#or however you want to interpret it i suppose!

[whispsofwind]

I am probably (definitely) kicking the hornet's nest but... I feel like there's a disconnection in how people approach HP because I've seen so many people say "but aren't the books explicitly anti racism? How can the author be all those bad things if her books are explicitly anti racism?".

And the point is... they're not. At least they weren't intended to be: the whole pure blood thing is less about race, and more about the ridiculous "noble blood" classism that still exists in England. And once I got that I completely revaluated my interpretation of those books.

I loved those books as a child, and I am not going to sit here and tell they're all vad, because they're not. They ARE a cultural phenomenon that shaped both pop culture and Internet culture for the last 20 freaking years, though. And they will continue to do so, if nothing else because outside of the English speaking sphere, PEOPLE DON'T KNOW ABOUT JOANNE'S HATE CAMPAIGNS. Like I cannot emphasise enough, not English speaking people often don't know.

And therefore I feel it's important not only to speak up about the author, but also analyse where the books succeeded or failed, and why.

The elves were adapted from the brownies... with disastrous results, especially if you consider Hermione's campaign. The metaphor with licantropism is an absolute disaster. The way in which muggles are presented (either evil, stupid or both) is ... also not a good look, considering the context. The series is genuinely morally confused, I dare say. It professes the importance of Love TM while also refusing to take a critical look at its own dystopian world building.

Death of the author, or separating the art from the author, are also not supposed to be an absolute frame of reference. They are literary analysis tools that allow you to analyse a work without taking the will of the author into consideration (example: CS Lewis was deeply Catholic and intended Susan not going to Narnia in the end as a metaphor for loss of faith. However maybe I want to analyses Susan's arc in light of misogyny, and the correlation between sexuality and loss of innocence, rather than religion. I am literally ignoring authorial intent to do so, but it's a very valid reading).

However I feel like you cannot analyse any work of art in an absolute vacuum, and expurging the author from the art completely feels, to me, rather simplistic.

I am also not entirely comfortable with the idea of Death of the Author being used as a frame of reference for the relationship with the work AND the author, rather than being used as a simple literary tool.

I always felt like the better approach is to evaluate how to cause less damage and bring the most happiness all around. Does buying the work of Lovecraft cause any harm in this world? I would argue not, since the man is well enough dead. Does buying HP products, or Orson Scott Card's works, or Silvana de Mari's books, cause harm? I would argue yes, because these authors use they money and their platforms to attach real, vulnerable people in a systemic way right here right now. Does SPEAKING about those works cause harm? Does engaging with the fandom aspect of them cause harm? That's more complicated. Critical analysis of a work is, imo, always a net positive, and there's the very real fact that some people pour their hearts and souls into a fandom because it genuinely brings happiness to them and to people around them, and because it allows them to enhance the original world in order to ACTUALLY address the issues that were ignored. That cannot be discounted. However, at the same time it cannot be ignored that talking about a work keeps it alive, which keeps it marketable; then again, fandom's impact on ... anything large scale is negligible when compared to, again, thousands upon thousands of people across the world who don't look the author up, don't engage critically with the text, and just think the Hogwarts Lego Model looks super cute. Which is, like, 90% of the population.

I suppose the main conclusion is nuance: morality is complicated, and making the "morally right" choice is nuanced, deeply personal, and I am not going to judge anyone because they want to reread Harry Potter or want to watch Good Omens Season 3 or whatever, because the world and our impact in it is much more complicated than "person bad, therefore damnatio memoriae good".

hey do you think you could expand a bit on separating the art from the artist? clearly you’ve done it with jk rowling but what are your thoughts on it as a general idea?

okay, but you’re not going to like the answer.

here’s the truth: you can’t separate the art from the artist. not entirely. HP Lovecraft was an incredibly talented, but much more incredibly racist man. It would nice to say you don’t agree with his views but you can enjoy his works without that leaking in but…. well, I’m afraid that would be misunderstanding his books entirely.

