#sorry for the unfunny meme

[proficient-in-hoarding-deadlines]

Do you ever see an unfunny meme

and feel the overwhelming urge to destroy its (attempt at) humor by treating it as a research prompt? That happened to me recently when I saw this:

If I had to place my discontent with the punchline, it’s that it enforces a stereotype instead of breaking it. What’s more, as one of my friends noted upon seeing the meme, it employs the picture to power the punchline. The style of ukiyo-e prints does generally make faces look similar.

The only catch is, there are other ways to distinguish characters in a picture, and ukiyo-e artists weren’t afraid to overuse them in order to make everything crystally clear to everybody even half-literate. The first clue are the clothes & accessoires. They let the viewer guess the characters' gender and social status. The style of the clothes and its colour, as well as the presence of heraldic symbols or class symbols (like swords) are the things to look at. If we’re talking famous characters, they may have certain fixed poses/attires/objects by which they are easily recognized. Another important clue is when the artist puts the name of the person in the picture right next to them on a special plaque.

All this is not to say that all faces in ukiyo-e prints are the same. Sure, from early on in Japanese visual art there is a trend of drawing faces in as few and as simple lines as possible (引目鉤鼻, hikime kagibana, or, "slit-eyes and hook-nose")*. But by the late Edo period (to which this print belongs) it is customary to add some individuality into the characters’ features. I think the influence of Sharaku’s caricature-like portraits** here.

In my experience, the two types of sword-wielding characters that come up in such prints are famous martial heroes and actors. The actual warriors are often depicted alone in detailed, dynamic poses***, while actors can come in groups, acting out famous scenes from various plays. (Needless to say, prints were published in thematic albums). In this particular print, we see a pair of actors. First, they are wearing some elaborate costumes (not regular clothes, nor armour, as it would be appropriate for famous warriors). Second, their faces are clean (and warriors in prints are often bearded and wild-looking to reflect their warlike attitude). Third, the pose looks theatrical in its stillness. Certainly, the artist was good enough to make it as dynamic as was custom for that period, should that have been necessary. Also (and this is more of a gut feeling) the bamboo and the lantern in the background seem like something to do with the theater, too.

Now, the only question that remains is, what’s the play? To answer it I had to scroll quite a bit through google images search until I found the original. It, as expected, came with many inscriptions.

Utagawa Kunisada, 1856

As the cool red lion-plaque in the right corner indicates, the series this print is from is called Seven calligraphic variants of the iroha (清書七伊呂波). Next, a title says that what we see is a scene for the character tsu (つ) from the Kabuki play Tsuzure-no nishiki (襤褸錦, roughly translates as "The brocade of rags"). Which explains the clothes. Next to the title of the play the names of the characters are listed. The black squares on the left (to the best of my understanding) contain the names of the actors.

More pictures and links under cut!

*hikime kagibana

a close-up of a court lady from Genji monogatari emaki, 12th century (source)

**an actor's portrait by Sharaku

Arashi Ryûzô II as Ishibe Kinkichi, 1794 (source)

***a warrior print

石橋山伏木隠　大場三郎景親 (Ishibashiyama: hidden under a bowed tree; Ōba Saburō Kagechika), by Utagawa Kuniyoshi, mid-19th century (source)

And also

the same scene from Tsuzure-no nishiki in larger scale (same artist, but from about 30 years earlier). The lantern, bamboo and the straw... something seem to indeed be stage decorations/props (source)

P.S. Just remembered that i made another iroha-related post a while ago

[electricabsolution]

this homestuck discourse shit is easy

[anghraine]

sea-salted-wolverine replied to this post:

Wdym Anakin mind tricking padme isn't real? You could chalk it up to bad writing from Lucas who isn't quite sure that women are people, but its pretty clear that by ep III that her grip on reality is toast. Whether or not it is a conscious effect on Anakins part is up for debate, but it is definitely a thing that happened

