#don't actually read this

[redtalksaboutstuffandthings]

Anime Ramble 2: Banana Fish is mid

So, once again I'm going to use this empty blog to ramble incessantly about something that only matters to me. Specifically, the gay romance in a crime thriller anime. It took up my thoughts all day, today, and if I don't write them down I'm going to explode.

Banana Fish was written in the 1980's, but received an anime adaptation in 2018. And having watched the whole thing through, I fully believe that the story was written in the 80's. It has a very 1980's idea of what gay people look like and do, and I mean that in all the worst ways.

(Content Warning: Sexual Assault, Pedophilia, Homophobia. It's a deep hole we're going down.)

Banana Fish is the story of Ash Lynx, a runaway mafia hitman with a 200 IQ who is a crack shot with a revolver, spends his free time at the New York Central Library, and whose kill count exceeded his age somewhere around the time he was 15. His romantic interest is Eiji, Japanese photographer and the show's resident Very Good Boy.

Ash is gay. Or at least, that's how he's presented. He has an estranged relationship with his father, which apparently happened sometime after Ash was repeatedly assaulted by an adult, when he was eleven, and Ash was eventually forced to kill his abuser. Why is Ash's father so distant and harsh, even though he knows all of the stuff that happened to his youngest son? Unsure. The show asks the question, and there's a slight hint that a reconciliation is possible, but ultimately Ash's father isn't on screen long enough to provide a clear answer.

If I were a cynical person, I would point out that "a history of being a sexual abuse victim" and "an abusive father figure" are two very common "reasons" given by bigots who want to explain why gay people exist and why their state of mind is a mental health issue. This would have been especially true in the 80's, where homosexuality was only recently removed from the DSM as a mental disorder. However, I'm not a cynical person. I'll just assume that the writers just didn't have enough time to give us a compelling reason.

ASH AND EIJI ARE CUTE TOGETHER, I GUESS

The relationship between our two leads has quite a few nice points going for it. Ash makes a big deal about how tragic his past is and how he can't trust anyone, but around Eiji he's allowed to be his authentic self, without fear of judgment or betrayal. Their interactions together, particularly in safe moments where there isn't a bad guy to fight, is a very realistic depiction of what two good friends might get up to, when they're alone together. They enjoy each other's company, have a lot of cute moments, and there are even what I would identify as clear moments of emotional intimacy, that made for compelling viewing. I do, however, have two main issues with it.

The first is a phenomenon I'm beginning to see quite frequently, in the world of yaoi. It's what I refer to as the "Uke's dillemma." I can understand what Ash gets out of the relationship. A person who accepts him for him, who can look past his violent existence and treat him like a human being is something valuable and healing to him, and the show makes no bones about that. However, I find myself less able to answer what Eiji is getting, from the relationship.

His only real flaw as a character that Ash might be able to address is the temporary loss of his confidence, that he experienced before meeting Ash. That basically gets resolved a few episodes in, with a scene where he has to help save multiple people, including Ash. For the rest of the show, it really feels like Eiji is purely there for Ash's sake. He, being (as I mentioned previously) a Very Good Boy, sees a person who's clearly suffering, underneath the mask of a totally cool badass mafia assassin, and decides to show Ash the milk of human kindness in order to heal his pain and remind him that he's actually a person, and not just a wild animal that needs to be put down.

And while that's cute and cool and very much worth putting to film, that's not exactly a good reason to enter into a romantic relationship with someone. In fact, that feels more like a good reason to adopt a shelter animal.

0/10. NO HAND HOLDING

The second problem with the romantic relationship between our two leads is that... it's not really a romantic relationship. Like, make no mistake. It's not like I was expecting these two boys to spend their free time with their hands down each other's pants. However, they don't really do anything that indicates that they're in a relationship. They spend a lot of time together. They're clearly willing to throw down, when the other is in danger. They even share a few moments of genuine tenderness. But spending time and being emotionally intimate with your friend isn't gay, no matter what the dude-bros tell you, and neither they nor anyone around them seem to give any sort of indication that they should be read as being romantically involved.

Okay, they kiss, once, but I'll get to that in a second.

By itself, this isn't a big deal. It might even be a point in the show's favor. Considering how sleazy they make the world of gay people, how overloaded the plot is with sexual assaults and horrible, senseless violence, the fact that they make the relationship we're meant to root for wholesome? Not the worst decision.

It's a little weird, though. I mean, this was the chance for the show to show us what a good gay relationship might look like. It's a chance to show how Ash would engage with a partner he genuinely loves, when there isn't a gun to his head. A chance to present what a healthy, constructive relationship could look like, even in an environment as ugly as Banana Fish's. And what they gave us... was a very good friendship. Like, an outstanding friendship. A friendship I would happily defend, were it lucky enough to come my way. But that's all it is. You could honestly walk away from the show with the idea in your head that Eiji was straight, and was only staying close to Ash because he's a Very Good Boy and could see it was what Ash needed.

But... I'm overthinking this, maybe. A friendship is a good thing to put on screen, I think. Besides, even if they don't ever say the "L" word, there's enough subtext for you to be able to make the educated guess that they love each other. I don't need to give this any more thought. I could just sit back, and enjoy the wholesome vibes of Boy Assassin and Very Good Boy.

BUT IF I WERE A CYNICAL PERSON...

The show presents gay sexuality as being "bad." I'm not even sensationalizing. Ash's first crimes, his first acts of evil that send him down the violent road he finds himself on, happen as a direct result of being raped as a child and needing to defend himself. The show's main antagonist is a sadistic gay mob boss who's obsessed with owning Ash like a collector's item. Sexual assault and rape are employed or threatened by every throwaway minion who has any sort of power over the protagonists. The cast can be split into three groups: people who rape and abuse people, the victims of abuse... and Ash, who half the time is in the victim category, but the other half of the time uses sexuality as a cover for dishonest behavior.

Ash is openly sexual, at times, but these are always in controlled moments. Often, it's to distract or to call in a bad guy, so he can incapacitate or kill them when they're off guard. That time we get our big kiss between Ash and Eiji, it was all part of a clever ruse on Ash's part to sneak a message out of prison, and not an actual expression of love. For Ash, sex is either something that happens to him, or that he uses to get something he wants.

So, imagine the opportunity presented in front of us, here. Ash has a Very Good Boy, around. One who will not judge him, won't betray him, and who he can finally be his genuine self with. And when given that opportunity, the writer's apparently decided that their perfect gay relationship, the relationship Ash was going to have with his designated soulmate... is one that can easily be mistaken for generic friendship. One where you complain about food, together, but you sleep in separate beds. Where you call your partner "big brother" and only ever touch them when you're having a nervous breakdown and (understandably) need to be held. Where you never say the "love" part out loud, and none of your friends say it out loud, either.

And... I'm not a cynic. I'm not. But if I were, I could have a field day with this. I could write the entire world of Banana Fish as the sort of Gay Experience Conspiracy Theorycrafting that was absolutely rife in the mid and late 20th century. Because it seems like what the writers are suggesting is that the key to being happy as a gay character is to not be gay.

Being gay, according to the writers of Banana Fish, is a sort of corruption, that happens because you were abused and traumatized. Only bad people express thoughts that could be construed as gay sexuality, and in every case it's just meant to serve some greater purpose. Breaking a person's spirit. Getting them vulnerable so they can be killed. And when you find somebody who can finally let you heal from your trauma, all you ever wanna do is take Japanese lessons with your Very Good Boy friend who isn't your boyfriend. Let me just make that last part clear. He's just your very good friend, who just so happens to be a Very Good Boy, and the two of you don't even hold hands.

And then when it's time for your Very Good Boy friend to leave, to go to Japan and back to his regular Very Good Boy life, the moment you even think about going after him, you're gonna get stabbed in the street and murdered, as the consequences of your evil lifestyle finally catch up with you.

((Spoiler alert, btw.))

THAT'S HOW I'D READ IT, IF I WERE A CYNICAL PERSON

Luckily, I'm not a cynical person. I'm sure it's just a coincidence that all that could be inferred from a casual viewing. Surely, I'm just mad that the anime tagged with "gay" and "romance" didn't have enough obvious romance in it.

In conclusion, Banana Fish is a competently animated and drawn crime thriller. It's protagonist is a Mary Sue, but for the story it's telling that's not the worst thing he could be. Any sort of conspiracy theories I have about the writers and their opinion of gay people are probably irrelevant. 6/10. Watched it while I was sick. Killed time while the virus was being killed.

[unsung-idiot]

don't show him modern technology; it won't end well

bonus under the cut:

[maeamian]

If you saw me agreeing with being annoyed about wasted helium in a fictional context and were like "I bet she has some more helium based anger in her life" good news LAPD fucked up a raid on a medical facility they thought was a pot farm and flat out ruined thousands of gallons of the stuff.

[inkskinned]

this is just my opinion but i think any good media needs obsession behind it. it needs passion, the kind of passion that's no longer "gentle scented candle" and is now "oh shit the house caught on fire". it needs a creator that's biting the floorboards and gnawing the story off their skin. creators are supposed to be wild animals. they are supposed to want to tell a story with the ferocity of eating a good stone fruit while standing over the sink. the same protective, strange instinct as being 7 and making mud potions in pink teacups: you gotta get weird with it.

good media needs unhinged, googling-at-midnight kind of energy. it needs "what kind of seams are invented on this planet" energy and "im just gonna trust the audience to roll with me about this" energy. it needs one person (at least) screaming into the void with so much drive and energy that it forces the story to be real.

sometimes people are baffled when fanfic has some stunning jaw-dropping tattoo-it-on-you lines. and i'm like - well, i don't go here, but that makes sense to me. of fucking course people who have this amount of passion are going to create something good. they moved from a place of genuine love and enjoyment.

so yeah, duh! saturday cartoons have banger lines. random street art is sometimes the most precious heart-wrenching shit you've ever seen. someone singing on tiktok ends up creating your next favorite song. youtubers are giving us 5 hours of carefully researched content. all of this is the impossible equation to latestage capitalism. like, you can't force something to be good. AI cannot make it good. no amount of focus-group testing or market research. what makes a story worth listening to is that someone cares so much about telling it - through dance, art, music, whatever it takes - that they are just a little unhinged about it.

one time my friend told me he stayed up all night researching how many ways there are to peel an orange. he wrote me a poem that made me cry on public transportation. the love came through it like pith, you know? the words all came apart in my hands. it tasted like breakfast.

[somewhereincairparavel]

"jason is a knockoff watered down percy" NO hear me out, jason actually parallels annabeth immensely, sharing SO many similarities with her personality, not percy, in this essay I will-

edit: my full analysis is out now! here

[coddda]

I wish we could have met in some other way.

Lawlight Week Day 2: Soulmates

If you saw me repost and re-edit this several times uh No you didn't </3

Still frames/Individual gifs:

If you know what every frame is from you get a free cookie. by the way

[schemelin]

mute "I Hate It In Here" Lone Wanderer just wants her dad back.

[artkaninchenbau]

People keep on asking for more Baby Robin and Papadile so here is more Baby Robin and Papadile. Now never ask anything from me ever again

[hinamie]

"I'll show you every day that choosing to live was worth it"

some of my favourite scenes from @hijinks-n-lowjinks' fic things i would miss from the other side . this fic tore my heart out fr but like in a good way and i wanted to pay it homage the only way i know how <3

[nenoname]

It's still interesting that TBoB called more attention to Stan's control over his mindscape (And if you go with the interpretation that the lost pages are partial truths that are heavily influenced by Bill, then he's the one insisting that only someone with training should be able to have that much control over the mind.)

Meanwhile we have a memory!Stan. Someone who apparently knows too much and is rather aware for being a simple memory.

From the Wheel of Shame, we know Bill was able dig up all kinds of dirt on Stan but... that wasn't why he was there in the first place, was it?

