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transsexualhamlet · 3 years

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tg anime vs manga *sighs*

i have the power of hyperfixation and anime on my side! AAAAAAAA

Ok now that we’ve gotten the sins of re post out of the way we need to discuss this. And I just feel that this needs to be covered because I can’t ever get away from constant discourse on this, mostly fueled by manga readers who feel entitled to always think they’re superior for reading the manga, that the manga is the only real canon, that it’s more complex or better, I’m so fucking tired of it. I am also a manga reader, and I tend to get like that sometimes too with many series (for example no. 6 and the promised neverland.) I get it. It can be really annoying to see something butchered on screen to what the original is, changed or represented differently or given a different message or simplified. But just. Some people like the anime and it’s not a goddamn holy war for y’all to fight. It only makes anime fans not want to read the thing even more yknow cause manga readers are pretentious assholes, and I am aware of this as one of them.

(again ok i’d like to mention i know this fandom is basically dead but a certain p*nterest is always like 4 years behind on fandoms so i keep fucking running into Discourse that’s like, still current, whenever i want old random ass content) (and youtube, why do i look at youtube comments, because I personally enjoy being offended? yeah probably)

And that brings me to the point of this anime vs manga.

This is a lot harder to compare than a lot of other series, because there are just... so many more differences not just in the style and vibe but the story itself.

Disclaimer, I’ve never watched the anime for :re and i don’t intend to, because I honestly have no earthly clue how tf you can get from the highly diverged tokyo ghoul root A to re and make it make sense, and I don’t really want A ruined for me. So you can call me biased towards the manga in the case of re, i guess (which makes my eventual conclusion even more strong I’d say) Honestly I just see them as two completely different stories, the manga’s version connecting with re and A just like... ending there. So how we’re drawing the lines is basically tokyo ghoul A versus the manga and :re. God, I know this isn’t a fair fight because I already hate re so much, but I feel like the manga’s story is much more intertwined with :re than the anime’s is, so that’s what we’re going with.

oh god also another disclaimer this opinion is coming from the biggest fucking kanehide whore, you can disregard anything i say if you ship The Straights and/or do not care for my boi hide

To be honest, if I can take my own conclusions and liberties to the story, I like both versions, each have their pros and cons and kind of a conflicting message. They can’t really coexist. Usually I’d consume all versions and then create one consistent canon in my head for what I accept as the true events (for example my main owari no seraph, first season of the anime is canon but after that we only follow the manga since those can come together and make sense.) but it’s very hard to do that in tokyo ghoul, since I must confess... I really like root A. Like of course, it’s a lot different from the manga, but tbh I think it’s super valid. (unlike most Fans TM like this Fan TM who i’m sending this post to just to spite their singular Youtube Comment Section Discourse, yes I did write this post for you and many others like you) But the ideas that make up root A conflict a lot with the ones of the manga, so I just have to accept that they’re separate things and treat them as such.

Now to break it down so people can understand where I’m coming from I guess? God this is already so long here’s a read more

The Case for The Manga (including :re manga)

More Lore + Plot Shit: One of the main reasons that manga readers are pretentious little bitches is a valid reason, namely that, as is the case with most manga, there’s simply more to it than people can fit into an anime. (Although people need to understand that’s because,,, it’s simply a different medium, so it will have different pluses and minuses, such as for example a soundtrack, color, moving pictures,,, you know, all that. Anime onlys don’t say that the anime is better by stating these things that a manga won’t have... because they’re fucking obvious. So manga readers should stop acting like an anime is inherently sub-par for being less in depth, but we digress.) I can understand that reading the manga is kind of important for wanting to understand the lore (though there are like so many other reasons ppl might want to watch it other than to get the lore) and without the explanation of how all this came to be and how it works, everything tends to be really mysterious, confusing, and seemingly random. It’s really nice to know what’s all going on, of course, and stuff like the washuus, rize’s backstory, the explanation for like, kaneki in general, all that- if you’re looking for like, plot shit, manga is definitely your go to. But like, sometimes, you like, don’t actually care about those things.

Haise: Of course one of the most important things about well, including re is that I fucking love Haise. Like he is my favorite Kaneki. He’s just so wonderful, look at him in he glasses and he floofy hair and he striped pants and he energy boxers and he s p i c e and he MOM. And I really like how they took Kaneki’s character and developed it more with Haise, you can see his turnaround from innocent--> Emo--> Trying To Be Innocent Again But Failing and I think that’s really sweet tbh. I rejected that at first because I didn’t understand it but once I actually read re I thought it made a lot of sense and was a logical thing to do with his character. (though, uh, moving forward, after his hair changes again i disagree with it, haise 1.0 is a good take and i love him and i want the best for him) I could go on I’ve already written a post of what I think is wrong with :re so if you want to hear my take on kaneki’s 37 pokemon evolutions that’s in there

Good New Characters: And of course there are my favorite bitches such as quinx squad, oh my god, there was a terminal lack of dumbass squad vibes in the original and ishida fucking gave it to us, I love them, I love them with all my heart and I think that if I wasn’t attached to them I’d probably just cancel all of :re but like this is just my personal problem. God I love them. Ishida always pulls through with characters I’m now too attached to.

Vore Lmao:Ok like hear me out. I just get a laugh out of it every time the manga has to remind me of this little fucking fact. Like ok I just. Cannot get over it. It’s so serious about it too and like I realize it’s a serious deal but o h m y g o d

Ok and now that we’ve got that little rant over I do want to say that it is like actually really important past the “lmao that’s pretty gay” bit, like??? In some ways it’s more fitting than the anime because well, ishida’s point always seems to be “what would mentally and physically hurt kaneki the most right now” and does it because that’s who this bitch is. But it just?? Kind of makes a bit more sense for the storyline if we’re being picky here, it’s so,,, painfully on point? Like the entire reason he gave in to Being A Ghoul and all was so he could save his friends and shit (i actually do not remember if this was a thing in the manga but like? when he was being tortured and he like imagined hide being really mad at him and getting killed by jason and shit?) LIKE AND THEN HE GOES AND HAS TO BASICALLY BE THE PERPETRATOR OF THAT HIMSELF, FUCK, it’s a lose/lose situation of “don’t do the bad thing and watch your friends suffer” or “do the bad thing and watch your friends suffer but like, later” ishida please

The meaning of Hide being alive: Ok this is just me crying over chapter 75 still but like. Instead of in the anime, where hide’s point seems to be that instead of letting kaneki sacrifice anything more he’d be the one to give his life up and such, and save kaneki, in the anime tbh he just really wanted to be with kaneki right then?? and like ouch but understanding that in the manga he wasn’t just planning on dying and leaving kaneki to deal with it afterward he wanted to go on and continue to try to help the guy no matter the shit he had to go through, no matter if the dude just like forgot that he existed for two years and all- LIKE UH CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW HIDE DOESN’T EVEN EXPECT ANY APOLOGY? like kaneki’s like “OH MY GOD I’M SUCH A TERRIBLE PERSON” and hide’s like lmao nah it’s cool i’m thriving- that his big motto was “live” rather than “peace out motherfuckers it’s been fun”. Cause. Fucking. Ishida. Can’t kill off characters well but like at least he made keeping this one alive justified.

The D e t a i l s: Ok well I feel like this is something everyone knows but the anime is missing a lot of really,,, crunchy details that the manga throws in there, like, well, kaneki’s fucking,,, bones thing, and other assorted details, g o d like those are missable if you want to never understand half the memes but also like,,, sometimes you just gotta read that shit. It also like, makes more sense when you do but sometimes it’s just stupid things that aren’t important but are fucking hilarious.