Consider, for a second, that Lovecraft’s works were horror stories about extradimensional alien monsters having mutant children with humans, they were about invasions from distant monsters, they were about the purity of quaint European towns being tainted. Consider how this may have all been inflicted by the fact that he just simply despised anybody who wasn’t white. Consider how is opinions on “mixing the races” might fight into this; consider why being unable to maintain the “purity” of white Europe was the scariest thing of all to him.

This extends to Rowling too.

I would love to say we can just acknowledge that she is an awful, racist, antisemitic, transphobic person and then say “but at least her books are good,” because, well, they are, aren’t they? I would say so, for sure. But to suggest that one can separate her from them is…. ridiculous.

Consider why an antisemitic woman wrote about a species of goblins who live among us, but who for the most part keep to themselvesand are maybe a little bit oppressed by the institution, but also hold all the cards, all the money, run the banks.

Consider why a racist woman would write about a species of slaves who loved being enslaved, who enjoyed working for no pay, and cleaning up after humans, with the only small caveat of that they didn’t want to be beaten. Imagine that only the most radical of their species wanted to be free, and he still spent the rest of his life working for no pay and helping out a little white boy and his friends wherever he could. Consider why the only person in the story who thought they should be free, that they should have rights, was treated as an overzealous joke, who was acting against the wishes of those slaves who really LOVE being enslaved. Consider that Rowling went on to say that she kind of considers that girl to be black, now.

Consider why JK Rowling, an open and proud transphobe, wrote Rita Skeeter as having a large square jaw, thick “manly” hands, and dressing incredibly gaudily with the most obvious fake nails and fake teeth and fake hair and fake everything. Consider why a woman who tweets about how trans women are “foxes pretending to be hens to get in the hen house” might write this Rita Skeeter to then illegally transform her body in order to spy on children.

Harry Potter is full of Rowling’s bigotry, start to finish. Not even tangentially, like, “oh the goblins are bad, Rita Skeeter is bad, the house elves are bad, but most of it’s good!” because the deeper you dig and the longer you think the more you realise the entire story is based on her prejudices.

Harry Potter pretends to be an aracial story about found family, but if that were true, why are Harry’s distant ancestors important to who he is today even in the seventh book? Why does Harry have to live with his cousin and aunt and uncle? Because magic inherently prefers blood ties. Whilst Rowling was writing a story that seemed to say, “your heritage is not that important and doesn’t make you better than others” she was still writing a story about a boy who got all of his money through his bloodline, who was protected by living with his bloodline, no matter how evil, who was uniquely able to stop Voldemort because his bloodline passed down the invisibility cloak for generations and generations. Any step Harry takes he is compared to his perfect parents who were exactly like him — he looks just like his father, but he has his mother’s eyes, you know! — consider WHY a woman who is racist might’ve written a story like this. A story that on its surface, condemns a blood caste, but still in every step it takes, validates the idea that blood is thicker than water, and your geneological origin is what makes you special.

You can enjoy Harry Pottwr, of course you can. There are fantastic parts. I love a small group of teenagers deciding to become anarchies rebels and train to fight against fascism in secret. I love the murder mystery plots, I love how the series tells kids that it’s a good thing to be brave, and a good thing to fight injustice, and a good thing to challenge the government. But I cannot separate it from its author because it is such a product of its author. All of the structures of the world, the way things work in the universe, and drenched in Rowling’s beliefs, her bigotries. Of course they are: she made them.

Again. This doesn’t mean you cannot enjoy it. But I think we are past the day where we can pretend that disavowing a bigoted author is enough, and that that somehow separates the text from its bigotry. I think we are past the day where we can pretend that Harry Potter isn’t a deeply, inherently bigoted piece of media. Even the bits we love. I think we are beyond the day where we can truthfully pretend to separate it from her, because she is present through all of it. We MUST recognise its flaws. We MUST admit that she is in every part of it.

[sassypleia]

Like my Blog, I’m curious by choice. It’s a natural instinct to want to know more. By nature I like to look at the whole puzzle and then do my research before entering my two cents to the conversation. Half theories and droplets of information is fine and dandy…. However it leaves way too much room for interpretation. Now you may say that’s hog wash and that anything we receive is gold.