Bill couldn't find the code immediately despite a memory of Stan opening the safe being a few hours old at most and decided to have Mabel try find it for him (The original concept of the ep had it far more hidden but this was likely cut because of time constraints)

Ford did experiments on Stan's mind which likely meant using Project Mentem and actually looking around his mindscape, and his only reaction was to comment on his jokes-- despite what little we the audience know being enough to render us sobbing wrecks

(yes I refuse to shut up about this part cos the book's intro is extremely underrated)

Stan was able to replace his memories of Ford with the swingset instead and managed to hide Ford in his Bar Mitzvah memory. And that's not even mentioning the lack of visible Portal and Stan o' War which noticeably show up in Ford's dreamscape (the broken swingset manifesting anyway pains me tho)

He subconsciously has misdirects for his secrets that are both silly and manages to disturb everyone too

And while Bill-as-Soos being bored by the vending machine memory is a joke that's basically the crew's way of going "hey remember the thing way back in the first ep that's going to show up in the next one?" and in-universe appears to be Stan slipping up, it's interesting that they had Stan input the wrong code when it's consistent literally every other time its inputted (especially when it shows up correctly in the very next episode)

It's even possible that the safe code that Bill found could have been a misdirect too but we'll never know since the safe got blown open by dynamite.

Stan was able to buy time by making his mind blank despite being genuinely terrified when Bill enters his mind (to the point that he breaks character and uses his own voice to yell), and could conjure up his living room (in colour opposed to his mind's regular greyscale) to make sure Bill didn't have enough room to flee, slamming the door in his face before the effects of the memory gun kicked in.

(EDIT: Random door analysis here)

And maybe the twins eventually told him that Bill had already been inside his mind after their W3 reunion, but all we know was that his conscious self was left in the dark for ages and wasn't really aware of Bill until Weirdmageddon.

TBoB showing McGucket's dreamscape also brings up the idea of the effects of the memory gun manifesting differently to each person. To Stan's mindscape, the memory wipe manifests as blue flames which immediately brings to mind Bill's powers but it's a far lighter shade (maybe to more closely match the memory gun and its eventual fade to white?)

The end of TBoB and the website poem also firmly reminds us about Stan's connection to fire but there's also the question if Stan himself is actually aware of it...

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

This wine tastes like pigs blood!

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[ps1demodisk]

Sorry I'm not low empathy autistic in the "mysterious loner boy who secretly cares about his friends and talks in a monotone voice" way and I'm actually just completely indifferent to the suffering of people I don't know personally and help strangers out of a sense of "this is the right thing to do" and not "I feel so bad for this person" or guilt.

I sit and listen to my friends even though I don't really care about hearing about their problems because I know they'll be upset if I don't, and despite the fact I honestly can't genuinely care about the issue itself, I care about the impact it's having on my friends and that's enough to make me want to help them through it.

Did you know that's actually an expression of empathy all of its own?

It will absolutely happen again I literally am not even sorry

[moodyseal]

I was poking fun at how unexpectedly silly the CHB kids looked in armour in the first two episodes of the PJO show (acting like an almighty army and all) and then it hit me. This is exactly how some of them will look like when they will be dying in the final battle. Silly. Tiny. Literal children

[lotus-pear]

the day i picked up dazai or smth idk i've never read it

[xitsensunmoon]

My first ever comic con! And first cosplay too. Of course it's gonna be my boy :] Ramblings about the process are under the cut(Let me know if?? You would want me to elaborate with process images for any of the steps?)

The costume took me forever to make, as I've never done any machine sewing, sculpting, fabric dying or spray painting before but learning all of these was so fucking fun!! I never realised just how many different skills go into making a cosplay but it was so worth it!!!

Almost all of the clothes(except the hat) were purchased first as bases, but all of the detailing was added by me. All of the fabric used was originally just scraps that I was given for free so I needed to learn how to dye and dye all of the stars, they were originally white.

The sewing machine was its own beast that brought me tons of frustration from the lack of skill and knowledge (it was devastating to find out that 95% of fuck ups were my fault and not the machine's lmao). But as a result, a hat sewn from scratch, all of the fur trims, embroidery on the corset, stars and the collar(which is very hard to see on the pictures unfortunately) was all added manually. The stars and the stripes(on the back of the cape) were attached using heat-and-bond adhesive (I WISH I knew about such thing just when I started working on this. It would save me so much time and nerves.)

