#od jury

[bitwa-lektur-szkolnych]

Zachowujcie się wszyscy, mamy wśród nas celebrytkę

[just-a-queer-fanboy]

Guess who's getting accused of disorderly conduct for saying rapists should kill themselves (they should) and his attempted rapist is getting off scot free????? THIS GUY!!!!!

[haru-dipthong]

Ep 4 of my Utena fansub is out!

This has absolutely been the toughest episode yet. It has several difficult phrases, the most dialogue of any episode up to this point, and a few phases that are really important to future episodes and core themes.

This episode's translation discussion

ねえ、じゅり先輩

Can I ask you something, Juri?

The bane of every translator’s existence — 先輩 (senpai). As I’m doing with 様 (sama), I definitely don’t want to include it untranslated as an honorific, but unlike 様 (sama) there’s no English word that could possibly be used in the same context to convey similar information. Instead, I’m trying to slip in some of the hierarchy in the characters’ general speech patterns. Here, the translation invents a whole sentence for Miki to show a bit of deference to Juri, instead of using the honorific.

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テクニックでねじ伏せるようないつもの迫力じゃなくて、なんだか音に潤いを感じるよ。

Your technique is usually so forceful and commanding, but today the notes have a kind of richness to them.

According to jisho.org, ねじ伏せる means “to twist someone's arm and throw them to the ground”. 迫力 means “force, impact, strength”. Touga’s verbiage here is intentionally violent. It indicates that underneath Miki’s polite, almost feminine demeanour and appearance, lies a boy who is already being moulded by patriarchal forces into a force of oppression. It was important to keep that hint of Miki’s potential for violence and oppression in the translation.

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前に言ってた、輝くものでも見つけたのかな？

Did you ever find that "glow" you were talking about earlier? (from ohtori.nu)

It seems you may have found that guiding light you were telling me about. (my translation)

This was a really tough translation, and one that has implications for the future, because I believe 輝くもの is used when listing the council’s reasons for duelling in later episodes, so the translation I chose needed to fit in that context as well.

Depending on the kanji used, もの can mean either “thing” (物) or “person” (者). A Japanese transcript I found actually uses the “person” kanji excusively. So it could be translated as either “something that shines” or “someone that shines”. I think I managed to preserve this ambiguity in the translation: “guiding light” could be a literal light, or it could be a metaphor for a person who’s very important to you.

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自分の中に永遠の美しさを持ってないと引けない曲なんだ

It's an ode to a beautiful life, where things never change. You need to believe in that to play it.

The Japanese literally translates to "This is a song [you/I] can't play unless [you/I] carry [eternal beauty/the beauty of eternity] within yourself". The subject of the sentence is omitted - is he talking in general or specifically about himself? Is 永遠 here acting as a noun (eternity) and の marks 美しさ as belonging to it (beauty of eternity) or is it acting in the genitive case and modifying the noun 美しさ instead (eternal beauty)?

These are all questions that matter in terms of making sense of the line, but not in the immediate sense of the translation, because the translation pivots on a different axis: 自分の中に…持ってないと. In english, translating this literally (carry … inside yourself) sounds unnatural. I think the Japanese gives more of an impression of carrying a worldview of eternal beauty; of seeing the world as a world that has eternal beauty. Textually, what Miki is talking about is carrying a dream of reliving the happiness of the past again, and then keeping it forever. He’s desperately trying to preserve that perfect time in his life, with him and his sister side by side playing that song in the sunlit garden. That's actually what this is about. And his duelling loss, and the scene where the image of the garden shatters, represents him finally being forced to move on from that need for permanence.

Permanence (or as most translations have it, “eternity” — 永遠) is a core theme of the work. All of the characters, in some way, are trying to preserve a form of status quo, or regain and retain a status quo that has been lost to them. Though Miki uses the word 永遠 here, I decided not to directly translate it. Rather than relying on the recurrence of a single noun to carry this theme, I wanted to allow the theme to stand on its own merit. I think translating it variously as “permanence”, “eternity” and other edge cases as I’ve done in this line ("where things never change"), will allow me to better convey this theme of wanting to keep things as they are, and the necessity of change and of letting those things go.

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Thank you to my editor @dontbe-lasanya (I still can't believe I get to say "my editor" lol), I'm sure it was as tough to edit as it was to translate!

For all episodes released so far, see the below drive folder. Be sure to follow the blog for updates if you want to watch along!

[bitwa-lektur-szkolnych]

Drogi ludu, wszyscy wiemy jak straszna jest teraz sytuacja w dużej części naszego kraju, jest nas tu może niewiele, ale w takiej sytuacji liczy się każdy grosz. Jeśli tylko możecie, dorzućcie się, a niezależnie od tego, podajcie dalej!

THE SITUATION IN POLAND RIGHT NOW IS TRAGIC AND IT'S GETTING WORSE

Southern Poland is under massive flooding, towns and villages are failing to keep the water away, some are already under water.

Here is a fundraiser to help the victims of the flood

please rb or donate if you can

[notchainedtotrauma]

The Revolution Will Be (Black) Life: How I Write The Complexity of Abolishing The World

I have never done that. Never. I have done posts aggregating Black poeisis and Black thought and Black art in order to put people's minds together. But I don't remember ever having done that kind of post...with my own work. So there it is. And yes, I wrote all the poems below.

Ode to the Black Girl Breathing The Party as She Goes

Which corner stores are required for the hand

to leap,

a globe of perspiration and swallow

a forever memory within the ineptitude

of fleshy concrete,

and what can she do with that ?

If she parts her hair, still,

the rock and sway of her scheme

and the merging of all the voices demanding she do her dance.

Illusions don't propel the airy girls on the ice

don't brace them with keys 

and offbeat songs,

don't whirl them against the wrongness of a blade

and their head,

a bubble in mourning

a piece of gum on an ashy knee.

Say what you want about all that gossip,

the walls remember the undoing of her bones

and her pacing teeth.

She doesn't attach herself 

to the begonias down the street

to repetitive devices, 

sheathed with sallow;

she hums her cordoned sentimentality,

a breast remains

sugar for the horizon

a sprouting eye around her renamed waist.

It's never been about weaving leather

about butterflied dust

and rippling blood;

the party always collapses into

faux furs earmuffs

and hobbling backgrounds.

Nobody needs saving, 

but all need a good sermon,

the pastor grand and golden,

the cars piling up around vigorous bodies

and secular kisses.

The wan girls on the burred couches

their hands a swarming breath

the rope blossoms from their stripped knees

and still 

she severs them cotton candy full

remand their tangled mouths 

acts as judge and jury,

holds the lawyer in her mouth,

his flushed indifference.

No bed suffices for the layers of bad sex

birthed from the courtroom.

Pear trees and verdant muck 

a short history of early drives and 

giggling proximity;

outside supplies psych wards

and paper boxes 

while people twist themselves into a curl of boredom.

Her leaning towards every sorrowful crushed bird

rushes her kneeling to bare rooms

full of bright coral light

and her sweltering voice.

But Who Will We Feed Next ? (* The entire poem turns on Nope by Jordan Peele)

As one image dissolved and another appeared, her heart raced.

from Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments by Saidiya Hartman

The music tethers what I thought was a baptism to the ground

I wake up to the sourness of cracked mud around my throat

I remain enmenshed in the slowness of honey, waiting for victory

I am spectator and victim, parting the manufactured sky with a paring knife

There is so much blood I wait to be slewed inside uncessing rooms

The geometry of my heart is something I remember sharp and shallow

I quiet down when through the dripping egg yolk of a blinking breath

What do you want to know now that I lay with an eye in my mouth.