The Flavor: In general I’d say the greatest difference between the anime and the manga is the general flavor of the thing, the vibe in the manga is a lot, to be frank, darker and grosser and bloodier than the anime, which is a lot more focused on being pretty and Tragic than “HOLY SHIT WTF” but like. That’s valid. With that comes it being a lot more, real, and although the art may not be as polished as the anime’s, sometimes that’s exactly what you need, and the really gritty sketchy shit that’s in the manga sometimes is exactly what it’s supposed to be for the manga. (in the anime, i’d say that the colored and polished style fits it better, so we’re good there.) It’s a lot more real, in the manga, when the anime hesitates to “go there” a lot (and well, sometimes that’s welcome, but sometimes it’s like y o u g u y s c o m e o n r e a l l y maybe i DID want to see that did you ever think of that)

So like, to sum it up i’d just like to say it’s more detailed, sharper and darker and is simply So Much. There is just More Content

The Case for Root A

ON THE OTHER HAND, (buckle up fuckers)

Depth of Emotion (that Ishida was too much of a pissbaby for): God like you know what I mean if you read the last post, we spent a whole episode on these gay fucks in root A, with backstory and dreams and drawn out suspense and emotion and GUYS LOOK AT THEM NO REALLY OH MY GOD YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND HOW IMPORTANT THIS IS whereas hide’s limelight in the manga is a whole... two pages, oh whoopee, and that’s mostly due to the fact of ishida putting himself in a spot of “oh fuck goddamn if i drew that in i’d get flagged for gay porn” but that’s his own fault, so he downplays the whole scene and really keeps it in the dark, whereas in this anime it’s understandably a lot less,,, like that, but how it plays out here is simply... really nice and makes you cry and shit, whereas in the manga I’d go “oh god oh damn oh fuck” *laughs my ass off because i really can’t take this seriously*. You get just... more here.

To elaborate on this, in the anime, as a gay fucking bastard, I can get practically an endless amount of content from episode twelve, and endlessly stew over all Those Things about it, every hard hitting line, the expressions, the music making it even sadder, the ways the VAs say the words, the cinematic beauty of the blood dripping on the floor and like how it’s supposed to make you think it’s kaneki’s, GOD I COULD FUCKING GO ON, but if we want to get that in the manga...

we get three incredibly basic lines, a blackout, and then a “QUICK LET’S MOVE ON TO SOMETHING ELSE BEFORE ANYONE NOTICES THE IMPLICATIONS OF THAT HAHA”

So if we want to have more, we need to write it. (sadly) None of it is ever played out canonically so like,,, all we can do is infer and make shit up. It’s like, I am a writer so like that’s my whole job but I really would rather have more content, and have the content that’s there get to be emotional instead of *blank face* “this is plot that is happening, sadly” but like maybe it’s just bc i’m gay

Really Fucking Beautiful (aesthetically as well as story-wise): This kind of just goes hand in hand with the depth of emotion bit, and I think it can’t really compared to the manga here because I’m gay so I see pretty colors and cry so the anime is understandably appealing for me, but I’m also talking emotionally, yeah. There’s a lot of plotlines and implications of the story that are really well played out, I always love to watch the original because it does a very good job handling a lot of the harder topics and stuff that makes the whole thing worthwhile- like the whole point you’re supposed to see that the ghouls and humans are both just as monstrous when you break it down, that there are good and bad people on both sides, everyone just wants to live and feel good in their own life and perspective, everyone has reasons that justify their behaviour in their mind, sometimes you just can’t win no matter what, all that... they’re all really important messages and make the whole story, and they were handled much more delicately and with more expertise in the anime.

It’s hard to pin down, but I feel like the manga was just based more on Fight Scenes Characters OoH Fake Science and kind of just gave kaneki infinite power ups after Trying Harder no offense, obviously those things were there and they were still very good in the manga it’s just sometimes they were cheapened a lot by ishida really not keeping track of what he’s trying to say with his story and sacrificing it a lot for “BUT WHAT IF KANEKI’S HAIR AND IDEALS CHANGED AGAIN” instead of making it a whole cohesive work. (and yes, I am VERY aware of your “well aCtuAlLy the hair represents his sanity” thing i know i know and i’m about to rip it to fucking shreds so)

Understandable Character Development And Staying True To It: Which brings me to this point, character development. This was another thing that was just... handled with more expertise in the anime, whoever was in charge of it. Mostly this has to do with Kaneki, since like, no offense but he’s the only one who ever gets much character development other than like, juuzou (asmr you only get character development if your hair color changes) oh and i guess there’s tsukiyama but he’s someone who shouldn’t have gotten character development. Touka gets character development only before re for some reason, and like tbh that’s kind of it. I do think Juuzou’s character development was valid, because well... it made sense? I complained about it before because I was like “well he just turns into spicy L” but i’ve since changed my opinion, he’s best boy. But Kaneki? They went way overboard with him in the manga, and generally? Calm tf down ishida.

Breaking it down, one of the main things that most of the tried and true manga stans seem to hate about the anime the most is Kaneki going over to Aogiri in root A. Since they’re much more acclimated to the manga, they don’t understand why he would do that (quoting a particular ‘probably made sense in the manga!’ yes i know that whole thing was poking fun at the show and i felt it lmao) and they just pin it to “ahaha he has now become Edgy for the fans ehehe time to make fun of him” and TO BE FAIR YOU’D BE COMPLETELY RIGHT. I love to make fun of Kaneki when he does his edgy bitch thing because that’s what he is. A basic edgy bitch who is just,,, such a main character. But like. He does actually have his reasons despite popular opinion and to be honest I think they’re a bit more valid than in the manga, where he’s just like “well I’ve been tortured, that was not pleasant and i kinda did a bad thing, let’s go back to anteiku but i’m just gonna Try Harder To Fight this time”. I can understand that, but like, it seems like in the manga every Character Development of kaneki is some form of “i will now be stronger” except for the singular “I will now be a different person” which, well, we’ll get to that.

In the anime though, even if it seems like more of a basic edgy bitch move, it’s like?? It makes perfect sense to me, and to be honest more than the manga does? Obviously he doesn’t wanna be best bros with Aogiri, he realizes they’re all bad people who have done really terrible things, but the fact is he now sees himself as the same thing, he now understands their motives because in his mind he is also now Bad TM. His whole character development of being tortured was that peace wasn’t an option no matter how much he wanted it, he couldn’t live being a pacifist and the world was forcing him to give the “i am the only one that understands! we need to stop fighting!” bullshit up because there was no way to achieve it. He realized if he kept himself the way he was more people he loved would be hurt like they already had because he couldn’t, so he doesn’t just Decide To Become Stronger, he gives up his humanity. And that includes basically letting himself defend his own actions and try to do “the right thing”.

Him then joining aogiri makes sense because well. They’re the people who are the strongest, who have the power, who are the same as he sees himself. He still wants to protect the people he loves, he just also realizes he can’t do it by working with them since he now understands that their more peaceful ways will by definition get them fucking killed. His understanding is flawed, of course. He’s not really right. But this is his understanding and from that it makes perfect sense for him to join up with aogiri and try to still do as much as possible from that standpoint, realizing that most likely the people he’s trying to protect will hate him for it. I think that makes sense to me, what do you not understand about it? (I also understand that may make some people mad because he’d Doing Bad Things but I point to you he’s so soft, remember when he was really nice to naki when he was literally the one who killed the guy naki was crying about? remember when he was doing a raid and he saw that guy hiding and he never mentioned it? remember like the seventy times he Cried TM, yeah he’s problematic obviously but if you want problematic I’ll point you to a certain fucking black reaper. Shironeki has nothing on that asshole.)

I think what Kaneki did in the manga was fine, but in general the anime (again) had more depth of understanding and emotion versus a steady Try Harder Get Stronger shonen deal, which, well, fair, but like, nah. Continuing why I think the anime dealt it better is the ending of A, which was a lot more well rounded then *kaneki gets stabbed and then there’s a lot of random plot shit going on in the background*. Here Kaneki then got to round out the end of his character development by realizing slowly through the second half of this season, him becoming a kakuja and then basically deciding like, not to

((kakuja kaneki was dealt with again different in the anime and manga because he basically stopped trying to use it in the anime bc he realized it was a bad fucking idea but this goes along with the ‘his character development of “i’m gonna do bad things for good reasons” --> “actually no wait that was a bad idea” was actually done in root A instead of being dragged out into :re and it’s appropriate for its own medium and the messages it’s trying to get across so manga loyalists hate it’ but we digress))

So in root A we got to see him actually develop and realize himself through the second half of the season starting with cochlea, his interactions with Amon, and ultimately through Hide, that he’d been doing the wrong thing by becoming more monstrous/fighting harder because what he did was ended up forgetting the most important thing, *smiles in gay* HIDE.(well, his humanity. yeah. i cite the terrible opening for root A with the fun ‘the hands taking off kaneki’s mask are hide’s’ bit.) He then remembered again why he wanted so bad to stop the war between humans and ghouls, he wanted to be able to live in peace and not have to be a monster- something that was not dealt with in the manga (though for understandable reasons of We Need To Fuck With Him In Re More, they then didn’t deliver on creating something like that later so I take this.)

That’s most of the difference between the original manga and anime, but I’d also like to discuss (briefly, I’ve already yelled about them) the ridiculous amount of hurdles ishida went through to fuck with kaneki in the manga, Of course there is the fact that well, the slower transition of his character does make some more sense for the manga because if you take :re into consideration, his eight billion character changes are more tolerable when they haven’t like, already happened before in the manga (just the anime). It makes more sense there for Haise to be tormented by past kaneki telling him He’s Too Weak because in the manga he hasn’t already had that development prior to “dying”, and he lost his memories still believing he had to be strong even if he did bad things, whereas in the anime it doesn’t track because at the end like i just said he kind of gives up his ghoulhood on purpose because he realizes that joining aogiri and fighting and shit was really wrong because, hide. So I can see why those character decisions were not made in the original when planning for :re, but... the fact remains that those previous decisions do not make up for how absolutely weak :re’s game ended up being with kaneki.

So tldr this entire section, All the manga’s defense of how they handled Kaneki’s development is basically void because all those choices were buildup for development in :re which ishida then COMPLETELY fell down on. So the alternative is better.

And now comes my yelling about how exactly Ishida fucked it up: hair colors and kaneki’s 80 kanekis. If black is supposed to represent sane and white is supposed to represent insane or, whatever, i dunno, who tf thought black reaper kaneki was sane? Who tf would think kaneki in the end isn’t? I haven’t looked into this really, and I’d really love it if someone explained it to me the way ishida was going for bc I do not understand it. Like that tracks with Juuzou, and with Kaneki up to Haise Original, but they don’t really make a cohesive sense seeing as after Haise’s hair color changed again that whole deal kind of goes to shit. Not to mention... I just... they completely failed to make those character changes actually part of the story, I’m mostly complaining about black reaper haise, none of him makes any sense. What’s his deal? He wants to protect who he loves? Tracks with the ghouls but fun fact he abandoned his kids? He actually cared for them? What then, he wants to be the strongest as possible? Sure but then?? Why?? I don’t understand his motives at all.

We also didn’t get to see him get his memories back either, which I was actually very much looking forward to, it just,,, like all of a sudden he’s talking with eto about yoshimura and i’m like bruh when tf did that happen? It’s bad, and although chapter 74-76 is super valid, and his change back into white hair kaneki makes sense, I also have the complaint about how haise basically disappeared just like he was worried he would. I think that was bad and I’ve said that already, it doesn’t make sense, he just literally throws those entire two years away to go back to the way he was before he was with the CCG and just forgets everything he’s wanted for the last few years? Fiction logic test fucking failed, and you’ve also broken my heart. Love Haise. You got rid of him. I love kaneki too but like. Why don’t they just. Like. Merge. He is one whole complex person, not one and an imposter, god.

This is a big negative for re and the manga, so automatically a positive for root A where I simply Do Not Have To Deal With That Bullshit and the character development actually makes sense. I can understand the decisions in the original manga could have set up for good development in :re, but they completely failed to deliver.

root a didn’t fast forward to re at the end god damn let us process this shit first before you try to connect it to something else: The thing with this point is that it’s really difficult to separate the original manga from the continuing story in :re because the thing intertwines so much and immediately moves us forward with a ton of plot points for the next part of the story before we’re done with this climax and the end of this story. Sometimes that’s ok and I can see doing that from an author’s perspective because you want people to continue reading your story instead of taking that as the end but it’s really annoying on a reader’s end, because I’m picky and I want to be able to just be able to enjoy my original canon without it like, metaphorically touching :re on a plate. It’s something that I don’t even do with my own longer stories, like for example I have like a trilogy of >100k fics that like, well i’m technically not done with them but like.

People really like the first one because it’s more focused on a more popular ship and basic elements people like about the thing, and then by the second book it moves on to talk more about the plot and lore and brings in more secondary characters. And so I knew that a lot of the readers of the first one wouldn’t want to have to deal with a lot of the “oh well stuff is happening elsewhere that will effect stuff later!!!” random plot shit that none of my readers actually cared about. So I kept it to wrapping up the points of the first book and then leaving the introduction of new characters and plot for the people who actually wanted to read it. Ishida didn’t do that, and of course it’s within his right to like?? Want to promote the next series but I’d have enjoyed it more if we ended it at kaneki’s “death” and wrapping up the deals with the rest of the characters instead of quickly shoving in the beginning of seventy more plotlines before the book ends. Like honey I simply do not have the reading comprehension for that. In the anime we get something that... makes sense.

In the anime, however, it’s quite the opposite, for example the reveals like Eto=owl=takatsuki sen were pushed before that and they saved episode twelve for, well, the end bit. Like what was actually the ending. There were detriments to this I had to say (LIKE GUYS I GET IT HE’S CARRYING HIDE HE’S CARRYING HIM I GET IT YOU’VE BEEN DOING IT FOR HALF THE EPISODE NOW OK I UNDERSTAND CAN WE MOVE ON) But like, I prefer the concept of a simple idea with as much emotion squeezed out of it as possible to a ton of confusing and contradicting ideas that are touched on for a second before moving on. So the *cries for half an hour* ending was much more appealing to me, and I can keep that separate in my head from any of the ideas that :re creates, letting me pretend it doesnt exist and imagine that’s the end and there’s nothing else to worry about. If we want to move forward and hear more, then we can, but it isn’t necessary like it is with the manga.

No Bad Takes that are hard to pry apart from good plot and characters:This is basically the downsides of the new characters, which is well, if I had to make a whole ~keep reading~ post about how problematic everything in re was that does have to count as a downside. I love the new characters, but they also come intertwined with a thousand really bad takes on like, everything, and of course I can ignore it and just act as though they were written in like, to be perfectly honest, a non transphobic way, it’s a real downside when the original anime was pretty pain-free in the way of their takes on their characters. They fucked everyone up in re and I will not elaborate, we’ve talked about this, it’s just the anime, and which i mean season 1 and root A, don’t really have any bad takes I need to try to get rid of, it’s surprisingly something I have little complaint about at all and I ALWAYS have complaints.

