#magical girl video essay

[nostalgic-soda]

More details about Maebashi Witches:

The anime is produced by Sunrise, with Maebashi Witches being the studio's 3rd original magical girl series after Classicaloid and Artiswitch

The plot centers on 5 high school girls who unexpectedly come together when they meet a strange talking who takes the quintet to a magic flower shop where they're made witches/idols-in-training to help the populace's hopes and dreams working on scripts (who did surprise sleeper hit Bochhi The Rock!)

The series is directed by Yamamoto (who has helmed quite a few Shoujo anime) and Erika Yoshida (who

The series is a take on the Pretty Series franchise with its' titular group being transported to another dimension known as Witchverse, similar to how characters transform within the Pretty Series installments.

The frog mascot (Keroppe) is voiced by Tomokazu Sugita who also voiced Beethoven from Classicaloid

Ooooohh hell yeah interesting!!!

[fandomshatepeopleofcolor]

[the-wonderer-of-the-web]

I was wrong, well kinda. gushing over magical girls is ACTUALLY about healthy kink culture but also about what I said earlier. I just started reading the manga and spoilers btw but

you can’t convince me the evil team isn’t a metaphor for unhealthy kink culture.

[that-weird-kid-from-your-school]

*Puella Magi Madoka Magica

+ Good Omens & Love Live

Decided to post this on here on impulse. The list is no order whatsoever. My friend wrote them based on what I wouldn't shut up about this year. Neither of us really know what a hyperfixation is, we kinda just added things I was really, really into, sometimes it lasted a day or week, sometimes longer.

[pens-in-a-jam-jar]

Vivisecting the Magical Girl Transformation

I made this character back in Mahou March of like 2020 and only for this video managed to land on a transformed design for her.

(my ask box is 100% open if you wanna investigate into her deal or flail around about magical girls some more)

[frmulcahy]

I just *clenches fists* fucking love edutainment

[whencartoonsruletheworld]

candace flynn is THE most teenage girl character of all time. she is at level 100 anxiety 24/7. she shows her love for her brothers by trying to get them in trouble constantly. her neck is as long as her forearm. she features on a blues album after having an allergic reaction. she has a shrine to her boyfriend in her room. she can't live without her phone. she has a panic room in the basement. she plays 20 instruments that all start with the letter B. she read all of sherlock holmes in one night. she's seen their platypus running around as a secret agent more than once, assumed she was hallucinating each time, and moved on with her life while telling no one. she likes wrestling video games. she was rutabaga princess. she has a billion people to email memes to but when she's trying to think of friends she can only think of four people and one of them is her mom. most animals hate her except monkeys. she invented grilled cheese flavored ice cream. she pretended to be irish for a week. she's autistically obsessed with her universe's version of barney. she writes marvel fanfiction. she does parkour. there's an entire archive of her voice actress screaming just in case her voice ever gave out while recording. she sees her brothers build time machines and rollercoasters every day but doesn't believe in santa. when she starts scheming the wicked witch of the west theme starts playing in the background. she was elected queen of mars. she won a "mayor for the day" essay competition. there's a random person in town who's been avoiding her to the point she doesn't know he exists. she learned how to parallel park by driving a monster truck. she thinks the plural of moose is "meese." she tracks her mom with a GPS. she doesn't know her little brother's full name. she's scared of heights, spiders, and the number seven. when her boyfriend told her he'd call "soon" she started doing complex math to try and figure out when exactly that would be. her first thought upon seeing her royal doppelganger was to go to the laundromat and fill all the dryers with cheese. she earned 50 not-girl-scout patches in one day through sheer determination. she can run fast enough to catch up to moving cars. she can sense when ground is broken in the backyard and when people are judging her. one time she got her face caught in the sink. her brothers carved her into mount rushmore. every now and again a magical zebra appears, calls her kevin, and then disappears again. she killed 99% of an alien invasion with a t-shirt cannon. in an alternate universe she's leading a regime-destroying resistance at the age of 15. she's being accidentally gaslit every day of her life.

[shigussy]

kahoot was kinda after my time bc it was only ever used in a class once when i was in my last year of school but i feel like it was definitely bc someone named themself the n word but dw i know who did it it was a black guy who was trying to frame his white friend for it

[chuplayswithfire]

So this honest to god essay of a response was originally sparked in conversation with someone else about my thoughts on the ways that the Sailor Moon manga (and it's author, Naoko Takeuichi) engaged with the subject of gender norms, gender expression, and specifically how that's expressed in the casual and comfortable ways that various women in Sailor Moon engage with themselves and others.

The conversation I had with that person ended up more heavily focused on other things, but I really like the writing I did here, and really, what is Tumblr for, but sharing the unnecessary essays you wrote for no other reason than because you had so many thoughts and not enough time to express them all?

The conversation that sparked this essay started with the other party sharing that they felt the manga's decision to have Usagi and Minako use their disguise tools to transform into men was playing into 90s era gags about gender, that Haruka was a Takarazuka Revue reference and nothing more, and that the manga's portrayal of the Starlights was rooted in Naoko's hatred for the idea of boys being Senshi. I disgareed with all of those sentiments… and thus was the essay born.

So here it is!

One thing I feel is pretty important is that Sailor Moon as a series has been rooted in conversation about and regarding gender norms and societal pressures placed on women in Japan from the beginning - it's a conversation that many Mahou Shoujo series engage in, and I see a failure to understand that conversation in this summary of events, which may explain why what the manga represents as at times casual but always whole-hearts explorations of gender and sexuality, could come across as dismissive gags or shallow references to someone unfamiliar with the source material. Assuming that there's no greater thought to any of this, however, is more dismissive than the series deserves.

I could - and almost did - write an entire treatise, running through the various ways that Sailor Moon as a series exists to combat and rework gender stereotypes, starting with the fact that in 80s to 90s Japanese culture, Usagi Tsukino was not the most feminine lead, with interests that marked her as boyish (enjoying video games and comics, a boisterous love of eating and a large appetite, rather than having a dainty diet) that were embraced as part of the characteristics that make Usagi who she is, rather than being used to put her down. That's not to say Usagi's some huge tomboy - she's not! But she was not the ultimately girly girl protagonist either, and as far as the time period went, she was fairly evenly mixed on having "boyish" and "girlish" interests.

It's not the most obvious place to start with Sailor Moon's conversation about gender and girlhood, but it ''is'' part of the conversation, just like the decision to have Sailor V/Minako Aino and then Sailor Moon/Usagi Tsukino be ''warriors'' was a decision made with thoughts towards gender as well, because the Senshi are warriors who are girls, and they are celebrated for it. Made at a point when the majority of Mahou Shoujo series were still more comedic and based more in helping around the community rather than fighting evil, Sailor Moon is generally regarded as the series which that combined Magical Girls with the sentai-style formula that had already been popularized by series like Kamen Rider and Super Sentai - both series predominantly featuring ''men'' who save the world (though Super Sentai teams usually have at least one woman on the team).

The conversation extends further than just being girls who fight crime with magical transformations, though. Even the fact that in Sailor Moon, the Senshi's transformation phrases involve the words "Make Up" is about gender, and femininity, and expressions of womanhood as a form of strength. Because make up and the wearing of it for personal enjoyment and beauty was seen as either a frivolity or a silly girly thing, having it be a part of the Sailor Senshi's power was reclaiming that and centering the having of power as feminine. Everything about the Senshi's designs was both based in what Naoko personally thought of as cute and in conversation with Japanese views on gender and society.

So with all that said, to address the idea of Usagi having been disguised as a boy once only for the sake of a one-time gag:

Usagi uses the disguise pen to become a groom (a groom who is a man, specifically, rather than a woman who claims for herself the title of groom) in the Sailor Moon manga in chapter 5, when Makoto is introduced. It is not as a gag, because a gag by definition requires something to be comedic.

There is nothing comedic about Usagi's transformation into a groom - in fact, it is played in full seriousness and as a rescue of Makoto's heart as much as her physical self. In the context of the manga, a youma has been disguising itself as a bride to capture, control, and drain men, as well as using those men to lure in women for capture. Makoto and Motoki are the victims of the day, with Motoki being brainwashed by the bride youma and Makoto falling under his influence - Usagi becomes a groom, not as a gag, not as a trick, not as a trap, but to come to Makoto's rescue in the same form that she's been manipulated in, restoring the romantic fantasy while also rebuking the bride youma.

It's a very short appearance - two pages - which is how most of the manga's uses of the disguise pen function; they are short-lived disguises for a specific purpose. In Usagi's case, it is to specifically take on the male form to rebuke the bride youma for manipulating others with beauty (the beautiful bride monster vs the handsome groom that is Usagi) and the sweet murmurs of love. Motoki, under the influence of the youma, told Makoto that he loved her, that he was waiting for her, answering all her girlish dreams. Usagi, as the groom, is stepping up to counteract the destruction of those dreams. Again, it's a short-lived moment, but it's not a gag. There are very few gags in the manga over all, because it's not a comedic series, it's a dramatic one, an action focused one, a romance one, but not a comedy, and this isn't one of those few gags.

I mentioned Minako transforming as well and I assume the same view that saw Usagi's transformation as a gag would would interpret these moments as a gag as well, so let me be clear - neither of those moments are a gag either, and it's not treated as a funny haha thing that Minako has done. She does it twice, both times comfortable transforming her gender to complete missions - the first time is in Codename Sailor V Chapter 4, in which a different youma is attacking and kidnapping male idols. Minako uses her disguise compact to become a male idol and infiltrate the area the youma is expected to appear again, both to avoid detection from the police, and to lure the youma in to revealing her position so she can be defeated.

Minako's transformation into a boy is treated as a utilitarian disguise, yes, but it's also clearly shown that she is indeed a "pretty boy idol" who is also Minako Aino. As a pretty boy idol, Minako maintains all usual personality, and expression but is very distinctly and visibly a cis male, in the same way that she is usually a cis girl, exemplified by a flattened chest and pectoral muscles. Once the youma has been lured in, Minako transforms into Sailor V - just as Usagi transformed into Sailor Moon - and rebukes the youma for turning innocent men into her slaves and being a disgrace to women.

In her second transformation into a boy, in Sailor Moon chapter 29, Minako transforms into a male student of Mugen Academy so she can sneak into Mimete's concert. It's also not portrayed as a gag - Minako could transform into a female student if she wanted to, something we explicitly know because Usagi has transformed into a female Mugen Academy student.

She ''chooses'' to become a male student, by which I mean Naoko chooses to write her as becoming a male student, and Minako is treated the exact same way as a male student by the narrative as she's normally treated when she's female, hanging out with other students, enjoying the concert, acting utterly normally. It is clearly not a big deal for Minako to be a boy or a girl.

All three of these transformations are treated casually, which I suppose could come across as trivializing to some, rather than as some deep personal struggle, but this is something that people have related to for thirty years. Thirty years, of people recognizing themselves in Usagi and Minako's easy but brief and comfortable existences as boys, because that is how many people - including myself! - experience being genderqueer - an equal comfort in existing as a woman or a man or as both or as neither, and in all cases an equal recognition of the self. These are brief appearances; everything in Sailor Moon's manga is brief, strung together moments that come together for a whole.

But Usagi becomes a boy effortlessly to protect Makoto's heart and Minako becomes a boy effortlessly to defeat a youma, to infiltrate Mugen Academy, and they are both casual and honest reflections of them being another gender, while being themselves. In a time where gender transformation was often a joke,

Looking outside of our heroes, we'll see other times in Sailor Moon where characters are comfortably presented as engaging in transformative gender expression: in the Nephrite's Shadow is represented as a woman, with no apparently discomfort or comedy for him; there is again, no specific reason that Nephrite's own Shadow is a women, except for Noako's consistent genderplay and interest in exploring gender as something beyond a binary of those are men and those are women.