I guess unsettling ache wasn't enough to crash the car home

I sit there and boil the bark of a cinnamon tree, hoping for redress

I drive the camera into my throat, a relief

The light can be so pale and so still I curl up to the side of my bed

He sat there and tried to whisper sweet things as the whiskey grew bitter

I tore the last silk dress I could find in a crumbling cabinet and let myself smile

I seek the comfort of hurt in the dust of every sloppy merry-go-round

I don't hunger for the hatchet or the camcorder and my brother holds my hand

The Pearl We Buried Into Our Sanctified Flesh

In a black episteme, radical spiritual practices gave release to alternate forms of being and selfhood. Ecstatic enactments of communion, often practiced in all-women prayer bands, produced realms generated in what we could call ecstatic time.

from Black Utopias: Speculative Life and the Music of Other Worlds by Jayna Brown

We're very sorry our bodies 

are burning

quashed against the wall.

We're minutious with it

a necklace of wails

glassy abundance 

a boredom so sharp it never hurts.

What do you see amidst the white robes,

music like,

a story about your nerves,

your sliced breast.

Nobody knows about the cigarettes wrapped around our wrists,

our delicate day dreaming

the scars across our sweet

when we pleasure ourselves with the breach in wooden surfaces.

Maybe we were always unprepared for this,

this escalator widening our mouths 

the metal cool and glinting against our jaws.

We want to hold everybody

with a knife in our hands.

We hurled our brown bodies across the length of the room

where there was no room

an eye, a building

erected through our smooth lower half.

We were prepared for this, though:

our hands rippling with the mud

we chewed on earlier

hoping for flight, for a slow erosion,

for a miracle bonding us to the walls and the walls and the walls.

We wake up with one mind,

clouded with pain,

we say everything but forget the soft of our hands

the ghost of our mouths.

Our teeth are white like nobody is around us

a pearl we can open

as it breaks us.

Surely you must remember the blood

we poured into your expectant throat,

the dull of your gaze

quartered and verdant

flowers huddled across

the small of you.

We sing and you cannot hear us,

buried into yourself.

Is that you, rolling off our prayers ?

We marry your silence

circled around you, sorrowful and glad.

When done, we sit at the forefront of burnt churches,

seek the cross to lay down through it,

embrace crumbling walls,

dusky and bitter.

We always carry between us a jar of liquid ash

forgive all our tremors

parry your slow walk

force into your throat the meaning of our grace.

We are nothing if sorrowful, which means sweet, which means

raw fish into your hands,

flailing as it tears.

What we eat doesn't sever our sweat from our spit:

when exhausted we strip away a car,

let the machinery soothe us

dip our hands into the motor as it if could save us

and it can.

We lay on puddles of leaves, dark green and itchy

we examine twisted valves,

we call out to the blurry road,

resting at last.

Skyrise for That Little Black Girl Nodding Along Her Own Hum

"I’m connected to legacy. This is more than just trying to build a watch. This is about building LEGACY."

from Aldis Hodge's Path to Purpose by Aldis Hodge

We well up against the mainspring

or we are the mainspring;

a smile smears blood across the border

between our empty

and that mouth, black,

thick,

a bowl of smoke.

We are the mainspring, I say;

a narrow bone 

grown from nowhere,

our collective body in flight from

ourselves.

We require no explanation when the light blooms so bleary

a man knots it across his face,

carves a river of glass and metal,

drags his knuckles across the grease of 

an acrid morning.

The morning is something only our children

remember;

cool with ease, playing games they made out of

dusk and orange peel,

they're buildings all over again.

The children, knitted through the amber sky,

liquid and gorged, 

draw an arc beneath their ripe breaths,

jolting lines laced with sleek skin;

tomorrow they bring cities behind their teeth.

Nothing feels good besides so many wheels;

when her husband, she boils sugar and cherry bark,

holds a finger to the door,

sticky with endings.

Everyone said hello after the first few nights

of splattered eyes

and peculiar bracelets.

Now everyone's made it, which is to say, everyone's died.

Who saw Harlem in flight ?

Who handed a fleshy tongue to white paint

and scorched concrete ?

The little girl we lost in the fire,

whistling rainbows on abandoned tree trunks,

a braid cloudy and undone:

but look how glistening,

the kind of grace her skipping knees

sway.

Tomorrow

she brings eternity in her teeth.

When we wake up

our children;

our spines curled to sleep.

It doesn't matter;

anyone can be bird 

or air.

Notes: 

1. I cite Garrett Morgan, who invented not only the three-position traffic signal, but a breathing device that would serve as a blueprint for the creation of the gas mask. 

2. I cite Marie Van Brittan Brown, who invented the first home security city system.              

3. I also cite Black feminist educator, poet, children books author, playwright, essayist and self-taught  urban designer June Jordan, whose unrealized urban planning project Skyrise for Harlem, created in collaboration with Buckminster Fuller, showcases her interdisciplinary radical and transformative vision. The title of the poem models itself upon the title of her architectural reimagining of Harlem.

The Spilled Skin of a Luminous Sunrise (This references the Lake Lanier)

All water isn't good water;

we kneel in a fistful of muddy rust, our voices ache.

We unearth jagged walls, charred glass;

our spines limp, undefined. As if a noose blooming

from our back; a small mouth, 

sated and bitter.

When we woke up, a hand between our thighs,

we saw streaked dusk, 

a wisp of chain-link fences

twisted around 

our doors.

In the vast empty rooms, sunlight thick as sugar cane;

often, I ask for forgiveness, drink the heat on the ground.

Can I be slick flesh, lithe marrow ?

Hands and knees always burn in the frosted evening;

I remember a scar between my teeth.

The knife becomes an exercise in longing;

wrists scooped from crumbled soil,

a voice floats in a cocktail glass,

a tear across the hours.

Between the charred sky and a foamy church

sinking into a pool of salt 

and tar

the glisten of a sheathed leg,

soaring.

We grin with smoke in our mouths; 

no longer 

are we scattered mist

a dismal shadow

through which

a hand reaches 

for some relief.

Blood comes easy when wrung

from gravel;

rivulets of dreamy history

a soft body left to rot.

Maybe or maybe not; some houses unraveling,

a wall black with grease.

Somewhere, I sip white roses. Sandalwood.

Knead flesh into prayer.

I come for the flood, stay for blasphemy.

The wawering windows spit liquid static, 

rupture the blurry light

a wound remains.

The Sweetness of Black Girls Driving Themselves Away

Something bigger than the two-plus-two way everybody else lived from day to day was going on and she was right there and part of it. Whatever it was that had fallen away was showing her another way to be in the world.

from The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara

Out of hunger, the road, slick black ice, 

a tongue, flickers; 

every window swallows a dust covered melancholy,

a sack of tears 

slid down the throat 

from which, fraying at the edges,

a clogged voice.

The afternoon descends like a rusted blade,

a fucked up smile

whose fat lip feeds on air.

Somehow, the trees blend in with the background of bleary

glimmer and brown matter; 

a faceless empire of fallen cackles, 

a crushed orange

whose grainy skin keeps rupturing 

at the center;

and everyone's sticky and worn out and fed up 

with the sluggish movement of 

overheated metal

and rank leather.

Popsicle red stains the foam capped borders of damp dresses,

arms drifting across bare clavicles,

lenghtened necks,

as if to say "let's play";

the hand gliding down the suddenly empty trail,

the severed hip 

signal more than casual boredom,

more than the ease

of the overfed

subject.

The breathing has grown

ragged

and rawboned.

There are men somewhere, in the constant ebb and flow

of a dreadful and swollen light;

an offering of hands around yielding flesh, 

breath like vapor

besides a pair of legs bent in gleeful prayer. 

The sea remains everything they haven't

touched,

an oily horizon of debris adorning their 

fractured guts;

a bracelet of nails across their

ankles.

A kingdom of brown legs 

spiked 

with hazy bruises

stretched against a background of trees burning like men

rose water sprayed against 

a lipsticked mouth;

bitter honey gets smudged through a mound

of droopy flesh, 

a slight opening. 

When the sobbing comes,

no sound.

The night comes out liquid and suffocating, 

a lava crusted bulb of

pallid light

they can reach and pluck,

like a rotten fruit,

full and ready to explode.

Black ice turned to sludge, a muddy field

wrecked by the innocuous

scent of menthol cigarettes mixed with sweat,

the bare bones

of bodies

to go alight, 

to stay unaccounted for.

[a-modernmajorgeneral]

At the ancient Olympics in Greece, athletes weren’t the only stars of the show. The spectacle also attracted poets, who recited their works for eager audiences. Competitors commissioned bigger names to write odes of their victories, which choruses performed at elaborate celebrations. Physical strength and literary prowess were inextricably linked.

Thousands of years later, this image appealed to Pierre de Coubertin, a French baron best known as the founder of the modern Olympics in 1896. But today’s Games bear little resemblance to Coubertin’s grand vision: He pictured a competition that would “reunite in the bonds of legitimate wedlock a long-divorced couple—muscle and mind.”

The baron believed that humanity had “lost all sense of eurythmy,” a word he used to describe the harmony of arts and athletics. The idea can be traced back to sources such as Plato’s Republic, in which Socrates extolls the virtues of education that combines “gymnastic for the body and music for the soul.” Poets should become athletes, and athletes should try their hand at verse.

That philosophy was a driving force at the 1912 Stockholm Games, where organizers introduced five arts competitions as official Olympic events. Modern history’s first written work to win an Olympic gold medal was “Ode to Sport,” a prose poem by Georges Hohrod and M. Eschbach. It begins:

O Sport, delight of the Gods, distillation of life! In the grey dingle of modern existence, restless with barren toil, you suddenly appeared like the shining messenger of vanished ages, those ages when humanity could smile.

Over the following eight verses, the poets sing Sport’s praises. “O Sport, you are Honor! The titles you bestow are worthless save if won in absolute fairness. … O Sport, you are Joy! At your call the flesh makes holiday and the eyes smile. … O Sport, you are Fecundity! … O Sport, you are Progress!” And so on.

Today’s readers are often underwhelmed by the first poem to win gold, describing it as “florid,” “saccharine” or “overblown.” But as far as the 1912 jury was concerned, Hohrod and Eschbach knocked it out of the park.

“The great merit of the ‘Ode to Sport,’ which, in our view, was far and away the winner in the literature competition, was that it is the very model of what the competitions [were] looking for in terms of inspiration,” wrote the jurors in their report.

It’s perhaps unsurprising that Hohrod and Eschbach understood the spirit of the competition, the fabled marriage of muscle and mind, so acutely. That’s because they were pseudonyms for the man who had conceived the whole idea: The author of “Ode to Sport” was none other than Coubertin himself.

The first major excavations at Olympia, the Greek sanctuary that hosted the ancient Games, began in the 1870s. While previous digs had revealed ruins around the Temple of Zeus, the large-scale efforts that followed uncovered sprawling structures and thousands of artifacts.

At the time, Coubertin was a teenager living in France. He had already seen the ruins of ancient Rome on family trips as a young boy, and now he was hearing all about the excavations at Olympia. He had recently started attending a Jesuit school, which provided him with a classical education and strengthened his burgeoning interest in ancient Greece.

“[Coubertin] was raised and educated classically, and he was particularly impressed with the idea of what it meant to be a true Olympian—someone who was not only athletic, but skilled in music and literature,” Richard Stanton, author of The Forgotten Olympic Art Competitions, told Smithsonian magazine in 2012. “He felt that in order to recreate the events in modern times, it would be incomplete to not include some aspect of the arts.”

The baron’s fellow organizers never fully shared his vision. After a few false starts, Coubertin formed the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1894, and the first modern Olympics took place in Athens two years later. But the inaugural 1896 Games included only athletic competitions, such as the discus throw, swimming, fencing and pole vaulting. Several new events debuted in 1900 (among them water polo and archery) and 1904 (boxing and lacrosse), but muscle and mind remained firmly at odds.

Coubertin pressed on. When officials announced that Rome would host the 1908 Olympics, the ancient city’s selection evidently set the baron’s gears churning. On August 5, 1904, he published an article titled “The Roman Olympiad” on the front page of the French newspaper Le Figaro, writing:

The time has come to enter a new phase, and to restore the Olympiads to their original beauty. At the time of Olympia’s splendor … the arts and literature joined with sport to ensure the greatness of the Olympic Games. The same must be true in the future. … Let the Romans now give us such a typical Olympiad and reopen the temple of sport to the ancient companions of its glory.

Coubertin argued that the partnership of sport and art had “outlasted the destruction of Olympia,” and the time had come to “restore this ideal completely.” Now that the first three modern Games had gotten the ball rolling, it was “possible and desirable to bring muscles and thought together again.”

Two years later, the IOC held a conference to seriously consider “to what extent and in what form the arts and literature can participate in the celebration of the modern Olympiads.” The event program listed several arts categories that were under consideration. Under “literature” were two bullet points: “possibility of setting up Olympic literary competitions; conditions for these competitions” and “sporting emotion, source of inspiration for the man of letters.”

Coubertin gave a rousing opening speech, doubling down on the metaphor of muscle and mind’s remarriage. “I would verge on being untruthful if I said that ardent desire compels them to renew their conjugal life today,” he said. “Doubtless their cooperation was long and fruitful, but once separated by adverse circumstances, they had come to a point of complete mutual incomprehension. Absence had made them grow forgetful.”

Officials ultimately agreed to add five arts competitions to the upcoming Olympics in 1908: literature, painting, sculpture, music and architecture. All works entered into these categories, collectively named the Pentathlon of the Muses, would need to be inspired by sports, restoring the ancient harmony that Coubertin had envisioned.

[myslodsiewniav]

14 -12-2024

1 - Jestem na wykładzie (zdalnym) z prawa i to jest jakaś rzeźnia. 🫨 To drugi mój wykład z tego przedmiotu w tym semestrze i drugi raz mam wrażenie, że Pani profesorka zapomniała, że ma studentów studiów kreatywnych, że ma wykładać prawo od podstaw, a nie... jak dla studentów prawa. Ech. Drugi wykład, a ona nie może mam przesłać karty przedmiotu, bo ona sama nie dostała karty przedmiotu - czyli ona nie wie z czego ma nas uczyć. xD A my nie wiemy czego będzie wymagać na egzaminie za półtorej miesiąca xD. Super. Nie ma przygotowanych slajdów, nie ma listy literatury. Ale jest monolog w którym skaczemy od "jak wiecie sprawdzamy to w Księdze IV kodeksu cywilnego i wtedy, jak wiecie musimy dokonać opłaty, bo chociaż ktoś może się starać o sądzenie bez opłaty, to jednak sąd rzadko się na to decyduje. O czym to mówiłam? A! Uiszczenie opłaty, ale zanim uiścimy opłatę to jeszcze trzeba zdecydować na podstawie jakiej ustawy lub kodeksu chcemy się sądzić. No. Jak wspominałam to może być Księga IV, a inne zasadne źródło to co? Kto wie? No kodeks cywilny, drodzy państwo! Więc potem na podstawie kodeksu cywilnego możemy się udać do radcy prawnego, a wtedy uiszczamy opłatę do sądu, a sąd..." - KURWA, zaczyna nagle jakieś wynikanie kreślić, które to wynikanie wprowadza chaos, potem rozpamiętuje ile i co kosztuje i dlaczego dobrze to zapłacić, potem wraca i niby od podstaw to wszystko jeszcze raz tłumaczy, ale tak naprawdę NIGDY nie tłumaczy dlaczego ta cała księga IV (i co to jest ta księga IV????) ani dlaczego Kodeks Cywilny... I nagle wyskakuje z informacją, że lepiej nie jechać na wakacje do Wenezueli, bo tam jest niebezpiecznie, że polscy turyści zostali zamordowani, a potem nagle o mówi o prawie dotyczącym tworzenia programów wycieczek i nagle zmiana tematu, teraz plagiat prac doktoranckich...