Hide!!!!: Obviously, you can tell that a lot of my opinions are going to be hide based because he’s the only thing I ever think about. But we have to take into account just how... hide???? This goes a lot into the depth of emotion bit but it also offers the other side of the argument for Hide’s part in the :re manga, which well. Was mostly chapter 75 if we’re going to be perfectly honest here. He doesn’t get any other limelight. Even in the chapter where Kaneki meets him again he gets a whole what, three pages? In the manga, he has an extremely valid deal about basically, living, keeping going no matter what, and that is a fitting part for the manga, considering the rest of the points there ride more on Keep Fighting instead of Think About Your Emotions And Morals, but honestly chapter 75 was really valid. So why do I still think the anime’s version where he like (ok I don’t know about the re anime we’ve discussed this, i don’t even know how they choose to explain that) he like, dies in kaneki’s arms is better overall? Again, I would have totally accepted that deal if it was made a part of the story because it made me cry, it was super valid, and if they’d continued in that way I would have agreed with it completely over that. But the fact is again that they failed to deliver, and Hide got largely ignored, suffered so much with so little outcome. There was so much buildup and it was incredibly valid, but when the time came for them to meet again and basically show... why it was important that Hide lived in the end?

They didn’t. They straight up didn’t. Kaneki’s like “oh sorry bro... glad you’re alive and all...” *goes off and fights* and like? Honestly? @everlastingspiral is right, if that’s all they’re gonna do with him what’s the point of keeping him alive? I love every single panel of him and I wouldn’t have read re if he didn’t, but hide gets absolutely NO payoff. For letting kaneki literally vore his entire mouth off, leaving him disfigured and unable to talk, then kind of disappearing for two years and doing seemingly nothing but trying to help kaneki even though he’d forgotten the guy existed, risks his life like a thousand fucking times, eventually gets back to him and the dude’s running a fucking anti-human organization, helps him like Not Be A Volitile Pile Of Flesh Anymore and then what should have been a very important moment of them meeting again gets completely overshadowed by touka and random plot shit and more fights and they barely interact, they don’t even hug or anything, they barely talk, and at the end hide is still there but to be honest he’s gotten absolutely no thanks for all he did and ishida acts at the end as though he’s done very well with hide and gives him a tiny bit at the end throwing in a tragic backstory for fun (which hot take he really didn’t fucking need on top of it all) and... there’s no real hint that Kaneki is better off with Hide there, even though there should be. In 75, in his dream, kaneki is sobbing and crying and all like i’m so lonely without you but when they actually meet each other again? “yo” “hey” “uh sorry about,,, the thing,,, you know” “nah man it’s ok” “let me talk about myself for a bit” “yes you always do do you want to hear what I’ve been up to” “not really” “that’s fine i’m only here to support you”

...So you can understand why I’ve gone a bit sour on that. If that’s all you’re going to give him? Hot take? Let him die. Hide deserves better. (and i will deliver that in writing, but for the purposes of canon.)

In the anime, however (not counting re again... although he still gets the short end of the stick just in the original manga too compared to the anime) he’s properly dealt with! he gets his proper limelight and he gets acknowledged for what he’s done thusfar in the story, which is already so much. Kaneki then realizes that, but it’s already too late (or it isn’t, and they like negotiate with the ccg and then they get to live happily ever after) either way he gets appreciated and he gets hurt, but it’s properly acknowledged. And after all that, after saving kaneki and getting him to the cafe and doing it all while bleeding the fuck out, he gets to spend that time with kaneki and die in kaneki’s arms. And frankly? That’s all I think he’s ever needed. It’s really poetic and pretty and brings kaneki’s character around full circle, and even if it’s overly sappy, cliche, drawn out... he gets the attention he’s due and he gets a fucking break. He wanted to show Kaneki he wanted to do something for him and save him instead of the other way around, but then HE GOT ACKNOWLEDGED FOR THAT, instead of just well, tirelessly working towards it forever and having to be content to be a background character with practically no value to Kaneki anymore.

Keeps The Same Vibe: The big thing about this is that with the manga and with re, shit just goes all over the place, and I feel like I’ve amply showed that already through this essay or whatever this is. Again about the consistency and the professionalism, It’s a concise story that makes more sense than the manga while also being simply neater and more deep, making sure all the points, themes and messages work together and make sense to create a cohesive deal even if it’s not as long. (the manga is like ishida had a TON of good ideas for an essay but then fleshed out the thing ten minutes before deadline and managed to completely lose what his original thesis was even if the thing was 10 pages long.) Basically. yeah. That kind of sums it up, my last point concerns the ending.

Not Cheap Ending: If you want to hear my take about how absolutely terrible re’s ending was, check out my The Many Sins Of Tokyo Ghoul :Re post, and we’ve discussed how the original’s manga ending was bad and well not really an ending, it just leaves you unfulfilled and takes you into “well I guess I have to start a whole nother sequel series ig...” but root A like? Actually ends it? If a reader didn’t know that there was any content after that, they could pretty much infer that hide’s death or almost death whatever you inferred out of that ending (again we’re ignoring re) allowed Kaneki to finish his character development and realize they needed to stop the war, which basically tracks with what’s going on in everyone else’s perspective- eto’s problem with the world because of what happened with everything, is basically like, all of aogiri, juuzou and shinohara, amon and akira and kaneki and they can realize all they have to do is just sit down and fucking stop it because none of them want to be fighting, hide is the catalyst for that because the CCG can see how Kaneki cares for him? And it’s so open ended that you could just like literally believe that and there’d be no way for that canon to tell you otherwise, or you could go onto re and whatever if you wanted to. I think that’s the best thing.

In conclusion, both have valid points, and in general I’d say that the manga goes better with :re and the anime is better as a stand alone but if I had to choose overall, this particular anime is better (taking into account only seasons 1 and 2), for mostly the reasons of favoring a simpler story taken with much more care and depth versus a more complex story with many, MANY imperfect elements, and I am aware I will get shot on sight for this opinion. So sue me.

#tokyo ghoul #hideyoshi nagachika #kaneki ken #tokyo ghoul :re #essay post #god i've been writing this for so fucking long #but i'm right #y'all fuckers asked for a fight? you're getting a fight #rowan's hyperfixation essays

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parrrty-poison · 3 years

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ok so very long post. (not that it matters as i talk to the void askgdjjeh)

let's be real. who's the only two people i really think about when i’m seriously thinking about death? my sisters. my mom too, but mostly my sisters. and ok yeah, maybe what my mom would be like to my sisters if she was dealing with me being gone but that’s a whole other can of worms. in the end it’s always about my sisters. and i truly genuinely believe one of them hates me deep down and doesn’t really care about me, which, fair. i guess you don’t get over the people who were shitty to you in your developing years? except i got over her being shitty right back to me but whatever. i’m the oldest. it’s never been about me. and i think they probably feel like it’s always been all about me because i was so problematic back in the day, which was mostly because of my mom and what we came to find out was literally just my genes so there’s not much else i could have done. that doesn’t make me blame myself any less tho.

it doesn’t matter now. the point is, i pissed off my sisters more than i made them like me i think, and then we started living in different countries and it’s never been the same since then. i know i’m the odd one out in the family now. my parents say they don’t talk to me because they assume i’m always busy with school, which i am, but if they actually tried to talk to me i would find the time. i have way more time now. the problem is after all this time i have absolutely no idea how to reach out to anyone. they only care about me doing well in school anyway. which i do somehow, no matter how fucked up shit gets or how much shit i’m on to get through it. that’s my one real talent. so whenever i talk to them i only tell them what they want to hear and with my dad we’re already constantly dealing with enough other shit with the government by trying to keep me in school and in the country despite this country’s best efforts to get rid of me. so how could i ever bring up my feelings on top of that?? i’m always worried about our family’s financial situation no matter what and i am tired of being a burden because i wasn’t supposed to be anymore, i only am because of the government. so despite my best efforts i keep giving my parents enough to worry about.