But again… ever heard of fool’s gold?

“Fool's Gold can be one of three minerals. The most common mineral mistaken for gold is pyrite. Chalcopyrite may also appear gold-like, and weathered mica can mimic gold as well. Compared to actual gold, these minerals will flake, powder, or crumble when poked with a metal point, whereas gold will gouge or indent like soft lead. In addition, actual gold will leave a golden yellow streak when scraped on a piece of unglazed porcelain. Pyrite and chalcopyrite will leave a dark green to black streak and the common micas will leave a white streak (https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/what-fools-gold).

We are given information purely based on what is chosen to be released. The way I interpret an event, statement or picture could be different than how everyone else does. I see a kinship with Nic and Luke while others may not see this. Does not mean that I will go and lecture them on why they are wrong while I am correct. (Also does not stop the TROLLS from stating their own opinions).

What we saw on the WT and with all interviews published, they hold a strong bond and respect for one another. In the past we were spoiled with the WT so we saw them together all the time. Now that we do not see them interacting or together publicly does not mean BTS they are not. They have other projects and Bridgerton (Nic did confirm they popped in and out while filming). I think silence and the fact we don’t see what we had seen before speaks volumes. Especially since the WT was supposed to be PR (“supposed to” being the word to focus on) to get the word out about S3 dropping.

When we see behaviors changing between two people, we stop and think. Or we should, some of us went to the theory that they are beefing (insert eye roll 🙄 ). Because we saw their beautiful performance in S3, we knew that they had great chemistry. Always claimed that they had a great friendship. The interviews these two gave. Ofta. Put ideas in our heads. But realistically, it’s known to happen. Friendship like theirs could grow into love.

“The truth is that if the person you have strong romantic feelings for is already your friend, it’s a good thing! How and why? It’s because a close friendship lays a solid foundation for a romantic relationship!

Think about it: you already know them quite well. You know that they have great qualities (which is possibly why you caught feelings, to begin with), and you know and accept the flaws too. Hopefully, your friend also knows and accepts you as a whole.

So, there won’t be this need to be the best versions of yourselves in that initial phase of infatuation and attraction in the relationship (https://www.marriage.com/advice/love/signs-a-friendship-is-turning-into-love/)!

⬆️ A really good article! See the ⬇️ signs

17 signs that your friendship is blossoming into love:

1. The communication frequency suddenly increases

2. You start experiencing jealousy

3. The body language between you two evolves

4. You’re both single

5. You two start flirting with each other

6. Your friend’s behavior turns hot and cold toward you

7. You start having long conversations with each other

8. When something happens, you need them to know first

9. You both try to find ways to be alone with each other

10. The pet names for each other change

11. You tend to mention your friend very frequently

12. You both feel an air of awkwardness and nervousness

13. Your friend is being more vulnerable than usual around you

14. Your common friends know what’s happening

15. They ask you out

16. There’s more physical touch

17. Prolonged eye contact

Does any of these sound familiar? Don’t make me bring up that bracelet Luke received with the engraving from a “fan” (Sure Jan 😉)

Again, your honor, I rest my case.

Xx 🩵

[atamascolily]

I found Inu Curry's commentary on the "Prologue in Heaven" shot that haunts me, and it only raised more questions. I don't know what I expected.

Here is what it says as best as I can make out with my fledgling Japanese and a bunch of online references:

逆 さまにった街と穴があ���た空。 The upside-down city and the hole in the opened[?] sky.

"Upside-down city" seemingly refers to Walpurgisnacht's goal of turning Mitakihara upside-down both literally and metaphorically by ripping the buildings off their foundations and making them hover in mid-air. It's a little difficult to see in the above sketch, but the finished film version is a little brighter so you can see the buildings in the upper corners.

However, what is "upside-down" depends on our perspective. Is the city upside down because Walpurgisnacht has made it that way, or because we, the audience, are viewing an upside-down image? This is another way in which Walpurgisnacht messes with our heads and confuses our ideas of what constitutes reality.

