#it's just a little annoying when that's the predominant narrative of the fandom and. it's not really in the show at all.

[quietwingsinthesky]

Your. Thoughts. On. Destiel. Are. Fire. 🔥 Cas is a giant being of light the size of a Chrysler Building!! He burned out Pamela's eyes when he first appeared!! He made Jimmy Novak boil his hand in water to prove his faith and devotion. And while Cas does grow into a sad little meow meow over time (thanks to his contact with humanity) he is initially a terrifying creature from another plane of existence, which Dean in his infinite horny wisdom, manages to look at and go "I wanna fuck that because it terrifies me and I wanna obey because I barely understand my own kinks, which happen to be are being used like a hot wet rag and being subservient to a warrior of God stronger than me."

(I like destiel too, I just want it to be kinky and weird and monsterfucking adjacent)

Yeah, I'm honestly not very into destiel for the most part because a lot of the stuff that gets popular is either very bland to me or straight up frustrating to see (<- perpetually annoyed that people attribute all of Castiel's rebellion to "loving Dean") which means if I want to get invested in this ship, it's gotta get real weird, real fast. Destiel at its best is kinky and weird and slightly dubcon either because Castiel is a being beyond human comprehension who wants Dean and doesn't know how to deal with this except to take what he wants, offered or not, or because it's late seasons destiel and Castiel is very in love with a man who, even at the best of times, has a running counter in his head of how far over the line of monstrousness/betrayal Castiel is allowed to stray before Dean puts a bullet in his head like a hunter should (picture Dean and Castiel domestic bunker life with cute morning kisses and such, but Dean is the one with custody of Castiel's angel blade, just in case, and Castiel lets him have it because he's so screwed up about all the harm he's caused that he's accepted that if Dean kills him, it's for the best.)

it's gotta get freaky.

[hauntingofhouses]

Seeing fan discussions about Blue Eye Samurai and especially Mizu's identity is so annoying sometimes. So let me just talk about it real quick.

First off, I have to emphasise that different interpretations of the text are always important when discussing fiction. That's how the whole branch of literary studies came to be, and what literary criticism and analysis is all about: people would each have their own interpretation of what the text is saying, each person applying a different lens or theory through which to approach the text (ie. queer theory, feminist theory, reader response theory, postcolonial theory, etc) when analysing it. And while yes, you can just take everything the authors say as gospel, strictly doing so would leave little room for further analysis and subjective interpretation, and both of these are absolutely necessary when having any meaningful discussion about a piece of media.

With that being said, when discussing Blue Eye Samurai, and Mizu's character in particular, I always see people only ever interpret her through a queer lens. Because when discussing themes of identity, yes, a queer reading can definitely apply, and in Mizu's story, queer themes are definitely present. Mizu has to hide her body and do her best to pass in a cisheteronormative society; she presents as a man 99% of the time and is shown to be more comfortable in men's spaces (sword-fighting) than in female spaces (homemaking). Thus, there's nothing wrong with a queer reading at all. Hell, some queer theorists interpret Jo March from Little Women as transmasc and that's totally valid, because like all analyses, they are subjective and argumentative; you have the choice to agree with an interpretation or you can oppose it and form your own.

To that end, I know many are equally adamant that Mizu is strictly a woman, and that's also also a completely valid reading of the text, and aligns with the canon "Word of God", as the creators' intention was to make her a woman. And certainly, feminist themes in the show are undeniably present and greatly colour the narrative, and Episode 4 & 5 are the clearest demonstrations of this: Mizu's protectiveness of Madame Kaji and her girls, Mizu's trauma after killing Kinuyo, her line to Akemi about how little options women have in life, and the way her husband had scorned her for being more capable than him in battle.

I myself personally fall into the camp of Mizu leaning towards womanhood, so i tend to prefer to use she/her pronouns for her, though I don't think she's strictly a cis woman, so I do still interpret her under the non-binary umbrella. But that's besides my point.