Likewise, Zoisite disguises himself as a woman in his primary appearance as well, again, not something he has to do. The persistent appearance of characters choosing to express themselves as another gender, in non-comedic fashion, shows that this isn't something that Naoko did as a one-off thought, but builds into her overall presentation of gender and sexuality as the series goes on.

Now, address your second point: Haruka is modeled after the takarazuka revue. I can't say that there's no influence there - Haruka was in fact originally envisioned as being part of Takarazuka theater, playing a male role - but that's not *all* Haruka is. The Sailor Moon anime made the decision to establish a sharp gender binary with Haruka and Michiru, with Haruka as the masculine butch and Michiru as the femme, but in the Sailor Moon manga Haruka is presented in both highly masculine attire and highly feminine attire, preferring to wear the male school uniform but wearing very feminine outfits, and Usagi outright asks her if she is a man or a woman, because she wears both roles extremely well.

The manga doesn't use the language of nonbinary because Japanese doesn't ''have'' that language - a lot of terms for beings transgender and having different gender roles are loanwords borrowed from English. But Naoko has stated that Haruka has the heart of a man, that she likes to wear mini skirts and daisy dukes. Usagi's narration regarding Haruka states in chapter 29, "this person looks like a man and a woman". This is in fact the same chapter where Minako again becomes a boy, and I don't think its unintentional that in the same chapter that Usagi is questioning and understanding that a person can be both a man and a woman, Minako is choosing to again present herself as a boy while on a mission.

In chapter 30, Usagi asks Haruka outright, "Haruka, are you a man? Or are you a woman?" To which Haruka responds with "Man, woman. Why would something like that matter?" And then pulls her in as if to kiss her - this was the 90s, almost a decade before Tokyo Godfathers, another critical piece of Japanese media that talks explicitly about trans people by having one of the main characters be a trans woman - would come out. Neptune, speaking of Uranus, says in Chapter 32: "Uranus is like a man and a woman in one. She has the strengths of both genders, it is her special advantage as a soldier.

Sailor Moon was not the only series to explore gender and sexuality but it was one of the pioneering series' to explore it in teen/young adult media in Japan. Haruka is not someone who can be minimized as a tarazuka reference, she is as explicitly nonbinary as it was possible to be, with the language and information available at the time. The manga is in conversation with gender and stereotyping and societal pressures the entire time.

It's also not a coincidence that this is in the part of the manga that Usagi and Mamoru are having relationship troubles, struggling with the thought of attraction to other people, attraction to each other. This is the portion of the manga where they mature as a couple and have sexual activity for the first time, though of course its not specific and vague about the actual physical intimacies. Naoko was very intentionally having a conversation with the manga, one which explored what it means to be a woman, to grow up, to be in a relationship and mature and grow and ''be'' in the world.

Now, we get to the last part of the initial question, "As for the starlights, apparently Naoko hated the idea of boys being senshi, so instead she walked it back to standard gender bending of the time."

I've kept this assertion from the original conversation intact because this idea is one that exists outside of this conversation I had, and it's completely factually incorrect.

Naoko *created* the Starlights. She *created* their characters, and did not walk anything back.

In fact, the original anime is the one who made the Starlights into the example standard gender bending of the time - the classic 90s anime is what created the idea of the Starlights transforming from men as civilians and women as Soldiers. This was a choice they made that did not match Naoko's vision of the characters. When she spoke about the Starlights in interviews, it was to say that Senshi are always girls - which was a statement made in 1998, at a time when women's rights were still being fought for in both Japan and the United States (where she made the comment! She was in California at the time). Having the heroes of her story, the soldiers, the fighters, be ''women'' was a statement about protecting her brand and series as primarily for girls, about girls, with girls.

And in her series, girls can become boys. Girls can have the heart of a man. Girls can be both men and women. It's a limitation of language and the era that we have to remember, looking from 2024, at a manga started in the early 90s and finishing its run in the late 90s.