As for the second part of the sentence, there are a couple of different past tense constructions that are pronounced "aita" (あいた), and I'm not sure which is applicable in this situation because this phrase is written in hiragana. In this context, I'm guessing 開いた ("opened", "emptied") which has considerable overlap with 空いた, with the latter using the same kanji for 空 ("sky") and therefore creating a pun.

空 is a complex character with a lot of meanings, and I think it is doing a lot of load-bearing here, but for now I'll also note the contrast with 穴, which means "hole" in the sense of "cave" or "being underground". Earth and sky might seem like total opposites but given that 空 can also mean "emptiness" or "void", they simultaneously have a lot in common, to the point where 空 even includes the 穴 radical in it.

All this is to say, it feels like there's a lot going on in this line, and I still have a lot of questions. Still, it seems like we have a distinct contrast between the inverted (solid, material) city and the (intangible) "hole in the sky", which might refer to the black circular void at the center of Walpurgisnacht's mandala, which appears to be drawing everything up towards it.

逆 さまの山の頂にワルプルギスの後光。 Walpurgisnacht's halo on the upside-down mountain's peak

Once again we have a juxtaposition between two things, one of which is inverted, but this one is a little more straightforward straightforward, in that the halo is right there and the original Walpurgisnacht celebration was said to take place on Mount Brocken in Germany. And indeed, if you flip the image upside-down, it's much easier to see the "mountain" in this image--the pyramidal shadow upon which the witch's mandala now appears to be resting.

From this perspective, it looks very much like another drawing in the production note of Madoka's witch Kriemhild Gretchen reaching up to the heavens with Walpurgisnacht hovering overhead for scale [as explained in the two boxes immediately above the drawing].

This page is also the source of the famous Inu Curry quote that Walpurgisnacht and Gretchen are like two halves of an hourglass (bottom text), another statement that makes me want to gnaw on the furniture every time I think about it. Why would you do this if there wasn't supposed to be some connection between them??! And why an hourglass, given its associations with one character (Homura) in particular?

This is why I have always interpreted this shot as Walpurgisnacht and Gretchen together in "Heaven", which raises all kinds of fascinating metatexual questions like, "Why did Inu Curry et al. decide to open with this particular image?" and "Is this a frame narrative implying that the entire story is a performance by Walpurgisnacht?" and "If so, why would Walpurgisnacht be its narrator?", etc, etc.

Of course one very obvious answer to all of these questions is "Walpurgisnacht is somehow Homura and the story she is retelling is the story of how she and Madoka came to be united as super-witches in 'heaven' and everything we take as 'real' in-universe is actually inside her labyrinth and has been a staged production from the beginning", but at this point, that's all heavily speculative at best. (It doesn't hurt that the white glare resembles a vinyl record in motion, records are a recurring motif that go round and round, hourglasses are associated with Homura, etc, etc-- but I digress.)

Another is, "Inu Curry thought it looked cool and it's something that may never be fully explained, just like the anime's ending with Homura in the desert and the black wings isn't really explained in Rebellion", which may be correct but would be disappointing in a series where every other detail means something. Also, after a close study of Rebellion, it's clear that Inu Curry doesn't generally do random details--anything that's there has a meaning, even if only to Inu Curry, even if it's not fully elaborated or expanded upon in the finished film or in the production notes. So that seems like it might have happened here as well with this scene--that it's meant to represent something that wasn't ultimately developed in the final version.

It could also be that Inu Curry believes that Homura and Walpurgisnacht are connected, but that doesn't necessarily translate to the script that Gen Urobuchi wrote and so remains ambiguous and unspoken visual subtext. Or this could be something from an earlier draft that stayed in while other things got changed, so its original meaning is no longer relevant.

However, given that in the Rebellion Production Note, Inu Curry associates Homulilly, the "Witch of the Mortal World/Near Shore" with "color" (used in a Buddhist sense to mean form/matter) and Madokami with its opposite, emptiness (which also uses the same character for sky, 空) then it's possible that Walpurgisnacht is the upside-down city and Gretchen is the hole in the sky. This is admittedly a convoluted chain of logic that only works if you assume Homura is Walpurgisnacht, but given that Inu Curry created both of these juxtapositions in the first place, I can't immediately rule it out. Symbols and motifs evolve and change over time (or could mean two different things at once) and Walpurgisnacht is certainly "upside down"; if her labyrinth does contain Mitakihara, well, that's an upside-down city right there. But like I said, this is all purely speculative at this point.

That said, Inu Curry was clearly thinking along similar lines at one point, because an early draft for Walpurgisnacht in the anime production note shows Walpurgisnacht as a "stage" with buildings on it:

(If you're wondering why it's a bubble, it's because in Inu Curry's first drafts, the labyrinths were all spheres with fixed dimensions, which did not carry over to the final version.)

In Walpurgisnacht's final design in the anime, the stage became a giant cog, while the original gears at the base were replaced by the doll body, but at one point, the witch was indeed a city, or a facsimile of one. Her labyrinth disappeared because she is ostensibly too strong to "need" one, but her official goal is to turn the entire world into a drama nonetheless--which, as I read it, means making the entire world her labyrinth and erasing the distinctions between "reality" and "fantasy" entirely.

And given that Rebellion features Homulilly, a witch whose labyrinth takes the form of a city, and that city is initially indistinguishable from the "real" thing--and ends with said labyrinth seemingly encompassing the entire universe--the stage is now set for more reality-bending revelations in Walpurgis no Kaiten from one or both entities with overlapping thematic motifs.

Of course, how much of any of this will end up carrying over to subsequent installments is an open question, but I'm definitely watching closely to see where this ends up going. Since the title and at least the first trailer for Walpurgis no Kaiten suggest that Walpurgisnacht will return and her mysteries will be revealed, I'm hoping we'll finally learn what this cryptic "shot "Prologue in Heaven" shot and its description actually mean--even though I'm also bracing myself in case it ultimately remains unexplained.

[critter-covenant]

Have had fun learning how to digitalize traditional sketches, little messy but it has its charm me thinks :]

og and uncolored traditional sketch!

[queer-froggit]

i'm ending it here because i'm boutta be here all day lol

ramble under the cut!!!!

lust's friend group is very tiny because everyone judges him for his job, but they're also all sanses so they're like "eh, not my problem" and really just ignore him, and even besides them lust has to work to get people to respect him. horror and lust are frenemies because they HATED each other at first sight- horror was very vocal about his prejudices and lust doesn't take shit from anybody. however, they're both old men just trying to get through their hell of a day without killing themselves, and they find common ground in that (same thing with lust and cross, except for them it's more lust teaching cross how to take himself seriously and turning into rivals instead) in my interpretation, lust dated a lot of people before realizing he was aro, with blue being his longest relationship. a lot of shit happened, but they're besties now.

horror and wine are frenemies because lthough they relate to ecah other, they do it in a "i pity you way", which pisses them both off. horror could never work for the royal guard, and i like to think horror takes his brother to move in with farm after leaving nightmare. it's basically saejun teaching him how to be a person again, and i think geno and farm would also make nice friends, since "old men who have finally learned to be content with what they have" trope. speaking of geno, i think he HATES reaper, like hate hate. i still haven't read aftertale, my only sources are analysis and pages out of order, but it just feels right to say? reaper likes pissing people off, so he sees geno as a pal because of this hate.

reaper and wine are dreams mentors, since reaper was supposed to have an appearance in dreamtale. reaper is more of a "using to learn your god powers" mentor while wine is "using your societal power", but they basically teach him that not everyone is going to want to be buddy buddy, and that's not something he should see as a failure (since they both have gone through the horrors). wine sees black as a more upbeat version of himself, but nox is always trying to be an opp, so he sees to reason to be friends. also they all hate fell because they think he's lazy and all bark yet no bite lol.

dust and fell are obviously friends in canon, but i feel like they especially relate because of their feeling of being trapped in hell and having to be guarded all the time (they're SO 30 for 30 by sza coded it's ridiculous), and if not romantic, i think that feeling can get familial. horror sees fell as a fake though, because he thinks underfell is just "undertale but they say fuck", so he thinks fell is all talk while he knows he wouldn't survive a DAY in horrortale (no one would), but dust and horror are friends, so horror forces himself to tolerate fell and give him advice about surviving (but more in a condescing tone).

sci and fell are a secret third thing because i could see them being siblings, rival friends or romantic (curse you cpau) so idk. same thinf with wine and cross because they're both royal guards who have gone through dictatorships, so they should relate to each other, but tehy're both bitches so they would probably be enemies, but them sparring would be so perfect???? maybe like a "my mentor is a bitch but it's to train me to do better", which works perfectly because cross is always trying to get people to see him as a superior, and wine always feels superior (but it's to do the same thing as cross), so wine talking down to him riles him up enough to try and beat him, and they can both let their stress out when they spar :) (they eventually realize that they've been living in a dictatorship where rheir leader has been incredibly selfish, don't worry)

swap and blueberror... idk how to explain it. i think they're very jinx and ekko coded. blueberror is the more hyper and blunt version of swap, and swap has to calm him down sometimes, but they would be besties because they bounce off of each other 👍

nightmare and ink are colleagues beacuse i said so :) ink is nightmare's equivalent of people watching video essays as background noise. also nightmare wanted to study fresh because he sees him as an anomaly (someone whose emotions he can't read, yet feels uneasy around him, depsite not knowing who he is), but then learned like one thing about him and decided not to open that can of worms. fresh just thinks nightmare is weird.

i think that's it... thank you for the chart sign!

Ship chart but it’s not a ship chart it’s a friendship/found family/QPR chart

[mossyclaw]

I genuinely start tweaking when I see someone say that “Marvin’s giddy seizures” are actual seizures. Like I get it’s very vague and up for interpretation I guess but. Like.

[possamble]

stop over-thinking your writing to appease the imaginary bad faith audience you preemptively torture yourself with. stop over-thinking your writing to appease the imaginary bad faith audience you preemptively torture yourself with. stop over-thinking your writing to appease the imaginary bad faith audie

[faraskyee]

perfect height for neck bites

[creatively-cosmic]

I am none, but we are many.

plus the flat colors for my design ^-^

[ryan1014n2]

On love

[atelierlili]

“…Your Katniss looks black.”

You better choose your next words very fucking carefully or I will block you. I try to be charitable, but I’ve read some of the most disgusting comments, I’ve been harassed and spammed, because people have an issue on my Katniss’ skintone that my patience is very thin.

In the books, the people of the Seam are poc who have been discriminated against by the wealthy fair-skinned Merchant class for their skintone. They are an allegory for the minorities who suffer the most through the systemic oppression of the government. Katniss is most likely a descendant of one, if not all, racial minorities (African American, Latin American, Asian American, Indigenous etc) in Appalachia.

Suzanne says her skintone is olive. Here is a bowl of olives.

I do whatever the fuck I want.

If you like my art great. Don’t like my Katniss’ skintone? Keep it to yourself or watch your wording very carefully. I don’t want to hear it.

[fujobritta]

cover this song (a little bit mine)

[noornight]

Is he trying to kiss him or bite him? Maybe it's both

[sailforvalinor]

Idk if this is controversial, but studying for a English/writing degree at university shouldn’t make you NOT want to engage with writing or literature. Just a thought.

[hsohangout]

"I want to catch up to you someday.

But since my tools were chipped, all my efforts ended up half-hearted.

I'm saying goodbye to you and soccer."

TUYU - Goodbye to Rock you ( ロックな君とはお別れだ )

[rucow]

saw too many ppl having awful takes on nerevar and voryn and the tribunal etc etc on twitter, so now im drawing soft sweet nerevoryn bc i can. im going to balance out all the negative energies in this fandom, one drawing at a time 🫶😊