Not really the main point of my post, but no, that fan theory is not "real" in the sense of being remotely canonical for the films. It's nothing more than a popular headcanon nowhere even slightly stated to be happening in the actual films as written and produced. There's no reason in Lucas's films to suppose that the Anakin/Padmé relationship was coerced through a mind trick, that Padmé specifically would be susceptible to a mind trick, that she does not genuinely love Anakin or have any insight into his character, that her grip on reality is ever "toast," or that the mind trick (previously depicted as temporary and resistible) would work that way at all. Padmé is underwritten in ROTS in the way that cool girl heroines invented by men are often underwritten as grown adult women and especially as mothers, but that is not attributable to any character in the story.

Yes, Padmé is tired in ROTS and misses a lot of what's going on psychologically with her young secret husband who is in a cloistered order of warrior monks fighting a long-term war far away from her, but she sees the threat of Palpatine and recognizes exactly what his accession as emperor means. Her mind is fine. And in Lucas's films, also, Anakin is never shown using the mind trick on anyone. It's not really his style—it's a sneaky short-term solution whereas he's smart and resourceful enough most of the time, but mainly reliant on overwhelming power and skill. His signature "trick" is the Force-choke, not the mind trick, and it's the Force-choke that he ultimately uses against her—not because he's been using his powers against her the whole time (including when he's not even there, I guess?), but as a mark of how far he has fallen by that point. That's lost if it's not a drastic change from their previous relationship. Padmé's own choices also lose all meaning if she was mind-controlled by Anakin the whole time, and her arc becomes deeply boring.

Tl;dr - it is very far from "definitely a thing that happened." It is a headcanon that doesn't reflect anything the movies are trying to do (whether they fail or succeed at doing those things!) and is, IMO, a pretty terrible headcanon as well in terms of the overall coherence of the story and characters and how their world is shown to work.

[jeres-red-g-string]

💀💀💀

[shakingparadigm]

BASED ON THAT ONE POST

[burningfaith]

ok, I tried.

[tigerbears]

Homestuck Spoilers Out of Context.

[skunkes]

How do you feel about Dungeon Meshi (i think i spelt that right) getting more popular? I feel like i’ve only seen u post about it but now its popping up a lot more on my twt / tiktok

Mixed feelings! Glad it has an anime now and that ppl are enjoying it, because its really good!

I myself think its annoying when ppl are like "im gatekeeping x media bc its important to me 😡" so thats not how I feel on the other end. It has impacted lots of ppl so if it can get a bigger reach and impact more, thats good. ^_^

if i did not have the time or energy or resources to read it, I would've hated feeling alienated just bc it became a favorite media of mine after the anime came out

Its more like. Idk.

I know ppl who hope it gets Bigger for more official merch but I just don't want it to get Embarrassing ykwim.

I need it to not get so popular that in a few years I'm hiding the volumes from my shelf because its an embarrassing, beat to death thing thats present in every store, backpack, socks, sweater that looks like characters clothing, funko pops, etc. something i cant even enjoy anymore bc its been wrung dry and overexposed and misinterpreted, "of course u like it EVERYONE likes it!" and now I'm tired of it, and wouldn't want ppl to associate me with it LOL 🧿🧿🧿

[classificationhell]

I swear to Lucifer none of this is abandoned T.T I'm actually having to help plan a family trip for late next month on top of my depression and anxiety deciding to flare up (which ironically isn't the part that bothers me anymore considering I haven't felt "normal" since I was in like grade school what's the worst part is the sheer lack of energy or will to just do things especially when I'm already having to do other things for daily life and such). The Writer's Block is minor as I can write a few sentences before just blanking out so it isn't a stop, just more of a crawl than my usual sprint

[platylos]

[shoechoe]

Okay that post was mean i feel bad

[thatuselesshuman]

Introducing...

Big Back Bachelorette!

Where people who love food more than themselves try and find love, one meal at a time.

Starring, Caseoh-

[graveyarrdshift]

[danidoesathing]

I love dead man's hand

[quackoyesyes]

Jack’s POV: