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ithinkyouhealedmyheart · 4 months ago

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Collab of The Week

Characters: Kendall Knight, Drake Parker, Veronica Clark oc, Marnie Jones oc, Gustavo Rocque, Logan Mitchell, Carlos Garcia, James Diamond, Kelly Wainwright, Arthur Griffin mentioned

Pairings: Kendall Knight/Original Character, Drake Parker/Original Character

Word Count: 1313

Arthur Griffin had a weird obsession with collaboration projects for some ungodly reason. And this was the weirdest one yet. He found a grunge band that made it big in San Diego and signed them on. Either he was trying to push Big Time Rush out of the spotlight, or he really liked grunge was unknown.

This time, he demanded that Big Time Rush perform a cover with the grunge band's leader singer. The song would be taken from their second album and spun to accommodate all five singers.

No one was happy.

"You already have a pretty face! Why do you need another one?" James shrieked, gesturing to his face with fluttery fingers and a dramatic gesture.

"Hell no! I am not letting some boyband losers taint my song!" Drake snapped at Gustavo.

"We are not losers!" Carlos shouted.

Soon, the boys' voices overlapped with Drake's, echoing off the walls in the hallway. Ronnie held her hands over her ears. It was one thing when the four guys started arguing, but it was an entirely separate ordeal when a stranger was thrown into the mix. She was sitting cross-legged, looking through the sheet music to get a feel for the song and its subject. Pen marks covered the page. Notes were circled, and words in the margins were scratched out.

A girl with curly, fiery red hair sat next to her, idly scrolling on her phone. She was dressed in all black, with chains and safety pins holding pieces of her clothing together. Her face and shoulders were peppered with freckles, and her off-the-shoulder shirt made it easy to spot them.

"I need everybody to stop talking!" Gustavo shouted over the cacophony of voices. "You are singing with the dawgs!" He jutted a grubby finger in Drake's direction. "You- " He turned away from James, who deflated like a balloon.

"Do we have any objections?"

Drake rolled his eyes and scoffed, muttering under his breath. "This is such a load of shit."

The girl sitting beside Ronnie gently tapped her on the shoulder. Despite her punk-esque exterior, she had a sweet smile on her face. In a way, she reminded her of Callie—tough on the outside, gentle on the inside.

"I'm Marnie," the redhead extended her hand covered in black and silver rings.

Ronnie hesitantly uncovered her ears. She had forgotten her earplugs, but even with them, the guys somehow got louder in different ways. She stared at Marnie's outstretched hand, brows furrowed in confusion. No one had ever shaken her hand when they greeted her. Awkwardly, she shook the girl's hand.

"Ronnie, their songwriter."

"Oh, songwriter! Nice. I'm Drake's girlfriend," she shrugged. Her arms were decorated with way too many bracelets. Ronnie wondered if they ever got sweaty underneath it all.

"Cool." That wasn't a fact she needed to know, but perhaps the girl thought she would have a crush on her boyfriend. Either way, it was useless information. "Hey, how well do you know this song?" Ronnie thrust the sheet music in her direction.

"Oh." Marnie blinked twice, reading the title. "What exactly do you need help on?"

"Gustavo wants me to split it amongst the five of them,"

"That's easy, can I?" Marnie held her hand out. She gestured to the pen with her eyes.

"Uh, sure." Ronnie handed her the pen and leaned over curiously.

"The chorus should be the five, or maybe even layered. Oh! Wait, perhaps a call and response?"

The two girls huddled together, discussing ideas about the sheet music, while Gusvato got the guys together. He didn't like the collaboration idea either, mainly because the song they were signing was one that Drake had written himself. The guys were set up in the booth when he realized he was missing someone.

"Where's Vee?" He turned to Kelly.

"She's still outside going over the music." Kelly pointed over her shoulder out the door.

"We need that like yesterday!" Gustavo's face tinged red.

"It's okay, it's okay! I'm sure she's finished with it!" Kelly tried to calm him. The last thing they needed was for him to pass out before they started singing.

The door to the recording studio. Kelly poked her head out into the hallway. Ronnie and Marnie were still chatting, but from the looks of it, they were finished.

"Ronnie!" She whispered, gesturing over with her hands.

The teen got up and curiously wandered over.

"We're ready, " Kelly said with a tight smile. "Oh, and bring your roadie friend along, too."

Ronnie glanced over her shoulder, and Marnie gave her a wave.

Big Time Rush and Drake Parker had essentially divided the recording booth. They refused to stand next to each other. Drake and James shot each other dirty looks and even stuck the middle finger at each other.

The recording... didn't go as planned.

Drake interrupted the guys when they were singing, and James interrupted Drake. This eventually led to a competition between them to see who could sing the song better.

Out of embarrassment, Marnie covered her face with her hands and looked away. Ronnie pulled off her headphones once the two of them started arguing again. Gustavo was more than pissed.

Which resulted in them getting an early break.

"I'm telling Griff he can forget it. There's no way I'm singing with a zealous popstar." Drake took Marnie's hand and started walking away.

"Zealous?" Marnie laughed. "I'm surprised you know that worked."

"Hah. She just called you dumb!" James laughed. "Burn!"

"Okay, fuck you!" Drake turned on his heel and got in James' face.

Ronnie and Kendall exchanged weary looks.

"Seriously, I don't get why she's with you if you're such a jerk face." James spat.

Drake rolled up his sleeves. "First, that's a low blow considering I don't see your girlfriend."

"For your information, she is very famous-"

"Drake!"

Kendall, Carlos, and Logan went to James' rescue when they saw the ginger throw the first punch. Marnie eventually got into the fray, trying to pry the three of them off the singer. Ronnie went to grab the first-aid kit because she would indeed have to bandage someone's wounds.

Kelly had to break them up this time. She did not get paid enough to deal with all these teenagers. Logan had a busted lip, but Carlos and Kendall were relatively okay. James whined about how Drake punched him in the face and that it would ruin his beauty.

Marnie pinched Drake's ear like she was his mother. It was something she'd seen Audrey Parker do way too many times. With surprising strength, she dragged the boy to the band, sitting in semi-comfortable chairs.

"Apologize!" Marnie planted her hands on her hips.

"What? No, that's gay!" Drake grimaced.

"You're bi, now apologize before I make you."

Ronnie blinked twice. Okay, she could go for Marnie if they were both single.

"Okay, okay! I'm sorry!"

"Like you mean it." Marnie pinched his ear harder.

"Alright, alright! I mean it! I'm sorry!" As soon as Marnie let go of his ear, Ronnie handed him something for the pain. He snatched it from her angrily, and a muscle in Kendall's jaw twitched.

James narrowed his eyes. "I'm not accepting that apology. You ruined my face!"

"I made it look better- " Marnie elbowed him.

"I think it's best if we all put this behind us and get working on that collab Griffin asked for."

Carlos squeaked and nodded. He didn't know whether he was scared or turned on, maybe a bit of both.

Ronnie definitely needed tips from her so that she could handle Big Time Rush the same way that Marnie could handle Drake. They could go on a double date sometime, but she would probably have to bargain with Kendall if she ever proposed that idea. There was this glint in her eye that scared the blonde.

What has Marnie done to his girlfriend?

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asexxxualerotica · 2 months ago

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Before I go to bed tonight—a bit ago I asked @freeusemuses what his roster of Pokémon muses looked like for each game, so I thought I’d list my own, too.

Obviously, my current muse is Stark, the Dark-specialist and Pokémon Punk. He hails from the Galar region but recently moved to Paldea to attend Naranja Academy. He is not a fan of the school uniform and has been written up multiple times for not meeting the dress code since arriving.

Also in Paldea is Cerise, who is a general playthrough protagonist. Cerise is a female student who is very fascinated by the history of Paldea and eagerly takes the history classes whenever she passes through Mesagoza. Her starter was Fuecoco, who she named Habanero.

Over in Galar, we��ve got Axel, who is a Poison-specialist and vying to become the first Poison gym leader in nearly ten years. He’s a personal rival of Klara, since they have type overlap, and they butt heads constantly whenever they’re not making out where no one can see them. Axel’s ace is a Drapion named Antares.

In Sinnoh, there’s Kristoff, who is an aspiring Ice-specialist who wants to kick Candice out of her gym—or at least force her to wear weather-appropriate clothes. He grew up in Snowpoint, and knows a lot about the ancient legends that came up in the area. His partner is a Weavile he’s had since he was a kid.

Finally, the muse that started it all, it’s Nate Black—the original. Nate Black is the character I played in Unova, specifically Black 2…where the male character is named Nate…but he really came into his own over the years. He’s a part-time singer, part-time movie star, and full-time trainer—where he finds the time for all of it, I have no idea.-

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franciskirkland-deleted · 1 year ago

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Do you have any pink genre recs in terms of music? I want to get more into the genre.

-Hypermobile Françoise anon

hello!!! do you have any idea how hard this is for me to answer. i love rambling and being pedantic and going off on tangents. almost as much as i love punk music...

tl;dr i compiled a playlist for you, containing 3 songs from (most of) the bands mentioned below, plus a few extra from miscellanious artists bc 54 is my lucky number. it was hard to choose just 3 from some of my faves but i feel like this is a good introduction. long post to follow <3

instead of simply giving you a list and sending you on your merry way, i am absolutely going to spout off bc thats what i do and ur gonna regret asking. do you think you were gonna get off that easy? you absolute fool. sit ur ass down ur about to get schooled.

disclaimer; this isn't exhaustive. i'm not rattling off every single punk artist that's ever existed. just a few of my favorites.

the clash, the quintessential punk band in my opinion. defined the genre and embodied the political ethos. explored different subgenres througout their expansive discography. they were probably my first introduction to music as a whole since they're my dad's favorite band. i may be biased but i'd definitely say start with the clash. i'd recommend listening to their third album, london calling, first.

the pogues - the folk punk band of all time. NOT folk-punk like some smelly white man with dreadlocks screaming over poorly-tuned guitar. you'll know exactly what i mean when you hear it. they have a unique sound that just can't be replicated. and shane macgowan is actually such a beautiful person. their lyrics are also politically tinged, kinda gritty and edgy (i.e. gratuitous slurs) so not for senstive ears.

(i actually have a playlist of my fave pogues/shane macgowan songs)

the cure, in my opinion, invented goth or at least popularized it. their earlier stuff had more of a punk sound but every one of their albums is a perfect 10 to me. they're one of my favorite bands of all time and i could go on about them for hours so i'll leave it there. joy division, also more goth/post-punk but i love them, i have one of their album covers tattooed on my forearm lmao 19 year old decisions. no regrets (i also love the smiths, but they're not really punk punk.)

before you ask, no sex pistols!!! don't get me started on how much i hate the sex pistols i will throw up! god they suck. to me at least.

a lot of punks also listen to ska - no, not that kind of ska. 70/80s ska that originated from rocksteady/reggae. some of my faves in that arena being madness, the specials, bad manners, and the beat.

and as for across the pond - american punk artists.

johnny cash. no, seriously. man was punk before punk was defined.

my favorite band is probably social distortion. they're pretty different than those mentioned above, owing to their unmistakable americana sound and aesthetic. to me they're the quintessential rockabilly revival band, heavily influenced by country and blues. great guitar licks. think wistful and reckless all at once.

their frontman mike ness is an outrageously gorgeous man. he has two solo albums that absolutely slap. the happiest day of my life was seeing them live a couple years ago and he winked right at me - i promise i'm not delusional i swear he really did. ok i digress.

dead kennedys - hilarious lyrics and sick ass bass lines, very political and generally pretty iconic. one of my dad's faves. the cramps and the misfits. two bands overlapping goth + punk + psychobilly. pioneers of a campy subgenre known as horror-punk. i also really like danzig, the misfits frontman's solo career.

the velvet underground/lou reed - great example of american proto-punk. very NYC vibes. the pixies are a more grungy, later punk band. one of my mommy's favorites <3 i would unironically name my child velouria. definitely iconic but i find them overplayed sometimes, as in you've probably heard them at the grocery store.

this barely scratches the surface btw but i think that about covers it for today. sorry if i bored you to death pls come back and keep me company. peace and love on planet mpregfrance <3

#thank u as always anon #ask and ye shall receive #punk #music recs #spotify #playlist #punk playlist #ska #goth #psychobilly #rockabilly

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cogaytes · 6 months ago

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I’ve been searching for a post for like twenty minutes about how saying Tam Song is emo can come from racist stereotypes and idk if the post in yours, but I did see you briefly mention that in your post about “the woobifiction of Tam” so I was hoping, if it would be too much trouble, if you could go into detail about that specifically? If not that’s 300% okay, no pressure, I just want to know what stereotypes and stuff to avoid, because I want to draw him as punk but idk if those sort of stereotypes overlap in the two genres etc. Sorry this is so long! ૮꒰ ˶• ༝ •˶꒱ა ♡

yeah! i think i worded the original post badly; for me it's more people's stereotypes of what it means to be emo (being "repressed" and "moody" and "hiding their emotions") intersecting with stereotypes of asian men being repressed and not showing their emotions. the emo subculture is actually all about being sensitive and emotional, but i don’t think people necessarily know that, so people's ideas of emo get projected onto tam in ways that align with stereotypes imo. i also just in general think tam is more punk than emo haha

#highly encourage people to read up on emo subculture #it's so cool #anyway hope this answers your question anon :D

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kinocomix · 1 year ago

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Untitled project Devlog #3: The crab effect

Today we’re going to talk about how art and politics are inherently inseparable on a conceptual level, but first: let’s talk about boots.

If you google Doc Martens you’ll be taken to their website where you have the option of buying an assortment of very overpriced shoes that a lesbian on tiktok assured me are made less good than classic ones from the 90’s and 80’s. When I was in class one day our professor mentioned how nowadays a lot of companies adopt an ideology put forth by Ford (the car manufacturer) where if you have a very sturdy part of a machine that’s expensive to make but the rest of the machine isn’t, the “smarter” idea is to make this part cheaper and less sturdy than to spend a bunch of money to make the whole machine better- supposedly this is better for the consumer somehow but that’s not the point. Setting aside how that raises the question of planned obsolescence and potential consumer exploitation, part of the reason that people say old Doc Marten shoes are better… is probably because they actually are.

from how to geek: https://www.howtogeek.com/731791/what-is-planned-obsolescence-and-how-does-it-affect-my-devices/

This sentiment, the idea that companies aren’t worth your respect because they optimize their products to make more money and not to actually sell you a good product is part of what a lot of punk subcultures are about. Those same boots were likely part of the original fashion focused subculture, skinheads, that assisted in the creation of the punk genre.

The original meaning of “skinhead” referred to some working class young people who had some extra cash to spend on clothing. Because history is always very messy, some racists saw that and thought “oh wow young people who can vote” and then neo nazis happened. in reaction to that you had people still calling themselves skinheads now taking an anti racist anti fascist approach. to note: it’s not clear cut, you still had people in the middle not caring.

This is how the ideology of punk was born. It’s this whole messy history lesson spanning continents, politics, fashion, a distaste for what was then the way too polished mirror sheen of rock. they wanted something tangible, something of the people by the people. so take the urban fashion of the original reggae/soul/ska influenced skinhead movement born in the UK, combine it with the now beginning to be unique sound of american punk just trying to sound different, the image of the working class “bastard” that deconstructed and challenged the idea of what a musician was and you get a socio-politically motivated genre of music that wants the best for the people.

sidenote: in case you’re wondering- yes there were neonazi punk musicians, but it’s not called punk, it’s called hatecore, which is… a fitting name. Genres are not only defined by sound, but themes as well.

Remember when I mentioned that music changes based off of the social fabric it’s built on? there you go. Punk as we know it would not exist the way it does today had it not been for that messy history. Now with that in mind, you can hopefully see why there’s an overlap with metal. If I were to vaguely state “loud music that actually wants to say something very important” you might have a hard time telling me which genre I’m talking about. This overlap is vaguely similar to how nature keeps evolving crabs independently from each other:

“Carcinization is of interest to carcinologists and evolutionary biologists for several reasons and at different levels. First of all it is an instance of astonishing convergence, concerning a whole set of structures.”

Scholtz, G. (2014). Evolution of crabs – history and deconstruction of a prime example of convergence, Contributions to Zoology, 83 (2) 87-105. https://brill.com/view/journals/ctoz/83/2/article-p87_1.xml

And… it’s weird right? how these people trying to do different things ended up in the same place. to note, I’m aware that both of these genres are not exclusively worried about social and political issues, no genre is. Metal is first and foremost fun, and punk music is first and foremost that: MUSIC. But it’s hard to deny that both genres are intense in their messaging.

Remember the time System of a Down set aside years of creative differences to talk about the war happening in Armenia?

youtube

Literally any Russ Russel song will be talking about some variation of politics/the man/religion

Napalm Death, Metaphorically screw you

Here’s a fun fact, Rage against the machine got the N-word pass (I would presume) to sing their cover of Fuck the police

youtube

You know the meme of Gojira being all like “come here bb girl” and then it’s just like a tree? I mean that’s not based on nothing either…

youtube

On the lesser known end of the spectrum, you have artists like 3teeth which raise an interesting question:

3teeth, president X

“It’s all kind of… tongue in cheek?” you might say. There’s the song “God hates us all” by Slayer, when the lead singer Tom Araya was asked if he actually believes that he simply said the following:

Tom Araya in in Metal: A Headbanger's Journey, directed by Sam Dunn

Metal Musicians aren’t dumb. They know what they’re doing. Sometimes they’re Genuinely convinced of what they’re talking about. Other times They’re just trying to be outrageous.

Dee Snider, Lead singer of twisted Sister

A lot of the gender norm defying things the metal scene did in the 70’s was because they were just trying to look cool and outrageous. But let’s forget about that for a moment. I can hear someone giving the arguments “What about Nu metal?”, “What about Rob zombie?”, “what about Ghost”, “what about [insert commenter’s band here]?”. Are those political? no, neither is most music in general. No one listens to Feiruz and thinks “ah yes, you can clearly hear the Palestinian struggle represented through the lyrics” but you might just look up Feiruz, learn she’s from Lebanon and then learn about the part of the world glued to Lebanon called Palestine. This is called tangential learning, so in that same sense, maybe you’ll be listening to Bodies by Drowning pool–which is about moshing by the way– and for a moment you’ll think of something else more serious for example. Again, you might not, and that’s fine… but you can’t deny that the path is there.

Setting that aside for a moment, let’s consider the argument that music is a form of escapism. Leaning on this as your sole argument is very narrow minded and forgets the idea that escapist fiction is inherently anti-escapist. When you read Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson (which is great by the way go read Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson) sure you’re immersed in the world of the book and the intricacies of this nigh-impossible magical bank heist. But once you put down the book, you’re always reminded of the world you’re escaping from. Escapist fiction offers a temporary relief from reality, there is always a thread that tethers that fiction to the real world it pushes against.

Craig Thompson, Blankets

If you're still reading at this point you’re probably wondering how any of this is relevant to a comic book, let alone one that I'm making. The project I'm working on is going to feature a band that we’re going to be eventually making characters for. but in order to do that and do it properly, it’s important to understand the motivations behind the music. If I don’t then you end up with cliche characters like “angry rebellious metalhead” and “overly verbose activist punk” which no one wants and that would make the whole thing a shit fest at worst, and a boring comic at best. It’s important for me that i don’t rely on the events taking place in the story to hold it up, the world and people in it need to be just as interesting and complex as the contrivances of my narrative, otherwise I’m just writing a less good bandslam or a very uninspired rip off of inception that completely misses the point.

Anyways!I would be remiss to not specifically point out that I actually have a goal I’m working towards, I have a plot outline that’s been figured out for a while. All the work I’m doing fits into that skeleton in one way or another, but that’s it for now.

Devlog updates on tuesdays

#comic #kinocomix #devlog #graphic novel #metal #webcomic #craig thompson #twisted sister #slayer #punk rock #Youtube

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johannesson · 11 months ago

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I shit on Back to the Future II for a loooooooong time

~ The other night I watched the original Back to the Future with my grandmother. It's a popular take on time travel and it was a good movie. I loved it, thought it was funny, exciting, endearing at times. I enjoyed the fifties setting, and the concept of a kid raised in the eighties finding himself a fish out of water in the previous era. I just enjoy seeing the set designs of the old town buildings, costumes, music, and how they contrast with the 'modern' look of Marty. Good popcorn movie, and it didn't overlap with anything I was writing in my novel (it's good to know that your ideas are fresh and not re-used, even on accident). So, the next night, we started watching the sequel. I couldn't even get through it. Cheesy, boring, stupid, and painfully unoriginal. Shit, the first scene of the movie is /exactly the last scene of the first/. Maybe besides the added scenes of Biff, who overstayed his welcome by far. It felt disappointing, did the creative well dry up? It's a textbook example of why sequels should expand on the universe, build characters further, and give us more to look for. Apparently the third movie is also just the original movie but /set in the wild west/. They teased the bad guy in the second movie.

Speaking of that, I wasn't a fan of the dropping hints towards sequels, in all the movies. The gall of something as trashy as Bttf-II out loud contemplating a sequel midway through its horribly long run felt big-headed and presumptuous.

The whole thing felt like a Hollywood-funded AU fanfiction, something I'd read on the old .net on my Kindle tablet. What if BttF was set in the future, not the past? Dark!AU, Future!AU. The mom wears slutty clothes, Marty is kidnapped and brought to his room, Biff is his powerful rich stepdad! Also Dystopia!AU, where crime runs rampant, upper-middle-class wet nightmare about how the world will explode and those punk kids will shoot at us from their trucks.

There were also some weird story elements that just didn't make sense either? Why does Marty's son look exactly like him, but his daughter looks totally different? How does genetics works? The thing about being seen in the DeLorean, having it seen flying, and now it's suddenly a bad thing with consequences? Can you imagine how many people also looked outside of their windows and saw the same thing? Also, if Biff and others remember Marty being in their past, wouldn't they remember his face, too? The sound of his voice? Besides when the plot calls for it.

The use of catchphrases, repeatedly, was grating fast. Just needed to add that. There's so many times I can hear them say the line before it gets annoying. Plus the acting in some places was almost painfully subpar for being really good in the first movie. One-liners, missed lines. I actually winced at the scene where Marty got fired from his job, like man, I thought you were good at this shi Lastly, I do have to say that the attempted changing of common phrases in 'future-talk' was a good little detail, with how many times I consider how phrases and ways we casually talk have changed even over the course of the past ten years, five even. Rizz? Swag? Radical? Awesomesauce? Half these words make little sense outside of context and sound even more ridiculous when you try and look closer at them, so weird slang words made sense. But having seen 2015 myself, not finding it all that impressive really, it kind of made immersion difficult. Aged like milk imo.

It's as frustrating as watching a guy create something so original, cool, fascinating and fun, and then intentionally, laser-focused shooting himself in the foot. Twice.

#rant post #movie critique?

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beaftly · 3 years ago

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I've seen some people claim to be an authority on cripple punk due to their age lately. Honestly, if your only (tenuous) grasp on a movement is your age, ESPECIALLY if many, many people in that movement are telling you to stop being a disrespectful ass, you're a disrespectful ass. You know exactly who I'm talking about.

To recycle that person's words, this isn't cute. This is cruel. This person has been reaching out to other bloggers unprompted, jumping onto their posts and causing their followers to dogpile the OPs. There's been death threats, all of which have come from this person's following. How can you watch your people do things like that and be okay with it, even making sure to reply as coolly as possible to a suicidal person and therefore making them out to be the bad guy?

Like I said in my pinned post, the mind-body continuum or WHATEVER you wanna call it is really wonky, and there is definitely overlap (you can be tired from depression or from myalgic encephalomyelitis, the latter of which is a physical disability)! However. As people have been continually pointing out, the literal first principle of the cripple punk movement is that it is for physically disabled people, by physically disabled people.

I've seen arguments that, well, the brain is an organ and therefore my mental illness/neurodivergence is a physical disability! And that's just not true. Like I said above, you can have fatigue from depression, yeah - but that's not gonna cut it if you want to co-opt a literal slur. To use the word "cripple" you have to be someone that word would be used against as a slur. Which isn't pleasant to think about, but it's true. Your depression isn't gonna have people gawking at you, calling you a cripple. It's just not! Nor is your autism, your schizophrenia, your ADHD, your bipolar or borderline or anxiety.

Some people are saying that since, for example, cerebral palsy is a disorder originating in the brain, well then folks with that diagnosis can't claim the word cripple, either. But the way cerebral palsy works is not a mental illness or a neurodivergence - it's literal brain damage, to quote an acquaintance with CP. And it affects the movement of the body, it causes pain, people need surgery because of it - I could go on. The same is true of disorders like functional neurological disorder: it starts in the brain, but it affects the entire body in ways your mental health alone won't.

In summation of the above, those with mental illness and/or neurodivergence cannot claim the word cripple. As a mutual put it, if you'd need a modifying word to tack on around "cripple," it's not your word at all. If you would enter a cripple punk space and have to preface your entry with, "oh by the way, I'm only here cuz I'm neurodivergent," it's not your space. Cripple punk spaces are highly specialized. As someone else put it, it would be like a gay guy waltzing into a lesbian bar and wondering why there were no gay-guy resources available there.

If you're ND and/or mentally ill, what you're looking for is madpunk and/or neuropunk. There's lots of overlap between the two, and it's a place you'd probably prefer in time over cripple punk spaces anyway. Madpunk resources are specifically for people with brain stuff like the aforementioned anxiety or borderline or ADHD or whatever.

And if you are mentally ill/neurodivergent, *and* physically disabled (like myself), and you're advocating for purely-ND/mentally-ill folks to use the word cripple... Well, I'm just gonna say it. You're not only in the wrong, but you're insulting the memory of the creator of cripple punk. (Don't y'all dare call them ableist again or so help me lmao. Or me, for that matter!)

On the slim chance this post makes it to the very person who's been using their age as a gotcha, being a dick to suicidal folks, and disrespecting the creator of cripple punk, that would be because someone screenshotted and sent this post to them, because you bet your ass I have them blocked lol. I've been trying to stay out of this but I cannot believe the audacity of the thing. I'm very tired of all this and I hope it gets shut down soon. Ok, peace out.

#mine #cripple punk #long post

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blurrymango · 1 year ago

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Girl (gender neutral because I don’t feel like checking for pronouns) what.

First off I don’t go to pride parades. Second off, I don’t believe pride parades are an LGBT only event, so I don’t care about cishet kinksters and drag queens attending.

Also, it’s not about me deeming them acceptable or not, it’s about the fact that LGBT rights is an LGBT thing.

The difference matters when it comes to legal shit.

I don’t appreciate you thinking that I need people to explain who they are their identity and then comparing your headcanon about me to the nasty shit TERFs do.

Trans people fighting for their right to transition without it being considered controversial and gay people fighting for their right to adopt children without it being considered controversial is extremely different from kinksters wanting to do BDSM or furries being furries or punk people listening to the music they like.

Sure, a trans woman and a drag queen could look, at a glance, to be the same, but they are entirely different. A trans woman is a woman trying to live as a woman and become comfortable in her body, a drag queen is a man doing a performance of femininity. Conservatives just see two men in dresses. Smart people will get to know two people with entirely different experiences and goals in life.

That’s what I’m talking about here, labeling LGBT people and cishets who are not the societal norm as both being just the same group of queers is not helpful because everyone is ffucking different and has different experiences.

But conservatives seeing LGBT folks and lumping them under the same socially unacceptable umbrella as kinky folks and furries is their problem. It is not progressive. What you did in your original post and reblog is say that cunts who label entirely separate but often times overlapping groups of people together is a good thing. That LGBT folks and furries being put under the same umbrella is good because “well we’re all freaks anyway” ignoring that LGBT folks and furries are are their core fundementally different.

So no, this is not me demanding everyone be up front about everything about themselves at all times, this is me saying that lumping together different groups of people under one umbrella is ffucking bad whether conservatives do it or progressives do it. Conservatives and TERFs look at drag queens and trans women and label them all just weird men in dresses, and the original reblog is implying that the distinction doesn’t matter because they see us all as freaks anyway. That’s not a good thing, sorry.

was thinking about infighting and like. they all see us the same. from the wildest queerest fagdyke to a cis gay guy. we are the same to them. the weird queers are not like. ruining your precious community. we're a part of it

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baya-ni · 4 years ago

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SHADOW’s Queer Coding

I first started exploring this idea of Sk8′s implicit queer rep (as in stuff other than explicit same sex intimacy) in this post.

I know we like to joke that Hiromi is the Token Straight of the protag gang, but I argue that he’s as much an example of queer rep as any of our main characters, albeit in a less conventional and fanservicey way.

So that’s what this post is gonna be, an analysis of Hiromi/SHADOW as a queer figure, how his character fits the Jekyll/Hyde archetype as a metaphor for queerness and The Closet, the similarities between SHADOW as a skatesona and early drag, and how his character represents a larger problem of exclusion within queer fandom spaces.

The 1886 Gothic novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson is the origin of the phrase “Jekyll and Hyde”. What I’m calling the Jekyll/Hyde archetype, refers to the same thing; it refers to duality, to a character who is “outwardly good but sometimes shockingly evil” (as described from the novella’s wiki page).

And the Jekyll/Hyde dynamic has also long been associated with Queerness. The antagonism between Jekyll and Hyde as two sides of the same person resonates with many people as similar to the experience being in the closet, and many many scholars have written about this queer reading of Jekyll and Hyde. Do a quick google search if you don’t believe me.

Hiromi experiences his own Jekyll/Hyde duality through his SHADOW persona, which seems to entirely contradict with Hiromi’s day to day personality.

Whilst Hiromi is sweet, romantic, and generally very cutesy, SHADOW is mean-spirited, sadistic, described as “the anti-hero of the S community.” And though these two personalities seem entirely at odds, SHADOW doesn’t exist in a vacuum, he’s very much a part of Hiromi. In the show, this manifests as SHADOW’s sabotage moves being all flower themed, as Hiromi works in a flower shop, and how he’ll “step out” of character when playing babysitter to the kids.

Below is passage from an essay titled, “The Homoerotic Architectures of Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” which reminds me a lot of Hiromi’s character, such that I think his character arc can be read as an allegory for coming out and self acceptance.

The closet, here, is a space not only for secrecy and repression, but also for becoming; it is the space in which queer identities build themselves up from “disused pieces” and attempt to discover the strength needed for presentation to the world. The closet is both a space of profound fear and profound courage—of potentiality and actualization. (Prologue)

Unlike the kid/teen characters, the show’s adult characters all lead double lives. When they aren’t skating, they have day jobs. Kaoru is a calligrapher, Kojiro is a restaurant owner, Ainosuke is a politician/businessman (but tbh his job is just being some rich dude), and Hiromi works in a flower shop.

But of the adult protagonists (so not Ainosuke), Hiromi compartmentalizes the most.

Kojiro leaves his face totally exposed such that he can be recognized both on and off the skate scene. Kaoru at least covers his face, but his trademark pink hair and constant use of Carla doesn’t make it very hard to connect the dots between him and CHERRY. He’s also always with Kojiro in the evenings, so if you don’t recognize him as CHERRY when he’s on his own, you certainly will when you see him interacting with Kojiro/JOE.

Next to these two, Hiromi seems the more adamant at separating his Work from Play.

Even when he’s been clearly found it, he still tries to deny that he and SHADOW are the same person. Miya even uses this to coerce Hiromi into helping him and the boys:

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the separation between Hiromi and SHADOW can be interpreted as a metaphor for being in The Closet. As SHADOW, he leads a secret life, one characterized by an tight-knit underground community with a vibrant night scene, where he behaves in ways typically frowned upon by larger society. He worries about being found out and judged by the people close to him.

But in Ep 4, the walls of his Closet begins to come down, or in this case is literally imposed upon by other members of his community, by its younger members, who don’t feel the same need to hide their passion for skateboarding or lead the same kind of double life.

We then see the line between Hiromi and SHADOW begin to blur.

He becomes less of an antagonist, and instead the audience sees him become a mentor and “mother hen” figure for the younger skaters. Later on in Ep 4, we see him casually interacting with the other protags in full SHADOW mode, not as an “anti-hero” but as a friend. In Ep 6, he acts as a babysitter for the kids, and we see him totally comfortable appearing both in an out of his SHADOW persona throughout their vacation.

And I think that this gradual convergence of Hiromi and SHADOW will culminate in this tournament arc.

There’s something more personal that’s driving SHADOW to do well in this tournament. It’s not just for bragging rights or his pride as a skater, but the results of this tournament is going to have some kind of greater impact on Hiromi’s personal life. Personally, my theory is that Hiromi is using this tournament to prove to himself that he’s worthy enough to ask his manager out on a date.

Hiromi is no longer compartmentalizing, his two lives are overlapping and influencing each other. Recall the essay quote I cited earlier:

The closet... is the space in which queer identities build themselves up from “disused pieces” and attempt to discover the strength needed for presentation to the world... of potentiality and actualization.

This is exactly the case for Hiromi. Through skating, he is piecing together the disparate parts of him such that he can present himself to the world as a more unified and confident being.

And the show presents the very skating community that Hiromi has been working so hard to keep separated from his personal life- Reki, Langa, Miya, Kaoru, and Kojiro- as the catalyst for that becoming.

That, my dear readers, is queer coding if I ever saw it.

But there’s probably gonna be people claiming something along the lines of “But SHADOW can’t be queer rep because he’s Straight!” And I assume that’s because he shows romantic interest in his female manager.

First of all, Bisexuality. Also Ace/aro-spec people. And second of all, SHADOW is Hiromi’s drag persona.

And before anyone can say anything about how Hiromi can’t do drag because he’s straight (assumption) and cis (also an assumption) uhhhh no, fuck you.

Drag didn’t start with RuPaul’s Drag Race, that’s just how it got mainstream. And it’s also how it got so gentrified and transphobic. You heard me. But anyway.

Drag is, and has always been, first and foremost about exaggerated, and oftentimes satirical, gender presentation and performance. It’s about playing with gender norms through artistic dress and theater, not so much to do with sexuality or gender identity.

Literally, what’s the difference here?

SHADOW is a persona of exaggerated masculinity with a punk aesthetic. Regardless of his sexuality or gender identity, Hiromi’s gender performance as SHADOW is drag- that makes him queer representation, change my fucking mind.

Queerness is more than same-sex romance, and by extension, good queer representation is not limited to canonized gay ships. The very word Queer, in it’s ambiguity, is meant to encompass the richly unique experiences of everyone within the LGBTQ+ community.

In my opinion, Queer =/= Gay. I mean, they’re colloquially the same yes and even I use them interchangeably. But for the purpose of this post, they’re not the same, and that’s to argue that Hiromi/SHADOW’s lack of acknowledgement as queer rep illustrates a larger issue of exclusion within fandom.

I mean, this is something we all kinda been knew, but in the case of Sk8 specifically, there are a two main reasons why I think Hiromi is rarely acknowledged as queer rep.

1. He’s not shippable with another male character

Fandom favors mlm ships when it comes to what’s considered good queer rep. And the ultimate mark of good queer rep is explicit acts of romance or intimacy between two male characters. Unlike with any of the other characters in the show, we can’t point to Hiromi and automatically clock him as gay, especially because he expresses romantic interest in a woman.