In the manga, the Starlights are always women, but they wear masculine attire as civilians, while their senshi forms are not especially feminine, but rather make it clear that they have the physical traits associated with women, are fairly femme as soldiers. In other words, they're butch in their civilian lives, but they aren't men. They are girls who can be masculine. They are women who can present as men. They are a continued exploration of Sailor Moon's on-going discussion of gender. It was about girls getting to be the warriors who save the world, women getting to be the centerpoint on which the universe turns.

It was the original anime that would rather portray Seiya as a man when he's trying to flirt with and woo Usagi, rather than keep Seiya's original presentation as a woman who presents masculine at times.

There are so many more points or characters I could have talked about, but in general, the entire manga factors into the question of gender exploration, particular in regards to what it means to be a girl, what it means to express gender, what it means for Sailor Senshi to be girls, and what being a girl means.

Sailor Moon's manga has many themes but one that consistently comes back is the gender play, and the way that Naoko expresses gender in characters.

[choccy-milky]

tag nine people you want to get to know better!

ty for the tag @myokk and @theladyofshalott1989 !!💖💖

LAST SONG? - i deadass don't know💀i don't really listen to music i just always have streams/youtube vids on (I KNOW IM SORRY DONT @ ME) ....does the baroque noble party ambience i was listening to while working on my oneshot count??? shoutout to that video btw

FAVORITE COLOR? - yellow!!💛⭐

CURRENTLY WATCHING? - i also don't really watch shows💀....do 6 hour video essays on youtube count? in which case i love action button if you haven't watched his stuff (his boku no natsuyasumi video and his tokimeki memorial video are amazing, and his pacman video), and also super eyepatch wolf & hbomberguy (especially hbomb's 'pathologic is genius' video). also i listen to a podcast called '372 pages we'll never get back' that i highly recommend

LAST MOVIE? - 💀💀💀this is just a meme at this point💀💀💀I DONT EVEN REMEMBER....me and my roommate love watching crappy adam sandler movies so probably one of those??? or my neighbor totoro since i forced my niece to watch it 😍

SWEET/SPICY/SAVORY? - SAVORY BABY I LOVE SALT IM A SALT FIEND!!!🧂🧂🧂i put my grubby little hands straight into the olive jar and FEAST...also when i was in uni i used to keep a little ziploc bag of salt on me for when i ate out LMFAOOO and i always steal the salt shaker and bring it to my room and my roommate is always like DO YOU HAVE THE SALT AGAIN???......what can i say i love salt........(tho i still love sweets and spicy foods as well. and im addicted to coke zero btw. my body is comprised of 50% salt and 50% coke zero)

RELATIONSHIP STATUS? - almost 2 years in my poly relationship with seb and clora😍😍

CURRENT OBSESSIONS? - girl do u even have to ask........

LAST THING YOU GOOGLED? - probably timezones for when im talking to mutuals LMAOO...i just like to know what hour it is there no pressure tags: @the-ozzie @sparxyv @ccelicaa @kaviary-blog @siboom777 @boxdstars @versailles-black @limonnitsa @dwightschrute11 @ethniee @celestinawarlock @moonstruckmoony @syaolaurant @bassicallymaestra @lilac-ravenclaw @vienguinn @noelles-legacy @4ever2000lover @lamieboo @magic-in-onyx (NO PRESSURE FR FR I HATE TAGGING PPL BC I FEEL LIKE IM BOTHERING YALL BUT I ALSO DONT WANT TO LEAVE PPL OUT AT THE SAME TIME...SO IF YOURE READING THIS U CAN CONSIDER YOURSELF TAGGED AS WELL🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️OR CONSIDER YOURSELF UN-TAGGED IF YOU DONT WANNA DO IT BAHAHA)

[psychhound]

ttrpgs in the classroom (part 8)

oh boy have i not made one of these posts in ,,, like a year. grad school is crazy yall. lmao. but. i wanted to share what we do for our analysis unit now that we've hit it this semester!!

other games used in the unit:

we are but worms & graves for funerals

the assignment:

write an essay of approximately 1000 words doing a literary analysis of some aspect of a game, first forming an inquiry question, then looking in the text for evidence, then coming up with an argument about a deeper meaning of the text. the second draft of the assignment can either be an expanded essay, or a multimodal piece of the student's choosing. (the other option for this essay is to do a rhetorical analysis of an argumentative text about gaming)

the games:

[ID: a powerpoint slide titled choose your fighter game (the word fighter is crossed out, so it reads choose your game). it shows five ttrpg titles, with a short description of each, and an icon to represent them. the background is a light orange sky and green grass in a video game like art style. there is a fake game menu bar on the bottom. the games in the slide are functionally described below. end ID]

when we made war upon the slumbering woods by richard kelly @sprintingowl

a collaborate journey into the magical woods ... to destroy it

the treasure at the end of this dungeon is an escape from this dungeon and we will never escape from this dungeon by riverhouse games @riverhousegames

a lyric game about a never-ending dungeon and those stuck there

kenzie's project by sasha winter @stargazersasha

a Weird Academia horror game for three players

i love you, alive girl by anna anthropy

a 1-page game about writing love letters under surveillance

drifters by gila rpgs

a Weird West game of gunslingers and their guns

past semesters game options:

a dragon game by chris bissette cozy town by rae nedjadi @temporalhiccup

the process:

in the powerpoint introducing the games, i have a more thorough description of each one, and then three examples of inquiry questions that they could use as jumping off points to do their analysis on. the inquiry questions ask things like, what moral stance might this game align itself with, what other stories is this game in dialogue with and to what effect, what does this game have to say about the current state of our society? the students can use these inquiry questions or not, theyre only meant to be examples

the results:

this is definitely the most challenging project for my students, but i think that challenge is good for them! i've had really mixed results, with the most common issue i run into just being surface level analysis. they are, however, 18 and have never done anything like this before (for the vast majority of my students) so a lot of my feedback is just pushing them further and trying to get them to say something interesting. i really love a dragon game and cozy town, but i found they didnt have enough context of ttrpgs and dnd/pf to really Get why a dragon game was interesting, so i replaced it with escape from this dungeon since thats got some more meat for them like voicey rules and characters. and im a big fan of nedjadi's games and wanted to give my students something more cute and fun, but they struggled to find much to read into or say about it that wasnt very surface level. escape from this dungeon and ilu, alive girl are new games this semester so we will see how those go over!!

[nostalgic-soda]

As Magic Idol Singer'll be one of the many categories present in your video essay, besides the Studio Pierrot Magical Girls franchise, Full Moon and JEM, I'd like to add in the Pretty Series franchise, AK0048, Healer Girl, Fairy Idol Kanon, Mink, Show By Rock!, Lolirock, Spellbound! Magical Princess LilPri and Idol x Warrior Miracle Tunes.

P. S. The Studio Pierrot Magical Girls Series franchise has recieved a new installment that was announced in June 2024.

Ohhhh interesting!!!

[dnpbeats]

drop the dan loving goblin phil essay rn

(in reference to my tag on this post)

OKAY SO! In BIG dan says this about phil: "And this is when, through the magic of the internet, I met Phil. And obviously we were more than friends but it was more than just romantic. This is someone that genuinely liked me. I trusted them. And for the first time since I was a tiny child, I actually felt safe. [...] Especially to anyone that has experienced the kind of self-hatred that I have dealt with, one person accepting you can make all the difference" (ty @goldenpinof for the transcript 🕺). Now obviously, this is in the context of dan being gay so for the most part he's referencing his sexuality here when he talks about being accepted, and I am not trying to undermine that at all. But I think that phil's acceptance of dan went deeper than just his sexuality (goblin Phil comes into this I promise lol).

dan also talks a bit in BIG about how he was nerdy and was bullied for that before he was bullied for being gay. He's also mentioned other times how being nerdy/geeky didn't use to be accepted. In the 4/13 stereo show, dan says: "Before YouTube, if you were a nerd, you felt like you weren't a valid member of society unless you were, like, captain of the football team or whatever. [...] Now, thanks to social media, it's like 'oh, okay, well if someone like Hank Green can exist, I'm fine.'" What's extra interesting about this example specifically is that dan is talking about representation in response to a fan prompting him to talk about queer representation in media. So like, yes the majority of dan's struggles in accepting himself were surrounding his sexuality, but I do also think there was a layer of being a nerdy kid at a time when it wasn't cool or fun that added onto him not accepting himself. And I do not think that that's completely separate from his nonacceptance of his sexuality.