and then my sisters. like i said, i’ve been the odd one out for a long time now and i have no idea how to come back from that. i know they’re literally always facetiming, which is the only way i get to talk to my little sister cause carla was here and apparently they can’t go a single day without talking to each other so while she was staying with me i got to hang out with both of them. it kept me sane for a bit there. even if i knew it wasn’t for me. 90% of the time i have no idea wtf they’re talking about and every time i ask them and they try to explain they just dismiss it and say it’s some tik tok shit or something. and yeah ok i refuse to get one cause honestly, social media is toxic af and i have enough shit to worry about already so i don’t have the mental energy for it. and honestly i don’t have the attention span for tik tok. but yeah, i know me living under a metaphoric rock doesn’t help but i’m trying to keep myself somewhat sane. but that means i have nothing to talk about with my sisters.

when carla was here she literally barely interacted with me cause she’s on her phone all.the.fucking.time. to the point where i know it’s straight up rude but i didn’t wanna say anything cause i know she’d just say i sounded like my mom. and i know most of the time she was just texting my other sister and honestly? it hurts ok? maricel was like 11 when i last lived with her and i was 18 so we had nothing in common and now i missed all these fucking years of being around her while she grew up. and somehow she’s still nicer to me than carla. maybe cause i didn’t get the chance to be as much of a shitty sister to her back in the day due to the age difference. she definitely didn’t get the worst of my horribly mentally ill unmedicated self. look, the facts add up ok? i’m not an idiot. i can see why things happen but i have absolutely no fucking idea how to change them.

and in the end what i have is this. somehow, despite my best efforts, which were actually pretty damn good despite everything, i am here again. i mean, my first semester of grad school, all the insane shit that happened in the span of less than 3 months really, that would have broken me back in the day. 2020 may have been a horrible year for everybody but personally, 2019 was a straight-up personal attack. and i made it through. without anyone knowing about any major breakdowns (I guess except for Tom and Borna) and with semi-decent grades. everyone in the program agreed that my first semester was one for the books in the worst possible way.

but i made it to 2020. and then 2020 happened. and i learned what being stuck in a 5x5 room for almost a month does to a person, aside from everything else. and i remember telling my therapist i hoped one of the things we would all learn from the pandemic was how long-term solitary confinement has never been an okay way of punishment. cause that’s the last time i felt truly seriously suicidal and literally had to physically fight myself not to do it. and it slowly got better.

but here we are again. and it’s not the same, not at all. it’s just it’s fucking winter and every winter i struggle to make it through like clockwork. in fact, i thought this time i’d be okay cause i made it all the way to late november just fine, which is unheard of. but i did. and then it all came crashing down like a fucking landslide. and god, i tried to stay on my feet for as long as i could, i really did. but when that wave hit it hit hard. it fucking knocked me to my knees. and for as long as i could i hid behing people, i clinged to them like a fucking lifeline even if i knew they’d rather be somewhere else. i got my sister to stay with me because i knew she hated being with my dad more. it was a win-win cause i couldn’t leave her there, i know how much she hates that place cause i hate it too. she didn’t pay attention to me almost the whole time she was here and i only had so much money to take her out places, seeing as i’m not being paid for work anymore. but as long as she was here i wasn’t allowed to be an alcoholic mess or kill myself. as soon as she left i went back to that.

And then Tom died. i don’t even know how to deal with this still. it only happened last week. but i don’t know how to tell people i need them. and i really do need them. but no one’s coming of their own volition and i never learned how to ask for help cause the couple times i did my mom told me to stop being crazy so i never asked again. and yeah. i’m 24 and i still haven’t fully managed to get past that but since then people have consistently proved to me that asking for help is a waste of time. so yeah, i have no idea how to tell anyone i’m on the verge of jumping off a metaphorical cliff. cause i hate sounding dramatic and i feel like any time i talk about my feelings at all that’s just what it’s like to everyone. dramatic. dramatic and uncomfortable.

and because i never do it, if i do it now it’s gonna be even weirder. i mean, last week i sat on the kitchen floor and listened to justin rant about how he feels his friend doesn’t want to be friends with him anymore and that feeling sucks, i know, but when i mentioned Tom he was like “huh?? oh yeah i forgot about that” like i hadn’t told him about it the night before. he hasn’t asked me how i’m doing even once, no one has. Jo did once and then she bailed. but yeah, i feel like i try so hard to be a good and supportive friend to justin and he just doesn’t give a shit about me. and i have a feeling he, and maybe most of my friends here??, thinks i simply do not have any feelings because i don’t show them in front of people. sure, i refuse to have anyone see me cry ever, but like that’s not the only way to show emotions??? but no one seems to get that???

So sure, no one cares about your feelings when you always seem to be okay on the outside, no matter how much shit you know is happening on the inside. My point is, my sisters hate me or don’t care about me and that’s the only people i really care about hurting. So. Yeah. Fuck what my meds say, maybe it is a good call to kill myself. Only time will tell i suppose.

#i guess heres the rant that ive been holding in forever lol #its the shit i could never write in my actual journal #cause it would require actual ink #and somehow that's harder than just screaming into the endless very public void that is tumblr?

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mittensmorgul · 5 years

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wheee monday! back to the tnt loop! 1.22 gives us a lot...

Bobby, most of all. And the beginning of our Good Practical Demon Knowledge. Not our Christo’s and our Two Part Exorcisms that make the demon wildly more dangerous before sending it to Hell. We learn that demons can keep otherwise dead or dying meatsuits alive, and exorcising them can kill the human trapped inside. We get all of this demonstrated for us via Meg. And we learn a bit more about where Dean’s ultimate moral lines are drawn:

Dean: Sam, there’s an innocent girl trapped somewhere in there. We’ve go to help her. Bobby (comes up to them): You’re gonna kill her. Dean: What? Bobby: You said she fell from a building. That girl’s body is broken. The only thing keeping her alive is that demon inside. You exorcise it – that girl is going to die. Dean: Listen to me, both of you, we are not gonna leave her like that. Bobby: She is a human being. Dean: And we’re gonna put her out of her misery. Sam, finish it.

(which will become interesting again in 4.02... the things they didn’t know at the time literally coming back to haunt them in new and bigger ways because of something new they’re just learning about... which is exactly what makes the spiral narrative spin. The same thing over and over again isn’t interesting, they need to keep leveling up, being forced to build on their knowledge and understanding and applying it to the next degree of cosmic problem, only to learn some more and compound their understanding, only to level up yet again.)

We also learn what’s “normal” for the supernatural world:

Bobby: Normal year, I hear of, say, three demonic possessions. Maybe four, tops. Dean: Yeah? Bobby: This year I hear of 27 so far. You get what I’m saying? More and more demons are walking among us – a lot more. Sam: Do you know why? Bobby: No, but I know it’s something big. The storm’s coming, and you boys, your Daddy – you are smack in the middle of it.

Heck they so did not want this, nor ask for it.

We still don’t really understand Azazel’s motives in possessing/kidnapping John outside of the fact he now needs to reverse his trap, use what he does have, and hope Sam and Dean are just as unable to resist saving John as he was to save them. In the most immediate terms, he just needed the Colt off the playing field. (heh, was he gonna store it in Ramiel’s armory for safekeeping I wonder, or just flat-out destroy it like Dagon did?)

We get our first “whoops they killed a dog, so they’re now irredeemable” when Meg shows up at Bobby’s and kills his dog. (cue 13 years of “Dean is a dog” imagery)

We also get both Meg and Azazel taunting Sam and Dean over the fact that they killed Mary:

Meg: Jeez. You kiss your mother with that mouth? Oh wait, I forgot, you don’t.

and

John/YED: What? You’re the only one that can have a family? You destroyed my children. How would you feel if I killed your family? (he smiles at Dean) Oh, that’s right. I forgot. I did. Still, two wrongs don’t make a right.

And they’re not wrong... for all we learn about Dean’s personal moral code, we also learn his exception:

Dean: Killing that guy, killing Meg. I didn’t hesitate, I didn’t even flinch. For you or Dad, the things I’m willing to do or kill, it’s just, uh .... it scares me sometimes. John: It shouldn’t. You did good. Dean: You’re not mad? John: For what? Dean: Using a bullet. John: Mad? I’m proud of you. You know, Sam and I, we can get pretty obsessed. But you – you watch out for this family. You always have. Dean: Thanks.

When “John” asks for the Colt a moment later, this is where Dean draws another line. He knows it’s not John. In the standoff, “John” and Dean play a weird game of “calling the puppy to them” when Sam questions what’s going on, why Dean has the Colt pointed at “John.”

Tell me this doesn’t sound EXACTLY like 14.20:

Sam: Dean? What the hell’s going on? John: Your brother’s lost his mind. Dean: He’s not Dad. Sam: What? Dean: I think he’s possessed. I think he’s been possessed since we rescued him. (He starts to get upset.) John: Don’t listen to him, Sammy. Sam: Dean, how do you know? Dean (fighting back tears): He’s .... he’s different.

SAM: Our entire lives. Mom, Dad -- everything. This is all you because you wrote it all, right? Because -- Because what? Because we're your favorite show? Because we're part of your story? CHUCK: Okay, Dean, no offense, but your brother is stupid and crazy. And that kid is still dangerous. So pick up the gun. Pick it up... pull the trigger... and I'll bring her back. Your mom. DEAN: No. (Dean takes a few steps back to stand side by side with Sam)

“Your brother’s lost his mind” about Dean, vs “your brother is stupid and crazy” about Sam. Both times, Dean holding Magical Kill Everything Guns and pointing them at yellow-eyed monsters. Dean facing killing his father in 1.22, and someone he considers a son in 14.20. And he couldn’t do it either time, not to get revenge, not to kill the current concept of “Ultimate Evil and Danger” to the world. And yet another parallel between John and Chuck, even if this was actually Azazel speaking here he was using John’s face to do it. This is the archetype of “toxic fatherhood” in the narrative from the jump.

Dean does get one good comeback in:

John: You know, you fight and you fight for this family, but the truth is they don’t need you. Not like you need them. Sam – he’s clearly John’s favorite. Even when they fight, it’s more concern than he’s ever shown you. Dean: I bet you’re real proud of your kids, too, huh? Oh wait, I forgot. I wasted ‘em.

And then after this bit of mental torture, because this is psychological torture for Dean here, the physical torture kicks in. The wounds look shockingly similar, in retrospect, to the ones the hellhound leaves on Dean in 3.16, claw marks down his chest. And both times, Dean is unwilling to kill the person he loves to stop the larger evil thing.

This is also our very first instance of what we’ve come to refer to as a “crypt scene.” Breaking through demonic possession or other mind control to reach a loved one. For a complete rundown, including a description of this scene in that context, please have the very long and complicated history here (excellent reading, btw. Click through the read more for the entire original post and then the s12+ additions in this reblog):

https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/167800948433/elizabethrobertajones-so-basically-you-cant

Just another thread of the big narrative spiral getting broken in 14.20.

And not related to anything I’ve said above, but because heh I find this amusing as heck, just as a weird... production wtf. At the scene outside the Sunrise apartments, there’s two men (one man in the crowd of bystanders and one of the firemen he approaches) who it looks like they were scripted to be possessed by demons in this scene. Both men open their mouths and gasp at the supposed moment of possession. But we don’t see any smoke crawling down their throats. I figure it’s because it was the VFX crew who realized it was implausible for random smoke to be floating around outside a supposed scene of a fire in broad daylight, without drawing any sort of attention from anyone in the crowd. So instead of these demons simply “activating” and coming to the surface of the people they’ve already been possessing, we get this weird “invisible possession” gasp. Because of who I am as a person, my brain has decided these two people were already possessed, but the demons inside them were lying dormant until they were called up for service, like a couple of understudies being told they’re finally getting to take the stage. And they’re both inordinately delighted by this, to the point they do the lil “gasp of excited glee:”

ME?! YOU WANT LIL OL’ ME TO HELP?! *omg okay this is actually happening, we are really doing this, i’m readY I’M READY I’M READY!*

alrighty then, moving on to season two now :’)

#spn 1.22 #spn 14.20 #spn 3.16 #spn 4.02 #s14 hellatus rewatch #it's spirals all the way down #winchester family dynamics #spiders georg of the tnt loop #the ghost of john winchester

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calleo-bricriu · 4 years

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Why would you even want to get his attention though? For real wtf? Did you have a thought process like, "Wow, this one has nothing going for him. Actual war criminal who had multiple attempts at genocide, completely mental from being totally isolated from the world for forty years, old af, probably looked like some kind of haunted house corpse prop, Imma take a run at him!"

For a start, by that point, I had learned the hard way (and several times) that basing anything on looks as the foundation tends to end badly so I can't say I particularly cared that @absintheabsence looked about as one would expect someone to look who'd been in isolation in a small room and living off whatever the failing automation was making.

Now that he's in better physical (and mental, just to address that here) health he looks like an older version of his younger self so, pretty objectively--pretty. Or whatever word you want to use to describe someone you'd involuntarily end up staring at just to make sure you hadn't missed any of the finer details.

He's definitely got the highest kill count of anyone else I know but, not to be flippant, it's not as though it's been an ongoing thing. I am well aware of everything he's done, and it's horrible; that's not an opinion up for debate, it's historical fact.

I agree (surprisingly so does he) that he should remain locked into the life sentence he was given and it is surprising that he wasn't executed but I suppose they thought it'd be worse for someone who was so used to being the center of attention slowly being forgotten.

Personally, I find that a bit cruel and isolation/solitary confinement is objective cruelty; even Muggles know that.

As for age, he's not even close to the oldest person I know and regularly hang around. Most of the people I spend the most time with because work is work sometimes are significantly older than I am.I'm not entirely sure why that's a problem for some people.

The thing is, what I noticed within the first second he grabbed me from the window ledge thinking I was a particularly clumsy bird, which is entirely fair as I was, was the mind that was still there.

You can, if you know what you're looking at, get a lot of information about someone's mental sharpness by looking at their eyes and as inconsistent as it was, I saw the same shrewd look that you can see in any old photograph only without the--wrong light, the one that makes one look unstable. It was sharp and clear and for a long time would only happen for a few minutes at most before getting that dull look of something that's just...tired.

It took a few months of consistent communication and short visits before he'd talk instead of sitting mostly quietly. And even then he would talk about who he was, I suspect, thinking I was there out of interest in what he'd been. That is interesting, of course, but I already knew a good deal of what he'd tell me as it was either a matter of public record or I'd heard stories from family and friends on Mum's side.

So, I started bringing books, various newspapers, and sending copies of things I'd written on modification and detailed explanations of sometimes common and sometimes extremely uncommon charms, curses, things like that along with general letters revolving around theory and testing as well as asking his opinion on them.