So by default, he’s less popular, because “Ew Straight People” amirite /s.

2. He’s not attractive

This is really interesting, because like JOE, Hiromi is a beefcake.

But fans don’t thirst over him the same way they do over JOE. Granted, the show really plays up JOE’s muscles in a very strip-teasey way that literally encourages viewers to find him attractive. By contrast, Hiromi is pretty much covered head to toe and he paints his face in theatrical makeup- the point is to look scary, not attractive.

In essence, even though Hiromi engages in “queer behavior” through his SHADOW persona, his queerness isn’t palatable.

But I also think there’s some pretty insidious undercurrents of fetishization going on here, of both Asian people AND gay men. Which is... a whole other thing I really don’t have the capacity to unpack completely.

But basically, Hiromi doesn’t fit into any of the popular BL archetypes so he’s less likely to recognized as Queer. Relatedly, he’s also less often subjected to a fetishistic gaze as other characters. I mean...

So again, fans just don’t find him as appealing. Attractive characters are always more popular than ugly ones.

And I’m sure there are a lot of people who just don’t care for Hiromi’s personality, that’s fine, he does act like an asshole sometimes. But this post is meant to illustrate that queer rep takes multiple forms, and unfortunately I think a lot of media just tends to fall back on stereotypical portrayals of queer people for the sake of broader appeal. And by consequence, the fandom’s idea of what constitutes queer rep narrows to same-sex romance, usually between two cis gay men.

With the release of Ep 9, I know a lot of people queer people are going to find representation in the Kojiro’s whole “unrequited love” thing. But personally, I feel more represented by Hiromi, his journey of self-acceptance and subversive relationship with gender- that’s what resonates with me as a trans person.

And I think it’s important to see that kind of less palatable type of queer representation more acknowledged in fandom, and in Sk8′s fandom especially, because I know the demographics of this fandom lean heavily queer.

But that’s all for now, lemme know what you guys think :)

#if there are typos forgive me i'm tired #i've been sitting on this take for a number of weeks now #i rlly hope i'm big braining rn #and not just like #yelling into a void #i love hiromi #yall Sleeping on my mans #hav u seen his leather clad ass???#bodacious #sk8 #sk8 the infinity #sk8 theory #sk8 meta #sk8 spoilers #sk8 shadow

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x0401x · 4 years ago

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Febri Talk Interview with Jin (Complete)

Commissioned by the lovely @sodasexual again!

Part 1: overwhelmed by the power of friendship in “The☆Doraemons: Kaitou Dorapan no Chousenjou!”

Musician and creator Jin has been bringing countless topical works to the world, including “Kagerou Project”. In the first part of this serial interview, we had him talk about a work from the series “The☆Doraemons”, which he experienced in his childhood and continued to be influenced by for a long time.

A work that unexpectedly became one of the origins of “Kagerou Project”.

——Jin-san, we would like to ask you about anime shows that have had an influence on you, following in order from your infancy onwards, so would the first one be “The☆Doraemons: Kaitou Dorapan no Chousenjou!” (hereon, “The☆Doraemons”), which came out in the year 1997?

Jin: That’s right. I watched this one in the theaters when I was either 7 or 8 years old. It’s an animation short that was screened together with “Doraemon: Nobita no Neji-maki Toshi Bounen-ki”, and it had one hell of an impact on me. At the time, I was living in an isolated island in Hokkaido called Rishiri Island, so just getting to watch a movie was quite a spectacle in itself (laughs). Actually, not many animes were broadcasted in Rishiri Island to begin with. There were few channels, and other than that, they aired those black-and-white period dramas in cable TV, I guess.

——No, I think that last one is a stretch (laughs). Did you watch “Doraemon” because you liked it from the start?

Jin: I liked it a lot. But the so-called “The☆Doraemons” is a spin-off about six friends of different colors. If I were to talk about the contents of “Kaitou Dorapan” in a summarized way, it’s the story of the Doraemons receiving a letter of challenge from an mysterious enemy called Dorapan, then completely getting caught into his trap and falling into a pinch... And, surprisingly, Doraemon isn’t active at all in this movie (laughs).

——Aah, it’s a work where the Doraemon friends are the main characters, right?

Jin: That’s right. A duo that didn’t have much popularity among the friends, Dora-med III and Dora-rinho, were set as the main characters in this one (laughs). Of course, I didn’t go watch it thinking that Doraemon would participate actively, but he almost doesn’t do anything. Instead, we were shown these two, who are something like sub-characters, in a big scuffle. But when it ended, I began to really like Dora-med III and Dora-rinho.

——Ahaha. So you totally got into it.

Jin: They had something called a “Friendship Telephone Card”, which was introduced as a key item, and this “friendship” thing made the back of my nose sting – that was the kind of feeling I got from it. Dorapan, the one who plays the role of villain in this movie, attempts to take control of robots from all over the world using the power of the Doraemons’ Friendship Telephone Card. However, there’s actually a mastermind behind the scenes, and one heroine is taken hostage, so Dorapan is doing bad deeds because he has no choice. We find this out in the middle of the movie, and at that moment, Dora-rinho goes, “I see; so that’s what was going on” and voluntarily tries to sacrifice himself. By believing in self-sacrificing friendship, everyone was able to reach a happy ending. That kind of storyline was truly wonderful... To tell you the truth, the initial motif of Kagerou Project (hereon “KagePro”) was this movie.

Making KagePro out of wanting to create his own “Doraemons”.

——Eeh, is that so!?

Jin: I created KagePro because I wanted to write about friendship, or rather, I wanted to make my own “Doraemons”. I started KagePro when I was about 20 years old, as I was vaguely beginning to realize that friendship apparently doesn’t exist at that point in life (laughs). Also, same goes to music, of course, but among the books I was reading back then, quite a lot of them had cynical views. Although these stories were my own taste, I also had the impression that there was a generational trend in them, like “people shouldn’t look at this if they’re dumb” and “those who understand this thing are admirable”. Therefore, I did my best to pretend to be like that at first, but I gradually grew tired of it...

——Ahaha. You were getting out of breath.

Jin: That’s right. So, when I looked back, I thought, “I do like ‘Kaitou Dorapan’ after all”. Therefore, if I was going to make something by myself, I decided to use it as the theme. In that sense, amongst the things I watched in my childhood, this work was a turning point. After watching it in the theater for the first time, I watched it over and over again as rental video, and because of this, I even now remember the moments when the sound effects come in.

——Generation-wise, you’re precisely from the generation of “The☆Doraemons”.

Jin: Yeah, spot-on. Also, the Doraemons from “The☆Doraemons” are comical and cute, but on the other hand, they show us that they are extremely strong-willed characters. Moreover, the Doraemons are rich in individuality – as in, everyone is irregular and there are some characters that make you go, “Isn’t that a problem?” amongst them. For example, the wolf Dora-nichov can’t speak human language (laughs).

——I see! Thinking that way, I feel like I can see the points in common with KagePro.

Jin: Also, all of them are purely good guys. The fact that they’re all good people and only have one enemy is pretty awesome. I believe that this kind of thing has an influence on the KagePro series as a whole.