So, what exactly does this have to do with dan expecting phil to be super debonair and then having those expectations shattered? But then still wanting phil, arguably even more than he did before? Well, I think that phil was (and is) unapologetically himself, and that was inspiring for dan to see. dan said in BIG that he didn't meet an out gay person until he was 18, so either that person was phil himself or he met phil shortly afterwards and phil was therefore one of the first out gay people dan knew. and we know from phil's coming out video that he wasn't ashamed of his sexuality at that time. but phil's acceptance of himself goes beyond his sexuality, like just look at his YouTube content at the time. he was doing experimental stuff that was weird as shit (I don't mean that in a bad way I like his old vids!). most people probably would not have the confidence or self-assurance to make the stuff he was making, let alone post it. and then, beyond that, he was just a nerdy guy himself! but it was something that he openly talked about online and we know he and dan bonded over video games/tv shows/etc.

And now let's think about this from dan's perspective. He's been watching this guy's videos forever. He's been talking to him online for the past couple of months, and while he was talking with phil (rather than "amazingphil"), I'm sure there was still that element of like "wow holy shit I can't believe I'm talking with amazingphil!" Hence why dan says in the mean girls video that he was expecting phil to be all "hi, I'm amazingphil! 😏" when they first met (also side note, when dan starts to make this joke phil starts doing it at the same time, so I'm sure this is a discussion they've had before lol). but Phil wasn't like that!!! he was all hunched over and awkward and dorky! because he was nervous!! BUT he wasn't ashamed of that. he wasn't trying to put on some AmazingPhil™ Smooth Operator Refined front. He was just himself. Unapologetically so. And for dan, I think that that meant so much in terms of accepting himself, but also feeling accepted. because how was he going to believe phil when he said "dan I love you for who you are" if phil was hiding himself around dan?

So yeah, I think that's why dan saw goblin phil, not amazingphil, and was still like "yeah I want to build my life with this person." Because for him, phil represented self-acceptance and being accepted and a safe place and someone who he could be on the same wavelength with and true unconditional love and someone he can geek out with and someone who will let him yap for an hour about whatever the hell dan has decided to talk about that day. of course he would like phil more than whatever version of amazingphil he had built up in his head. because phil loves dan for who he truly is and dan loves phil for who he truly is :)

[theshippirate22]

hi welcome to my essay

is this based solely in my insane brainrot? yeah probably. i’m doing it anyway

THE TIME TAYLOR SWIFT CONFIRMED ANDERPERRY LORE

This is Josh Charles

If you don’t know who he is, that’s cool. No one does. If you do know who he is, you’re probably gay, depressed, or both. Probably both.

And this is Josh Charles in 1989, in the critically acclaimed, cult classic film Dead Poets Society

Does he look familiar? Well, if you’re big on pop culture and/or a Swiftie, he should

Because THIS is Josh Charles in 2024

in Taylor Swift’s Fortnight music video

But who’s that standing next to him?

It’s Ethan Hawke

Who ALSO starred in Dead Poets Society (1989)

Kind of weird right? But whatever

UNTIL you remember that Fortnight is the first track off the latest Taylor Swift album

called The Tortured Poets Department

Now, the premise of the music video is that Taylor was in love with Post Malone’s character but only for a fortnight and losing him after loving him is what drove her into madness basically, so she’s been imprisoned in this asylum called The Tortured Poets Department where Josh Charles and Ethan Hawke are doctors that are experimenting on her to help her get over her love for Post Malone. Note that Post Malone is also there and is another one of the doctors.

Canonically in Dead Poets Soceity Josh Charles’ character Knox Overstreet is in sort of this awkward situationship with a girl named Chris Noel, who’s “practically engaged” to this idiot called Chet and it's assumed that after everything goes down at the end of the film, Knox stops pursuing her and Chris marries Chet to live out her horrific 1950's housewife prophecy.

Similarly, Ethan Hawke’s character, Todd Anderson, is in this tragic queer-coded homoerotic friendship with main protagonist Neil Perry (played by the lovely Robert Sean “Bobby” Leonard) that never manages to come to fruition because of Neil’s untimely death via suicide.

So back to Taylor. Obviously she's a patient in The Tortured Poets Department being treated for her hopeless love for Post Malone. She says she even took the "magical move-on drug" but "the effects were temporary," which implies that what Josh and Ethan are testing on her is this drug, this cure-all for lost romance, and they haven't quite figured it out.

Which makes perfect sense, when you think about what happened to Knox and Todd. They had these short-lived perfect loves with Chris and Neil respectively that ended before anything could ever happen. Love cut too short, just like Taylor and Post Malone. Which is wild when you realize that means TS basically just confirmed anderperry.

Not only this, but in the movie, the boys are encouraged to write and enjoy poetry thoroughly, and while all the boys take it to heart, Knox and Todd are the ones that are frequently seen actually writing poetry. Knox uses it to try and win Chris over, as well as working through his feelings for her, while Todd uses it as a guilty pleasure sort of thing that he's seemingly embarrassed by (which I could talk about for 25 pages but I'll spare you.)

So basically, just like Taylor, Knox and Todd are also tortured poets. Which means not only are they the doctors trying to come up for a cure for their own maladies, they're also patients in the Tortured Poets Department

THEY'RE JUST AS CRAZY AS TAYLOR.

If that seems too big a stretch, remember that Post Malone is there. From his bridge we see that he's going through the same thing as Taylor except on the opposite side, and he's also seen in the poetry room with Taylor, confirming that he himself is a poet as well, and in the lab he's also a doctor. So Josh and Ethan are patients just as much as Post Malone is, who's just as much as Taylor.

All four of them are locked in together, trying to get over these lost loves they are mourning.

By deliberately choosing not just Ethan Hawke to cameo, but also Josh Charles, and not say Dylan Kussman or Gale Hansen, or even MAIN STAR Bobby Leonard, it draws a direct parallel between Knox and Todd's characters, and therefore between Chris and Neil, and therefore, Taylor Swift has basically confirmed the ongoing implication that anderperry was the metaphor all along.

[esthermika]

Let's share some of our favorite transgender content creators. There's a lot of good content made my queer creators that goes unrecognized, and I want to share some of it, so here some trans youtubers that I've enjoyed watching lately:

[calissarowan]

A couple weeks ago, my YouTube homepage suddenly started showing me video essays and clip compilations about why a show called High Guardian Spice is awful and sucks and is just a bad show in general. Now, I’ve never seen this show, but I got curious because I’m easily distracted on YouTube, so I clicked. To be honest, I can’t see anything wrong with it. Character designs were cute, wasn’t the greatest thing I’ve ever seen but they aren’t making another season of She-Ra so I’m not gonna get another look at the greatest thing I’ve ever seen. But anyway, I watched a bunch of these compilations, where people were endlessly negative about the characters and the plot and everything, and then I got curious and I looked it up on Tumblr, just because. I was on break, I had very little to do. And I found that the creator was on Tumblr, and he’d made this little mini comic saying it was strange to be the creator of something people love to hate. And I just felt so bad in that moment, because I thought how horrible it must be to put your heart and soul into something, and to love it, and to build a world, and characters you feel like you know as real people, and put all that effort and love in, and people hate it. And then I clicked on his page and scrolled right down to the bottom, and there were little early designs for the characters that made up ‘they suck’ compilations on YouTube, and they developed them, and they obviously loved them, they were their magical girls, and it just felt like…like a reminder that every piece of media has a creator behind it, someone that put their soul into creating these characters, and it just…it feels very sad that media gets criticised so much. Discourse is great, and things that you feel could be improved upon are great, but people just saying something sucks, or that a character really sucks…that just feels very sad.