Conversation changed to topics that had nothing to do with him or anything he'd done and that seemed to keep him in generally good moods, not to mention he was always polite enough to slow down if I was having trouble keeping up in a discussion. I still sometimes have to scramble to keep up but I can keep up now and the entire depth of knowledge I have about so many different areas of theory and modification has increased exponentially.

The only interest I've ever had in him was wanting to know what makes him tick, so to speak. Historical interest is there, of course, but it a different and detached sense as he hasn't been that person in many decades.

As it turns out, he's also got a wickedly good sense of humour and is a very tactile person; two things I absolutely love.

Those are traits I adore in others as well, including friends.

A sharp mind with a similar interest set will always, always click with me on some level so, I took a run at him, as you put it.

#relationships #hp rp #What did you expect for an answer?

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iwannabeabuffgirl · 4 years

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Society is fucked up.

(Sorry this post is so long) I know as an aspiring bimbo i probably shouldn't have thoughts and i should keep opinions to myself but this is one i can't keep in my inner jock just has to speak up.i love many bimbo blogs and bimboey things but i just stumbled across a blog promoting bimbos weight loss techniques which claim to be healthy but certainly don't look healthy.society is fucked up if you think promoting girls becoming stick insects is an healthy thing.i'm so glad i strayed from that mindset in my teen years and decided to bulk up and not listen to the douchebags promoting skeletal women.some tips mentioned as i won't reblog that shit.weigh yourself daily-no not even as a bodybuilder would i weigh myself daily that causes serious obsessive behavior and mental health problems also causes or worsens eating disorders.never eat from containers-sorry but sometimes tupperware is this girls best friend it carries my chicken breasts and egg whites when i'm on the go.use a weight loss buddy-no thanks what is this compete to see who falls down the crack in the floorboards first.suppress appetite-you are supposed to be a daddy,dom,master whatever you like to be called .you are meant to be the one in charge,the one with the power,the one taking care of her,teaching her what is right and i'm sorry but starving a sub,bimbo,slut,little or any other girl is unacceptable if you tried to.suppress my appetite or tell me not to eat then i wouldn't trust you to be my dom or anyone elses.throw out large plates and large clothes-wtf no way i personally would want bigger plates and bigger clothes to encourage me to grow.take supplements to suppress appetite-how much appetite suppressing is going on here if a girl is seriously overweight or says sir help me lose weight fair enough but if this girl is an healthy weight this is sick you could mentally and physically damage your doll why on earth would you starve her.you want her to fuck and carry out her daily tasks don't you,how can she when she'll have no energy because she's hungry and probably living off things like lettuce,carrots sticks and soup.i believe in supplementation anything that legally helps me put on mass i'll take,i believe in healthy eating and keeping in shape or in my case putting on size and i definitely believe in listening to doms/masters and hope one day i'll have one of my own but this is a red flag to me these are not words of a dom with a subs best interests to me this is someone starving another human being.society thinks women are fucked up for wanting to carry muscle on their frame some of society think it's manly well i think it's society thats fucked up for promoting bones protruding i think society is fucked up by selling too many weight loss products in drugstores and not enough weightgainers or proteins i just went to buy a supplement last night and had to go to three stores just to find it because the other two mainly had slimfast and diet bars.if i had time i would of gone to the mall but mine is a little far away thank god for places like gnc however they aren't always the best for women because i once went in for met rx creatine and protein and the guy says are you buying these for your boyfriend? (I was thinking i don't have a darn boyfriend do i need one to buy two tubs of supps)i said no immediately so he says for your dad then no they are for me i replied. The response and smirk really fucked me off i usually like sexism but not this time.listen sweetcheeks i don't recommend creatine for women my answer was i don't care what you recommend i just want to be served.if you could see this guy sure he was muscly but more like a high school kid or a lean athlete he wasn't exactly 6 ft 3 jacked and handsome.all.he did was smirk again and say so someones trying to build muscle then and finally serve me.i know i'm a woman i know i'm on the smaller side hence why i'm buying supps to aid my diet to bulk up.would you of asked a guy if he was buying for his other half or father i 100% doubt it.what i failed to tell him was one day if possible i want to be bigger and heavier than him.if i ever am i'm going to do a pretty woman on him although he eventually served me.i'll walk.in and be like big mistake huge mistake i have to go to the gym now😛society is fucked up it accepts thin weak women more than it does muscular women i hate that.the only parts of me that i want to be weak are my mind and will for my future dom .i love muscle on both sexes muscles are life to me and if that offends people or makes me manly then so be it.

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insanityinherited · 5 years

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Ladies’ Travelling Necessities

Disclaimer: This is not going to be a neat, 100% PC post. When we talk about gender and gender roles, even in subverting or destroying them, we engage with them and society’s expectations of them. I mean no offence, I am simply trying to articulate how I feel and fit in this world.

It starts with a twinge and a trickle. It progresses to several internal organs ripping themselves apart and great globs of slimy stuff uncomfortably sliding away. You know how some people feel really gross about the word ‘moist’? Or get squeamish when they hear about broken bones and evicerated intestines? That’s how I feel about my period. Actually, that’s how I feel about my physical womanhood in general. Twenty-one days a month I can ignore it, for the most part, because my brain is far too good at compartmentalising. The other nine days a month though? When Aunt Flo comes to visit, when my unwanted subscription to Satan’s waterfall arrives, when it’s Shark Week, when I need to wear ‘ladies’ travelling necessities’? It’s really hard to ignore the fact that I’m a female when every weird little sensory inconsistency reminds me of my vagina.

It has taken me a lot of shifting and fumbling through my thoughts to get here. Clinically, I have no problem separating gender, biology and identity. Personally though? Ooh boy. My head gets in a jumble and things I thought I’d sorted out get juggled and re-thought and shuffled around the giant, old school filing system of my brain. See, mentally, most of the time, I’m pretty much a girl. I think. Physically, I want to be a Ken doll. Or a flat-chested Barbie. Currently, to categorise myself I have cannibalised together a bunch of labels. I’ve sort of ended up with “Sapioromantic Asexual-Lesbian DemiGirl”. Which is sort of complicated, considering most of the world assumes I’m a Homoromantic Lesbian Cis-Woman. I’ve been questioning a lot. How can I be ace and gay? How can I be sapioromantic but only attracted to smart women? Am I demi girl? Or agender? Or non binary? Or fluid? Or... sometimes I find the choices overwhelming. I welcome the opportunity for language and choice for those who need it, but when my brain tries to label me it gets a bit dizzy. So let’s try and break it down, a la the genderbread person. (If you haven’t met the genderbread person, it would be a good time to go google it. It’s awesome).

Let’s start with the easy one: attraction! Physically, I don’t experience a lot of sexual attraction, if at all, and I don’t like to act on it really ever. Making out is okay, I guess. That makes me grAysexual. When I do want to act on sexual attraction, or I’m sorting myself out, I think about or seek out women in a physical sense. Grey-ace Lesbian? It seems a bit much. Mentally, smart women make me say woah. I can’t be any kind of attracted or interested if my brain isn’t switched on and a bit challenged. Sapioromantic definitely fits me. My idea of a good date night is a public lecture on astrophysics. I’m sorry.

The next easiest part of the genderbread person for me is biological sex. Given that it’s been the same down there for twenty-seven years, you’d think it would be the easiest, right? Except that conscious thought about it makes me feel icky. But, I have a fully functioning set of traditionally female parts, so we can go with female and leave it there. Next please!