Part 2: paralyzed by the hardboiled worldview of “Cowboy Bebop”.

In the second part of this interview series, where we ask Jin about anime works that influenced him, we have “Cowboy Bebop”, a masterpiece still loved by many fans even now. Here, Jin, who works as both a musician and creator, discusses thoroughly about the appeal of it.

Learning the attitude and stance for creating things.

——You talked about how not many animes were aired in your homeland, but did you keep watching anime after that?

Jin: If you mean watching on TV, anime was what I enjoyed most. However, the shows on broadcast were limited, so when it comes to series that left an impression on me, it would be things like “Card Captor Sakura”, which I used to watch with my little sister. “Kinnikuman” was also re-aired and I liked it a lot. As expected, I was weak to “friendship” (laughs). When they were fighting for the throne or whatever, man, I cried, for real. This happened around the time I was in grade school, but when I got into middle school, I stopped watching anime entirely.

——And when you came back to it, it was right on time for...

Jin: For the series that I pointed out as second in line, “Cowboy Bebop”. Because my father had made up his mind to get his hands on a satellite television called SKY Perfect TV! I think he probably wanted to watch Discovery Channel, but back then, he also included Animax in the contract. And, by sheer coincidence, a re-run of “Cowboy Bebop” began right at that timing, around 2004 or 2005, I guess. I was a middle schooler then, and there were lots of CMs that went like, “Broadcast begins on X day of X month!” together with that opening theme by Kanno Youko-san.

——So that’s what caught your interest.

Jin: There was also the fact I’d been disconnected from anime for a while, so I watched the first episode not knowing anything. And the contents weren’t aimed at children at all (laughs). Dude sprayed an eye-drop drug into his eyes, went, “UWAH—!” and died, like.

——Ahaha. It was a shock.

Jin: “Cowboy Bebop” was my first time coming in contact with a hardboiled worldview. I was like, “What’s this? It’s so cool”. Until then, I had this impression that “anime was made for kids”, but for the first time, I felt like I was watching a drama. Plus, the story was interesting, so I was super hooked as I watched it, and while doing so, the episode “Jamming with Edward” (episode 9) had an impact on me.

——Satou Dai-san was the one who wrote the script for it, right? You later came to work together with Satou-san in “LISTENERS”.

Jin: That’s right. It was such an impact that it had me thinking, “You wouldn’t be able to do that in a TV drama”. And so, this ninth episode had me completely addicted to it, and in the end, I watched it up to the finale. Later on, when I began my own creations, I noticed that what I was doing overlapped with “Cowboy Bebop”, and when this happened, I realized I was doing something quite risky (laughs). To top it off, just when I thought, “There must be lots of animes like that out there”, there was surprisingly none.

The coolness of affirming that KagePro has both pop and hardcore songs and that this is what it is about!

——Ahaha. Did “Cowboy Bebop” have any influence on you? For example, on the music side...

Jin: Hmm... if you put it that way, maybe not (laughs). Only in the variety aspect of the narrative, as people call it. Each one of the 26 episodes has wholly different colors, so to say. They felt like a gashapon from which you couldn’t tell what was coming out next.

——Like, although there were episodes where they threw in comedy to their hearts contentment, there were also episodes that showed vigorous action.

Jin: When I think about it, there are also episodes that go through a simple approach by way of genres that even I would know. I think the creators must’ve had a lot of fun when making them. So when it comes to what influenced me, it I think it was the variation of songs. I think there probably aren’t that many composers like me, who make songs one by one and have no idea what song to write next.

——As in, you do it while intentionally deciding to change the tone and genre?

Jin: Rather than that, I guess it happens naturally. I was always the type who doesn’t listen to the same genre all the time – it’s like, “Today is rock day; tomorrow is punk day”. I believe it’s possible that “Cowboy Bebop” made me think this kind of feeling was valid. The themes also don’t have to be consistent, and even if you turn upside-down the things that you had been asserting in a previous episode, their value and meaning will still hold. Moreover, I didn’t think that the people who made “Cowboy Bebop” had to plan this stuff up in their heads and study about it so that they could put it to action. It just so happened that when they drew out the things they like and lined them up, it turned out the way it did.

——So they didn’t do it while aiming for that, but rather, it turned out to have a sense of variety to it when it was finished.

Jin: And I think it’s amazing because it validates itself with that. So I guess being able to say all we have to say is what actually matters (laughs). If I were to affirm, “This is what KagePro is about!”, then that’d be pretty much it. Even though there are both pop and hardcore songs in KagePro, nobody can say, “That doesn’t feel like KagePro”. That’s why I think that the coolness of proudly declaring, “That’s what it is!” is something I learned from Bebop. Like, “This is what’s cool”. It feels like, on my own accord, I accepted something that was like a stance to be taken when you create these kinds of things.

Part 3: obsessing over “Tokyo Godfathers”, which had developments where one couldn’t predict what lay ahead.

This is the third part of the interview series where the creator Jin talks about works that influenced him. Here, he discusses about a hidden masterpiece from the director Kon Satoshi, which also had a great influence on “Kagerou Project” and which he encountered during his vocational school years, while living a wasteful life.

——The third work is “Tokyo Godfathers” by Director Kon Satoshi, but when was it that you watched it?

Jin: It was during my vocational school years. After graduating from high school, I attended a vocational music school located in Sapporo, but my upperclassmen from that school taught me many bad ways of having fun (laughs). I used to buy lots of sick equipment. Then, obviously, I’d run out of money, so I worked to death in part-time jobs, and well, lived a wasteful life (laughs), but during that time, a friend from my class lent me a DVD of “Hidamari Sketch”. At first, I told him, “Nah, I’m not too into this kinda stuff”, but when I took it home and watched it, I wailed aloud.

——Ahaha.

Jin: That’s why I asked Asumi Kana-san (who voices Yuno) to play KagePro’s main heroine... Anyhow, “Hidamari Sketch” became the cue for me to start watching anime again. And Director Kon Satoshi was from Sapporo, so it was probably being featured in a video shop. “Tokyo Godfathers” is a 2003 movie, but I saw it in the video in 2008 or 2009.

——What piqued your interest about it?

Jin: It was tremendously well-done and fun, and on top of that, it was sharp – a work like no other up until then, I thought. A dramatic production with parallel storylines focusing on different characters is incorporated within the span of about an hour and half as if it weren’t enough. During that same time, there were also works by Mitani Kouki-san and Isaka Koutarou-san’s “Golden Slumber” was being made into live action, so I believe that the so-called multi-protagonist story kind of approach was being used in all sorts of places. But even among them, “Tokyo Godfathers” was outstandingly interesting. “Where the heck is this story heading to?” You can’t tell at all until the end. Three homeless people pick up a baby on Christmas night and try to take her to her mother, but as the story goes on, it gets to a climax like, “Does she even have a mother in the first place?”. Plus, we find out that the person who they thought to be the mother and handed the baby over to is actually someone who kidnapped her from a hospital. The story just keeps changing over and over.

As the story progresses, the characters’ pasts become visible. It was interesting that the past and present were firmly bound together.

——We can’t predict what comes next at all, huh?