My gripe here, and the thing that spurred me to write this post, is that rarely does this fandom even touch upon the more predominant themes of colonialism and postcolonial identities within the story. So it definitely irks me when people say that the show presenting Mizu being cishet is "boring." While it's completely fine to have your opinion and to want queer rep, a statement like that just feels dismissive of the rest of the representation that the show has to offer. And it's frustrating because I know why this is a prevalent sentiment; because fandom culture is usually very white, so of course a majority of the fandom places greater value on a queer narrative (that aligns only with Western ideas of queerness) over a postcolonial, non-Western narrative.

And that relates to how, I feel, people tend to forget, or perhaps just downplay, that the crux of Mizu's internal conflict and her struggle to survive is due to her being mixed-race.

Because while she can blend in rather seamlessly into male society by binding and dressing in men's clothing and lowering her voice and being the best goddamn swordsman there is, she cannot hide her blue eyes. Even with her glasses, you can still see the colour of her eyes from her side profile, and her glasses are constantly thrown off her face in battle. Her blue eyes are the central point to her marginalisation and Otherness within a hegemonic society. It's why everyone calls her ugly or a monster or a demon or deformed; just because she looks different. She is both white and Japanese but accepted in neither societies. Her deepest hatred of herself stems primarily from this hybridised and alienated identity. It's the whole reason why she's so intent on revenge and started learning the way of the sword in the first place; not to fit in better as a man, but to kill the white men who made her this way. These things are intrinsic to her character and to her arc.

Thus, to refuse to engage with these themes and dismiss the importance of how the representation of her racial Otherness speaks to themes of colonialism and racial oppression just feels tone-deaf to the show's message. Because even if Mizu is a cishet woman in canon, that doesn't make her story any less important, because while you as a white queer person living in the West may feel unrepresented, it is still giving a voice to the stories of people of colour, mixed-race folks, and the myriad of marginalised racial/ethnic/cultural groups in non-Western societies.

[tisthenightofthewitch]

Q & A with Ghost's Tobias Forge

Depending on who you ask, Ghost has been on the hard rock scene since 2006, or for more than half a century, with occult roots stretching back even further. The current frontman, known as Cardinal Copia, is the fourth embodiment of the band to lead the charge at the front of the stage as well as vocally. The band itself has grown, also, with the ranks of the Nameless Ghouls – the masked, black-clad musicians playing and singing behind the Cardinal, has swelled to include new members, including the Ghoulettes, and has occasional appearances by the original band leader, Papa Nihil. No one is quite certain who any of these musicians are, or even if they're the same from show to show, but they put out incredible music and assemble to bring amazing live shows to the stage.

The answer to the questions surrounding the Swedish rockers may be hard to nail down, but the music they make is easy to find. Just in the past year, Ghost's fourth album, “Prequelle,” landed in the number 3 spot on Billboard, has spawned two number one singles, two Grammy nominations, and a live show that's only gotten bigger. Their online following includes over a million fans following them on Facebook, and over 200 million streams of this latest album.

Following last year's “A Pale Tour Named Death” run, primarily in theatres throughout the US, Ghost joined Metallica in the opening slot for that band's WorldWired European run, playing stadiums all across Europe. After captivating audiences across the pond over the last four months, Ghost is ready to invade the US and Canada once again, this time bringing their entire, full-scale production to arenas in every corner of the continent.

Last week, the creative force behind the band, Tobias Forge, took a few minutes out of his schedule to talk about the personas on stage, the new tour, and the future of Ghost.

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Mike Sorensen: I know in the past, you've talked about your influences, and anybody can see influences like KISS and Alice Cooper if they just look at the band. But with Ghost, you've taken the mythology side, and taken it to an entirely different level than any of those bands have that I've seen. Was that something that you've done consciously, or has that just felt like something natural as you've continued to build the band?

Tobias Forge: A little bit of both. I mean, it was always intended to be theatrical and have some sort of...I guess, in the beginning, you could call it some sort of vague narrative, because it was supposed to be more clandestine. And then as the public interest seemed to be a little bigger than I had anticipated, it ended up being a little more outlined than I had probably predicted ten years ago. So, you know, you continue working with it as it's grown. But you sort of build where you stand, as well. Fortunately, it sort of grows quite organically, and it sort of ties in. I guess the biggest steps of the narrative is just to be seen, which is kind of exciting, I think!

