laid out)

From what I gather, they've had scheduling issues throughout which led to them having to bring in a lot of foreign animators (I think ANN actually did an interview with some of the translators involved in relaying information between production and the animators - I'll see if I can find that after this). There were also instances where I believe people involved in the production literally ended up in hospital due to overwork.

In terms of the finale episode itself, I think this reddit post gives the gist of the timeline:

(Please keep in mind that though this is an example from just the finale, it happened for several episodes that they only finished with hours to spare - this actually led to the episode being released late on the Eng sub side a couple of times)

I think with WEP, it is going to become difficult to untangle where the issues arise from the production problems and where it's down to the actual writing and directing.

The show definitely started strong and in terms of tackling the really dicey topics it did superbly (I remember my only real issue on that end prior to the finale was the Accas commenting on "male vs female suicides" and iirc that was clarified on Twitter as *not* being the views of the writers - and the Accas acting that way tied in massively with their backstory in the Frill episode and how they clearly don't understand.) The art and animation throughout? Honestly, if I didn't know already about the production issues from outside sources like Twitter I'm not sure I would've been able to tell? Because for the most part it was ridiculously solid (though of course there were still signs - namely the midpoint recap episode and the way they stopped interweaving flower language near the very end and the sheer number of stills they used in ep 13).

Where the finale fell down in my eyes was the very thing that brought me into the series in the first place, aka how it handled the difficult topics. The narrative of the series is fairly strong early on, about how various societal factors contribute towards suicides, especially in young girls. This starts to falter somewhat down the latter end, though my personal opinion is that the Frill stuff doesn't discount the societal factors, but rather the pacing was off with her introduction and so there was no way the Frill and AI angle would have time to be fully explored and resolved within the remaining episodes. Anyway, society and how it impacts on minors with fairly nuanced takes in terms of how adults can take advantage of power dynamics over minors. There’s also the more straightforward character part about how the main four start as outsiders but end up actually becoming proper friends, hanging out outside of the egg quests.

With this in mind, there are some places where the final episode actively went against the previously laid groundwork:

In the Frill ep, we see Himari claiming to Ura-Acca that she’ll be “marriable” when she grows up, with the implication that this is pretty horrifying just hammered in by how she then mimics Frill with the “pop” noise. And then separately from this, we see that Sawaki has painted art of Ai as a grown-up and says “someday you’ll be a wonderful, adult woman like your mother”. Her mother who, I have to point out here, he is dating. There are various other red flags throughout the episodes but I’m just highlighting this one because it’s a parallel within the series itself. In the finale what we get is Sawaki saying that truth behind Koito’s suicide (which he was heavily implicated in) was “Koito tried to put advances on me, yelled rape accusations, then fell off a building”. And that scene ends with alt!Koito saying “Mr Sawaki is kind”. The entire series had been setting up red flags in terms of Sawaki’s relationship with Koito pre-series as well as his behaviour towards Ai and then the resolution is just “Koito was lying about rape threats and Sawaki is innocent”. Like, you can’t even argue this is somehow commentary on how there can be witch hunts when people make false accusations because nothing happened to Sawaki. It’s just plain and simple going against both Sawaki’s suspicious behaviour *and* undermining a lot of the previous points made about sexual harassment by having it be that Koito was lying. (Sidenote: If you *did* want to have something about people lying about sexual harassment without it undermining the rest of the series, you would have put it midway and had counter examples throughout, not put it at the very end so it becomes the final say, so to speak.)

Ura-Acca, Acca, and Frill. I personally think some of this is down to pacing issues which were present earlier than the finale compounded by the overall production issues, but regardless, this entire plotline with Frill and her minions was set up a few episodes prior to the finale. In the finale itself, the only time we even see Frill is in Neiru’s dream where her only role is to reveal that Neiru is an AI (and bring up the potential parallels that could be contained in that only to immediately go “but we don’t have time to unpack that”). The Accas just exist to say to Ai about the eggs, with no mention of the Warriors of Eros or Fear of Death stuff, despite how all four girls managed to achieve their goals. There is just no resolution or even acknowledgement as to this storyline.

This one is more subjective and tied in to how Neiru was handled. A big point which is shown during the series but explicitly laid out in ep 12 is how Ai has friends now and has grown throughout the series. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that people drift and that they no longer have the egg quests tying them together. But at the same time, why make the point near the end when Ai is talking to her alt!self that she has friends and has grown now if you’re then just going to undo that at the final hurdle. (I could go into the Neiru stuff specifically but I think this post has gotten long enough and I’d tangent even further from talking about consistency throughout the series into the general writing of the last episode)

In retrospect, I do think you can tell from episode 12 that it was going to be almost impossible for WEP to stick the landing from the pieces that we had there, but I think it could have been salvageable if they'd just kept their own themes and narrative consistent with the rest of the show.

[song-of-oots]

Fuchsia Groan: my (un)exceptional fave

A while ago a friend of mine was asking for people to name their favourite examples of strong female characters, and my mind immediately leapt to Gormenghast’s Fuchsia Groan because it always does whenever the words “favourite” and “female character” come up in the same sentence. In fact scratch that, if I had to pick only one character to be my official favourite (female or otherwise) it would probably be Fuchsia. There are not sufficient words in the English language to accurately describe how much I love this character.

The issue was that I’m not sure Fuchsia Groan can accurately be described as “strong”, and until my friend asked the question, it hadn’t even occurred to me to analyse her in those terms… 

Actually this isn’t completely true; Mervyn Peake does describe Fuchsia as strong in terms of her physical strength on multiple occasions. But in terms of her mental strength things are less clear cut. She’s certainly not a total pushover, and anyone would probably find it tough-going to cope with the neglect, tragedy and misuse she suffers through. In fact, this is something Mervyn Peake mentions himself – whilst also pointing out that Fuchsia is not the most resilient of people:

“There were many causes [to her depression], any one of which might have been alone sufficient to undermine the will of tougher natures than Fuchsia’s.”

Anyway, this has gotten me thinking about Fuchsia’s other traits and my reasons for loving her, going through a typical sort of list of reasons people often give for holding up a character as someone to admire:

So, is Fuchsia particularly talented?

No.

Is she clever, witty?

She’s definitely not completely stupid, and her insights occasionally take other characters by surprise, but she’s not really that smart either.

Does she have any significant achievements? Overcome great adversity?

Not really, no.

Is she kind?

Yes. Fuchsia is a very loving person and sometimes displays an incredible sensitivity and compassion for others. But… she can also be self-absorbed, highly strung, and does occasionally lash out at other people (especially in her younger years).

So why do I love Fuchsia so much?

Well, I’ll start be reiterating that I don’t really have the vocabulary to adequately put it into words, but I will try to get the gist across. So:

“What Fuchsia wanted from a picture was something unexpected. It was as though she enjoyed the artist telling her something quite fresh and new. Something she had never thought of before.”

This statement summarises not only Fuchsia but also the way I feel about her (and for that matter the Gormenghast novels in general). Fuchsia is something I’ve never really seen before. On the surface, she fits the model of the somewhat spoiled but neglected princess, and yet at the same time she cannot be so neatly pigeon-holed. It’s not just that her situation and the themes of the story make things more complex (though that is a factor); Fuchsia herself is so unique and vividly detailed that she manages to be more than her archetype. She feels like a real person and, like all real people, she is not so easy to label.

Fuchsia is also delightfully strange in a way that feels very authentic to her and the setting in general (which is particularly refreshing because it can all too often feel as though female characters are only allowed to be strange in a kooky, sexy way - yet Fuchsia defies this trend).

She’s a Lady, but she’s not ladylike. She’s messy. She slouches, mooches, stomps and stands in awkward positions. Her drawing technique is “vicious” and “uncompromising”. She chews grass. She removes her shoes “without untying the laces by treading on the heels and then working her foot loose”. She’s multi-faceted and psychologically complex. Intense and self-absorbed, sometimes irrational and ruled by her emotions more than is wise, but also capable of insight and good sense that takes others by surprise. She is extremely loving and affectionate, and yet so tragically lonely. Simultaneously very feminine and also not. Her character development from immature teenager to adult woman is both subtle and believable. She has integrity and decency – she doesn’t need to be super clever or articulate to know how to care for others or stand up for herself.

Fuchsia is honest. She knows her own flaws, but you never catch her trying to put on airs or make herself out to be anything other than what she is. She always expresses her feelings honestly.

She’s not sexualised at all. I don’t mean by this that she has no sexuality – though that’s something Peake only vaguely touches on – but I don’t really feel like I’m looking at a character who was written to pander to the male gaze (though her creator is male, I get the vibe he views her more as a beloved daughter than a sexual object).

Finally, I find her highly relatable. I am different to Fuchsia in many ways, but we do have several things in common that I have never seen so vividly expressed in any other character. This was incredibly important to me when I was a teenager struggling through the worst period of depression I ever experienced – because she was someone who I could relate to and love in a way I was incapable of loving myself. Her ability to be herself meant a lot to me as someone struggling with my own identity and sense of inadequacy. It didn’t cure my depression, but it helped me survive it.

What am I trying to say with all this?

I love Fuchsia on multiple levels. I love her as a person and also as a character and a remarkable piece of writing. I mention some of the mundane details Peake uses to flesh out her character firstly because I enjoy them, but also because it’s part of the point. Her story amazes me because it treats a female character and her psychological and emotional life with an intense amount of interest regardless of any special talents or achievements she happens to exhibit. She doesn’t fit the model of a modern heroine but neither does she need to – she’s still worth spending time with and caring about.*  To me the most important things about Fuchsia are how different and interesting and relatable she is – and how real she feels.

* To be honest, this is part of the point of the Gormenghast novels in general. The story is meant to illustrate the damage that society – and in particular rigid social structures and customs – can do to individuals with its callous indifference to genuine human need. Fuchsia is one of many examples of this throughout the novels. These characters don’t need to be exceptionally heroic in order to matter – they just need to exist as believable people. And despite how strange they all are, they often do manage to be fundamentally relatable.

Why am I talking about female characters in particular here?

The focus on “strong” female characters and the critique against that is pretty widely acknowledged. Growing up, I definitely noticed the lack of female characters in popular media and the ensuing pressure this then places on the ones that do exist to be positive representations of womankind – someone girls can look up to. It’s very understandable that we want to see more examples of admirable female protagonists, given that women were traditionally left to play support roles and tired stereotypes. The problem is that the appetite for more proactive female heroines can sometimes lead to characters who are role models first and realistic human beings second (characters who I mentally refer to as Tick-All-The-Boxes Heroines). It’s not a problem with “strong” proactive heroines per se, but rather lack of variation and genuine psychological depth (not to mention a sometimes too-narrow concept of what it even means to be strong).

Male characters tend not to have this particular problem because they are much better represented across the whole range of roles within a story. You get your fair share of boring worn out archetypes. You get characters who are meant to represent a positive version of heroic masculinity (and now that I come to think of it, having a very narrow and unvarying presentation of what positive masculinity looks like is its own separate problem, but outside the scope of this particular ramble). We don’t usually spend time obsessing over whether a piece of fiction has enough examples of “strong” male characters though, because we’re generally so used to seeing it that we automatically move on into analysing the work and the characters on other terms. And because there are often more male characters than female, they don’t all bear the burden of having to be a positive representative of all men everywhere. They exist to fulfill their roles, and often exhibit more variety, nuance and psychological depth. They are also often allowed to be weird, flawed and unattractive in ways that women usually aren’t (which is a damn shame because I’ve spent my whole life feeling like a weird outsider and yet this perspective is so often told primarily through a male lens).

Tl:dr; Fuchsia Groan is a character who feels like an answer to so many of those frustrations that I felt growing up without even truly understanding why. A large part of why I love her is simply because of how much I relate to her on a personal level. I admire her emotional honesty and her loving nature… But there’s also a part of me that was just so relieved to find a female character who exists outside of the usual formulae we seem to cram women into. She is unique, weird and wonderful (but non-sexualised). Psychologically nuanced and vividly written. She isn’t exceptionally heroic or talented or a high achiever – but she does feel like a real person.

Female characters don’t need to tick all the right boxes in order to be interesting or worth our time any more than the male ones do.

[daikon-in-a-basket]

Missed Opportunity: Yuki Sohma & Queer Representation in Fruits Basket

I typically don't write these kinds of posts, but I gotta say, as much as I've considered myself a pretty devout Fruits Basket fan throughout the years, after rewatching Fruits Basket 2019 S1 + S2 (and re-reading parts of the manga), I've definitely got some things to say about the execution of my boy Yuki's character arc...

This isn't to say I don't adore certain aspects of his arc. On the contrary - Yuki is perhaps one of the most compelling character studys in all of Fruits Basket. The way his story challenges the absurd, archaic notion that "no one will love you unless you love yourself", confirming to the viewer that you often need external affirmation and support to heal from past trauma, is so poignant, especially to those who have suffered with the debilitating lack of self worth that often accompanies PTSD.