Then I found out about polymorph(mouldable plastic) and it has become the next thing I wanted to learn, to sculpt the claws and the fangs(yes, they're handmade jfksjs). The claws I then primed and painted in trillion coats because I wasn't satisfied with the colour of the spray paint. The fangs I moulded to my own teeth and then stained with tea to match the colour of my teeth :)c

As for makeup, I used Mehron Paradise water activated paints. At first I wanted to try to save money and bought myself Snazaroo instead, which unfortunately turned out to be a waste. Snazaroo didn't hold on my face for longer than 2 hours, cracking and peeling awfully. Mehron on the other hand survived 11 hours of me smiling, talking, emoting and such and didn't even crease at the smile lines(I'm actually shocked about that). It obviously works like any other makeup which means your skin texture and wrinkles won't go anywhere but Mehron's elasticity pleasantly surprised me. It did obviously smear from sweat and saliva(if you're eating and licking your lips) but if you don't touch the skin it just dries again, self setting. But if it's dry it's fully smear-proof. Highly recommend!

And last but not least, I've decided against painting my hands as it was very risky that I will stain everything I touch at the smallest hint of sweat. So instead I got myself gloves-tights(? Not sure how they're called but it's made from the same fabric as tights) and painted them with normal acrylic paint(did you know you could dye fabric with acrylic paint? I personally didn't), then heat set with an iron and voilà, they're reusable, my hands are not stained after an exhausting day and I don't stain everything I touch. It worked wonderfully which honestly was a surprise as I was really sceptical that acrylic paint will somehow stay in place.

I think this whole thing took me minimum of 6 months with big-big breaks for my school and life in general. But I'm really proud! This project taught me so many new skills and I couldn't have been happier about learning new knowledge, even if it sucked to fail in the meantime.

Everyone at the con was really nice and gave me a large confidence boost even tho it was my first time and I had no idea what I was doing. Taking photos with other people was really awkward/new for me as I hate cameras so I really had no idea how to pose/behave in front of one. But that's okay I think. This whole experience definitely made me want to do this again, so I think that will come with experience. Thank you for reading this far, hope you enjoyed this little summary :)

[inkskinned]

love when men cry about body hair bc "it's hygiene" and yet 15% of cis men leave the bathroom without washing their hands at all and an additional 35% only just wet their hands without using soap. that is nearly half of all men. that means statistically you have probably shaken hands with or been in direct contact with one of these people.

love when men say that women "only want money" when it turns out that even in equal-earning homes, women are actually adding caregiver burdens and housework from previous years, whereas men have been expanding leisure time and hobbies. in equal-earning households, men spend an average of 3.5 hours extra in leisure time per week, which is 182 hours per year - a little over a week of paid vacation time that the other partner does not receive. kinda sounds like he wants her money.

love that men have decided women are frail and weak and annoying when we scream in surprise but it turns out it's actually women who are more reliable in an emergency because men need to be convinced to actually take action and respond to the threat. like, actually, for-real: men experience such a strong sense of pride about their pre-supposed abilities that it gets them and their families killed. they are so used to dismissing women that it literally kills them.

love it. told my father this and he said there's lies, damned lies, and statistics. a year ago i tried to get him to evacuate the house during a flash flood. he ignored me and got injured. he has told me, laughing, that he never washes his hands. he has said in the last week that women are just happier when we're cooking or cleaning.

maybe i'm overly nostalgic. but it didn't used to feel so fucking bleak. it used to feel like at least a little shameful to consider women to be sheep. it just feels like the earth is round and we are still having conversations about it being flat - except these conversations are about the most obvious forms of patriarchy. like, we know about this stuff. we've known since well before the 50's.

recently andrew tate tried to justify cheating on his partner as being the "male prerogative." i don't know what the prerogative for the rest of us would be. just sitting at home, watching the slow erosion of our humanity.