Prawie tak się obawiam zdania tego przedmiotu, jak w zeszłym roku z polskiego...

:/

2 - Boję się, że nie uda mi się wszystkiego co mam zaplanowane skończyć w czasie/w terminie. Chodzi mi o ten projekt grantowy - nie mam siły pisać tego, co pisać teraz powinnam. Czuję, że muszę odpocząć. Planuję do zrobienia dużo rzeczy, których czasem nie mam czasu zwyczajnie zrobić czy wykonać, nie mówiąc o tym, że nie mam siły po prostu.

3 - Nie pamiętam czy napisałam, ale niestety nie dostałam stypendium, tego większego, tego na które liczyłam. Jestem w... ech. Zrezygnowana? Zdołowana? Z tymi stypendiami jest tak, że aplikowanie po nie wymaga MASĘ czasu, energii, zaangażowania (trzeba nadzwonić się, doprosić o zaświadczenia, poświadczenia, dotrzeć do osób decyzyjnych, wymieniać uprzejme wiadomości, a potem latać do punktu druku, do punktu nadań, do urzędów miasta, uzupełniać jakieś dokumenty, bo komuś się coś zapomniało - albo nam, albo urzędnikom w tym przypadku: zapomnieli udostępnić dokumentu o przetwarzaniu danych osobowych - trzeba było do nich 2 razy pod rząd się bujać, aby złożyć osobiście podpis) a koniec końców jest dupa...

Czuję, że zainwestowałam w tą aplikację masę energii, która nie została wynagrodzona... a w rezltacie czuje to trochę jak czas stracony. Próbowanie jest ok. Ale mam tak dużo na głowie i tak mało czasu... i byłam tak pewna, że mój wniosek i wszystko co w tym roku robiłam jest zasadne i zasługuje na nagrodę... a jednak nie dostałam jej. A naprawdę ciężko harowałam. Czuję rozczarowanie, bo nie wiem czego się tak stało, nie wiem co było brane pod uwagę przy ocenie wniosków i dlaczego jury uznało, że moja cieżka praca to za mało. Napisałam maila prosząc o uzasadnienie, bo gdy zadzwoniłam do urzędu miasta pani urzędniczka była zdzwiona, że czekam na jakieś uzasadnienie - powiedziała, że nie mieli zamiaru rozsyłać, ani w ogóle pisać uzasadnie��. Dlaczego? Ech... Chcę wiedzieć... Napisałam maila, oficjalnego, uważnie dobierając słowa, przeczytałam go mojemu partnerowi - uznał, że ok. A potem wysłałam do urzędu i do reszty mojego zespołu. No i klops, bo reszcie grupy bardzo się nie spodobało co napisałam i jak.

Rzecz w tym, że gdy oni odczytali jakie intencje odczytują w mojej wiadomości to je zauważyłam - nie miałam tego na myśli, mojemu partnerowi też to nie przyszło do głowy, gdy czytał to moje pismo. Ale to jak je odebrali pozostali dwaj członkowie mojej grupy jest możliwą interpretacją mojego listu (tego co oni tam widzą nie ma w liście, to interpretacja i dopowiedzenie, ale still...). Uznali, że to nie fajne, że taki list wysłałam w imieniu całej grupy i na przyszłość chcą mieć wgląd w to co piszę jako przedstawicielka wszystkich. Zwykle mają i zwykle mam ich 100% poparcia - przeciwnie, sami przyznają, że piszę lepiej niż oni, że lepiej i dyplomatyczniej niż oni by potrafili ujmuję myśli.

Czułam, że zawiodłam.

I byłam tym bardzo struta...

Nadal uważam, że dobrze zrobiłam i że nie napisałam nic z czym bym się nie zgadzała i nie miałam nic nikczemnego na myśli. Opisałam fakty - i to fakty są w liście.

A z drugiej strony - po chuj ja w ogóle piszę w imieniu całej 4-rki osób? Mogłam pisać w swoim tylko... Wiem, że to moje poczucie zranienia teraz i ta myśl o "umywam ręce, bawcie się teraz sami!" to trochę dziecinna postawa. A trochę taka otrzeźwiająca: bo faktycznie niezdrowo za dużo wziełam na siebie.

No i chyba tym też sie czuję przebodźcowana...

Nie czuję się zafascynowana czy podekscytowana tym, że robię dla samej siebie fajne miejsce pracy - obecnie czuję głównie zmęczona tym, że nie mogę tego robić tak, jakbym chciała... Że mimo pracy jak pojebana, nie zarabiam wcale więcej... :/ A o granty, stypendia i dofinansowania muszę sie dopraszać. Mam wrażenie, że zamiast ruszyć do przodu, czuć wsparcie, być o krok od zarabiania to jestem wciąż i wciąż opóźniania: jeszcze nie, bo nie przelejemy pieniędzy na zakup kursów, w rezultacie nie zrobisz kursów, bez króych nie dostaniesz dofinansowania na kupno telefonu, komputera... A z drugiej strony mam stypendia, których treści reklamowe mówią, że są dla osób tak zaangażowanych jak ja musiałam być cały rok... I potem okazuje, się subiektywnie lub obiektywnie ktoś uznał, że robię za mało by to stypednium dostać, albo - to jest w sprawie stypendium rządowego - że jestem za mało artystyczną osobą by dostać stypendium dla osób artystycznych, bez formalnego wykształcenia na cele podniesienia kompetencji... Co jest lepszym opisem tego, kim jestem niż to? Trzech sędziów oceniało mój wniosek: pierwszy ocenił mój wniosek na 70% zasadny, trzeci sędzia dał mi 100% punktów, a drugi sędzia dał mi 0% uznając, że nie jestem osobą, która może być beneficjentką stypendium, bo nie jestem artystką. Napisałam odwołanie jeszcze w październiku, mamy połowę grudnia, a Ministerstwo jeszcze nie odpisało... To miało być stypendium, które miałam dostawać od listopada do grudnia. Nie dostałam go. Czuję się bezradna. Z jednej strony haruję ponad siły, zdobywam nagrody w artystycznych konkursach miedzynarodowych i krajowych, a potem nie dostaję tych stypendiów, nie przysługują mi, ani nie mam czasu na pracę zawodową, bo robię rzeczy - z opóźnieniem nie z mojej winy - które miały mi utorować drogę by już w tym momencie móc otworzyć własną działalność...

Wciąż mam wciąż piętrzące się potrzeby na które mnie nie stać: LECZENIE - przeraża mnie to... Potrzebuję iść do fryzjera, potrzebuję pójść na głupie zakupy... Potrzebuję czasu, równowagi. Czuję się źle.

Mam ochotę olać wszystkich i umówić się na rozmowe o kolejnych opcjach finansowania start upów, bo jestem w dupie...

3 - nie mam czasu na myślenie o świętach i nie mam kasy na prezenty. Chciałam zrobić prezenty ręcznie, ale nie mam na to czasu, bo nagle wyskakują z pracami zaliczeniowymi...

Czuję się ze sobą źle.

Czuję, że przytyłam i chociaż WIEM, że teraz już jestem na redukcji (weszłam z poczatkiem miesiaca na liczenie kalorii) to wiem, że źle wygladam. Nie tylko dlatego, że przytyłam - przecież pozbyłam się w zeszłym roku tak 90% ciuchów w rozmiarze większym niż M. A teraz okazuje sie, że wszystko jest na mnie opięte (mieszcze się, ale jestem już tak przytyta, ze to za dużo). A jak tyję - rośnie nowotór.