In the end, I find my problems lie with some of the opportunities that may have been missed in failing to canonically substantiate the queer coding inherent to Yuki's teenage experience and relationship with Tohru Honda. While I certainly have nothing against the Yuchi ship - in fact, I think his relationship with Machi serves as an opportunity for Yuki to impart the same affirmation, love and compassion Tohru afforded him - having him end up in a heterosexual relationship (of which there is already a needless glut within the Fruits Basket universe) just leaves me feeling bereft and somewhat...shortchanged. It's as if, in this piece of narrative fiction so fixated on conveying the complexities and nuances of human connection, there is a whole swath of relationships deemed tangential to this deep-dive into the human experience. Yes, I acknowledge the existence of fleeting representations of the queer experience, such as Hatsuharu's love for Yuki - however, this is always represented as a character's past state - a secondary setting, not their default. The inevitable, seemingly inescapable curse for all the characters of Fruits Basket is not remaining by Akito's side forever - frankly, it's heteronormativity. Every single character, even those that are heavily queer coded (ex. Ayame, Hatsuharu, Uotani, and yes, our boy Yuki), end up in heterosexual relationships by the end of the manga. Now, it is important to state, emphatically, that this post is not meant to undermine or erase their possible characterization as bi or pansexual - rather, the sheer volume of characters exhibiting this trajectory of inevitable heterosexuality seems to portray the queer experience as ephemeral - incapable of being brought to fruition within this universe.

And Yuki is perhaps one of the most egregious examples of missed opportunity for LGBTQ representation. The whole notion of Yuki subconsciously adhering to heteronormative expectation, initially contextualizing his feelings towards Tohru as romantic, rather than familial, is so emblematic of what many queer people, particularly men, face as teenagers and young adults. Yuki, once aware of the nature of his feelings, admits to feeling somewhat embarrassed by the revelation - a revelation that seems in line with ego-dystonic sexual orientation, wherein the individual's sexual or romantic preferences are dichotomous to the idealized (often heteronormative) image they aspire to. Yuki's queer coded experience is further corroborated by Yuki's discomfort with his position as the subject of romantic fantasy for the vast majority of the female school population.

All this being said, I have no particular stance on who he should have ended up with in the end (though I do feel, narratively, that Kakeru would have been a natural choice - but again, I'm not particularly concerned with the endgame ship). In fact, I feel having him single, with a new, chosen family, that accepts him for who he is, would be equally poignant, given the weight Fruits Basket consistently places on acceptance, it's role in overcoming trauma and, consequently, achieving happiness and fulfillment in life. It also would have been nice to have one character achieve happiness solely through this form of human connection, since I also feel Fruits Basket places far too much emphasis on romantic relationships by the end of the series.

Again, I want to mention that this post isn't meant to throw shade at any specific ships - particularly Yuchi. On the contrary, as mentioned earlier, it's good story telling to have Yuki become an emotional pillar for someone who has also struggled with family trauma. There are also many other endgame heterosexual relationships in the series that make absolute narrative sense (lookin' at you, Kyoru). However, given the sheer volume of characters who showed some degree of queer coding that inevitably ended up in heterosexual relationships, I feel that having Yuki's arc embody the true queer experience, canonically, would have ameliorated this lack of LGBTQ representation, while also working seamlessly with his entire character progression throughout the story.

Then again, I'm an obscure weirdo with like, two reblogs on my Fruits Basket blog, who simply wanted a moment to yell my grievances about a fictional character into the ether, so take all of this with a grain of salt.

Ship your ships, everyone. I just wish Fruits Basket had been a little better about saying #lgbtqrights, especially for my boy Yuki.

[sailormoonandme]

My thoughts regarding the Usagi/Mamoru age gap

I am writing this in response to this thread.

To be clear as crystal here, this is just my take on the situation.

With all that said, for the sake of argument let's say we are in total agreement that in real life a 14 year old middle schooler and a 17 year old college student shouldn't be dating.*

But that is the key phrase here: 'Real life'.

The thing is...there is no end of fairy tales or media aimed at children that at best start to fall apart or at worst become extremely creepy when you apply a realistic lens to it.

That is the joke about the majority of Disney's canon in fact. For instance, Aladdin was 18 whilst Jasmine was 16. I'm British and over here 16 is the legal age of consent for sex but even so I'm at least iffy on a 16 year old dating an 18 year old. And to trade off some of the comments elsewhere in the above linked thread, you could absolutely argue there was a 'mental gap' between Al and Jas given how she was a sheltered and somewhat naive princess who'd never left the palace and he was a streetwise older guy who'd obviously flirted and charmed his way out of trouble before.

But let's consider a different Disney classic, perhaps their most famous movie, the Lion King.

The Lion King is a beloved and rightly iconic movie but if you take it at face value and realistically (albeit ignoring the fact that animals can talk, sing and are capable of human emotions and cultural references) it's guilty of:

Promoting incest because Simba and Nala would have at best been first cousins (Nala being Scar's daughter) at worst brother and sister. Because that is how lions work. Male lions murder the cubs of other males with the possible exceptions of their brother's cubs where they co-rule a pride. Even with the best case scenario, deleted scenes had Scar try to make Nala his queen and those scenes were reinserted for the hit Broadway musical. So either a brother and sister hook up or two first cousins hook up and a Dad tried to have sex with his daughter.

Promoting racial/class segregation: The Hyenas are from the 'dark shadowy' place and are given traits you can easily interpret as associated with black, Hispanic, Latinex or mentally disabled people. They are also framed with Nazi imagery and it is Scar's decision to let them roam freely that causes famine. Simba beats them, they are forced back to 'where they came from' and all is well.

Promoting authoritarian absolute monarchies. That's the whole movie's plot. Simba must embrace his destiny as the 'rightful ruler' of the pridelands whereby all other animals bow down to him. It's not even like the lions are the ruling class and they are at least democratic amongst themselves, it's literally this ONE specific bloodline that is not only in charge but is SUPPOSED to be in charge. Even if the wrong person from that bloodline is in charge the entire land suffers until the 'right' person takes the throne. That's a pretty terrible and pretty anti-democratic message isn't it, and that's coming from someone who lives in a country WITH a monarchy.

And, I admit this one is a serious stretch, but you could even argue that it's saying two men raising a child is a detriment to said child. Because Timon and Pumba raise Simba into an adult and the movie is very clear that he's grown up wrong, he is not the person he should be because he's embraced Timon and Pumba's upbringing.

So you see...the Lion King is mega terrible.

Except it isn't.

Because we all have the cognitive ability and understanding to grasp that you are not SUPPOSED to take it that realistically nor at face value. Even as children we grasped that, hence the generation that grew up with the Lion King (by and large) obviously don't think incest is okay, don't oppose same sex couples raising children, don't think segregation is a good idea and clearly do not think monarchies are the bee's knees.

Maybe as kids people couldn't put it into words, but material like this essentially exists in this realm of symbolism, psychological shorthand if you will.

In fact all fairy tales do that.

And Sailor Moon IS a fairy tale, or at the very least it borrows a whole lot from fairy tales.

In addition to being a fairy tale though Sailor Moon is a wish fulfillment fantasy story intended for a female audience (or at least a predominantly female audience).

Now of course what one woman's wish fulfillment fantasy might be may not be another's and I wouldn't be so presumptuous as to argue that Sailor Moon even clicks with the wish fulfillment fantasies of MOST female audience members. But I think it's fair to say from the cultural impact it has had, and how it's fanbase is clearly mostly made up of women, that the wish fulfillment fantasy it offers clicks with a sizeable enough number of women.

The reverse is true of something intended as a male wish fulfillment fantasy. James Bond was obviously intended as a male wish fulfillment fantasy, and it's success speaks to how it clearly clicked with a sizable enough number of people. And I don't think I'm being overly presumptuous here when i say MOST of those people were male.**

Both SM and 007 are wish fulfillment power fantasies but they are also romantic/sexual fantasies too.***

I don't think it's unreasonable to argue that for a sizable number (but not necessarily the majority) of women, including the tween/teen girls SM was aimed at, having an OLDER lover is a romantic wish fulfillment fantasy. On the flipside I don't think it's unreasonable to argue that for a sizable number of men and boys having an endless string of casual and completely consequence free sexual encounters with (traditionally speaking) gorgeous women who find you incredibly attractive is a sexual wish fulfillment fantasy.

And the thing is BOTH those things can become bad when you apply a realistic lens to either of them.

James Bond's sex life realistically would involve at least a few sexually transmitted diseases, unintended pregnancies (one of which occurs in the novels) and at least a few callously broken hearts. Even when you look at it strictly from Bond's POV that life only seems glamorous at first glance. Perhaps it is a fun fantasy, but only when it remains in the realm of fantasy. Because in real life that kind of life if lived long term is ultimately incredibly empty and unfulfilling. Even James Bond media has acknowledged this because there have been occasions in the novels and films where he has at least attempted to settle down with a stable partner. Many Bond fans (understandably) decry this as undermining part of the appeal of the character hence Bond inevitably defaults back to being single because that is a baked in part of the wish fulfillment fantasy the character offers.

Let's consider some other ways the Sailor Moon anime offers a wish fulfillment fantasy, namely the future of Crystal Tokyo.

At first glance it seems wonderfully utopic right. It is a beautiful crystalline world where everyone lives in peace and harmony, hunger disease and even aging having been functionally eliminated.

Well, that isn’t the case if you apply a realistic lens to it.

It's an absolute monarchy wherein everyone is functionally immortal and children don't reach maturity even after 900 years. Chibi-Usa clearly chafes at this reality so how do you imagine other children (who aren't royalty) might feel? How might their parents feel having to raise their children and be responsible for them for centuries as opposed to around twentysomething years? What if you became immortal in your 80s, you might be a very healthy 80 year old but you aren't in the prime of your life and you are stuck that way for what is essentially forever. Not to mention what if you don't like or do not agree with Neo-Queen Serenity's policies? What if they are actively detrimental to you, your family, your livelihood, etc? You can't vote her out of power and you can't even hope for things to change because everyone is healthy, provided for and lives forever. The chances of someone else coming to power are at best very, very, very slim.

Then you have the fact that it’s surely a society that would’ve stagnated because everyone is provided for. That’s the whole point of a utopia. It is perfection. But what if you are someone who defined your live by striving for improvement? What if you were a doctor and now found yourself redundant. Sure, you might acknowledge that’s for the greater good but you are still yourself left completely without purpose in this world.

And that’s not even considering the inevitable monotony of existing for hundreds of years. Modern medicine and science has allowed human beings to extend their life spans FAR beyond how long we’d live if we were still just cave people. As biological organisms are concerned we never evolved to live for 80-90 years. Even if your body isn’t breaking down across the centuries the human mind would never realistically be able to cope with centuries worth of memories and life experiences. Mental illnesses and conditions would be rife. If nothing else living in that world would sooner or later become utterly BORING!

Hate to say it and obviously it doesn’t justify their methods, but the Black Moon Clan kind of have some valid points against the world of Crystal Tokyo. At least they do when you break things down REALISTICALLY.

And that’s my thesis here. Sailor Moon isn’t supposed to be dissected realistically, at least not to THAT degree. It is a wish fulfilment fairy tale fantasy and demands a certain amount of suspension of disbelief and understanding of what the fantasy is offering.

And for the record I can 100% assure that no teenager in real life has, or could, ever get into a harmful relationship with someone older than them BECAUSE they watched Usagi and Mamoru’s relationship in the anime.

The human mind is a very complex and very powerful thing. At a younger age it’s impressionable and can therefore be influenced. But it’s not so susceptible that the romantic relationships in a cartoon about schoolgirl super heroes is going to influence a viewer into making any major life decisions that OTHER factors weren’t also influencing them to do.

In other words if a real life 14 year old girl began dating a 17 year old college guy it would’ve happened regardless of whether they watched Sailor Moon as a child or not.

Indeed, one of my frustrations with the podcast Sailor Business is how many guests on the show cite how they liked Usagi and Mamoru as children but now think their relationship is bad and creepy. I disagree with them for the reasons I cited above, but the fact that those panellists nigh universally give that same narrative proves how nobody was ever going to be prompted to do anything potentially harmful to themselves in real life by the show.

*Personally speaking that is certainly my own off the cuff attitude.

**Not to dismiss the fans who aren't, same goes for the non-female SM fans.

***Although I think you could argue SM is more on the romance side of things and 007 on the sexual side of things.

[overthinkingkdrama]

What did you think of the love line in Itaewon Class? I wasn't really a big fan of Saeroyi meeting Yiseo first when she's still a minor - even if he didn't develop feelings for her much later. Also I got more of a sibling vibe from them. But I still loved Yiseo as a character, I just wasn't sold on then main couple I guess.