Jin: So, the topic will go back to KagePro now: when I thought of writing a novel, first of all, I decided that I “wanted to do a multi-protagonist story”. To make a story like the one from “The☆Doraemons” into a multi-protagonist story. Back then, I really liked the type of novels that went on in first person – such as works by Isaka-san or Morimi Tomihiko-san, and also Yonezawa Honobu-san.

——I see, I see.

Jin: On the other hand, “Tokyo Godfathers” is structured so that the characters’ pasts can be seen more and more as the story progresses. As if the story progresses with the past mini-arcs as the main focus. Like, “Person A and Person B were actually parent and child!” – it was interesting that the past and the present were bound together so firmly. Moreover, the developments go on at an incredible speed, and there’s a proper catharsis at the end. Also, all the characters that show up in it have rich facial expressions.

——To begin with, the fact that the three main characters are homeless is a twist.

Jin: In the first place, it starts with the main heroine spitting onto people in the streets from a rooftop (laughs). I really like those sharp-edged points of it too. “Tokyo Godfathers” has a content that can be written even if the protagonists were parent and child from an ordinary household. But through making the protagonists homeless, it became extremely vivid.

——It’s as if it turns them into down-to-earth characters and gives you a sensation that they connect with the audience’s “present”.

Jin: If I were to speak of other words by Director Kon Satoshi, I also think that “Paprika” and “Sennen Joyuu” are amazing. But on the other hand, I end up thinking, “They’re so wonderful”. As in, “Awesome, aren’t they? I don’t get them very well, though” (laughs). But “Tokyo Godfathers” is a candid form of entertainment that even an idiot like me can instantly get hooked on. The fact that I indeed want to keep doing entertainment resides strongly inside me.

——Listening to you talk like this, Jin-san, it makes me think that the books you read and movies you watched because you liked them reflect straightforwardly in your own manner of expressing yourself.

Jin: I myself think that I’m usually straightforward (laughs). Rather than “I want it to be seen like this” or “I want people to think of it like that”, I prioritize “I want to do this” and “this is fun”, so to say. By multiplying “The☆Doraemons” to “Tokyo Godfathers”, it turned into “Kagerou Project” (laughs). I feel like that’s my foundation.

#kagerou project #kagepro #mekakucity actors #kagerou daze #jin #shizen no teki p #interview #my translation #cowboy bebop #doraemon #tokyo godfathers #satoshi kon

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skippydiesposting · 8 months ago

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yes, of course there are absolutely fanfictions that employ the elements of literary fiction like character development, complex plots and foreshadowing. there are also plenty of published books that do not (and they usually suffer for it). there are well-written fanfictions, and there are horrible published novels.

however, I think we all know that that's not what most people are coming to fanfiction for. (and if you are, that's a pretty weird place to look for it.) strong characterization and well-written prose aren't things that are exemplitive of the genre of fanfiction.

honestly sometimes it feels like such an "the emperor has no clothes" situation to me. people are always so quick to defend fanfiction while ignoring the obvious reality that the vast, vast majority of fanfictions are smut and shipping content. there's nothing wrong with that but it's true. most fanfiction content is not well thought-out, elaborately plotted, and focused on developing new characters. that's not the point of fanfiction, in general. and if that isn't true in your fandom, that's amazing because that's something I've literally never seen. (and also, I would argue, the people writing those kinds of fanfiction would be better off writing an original work of fiction.)

in general, fanfiction by definition is using characters from a previous franchise. the character is already established, therefore the amount of character development you can enact is minimal. if it isn't minimal: congratulations, you've created an OC. you are no longer writing fanfiction. (hence why I respect fanfiction about OCs and 2nd gen characters a lot more but that's a different post)

fanfiction writers don't have to think about the flow of their plot in the way that authors of novels do. they don't have to think about how to introduce a character properly, or the overall scope of their story, or how it will be interpreted by the general public. they can, of course, but this is still ultimately going to be a different form than literary novels, because their goals are entirely different.

also, just to be clear, this is all morally neutral. I'm not saying that one or the other is an inherently more or less valuable form of writing. I'm just saying that fanfiction is different than published literature, and that's just a fact. fanfiction has a different purpose and a different function. they are fundamentally different forms. and I'm tired of seeing them overlap in a way that is almost entirely dismissive of modern literary fiction.

there's no problem with fanfiction being a part of your media diet. it just cannot be the only thing you read if you want to be someone who is educated about the practice of reading and writing. I fully believe that if you are a writer, you need to be reading and you need to be reading a lot and you need to be reading things other than just fanfiction. you need to be diversifying your scope of media consumption as much as possible. there is so much more out there.

like at the end of the day fanfiction is underground amateur writing, which is awesome. it's so cool that people can make and share their craft without having to jump through the hoops of publication. I just feel like a lot of very cool, indie/amateur/underground artists outside of fandom culture get handwaved in favor of fanfiction and other fanworks.

and there is no problem with using something you like as a jumping off point for your writing; established works of fiction get re-used and re-appropriated and re-constructed all the time. it just sucks that this energy that's being put into little known creators has to be funnelled through fandom culture to get attention. especially when the vast majority of fanfiction is also going to be based on massive franchises like Marvel, Disney, Star Wars, Harry Potter, et cetera, which do not need to be any more prominent in our culture. (especially if you're trying to build an inclusive, creative, indie/punk/queer/et cetera culture, which is something it seems like most of the fanfiction writers/readers want.) no matter how you twist the narratives and characters, bringing more attention to those huge conglomerates is never going to be subversive.

all I'm saying is that the entirety of the art that you make and consume should not necessarily be tied to fandom culture. and on a more personal note, I just despise that reading and writing has been co-opted by fandom. I'm so tired of seeing people who ostensibly have the same interests as me, when really there are very few similarities between the content that exclusive fanfiction-readers read and exclusive book-readers read.

one is not inherently better than the other! they have different cultural values! I'm just saying that you can't call yourself a fan of reading and literature if you refuse to interact with the actual culture of it. someone who exclusively reads fanfiction will never know what the actual literary world is like. the same way that you wouldn't consider someone who exclusively watches Marvel and Disney movies to be educated about cinema in general.

my point is that if you exclusively read fanfiction, you're not going to know very much about literary fiction, (and vice versa) because the two are fundamentally different forms trying to accomplish different things.

ughhh okay hot take incoming but it's so annoying to me that every single time there's a post that's like "read more books reading books is good for you" there has to be that person in the notes like "but fanfiction counts too right????"

no!!!! that's exactly the opposite of the point! like there's no problem with reading fanfiction but reading exclusively fanfiction is not something you should be proud of. by reading only fanfiction you are excluding yourself from so many of the best parts of literature: character development, structured plots with an end goal, foreshadowing, the connection to the author's life...not even to mention, like, cultural relevance and the value of reading something that has been professionally edited. it's not especially clear to me that someone who reads only fanfiction can be said to actually enjoy reading since so many of the elements that make literature what it is have been stripped out of it. like if you're so entrenched in the emotional gratification of fanfiction that you can't bear to read a real, published novel, then I don't think you have very good chance of being someone who knows how to critically analyze and understand media.

like fanfiction is not morally wrong or anything like that but it's a fundamentally different thing than reading an edited, published book. they have such different goals that they are not equivalent to compare.

#media literacy #rant #important stuff #reading comprehension

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