Źle sie czuję psychicznie przez to.

Czuję się nardzo zdołowana obecnie.

Nie wiem czy porzucać w ogole myśl o własnej działalności i czy zacząć szukać pracy jakiejkolwiek, bo czuję, że wegetuję, a nie żyję.

:(

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2024: #06 & #05

06. SWEDEN Loreen - "Tattoo" 1st place

Decade Ranking: 19/116 [above Halo, below Adrenalina]

Alright, fine, we've arrived at Loreen. There are plenty of conflicting emotions swirling around in my head, but overall, yeah, you know how I feel about her. It hasn't changed. She's very good, but I'm not obsessed with her. This is where those entries rank.

Let's tackle the elephant in the room: Tattoo is a good song and a boring, uninspiring winner. The two aren't mutually exclusive. Loreen's victory was determined the second she won Melfest, by default. It was unsatisfactory for two reasons:

(1) The moment Loreen was picked the casuals that remembered "Euphoria" immediately started praising her while ignoring everyone else, and this of course snowballed into the biggest jury coronation since Salvador. Lol that the same casuals that were obsessed with Tattoo preshow became upset when she beat Käärijä. What else did you think was going to happen? it was YOU who kept touting her as the best without giving as much as dismissive look at her competition, of course the Eye of Sauron was fixated on her and no one else.

(2) Käärijä. For better or for worse, this year will be remembered as the year Cha Cha Cha was robbed by the juries for the sake of Sweden. Käärijä was not without his own set of problems which directly led to his demise (which we'll tackle when we get to him because this post is about Loreen), but he WAS the year and it was his loss specifically that left a bad aftertaste in many mouths. It's always better when the underdog beats the overdog, and not the other way around.

Once the dust settled, everyone pledged fealty to the crazyparty Fin while "Tattoo" was quickly replaced as the basic gay anthem by "Padam Padam".

However, neither of those things are particularly Loreen's fault?

What I can ascertain is that Tattoo is not Euphoria, obviously. A lot of the love for Tattoo was spillover Euphoria nostalgia. That's fine, but I meant their thematic differences went understated - Euphoria was an ode to the eternity of love, while Tattoo specifically is about the love fracturing apart and Loreen's inabilty to move on - in other words "Euphoria" was a victory, while "Tattoo" always felt like more of a defeat. It's a subtle difference, but one that should always lead to Euphoria being ranked AHEAD of Tattoo, jesus christ ESC250 voters.

However, this is still Loreen, and a lesser Loreen is still lowkey epic. Eventhough "Tattoo" is probably the least good Loreen song, (technically because it's a Cazzi Opeia song with a Loreen sound - "You're stuck on me like a tatoo-oo-oo that is a Cazzi hook if ever there was), it is still a good song. Loreen proved although she's now at an age where her memory is starting to fail her, forgetting essentials such as clipping her fingernails and paying her taxes, she still has the attitude and flat stomach of a cougar ready to pounce. All credits for Tattoo's successes belong to her, SJB and no one else.

And, not unimportantly in a audio-visual medium such as Eurovision, Tattoo also looked really good on the stage. It had A Vision, which is what every winner needs nowadays. Again, the staging is great but also... not that grat lol - it's not the best staging ever. It's not better than Euphoria's or even Vesna's that we'll talk about later. Nevertheless, the song was beautifully framed under the confined space of that impromptu photocopier and Loreen's choreography. The staging was dynamic, artistic and gave the impression real stakes were involved. It Understood The Assignment. It made the song *pop*.

I specifically really LOVE the wide shot during the bridge that really anchors the devastation and desolation she sings about.

It's one of those money shots linger in your mind after the song has ended.

So overall, yeah, Loreen is not my winner or even a top fiver for me, but oh well, whatever? She was a dull winner compared to Käärijä but not an undeserving one. She's still a solid eight-and-a-half out of ten. She alone provided the triple threat of Good composition, Stunning Act and Killer Execution, so ofc juries flocked to her if they're instructed to assess the overal package. If you still think they robbed Käärijä (they did not.) remember that Loreen was solidly second in nearly every televote behind him. If he were destined to always lose Eurovision 2023 like I now believe he was, it's definitely only Loreen who should have taken the W here.

-------------------------------

05. AUSTRALIA Voyager - "Promise" 9th place

Decade Ranking: 17/116 [Above Adrenalina, below Manizha]

Sometimes the reason is "I like music." Many were surprised Voyager came top 10, but not I. To repeat a common question one final time:

HAVE YOU HEARD THE SONG?!?

Well-executed ProgMetal, at Eurovision! By a charismatic lead! Of course it was going to get a good chunk of jury votes from a group of people that know more music beyond what gets radio airplay. As Danny sings, if you haven't done anything like this before, you haven't been alive, sillies!

Going into the contest though, I wasn't fully sure Australia would grab the top 10 I envisioned for them. Like sure, I saw the vision. But my predictions come from Antwerp, not Delphi and the visions I see don't always come to pass. Voyager were hit the hardest by the fandom's latent misandry for daring to be men (+ Simone). Then again, if the fandom got their way, "Padam Padam" would win every year (lol can you imagine what a nightmare that meta would be? especially because "Padam Padam" isn't even that good to begin with) and not songs that are effectively Synthwave with Metal instrumentation. This is a combo that leads to immersive moodpieces, and not the high energy spikes you might expect from metal.

But what this blog if not for its appreciation for moodpieces and what was "Promise" if not A Mood immortalized by Voyager into An Experience. Danny playing the keytar on the bonnet of his delorean, or nearly choking on a chicken sandwich while getting 12 Portuguese points, THOSE are MY little joys in life.

Everything on stage suits a wholesome song about ~promising your loved ones you're in this life's adventure together, ride or die~, which as a message hits home even harder since Danny's cancer diagonosis (not like this affected their placement here - Australia were coming 5th on this ranking since the beginning).

And let's be honest, "Promise" is a just really good song that doesn't need frills or embellishments, but it got those anyway with everyone's fun adlibs.

It's like S10 or MARO, not the flashiest entry nor the most iconic staging, but never the less, the personality came through well enough to merit revisitations when I have a craving for it. Besides, we need a diverse array of genres at Eurovision, to ensure the bar remains high and we don't get a year full of Liars and Firefighters. "Promise" defo fit that bill well. It was good to have A Real Song into the mix, and one that was very deservedly was rewarded with a top ten placement.

If you think that a bad result, then that's fine. I agree with you, but mostly because I think Australia should have come top five and were robbed by the televote. 🙂

THE RANKING

[bitwa-lektur-szkolnych]

Dzień dobry drogi ludu, staram się zazwyczaj nie wrzucać tu prywaty, ale...

Mam dzisiaj bardzo ważną poprawkę o 14 i z nadzieją, że jest wśród was przynajmniej parę wierzących osób naprawdę przydałaby mi się jakaś zdrowaśka, albo przynajmniej parę ciepłych myśli o powodzenie 😭

[medicatedmaniac]

The Mataaho collective is a group of four Māori women artists from Aotearoa New Zealand: Erena Baker-Arapere (Te Ātiawa ki Whakarongotai, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, and Ngāti Raukawa), Sarah Hudson (Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Pūkeko, and Tūhoe), Bridget Reweti (Ngāti Ranginui and Ngāi Te Rangi), and Dr Terri Te Tau (Rangitāne and Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa).

They have won the Golden Lion from a jury at the 60th Venice Biennale for their large-scale work Takapau in the main exhibition.

The 200sqm suspended weaving is made from six kilometres of fluorescent trucking straps, 480 stainless steel buckles and ratchets, and 960 J-hooks – safety materials used in labouring jobs.