I really enjoyed the character of Yiseo initially, as unlikable as she could be, because she was very unusual for a female character. I don’t think I’ve every seen anything quite like her before. I was interested in the way they were playing her lack of empathy, her fixation on Saeroyi, and how that was making her change over time. Specifically, her feelings for him made her want to be a better person, or at least to behave in the kind of way he would find acceptable, even though she didn’t necessarily understand or appreciate the spirit of those actions. As she continued to change she slowly began to embody the behavior she thought Saeroyi wanted from her, she actually started to learn some empathy through behaving in an empathetic way, mirroring Saeroyi’s values until they became her own. I thought that was a really interesting line to walk. There was an interesting tension between his bone-headed idealism, and her cool, cynical logic. It made her both deeply flawed and unexpectedly sympathetic. A very unique character study. At least at the beginning.

I actually think it would have made a lot more sense and would have been better in keeping with the themes of the story if Yiseo’s feelings for Saeroyi had continued to be unrequited. It would have put the focus on her and how she had changed as an individual, made her arc about her own personal growth, rather than her becoming someone that Saeroyi would find acceptable to have a relationship with (both in terms of age and personality.) Can you see how this minor shift in emphasis changes the internal rhetoric of the drama quite a bit? If the two of them didn’t get together then the focus would be on how love can have an ennobling effect on you as a person, how you can actually grow and change and learn and come to care about the feelings of others even when caring about those feelings comes at no personal gain to you. They had already started down that road. But instead, ending by having her sit around for years. biding her time until Saeroyi acknowledges her as a romantic option, making it about changing who you are and never giving up (despite multiple rejections) because eventually the guy you like will relent and date you. That’s a horrible message.

Until the time skip, I really thought they were going to go the other way with the story and have Saeroyi end up with his first love, Soo Ah, for whom he had this constant love and affection, and actually let the love line from Yiseo be unrequited to the end. After the time skip, everything in the drama got a little worse (in my opinion.) The characters and their situations became less interesting, the motivations got muddled, the romance lost all momentum and interest for me. Prior to that I was thrilled at the way Saeroyi responded to Yiseo’s tearful love confession by telling her that he was 10 years older than her. That was so refreshing. Having them get together later on in the drama after having such a strong moment, completely undermines everything that the drama did right with the two of them up to that point. Plus it sapped all of the tension and enjoyment out of the two of them as a love story, because Yiseo just literally wore Saeroyi down until he had a “I’ve grown accustomed to her face” style realization. It rang hollow for me.

Plus, I’m just not a fan of having adult male characters meeting their love interests when they are still children and then waiting for them to be old enough to be acceptable sex objects. It’s always icky. The time skip doesn’t neutralize the ickiness, it just further underscores the idea that a girl, a minor, is merely a nascent sexual object and as long as a man is willing to wait long enough for her to ripen into womanhood before hooking up with her, society will have no problem with his actions, but instead fully sanction them. Itaewon Class is by no means the biggest offender in this category. There are much worse examples out there in Dramaland and across global media, but they could have sidestepped the issue entirely and left on a much stronger message and it would have also strengthened the script as a whole.

Jona

[kilibaggins]

1.) ontari is fucking hot. 2.) Murphy is aman he likes sex duh. 3.) they flirted/had cemestry 4.) men cant be raped 5.) women can not rape 6.) even if they could this wouldnt be rape since murphy would want it. 7.) it was literallly just akinky scene lollll 8.) shut the fuck up ontari is amazing. 9.) they're both adults it's not like murphy is some kid 10.) shut up 11.) ontari is a sweet sweet bby 12.) SHUT HE FUCK UP ABOUT IT MURPHY WAS NOT RAPED MEN CANT BE RAPED!

I wanted to respond to this cuz... I'm responding to all the asks about this topic because Men CAN be raped and men need to be heard. And It undermines the struggles of Male Rape Survivors to Say John Murphy wasn't raped and make excuses for Ontari's Actions.

I know most won't read this sadly, but I know my true bros will, and so will people who feel strongly on this topic.

While this post is mostly about a Fictional TV show and Character, I do recommend scrolling to the bottom because I have some Important links to spread more information and that can help Men who have been Sexually Assaulted or people who have Been sexually assaulted. If you don't want to reblog this post because it is Fandom related, I will be making a post of just these links.

1. ) "Ontari is fucking hot."

Okay? I never said otherwise. And Honestly? Yes, Rhiannon Fish IS a beautiful woman. She's absolutely beautiful, and yes she's hot. But just because the actress is attractive, it doesn't mean the character couldn't be a Rapist. People can be hot and still Rape someone.

2. ) "Murphy is a man he likes sex duh."

That's honestly not completely true. Yes, Murphy is a man. And from what we've seen with Emori he likes sex. Though the two don't immediately go hand in hand. Not all men like sex. There are Asexual men in the world. There are sex-repulsed men in the world. Murphy isn't one of those (that we know of) since we've seen him with Emori, but that doesn't mean he would want to have sex with Ontari just because he likes sex. Just because someone likes sex, that doesn't mean they want ALL sex with ANYONE. Just because someone finds another person attractive it doesn't mean they want to have sex with them.

3. ) "they flirted/had cemestry"

I'm guessing you mean "Chemistry" correct? Either way flirting does NOT equal consent. Women and men can Flirt all the want, and that still isn't consenting. A man can call a woman hot all day every day and still not consent to sex. Murphy flirting with someone (if what they did even COUNTS as flirting) does not mean he wants to have sex with them! It just means he was flirting. Also, "Chemistry" is also not consent. Hell, I have chemistry with some of my friends, does that mean they and I have consented to sex? NO.

4. ) "men can't be raped"

Actually, they can. According to THIS  Wikipedia article and sources, men can and have been raped. (And before anyone tells me that Wikipedia is not a "reliable source" it was for many years. The only reason people think it isn't is that people CAN edit it. That does not mean that all of the information in it is false.)

5. ) "women can not rape"

Again, they can. Rape any Non-Consensual Sexual intercourse between two persons. If a woman does not get consent from a man, and still has sex with him, that is rape. If a woman threatens to kill a man and he had *No Choice* but to say yes, then THAT IS RAPE

6. ) "even if they could this wouldnt be rape since murphy would want it."

Are we sure about that? Where exactly did this get said in the episode? Or the scene? Or any scene afterward? because I'm pretty sure his Exact words when talking during the scene were:

"wait. There's someone else okay? I'm sorry."

And nowhere in that does it say he wants it. And no scene after that says he did. The only other scene we have about it is Emori talking to Murphy about it. And Murphy SPECIFICALLY SAYS:

"Emori... I didn't have a choice."

That is not consent. That's the opposite.

And if you think he would want it only because she's attractive I Repeat: Just because someone finds another person attractive it doesn't mean they want to have sex with them.

7. ) "it was literally just akinky scene lollll"

Actually, it wasn't. Though I guess technically you can say Ontari has (a) kink(s) like Bondage, domination, etc. But that doesn't mean the scene is kinky In itself.

A kink scene would be between two consenting adults sho have talked it over beforehand, they'd have a Safeword, there would be Enthusiastic consent either beforehand or during it. There has to be communication and not a randomly dominant woman chaining a guy to a wall and coming out of the blue with sex. That's not how kink WORKS. Trust is a huge part of any kinky/bdsm type scene! There was legitimately NO TRUST. They do not trust each other at all. So Yeah, maybe Ontari is Kinky, but the scene itself was not just a kink scene.

8. ) "shut the fuck up Ontari is amazing"

Well, first of all, I won't shut up. This is my blog and i can post what I want on it. You are not in charge of my blog and you can leave if you really don't want to see the content nobody is making you.

Second, I, sadly, can't tell you not to like Ontari. Though, I can promise you that she is not amazing in a lot of people's eyes. She killed a whole group of kids in cold blood in THEIR SLEEP. She cut off their heads. She pokes a guy's eyes out with her bare hands and uh... She Raped a Guy. That seems pretty "not amazing" to me.

9. ) "they're both adults it's not like Murphy is some kid."

Well, you're right about one thing, Murphy isn't some kid. Though, Murphy also isn't an Adult. He landed on the ground when he was 17 (probably Early 17) and he was still 17 by the time the Ontari situation happened also, According to THIS site and THIS site Ontari is either 25-26 or ""In her Early 20's"". Look at that! It's Underagded rape too!

10) "shut up"

No thank you, I think I'll continue talking about MURPHY on MY MURPHY blog.

11.) "ontari is a sweet sweet baby"

I mean, I guess. If you count her killing a bunch of children in their sleep, cutting off their heads, poking a guy's eyes out, and raping a guy to be "sweet". Then yeah, I guess she's sweet!

12.) "SHUT HE FUCK UP ABOUT IT MURPHY WAS NOT RAPED MEN CANT BE RAPED"

Refer back to Numbers 4-6.

Thank you to anyone who is still reading. I loved and hated making this post. I hated it because I had to see the ignorance coming from this anon, but I loved it because I got to educate some people today and talk about a serious issue.

Sources say that 1 in 6 men deal with **Sexual Abuse** in their lifetime. Here is a Source to that statistic CLICK HERE 

Here is a Source that Mentions the 1 in 6 Men statistic and also goes through Myth and gives the truth: CLICK HERE 

Here is a Source about Male Sexual Abuse Survivors that had a real life story, and tells statistics and Facts. CLICK HERE 

Here is a link of 62 Male Sexual Assault stories. Warning: Some are disturbing. Please be careful. CLICK HERE 

Here is a link to a website that answers questions you might have. CLICK HERE

I know this post started as a John Murphy post and went into this. But the reason it did it because this is a very serious topic and people need to be educated and male survivors need Support JUST like female survivors do.

Here are Some Links to Some Resources for Male Survivors:

LINK 

LINK 

LINK

Men Need Support.

Men Can Be Survivors.

Men Need Resources.

Men Need Love.

Men Can Be Raped.

John Murphy Was Raped.

And So Were All Of The Male Survivors Who Are Brave Enough To Talk About It.

[fizzingwizard]

In winter I discovered the “Anne with an E” series on Netflix. Of course, I was excited, because I grew up with Anne of Green Gables - I am pretty sure I never finished the series, but I read at least half the books. I loved the early ones but lost interest when she grew up. I was not one of those kids who idolized adulthood; looking back, most of the stories I loved best were about kids, so I think I just didn’t connect with Anne the same way when she became an adult. I still adore her story, though, and the first book in particular.

(actually, I wrote my senior thesis on kids in literature, meaning outside of children’s/MA/YA books. It was fun)

The show’s been canceled after season 3, which I’m sad about, but it’s mixed feelings tbh. As usual I have Thoughts.

So there are a lot of great things about “Anne with an E.”

the intro is beautiful and fitting

the casting is pretty well done, imo. Matthew and Marilla in particular were just perfectly cast.

the setting, costumes, etc are really gorgeous, I get such a fresh, pastoral sense looking at it

the appreciation for and development of my quirky girl Anne is there

there is a huge focus on female relationships and friendships without much in the way of cattiness

the addition of some new characters and themes both keeps an old story alive and relevant while also pointing out that what we think of as “modern” problems (lgbtqa+ representation, for instance) are really things that have existed throughout history

and on that, I loved all of the new characters, especially Bash, Mary, and Ka’kwet. Also Diana’s lesbian aunt is Lifestyle Goals.

But there are also things I definitely didn’t like.

the acting... like I’m sure all the actors are very good, but the script I think doesn’t play to their strong points. There’s a lot of stiffness. The character I think who does the smoothest job no matter what is actually Bash. It’s worst with Gil. He can act, I think, he  seemed pretty good with body language, but I cringe when he talks. He only gets pure, wise things to say. He never sounds like a child. Everything he does is right. The same is true of Anne as well, and another thing that bothers me - as much as I appreciate her passion and sense of justice, I don’t like that it overrules her childishness so much of the time. But she’s the main character and has a lot more time to shine in many ways, while a lot of Gil’s storyline outside of Anne is new stuff not in the books, mainly not there to develop him.

three seasons of the show and very little of it seems to actually be from the pages of the books. They did the apple cordial scene, but there were so many others that Iooked forward to and they just didn’t bother with. Those scenes were the reason I loved Green Gables. I don’t mind that they changed characters etc so they could make room to include those so-called “modern” stories - like I said, that adds to its relevancy. But why cut out so much of what was good in the books?

because they skipped so much canon development, the rushed finale in season 3, presumably when they realized they were being canceled, has no tension or impact.

also because they skip so many good parts in the books, many episodes feel like a Hallmark TV show to me. Anne goes from quirky, clumsy, fiery, and interesting to the writers’ social issue megaphone. There’s got to be a way to Be Super Feminist or whatever without sucking all the life out of your main character. She’s not like that in *every* episode, but there are definitely those where you feel like you’re being hit on the head with a protest sign.

I hated them killing Mary, and I hated that they were setting up for Bash and Ms Stacy in season 4. I swear that’s what they were doing. I sensed it from the moment Mrs Lind says Bash has to find a new wife. The show was canceled, but already we’d had a sudden influx of significant scenes between Bash and Stacy that were nonexistent before Mary’s death, and these scenes were specifically themed around loss of loved ones, moving on, parenthood, and family. It was absolutely a set up. And given the incredible pace at which this show liked to tackle Social Issue after Social Issue, I have no doubt that “interracial marriage” was next on the list. Normally I wouldn’t care, except that it feels like Mary was killed in order to make room for this storyline! That’s my beef with it. I don’t think season 3 is all that well written, overall, to be honest.

But my biggest issue of all is with Ka’kwet. I remember reading about residential schools when I was a kid. They were horrifying. The show at least doesn’t mince how horrible it was. The introduction of Ka’kwet and her family was great. The inclusion of indigenous actors was great. The history is incredibly important. And then... we don’t even find out what happens to her. I read a bunch of people saying “That’s realistic! Those schools were terrible and letting her have a happy ending would have had white savior overtones and undermined how awful this was.” Perhaps if Anne with an E were a different kind of show, I’d agree. But everyone else got a satisfying conclusion. Even though Mary died, at least she found her happiness first, and her estranged son even comes back in the end to ask forgiveness at her grave and turn his life around. *Everyone* ends on a hopeful note, except the Mi’kmaq storyline, which ends with Ka’kwet imprisoned at school and separated from her desperate family. Even if you really believe the argument that “it’s realistic so it’s good,” the other issue is that that whole subplot was really short! It was suddenly introduced and had just got momentum when it fizzled out. I was SO confused in the final couple episodes because I could think about NOTHING but Ka’kwet and kept expecting news about her, one way or another, yet the show only wanted to talk about Anne & Gilbert, Diana and going to Queens, fricking Billy and Josie... Sorry, but it was a very, very bad look. I love Anne and Gil in the books, but when you put them up against the story of a 12 year old indigenous girl imprisoned by white people at a brainwashing school... I mean, how can you expect me to get all worked up over Anne’s note to Gil getting stuck under his boot when something much much larger is at stake?? Confusing. Exasperating. I am certain it’s this bad because of the cancellation, but I’m not super hot on the build up to it either.

Regarding Anne & Gil. I was confused through all three seasons about them. Their relationship did not remind me of what I remember from the books, but it’s possible I overlooked some things as a child, or just don’t remember it all. Anyway, I didn’t really care about their romance during the show. On the one hand, that’s good because it’d be a tragedy if Anne were spun into a romantic period chick flick. It’s not. But on the other, I can’t get excited about a character’s romantic journey if it’s underdeveloped. Not everyone may agree with me that it was underdeveloped, but I needed more - not even necessarily more romance, just more of what made Anne and Gil so magnetic to each other. I suppose it’s a moot point because in the books, it literally takes years before they even become close, and the show couldn’t wait that long. Plus they changed so many other things, why not this? That’s fine, but the why not spend more time of them too?

So... ultimately, I’m disappointed in this show. It’s not that it’s bad. It’s not. I enjoyed watching it, for the most part, though I had to struggle through some of the more Hallmark movie moments. It’s just not Anne. It had promise... it has some good scenes... but in changing so much, they lost a lot of what made the books magical. And a lot of the themes they took on appeared and then vanished, like Cole coming to terms with his sexuality and going to art school, and then only making cameos after that. (Though I highly appreciated that he went with Anne and comforted her when she returned to the orphanage.) It’s too bad. I don’t know how much other fans would agree with me - what I’ve seen online has mostly seemed positive. And it’s hard, because my overall opinion is a complicated “I feel positively towards this show but I’m also disappointed in it.”

But gotta be honest - I’d be much less disappointed if I hadn’t felt so let down with how Ka’kwet’s story disappeared. That I just can’t forgive.

[thecorteztwins]

what are some under used marvel female characters youd love to see in the rpc?

HMMMOkay, so I’m trying to think OBJECTIVELY here and not just rattle off the female characters that I personally like, and more “I’m surprised that there’s not more blogs for this character, whether or not I personally am a fan” ....because I missed the “you’d love to see in the RPC” bit because I’m dumb, and then I wrote this whole list without regards for that part. So this came out as less “female characters I personally want” (who would all be stupidly obscure and irrelevant anyway) and more “female characters I think the RPC should give some more love to, whether I personally am into them or not”:Definitely ALL the girls in the New Mutants and Generation X! I see a fair few blogs for Magik and Jubilee, but I really don’t see any for the others. I get why Magik is going to be more popular---she’s in more stuff, she’s currently much more relevant in the comics, and her backstory is so goddamn compelling---but that doesn’t mean the others shouldn’t have ANY blogs out there. Wolfsbane, Magma, Karma, and Moonstar are all extremely complex and compelling characters with their own struggles and triumphs too, and I think they deserve just as much love. Likewise, I get why Jubilee will naturally get more blogs than Husk, Monet, and Penance (depending if you count Penny as a separate character or not...) due to her being in more stuff, having bigger arcs, etc. But it still surprises there’s NO blogs around for those ladies! I know there was that Monet blog awhile ago, and @badmusesdoitwell had an Amara that’s now part of their multimuse, as well as a Rahne, but that’s still nowhere near enough love in the RPC for these Junior X-Ladies, in my opinion. Speaking of Generation X, I’m also a bit surprised no one has picked Cordelia Frost up, given that we’ve got plenty of background canon for her via Emma’s history yet Cordelia herself has LOTS of room to go nuts with headcanons, like it’s just the perfect opportunity! And I’m sure lots of Emma blogs, of which there are MANY, would love their little sister around for some family threads. Fuck, I would pick her up myself if I were more into Emma and the Frost family as a whole. She’s hardly the most relevant, recent, or even interesting character around, she’s done very little and shown up very briefly, but the fact she’s related to Emma Frost makes me think SOMEONE would have an interest in her.Madelyne Pryor, for sure. Like, I love Maddy, but it’s not just my favoritism talking here. I think she’s pretty decently well-known in the comics fandom, and she’s a tragic villain, which usually pulls people in big-time. She’s got a grudge against the good guys, and it’s actually more legitimate than most, which I’d think would also attract people, since a lot of villains fans like to blame the good guys no matter what and THEY’D ACTUALLY HAVE A GOOD ARGUMENT HERE? Plus she has very strong connections to other, more popular canons, with a ton of fodder for angst and drama threads, which people just LOVE. I have seen a few Maddy blogs pop up in the past, and I always get so excited, but they never seem to last very long :CDr. Moira MacTaggert deserves ALL the love and respect in the world/fandom! She’s been a staunch supporter of mutants since day one, she’s a total badass, she’s super smart, she calls Xavier out on his shit ALL THE TIME, she’s the survivor of an abusive husband, she had to make terrible choices about her son that no mother should ever have to and then live with the consequences of those choices, and SHE GOES AFTER A KELPIE WITH A GODDAMN MACHINE GUN! She’s been a part of the X-Men comics for such a long time, and is very significant in them, it really surprises me that I’ve never seen a blog for her besides just ONE and it was for the XMCU sexy American CIA agent Moira, who is NOT Moira in my book and NEVER WILL BE. Speaking of, Moira will ALWAYS be human to me, I think making her a mutant all along REALLY undermines a big part of her character as just an unyielding mutant ally. Though I think her being human, combined with being an older female who isn’t anyone’s love interest (unless she’s, gasp, getting in the way of CHERIK aka the ultimate fandom sin how dare she the harlot -.-), is probably WHY she’s so damn ignored -.-Frenzy hasn’t been in THE most recent stuff, but she’s still been relevant recent enough that I think one or two blogs around would have happened if she weren’t black. Yeah, I hate to be THIS person, but any black character who isn’t Storm doesn’t get love, for all that the RPC likes to yell about being diverse and progressive. Remember all the Captain America and Iron Man and Hulk and Quicksilver blogs that popped up after their movies? Yeah I saw like ONE T’challa blog after Black Panther came out. Then again, I’ve yet to see blogs for Pixie or Firestar either, who are white, and I feel like they both were fairly interesting and well-known in fandom? Same for the Academy X girls like Sofia Mantega, Mercury, and Wallflower. Luna Maximoff FOR SURE. It SHOCKS me I haven’t see more than a couple short-lived blogs around for her, just given her family connections. Now, I don’t think a character deserves love just because of who they’re related to---in fact it annoys me when a characters gets a ton of attention and it’s very obviously just for that---but Luna has SO MUCH going on? The problems between her parents, her mother being absent so much, her father exposing her to the Mists, dealing with her powers, being a child of two very different worlds and cultures, it just goes on and on. Luna has had to grow up so fast, she’s such a strange and stoic child as a result, and though her situation is very fantastical, having to be the mature one at an early age because all the adults in your life won’t be is something a lot of people have to cope with and I think would find relatable; I especially love how she lives in this world where there’s no bad guys, like neither Crystal nor Pietro were the villains in her situation, just hurting messed up people, which she also recognized in Magneto and maybe also even Maximus . And there’s so much that could be explored with her too that hasn’t been in canon yet---for instance, her choice to identify with her Inhuman heritage and why that is, and the journey of identifying with your heritage but also looking at the horrible things in their history, I think that’s a story that a LOT of people from MANY backgrounds can relate to. It surprises and frustrates me that both writers and fandom don’t really seem to care about her or remember she exists; one the only two blogs I ever saw for her seriously got someone asking them “why would you make such a weird OC” like SERIOUSLY! Luna needs more love, big time. Any female Avenger that’s not Wanda or Natasha. I don’t read Avengers, I’m just an X-Men fan, but I know they exist and they shouldn’t have to be in a movie to get love. Ditto for She-Hulk, I’m not a Hulk reader but I know she’s a prominent character who has been around a long time and has a very developed personality and stories of her own, yet I’ve only ever seen her on @getreadytosmash‘s multi. I’ve also never really read Alpha Flight, but its main ladies ---Snowbird, Aurora, Vindicator---all seem awesome in their own different ways. Alpha Flight isn’t very popular to begin with, of course, so I don’t expect them to have as many blogs as, say, major X-ladies, but I think one apiece or so would be very justified.KWANNON!! I actually get why we didn’t have any blogs for her BEFORE now, because we knew NOTHING about her, she was just a very tragic prop for Betsty’s body-swap plot and a way to give her insta-ninja-skills, but now she’s come back and has HER OWN NEW SERIES in which we’re finally learning who she is and her background, I hope to see a blog or two around for her eventually!Destiny aka Irene Adler. Like. Do I even need to explain WHY? I think people just don’t want to play an OLD woman, especially one whose primary/only ship is going to be with another woman.Maaaaybe Clea Strange? I don’t know shit about her, never read Dr. Strange, but like, people make blogs for Sigyn literally just because she’s Loki’s wife, and Clea at least seems to like...DO stuff? IDK, not sure on this on, but figured I’d make an honorable mention.Siryn, Boom Boom, and Dr. Cecilia Reyes are all X-Ladies that I really don’t know much about. Like I know basic things like their powers but I don’t know their story arcs and such. But as with Clea and the Avengers ladies and She-Hulk, I just have a HUNCH there’s a lot there getting ignored by fans.Silhouette Chord is a longtime member of The New Warriors, and, like Alpha Flight, New Warriors doesn’t really have a fanbase on Tumblr to speak of, so it’s not surprising to me she’s not got any love here. And even within the pages of her own comics, she’s generally pushed aside, underused, and underdeveloped compared to the other characters, generally more a prop for her boyfriend’s stories than anything else. But she DOES have a personality, a REALLY cool backstory, and she’s like...look, the RPC claims to love diversity and representation and all that, right? Silhouette is a mixed-race WOC (half Black, half Cambodian, and I have NEVER seen another Marvel character of Cambodian heritage who wasn’t connected to her) who is also very visibly physically disabled, her legs are completely paralyzed and she is never without her braces/crutches, yet she still fights PHYSICALLY (something very rare for physically disabled characters, they usually are more like Oracle or Prof X) and is depicted in a sexual relationship, and there’s never any kind of fuss or angst about it or anything treating her as delicate or less than or anything like that. She’s just completely adjusted to it in a way that’s very rare in media. And like I said, she’s not a flat character, I’m not saying she should be more popular just for ticking off the diversity boxes, she manages to be really intriguing to me despite how little focus the writers give her, and I think that she and the other New Warrior girls (Firestar and Namorita) have a lot to offer the RPC. But I have to give a special shoutout to Sil since she’s my fave, as the neglected ones alway are.Meggan Puceanu is probably most familiar to folks here as Kurt’s love interest in Age of X, but she’s been around since the 80s. She’s a longtime member of Excalibur, and she’s just...fascinating. She’s a Romanichal mutant (though often hinted to have magical/mystical heritage too, perhaps fairy like Pixie) who has empathic, elemental, and shapeshifting capabilities. However, her empathic and shapeshifting tend to overlap, so she changes her form (and her mind) according to the feelings, fears, and desires of others. So for instance, there’s this one time where a group of men are checking her out, and she feels that “They love me...I want...to love them in return!” and she morphs into this sexxed-up version of hersef on the spot. This isn’t played for kinkiness or laughs either; Meggan’s identity struggles are a HUGE part of her character. She has no idea who she is because her powers make her reflect and respond to the feelings of others around her, internally and externally. She doesn’t even know what she actually really LOOKS like because of this; her powers were present since birth, causing her to grow fur instantly as an infant due to it being winter. This caused her parents to keep her locked up in the camper trailer, where she was raised alone with the TV (she’s also illiterate, which causes her to feel dumb a lot) and as more and more people around her spread rumors about the monstrous child inside, she psychically absorbed those beliefs and her physical form changed to reflect them, making her more and more monstrous as she got older. She didn’t know she was a shapeshifter, she just really thought she was a hideous monster. And even when she found out the truth, she STILL didn’t know what she really looked like, as the beautiful form she took on (basically Pamela Anderson with elf ears) was to please her boyfriend Captain Britain (whom she is really unhealthily dependent on starting out because of her situation)Meggan is insecure, she doesn’t know who she is, she has to cling to a man in order to have anything because no one else has ever loved her, she easily becomes jealous of other women near him, she gets made fun of for being a bimbo and she often feels she is because she can’t read or understand “clever words” due to her isolated upbringing...and she gets through this! She develops! She becomes STRONGER and she becomes SECURE and she gains CONTROL of her powers and SHE KICKS ASS and she FORMS AN IDENTITY!  And then Meggan SACRIFICED HER LIFE to buy time for Captain Britain, Psylocke, and Rachel Summers to repair the tear in reality caused by House of M. She ends up lost between dimensions and TRAPPED IN HELL, where she uses her empathy to rally the lesser demons against THE LORDS OF HELL ITSELF and wages a war IN HELL for which her demon followers dub her “Gloriana” and she forms a sanctuary there called “Elysium” where souls can escape torment!  AND THEN SHE FINDS HER WAY HOME!THIS WOMAN KICKED ASS IN HELL AND WON!! Like she just goes through SUCH an arc, and I admit I have not read it myself yet, she’s on my list of characters to read EVERYTHING on and I’m still only familiar with her very insecure Excalibur days (which I love a lot, I just feel so much for Meggan and her struggles, I think she’s very much a reflection of a LOT of real-world issues, ranging from mental illnesses to just EXISTING as a woman) but I already have a ton of feelings about her and I think she’s more than prominent and accomplished enough to merit more attention in the RPC. And this is less of an “actually has reasons the RPC should love her” character, because really there’s no reason they should, she’s not prominent or relevant or or anything, but more an interesting “did you know”---did you know there was a “young female Wolverine clone” in the comics BEFORE Laura Kinney? Avery Connor! She pre-dates Laura by a year and has a VERY similar story, yet she never took off in popularity and very few people know her. You can read about her HERE on my Marvel blog. Again, would not say there’s actually any reason she’s earned love from the RPC like, say, Meggan or Luna, but I just thought I’d toss that in as a tidbit for the Logan family fans, as I know there are many.(Also, cheating because these are dudes, but: I’m not a Banshee fan but I am surprised I’ve never seen a blog for him, nor for Sunfire. Or for 616 Pyro. Or...)

[iamtrashforash]

“Problematic” Fanworks, i.e. Re: Last Reblog

A particularly prolific and highly talented artist-writer duo in the Banana Fish fandom has been getting aggressive messages that toe and occasionally cross the line to harassment, on top of actual hate messages.  The common grievances are that their fanworks often feature “controversial” pairings, e.g. Max/Ash and Foxx/Ash, and are sexually explicit in nature.

@silverquillsideas wrote a lengthy response to an anon ask regarding the matter, which I would highly recommend people to read.  I am mostly interested in the responses to @silverquillsideas post, which I find to echo similar sentiments (or “arguments”) found on Twitter and Tumblr.

[Fiction affects reality.  These fanworks contribute to the normalisation and/or romanticisation of rape, abuse, and pedophilia.  Hence, they are not allowed to exist.]

To “normalise” these things, I argue that the works have to present them in a normalised manner.  However, this is simply not the case.  The fanworks are conscientiously put behind age and NSFW filters (in this case, Privateer) and well-tagged with trigger warnings.  At one point, the artist even made a separate, viewable upon approval account for the more NSFW pieces, so that people who are interested only in the SFW or “sanctioned to be non-problematic” artworks need not be notified of the existence of the “non-sanctioned” artworks.  The experience is highly opt-in, and is by no means normalising.  The multiple filters and warnings highlight the paraphilic, outside-the-norm nature of the artworks.

Personally, I think this normalisation argument is patronising: it underestimates the ability of adults (especially -- let’s be honest here -- female adults) to distinguish between reality and fiction, and between safe, consensual sex and fantasy materials.

[Think about the children!]

This argument is often attached to the normalisation argument.  It is heavily undermined by the presence of the age filters.  Age filters are put up precisely because, in general, younger consumers lack the critical thinking to properly compartmentalise fiction/fantasy from reality.  When you click through an age filter, you are, in effect, declaring that you have the critical thinking and maturity to properly digest whatever awaits beyond.

[Fandom is a safe space!]

And still it remains, as long as we keep up the standards of proper age filters, NSFW filters, and trigger warnings.

[Why would you have these unhealthy fantasies when healthier fantasies exist? What is wrong with you?]

Sometimes, people ship things because they think it looks good.  It appeals to an aesthetic side of them.  Sexual arousal by visual cues is, unsurprisingly, greatly rooted in the aesthetics.  It does not need to go deeper than that.  An anecdote: I am, technically speaking, a Shingeki no Kyojin Eren/Levi shipper. Since I neither read nor watch SnK, for a long, long time, I did not realise Eren’s age and the age gap between the two.  Even after finding out, I could not stop aesthetically liking the ship.  When I ship them, I am not consciously and actively shipping a teenager with a middle-aged man.  I ship them because they appeal to me aesthetically: I like their visuals and the fandom’s depictions of their interactions in doujinshi.  I fancy that, for a lot of people, this compartmentalisation of aesthetics and age of the characters involved happens often.  Some people, however, seem incapable of internalising the idea that other people are capable of this mental separation -- a failure of the imagination.

(A tangent: I mean no harsh judgment on those who fail to separate character age from fantasies, but I think one does have to accept the personal limitations of one’s own tastes.  Personally, I find it hard to separate biology from shipping; hence, A/B/O fanworks are simply Not My Thing.  The common trope of feminising male omega characters tends to make my eye twitch.  But I am not leaving comments of how disturbed I am on A/B/O fanworks for their dissemination of wildly inaccurate biological facts and/or their tendency to reinforce a masculinity-femininity binary in MLM relationships.)

Regarding depictions of rape, assault, abusive relationships, etc., ravishment fantasies are very common; this is a fact.  Sexual arousal, fear, pain, and pleasure are incontrovertibly linked: they all belong to the response pathways of the “primitive brain”, having existed long before our ancestors began developing the cortex of higher thinking.  The arbitrary categorisation of “healthy” and “unhealthy” fantasies means nothing to something as basal as sexual responses.

[Still, these fantasies are disturbing.]

Some of them do disturb me.  However, again, the content creators have done their utmost to make sure the experience is opt-in by nature, with big warning signs attached.  If you think the content will disturb you, please do not engage with it.  Think of it as not buying pickle-flavoured ice cream when you know it won’t be to your taste and/or you are allergic to pickles.  The presence of pickle-flavoured ice cream might weird you out, but you have no obligation to consume it.  In the same way, it is unreasonable for you to demand the ice cream company to withdraw their product because the thought of pickle ice cream disturbs you, or to complain to the convenience store for allowing the pickle ice cream to be stocked on their shelves.  They released the flavour because they believe there is an audience for it out there, and that the release would bring some people delight and/or money.

[I have the right to announce how disturbed I am by these fanworks.]

I agree.  You do not, however, have the right to harass people over them, especially when -- I reiterate -- the creators have made the entire experience highly opt-in.

Also, I implore you to think of the practical consequences of your actions before you decide to send strongly worded messages to content creators:

No real person is harmed in the creation of fanworks.

On the other hand, your strong words may dampen the mood of a real live person who has decided to share their talents with the world.

In consequentialist terms, when you send messages like, “You disgust me,” to a content creator, the net result of your actions is....negative.  In other words, I am asking you, “Aren’t there better things to do with your time?”

[To depict Ash, a sexual abuse survivor, in sexual situations is highly damaging/insensitive/triggerring to CSA survivors.]

I have a very personal, by-no-means objective reaction to this particular extremist view.  Please just skip this entire section if rationality is what you seek.  I will even give you a TL;DR; it reads, “Fuck off.”

I had an entire essay planned on this for my own benefit -- think of it as bloodletting -- but I might as well say it now.  Banana Fish and Ash made me realise that I was the victim of a systematic pedophile, almost twenty years after the fact.  Ash and I had our fateful encounters at roughly the same age, in startlingly similar scenarios.

The realisation came more as a shock than I could ever have expected.  I struggle (note the present tense) with the endowment of the mantle of a victim.  I don’t know why Ash became the final piece to the jigsaw puzzle -- I mean, I had read Lolita cover to cover multiple times -- but I hypothesise that it is because his trauma does not consume most of his identity.  So many stories of abuse survivors are heavily focussed on how their experiences, well, fucked them up, but I -- I was so young that I got out without any visible mental and physical scars; all that is left are grimy fingerprints on a pane of glass, visible only when you breathe on it.  Specific parts of my body are weirdly off-limits in sexual situations, but I managed to ascribe those to “just how my body is” instead of “the parts he touched”.  Stories about trauma are certainly needed, but what my memory needed was representation in the manner of Ash’s.

Reading about Ash exploring his sexuality, especially in a healing manner that I will never experience due to my odd lack of apparent trauma, helped me a lot with coming to terms with the realisation.  I was devastated when an author abandoned an R18 fic of Ash reclaiming his sexuality with the help of Eiji, due to people messaging her with the argument above and claiming to speak for all CSA survivors.  Thankfully, the author returned to finish the fic, but the experience overall had been marred, and the author was clearly uncomfortable with having posted the fic at all.  It feels terrible to know that something that has helped me tremendously is regarded as disturbing by its own creator.

In other words, if you have used the above argument to harass content creators, please stop.

CLOSING REMARKS

I have none.  It is currently 02.30 a.m. in Japan.  Please feel free to comment with your own opinions and experiences; I will try to reply after I get some sleep.  I may edit this piece tomorrow, should my morning self violently disagree with my 02.30 a.m. self. 

[anhed-nia]

THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS

When my concerned parents faced the early and unpleasant realization that they were raising a ravenous little horror hound, it meant that they had to somehow split the difference between their strict curbing of my potentially mid-warping viewing habits, and their principled encouragement of unfettered reading. That must be how I came into possession of a copy of Thomas Harris' harrowing police procedural The Silence of the Lambs at the tender age of 10, even as the film adaptation was being touted by many viewers as The Scariest Movie of All Time. I carried that book around like the Bible well into my teenage years, reading and re-reading it with even greater fervor after my parents finally decided that the film was sophisticated enough for me to watch without it turning me into some kind of animal-torturing arsonist. (Said screening was chaperoned and accompanied by an academic post-viewing family discussion, of course) The decision seemed to make sense; after all, THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS had swept the Oscars the year it was released, scooping up wins for Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Picture. This is not to say that my intellectual and art-appreciating family regarded the Academy as the ultimate arbiters of taste and achievement. I mention these accolades more to point out that, as my parents had surely noticed, the film holds a certain power over viewers on both sides of the high-low cultural divide, a spell that has hardly weakened in its twenty-seven years of life.

As a child, I certainly responded to the same things that piqued the general public: Anthony Hopkins' iconic performance as Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter, his ambiguous romance with purehearted FBI trainee Clarice Starling, and the controversial perversity of serial killer Buffalo Bill. Though the story shares the influence of real-life ghoul Ed Gein with classic shockers like PSYCHO and THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, the impact of SILENCE is more akin to that of DRACULA. Much of the enduring discussion about the film revolves around the tantalizing chemistry between the preternaturally elegant Dr. Lecter and the virginal Starling; the rest is somewhat unfortunately focused on Ted Levine's eccentric performance as the (pseudo-) transsexual murderer at large, which has come under some understandable scrutiny. However, it would be unjust to reduce Jonathan Demme's movie to a gothic romance, or a gory shocker, or a campy cult item with ironic eroticism and a great soundtrack. There simply have to be better reasons for a movie to stick around this long, lingering in the minds of stuffy critics and the hoi polloi alike.

In preparing my statements about what makes THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS stand out, I learned something very shocking: It began its life as the directorial project of Gene Hackman. Hackman eventually dropped out when the script produced by (Oscar-winner) Ted Tally turned out to be too violent. Prospective Starlings like Michelle Pfeiffer and Meg Ryan were similarly disgusted, so Demme got stuck with a less likely candidate in (Oscar-winner) Jodie Foster. Personally, I find (Oscar-winner) Demme himself to be an unlikely candidate. The director cut his teeth on exploitation movies under Roger Corman, and by the time of SILENCE, had distinguished himself as a hipster extraordinaire, directing classic performance videos for the Talking Heads and Spaulding Gray, as well as chic comedies speckled with cameos from the likes of John Waters, and underground music firebrands from New York's new wave scene. Time would prove that Demme and his frequent collaborator, cinematographer Tak Fujimoto, were perfect choices for this grim project, which only supports the idea that there is something more happening with SILENCE OF THE LAMBS than its gruesome violence and epic sexual tension.

In light of these more famous elements, one might expect an adaptation of Thomas Harris' grim and seductive novel to be grandiose, expressionistic, swathed in a dense physical and emotional mist, rumbling with its own pomp and circumstance. An orphan from the hills of West Virginia, Clarice Starling is a tragic hero from the start, guarding her broken heart against a world of condescending and hostile men. Her mentor Jack Crawford seems to distinguish himself from the herd by assigning her the ambitious task of interviewing notorious serial killer Hannibal Lecter for the FBI's files--but in fact, Crawford is counting on Starling's feminine charms and naivety, secretly using her to manipulate Lecter into profiling a killer at large, Buffalo Bill. In spite of this nasty revelation, Starling sticks with it, suffering Lecter's high-minded insults and penetrative analysis of her character, and eventually earning his admiration. She proves herself not only brave and determined, but a detective of unparalleled wit and instinct, single-handedly taking down the polymorphously perverse Buffalo Bill in his moth-filled subterranean lair, rescuing a high-profile victim where the entire rest of the Federal Bureau of Investigation have failed.

This all seems to portend a bigger, louder movie than what has been committed to film. However, the book has a certain organic grit to it, something honest, downbeat and tragically real, which Demme and Fujimoto grasp instinctively. The film provides a dry, frank view of the life of Clarice Starling: the toil of academia, the drudgery of physical conditioning, the undermining attitudes of her mostly-male peers. Shot in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, Starling's world is bleak and desolate, but earnestly so, without the pageantry of the film noir and Universal horror movies with which it is so easily compared. Demme's education under B-movie king Corman shows here, and makes for a much more compelling iteration of the story than we might have from someone less accustomed to economy. While SILENCE has developed a reputation for its brutality, the film is not remotely so gore-drenched as many traumatized viewers would have you believe. That said, it may be the film's generally stark and desicated look, its workaday-ness, and its endless (wonderful) dialogic exchanges that throw into relief its comparatively minimal violence, which usually appears not in scenes of assault, but in crime scene photos or autopsy scenes.

The blanched, dreary look of the film also offsets the emotional plight of Clarice Starling. She is afforded no real romance, external or internal. The petite and clear-eyed orphan is visibly used to, and exhausted by, the constant need to look out for herself, and SILENCE will see her shuffled from one humiliating personal trial to the next. She is led into a perilous situation by a mentor who pretends to respect her abilities, but who really counts on her to fall short of discovering his scam; She is trapped in roomfuls of macho cops who scarcely acknowledge her; She has to negotiate the sexual attention of evidence technicians and bureaucrats; She even has semen flung at her by a particularly rambunctious neighbor of Lecter's. (And how often do you see that in any movie? As gross as it is, it has a way of reinforcing the extreme adult-ness of Demme's often dry, methodical movie) And then of course, there is Lecter himself, who turns Starling's personal vulnerability into a form of currency with which she can buy the scant clues that lead her to her quarry. Instead of eroticizing the anomalous femininity that Starling brings to the traditionally masculine world of law enforcement, Demme constantly reminds you of her fear, her embarrassment, her alienation. One can also imagine the temptation to Ripley-fy the character, presenting her as a fully-formed badass not to be fucked with. Instead, by eschewing both these femme and fatale modes, Demme describes Clarice Starling as three-dimensional human being whose heroism is extremely hard-won. While the character is undeniably one of the great Strong Female Protagonists, Jodie Foster's performance somehow defies the cinematic semiotics of gender altogether, giving us a person whose most important qualities are purely psychological. Tak Fujimoto drives the point home by frequently filling the screen with closeups of her face, focusing us on what she thinks and says, taking the proverbial heat off her body. Even as Lecter probes her for painful biographical information, Starling's sexuality remains entirely private--still a rare thing in any movie with a lady lead.

I don't mean to suggest that THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS is principally successful because of its plucky girl detective--that contributes to its greatness, but not in the feminist fashion that I seem to be angling for. I am reviewing this movie presently because I recently found myself looking back on my own history with it, comparing my feelings with those of popular audiences, and thinking, "What is The Silence of the Lambs really about?" It can't be so beloved *only* due to the sexy slow burn between Anthony Hopkins' Count Dracula and Jodie Foster's Mina Harker. It can't be *just* a matter of the exotic insanity of the gender-bending madman sewing together the flesh of his victims and dancing provocatively to "Goodbye Horses" by Q Lazzarus (a sadly mysterious musician who Demme certainly knew from his involvement in the New York underground). All of these characters, and their respective dynamics, contribute to the important thrill of this movie, but not in the way that most people seem to think.

Rather like the director's earlier work with iconoclastic punk icons and indie auteurs, THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS is about authenticity. Hannibal Lecter, the unparalleled genius whose culinary expertise is part of his murderous MO, is a serial killer because he has such refined taste and decorum that he cannot live peaceably among other people. He favors victims whom he perceives as tacky, pretentious and impertinent--Starling knows that he would never harm her because, as she famously remarks, "He would consider it rude." Lecter is fascinated, not by her youthful beauty as Crawford had hoped, but by her sincerity. Starling is brilliantly intelligent in her own right, as she proves through her police work, but she doesn't have an ironic bone in her body. She is the most unpretentious individual alive, and nothing could be more interesting to Lecter, who preys upon people who are untrue to others and to themselves. Meanwhile, we have Buffalo Bill, who is attempting to change his sex by crafting a full-body "woman suit"--but, as Lecter insists, the killer is not a "true transsexual" whose legitimate identity is that of the opposite sex. Buffalo Bill is someone who was reared by his abusive parents to hate himself so much, that he is compelled to escape his natural identity; becoming a woman is less important as a matter of self-actualization, than as a means of becoming an entirely different person, *any* different person. He has been so radically alienated from his own essence by this self-loathing, that he is incapable of authenticity of any kind.

That, I really think, is the secret power of THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS: the at-once satanic and profoundly innocent declaration, "to thine own self be true". I would really love to get into a deeper dive on this movie at some point, to discuss what I think must have been the very best and very last time that Anthony Hopkins gave us a fearless and unpredictable (and in this case, somewhat hilarious) performance; to insist that Ted Levine as Buffalo Bill and Brooke Smith as his would-be victim actually give the best performances in the whole movie; to talk about the problem of the Ubiquitous Daddy Figure (of whom there are no fewer than THREE in this movie) in so many narratives about powerful women; to simply analyze the movie's sly psychological techniques, like fully humanizing Brooke Smith *just* by showing her singing a few bars of a beloved pop song in closeup, immediately before her fate takes a disastrous turn. (I would probably not take such an opportunity to investigate accusations of homophobia and transphobia, which requires a smarter and more directly experienced voice than my own) There is really a lot to say about why SILENCE is so powerful, without even threatening to address its most famous features. Unfortunately, I don't have the gumption or the madness to commit all that to Letterboxd at the moment, so I'll have to be satisfied with my primary conclusion: That the film's simplicity and gritty naturalism mirror its commitment to spiritual purity, honesty, and self-knowledge at all costs. Even at the high cost of wearing a muzzle, any time they let you out of your cage.

[doktorpeace]

coffee emoji + Persona

I’m a big fan of Persona as an overall series, I actually just started Innocent Sin the other day so I can finally get P2 under my belt. As a whole the mainline franchise does a great job writing meaningful stories full of great character interactions which all serve to accent each entry’s core themes. Persona 3 has some of the strongest and most consistent writing of any RPG I've ever played with regards to quality and execution on its themes, which is a big part of why it's my favorite one. All of the members of SEES change meaningfully as characters by the end of just the base game, not to mention additional content like The Answer, or the Persona 4 Arena Duology (which, funnily, are way better through the lenses of the P3 cast than the P4 cast), and especially more niche but still canon content like the Drama CDs which do a great job of filling the listener in on what the other members do while Minato is away or sick or asleep. Spoilers: They're really gay and not in a queerbaiting way either. Did you ever think it's out of nowhere that Yukari and Mitsuru are dating at the end of Persona 4 Arena Ultimax? These explain how they started dating and also talk about Akihiko and Shinjiro's relationship in romantic terms, comparing it directly to Junpei and Chidori's. Basically, Junpei is canonically the Token Straight of SEES and I think that's wonderful.That said the franchise really botches it at times. Persona 4 especially fucks up by directly undermining its own core theme of ‘Be true to yourself’ with its treatment of almost every playable character. Like, seriously: Yukiko decides to abandon her dreams to do what she's told when that's what her whole social link is about not doing. Kanji is openly bisexual now but his sexuality still treated as a joke by Yosuke and Teddie. Rise decides to abandon her beliefs and just keep working in the idol industry because other people want her to. Yosuke was written as a closeted gay teenager but had all of his gay content locked away from access despite being finished and on the disc. And most especially Naoto, who they build up as a very good representation of a trans man with a strong personal narrative arc but the INSTANT he joins your party everyone's like "But you're really a girl, right?" and then in order to get him to date you you have to CONSTANTLY undermine his gender identity and what he's comfortable with. It's shitty content and really inexcusable regardless of what game it were to be in but ESPECIALLY because of this game's core themes.And that all is genuinely really sad and infuriating because 4′s plot and all of its NPC social links are REALLY good! There’s still a lot to enjoy there but like, damn if it isn’t disheartening how they got so scared to letting characters meaningfully change and/or be gay that they were actively willing to ruin the main theme of the game. The franchise after 3 really kind of has an issue with letting playable characters meaningfully grow and change and also with LGBT content in general, with some minor examples being good like Lala Escargot, but otherwise just removing it altogether unless it's for Jokes™ which aren't funny and are based on annoying stereotypes. Not even 3 is perfect about this but at least almost every adult member of SEES is canonically LGBT and good representation so I can kind of excuse how bad that one scene is. I've heard 2 is actually quite progressive even by today's standards and from what I know about it it is, so I'm excited to see how it handles this kind of content.Honestly, Atlus used to be really cutting edge and daring with the kinds of themes and content they were willing to put into Persona but ever since 4 hit it big and the franchise got mainstream attention they've been kind of cowardly about it. P5 is a big step up from P4 in terms of overall writing quality, the party members are more interesting and are allowed to change at least a little bit by the game's end but it still fucks up more than I'd like. Its representation of mental illness and people on the spectrum are quite nice in my opinion but it still won't let you be gay even though Yusuke has the most unique dates of any character in the game! Come on, AT LEAST let us date Yusuke who already reads VERY MUCH as more than friends. Also make Ryuji a romance option and don't make Akechi a romance option because I don't want that shit. I want good characters to be romanceable.The spinoffs are all kinda just there to me. Like, they're a decent enough distraction but they absolutely do not have the love and quality put into the writing for me to really have much fun with them. Characters who were already kind of flat like Chie become really annoying and characters who WERE really well developed and three dimensional like Akihiko still get reduced to just 'Musclehead Protein Man' which is fucking stupid. Only P4A and P4AU really do any of the characters justice in terms of writing quality but even then only really the P3 Cast and Naoto get good and interesting story content. Everyone else just get schlock. So whatever. P4A and P4AU are super fun to play though, mechanically they did an excellent job realizing each character in a way that feels authentic to their personality, if not their gameplay niche, in their home games. I can only hope P5A doesn't have some bullshit timeline thing to get the P4 characters out of aging and advancing as people. They NEED the treatment P4A gave SEES. Show me out of shape middle manager at Junes 24 year old Yosuke, Atlus you fucking cowards. There's so much room for advancement and growth with these characters but at the same time I know they either won't do it by introducing some dumb timeline bullshit OR they'll fuck it up and like, make Naoto a big tiddie ultra femme looking person to REALLY try and tell us "NO REALLY NAOTO IS CIS IGNORE HIS ENTIRE CHARACTER ARC AND ALL OF HIS WRITING IN PERSONA 4 AND ALSO HOW IN PERSONA 4 GOLDEN WE LEANED EVEN HARDER INTO THE TRANS NARRATIVE WITH HIS ADDITIONAL CONTENT"You can always count on the gameplay to advance and get better at least, so that's nice. I'm not really gonna discuss that though other than to say P3 not letting you directly control party members serves its themes and writing well and isn't even hard to play around if you just use the Command Wheel to issue orders to your party members, the AI is pretty smart. Not Xenoblade Chronicles 1 smart, but still pretty fuckin' smart.Anyway, basically, I like Persona a lot as a franchise. It's a flawed franchise that I want and expect better out of than what it delivers in some aspects but on the whole it's hard to deny the quality of the overall products. I just hope that Atlus listens to the kind of feedback they've been getting in the last few years and really start becoming more daring again with the kind of content they put into the games again. Go harder on those themes and really challenge people's mindsets, this franchise has so much potential for that and it just scratches the surface really.Oh, also, Persona fans on the whole are some of the absolute dumbest motherfuckers I've ever seen on the internet. They'll really ignore blatant shit that's extremely clear just because it wasn't said in such plain wording a child would understand it while jumping through 70 mental rings to try and explain how Kanji isn't REALLY gay or how Naoto is ACTUALLY cis or how Akechi is actually the deepest most amazing character in the franchise, or whatever. That and/or they're just straight men who use the term 'waifu' and just reduce all of the female characters to 'which one do I want to fuck most' while ignoring everything else about the games because all they value these for are as dating simulators to try and fill the sad, gaping hole that is their social life. Some of them will actually get mad at people for discussing the psychological or political aspects of the series as if that's not what this IP is founded on because they're too stupid to think of anything other than which fictional underaged girl they want to fuck. Persona fans are fucking stupid and really make it embarrassing to like this franchise at times.This basically turned into me yelling about LGBT content in Persona but honestly that’s like, the aspect that needs the most constructive criticism. The psychological, theological, and political themes are generally really well handled. Worth discussion for sure but not what I want to talk about right now.

[aroworlds]

Could you talk a bit about amatonormativity and how it related to you? I know the 101 (aka the definition), but I have trouble identifying it in real life, discussing how it permeates in fiction, etc. and this is kinda weird but I think an informed discussion about it would help? IDK feel free to ignore it if you don't have the spoons for it, but if you want to it would be a huge help!

Anon, I told you this was going to be long, but … well, it’s long!

The problem is that amatonormativity is a wall I keep hurling myself against, as an aro and as an aro creative, and there isn’t much conversational space where I am permitted to go all out in talking about it. I fear discussing this with too much vehemence, to go beyond the hand-holding 101 conversations about being aro, in case I alienate the alloromantic folks who do support me. Alloromantic people aren’t interested in conversations that undermine their sense of the world, and aro-spec spaces are small; both things together result in silence.

Because of this, I think it’s reasonable that this is something hard to grasp, for aro-spec and alloromantic folks alike: the educative conversations are hard to find or don’t exist. When you add to the fact that for the last two years a-spec people have been fighting targeted hate, that our conversations have fallen back to claws-out defence or the shield of validation, how the hell are we supposed to understand our own experiences, especially something as-yet-unquestioned as the practical impact of amatonormativity?

I hope you don’t mind, but because this is so long, I’m going to concentrate on amatonormativity in media and its impact on me as a creative.

In terms of fictional media, I think amatonormativity shows itself most obviously in the concept of a happy ending–that two people in a romantic relationship is by far the most common variant. No, not all stories end witha romantic happy ending, but so many do, even if it’s only a romantically-happy-for-now ending. Think Disney films; think action films shoving in an unnecessary romantic side-plot because the hero gets the girl once the explosions are over; think every story where the guy got the girl for reasons we the audience are expected to accept without question.

Likewise, a film with a tragic or unhappy ending is often shown by a protagonist not falling in romantic love or the dissolution of a romantic relationship. While there are other forms of indicating tragedy, the lack of a romantic paring for a character expected to be in one is common. There’s a reason Romeo and Juliet has long been framed as a tragic romance even though the tragedy, I’d argue, lies more in the impact of feuding families on the next generation, not the death of two young people in a “star-crossed” romance.

Even genres that aren’t romantic in the sense that romance isn’t the focus of the plot will still include sexual and romantic tension between characters: many of the crime and thriller novels I’ve read, supposedly less romantic because they target a cishet male audience, devote a great many pages to depicting romantic relationships nonetheless. The majority of YA novels depict the development of romantic relationships (which is why I kept reading middle-grade books even when I was too old for them) and even low-romance adult fiction still has the protagonists having had or desiring a romantic relationship at some point. So many literary works deal with the breakdown of romantic relationships, affairs, being single, unrequited love, or the way dangerous or alien environments, or the tyranny of distance, places stresses on romantic partnerships. These often won’t have purely happy endings–often tragic or complicated–because they’re Literary, but they’re just as obsessed with romantic love as any romance novel. In constantly going on about romance’s failure without ever making the point that someone can be happy and self-fulfilled without it, literary works are as amatonormative as anything else.

Romantic love and relationships don’t have to be successful: we just have to show a character desiring these or struggling with these, just so the audience knows that the protagonist is human. Characters who are shown as disdaining romance, or being uninterested in it, are usually antagonistic characters who are beyond redemption, are aliens or robots, or are coded as robotic–characters who are literally inhuman or portrayed as such. There’s a reason that The Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon Cooper becomes a kinder, more “normal”, less-autistic-coded man the more he falls in romantic love with Amy, despite being introduced as extremely aroace-coded, and it’s called amatonormativity.

This is the point in the post where we aro-specs are giving the world that long, pained stare, and for good reason.

Romantic love as a marker of human worth is the most succinct way I can describe the impact of amatonormativity. It’s not a flawless summary, but so often romance is treated as a universal concept, relevant to all, because Western society uses the possession of or desire for romantic love as an indicator of a person’s humanity. Romantic love makes us human, and so romantic love is everywhere, unquestioned and unassailable.

Elements of a more expanded sense of amatonormativity include:

- The idea that romantic attraction, love and relationships are universal to the human experience (predominantly a relationship encompassing, exclusively, one perisex heterosexual-and-heteromantic cis man and one perisex heterosexual-and-heteromanticcis woman).

- The idea that romantic love is the primary form of love and all other forms, once one gains a certain level of socially-acceptable maturity or adulthood, are naturally secondary.

- The idea that romantic love and relationships are relatable to and attainable by all, and any failure to relate to it or attain it is a personal or moral failing.

- The idea that people who do not experience, attain or desire a romantic partnership are, after a certain age, childish or childlike, immature, robotic, alien, inhuman.

- The idea that sex (especially non-heterosexual or non-vanilla sex) is only acceptable, for a person of high moral character, when it comes paired with romantic love. (Characters who have sex without romantic love are often coded as grasping, hateful, calculating, predatory.)

- The idea that the attainment of romantic love and relationships is a marker of character development, growth, adulthood or redemption.

- The idea that because romantic love and relationships are universal, to not depict them in media is to render one’s work childish or uninteresting. (Every aro-spec creator of narrative media knows the impact of this one.)

- The idea that the lack of romantic love or relationships, or the desire for these, is an indicator of a person of low moral character.

- The unquestioned idea that romance sells, accompanied with the assumption that the inclusion of romance in a work (or the story-arc of a protagonist) is a necessary part of making that work (or character) appealing to all audiences.

- No comprehension that romantic attraction can be felt and experienced in a diversity of ways and strengths, particularly with regards to fluctuation, intensity and circumstance.

- Very little comprehension of the difference between romantic attraction and romantic behaviours.

- An assumption that there is a certain set of behaviours that are only or best experienced with romantic attraction. (Engaging in these behaviours without romantic attraction is also often coded as predatory.)

Please note that all these discussions of romance are based on an alloromantic model: romance in and of itself is not inherently amatonormative. Aro-spec people’s experiences of romantic love and relationships do not fit the above because they do not and cannot assume that everyone fits this assumption of romantic attraction being a universal, unquestioned human. If your depiction of romance doesn’t assume that romance makes us a worthy human and everyone experiences it, it’s probably not amatonormative.

There’s heavy overlap with ableism, misogyny, heterosexism, whoremisia, etc, and this must be acknowledged. Amatonormativity hits hard on its own, but it seldom hits alone. More often it’s paired up with another form of oppression, which means people who better fit its norms can deny its existence by claiming the problem is due only to amatonormativity’s current partner.

Additionally, most mainstream amatonormative works are going to be about cishet romances (the romantic relationship between a cis heterosexual man and a cis heterosexual woman, presumed to be perisex and both alloromantic and allosexual). Women are far more subject to the need to be shown in romantic relationships than men; men are more often allowed to travel through the narrative without being subject to a romance, although most are shown as at least desiring it. Each experience of marginalisation is going to shape in different ways how amatonormativity impacts us, and this needs to be discussed (especially because if we don’t, antagonists deny the existence of amatonormativity altogether).

(I will say that amatonormativity and misogyny have a strange relationship in that excessive romance is treated as feminine and emotional, and denigrated because of it. We all know how literature is valued and respected over fanworks and genre romance. Cishet men, meanwhile, have a long history of treating the having of a romantic partner as a trap–phrases like “ball and chain” with regards to a wife, for example. Despite this, there’s still an unquestioned social expectation that men experience romance attraction and have, will have or want a romantic partner.)

I’ll use my experience as a trans aro to give an example of this kind of overlap.

Amatonormativity in LGBTQIA+ media is coloured by the fact that LGBTQIA+ folks have been denied romantically-happy-endings until recently; the rise of fandom and LGBTQIA+ genre media has done much to change this. Yet both are, predominantly, romance narratives, to the extent that there is little space for anything else. This history leaves me in an awkward position. The need for love stories featuring trans characters and trans bodies as worthy of romantic interest and desire is profound. In a world where romantic love is seen as the only kind of love worth talking about, powerful and primary, it’s natural many trans/NB stories are about just that.

I feel like I’m walking on thin ice if I talk about how depicting romance as the only acceptable trans happy ending defines my experience of gender by romantic experiences--and yet that is exactly what I feel. Furthermore, this is a narrative many alloromantic trans people need and deserve. In trying to tell stories about me, an aro trans person, who isn’t a target of romantic love, my stories are seen by alloromantic trans folks as mirroring the narratives that have long harmed trans people, treating us as unlovable. My work cannot provide the validation–that they are desired and loved romantically–alloromantic trans folks are looking for.

The amatonormativity isn’t in the existence of trans romance stories, but the fact there are fewer publishing options, and smaller audiences, for non-romantic/aromantic/gen stories about trans love and identity. The amatonormativity lies in the fact that romantic love for trans characters is the love on which trans genre media centres.

As a reader, I need stories that talk about different kinds of love, love for myself and my own body, a radical self-acceptance that isn’t tied to someone else’s romantic interest in me. Instead, I get stories telling me that I am accepted, as a trans person, if my identity is tied up in experiences I don’t have and don’t desire.

The intersection of amatonormativity and cissexism results in its own peculiar oppression for me as a trans aro, one that I find impossible to navigate in a world where it isn’t understood that romance doesn’t have to be the primary form of expressing love and acceptance for trans characters and even trans bodies. I’ve seen so many posts on my dash about people proclaiming a want for trans storytelling while getting no benefit from this movement because I’m writing about aro trans characters. That’s more than a little disheartening.

This kind of intersection does a lot of damage to aro-spec creators who are otherwise marginalised (so many marginalised experiences come with a heavy dose of we are lovable, our love is important, we deserve the right for our love to be accepted and protected and acknowledged, much of this conversation centred on romantic love) but just being an aro-spec creator who creates aro-spec narrative media comes with an inherent disadvantage that is difficult to surmount.

I’ve got some numbers for this disadvantage, actually. My latest work, The Wind and the Stars, has had fifty downloads in its first month, and I’m actually excited by that, because everything else I’ve posted with the tag “aromantic” has gotten approximately twenty downloads in their first months. A couple of works didn’t break the fifty mark until three or four months in! By contrast, with the same amount of promotion but published under a brand new name with no back catalogue to help (unlike my other works), my explicitly queer paranormal romance story got three hundred downloads in its first month. How am I supposed to provide representation for my community when I don’t have enough interest in my work to justify the work of its production?

The tag aromantic helps guide aro-spec readers, but it actively discourages most alloromantic readers (who exist in far greater number) from reading, and most of them won’t have any comprehension of why. They just see romance as normal and interesting, and anything that subverts this, be it specifically aromantic or just gen, undermines this worldview. It happens so subconsciously it’s near impossible to challenge.

