#this is about so many works that are both classics and pop culture

[thatfrenchacademic]

Characters that are dead but are *everywhere*. They haunt the narrative to the point of possessing it. Characters that move the plot forward like they are physically pushing it. That might as well whisper in the ears of the living. That people hesitate to mention because they their constant presence is so strong is becomes taboo. That are the anchor of every thread that got tangled together. They died and from that moment the plot marches on, and on, and on, and toward its inexorable end.

[weaselandfriends]

Post-postmodernism in Pop Culture: Homestuck’s Revenge

I recently saw an excellent video essay titled Why Do Movies Feel So Different Now? by Thomas Flight. Though the title is opaque clickbait, the video is actually about major artistic zeitgeists, or movements, in film history. Flight describes three major movements:

Modernism, encompassing much of classic cinema, in which an earnest belief in universal truths led to straightforward narratives that unironically supported certain values (rationalism, civic duty, democracy, etc.)

Postmodernism, in which disillusionment with the values of modernism led to films that played with cinematic structure, metafiction, and the core language of film, often with more unclear narratives that lacked straightforward resolutions, and that were skeptical or even suspicious of the idea of universal truth 

Metamodernism, the current artistic zeitgeist, which takes the structural and metafictional innovations of postmodernism but uses them not to reject meaning, but point to some new kind of meaning or sincerity.

Flight associates metamodernism with the “multiverse” narratives that are popular in contemporary film, both in blockbuster superhero films and Oscar darlings like Everything Everywhere All at Once. He argues that the multiverse conceptually represents a fragmented, metafictional lack of universal truth, but that lack of truth is then subverted with a narrative that ultimately reaffirms universal truth. In short, rather than rejecting postmodernism entirely, metamodernism takes the fragmented rubble of its technique and themes and builds something new out of that fragmentation.

Longtime readers of this blog may find some of these concepts familiar. Indeed, I was talking about them many years ago in my Hymnstoke posts, even using the terms “modernism” and “postmodernism,” though what Flight calls metamodernism I tended to call “post-postmodernism” (another term used for it is New Sincerity). Years before EEAAO, years before Spider-verse, years before the current zeitgeist in pop cultural film and television, there was an avant garde work pioneering all the techniques and themes of metamodernism. A work that took the structural techniques of postmodernism--the ironic detachment, the temporal desynchronization, the metafiction--and used them not to posit a fundamental lack of universal truth but rather imbue a chaotic, maximalist world of cultural detritus with new meaning, new truth, new sincerity. That work was:

Homestuck.

That’s right! Everyone’s favorite web comic. Of course, I’m not the first person to realize the thematic and structural similarities between Homestuck and the current popular trend in film. Just take a look at this tweet someone made yesterday:

This tweet did some numbers.

As you might expect if you’re at all aware of the current cultural feeling toward Homestuck, many of the replies and quotes are incredibly vitriolic over this comparison. Here’s one of my favorites:

It’s actually quite striking how many elements of the new Spider-verse are similar to Homestuck; aspects of doomed timelines, a multiversal network that seems to demand certain structure, and even “mandatory death of parental figure as an impetus for mandated personal growth” are repeated across both works. The recycling and revitalization of ancient, seemingly useless cultural artifacts (in Homestuck’s case, films like Con Air; in Spider-verse, irrelevant gimmick Spider-men from spinoffs past) are also common thematic threads.

As this new post-postmodern or metamodern trend becomes increasingly mainstream, and as time heals all and allows people to look back at Homestuck with more objectivity, I believe there will one day be a rehabilitation of Homestuck’s image. It’ll be seen as an important and influential work, with a place inside the cultural canon. Perhaps, like Infinite Jest, it’ll continue to have some subset of commentators who cannot get past their perception of the people who read the work rather than the work itself even thirty years after its publication, but eventually it’ll be recognized for innovations that precipitated a change in the way people think about stories and their meaning.

Until that day, enjoy eating raw sewage directly from a sewer pipe.

(Side note: I think Umineko no naku koro ni, which was published around the same time as Homestuck and which deals with many similar themes and then-novel ideas, will also one day receive recognition as a masterpiece. Check it out if you haven’t already!)

[canmom]

Do you think Hideaki Anno is right-wing or is it too difficult to tell from his works?

Haha that's a question.

I'll focus on nationalism rather than trying to get into, say, gender politics here, since that's the accusation that most seems to follow Anno around.

Anno's politics are... hard to pin down from his work alone, I think. He's like... a prototypical case of that generation of 'apolitical' otaku that followed after the Anpo generation, with Eva pretty much the definitive statement of the 90s psychological turn. But that said... I can definitely see the argument that there are nationalist themes in some of his works like Gunbuster, though I definitely don't buy every reading in this series (lots of dubious kanji reading). He definitely has that otaku fascination with war machinery and war media (apparently he's a big fan of The Battle for Okinawa and watched it over 100 times), which can easily blend into imperialist ideology.

But there's complications here. For example, the Animekritik series cites the setting of Gunbuster in Okinawa as something formative to the nationalist ideology they are trying to illustrate - in part in relation to the ongoing controversy over American military bases in Okinawa. Anno has at least been on record as saying he's disinterested in Western culture, and I can see the reading of Jung-Freud as an external Other who is shown up by the Japanese girls, somehow simultaneously representing the USSR, Europe and the States. But anti-Americanism in Japan can come in both left and right wing flavours (c.f. Anpo). Communists want the Americans out too! Portraying Okinawa as a military training camp in a Japan-led military coalition certainly comes across as a more nationalist take on that whole matter, but I feel like it's got about the same level of serious nationalist commitment as Doctor Who putting random British people all over space.

When Gainax has played around with nationalist imagery it's usually been in a kind of ironic sendup way - see Ash's writeup about the Aikoku Sentai Dai Nippon controversy, in which Daicon Film staff were disdainful at the accusation that their goofy toku film reflected a genuine nationalist sentiment. While Imaishi takes it further, a lot of Anno's work is also about playfully reappropriating past works. In Anno's case a lot of that is classic tokusatsu, Ultraman in particular, and also Leiji Matsumoto's scifi, notably Space Battleship Yamato, which, well... you know the deal there lol. But it's not so simple to go from that to 'Anno is a nationalist'.

Eva doesn't tend to attract these accusations, but I recall the controversy came back around with Shin Godzilla, though to my mind it's hard to find a straightforwardly nationalist reading of that movie. (It's a film about the experience of the earthquake and Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown, and it's critical of Japan's bureaucracy, but equally one where the JSDF repeatedly get their shit handed to them and civilian infrastructure is what actually stops Godzilla - not to mention Godzilla is painted as quite a tragic figure here!) It all feels pretty tenuous.

I haven't seen as many of Anno's live action films as I'd like, so I can't comment as much on the more recent Shin films, Love & Pop, Shiki-Jitsu etc. And it's always possible for subtler allusions to slip by the anglophone viewer. Still, I don't personally think Anno's post-Gunbuster work is particularly nationalist in outlook. I certainly haven't seen any evidence of him favouring, say, war crime denial, anti-Korean sentiment, remilitarisation, etc etc. - he's definitely not as dubious a figure as someone like Hajime Isayama. But it's not like, anti-nationalist either! It's just kind of hard to read in those terms.

So I lean towards your second option, I'm not convinced he's a nationalist or particularly right wing. He happily associates with Hayao Miyazaki, who's definitely not a right wing guy. But Anno'll also let hilariously cooked stuff like whatever On A Gloomy Night was supposed to be into the Animator Expo. So I don't think he's particularly left wing either, he's no Ikuni! But Anno's fiction is very individual focused, full of psychoanalytic themes and internal conflict. He can vividly portray trauma and complex power dynamics. There's a lot to appreciate in works like Eva from a left-wing angle. I don't really know why this association of nationalism follows him around.

Idk, maybe there's a bunch of interviews I'm missing! Presumably you have a reason for asking this question...

[mikeywayarchive]

My Chemical Romance bassist Mikey Way has a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Comic with "anime inspired" art and a villain that goes back to the original '90s toys

By George Marston published June 24, 2024

Mikey Way is turning the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' greatest love into their worst enemy

Full article under the cut:

(Image credit: IDW Publishing)

My Chemical Romance is one of the most popular bands of the last 20 years, and in the time since their last official release, several of the group's multi-talented members have branched into comic storytelling - including bassist Mikey Way, whose latest comic is a short in the upcoming anthology comic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Black, White, and Green #2.

A veritable teen idol of his own thanks to My Chem's beloved presence in the punk and emo scene, Way is tapping into a deep-seated love of both the TMNT and their personal favorite food of pizza for a story that captures the youthful energy of the Turtles in a way that only someone who was there for their meteoric rise and pop culture presence could.

(Image credit: IDW Publishing)

"I was a massive Turtles fan as a kid! Being born in the '80s, wave one of Turtlemania hit when I was about eight years old, so safe to say I was all in," Way tells Newsarama. "My older brother was into the black & white comics early, so I was at least aware of the Turtles prior to that big boom, but my fandom really came alive with the original cartoon series." 

"Followed up by the Playmates toy line and then into the live action movie, it really checked every box imaginable for me," Way explains. "The characters and the world building had something for almost everyone. While I was initially into Michelangelo, (because of his name and the nunchucks) I grew into way more of a Raphael fan. He's got more layers as a character in my opinion."

(Image credit: IDW Publishing)

Way's brother is, of course, Gerard Way, singer of My Chemical Romance and founder of the DC imprint Young Animal, which published Mikey Way's first comic, Collapser, which was co-written by Shaun Simon with art by Ilias Kyriazis. For TMNT: Black, White, and Green, Way collaborated with artist Nikola Čižmešija and colorist Lee Loughridge, whose art you can see in the newly revealed pages from the story seen here.

"I love Nikola’s style so much!," Way says. "He has this fantastic anime inspired quality to his work, and it lends itself perfectly to a Ninja Turtles story. I was floored by his pencils and he was a pleasure to work with."

As for the content of the story itself, it all comes down to something that many fans of the TMNT probably love as much as the Turtles do themselves: pizza. Way brings in a classic villain, Pizza Face, who first appeared in the original TMNT toy line in 1990 as a villainous pizza chef, before being revived in the 2012 animated series as a mutated pizza blob.

(Image credit: IDW Publishing)

"I wanted to do a story that was an ode to '80s horror, with a nod to Candy Man or the urban legend of Bloody Mary," Way says of why he chose Pizza Face.

"The character of Pizza Face fascinated me as a kid, because he looked like the mascot on most Pizza boxes mixed with a 'Freddy' or 'Jason'," Way continues. "That mythology I created in my head as a kid really stuck with me. When the opportunity arose to write a Ninja Turtle story, it was literally the first thing that popped out of my head."

And yes, Mikey Way does have a favorite pizza place: 

"Star Tavern in Orange New Jersey. Hands down the greatest there is, in my opinion."

(Image credit: IDW Publishing)

Though Way's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Green story is only eight pages, Way does plan more comics to come very soon - though he's not quite ready to say exactly what just yet.

"I feel like I have more stories that I want to tell," he hints. "At the risk of sounding vague, I would say one can expect an announcement of some sort very soon."

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Black, White, and Green #2 is on sale now.

[danceofthephilos]

SK8 Cast Image Colors, and the Super Sentai Roots of Character Color Coding

Unlike my post about hanakotoba, where only a few examples can be confirmed to be intentionally meaningful choices, image colors are an aspect of SK8's visual symbolism that has been explicitly assigned by the creators to each of the eight main cast members. From design elements to official art and merchandise (such as the art and the Infinity Week logo above) to shots in the show itself, these image colors are a consistent aspect of the series' visual language, and colors, like flowers, have meanings and associations that can provide interesting insight into why these colors were chosen for these characters. Color-coded casts are also strongly historically rooted in the super sentai subgenre of tokusatsu series, a genre that has had massive impact on Japanese pop culture, especially battle anime like SK8, in part, is, so I'll also examine the archetypes associated with their colors in super sentai (and, in Adam's case, another important piece of anime history.)

As color associations can vary by culture, I made sure to use Japanese sources - I mainly started with the dictionary on TC Color Therapy for basic color meanings but frequently checked other sources. My primary source on colors in super sentai is a paper on color theory in tokusatsu by Misako Takahashi, along with fan wikis such as Pixiv Dictionary and other Japanese blogs analyzing the subject. I also supplemented with quotes from SK8's staff when relevant.

All the image colors come from the official character guide included in volume 4 of the Blu-rays.

Reki Kyan - Yellow

Despite his red hair, Reki's image color is yellow, the color of the signature hoodie he always wears at S. Yellow is associated with brightness, cheerfulness, fun and excitement - all things that Reki embodies at his best, and are very important parts of his character arc and what he represents to the people around him. In Utsumi's instructions to colorist Yukari Gotou, as shown in SK8 Design Works, she requested Reki's design have "so many bright and colorful primary colors it's tiring" in order to draw the eye, fitting of a bright and energetic protagonist. Yellow is a common color for team members in sentai anime, being the third most common after red and blue and appearing in the majority of series, and are often bright and cheerful "life of the party" type characters as well. This is a trend dating back to Himitsu Sentai Gorenger, the very first long-running super sentai series (beginning in 1975,) whose color coding has persisted for decades. Kirenger, the yellow member in Gorenger, was even a big eater with a signature favorite food (a trait more commonly attributed to Langa, but Reki's love for ramen and all things salty - even toothpaste - is a recurring bit in SK8 as well) and a big family.

In Takahashi's paper, she quotes another academic, Asako Yoshida's, analysis of another core aspect of yellow sentai characters, where she describes them as "an intelligent type who gathers information and forms strategies before taking action", and "rather than fighting on the front, they're a tactician who uses their wits and comes up with strategies," traits that Reki also shows frequently, especially in his biggest triumph in episode 11.

Like many of the image colors, it's also used in the show (both in the opening - highlighting his yellow-orange eyes - and in episode 11.)

~

Langa Hasegawa - Blue

Langa's image color is blue, selected along with white from the beginning to fit his snow theme. Blue is associated with positive meanings like calmness and intelligence, but also more negative ones like coldness, sadness and loneliness, fitting of both Langa's calm exterior and the grief that's central to his storyline. Blue sentai members are classically considered "cool" characters, an association that remains strong even as actual characters of that type have grown somewhat rarer over time, with newer series sometimes deliberately subverting expectations. Like yellow, the association of blue with the cool member of a team also dates back to Gorenger, with Aorenger (the blue member) being a cool, stoic character who came from a snowy region. Takahashi quotes Yoshida's description of blue heroes as "the calm, composed and cool second in command type," a character who "doesn't worry about what's in front of him, never seems to get worked up and deals with things calmly," which certainly describes the impression Langa gives off at first - and belies what SK8's producer Kyoko Uryuu described (when comparing him to a petit gâteau) as his "surprisingly passionate" interior.

Like with Reki, Langa's color is shown off in the opening and in the show itself - notably as his "aura" when he's in the Zone with Adam.

~

Miya Chinen - Light Green

Miya's image color is light green, usually shown as a yellowish lime green. I'll get to green as a whole for Kojiro, but yellow-green specifically is associated with youthfulness, beginnings and hope, as it's the color of newly budding plants - and it can also be associated with immaturity, all meanings fitting of a very young character like Miya. While his costume is meant to be an in-universe game character, his bright green hood could also be seen as vaguely evoking Link from the Legend of Zelda series.

Green sentai characters have more varied archetypes, but were historically often the youngest member of the team, while more recently it's been a trend for them to be the oldest member of the team - fitting for the youngest and oldest members of the six characters making up SK8's main "team." The idea of a green member being the youngest also dates back to Gorenger, with Midorenger (the green member) being an innocent younger boy compared to the rest of the team, who was treated like a "mascot" of sorts and even shared Miya's affinity for animals. It's also become a trend for green characters to have close relationships with the yellow members, and to be in conflict with the red members.

Like with most of the other characters, Miya's color is highlighted in the opening.

~

Hiromi Higa - Purple

Hiromi's image color is purple, the color of his lipstick and the inside of his cape. Purple is associated with mystery, rarity, luxury and nobility, and in Japan in particular it's frequently associated with horror (from urban legends like the purple mirror to the common use of purple miasma to show disgusting/horrific food in anime.) Purple sentai members are incredibly rare, and at the time of Takahashi's paper the few that existed were usually mentor figures, but several since have been "dark heroes" or antiheroes - as "Shadow-sama" (fitting of the link to nobility) calls himself, as the self-proclaimed Antihero of the S community. With how he becomes a close friend (and even somewhat of a mentor) to the boys despite his very antagonistic first appearance, he certainly fits the "enemy-turned-ally" archetype, and while he's not actually the much older mentor early purple members were, Reki constantly calling him "old man" does evoke that trope too.

His color appears in the opening as well as featuring heavily in his S costume.

~

Kaoru Sakurayashiki - Pink

True to his surname and aesthetic, Kaoru's image color is pink, the color of cherry blossoms. Pink is associated with beauty, grace, luxury and love. Just like in the west, it's considered a very feminine color - also shown in the fact that pink sentai members are almost exclusively women, and typically particularly feminine and glamorous when on teams with other female members. This is a case where Cherry is in large part a departure from the classic color coding just because of his gender; SK8's colorist, Yukari Gotou, even expressed in Skater's Backstage that she was a bit worried about having a male character with pink hair, but Utsumi described him as a "pink ninja" from the get-go in her coloring notes.

And even Kaoru isn't completely immune to hitting the sentai archetypes either, with his noted beauty and a concern for his looks that Kojiro mocks as effeminate in the series; the contrast between the feminine characteristics he has and his masculine voice and personality are a core part of how his character was designed. He even has a surprising connection with Momorenger (Gorenger's pink member, and only woman) in his affinity for kicks. (As of 2022, there's also finally been a male character properly featuring as the pink member in a sentai series in Avataro Sentai Donbrothers.)

Of course, on top of featuring so heavily in his design, Cherry's color is also used in the opening.

~

Kojiro Nanjo - Green

Rather than Miya's light green, Kojiro's image color is a regular green. Green is associated with calmness, stability, growth and nature, fitting for a very calming and stable mentor character who just "goes with his feelings" like Kojiro - but like light green, it can also signify immaturity, which also suits a character who proudly proclaims to be a "kid" when he's on vacation. Where Miya fits the "youngest member" trope for green sentai members, Kojiro fits the "oldest member" trope, and he also fits the recently trendy close relationship with yellow and conflict with red. In Takahashi's paper, she quotes Yoshida describing green characters as a whole as "a caring type who's always concerned if things are peaceful" (also fitting of Miya, who's always the most concerned for Reki and Langa,) "a soothing person who makes you feel warm and comforted just by being next to them" and as someone who "loves their friends, and 'being together with everyone' is important to them," and in Utsumi's color notes in SK8 Design Works, she described Kojiro as "A calming, mature green. Comforting."

And like with the others, on top of being his hair color, Kojiro's color is also shown in the opening.

~

Ainosuke Shindo - Red

Naturally for the "Matador of Love", Adam's image color is red, a color associated with love, passion and excitement, but also danger and anger, covering both sides of the duality of Adam's connection with love and romance and his violent skating. Utsumi's color notes in SK8 Design Works describe it as "the color of love and blood", and described Adam himself as "a guy who stole a main character's color" - fitting of the fact that in sentai series (and many anime influenced by them,) the red member is almost always the main protagonist and leader. (And perhaps a cheeky reference to Reki, though it seems Adam's color was decided on much earlier on.) Between red and blue being tied for their inclusion in sentai series and yellow in a close second place, the three primary colors form a core trio of characters in sentai series that's also reflected by Reki, Langa and Adam as the three most central characters in SK8.

While many works follow Gorenger's lead with the red protagonist being a hot-headed, passionate natural leader (a role that Adam does command at S as a whole, at least at first,) it's covered such a wide spectrum of protagonists over the course of the genre's history that red's biggest association is simply "being the main character," superseding a single specific character archetype. To momentarily dip into the history of anime itself rather than tokusatsu's influence, I'd be remiss not to mention that thanks to the influence of Mobile Suit Gundam (a franchise that both writer Okouchi and character designer Chiba have history with and mentioned in interviews on Febri as inspiring their interest in anime) it does have a memetic association with speed (and rival characters,) as Gundam's frequently-imitated masked antagonist Char Aznable's custom red mecha is notoriously "three times faster" than any other. (Adam's voice actor, Takehito Koyasu, has even played two "Char Clones" himself.)

As with the other characters, Adam's color appears in the opening but it also surrounds him frequently in the show even from his first appearance, including a red glowing aura to mirror Langa's blue when they're in the Zone (even in the finale when the red is gone from his costume.)

~

Tadashi Kikuchi - Gray

(Tadashi never got an official Twitter icon like the other characters, so I used a different piece of merch.)

Lastly, Tadashi's image color is gray, which is mostly known for being... a bit of a non-color, though it can be associated with gloom, ambiguity or uneasiness. It's mostly seen as a color that blends in and doesn't stand out by itself, which was the purpose behind Tadashi's color scheme, as Utsumi described in her notes as wanting his coloring to "make the main character stand out", given that he was designed from the beginning to appear alongside Adam, who has the "main character's color." Gray is an incredibly rare theme color in sentai series, to the point that there aren't specific character archetypes either; in 2014, at the time of Takahashi's paper, the only gray character she noted was a literal ghost. Even Tadashi's image color is alienated from the other skaters'...

While there are comparatively few (and less obvious) examples of Tadashi's image color appearing in the show, his last emotional scene with Ainosuke takes place in an almost entirely gray room.

It'll be interesting to see how these associations might continue to be used in the future.

[itsfairly]

A Culture of Our Own // Nanami Kento x Latine! F! Reader

Word Count: ~2k

Summary: Intercultural dating is still pretty difficult. But you make it work with Nanami. Today, you do it through music.

Notes: sfw, fluff, f!reader, established relationship, Latine! reader (though it's more Mexican-leaning), intercultural relationship and all that, self-indulgent, Spanish, no translations, not proofread.

A/N: Please note that this is more from my experience, it is also highly self-indulgent. And that is because Nanami is my man, sorry about that. Anyways, also HAPPY LATINO HERITAGE MONTH. this is for us y'all, i did my best for the community. I wanted it to uploaded it on the 15th, but life happened. But hey, I still uploaded this before the month ended, so it's a win.

Dating becomes interesting when you add culture into the mix. Did you think you would end up dating a Japanese man? Especially after a lifetime of your mother asking you to be with someone who spoke Spanish? No. But life had a way to play with you and a way to be nice to you.

Just look at him. Nanami Kento. Someone who was just as handsome on the outside as sweet as they were on the inside. So respectful, so breathtaking, and so dreamy. No one even came close to how much this man makes your heart jump at the sight of him. No, he might not know your native language. But he certainly made you happy and content at his side.

Of course, eventually, you start to explain your cultures outside of the common knowledge and general facts like holidays and etiquette. You start getting into pop culture and what is normally taken for granted in your culture. It's a slow process considering how spontaneous the conversation can be.

From "What does that mean?" when using slang to an inside joke your culture has, little reoccurrences become opportunities to learn more about each other. Sure, you might not be able to fully explain something or understand it, but it doesn't take away that you two start to weave your cultures into the relationship and mix them into one that becomes intrinsic to your dynamic.

Today, you had one of those occurrences when you were cleaning your place and he just happened to come early. When he knocks on the door, you let him in without missing a beat despite being in your full-on cleaning outfit and playlist. A playlist that consisted of old songs your mom used to play when she cleaned such as Bésame Mucho, La Mentira, Si Una Vez, and such. Real classics obviously.

Classics he's not familiar with.

"You're early." You noted with a smile, walking over to your phone and pausing your music.

He looks down at his watch, seeing that he is actually on time. He remembers how much you joke about your family being late to everything or how time is just really abstract for you after years of being told ahorita. A word that could mean anything between 5 minutes to two hours. He chuckles at your words, agreeing with you that he was early for you. The different perception in time between the two of you could be weird at times, but it never really brought many problems considering that both of you (you mostly) put in the effort to accommodate for it.

"Is there something wrong with wanting to see my partner a little early?" He asks, a small smile coming to his face as he walks closer to you, leaving a small kiss on your forehead.

You smile, happy to feel his lips on you once more. "No, but you're seeing me in the most typical way a Latina looks when cleaning. I don't need that image in your mind.

He looks up and down, trying to see this look you're talking about. Sure, you had baggier clothes and your hair was in a bun with a few hairs sticking out and decorating your face. He hums, brushing those hairs back behind your ears.

"I think you're exaggerating considering that we've dated for a while." He raises an eyebrow at you, smirking when he sees that you really think you look messy or bad for just wearing something more comfortable when cleaning. Nothing wrong with that and definitely not making you look ugly in his eyes.

"Still, what if you caught me mid-performance? This playlist doesn't play around, alright? It's classic after classic."

Nanami laughs softly, seeing how serious your face is with your words telling him that you mean every word. Though, now that he thinks about it, he doesn't recognize the songs from the small snippet he heard through the door to the moment you paused the songs. It makes him curious about them.

"Classics?"

You nod before taking your phone and standing by his side to show him your playlist. It is after a couple of swipes down that you realize he can't even read the titles of the songs since they are in Spanish.

"In Latin America." You clarify, getting an idea. You hand him your phone, tilting your head down as to give him permission. "Choose one, we'll put it on right now while I change my clothes."

He takes the phone and raises a brow as he tries to gauge the unfamiliar songs. "I don't even know what I am reading, dear." He deadpans, making you chuckle.

"Then choose one randomly." You say, guiding him to your bedroom so you can pick your clothes.

He looks at the phone, looking through the album covers of the song. He recognizes some of the artists that are part of mainstream pop culture, Shakira being the easiest to recognize. Yet, his finger presses onto a song that he doesn't recognize at all.

But you do and it's obvious from the way you slowly turn to look at him and instantly melt into a light sway of your hips to match the song's slow and romantic rhythm.

"I always knew you were a romantic at heart but I didn't know it came naturally to you." You tease, taking out a shirt and jeans that were much more suitable to go out than the baggier and frankly unflattering clothes. "Let alone that, but you also chose a classic among classics."

Sabor A Mi. Now that's a real gem across Latin America and generations. Guitar strings fill the air with a romantic and sensual sense that warms up the room while the yearning lyrics are contracted by the singer's soft whispers. More than a classic, it's romance 101 in music.

"I take it I chose a good one then." He hums, placing the phone on your nightstand, turning around to face away from you as you change. To him, even if you dated for quite a while now, that didn't give him a right to look. Even if you insisted there was no problem and that you didn't mind, he still turned around out of respect for you. No matter how many times he has seen you out of those clothes, he still wanted to be the gentleman that you first met.

The pure intention made you smile and the song amplified those butterflies in your stomach.

Quickly changing out and into your clothes, you walk over to him, wrapping your arms around his waist and placing your chin on his shoulders. As you begin to sway on the spot with the music, you whisper, "A great one."

He's quick to follow your lead, letting you set the rhythm you have become so used to dancing after a lifetime of hearing boleros like this one. He doesn't have to understand the lyrics to understand how intimate the song is. The guitar strings and soft melodies tell him that enough. Enough to pull you closer to him as you two sway to the song.

He looks down at him, your head now against his shoulder with your eyes closed. He can see how relaxed your face is, the sun sweeping through your window and occasionally hitting your face with its light just enough to decorate your features. If his heart was struck by you once before, this moment served as a reminder of that.

"It's a nice song." He says softly, his hand running down your arm until it finds your hand. He entwines his fingers with yours.

You hum, looking up at him and lifting your head off his shoulder. "You certainly know how to choose them." You tease, stretching your arm as you separate your body from his, your hands connecting the two of you as you hold the other's.

He sees you smile, brightly and softly in a way that tugs his heart. God, you were so pretty. Plucked strings encourage him to pull you closer once more, seeing you spin until his arm is wrapped around you and your back meets his chest with a giggle.

God, he was so lucky to have you.

"I do." He wasn't talking about the song.

The song ends but you two continue to dance. Swaying and spinning in your bedroom without a care in the world. How could a match this heavenly happen against all odds? When neither of you thought you would date someone from a culture so different from your own?

Neither of you thought about that. Not right now when you were dancing so gently and oh so passionately at the same time. No words exchanged, just smiles and hums. Maybe a kiss here and there that either managed to steal. But words? No, just your phone playing songs about love you never thought you would live.

Oh, how wrong were you.

How wrong were you to think that when this moment showed that you were not only loving and being loved, but you were doing so in the way these songs made you feel. It was a dream. It was luck. It was a movie. It was music. It was him. Him.

"Please send me these songs later." He says, breaking the silence.

"You're gonna study these later?" You tease, chuckling at the idea of Nanami listening to songs he doesn't know what they are about.

"Maybe." He chuckles, lifting your hand as he spins you around. "You said they were classics, didn't you? I have to know about them if we're going to keep dancing like this."

You smile at him. After so many people were disinterested and even critical of your culture to the point that you felt like having to keep it private, he wanted it to be included in your relationship. Even celebrate it in a way. Why does it even come as a surprise when he always looked at you in awe whenever you spoke Spanish? Even if he didn't know what you said, he would always have this curiosity towards that part of you that was once criticized.

Nanami knew how to love you, but now it was clear that he knew how to love the culture you were so in love with too.

"You're right. You have quite the content to go over then. So do I. Not only do I have to go over Japanese culture, I also have to study a bit of Danish, don't I?"

He chuckled, pulling you closer to him and letting you two become one with the music once more. The world melting away with just the two of you existing in this very room.

Yeah, there are bumps in the road. Misunderstandings and uncertainties that could sour what you two had. But it never did. Not when he was so patient in sharing and learning. Not when you were so excited to know more and explain what made you you. Culture could be tricky, but for the two of you, it was what made your relationship so enjoyable. You may have had different upbringings but you were still similar enough to work well together.

Though it was something the two of you already knew, it was something that was confirmed to Nanami once he translated the song he just happened to choose by chance earlier today. Our souls have become close enough that I keep your flavor and you keep mine all well. It was funny how a song he just happened to tap on happened to describe why you two worked so well. You had different cultures that entwined together once you became a couple, having pieces of each other's culture embedded into the other.

He thought it was just a wonderful idea that it became one of his favorite songs that you've shown him.

Dating someone from another culture is interesting, scary even. But life was kind to you and let you meet Nanami, someone with whom you could unapologetically share your culture knowing that it would be as cherished as every other part of you. Someone who made it easy to share both cultures until you created your own. A unique culture that was both him and you.

A culture that tasted of both you and him because of how much you loved each other and stayed by your side.

Neither of you would have it another way.

[lonelyroommp3]

honestly could you just straight up review every song on brat

deal

360 - functions perfectly as an album opener (and i appreciate the work it puts in to set up the far superior 365 at the end) but doesn't do much for me as a standalone song. i'm not sure if this is actually a problem with the song itself or if i just dislike the post-ironic nyc it girl culture featured in the music video so much that i now have beef with the song as a consequence

club classics - i have not heard this song while off my face in a grotty warehouse club in an east london industrial estate and as a result i don't feel i can truly give it the impartial ranking it deserves just yet. this is not a song that reaches its full potential in any other setting

sympathy is a knife - i don't find myself returning to this song often but i do objectively think it bangs hugely. i just have surprisingly little to say about it honestly

i might say something stupid - huge song, and yet so small at the same time. it is very rare that i call a sub-2 minute song perfect because i'm 5minutesongfucker420 but it comes in, says what it needs to, and rips your heart out in the process. i go back and forth comparing brat and melodrama quite often (SORRY CHARLI, I KNOW YOU HAVE A SONG ABOUT THIS COMING UP) because they're both Party Girl Concept Albums and to me this is brat's "liability" in terms of early album moment of complete braking-hard-and-hitting-the-wall vulnerability.

talk talk - SOOOO fun. absolutely love the production on this one, right up my alley, i am also a huge sucker for a big fun song about having a crush. i would also like to shout out this song for ruining any international sporting event where france and spain face off because all i can ever think is TALK TO ME IN FRENCH TALK TO ME IN SPANISH TALK TO ME IN YOUR OWN MADE UP LANGUAGE

von dutch - absolutely gigantic and a perfect opening single to set the tone of the era. those massive revving synths encapsulate the sound of what i thought clubbing would be like when i was about 13 years old. also a perfect confidence boost song - i have strutted at olympic racewalker speed down the street with this blasting in my airpods more times than i would care to admit

BONUS: the various von dutch remixes - i don't always subscribe to the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" rule of remixes (for example, to go on a complete tangent, i adore both deadmau5's original raise your weapon and the madeon extended remix because they do entirely different things equally well) but nothing in the von dutch remixes make me think yeah, this is worthy of existing alongside the original and adds something cool and interesting and different to the track that i wasn't already getting from the og. the one exception i'd make is, of course, addison rae's extremely cunty scream in the a.g. cook remix but i'm not going to keep returning to an entire remix for just one fun moment that's already been oversaturated on tiktok

everything is romantic - i will confess, for all i claim to be an open minded enjoyer of music and a fan of Insane Tracks For The Club, initially the jagged production was a bit jarring to me and i thought yeah, i probably won't be coming back to this song. and now i'm obsessed with it. however it does make the children (me) yearn for the mediterranean and as a result i will be invoicing charli for the damage to my bank account when the day inevitably comes that i listen to this song too many times after half a bottle of wine and immediately book myself an italian weekend getaway

rewind - first time i heard this i was like oh okay we're getting into the slightly more fillery second third of the album, it's a fine song but not quite on the level of all that has come before it. and now it is one of my absolute favourites. i also LOVE how direct and specific the lyrics are on this track, which is something i normally beef with when it comes to a lot of contemporary pop music but the difference is 1) charli is good at it 2) her delivery is so direct that it sort of dares you to sit still and listen without criticising it. incredibly strong song

so i - a genuinely beautiful song that i rarely listen to because it makes me feel like i am intruding on something. i think the fact that it exists out in the world on this album is a wonderful thing and the most perfect tribute to sophie & full circle moment when it comes to charli's insecurities around working with her - "when i make songs i remember things you'd suggest... would you like this one? maybe just a little bit?" - but at the same time i'm always like. i kind of feel like i shouldn't be listening to this

girl, so confusing - the original is a lovely little paradox. i enjoyed it enough on my first listen and the lorde version quite simply would not exist, let alone be as impactful as it is, without it, but now that the lorde version exists i don't want to listen to any other version. the remix is almost certainly going to be my top brat track of the year

apple - initially a skip, then i had a moment of realisation that it is in fact the best marina and the diamonds song written in years (that froot looks familiar, i suppose), and then it rapidly became overplayed as the result of, to be fair, the very good and fun tiktok dance that i still do on instinct every time i hear the song. i think instead of riding the wave of its virality by releasing it to radio as a single etc charli should lock this one in a vault for about three months so nobody can listen to it and then when it comes back we'll all be like oh yeah wait this is a really good little song

b2b - love it, was my immediate fave out of the club classics/b2b double single release, but once again i feel like i've not yet heard it at its full potential (inside a cramped and small and extremely sweaty basement club when i'm 8 shots deep planning a terribly ill advised pulling mission)

mean girls - the thing is i think it's a fun enough song as a storytelling concept if you view it as Just A Little Fun Song, also i love the production, a little bit of house-y piano is always going to hit for me. the issue is i've already told you what i think about the post-ironic it girl subculture this song is about and i think if you actively listen to this song and go wowwwww she gets me then you need to have your internet access forcibly removed for at least six months until you calm down and develop a personality outside of the red scare podcast and pretentious "overrated vs underrated" columns hosted by wannabe substack celebrities. also the thing is this song is going to be dated within the year, which is a shame bc it does, musically, go

i think about it all the time - this song should NOT hit as hard as it does considering i staunchly plan on never having children. i cannot relate to the sentiment behind it at all but charli paints such a beautiful and vivid picture with her lyrics (all perfectly intertwined with that understated, quietly pulsating production) that you can't help but have an emotional connection to it. beautiful and vulnerable and a really perfect moment of quiet towards the end of the album

365 - first of all, a perfectly placed song when it comes to encapsulating those dizzy night out mood swings of "wait. should i settle down and have children.... nvm let's go back inside and do coke". second of all, as a musical theatre girlie to my core i love ANY song that reprises an earlier theme and this not only repurposes the 360 stems excellently but actively improves on the earlier track. thirdly, i think charli's "okay, OKAYYYY" at the beginning of the song is a flawless and fun way of rounding out the album - it really feels like she's bringing you back into it, going OKAY let's do this one last time, are you FUCKING READY, etc. fourthly, it's just FUN. definitely a standout track to me

hello goodbye - LOVEEEE, i do greatly enjoy and appreciate charli's more experimental music but i can't lie. sometimes she releases a fairly straightforward poppy banger and it just hits the spot. like this

guess - YOU WANNA GUESS THE COLOUR OF MY UNDERWEAR YOU WANNA KNOW WHAT I'VE GOT GOING ON DOWN THERE IS IT PRETTY IN PINK OR ALL SEE THROUGH IS IT SHOWING OFF MY BRAND NEW LOWER BACK TATTOO. btw the billie eilish verse on the remix slays, i know this is a charli review but i love that billie has devoted her first two explicitly gay singles to being just outrageously horny with it, you go girl, i think the discourse around the song is so unbelievably daft and we need to settle down and have fun

spring breakers - i know this is a fan fave that people were begging to put on the album but i just simply do not care about it. sorry

[autisticrosewilson]

Hiii!! Do you have any Jason & Catherine, Jason & Willis headcanons to spare?? Alsoo, permission to use on fics? 👀

Thank YOU FOR THE ASK!! And of course I love when people use my headcanons!!

For Jason and Catherine I think he gets his love of theatre, especially musicals, from Cathy. She seems like the type to study classics or work at an antique shop or something and a lot of their apartment used to be decorated with assorted knickknacks. It was a little bit of push back against her Catholic upbringing which demonized earthly pleasures and material goods.

Admittedly she used to have hoarder tendencies, she would get very attached to her collections, they became a crutch for her while caring for her mother and after her mother's death, and I think this is what inspired Jason's tendency to keep as little on him at all times. He couldn't stand the clutter for the first few months after Willis was arrested.

I've mentioned it before but I think a big part of why they never had a kid of their own after taking in Jason is because Catherine was scared of passing down her hereditary disease, especially because in my version she originally comes back to Gotham to take care of her sick mom. In this way she spares Jason from dying like her and her mother, but she ultimately fails to save him the pain of watching his mom deteriorate right in front of him.

Jason comes by his autism honestly, from both parents. Neither Catherine or Willis were particularly aware of it but they totally understood all of Jason's interests and his insistence on rigid routines. Neighbors and teachers would be like "don't you find how isolated he is odd?" And they would be like "Nope :) kneeling on the playground collecting rocks and organizing the classroom bookshelf during recess are perfectly normal. And so is him crying when the lights are too bright and eating his food section by section."

I know that Jason was the CHUNKIEST baby, I know it I was there. Catherine and Willis dressed him as a pumpkin as often as they could and he made all the girls and old people in the apartment SWOON and fawn over him. He didn't even have teeth and he was raking in candy.

Catherine and Willis had VERY different parenting techniques, Cathy grew up on a farm going to church every Sunday in Virginia while Willis grew up running Gotham's streets with little to no reliable supervision. So Catherine was kind of a helicopter mom because Jason was her miracle kid, while Willis was a lot more laid back. Which isn't to say that Willis loved him less, but Willis prefers to teach Jason to be self sufficient because he knows exactly what it takes to survive in Gotham.

Willis always wanted to take Jason fishing but due to it being Gotham...that never happened. Regardless, he tries to hit as many of the typical father-son milestones as he could because he never really got to do those things with his own father. Jason wasn't particularly sporty, but he was canonically a baseball fan and I also think he's a hockey fan, so that's something him and Willis bonded over. They definitely found their favorite bonding activity working on cars together though (can someone say shared special interest).

I actually think Jason gets his love of cooking from Willis! I imagine he worked with a lot of street food vendors and at a lot of different mom and pop restaurants, he seems like the type who bounced from a lot of different jobs throughout his teen and college years so he's kind of a jack of all trades and has a bunch of niche skills from his EXTENSIVE career. Willis Todd is much like Barbie to me. But anyway he passed down a lot of those recipes and his love for food and different cultures to Jason. Catherine can cook but after growing up being told it would always be her responsibility, something she was obligated to do as a wife, Willis's delight in doing domestic tasks like that is part of what drew her to him.

Willis had a picture of Jason in his wallet and he bragged about Jason to anyone who would listen so a lot of people recognized Jason on the streets, which put a target on his back but also so many of Willis's friends (exes) knew Jason that part of why Jason survived so long is that people were a lot more willing to help him. There was a not insignificant community of Crime Alley who were delighted as well as suspicious when Jason was adopted. There was a candlelight vigil held for him after he died since no one got to attend the funeral.

Jason has always had Catherine's smile, and he still does. It's amazing how easy it was for her to pass as his bio mom, if you raise someone long enough they'll eventually start to emulate you. No one ever denied that Jason was Cathy's. No one knew Catherine was pregnant? Some of Jay's traits are... unaccounted for? Nope Jason has the same speech patterns and gets the same look when he's judging someone and has that same light in his eyes when he's reading a particularly good book.

In tribute to them he has a tattoo of a shield surrounded by lilies. The shield is for Willis because in some languages his name means resolute protector, and the lilies are for Catherine because like her name they mean purity.

After moving in with Bruce after finding out Willis died he asked to hold funerals for both of them and they have matching headstones at Gotham cemetery. For Catherine's he chose a Bible quote (Timothy 1:7) and for Willis's he chose a dedication to the only version of Willis he knew (loving father, devoted husband, friend of many, brave till the end). The ceremony was public and the venue was overflowing with people who had known Willis, Jason learned more about his dad than he'd ever known before listening to their memories of him. Ma Gunn was still in jail but when word got back to her she sent a letter to Wayne Manor thanking him, because she might be a hateful old bitch but that was still her son.

[sun-citadel]

The violet sapphic flag

I decided to start work on a sapphic flag, as the original one did not feel inclusive to masculine presenting sapphics. The inclusive sapphic flag also felt too random for me to feel aligned, so I spent time researching a flag design

Excuse any spelling mistakes, English isn't my first language.

Info below. Original thread here. Tiktok version [ without typos ]

1. Why violets ?

The poetry of Sapphos often included talk of violet crowns, with one of her famous poems reading ;

` … Many crowns of violets,

roses and crocuses

…together you set before more

and many scented wreaths

made from blossoms

around your soft throat… `

Violets historically are considered a symbol of sapphic love and the LGBT movement, and are seen in pop culture, such as the cult classic lesbian movie, Bound. A 1926 play also involved a woman sending violets to another, as a potential nod to Sapphos. When the poem was censored / boycotted, women would send violets in support.

To say violets were not a part of LGBT + , and primarily spaphic / lesbian history would be a false statement.

2. Why these colours ?

I colour picked from violets themselves, primarily the African and common violet. One for their inclusion of white, and the other for its range of hues from more blue to magenta. I felt they could align with the various presentations seen within sapphic culture, as I myself ID as transmasculine / presently as a soft butch. There are those who are transfemme, femme, masc, androgynous, etc., and this various spectrum of colours I feel could align with how the community is not just one, but various shade of violet.

I spent time researching LGBT history, and have come up with meanings for these specific colours. They were carefully chosen for both traditional colour meanings, as well as symbolisms that align with the LGBT+ community.

From lavander to pink, both colours have a history of representing the community, and have become symbols reclaimed. From sapphos flowers, to the pink triangle, it is important to remember our history and struggles. Pink triangles itself was used as a symbol for transwomen, as an identifier for example [ as well as gay individuals, but this isn't about them at this time ] , but have been reclaimed to represent lgbt+ rights and our struggles. It is important to never forget those who came before us.

Each colour was picked based off traditional meanings, as well as identifying traits of the community.

3. Colour meanings?

From top to bottom, these colour meanings are ;

1. Femininity, health.

Pink is associated with femininity, so this is for the purely femme presenting individuals, whether trans, nb, or however they ID. It also is the colour of love, and health [ ex , ` everything is rosy ` meaning good ] .

2. Love, compassion.

A lighter shade of pink is usually associated with love, and with love comes compassion and understanding.

3. Youth and age.

From our lives comes the fact that, we as sapphics, lesbians, etc. know that deep down, this is who we truly are. Whether you're young, or come to the realization later, we live life as our authentic self. May we grow old and happy.

4. Limitless potential.

With those who are not afraid to break the gender / sexual binary, and present in ways uncaring of societal norms.

Whether trans, nonbinary, asexual, or uncaring of labels, I hope you find who you truly are.

5. Soft masculinity.

To be soft and masculine is frowned upon in society, but some of us present in ways that we deem just right. It is an oxymoron on many levels to those who do not understand, but we are indifferent and stand tall.

6. Wisdom.

With our history, we can learn and grow, it is important to never forget it. Ever on we march to assure that we are treated as equals.

7. Serenity, masculinity.

A nod to the original flag that brought us here, while also representing the other side of the spectrum for fully masc individuals. Once again, this is for those in the trans umbrella, or comfortable in their gender.

4. Who can use it ?

Sapphics or anyone who falls into that general category.

TERF / SWERFS / anyone not inclusive of the trans community are not permitted.

Please do not use if m - spec lesbian.

[morebedsidebooks]

Kamikaze Girls by Takemoto Novala

“I’m so glad you’ve found such a good friend, Momoko. I was worried, you know, about how you’d get along with kids here in the countryside, since you’ve been a city girl all your life. You’re lucky you’ve found a friend you have so much in common with.” “I have nothing in common with Ichigo, and she isn’t even my friend, anyway.” “Really? But the two of you are always dressed the same way.” Hello?! Excuse me?! Can you possibly be serious?! What in god’s name do you mean, Ichigo and I are dressed the same way?! I wondered if Grandmother was getting senile, and felt a bit worried for her. “You both seem to enjoy looking very festive.” Oh. So that’s what she meant. For an old lady like my grandmother, Ichigo’s gaudy, tasteless Yanki clothing and my adorable, elegant Lolita clothing both looked simply theatrical, and were registered as being more or less the same.

Momoko is rather snobbish and solely devoted to wearing Sweet Lolita clothes from brand Baby the Stars Shine Bright while reflecting the lifestyle she believes goes with it. Particularly at odds in the Shimotsuma countryside where her grandmother lives after the Loser, her father, fled there tied to organized crime and counterfeit designer goods. Ichigo, a Yanki and part of the Ponytails youth gang, has a mouth as loud as her tricked out moped and knows little unless it involves motors and sheet metal. She has next to no clue about the Versace clothes she’s looking for, what knockoff means, or that a woman biker could be capable of sexual violence too. Yet under the surface there is a surprising parallel in ethos and these two teenagers will slowly become unlikely friends.

As Japanese pop culture expanded its reach fashion was part of the wave too, including Lolita fashion. A street style and subculture born in the 1970s taking inspiration from Western motifs of Rococo to Victorian and even more modern romantic ideas of France and British punk. Growing up around this, Takemoto Novala is an eccentric figure with some similarly eccentric ideas. Still in his career he has made a noteworthy mark on the Lolita fashion subculture. (While he has also professionally suffered some hiccups due to drug possession.)

A big deal was the live-action adaptation in 2004 of his 2002 bestselling novel Shimotsuma monogatari, given the odd moniker Kamikaze Girls in English. Directed by Tetsuya Nakashima, starring Fukada Kyoko and Tsuchiya Anna, and featuring twists and an aesthetic of its own meshing mediums. Best described as a fun film, it both affectionately presents and pokes a bit at its subjects. Followed by translations including other various writing by Takemoto (who work has also been endorsed by writer Yoshimoto Banana) becoming something of a cult classic.

The novel is still one of my go-to tomes for depicting the Lolita fashion lifestyle. Momoko a heroine for her free spirit. A character that comes to mind for a lot of Lolitas. Although that does not mean Momoko is not a character who says some things I would view in a more askance way or shake my head at. (Also, the quote falsely attributed to Marie Antoinette “Let them eat cake!”, or « Qu’ils mangent de la brioche. » if we’re being a stickler, is reproduced.) In reality there are many ways of wearing Lolita and being a Lolita up to cultivating a whole lifestyle. The clothes and what those mean also changing over time. If you have got the spirit, you can rock it in a field to a formal venue. Likewise gotten from a humble home sewing table to big city boutique. Often evoking youth and the feminine, age and gender should not hold one back either. (It hasn’t for Takemoto.) Personally, Gothic Lolita too is part of what got me into fashion design.

Twenty and some years later I still feel that blooming feeling in my chest over the clothes, book and film. With trends looking back to the 1990/2000s now, old school Lolita is back too. As Takemoto has said, “Lolita’s not dead.”

Kamikaze Girls by Takemoto Novala is available in English, translated by Akemi Wegmüller, in print hardcover from Shojo Beat

The live-action film is available in Japanese with English subtitles on BD Region A from Discotek or Region B from Third Window Films

[sitp-recs]

Happy birthday to the one and only @writcraft! I know you probably feel this year hasn’t been as productive as you’d like fandom-wise, so this is both a reminder and a token of appreciation, a short rec list that hopes to highlight a little bit of your immense contribution to fandom. This is ofc 100% self-indulgent and my picks might be a bit too obvious - I doubt that anyone who’s been around for a while hasn’t heard of these classics before, but those who are new to the fandom (or just new to Writ’s works - I’m so jealous!) might enjoy this “starter pack” with my personal selection of must-reads.

There’s a little bit of everything: Drarry, Snarry, femslash, dark fic, kinky fic, angst with a happy ending, romcom, hurt/comfort. No matter the tone or trope, they’re not only perfectly thought out and executed but they also deliver profound human experiences that resonates within, and thought-provoking explorations of romance, queerness and hope. I have often wondered how Writ could be so prolific over the years, always impressing me with such flawless depth of characterization across different ships. Now I realize this comes from the amount of passion and research they pour into their work. Writ commits to fandom - and to writing - both intellectually and emotionally, bringing together their creative, fannish, militant and intellectual sides like nobody else can do. This combination breathes life and heart into every love story they create, making them all bright and unique, inspiring universal emotions while remaining deeply personal.

Writ, I cannot thank you enough for being such a kind, witty and welcoming friend, always up to discuss fandom meta, gritty fic plots, old and new ship obsessions, dog parenting, queer & pop culture references! I learn so much from you and it’s a privilege (and a delight) to have someone to share both silly and deep, insightful convos with. Becoming friends with you - an author I’ve been admiring and looking up to for so many years now - still feels a bit surreal but it’s easily one of the best parts of 2022/2023 for me. I hope you enjoy your day to the fullest, and have an amazing time celebrating with yours. Happy birthday my friend! 💜

🎵 True Colors (E, 6k) - Harry/Teddy

Teddy spent the last year running away from his feelings for Harry. Now it’s time to come home.

🧵 Independent Love Song (E, 6k) - Ginny/Millie

Millicent Bulstrode is a tailor and Ginny is losing her mind over a woman in a tweed blazer and burgundy brogues.

🪞 Doppelganger (M, 7k) - Drarry, Romione

It was just a silly dare, but one ill-advised trip into the Forbidden Forest changes Harry’s life forever.

🎼 Hopelessly Devoted To You (E, 10k) - Harry/George

Harry and George watch a lot of musicals and accidentally fall in love.

🗞️ Potterzine (E, 11k) - Snarry

When Severus Snape finds a fanzine with a picture of Professor Potter in a compromising position with Draco Malfoy on the cover, he confronts Potter about the offending literature.

🪩 An Aching Soul (M, 14k) - Drarry

Draco Malfoy escapes to the Muggle world to avoid his parents, memories of the war and Harry Potter. However, some things prove harder to escape than others as Draco realises when his favourite Muggle haunt is rudely invaded by a post-war Harry who is struggling to cope with grief, growing up and the battle with his inner demons.

⛓️ Dirty Little Secret (E, 22k) - Drarry

When someone threatens Harry’s life, Kingsley decides to send him to a safe house with only Draco Malfoy for company. As the two men are forced together, memories of the past resurface and secrets are discovered.

🥐 A Life Worth Remembering (E, 23k) - Drarry + Snape

Severus Snape wakes in St Mungo’s, to discover that a potions accident has wiped the last forty years from his body and mind. Just twenty-five years old, Severus is reliant on Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy, now both in their forties, to help him fill in the missing decades.

🚘 Harry Potter and The Bisexual Awakening (E, 23k) - Drarry

Harry is perfectly content being single, heterosexual and living in Godric's Hollow with his very clingy rescue dog, Snitch. When Draco Malfoy turns up on Harry's doorstep demanding that Harry teach him how to drive, things quickly become a lot more complicated.

⌛️ Collapse Amongst the Dying Stars (M, 26k) - Drarry

After the final battle nothing is quite as Harry expected. Death Eaters remain unaccounted for, Malfoy is in prison and there is something rotten in Azkaban.

💋 The Beating of This Fragile Heart (E, 33k) - Snarry

After the war, the last thing Severus Snape needs is the memory of a fleeting wartime kiss and a very persistent Harry Potter thwarting his plans to live a peaceful and solitary life.

📸 Expecto Patronum (E, 35k) - Drarry

As Draco Malfoy negotiates his feelings for the wizarding world's brightest star, he becomes increasingly attached to Harry and unravels the secrets he keeps hidden from the rest of the world.

🗽How We Were Warriors (E, 51k) - Snarry

A homophobic attack in London’s Soho brings Harry to New York City to discover more about the past. Still haunted by love and loss in the eighties, Severus just wants to forget.

🥃 The Beauty of Thestrals and Other Unseen Things (E, 63k) - Drarry

Harry has terrific friends, an amazing girlfriend and his job as Head Auror enables him to work on challenging cases and Ministry reform. He just wishes he could work out why he’s been so out of sorts.

🏳️‍🌈 Little Compton Street verse (E, 150k) - Drarry, Sirius/James, Minerva/Will

Draco is lonely, Harry hates the press and it won’t stop raining in London. Harry discovers a magical street that’s close to disappearing forever and Draco realises he’s one rainy night in Soho away from finding everything he’s been searching for.

[maverick-werewolf]

Werewolf Fact #70 - Werewolves in medical history + "clinical lycanthropy"

The results of the werewolf fact poll over on my Patreon are in, and now we have this month's werewolf fact: all about werewolves in historical medical treatises of the Renaissance/Early Modern period and the term "clinical lycanthropy," as well as what all that means and how it still impacts werewolf studies and werewolf pop culture today.

This post will make use of a lot of primary sources, which I always find fun, so buckle up!

I've done several posts touching upon subjects similar to this before, you might be familiar with them, such as how werewolves in folklore are the result of a curse instead of a disease, and my two-parter on when werewolves became associated with insanity (Part 1 and Part 2 are here). You can also read a whole lot more about that topic and my arguments regarding it in my thesis, which was on werewolves, and can be found here on Amazon.com (hardback coming soon!).

However, I have never really delved in detail into a few of the actual medical treatises written during the Renaissance/Early Modern Period - in other words, primary sources - of which we have several. In this post, I will cover a few, but not all. I'm also going to make mention of a few more modern ones in regard to clinical lycanthropy, but let's start with older first...

First of all, there was a lot of discussion of "melancholy" in the 1500s in regard to werewolves. This was even referenced in the play The Duchess of Malfi (and I actually have an academic article dedicated to the discussion of the lines involving werewolves in said play). This is, of course, related to the ancient Greek theory of humors, in which the composition of the human body and health required the balance of four humors: black bile (earth), blood (air), choler (fire), and phlegm (water), each related to one of the classic elements.

Throughout the Renaissance, "wolf-madness" was attributed to a case of melancholy, or an excess of black bile. There are many examples of this. And, of course, there are also many attributions to Satan... which was not a thing at all before this time period, as before this, werewolves were even sometimes associated with Christianity (see: werewolves of Ossory, among others).

An oft-referenced source in both werewolf studies at large as well as my own works is "Admirable and Memorable Histories" by I. Goulart, from around 1607 and translated from French by Ed Grimeston; I use this source from my book A Lycanthropy Reader by Charlotte F. Otten. Please note that the language of the piece is dated, so it will read funny to modern audiences.

Goulart discusses "Licanthropes and mad-men, the which wee will consider of two sorts," not necessarily equating those suffering from "lycanthropy" as mad-men, but as those "in whom the melancholike humor doth so rule, as they imagine themselves to be transformed into Wolves." He refers to them as "counterfet Wolves" and discusses how they "runne into Church-yardes, and about graves," something not uncommonly seen in the newfangled werewolf sources of the 1600s onward but not commonplace in werewolf legends of previous time periods.

Goulart also discusses men "tormented with an evill spirit, that at a certaine season of the yeare, hee imagined himselfe to bee a ravening Wolfe," and references other elements seen only in the later werewolf trials as opposed to previous werewolf legends. I also can't help but wonder if the "certain season" element is something Curt Siodmak saw and carried over into the original werewolf in The Wolf Man turning during a particular season (when wolfsbane blooms in autumn)...

Anyway, another of Goulart's sources is Job Fincel in 1541, who describes werewolves in ways we see around a lot when googling and finding garbage on the internet but not so much in legends previously, such as how those afflicted with the "disease" of believing themselves to become a wolf (but not actually turning into one) "are pale, their eyes are hollow, and they see ill, their tongue is drye, they are much altered, and are without much spittle in the mouth." This is consistent with particular illnesses rather than anything seen in werewolf legends, as these are not the people who truly become wolves, only those who believe that they do - and Goulart was still drawing lines between those with hallucinations, those who actually change shape, and those who are werewolves by other means. For example, Goulart also discusses the idea of people whose souls fly from their own bodies and enter into the forms of wolves instead.

There are other examples that discuss these same topics, of course, including but not at all limited to "Diseases of the Mind" by Robert Burton and "A Treatise" by Robert Bayfield, both of which are also featured in A Lycanthropy Reader, and there are plenty of others in assorted other werewolf studies publications.

Now, in addition to these older examples, we also have much more recent medical studies regarding what is known in modernity as "clinical lycanthropy."

Here's a fun fact: the term "lycanthropy" wasn't ever used in antiquity to refer to werewolf legends. It was created by the medical profession in the 1500s to refer specifically to a form of madness, not shapeshifting. It referred to what was recognized as a mental illness that they called lycanthropy: someone believing that they turned into a wolf, not to someone actually turning into a wolf (as in, not referring to the legends in which this happened).

Today, we call this "clinical lycanthropy," because the term "lycanthropy" was basically taken by werewolf media and werewolf studies and retroactively applied to werewolf legends. But the term "lycanthropy" was never actually used in said legends.

The term "lycanthropy" to refer to a "werewolf disease" is just another way in which medical studies and Renaissance writings turned werewolf legends into a "werewolf disease" instead of a magical curse, as it always used to be.

Now, of course, the medical world doesn't really recognize "clinical lycanthropy" anymore. It's considered to be a part of other mental conditions, the result of drug-induced hallucinations, or something entirely different. Several cases were attributed to schizophrenia instead, for example. So the term "clinical lycanthropy" in itself is all but outdated.

I won't be including or directly quoting from the case reports from the 1970s in this discussion, as this post is already enormous and, frankly, the case reports are not things that could be easily discussed in today's environment, as the language in the reports would certainly be considered offensive today, and that's not something I want to navigate. So I won't get into all that. They're out there if you want to read them, but I won't bother breaking them down here.

There are also certainly other examples of medical history relating to werewolves and werewolf legends, but I'll save all that for the werewolf facts book or another publication of mine!

Medical treatises are just another example from the Renaissance (and for quite a while after, into at least the 1800s and even early 1900s) of trying to rationalize and find "scientific explanations" for all manner of folklore and mythology. This also resulted in a considerable amount of condemnation for those who still believed in this sort of thing, as well as those who believed themselves to be experiencing it. As mentioned in some of my other werewolf facts, this didn't always include punishment (many victims of clinical lycanthropy at the time were actually well taken care of), but it did include things like being locked away from society for being declared insane. And, of course, if the victim in question was not a victim but a perpetrator, then it would result in a trial and punishment - and often execution. However, this was much more likely to happen to witches rather than werewolves. Just another way in which the trial of Peter Stubbe were very obviously witch/sorcerer trials and had nothing to do with werewolves at all.

Now, of course, you'll also recognize that a lot of the things you see in the treatises I used as examples don't follow up with many or even any werewolf legends you're very familiar with. Things were getting a bit weird at this point in history in regard to folklore and the like, and the reaching for rationalizing something like a person turning into a wolf or wolf-monster of any sort certainly resulted in some wild connections.

While this is far from the werewolf legends that personally fascinate me most, they are an important part of werewolf studies - hugely so. In fact, they're often discussed more than almost anything else, because unfortunately werewolf scholars are overly obsessed with later time periods that I personally find less fun and interesting than the Middle Ages and ancient times. But, hey, I love all of it.

Until next time!

And remember, if you want to vote on the next werewolf or vampire or other folklore fact, be sure to check out my Patreon. Thanks for reading!

( If you like my werewolf blog, be sure to follow me here and check out my other stuff!

Patreon — Personal Website (new and improved! Great starting point!)  — Wulfgard — Werewolf Fact Masterlist — Twitter — Vampire Fact Masterlist )

[singlesablog]

Bona Drag ‘89

“Getting Away With It” (1989) Electronic Factory (UK) / Warner Records (US) (Written by Sumner/Marr/Tennant) Highest U.S. Billboard Chart Position – No. 38

When Pet Shop Boys first approached (coaxed, begged?) Dusty Springfield near the end of her career to duet with Neil Tennant on the 1987 single “What Have I Done to Deserve This?”, few of us could have known that this would lead to a great many more collaborations from the boys, or how fruitful this instinct would become.  It was also in that same year that they both (mainly Neil) collaborated with a group newly named Electronic, which would be comprised of the lead singer of New Order, Bernard Sumner, and Johnny Marr, the ex-lead guitarist and songwriter for The Smiths. “Getting Away With It” was a huge moment in my circle that year (as well as on the dance floor) for it’s sound combined the coolness of the alternative scene with disco, even though no one ever wants to say that very bad word. 

We all adored it.

The Smiths had disbanded in 1987, leaving Johnny Marr as a journeyman (never being the lead type).  We all loved The Smiths passionately because they were in part “our" band, and spoke to gay culture, and because, yes, Morrissey was a genius. We all hated him for ending it all too soon, because yes, it was all his fault.  His narcissism was not hard to apprehend, in content or image.  Johnny Marr's pairing up with Sumner was something of a miracle because both were surprisingly interested in house music, specifically an emerging genre known as Italo House, which leaned more toward Europe and upbeat electronic piano riffs.  They worked on the single first, along with an early cut called “Lucky Bag” (seek it out it is a jam) in the pure Italo House style, and went on tour to support Depeche Mode that year.  They ultimately spent 18 months finishing the debut album Electronic, which a lot of folks consider to be a minor classic.  Neil appeared on yet another track (“The Patience of a Saint”), and we were all in disco heaven—it was just so cool.

I am now surprised to discover that the secret behind “Getting Away” may the be sly and hateful jabs toward The Moz himself, who famously disdained anyone who ever ate meat, or any style of music he did not personally direct.  He is on record for dismissing electronic music in general as useless, so the jabs at his persona in the lyrics (“I’ve been walking in the rain / just to get wet on purpose”) are penchant, and just what he had coming.  It was only the year before that Morrissey had released a track called “Hairdresser on Fire” (as the B side to the A single “Suedehead”), one of his more famous B sides, which include the lyrics 

“Here is London Home of the brash, outrageous and free You are repressed But you're remarkably dressed Is it real?”

to which (apparently) the boys from Electronic responded in verse

“I've been talking to myself Just to suggest that I'm selfish (Getting ahead) I've been trying to impress That more is less and I'm repressed (I should do what he said)”

Which may be nothing, or may be pointed.  It is on record that Morrissey criticized the song in a 1991 interview, calling it "totally useless" and joking that the song had a "very apt title”.  

It is certain that both Marr and Sumner were looking to explore new freedoms and territories outside of the straight jacket of rock and roll.  It is especially ironic that Morrissey, one of the patron saints of gay identity, would be so narrow and humorless about pop music in general.  Then again, maybe not; I love him, but a kinkier curmudgeon would be hard to locate.  It has been suggested that Neil Tennant continued the lampooning of Morrissey with the B side to the single for “Was it Worth It?” (which flopped), “Miserablism” (which is iconic in their catalog), and paints the picture of a person using inversion as a religion:

“Every performance tends to reach the same conclusion No happy endings but a message to depress Saying life is an impossible scheme That's the point Of this philosophy

Miserablism Is is and isn't isn’t

Miserablism Is is and isn’t isn’t."

Electronic’s last album (of 3 total) was released in 1999.  They have never formally disbanded, but are likely done with the project.  Morrissey is still making records and slagging people off to this day.  There are no plans to reunite any version of The Smiths.

---

The collaborations with icons of gay culture would certainly continue for the Pet Shop Boys.  In 1992 they had their biggest success outside of their band by producing Boy George’s cover of “The Crying Game”, the title track for the movie of the same name.  It was a success worldwide, a Billboard No. 15 in the US (Boy George’s highest ever here as a solo act), as well as a dreamy synth pop gem.  Neil Tennant told NME in 1993, "I think George sings that song really well, he sounds a bit like Roy Orbison” which is rather true, a credit to the production and vocal alike. Charles Aaron from Spin said, “Heard it in a mall, wanted to weep in my Orange Julius.” to which I would say, didn’t we all Charles, didn’t we all.

"The Crying Game" by Boy George, 1992

The song title “Getting Away With It” is suggestive of many things.  As a member of the band The Smiths, Morrissey and the band adopted an anti-look look, very industrial city clothes, even presenting as nondescript.  But Morrissey had a way of inverting this idea, sporting a giant pompadour, thick NHS black glasses, an inoperative plastic hearing aid during performances, and receiving gladiolus flowers on stage from fans.  His was not an undramatic pose, and actually part of the long tradition of the gay man presenting as a fop.  

A fop from "What is this my Son Tom?", 1774

In England alone there was the “macaroni” of the Georgian period, followed by the Beau Brummell of the Regency period, and then the Aesthete, which culminated in the late 19th century with the writers Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde.  For the opening in 1892 of  his play“Lady Windermere’s Fan”, Oscar sported an unnatural green carnation as a publicity stunt (it actually signified nothing).  However nothing can easily become something.  The green carnation went on to become a craze for aesthetes, a tip off for the presence of homosex, and finally aided in Oscar’s undoing when an 1894 novel by the name of The Green Carnation by Robert Hitchens was used as evidence in Wilde’s sodomy trial to send him to Reading Gaol prison for 2 years, even though Oscar personally had nothing whatsoever to do with it’s publication or content.  He went on to comment 

"I invented that magnificent flower, but with the middle-class and mediocre book that usurps its strangely beautiful name I have, I need hardly say, nothing whatsoever to do. The flower is a work of art. The book is not.”

Oscar Wilde died only a few years after his imprisonment in 1900 at the young age of 46.  

His crime: high style.

Oscar Wilde, pictured with a green carnation.

[shakespeareallanpoe]

Batfamily Secret Santa

With the holidays coming up here's my headcanon for what each of the batfamily members would get each other if they were doing a secret Santa. (And yes, I know Bruce is canonically Jewish, but I believe either Tim or Dick are some denomination of Christian so I'd imagine they have a mixed holiday celebration at the manor)

Bruce (got Stephanie)

Ok so Bruce is super generous on a good day and I can't imagine Steph wouldn't be dropping hints since Thanksgiving, so he'd probably give her everything she asked for plus a new movie Wayne manor doesn't have, so after the celebration they could watch it together as a one-on-one bonding thing since he's pretty big on quality time in some versions.

Dick (got Bruce)

Bruce really doesn't expect anything for the holidays which is perfect because I have this headcanon that Dick is actually really bad with giving gifts. Someone bullied your little sister? Not on his watch. Life advice? He'll pull from his past experiences to tell you what not to do. Emotional support? Bro he's there. But birthday/anniversary/holiday gifts? Expect a mug with Snoopy's face because you both watched Charlie Brown together once. In July. He's just that kind of gift giver. So I'm thinking Dick would get Bruce a dinosaur themed 1,000 piece puzzle because Bruce likes dinosaurs and he likes puzzles so boom! Match made in heaven, ya boi is a genius. 😎

Barbara (got Jason)

Babs is a pretty practical person so her secret Santa to Jason probably consisted of a gift bag with manly smelling body wash, a gift card to Barnes & Noble, and a CD mixtape of Jason's Spotify favorites so he can pop it into a car and listen to it during long car rides.

Duke (got Damian)

So Duke is a pretty creative person when he's passionate about a project and his ideas are definitely one of a kind, but I think for some time he would really struggle with coming up with a secret Santa for Damian because he isn't all that close with Robin. He knew Damian appreciated weapons but he's also the type of person to not want Damian to think that weapons are all he is by getting him one. Presents for Damian's pets are off the table since Damian spoils them on every day of the year, so Duke would probably gift Damian something for the child he is, since Damian never had a childhood. Maybe a telescope so Damian could look at the stars with his family on clear nights. Just like what Duke's mom gave him as a boy for the holidays one year.

Cass (got Dick)

Cass didn't receive material gifts for most of her life so she probably enlisted Alfred's help. Given that the butler knows Dick pretty well, they decided to give him a gift basket with blue ribbon that had a T-shirt of his favorite band, some flash fuzzy socks (Wally would approve), and his favorite holiday candy. Dick is really more of a quality time kind of person if you want to make him to feel special, so it didn't need to be elaborate anyway.

Jason (got Cass)

I don't care how much people try to make Jason into a sexist, ignorant-to-the-fine-arts kind of person. Jason doesn't give a fuck about gender stereotypes and he loves learning, especially about classical things like literature or fine arts. For his secret Santa to Cass he got them both tickets for a weekend trip to Russia to see a ballet in person in one of the grandest cities in Russia. Cass has obviously been to many places across the world, but it was always for a mission and nothing more. For the holidays, Jason gifted her two days where they could travel and explore the culture, living like locals or being those stereotypical tourists just for shits and giggles. Just a few days without work to relax and live happy lives as regular people. When Cass got her gift Jason pulled her aside afterwards to explain it, so she wouldn't cry in front of everyone. And she did cry. Just a little. So did Jason.

Tim (got Duke)

Tim wouldn't think too hard about Duke's gift since he knows the people Duke hangs out with. Or could find them. Getting Duke a gift was as simple as casually running into Duke's friends and asking them about what Duke likes. Not that he or Duke's friends ever mentioned this to Signal, so when he opened his secret Santa and found some hyper-specific things amongst some more generic gifts, he began to wonder just how much Tim knew about his life.

Stephanie (got Babs)

Steph is absolutely the type of person to get someone for Christmas something they want themselves. So a lot of the gifts Bruce gave her look similar to what Babs got from Steph. Not that she means anything by it, but in her mind if it's worth wanting, someone else close to her probably wants it too. And Babs doesn't mind. She already bought herself a new desk light after the old one got knocked down one too many times, so it doesn't matter if she has a cute keychain to go on it.

Damian (got Tim)

Regardless of his age I think a younger sibling will always be a younger sibling. Damian would probably give Tim a large fancy gift bag filled with tissue paper... and nothing else. He'd do it just to see Tim's reaction to rifling through the bag for several moments to come up empty. Then, when Tim admits defeat, Damian would hand over a gift he asked Jon to pick up for Connor, nicely wrapped with Tim's forged signature and everything. He wasn't about to get Tim a gift but it's okay because he knew Tim would've somehow forgotten to get his boyfriend a holiday gift anyway. (And he did)

[adrianicsea]

Hello, I just want to say I'm getting most of my film recs from you. And I was wandering, have you seen any fioms that aren't western that you would recommend. I just don't know where to start. Anyways, have a nice day.

hi!!! that means so much to me— i love sharing the movies i’m passionate about, and it means a lot when people tell me that they check out a movie because of me 🥹

by non-western films, i’m assuming that you mean films not from the US or from western european countries— if that’s not the case, please let me know!!

i actually haven’t seen a ton of non-western movies myself, and that’s something i’d like to address!! but as far as non-western films i HAVE seen and enjoyed, here’s some that i’ve recently seen or ones that are still memorable:

promare— japan, anime, action/scifi. follows the adventures of galo, an enthusiastic member of a team of firefighters facing off against a terrorist group of pyromancers known as the mad burnish. as galo learns more about the mysterious leader of the burnish, lio, galo comes to question the way burnish are treated in society and if lio’s actions are truly in the wrong.

perfect blue— japan, anime, horror/thriller. mima, a retired j-pop idol, is being stalked as she pivots to an acting career. she loses her grip on reality as a series of strange, violent events begin to happen around her, including a vision of her own former idol self.

sweet home- japan, horror. when a film documentary crew sets foot in the mansion of a notorious deceased artist to research and create a tv special about his frescoes, they awake a dormant evil. this movie is notable because its tie-in video game was a direct inspiration for the resident evil series!

noroi: the curse— japan, horror. this is kind of a found footage/mockumentary style film that starts as an exploration of a purported “curse” and the strange events surrounding it, and then escalates to become something absolutely wild and ABSOLUTELY terrifying.

beau travail— france/djibouti, drama/thriller. while this film’s director, claire denis, IS french, she grew up in colonial french africa, and this film as well as many of her others explore west african culture and issues. in beau travail, the disgraced french legion sergeant galoup recounts the tale of his fall from grace and his cardinal sin of betraying one of his own, a beautiful, kind, and noble young cadet named sentain. this film is a loose adaptation of herman melville’s story billy budd, and it also explores the ongoing effects of the french legion’s presence in djibouti!

nosferatu— silent film (made in germany), horror. if you’re interested in learning about film history at all, western or otherwise, you can’t NOT look at the german expressionist movement! this is a classic, quintessential vampire story— in fact, nosferatu was made as a dracula ripoff when the director FW murnau was not permitted to make an ACTUAL film adaptation of dracula.

metropolis— silent film (made in germany), scifi. this is another legendary entry in the german expressionist movement! in a far-off, hyperindustrialized future, the richest people in metropolis live high above the ground, oblivious to the constant, dehumanizing labor and miserable conditions that are endured by the workers living down below. a sweet, naive young boy from the upper levels named freder finds his way down into the guts of the city, and he is awakened to the suffering of his fellow man and begins to agitate for a workers’ revolution. the work and effects in this movie are BEYOND impressive, especially for something that’s nearing 100 years old!!!

good manners— brazil, horror/fantasy with some musical elements. in são paulo, a poor nurse named clara manages to secure a job as a house sitter, nurse, and nanny to a rich single soon-to-be mother named ana. as the two of them begin to fall in love, ana recounts the story of her baby’s father, and reveals that both he and her unborn child are werewolves. this is a gorgeous, sensitive, and original take on the werewolf genre, and the creature effects are amazing!

RRR— india, musical/action/epic. this is kind of a fictional “what-if” scenario about the meeting of two real-life indian revolutionaries. bheem is a man from a tribe living traditionally in the jungles of india; raju is living as one of the only indian members of the occupying british forces, a traitor to his own people. by rights, the two should hate each other— but they meet while cooperating to rescue a child and become best friends instead, neither one aware of their true identities or motives.

zindagi na milegi dobra— india, comedy/road trip movie. three childhood friends meet up to go on an adventure before one of them gets married, and along the way, they each find the courage to do something that they’ve always wanted to do, like skydive or run with the bulls in spain!!

monkey man— india, action. an anonymous young man going only by the name Kid undertakes a years-long revenge quest in order to avenge his family and village, long ago destroyed by a fascist quasi-religious leader. this film has a lot of american influences/people working on it, but given that its director and star dev patel has indian heritage and that the film deals so squarely with indian culture and politics, it felt fair to include it here.

flee— denmark/afghanistan, partially animated, drama/biopic. amin, an openly gay man living in denmark, arrived there as an unaccompanied minor from afghanistan when he was a teenager. using a combination of documentary-style interview footage with amin and animated recreations, flee tells the story of his exodus from his home and of his coming to terms with his identity.

i hope that at least one or two of these sounds interesting to you!! and if you meant something different by non-western (ex ANY non-english film, just films that aren’t from the US), please let me know and i might have some alternate recs for you :)

[legallybrunettedotcom]

Hi! Can i ask you what is your opinion on movie remakes? Like for example with Little Women (2019), after the huge success (commercially and also critically) do you think it would make sense to let another director tell the same story in their way? Like how many years should pass between another remake of a movie could be welcomed by the public?

hiii! that's a good question. i think there's some pessimism that has seeped into the movie loving public in the last several years. it seems like we're in a shortage of original stories in mainstream cinema so there's a layer of jadedness and annoyance. it's understandable, but i don't think entirely true. there's shitty remakes, there's remakes i like better than the original and there's situations where i like both the original and the remake. from my knowledge, the years that have passed between an original movie and a remake have varied greatly (not including here reboots, american adaptations of non-american films or stuff like sam raimi did with evil dead) so i'm not entirely sure if there is a formula that doubtlessly works, but our movie watching and perceptions have changed greatly. like gaslight was first made in 1940 and then remade in 1944, but what does that mean to a 2024 audience? nothing. now something like little women released in 2019 getting remade in 2024, well now that's annoying and you'll hear opinions. internet is now an added obstacle when it comes to reception. i'm trying to think of remakes that were well received. invasion of the body snatchers was released in 1956, remade in 1978 and then abel ferrara remade it again in 1993 under the name body snatchers. not too poorly received but what do people think of when they hear body snatchers? the 1978 version. why? i am clueless to what the reasons might be. the thing 1982 over the 1950s version as well. when you hear scarface it's al pacino that pops into your mind, and not the 1932 original, steven soderbergh's oceans eleven over 1960 rat pack movie, cronenberg's the fly over the 1958 original etc etc. you mention little women, i think we have a different situation and approach because it's a book adaptation. some of the movies i've mentioned are also based on books, but we can't really call them classics like we do with pride and prejudice or dracula or wuthering heights which have all seen multiple remakes and retellings. some of these originals or their remakes are defining for a specific generation, but then again sth like dracula is a matter of personal preference rather than a specific one being generation defining imo. at least now in 2024. if we were in the 30s/40s well that's a different situation. there are some objective criteria pertaining to storytelling that makes a remake a good remake, but even moreso i would say it's something deeper culturally and societally that makes one or many cling to a specific version. something about the movie experience rather than the movie itself, so i'm not sure i have a conclusive opinion or number of years i could give.