We come from working class families, our materials are an ode to that. This is reflective tape that you will see on safety gear in the labour workforce. Intended for high-visibility and often paired with fluorescent colours, these uniforms are meant to be seen- although the individuals wearing it become an insidious level of invisible. This is for those whose labour is relegated the background, to our parents and siblings, we celebrate you. - Mataaho Instagram

“We all come from working class whānau [families] and the materials we choose to use are a mihi [tribute] to them, who may not feel at home in the art gallery – we like to use materials they know and experience every day, so they have something to recognise in the art world.” - Sarah Hudson

More on Takapau and its creation here

Photographs by Ben Stewart

[gayeddieagenda]

yay for writing <3 i want to finish the ode 2 joy sequel fic soo bad but jury is extremely out on whether that can happen before the fabled date of march 6th

[belog-grada-crna-princeza]

„ne, ti nisi otišla

još si tu

još stojiš tu

u senci grana..”

A ja govorim sebi, tu si, sad ćeš. Još malo. Samo si skoknuo nešto do prodavnice. Do Maksija tu iza ćoška, da tvoja sreća ima čime da se počasti kad dođe svome deki. Tu si, izaći ćeš iz spavaće sobe, izvini srećo, deka je malo dremkao... tu si, sad ćeš, da mi kažeš da na faksu sednem u prvu klupu, da me profesori zapamte i obavezno sve da zapišem. -Deda, nije to kao u tvoje vreme, nama to sve sad stavljaju onlajn... -A ma pusti ti to, pisana reč je pisana reč. Gledam baku, samo plače i priča kako joj je prevelika bol u grudima koju suze ne mogu da olakšaju. Gledam tatu koji juri kao muva bez glave jer svaki tren na koji zastane je novi krug pitanja bez odgovora. Gledam striku koji nije bio na sahrani jer bi istog trena skočio za tobom. Gledam ih i deo mene ne razume. Ne razumem, jer tu si. Sad ćeš da pustiš one tvoje pesme i da mi ispričaš kako ste pešačili 10km po snegu do škole. Da ti vidiš te lepote srećo, moj Drvar; a ja ću ti brisati suzice.

Zatvorim oči i vidim sve to.

Zatvorim oči i pitam: gde si?

A ti mi pošalješ pesmu od Doris, baš kad pričamo o tome kako je vama tamo iz tih krajeva malo trebalo za sreću. Ili film sa istom rečenicom koju je tata maločas rekao i bebica u filmu se zove Marko. Ili reklamu koja nasumično prekine nešto što gledam na YouTube-u i reči „znao je od početka da će sve proći, mudar čovek to zna i ne žali ni za čim”.

I ja dobijem svoj odgovor. Isti onaj koji sam sve vreme i znala.

Ne, ti nisi otišao. Još si tu.

-Katarina

[sinderelaa]

Pod svjetlima Skopja

Pronađoh te pod svjetlima Skopja

Grada što ne spava, bar tad nije

Činilo se da je uvijek nekako budan

Vazda ljudi ima

I na glavnome trgu

I u svakom od šoping centara

I u svakoj čaršiji i na svakome bazaru

I kod svakog kipa, a ima ih puno

I na svakoj klupi gdje sjedi zaljubljen par

I na svakome trotoaru gdje plače djevojčica

Sve to pokriše svjetla Skopja

Ne vidi se ni ko je tužan, ni ko je sretan

Ni ko plače

Ni ko se smije

Ni ko, pobogu, diše

Ne vidi se ni ljubav, ni mržnja

Al se osjeti sve

I tvoj pogled pod svjetlom Skopja

Koji sadrži i tugu, i sreću, i mržnju, i žal i bol

I ruka što stoji u zraku i čeka nesuđeni dodir

Sve pokrivaju svjetla Skopja

I tvoj forsiran osmijeh koji je utješan, koliko-toliko

I suzu na mom licu koja peče svaki milimetar moje kože

I buku oko nas koja se nimalo ne čuje

Jer oko nas je samo tišina

Da si se okrenuo, ja bih se vratila

Da si povikao, ja bih ostala

Da ne moram ići, ne bih nikad otišla

Sedmica s tobom nije dovoljna

I tu sedmicu su prekrila svjetla Skopja

Tako dobro da je prebrzo prošla

Kao ljudi što žure s vrećama voća

Da stignu na najnoviju epizodu omiljene serije

Kao dijete što juri majci u zagrljaj

Svjetla Skopja odjednom ne prekrivaju moje suze

Miluju ih i njeguju, k'o da znaju da će opet da skliznu

Niz obraz

Niz ruku

Niz ulicu

Niz svjetla Skopja

B

[sepyana]

Some thoughts about RGU: Blooming Rose of Deepest Black

I've been an Utena fan for a while but I just watched the musicals and I love them, I need to talk to people about it I'm gonna explode

All my thoughts are under the cut. We'll go character by character analysing the differences between their TV and Musical counterparts.

Utena

She and Anthy take the backseat a lil bit. She is great as always though.

Ami Noujo is quite popular, I can definitely see why. She is funny, incredibly charming and sweet. She was recast from the last musical like all the others.

She tries to set up Anthy and Miki together. Miki is less creepy about his crush so it does come off as kinda wholesome.

I absolutely adore the cheesy ass friendship song she has with Wakaba.

Her most iconic scene is definitely the one at the very end where she hugs Anthy in an almost possessive manner, saying she is here for her. And Anthy just looks like she is dying inside haha. The ominous bells and Akio in the back don't really help things either.

Not really much to say about her, she is the same as her show self.

Anthy

Yuka Yamauchi is, again, great. Anthy is somewhat different from her show version. Not worse, just different.

Musical Anthy is generally nicer(i think.??). Whenever Show Anthy is alone with Utena, she seems disinterested in the people around her. Musical Anthy compliments Miki on his piano skills, for example.

She comforts Juri during the Shiori duel. I genuinely can't tell if this is wholesome or eerie.

In the show, she doesn't care about the black rose duelists (other than telling Mikage he is cruel for making Tsuwabuki duel.) She feels guilt about the whole situation here.

She still has her laugh from the first musical! Giving her this almost condescending laugh is a fun take on her character. She almost dies of laughter when Utena asks if the projector is her brother. I love her so much it's unreal. I will talk about her a lot more if I do a white bud post.

Akio

Speaking of her brother, Akio is also here.

Yu Yoshioka is definitely a standout. His mannerisms and posture show Akio's character brilliantly. It's pretty exaggerated, that's expected from a stage play. I think he is my favourite in the musical.

Akio acts really disinterested in what's happening. He has an air of superiority around him. He carries this vibe for the whole musical.

He is always slouching a bit. He walks slowly, he has one of his hands at his pocket at all times. It really gives him this aloof vibe. There is more but. Someone else can analyze Akio's body language way better than I can.

One thing he does is push people in and out of scenes. Mikage and Mamiya also do this. It shows them being "puppeteers" really well. The most unsettling one is after the first song, as characters are leaving, when he forcefully holds Utena's arm so she can start her scene.

He holds Tokiko's head almost forcefully has he kisses her. Really unsettling.

He also always seems to be standing a bit too close. His scenes with Utena are the best examples of this. Anthy (and Mamiya) also has some scenes like that.

This Akio is less friendly then the one we know. They also toned down the incest stuff. Interesting changes for sure. This musical is mostly for people who have already watched the show, so they have decided to show Akio's actual nature earlier.

Akio sometimes says a character's line with them. It's a cool way to show how he is the puppet master of the story.

Wakaba

Yume Takeuchi absolutely crushed it in the first musical. She continues to be amazing here. I cannot stress enough how much I love Wakaba in this.

She seems sadder in the musical. Almost like she knows her moment od being special will not last long...

Her black rose duel is absolutely heart wrenching. The student council and the school body taunting her during the battle is horrible. My girl doesn't deserve this. Crying and shaking.

Her after the duel scenes are expanded upon. After the battle she goes missing for a few days. During that time, she was making stew for Utena but couldn't perfect it so she took a few days off. I'm sure she is really tired (both mentally and physically) even though she doesn't remember what happened.

And then they have this cheesy song I mentioned before. You could argue it doesn't fit Utena but I enjoyed it. Wakaba even makes Anthy join in too.

It's a minor scene but, I find it absolutely hilarious how she screams upon seeing the exam schedule so hard Utena thinks something happened to her. If I saw English and Math were in the same day I'd scream too. This is right after Mamiya stabs Kozue btw.

They have the prince giving Utena the rose ring and Saionji giving Wakaba the hair clip at the same time. Wow they really did that.

Her elevator scene is my favourite. She is letting it all out. Screaming and crying and the venom in her voice whilte talking about Anthy and Saionji. It's so much.

Saionji

The most pathetic cringefail man in all of Ohtori. I like Tsubasa Yoshizawa's performance overall.

I didn't pay much attention to him. They don't really change anything about his scenes. (Except for the Wakaba duel)

I will give him this, he is pretty funny. His scenes are funny but also seeing saionjeans dancing in ensambles is just. so fucking hilarious to me.

Kozue

Marina Tanoue's acting was okay. Good stuff.

She comes off as a bit more awkward here. Which makes a lot of sense imo. She is messing around with boys a lot but she is only 13. Her awkwardness show up in her hookup scenes too. The boys are a lot more touchy with her.

They toned down the incest in favor of Kozue just wanting to protect Miki. Incest is still there but their relationship is not the same.

She is our first black rose duelist instead of Kanae. Kanae is not that well written in the show so this was for the best.

Miki

Bit of an unpopular opinion, I liked Natsuki Osaki's performance in the first musical. Yuta Higuchi's performance is better but I also like the first Miki too. I am not the biggest Miki fan but the musical definitely made me warm up to him more.

Wow the pedo teacher is so much more creepy here. Seeing real people play these scenes makes them feel even worse. He is a lot more touchy here and Miki actually reacts to him.

I like the part where he is playing music on the side during Nanami's song it's kinda cute.

Nanami

I can't believe they casted the actual Nanami Kiryuu to play herself. Ok fr real tho, Arisa Suzuki is amazing in this.

I'm gonna get burned at the stake for this but I don't like most of the Nanami episodes. I actually really like Nanami being the comic relief, the jokes just don't land for me... But I did actually like the cowbell song she has. She has a cowbell song. She has a co-

I personally found her talking to Juri and Miki part more funny.

There is a scene where she takes Miki's watch and accidentally stops all three of them in time so Wakaba can have her part talking to Saionji. Laughed out loud at that part.

She is exclusively comic relief here. There isn't much she can do outside of that anyways. Touga is not in this and her story line so dependent on him.

Juri

Riona Tatemichi please take my hand in marriage thank you

Juri is the same personality wise as her TV version, other than being slightly gayer. This is a musical after all.

There is a scene where is imagining dancing with Shiori (Shiori also has a scene similar to this).

Juri and Shiori actually kiss??!? It's pretty brief because Utena and Dios slashes their kneecaps. Oh, yeah, during the duels whoever's sword the duelist is using shows up.

I love that instead of working together they end up knocking off each other's roses. That's so in character for them. Also hilarious.

Shiori

Fuyuna Asakura. She might be the best actor in the musical. Because wow, wow. She is a sickeningly sweet type of character. One that turns out to be horrible.

She is way more cartoonish but I don't think that's a bad thing! It's so fun watching her on the stage do her thing. People who didn't like TV Shiori might like this version more. Shiori is one of my faves, I was already primed to like this version of her too.

Each black rose duelist has a scene where they are stabbed by the black rose. Strangely, Shiori is the only person to not scream during it. It just goes to show how little of a push she needed.

She is a lot more shocked about learning she is Juri's crush. The whole situation feels even more tense than the TV version.

My favourite moments of Shiori are in the Akio arc. I don't like Ruka's character, I think he made Juri's story line worse... Buuut I liked watching his dynamic with Shiori. Hopefully we'll get to see Fuyuna Asakura again if another musical happens.

I loved how they handled the Juri/Shiori story line. It's one of my favourite side plots.

And that leaves us with the boys of the black rose. I am gonna talk about them the longest:

Mamiya

I think Mamiya is underrated as hell in this. I haven't heard people talk about the musical but when they do they don't mention him all that much. Yohdi Kondo works so well as him.

He is a lot more active compared to his TV counterpart, If that's the right way to put it. We see him do stuff. He stabs the black rose duelists. He and Mikage work together to make plans more compared to the anime. He is the one responsible for putting Juri's locket in the vase. I appreciate them being more like a duo.

He comes off as a lot more intimidating here too. Him not looking like a 13yo plays a big part, but his mannerisms play a role too. The Kozue scene shows this really well.

What I most like about him though, is how they show Anthy and Mamiya being the same person. They replace each other from scene to scene constantly. My favourite example is when he takes her place when she is playing the piano. Mamiya is behind her when they're both on stage. They circle around each other at the start too.

He moves around in a similar way to Anthy. He is a lil bit scary in the same way Anthy is. Anthy is my favourite character so i definitely enjoy this a lot.

Also have I mentioned the fact that Akio and Tokiko fuck on his bed. While Mamiya is talking to Mikage in the rose garden, we see the shadows of Akio and Tokiko in a loving embrace on top of his bed. I hope that is not literal. Because if they actually fucked on that bed that would be insane. There are a few ways to interpret this.

There is a theory about how Mikage seeing those two is preceded by Mamiya's death. I think it's true because it doesn't make sense to me how that was enough for Mikage go set the fire. We know Mamiya is dead by this point. He is completely codependent on those two emotionally, he would not take seeing Tokiko with a man right after (maybe a month? Who knows) Mamiya's death well. Merging the imagery together makes a lot of sense.

I didn't think of this at all before but the "Imagine me & Utena" podcast (It's a pretty good podcast!) pointed this out: this is suppose to hint at Mikage and Mamiya's relationship. The sexual/romantic side of their relationship is sort of hinted in the anime and the musical. I could see this being true. This is a really important moment for Mikage. In the anime, we see the cursor point at the leaf during it. You can't have that in the musical. You could have this though.

I also found it funny how Akio's shadow wakes up Mamiya lol.

Mikage

He is the closest thing the musical has to a protagonist. He is in most of the scenes, directly or indirectly. So we spend a lot of time with Hidenori Tokuyama, and I am really torn on him. I'm not really sure if it's his fault either. Mikage is a really subtle character, it's always the little things with this guy. That kind of personality is hard to translate onto stage. You can't see his change in expression when he sees Tokiko and Mamiya talk. You can't see he has a picture of Mamiya on his desk etc etc.

He gets better as we get to the end. Mikage gets a lot more unhinged towards the end, less "subtle" if you get what I mean. Don't get me wrong. I like Hidenori Tokuyama a lot. I just can't connect with him all that much.

There are some notable changes done to him. Mikage as a character always stood out to me from the other men in the show. His much shorter stature is the obvious thing (I don't care about that being represented tbh, he is shorter than Akio and Saionji, that's all you need) but another thing is how he is not violently misogynistic like them. He still is misogynistic, he uses the internalized misogyny of the girls to make them hate Anthy instead of the man in their lives. He would not be able to do what he did without exploiting the harmful systems of Ohtori. He could definitely be interpreted incel-like with his relationship to Tokiko and Mamiya. I guess he is just not as obvious about it? He doesn't show interest in any of the girls. He is obsessed with Tokiko but doesn't even realize she is walking past him. This is pretty noticeably changed in the musical.

He straight up hits on Utena. It's incredibly uncomfortable (as it was meant to be). With Tsuwabuki gone, all of his victims are women. His crush on Tokiko is shown a lot more. It's a lot more sus. I don't see this as a negative change. I like Anime Mikage more but I see the value in making him feel closer to how the other men are.

There are some more minor differences.

Sometimes when he says his lines, Akio says it along with him. For example during his talk with Saionji,

Saionji:  And what do you want from me in return?

Mikage:  Good question...

Mikage:  There's one item that I want from you.

Mikage:  A trifle, really...

There is more of this in the exact same scene btw.

His mannerisms are a bit different too. In the anime, he is approachable but you can tell there is something weird with him. In the Musical, you can tell he is obviously trying to manipulate you. He isn't as charismatic as his TV version. And I kinda like that honestly. It makes it easier for me to connect Nemuro and Mikage in my mind.

[anayka05ymewtwo06]

Parte 2. Lunala

Nombre:Reina Lunala (Galar) Lunala Ryu (Alola) Umbra Lunala (Paldea)

Especie:Lunala

Alias:La Dj Lunalita Chula. La Reina Lunala La Bruja Sexy de Alola. La Bruja Diosa Sexy de Alola.

Sexo:Femenino

Rank:Reina Lunala de Alola. Reina de legendarias.

Pareja:Solgaleo

Amigos:Zacian Miraidon Y Mewtwo.

Amiga Rival:Xerneas. Y Necrozma

Gustos:Sentimientos hacia Solgaleo. Cantar Escuchar Musica pokehabas pokélavado. Entrenamiento con legendarias y legendarios. Valentia sin fragilidad ni lagrimas. Respeto hacia Momiji Mi mamá Bayonetta Yo en particular. O Inahime.

No le Gusta:Rule 34 Profanaciones Injustas de Mewtwo gente que Critica a espaldas Raul y Ricardo Ser Cobarde El Irrespeto contra Bayonetta. Samina y Su Mala Actitud Guzman

Doblajes Mod:Rei (Monica Monjarres) Black Lady (Cristina) Kitana (Toni R. EDP) Susana Moreno (Iris) Fandub Chun Li (Street Fighter 4 OVA de Juri Han) donde Chun Li dice a Juri:Tu Mataste a mucha gente Inocente! Doblaje latam de Lylia y Lana/Nereida (Pokémon Sol & Luna)

Punto Fuerte:Respetar a Bayonetta y Las Warrior Orochi Girls:Desde Inahime hasta Da Ji. Admiración cuando se pone Sonrojada dibujo ser Agresiva y Valiente en defensa de Sus Amigos etc.

Otro Punto Fuerte:Sus Sentimientos hacia Solgaleo. Pero por el Caso Rule 34 la conocen como La Kunoichi Asesina de Rule 34 xq Los Mata a diestra y Siniestra. Por lo que es una Asesina de Alola benigna justiciera. Y no por el Caso Asesino Ninja! No jodan! Pero muy al estilo Momiji de Ninja Gaiden o Ayane.

Durante los acontecimientos del Caso de Mew Mewtwo y Kyurem antes de esos acontecimientos ella era una pequeña Nebby junto a Lylia huyendo junto a otro Nebby. Debido a las Situaciones de AEther. Pero despues de ese asunto Lograron su vida Amorosa desde que acojieron a todos los pokémon de las generaciones 1 al 6. Lunala siempre veia a Solgaleo. El admirando la belleza de Lunala la besó y se abalanzo sensualmente ante lunala. Cuando llegaron al jardín poni donde habia un estanque sus sentimientos intimos crecieron. Pero en medio de este amor. Lunala quedó penetrada ante la pasión y el deseo.

Debido al apareamiento de Lunala nacieron 2 Nebbys mas. Cuidaron de ellos hasta abandonar el nido. Al despedirse Lunala permitió que Solgaleo se abalanzara hasta besar a su amada lunala.

Lunala excitada por sus lamidos comentó que desde que tuvo esos dos nebbys no tuvo dolor para darles a luz en medio de un baño entre estanques besos y flores. Comentó que No era incomodo que Solgaleo penetrara su amor hacia lunala

Una noche Lunala esperó a solgaleo con una baya zanama y flores de nectar violeta. Solgaleo vio lo Sexy y Ardiente y seductora que estaba y comiendo de la baya besó sus labios empapados en nectar de flor violeta.

Solgaleo le dijo que sus besos eran un sabor exquisito con el Nectar y saboreandolo en despertar sus ardientes deseos de penetrar su amor. Rozando su abdomen de leon con el abdomen de Lunala dominando su cuerpo para abrazar a Lunala

Los gemidos de Lunala comenzaron y dijo que un poco mas

Poco tiempo despues ella acostada contemplando el bosque y el estanque con solgaleo preguntó si vamos a la colina que se encuentra en la otra isla? Aunque Solgaleo dijo que Tapu Lele los pilla aunque les valga Verg* si interrumpe la intimidad de los legendarios.

Al llegar a dicha colina en esa isla despertando el amor al son de las aguas humedad besos y caricias.

Hasta el eclipse de Dark alola.

En Galar su Amor se extendió desde un area llamado colina de Maxiarbol y paldea posteriormente en el lago cazola

Su amor fue para Siempre...y lo sera siempre.

Lunala & Solgaleo:Atraccion del Sol y la Luna.

[andercandor]

Scene: Zeke’s tent, forest

Levi had fucked other men in the four years since Erwin’s death, but the emptiness of the encounters left him even more hollow than before. With Zeke, it was anything but empty. The complexity of it crushed him from the inside out. Every touch ignited a burning trail of hatred. Where their bare skin brushed, Levi felt the desperate need to recoil but a magnetism that drew him in deeper. When their lips met, each kiss was at once a betrayal and an ode to what he’d lost, what this man had taken from him. It was a tonic and a poison. Levi couldn’t resist the intoxication of it.

He gripped the blonde hair far more roughly than necessary as he pulled the man’s face to his. Zeke gasped for the pain he craved. He felt he deserved it. Levi, the jury, judge, and executioner of his atonement. Though his body healed from the wounds Levi inflicted on him, he let the pain burn into his memory, reminding him that he had failed with each life he ended. Truly nothing could assuage his guilt until his plan was fulfilled, probably not even then, but the nails raking bloody trails across his back, the desperate choking for air and aching of his head as hands crushed his throat, the penetration of teeth into his shoulders, his arms, his chest, and the relentless tearing and pounding of Levi inside him felt like a balm to his wicked soul.

But that was nothing to the words Levi hissed in his ear, reminding him with every thrust that he despised Zeke. He listened to the ballads of hatred, harmonizing with moans of ecstasy and anguish. Levi spoke the words that his own mind had whispered to him time and time again in Grisha’s voice, that he was a failure, incompetent, a disappointment. He was reminded of every gamble he had taken and lost and every cost he had paid. Where Levi’s voice ended and Grisha’s began, Zeke couldn’t be sure.

When it was over, both men laid on their backs and stared up at the darkness. Levi spoke. “One of these times, I’ll slit your throat when I’m done using you.”

Zeke didn’t reply.

“Would you survive it?”

He thought about that, imagined the fire in Levi’s gray eyes and the contortion of his mouth as he sliced the blade through his neck; it was easy to picture since it was really just a modified memory of their first meeting. “I would probably survive. Depends on how deep you cut.”

“Then you wouldn’t survive. I’d cut off your head.”

“As you’re cumming inside of me?”

“Yes.”

They fell silent, lost in the images playing out in their own minds. At the thought of Zeke’s bloody, decapitated corpse convulsing, Levi rolled over and rested on the man’s chest whose heart was still beating a cacophony he longed to end. Its rhythm lulled him into a seething peace.

“I hate you,” he whispered, not caring if he could be heard. Zeke tentatively wrapped his arms around him. When Levi didn’t shove him away, he held him tenderly. He hated Levi too, because Levi wanted him to.

And yet they clung to each other, bizarre proxies for the men they had lost.