MS: I know you've been building the stories with the video shots, the rise of Cardinal Copia, or maybe the fall of Papa, depending on how you look at it. Have you, or are you, if you want to tell, considering something closer to a more traditional film? Maybe your “Ghost Meets the Phantom of the Park?”

TF: I hope that what we're doing is slightly better! But I guess in the context of a rock band trying to tell a story, you can't have too high of hopes of it being a blockbuster success! Hahaha! We're still a rock band, and it's there for fun. But yeah, the intention is to, in one way or form, tell that story, and if it becomes a film one day, potentially...but there is definitely other ways to tell the story, as well. And it might come out in paper form.

MS: That's a nice tease, and from a fan point of view, now I'm really excited to see where you're going to go with it!

TF: Good!

MS: Sticking for just one more moment with the mythology part of it, in past interviews, you've said that introducing the Cardinal, you've referred to him as an underdog character that some people may not like. Do you think that's proven to be the case, and do have –  it may be like picking a favorite child if you have more than one child – do you have a particular Papa that you've enjoyed more than the others?

TF: No, not really. That would be Cardinal in this case, actually. I think he's the most accomplished so far, also because I see the potential. This album cycle was always meant as a...a sort of a cleansing of the palette, in a way? The Cardinal was meant to be a little bit uphill, and he has been for me, as well, but I definitely see the potential of him, potentially rise to an exalted place where he gets all the attributes of the previous Papas. That is, IF he gets to be Papa!

MS: It's a fun journey, and I'm grateful that you're taking us all along for the ride!

TF: I'm very happy that you guys want to be on the ride!

MS: With the tour just kicking off, you've just wrapped up the stadium run in Europe with Metallica, you've done other headlining tours in the US before, but this is the first full headlining run for arenas in the US. You've had a handful of shows that have started off the tour now, how does feel being out there doing these headlining shows in arenas now?

TF: My main focus has always been that I wanted to take the same production to anyone, regardless if you live in big, metropolitan, hipster cities, or if you live in a slightly more rural town. I didn't want to segregate anyone, and that has taken a long time. Usually bands don't do that because of spite or out of malice, it's just that economically most bands do not have the means to take the same show to everyone. So there's always a little bit of weeding out, which I've always been uncomfortable partaking in! And finally, now, we've come to a point where the opportunity was to take the same full production to everyone, and that's the main focus of this tour. What it meant was that we needed to go into venues that could house our production. And that is predominately arenas, or smaller arenas, that can swallow a full-production show. My main focus now, I'm not trying to think so much about it being arenas, because it's our first steps into it, and the point that I want to prove is for, in this case, the American and the Canadian people, if you go to see a Ghost show, you can count on us giving you the same thing you saw from that clip in New York.

TF: For me that's a great accomplishment, to even be able to try to prove that to people! If we manage to prove that? We'll see, but it feels good, and there's people coming out, the tour just started, it's been going very good so far! We're three shows into it, so we're still getting there, a few kinks, mechanically and technically, you always sort of end up with a little bit of push-and-pull in the beginning. But throughout the tour, we get into a vibe pretty quickly.

MS: Speaking from one of the more rural areas that you spoke about, I can say that I'm glad you're looking at it that way, because that means we get to have those shows where we might normally get a more scaled-down version, so I appreciate that as well.

TF: That's what I was thinking!

MS: With your shows, and with Ghost's music overall, you walk a really fine tight-rope between the darker imagery and the lyrics, but you have a lot of fun and humour in the shows that I think would surprise a lot of people that haven't seen it before. How do you manage to keep that balance without tipping into too dark, or being a parody?

TF: That's hard to answer. I can't exactly tell you how that...you know, you have a hunch, right? You just have to have timing, and I think so far, we've had that. That's also a little bit of trial and error. I think the tour that we did a year ago? [2018's “A Pale Tour Named Death” US Tour] that covered a big portion of America, from a technical standpoint, it was a little annoying, because – since we were doing theaters and arenas – we had to do a little bit of that segregation thing that I told you about before, that we're trying to avoid now. But it was also “An Evening With...” so we did a two-and-a-half-hour long show, out of which a great deal of that was sort of talking! And that was fun, I don't think that did us any harm, but I definitely wanted to do a different show this time around.