In a way, one of the most damaging aspects of amatonormativity is its lack of recognition. Most people have some understanding, now, on what misogyny is and what harm it might cause, even if one disagrees with it or has a 101 understanding at best. There’s a social model for beginning to understand this. Amatonormativity, on the other hand, has no such basis. It’s so unquestioned that few people who aren’t aro-spec recognise it or need to, and it’s often seen as a lesser problem. As someone who is struggling as a creator because of amatonormativity, to the extent that I don’t know how I can possibly survive as a writer, it angers me to see this treated as less important than other forms of normativity. No, nobody will beat me up on the street as an aro, but if I can’t keep a roof over my head because only a small number of people are reading my free books and I have no belief they’ll buy my next book, how does this distinction matter?

Amatonormativity silences, erases and oppresses aro-spec people. It substantially disadvantages us in how we are seen by others and how we interact with the world around us. And almost nobody outside aro-spec spaces wants to acknowledge it.

Sorry for the rant at the end there, anon. Does this give you some idea on how amatonormativity is demonstrated through media and how it impacts aro-spec creatives?

[ahb-writes]

“The Heroines Of All YA Dystopias Have These Traits In Common”

Over at Refinery29, there's a nifty slideshow by Elena Nicolaou that outlines common/recurring traits in contemporary YA fiction subgenres with female hero characters in dystopic scenarios. I'm not a superfan of this literature, but I am fond of the narrative crisscrossing often conjured therein: rebellious youths, the rebuke of institutional violence, peculiar (innovative) governance structures, unlikely female heroes.

And with the continued success of such literature, common threads emerge -- character traits and storytelling quirks that readers, literary agents, and film producers wield in sewing together a like-minded audience.

Some of these traits speak directly to a character's development (She must deeply doubt the government.), while others are more facile manifestations of cultural inclinations (She must really miss her mother.), and are thus recognizable in other genres as well. Whatever the case, a formula of sorts emerges. And as with all formulas or structures for profitable storytelling, I find pleasure in pulling them apart and seeing how much more intriguing a story might be if an author deliberately contravened these norms and preferences.

For example, the trait She must eventually spark a rebellion. is common not just in YA fiction but in an array of other media. This appears quite often in comic book lore, too, because the rebellious youth must always cultivate her own support network from scratch. But whatever the medium, I often wonder how much more fascinating a story would be, not if the heroine sparked a rebellion, but of what would happen if the rebellion failed. I'm much more interested in witnessing a character fall short of her goal, navigate the consequences, and assemble a more potent solution from the broken pieces that remain, than I am interested in observing a character's traditional (linear) rise to greatness.

Some authors accomplish this rekeying of insurgency on a smaller scale with individual character deaths or the loss of a home, modern or ancestral. But in the context of a greater narrative, I admire characters more for surviving failure than I would admire the staid opportunism in the face of obvious tyranny.

Also of note, the assessment that She must be the only level-headed person in a world of evil adults. is something I find frustrating in a lot of books. The Refinery29 article rightly acknowledges that this trait is often brought about because it mimics the attitude of a mind that is maturing faster than it can readily gain lived experience (read: adolescence). However, I think some nuance is in order.

If a child or young adult is the heroine, I also need: adults who wish to be heroes/heroines but cannot be; adults who live vicariously through the heroine; adults whom have tried and failed where the heroine now resides; adults who support the heroine, and will help her both with and without the heroine's knowledge; and adults who survive a crisis of conscience to push the heroine toward her goal.

Children are not wiser than adults, only more willing to risk the status quo for a taste of the unknown. A more tactical teasing of the line between known and unknown (and the consequences of any one usurping the other) would better entrench adult characters in more dynamic roles in these narratives.

Regrettably, Despite all this running around, she must have time to attract baes. remains the most lucrative mainstay of dystopic YA fiction and film. A lot of books have nudged this trait/trend to the margins, successfully; however, that it continues to exist so vibrantly (and depending on the context, unnecessarily), causes one to wonder of the infrequent marginalizing of romance in YA fantasy and YA action will ever bleed into the norm. Admittedly, this is a personal preference set against a cultural one, but one can hold out hope.

And while it's undoubtedly true, as Nicolaou pens for Refinery29, that "If it weren't for the inclusion of sexual tension, I think YA dystopias would be unimaginably grim." -- perhaps readers should question the merit of such interwoven subgenres if they so readily over-value character traits or qualities that risk undermining the narrative's effectiveness. I do admire books that competently fold the perils of a bourgeoning romance into the perils of a larger story; better still if she knows it is not love she chases, but companionship and stability, as her struggles unravel.

Dystopian literature need not be devoid of sex, but given its plastic social mores and clever definition (or re-definition) of what is socially, culturally, or politically compelling, dystopian lit should absolutely be grim.

[very-grownup]

Can you believe a kraken STILL hasn’t eaten Nitori over summer vacation?

I'm going to talk about Free! Dive to the Future now that three episodes have aired.

I have not seen any of the films produced between the end of Eternal Summer and the start of this third series. They are not available on English streaming services and I'm going to be real with you: in 2018 there is so much media to consume that is legally and easily available, I'm disinclined to figure out how to obtain fansubbed anime in this the year of our lord 2018.

I loved Iwatobi Swim Club and Eternal Summer. They were well done, tight, self-contained coming of age series, one about a character overcoming an angry and isolating adolescence, one about a character learning to overcome the inertia of fear that often grips young adults when they're confronted with the inevitable change of going from adolescence to adulthood, of having to make a choice. The first two series were masterfully directed by Hiroko Utsumi and a breath of fresh air: a show helmed by a woman, for young women, and not based on an otome game or another property centered on the relationship between the male characters and a female avatar.

Hiroko Utsumi did not direct any of the film entries in the series and is not directing Dive to the Future (she's directing the incredible Banana Fish anime) and I admit, when I read Utsumi was no longer involve the series, I became skeptical about its direction and quality.

Now that I can actually watch an entry in the series made without Utsumi, I don't have to be skeptical. The kindest thing I can say about Dive to the Future is that it's obviously floundering for direction. But this is the internet, so I can also go into a far more thorough and much less kind discussion of missteps, questionable choices, and things that are actually not good.

There's one problem that stands out for me, because a lot of the others can be bracketed with expectations of what sort of show Dive to the Future is trying to be, but this one part, a small fraction of the runtime of the three episodes, undoes, or at least undermines, something the first two series did in the characterization of one of the only girls in the series. Gou, the younger sister of protagonist Rin and manager of Iwatobi High School's swim club. Gou has no romantic interest in any of the boys on the team, unlike the female manager in (shounen) sports series. Gou isn't interested in swimming, either; this isn't a substitute or displacement because there is no girls' swim team. Gou initially becomes involved in Nagisa's desire to start a swim club in their high school as a tool to reconnect with and help her distant, unhappy brother.

Gou continues managing the swim club because she unabashedly enjoys looking at muscular dudes. Again, she isn't interested in dating any of these boys. She just enjoys being able to look at these living swimsuit pinup boys. She's a teenage girl vocalizing an aspect of her sexuality and keeping it for herself. She loves muscles. They're hot. While the narrative is about the boys, Gou's presence acknowledges that a lot of girls in the audience are watching this for very simple, non-narrative reasons.

And that's okay.

In media targeted at women, especially young women, the acknowledgement of sexual desires as a component of a romantic relationship is still relatively new after centuries of women's feelings being portrayed as chaste. In a post-Twilight world, media is starting to allow that maybe girls are as sexually attracted to that boy they're crushing on as it's given that boys are to girls.

Gou's characterization says: it's normal to be attracted to boys, even if you aren't interested in dating right now. It's a quite, understated bit of characterization and representation, but it's appreciated. Gou's presence really cements the sense in the first two series that this is something being made by a woman for other young women.

Dive to the Future introduces a Japan-obsessed Russian swim coach who is fixated on Rin and wants to work with him, and only him, in Sydney, Australia. He's an authority figure who is overly focused on an eighteen-year-old boy who is in a foreign country, away from his friends and family. Although this may, understandably, raise some concern and discomfort, Free! is not the kind of series that is going to be dealing with something as serious as authority figures taking advantage of young athletes sexually. This character is just a joke, a goofy, out-of-touch adult who thinks he's cool and is also slightly camp. He's very obsessed with muscles.

In episode three this is brought up again, as Kirishima, a wandering swimming hobo, tries to bribe the coach, Mikhail, into taking him on, offering up various sexually exciting photobooks and magazines featuring muscular young men. Cut to Gou back in Japan, trying to convince her new kouhai of the importance of the same photobook. An equivalency is drawn. Coach Mikhail and Gou are the same, their interests are the same, they provoke the same reaction. A comical obsession, a gag, an out-of-touch character who can't read the room. A teenage girl's interest in the bodies of teenage boys is the same as a grown man's interest in those same bodies.

It's gross.

The most charitable reading still sees Gou's healthy, normalized if quirkily expressed attraction being reduced to a gag, robbing the character of the understated, positivie representation of adolescent sexuality she offered originally. It's unneccessary and unkind to girls in the audience like Gou.

The idea of the carnivorous woman who knows what she wants, sexually, is not equivalent to an older man in a position of authority viewing the vulnerable individuals around him as a source of voyeuristic pleasure.

After unburdening myself of the surprising level of anger resulting from a single scene, nearly blink-and-you'll-miss-it length, the other problems with Dive in to Future seem less important, but they all concern larger elements of the program. It's just that they're problems of something not being done very well, not the problem of the reveal of a potential hostile or contemptuous attitude toward a part of the audience.

Nevertheless.

Dive in to Future doesn't know what it wants to be. I stand by my assertion that Iwatobi Swim Club and Eternal Summer were never sports anime. They were coming of age journeys for two different characters who had different problems to work through. They were, quite simply, never structured to be a series like Slam Dunk, Prince of Tennis, Kuroko's Basketball, Haikyuu, insert-your-preferred-shounen-sports-series-here. The focus isn't on a team, it's on a group of characters, four of whom are going to the same school and are in the same club. At the end of Eternal Summer, Haru, Rin, and Makoto, three of the five core characters, are going to be graduating, moving on to the next stage of their life, Rin in Australia, Haru and Makoto in Tokyo. That transition, those three characters growing up and away from their younger friends, is a major component of the story told in Eternal Summer, culminating in a teary happiness. It's sad they won't be friends in the same way, but it's natural, inevitable, and full of potential excitement for the new things these changes will bring.

There are a lot of directions that could have been chosen in doing a third season. Staying in Iwatobi, focusing on the changing, growing swim club. Going to Tokyo with Haru and Makoto, building upon those themes of change and growth as two codependent childhood friends find their own, separate paths. Going to Sydney with Rin, a protagonist returning with new eyes and confidence to a place where the festering anger and unhappiness that burdened him in Iwatobi Swim Club originated. You could follow any of those threads and double down, focusing on one of them, on turning the series into an actual sports series with a large cast and rival teams and tournaments and competitions. You could continue telling the story of these specific friendships, five boys in three different places, figuring out how their friendship can evolve and continue in some form.

Dive to the Future seems to be trying to do all of those simultaneously, not wanting to commit to a particular focus because it would mean sidelining some of the characters. It's about Rin in Australia but it's also about Haru and Makoto in university and also Haru's university swim team and maybe actual swimming competitions for that university swim team with maybe a rival university of evil swimmers but also the club back in Iwatobi and after three episodes I couldn't tell you which of all those the series is actually going to be about. Maybe Haru's university swimming life will more clearly come forward. But it could easily go on like this, a jumbled series of characters and incidents without any underlying thematic glue bringing things together. There are solid individual scenes scattered through these episodes (Rin's morning routine in Sydney from the third episode stands out for me) but as someone who loved the first two series, the overall impression is ... that it's fine.

Dive to the Future also sees the introduction of characters from the films, specifically the prequel film made after Eternal Summer. The first episode of Dive to the Future feels like they dumped all these new characters into the mix at once, a sensation I'm sure is exacerbated by my not having seen the movies. There are also new characters in Iwatobi so the swim club can continue. There are boys swimming with Rin in Australia who have names, probably. More characters on Haru's university swim team. The previously mentioned evil university. All the characters from the first two series.

It's so many characters, all at once, with little regard for their significance.

For comparison, Rei is introduced in the third episode of the first series, after we've had a chance to become familiar with the characters who have a history together.

The unfocused narrative and the glut of characters go hand-in-hand, an ouroboros of problems.

Finally, another disappointing undercutting of what's come before: in this mess of characters and plot threads, a lot of screen time does seem to be devoted to characters being concerned about childhood friendships that were lost as kids moved to other parts of Japan and other countries. There's an obsession and guilt over it, instead of recognizing it as a natural thing that happens. The desire to reconnect with those people is also guilt propelled and it feels like a retread of the attempt to reconnect with the angry, distant Rin from the first series and a complete memory wipe of the lessons of growing up Makoto and Haru specifically learned in Eternal Summer. There's a worrying sense that with Dive to the Future, despite the name, is going to see characters who aren't allowed to grow and learn and move forward and change, but instead just go through variations on the same beats in an increasingly bland animated purgatory.

The final product is fine, I suppose, but fine may as well be failure when the previous product managed to achieve excellence.