So it's way more to the point. We have a support act, which is different, and I wanted it to be more to the point. Scale off a bit of that talking, scale off a few songs that weren't really...I wouldn't say up to snuff, but that took a little more patience, if you want. Where this set is constructed to be a little more overwhelming, a little more for getting, and I like that, as well. I mean, I like the drawn out stuff as well, but I like the quick stuff. This tour is definitely way more to the point.  

And also thinking that, when you're playing small clubs, playing to 300-500 people, you're most likely playing to...you're selling Bibles to preachers, because everyone already knows all your songs, and people are really, really into it. You get so many diehards at shows like that. As soon as you, sort of, grow out of the clubs, you will have a lot of people coming that are fans, but that might not know every song that you have, and they're not diehard, know every detail of your band...they're there for the spectacle, to be entertained. And there's nothing wrong with that sort of fandom, it's just that you have to take that into consideration when you're playing. So there is a certain amount of recapping that you have to do, in order to kind of explain to people what you're about. I think that's even more true when you're coming up to arenas or even more so when you're playing stadiums.

We've just done a four-month tour with Metallica, doing stadiums in Europe. You could tell that most people, maybe 25,000 of the 50,000 that was average [show attendance], they knew all the Metallica songs. But 50,000 knew “Enter Sandman.” The people come for the spectacle. They don't know every song! The might have heard them, but they don't know every song. You have to treat it, not like a showcase, but a little. You have to stick with the best thing that you have, and get people to understand. You have to win everyone over every night. You cannot think that all of these people are already 100% sold, you have to win them over.

I think that is very important also in trying to figure out the measurement of slapstick and humour. And in this case, you were talking about the episodes. We cannot assume that 100% of everyone in the hall has seen the episodes. Some people are there because their friend at work told them this is a kick-ass rock show and you should come because you like KISS or whatever, and they haven't seen the episodes. So we cannot assume that everyone has seen it. So the bigger you get, the more you have to be attentive to things like that, I believe.

MS: With the new tour, you've also had the new songs that have just been released, and I've noticed a lot of talk going on with those. Did you have a particular inspiration for those new songs, or a particular sound that you were going for with those new tracks? TF: What? No, those are 50 years old! MS: The newly released tracks!

TF: The newly released tracks, yeah, yeah! Well, I mean, they were written 50 years ago, and I'm only 38, so I can't really say!

MS: So, they were the Ghost of the time, their attempt to try to get on the stage at Woodstock.

TF: I guess, right! They were trying to do the most exciting rock you could do at the time. A little bit like if Phil Spector had produced The Stooges. Something like that.

MS: For this year, you have this tour that's just getting started in the US, and then back to Europe. Do you have plans for what's going to happen next year already?

TF: Yes. There will be very little touring. To be specific, it's going to be absolutely zero touring in 2020. We have one show in February, and that's going be in a country that to the south of the US, and that will be it, that's the only show we're doing, and that's going to be the wrap-up of this tour cycle. The year is going to be spent making a new record, a new record that will come out in 2021, the beginning of 2021, and then we're looking at eighteen months of touring again. Next year is going to be, at least from a touring point of view, off. But there's going to be a lot of other things happening, so be sure that you're going to see plenty from Ghost next year.

MS: Definitely no rest for the wicked!

TF: No rest for the wicked!

MS: Was there anything else you wanted to add before I let you go to get ready for tonight's show?

TF: We're really looking forward to coming to Moline, and I'm very, very happy to be able to tell people that we're coming with all the bells and whistles.

---------

Ghost is one of the most dynamic bands performing around the world right now. From their heavy-grooved, melodic music to their engaging, bombastic live shows, to the mystique surrounding who's under the masks and make-up, they continue to build up steam on the way to complete world domination. If you aren't sure, see for yourself. You can go to ghost-official.com to get your own tickets, then slip up the road a little ways on October the 8th to Moline and join the party.

HERALD-WHIG

[dadvans]

I'm the anon who asked about the masculine thing for the 5 times. And I think my face turned redder than a tomato. I'm sorry. That wasn't my intention at all. The request was inspired by a post I saw saying Yuuri and women acted more women and I think I was upset about the labels and wanted to see someone who saw masculine qualities in them too. I completely get that masculinity and femininity are concepts and I think I just wanted to see a break from 'gay relationship = non-masculine.

I hope my tone didn’t come across as upset or cruel, because that was not my intention at all!  I understood where you were coming from with the ask, because I also share the common gripe with characterization in fandom when characters are feminized and infantilized, typically the perceived “weaker” character, and placed into what one might say is the “traditional” female role of a heteronormative relationship.  i’ve seen some discourse going around about this the past few days, and i’ve kind of just scrolled through it and moved on, because the luxury of a fandom as broad as YOI, with such consistently good content is that the discourse is a lot easier to ignore, as is the gross, annoying fetishization that commonly comes with shipping two male characters together.  whenever i’m in a fandom where DLDR is an option, i’m just like, thrilled.  i’m thrilled that we have enough amazing authors and artists producing quality content on a regular basis, and i try to only follow those people (though i do go into the tags quite a bit), and ignore the stuff i don’t like.  

i do write about m/m ships and read about m/m ships predominately, because the broad idea of masculinity to me is something worth dissecting and investigating blurring the borders a little bit.  to write out how a character might inhabit “masculine traits” however i think whittles down gender identity the same way that putting men (or women) in “feminine” roles in relationships, you feel me?  it’s a very complicated thing, made more complicated by the fact that gender identity and traditional gender roles are perceived so differently across different cultures and subcultures, and gender is expressed in drastically different ways as well.  instead of trying to so starkly reinforce a man’s masculinity by asking “what makes him masculine,” i think it is just more important to play around with them as a character according to their culture and background, and try to see where gender expression and play might develop and change.  like, when i try to get into victor’s head, i’m not saying “OKAY HERE IS THE ALPHA MALE, WHAT WOULD A MAN DO IN THIS SITUATION.” i always think (depending on the universe this is set in), “okay, Victor was born at the tail end of the Cold War into what eventually became the Russian Federation.  He probably grew up with a certain amount of instability, was sent to an Olympic Reserve boarding school, and had his life structured entirely around a sport with room for nothing else.  He probably lived away from his family.  He probably toyed around with gender expression when he was sixteen as an act of rebellion due to the strict nature of his training and the sport, as an act of defiance and show of independence.  As he grew up, he probably garnered a high profile both because of his athleticism, but also that of a playboy, because he’s never been taught or rewarded with any kind of emotional or physical intimacy.  Despite that, he is very open, he wants to learn, he wants to fill his life with all the luxuries he was not afforded when he was younger, and we see that through his designer lifestyle, but also the genuine, earnest, if not somewhat clumsy way he pursues a relationship with Yuuri.”  

And THEN I ask myself how he might do something because of his gender in this very specific context.  I think it’s more important to ask about how Victor would see himself as masculine or not in this context, rather than ask how Victor fits into our perceived idea of masculinity.  And same with Yuuri, and all other characters.  

I think it’s also important that instead of brawling it out in the discourse thunderdome that we just create content that reflects our own ideas, and create critical narratives.  Be the Masc4Masc Victuuri you want to see in the world.  And so I never really took issue with your question, because I agree with you that a lot of people creating content force Victor and Yuuri into certain stereotypes or dynamics or gender roles that don’t speak to their gender identity or character, and that can be really frustrating!! But at the same time, addressing such broad issues in such a small space is difficult for me (as you can see above).  Gender is a lot more and a lot less complicated than we give it credit for all at once.  So I hope you read this and leave feeling better.  Don’t feel stupid, and please don’t be upset or any other awful thing.  I’m definitely on your side and share your frustration, just am uncomfortable trying to bullet point such a broad issue in a small space.