Hahahahahahahahahaha now we’re up to identity! This took me a really long (although comparatively short) time to figure out. I am not a man. This much I am certain of. In my brain I am definitely, absolutely, never even considered it, completely not male. But I’m also not a woman. This took me a while to accept and understand, because so many aspects of my brain I had been conditioned to understand were tied to my gender- my morals, my ethics, my preferences, my feminism, Hell, even my intelligence, it was all tied to my female-ness. Taking ownership of those things and taking them away from the label “girly” has helped enormously. I’m not 100% a woman. But it’s also made it a little harder- I’m not a girl, I’m not a boy, but I’m also not agender. WTF? After much wandering around the internet, I found the term ‘DemiGirl’. The place I found it is since been cleared from my history, but essentially it laid it out like a pie chart, where one’s femaleness took up a large chunk of the pie but that the other part of the pie was filled with something ‘else’. I’m not sure what the ‘else’ would be for me, but I suspect it’s agender or nonbinary. Anyway, most of the time I feel a bit female but not really female, so DemiGirl seems to be the best label I have found so far.

Expression: ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm... I’m not really sure how I come across. Recently my best-gal told me she wasn’t really sure what pronouns to use for me. Mostly she just avoids using them around me which is fine. “Oi you” works well. But it occurred to me that if someone clever and wonderful like her was struggling to assume my pronouns based on my gender expression, that possibly other people might be confused too. I’ve been thinking about this quite consciously lately, and it’s helped me to make a few mental notes. I don’t wear skirts. I own a few, from a previous life, but in winter I wear jeans and in summer I wear shorts. My hair is almost always contained in a bun or braid. I sit in the most unfeminine ways. I can’t do the princess style sitting with my ankles crossed and my hands in my lap. I wear make up, but not obviously- just to cover up the blotchy skin, really. My voice is a neutral alto, although I have a pretty good range. My hobbies are also pretty neutral- I hike and read and write. I’m not dainty or graceful or any of the things that I think people automatically attribute to a perosn’s apparent femininity. I suppose, if I had to take a guess, I’d say that I present pretty agender/nonbinary, if you ignore the boobs. I’m curious to hear what people think. My bio here and over on twitter asks for ‘she/they’ pronouns, so I guess that’s something?

However, as I lie here on the floor next to the open door, desperately wishing this heat wave had waited until *after* Shark Week, when my body temp would be two degrees lower and my patience would be a lot longer, I am conflicted and confused. The more I accept my feminist rantings, unfortunately-socialist leanings and crone-like appearance, the more comfortable I am in my mental womanhood. Physically though? Rarely-used vagina for sale. Only one owner, comes with endometriosis, free or best offer.

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thewritingpossum · 6 years

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You say 'ask me about my hatred for Rainbow Rowell', so now I'm curious...who are they and what did they do?

Ok, so I’ve had this thing in my blog description for litteral years and you’re only the second person who ever reacted to it, bless your soul, truly. It’s gonna be a super long answer tho so I apologize in advance if it bores you to tears. Also there’s some spoilers for her book Eleanor & Park in this thing, if anyone care about that.

So Rainbow Rowell is a ya novels writer who happens to be highly popular around here (I also think she actually has a tumblr? I may be wrong on that point tho) and who was ever more popular around 2013 when she published her first book, Eleanor & Park, a love story between a fat, non-conventionally attractive girl dealing with abuse and poverty and a mixed race (white and korean) boy dealing with a bit of an identity crisis, all of that with a cool 80’s background. Sounds pretty cool, eh? That’s what I thought but…No.

First of all, this book is incredibly racist. Park (the half-korean boy) has a severe case of self-hatred and internalized racism. He wished he looked like his strong, all-american looking brother who even has an american name and is so much more mainly and can even drive shift (he’s supposed to be his baby brother who is like 13 but I get miss Rowell got confused with her own timeline). I don’t have a problem with that in itself: I can totally imagine a teenager growing up in a mainly white community dealing with that.

My problem is with the ‘resolution’ of the problem: Park realize that Eleanor (the “chubby” girl) prefers asian guy and since obviously the marker of wether you’re worth anything or not is how appealing you are to white women, he magically get over his issues. Eleanor also spent the whole book fetishizing and otherizing the ever lasting christ out of her boyfriend. She constantly refers to him (in her head, to be fair) as “that asian kid”, “that stupid asian kid”, “that stupid, beautiful asian boy” and being sooooo into the fact that he’s asian (and has magical green eyes that are so different and non-asian but sooo pretty ). It’s very uncomfortable to read, tbh.

If you think that’s bad, wait until we get to her mother, who is quite litterally a racist caricature. Mindy (an americanized version of Min-Dae -which is not even an actual korean name, no more than Park but it’s whatever at this point) is a manucurist spoking broken english who gets compared to china dolls by one of the main character. She was born in Korea but was “brought home” by her american husband, a soldier who was stationned in her country (it’s already yikes enough and only get worst when you learn that Rainbow based that whole mess on a picture that she found of her own military dad with a woman in korean: I mean, I guess it’s your prerogative to write romantic fanfictions about your parents but like…The reality of thing is that there were no love story between american soldiers and the women of the countries they occuped and it’s time for her to accept it).

We also get two black characters, who are Eleanor’s best and only friends (only that she don’t really appear to give two fucks about them). They’re named Denice and Beebi, names that reaaaaally stand out in a negative way when compared to all white people’ names and they speak…Well, the way black characters in 80’s teen movies made by white people speak. One of them (I don’t remember which one) is dating a much older boy and planning to marry him after high school because that’s what black girls do, right? So yeah, I truly believe that this book is one of the most racist published in the 2010’s that I’ve personnally read. But that’s actually just part of why I hate it and loath it’s writer.

I also absolutely despise the way Rowell writes about abuse: a huge plot point is that Eleanor endure mental, emotional and (if I remember correctly) physical abuses from her step-father, abuses that escalade to sexual harrasment. Her step-father favores Eleanor’s sibling, including his own biological son but he’s also abusive to them and severely abusive to his wife, Eleanor’s mom. That’s some heavy stuff, and if you chose to put that in ya novel (or any novel for that matter), I expect you to be able to handle that sensibly and in a way that make sense, at the very least. I don’t think Rainbow Rowell even tried.

Spoiler alert on how this book end: Eleanor run away from home, starts living with her uncle, the rest of her family escape a little later and her step-father stay alone and brooding in town. WTF?? The idea that abusive men would just be like “oh well, guess I have to accept that my wife left with our children and there’s nothing I can do uwu” is literally stupid. Either the writer didn’t bother making even the most basic researches on abuse dynamics or she did and chose to ignore it. And even outside of that…Talk about a deus ex machina and a cheap fucking ending lmao…

I only read another one of her book, Fangirl. It’s about a girl with anxiety disorder writing gay fanfics and was understandly popular on tumblr when it came out (i’m not hating btw, like…I’m a mentally ill binch writing gay stories so..). I didn’t found it as offensive as Eleanor & Park but her portrayal of mental illnesses was basic and often bordering on insensitivity (I really felt like one of the character’s bipolar disorder was treated as an inconvenience to other characters above anything else).

Also, the anxious character spent a huge chunk of the book eating energy bar because she’s too afraid to leave her room and go eat in the dining hall…Girl, I’m supposed to believe you spend your whole time on your computer and you never heard of ordering takeout online?? Or just going to buy shits to eat at the supermarket?? How far am I supposed to suspend my disbelief to enjoy those books?

One last thing: a huge chunk of Fangirl is an actual fanfiction about some HP ripoff. Well, my homegirl Rainbow published a whole damn book about her actual Drarry fanfiction. I love fanfiction but I really think there’s something sketchy about putting a fake fandom in your book that’s very obviously based on an existing piece of work and then making money off your imitation but maybe that’s just me.

I would probably be able to chill a bit if Rainbow Rowell was not generally presented at this great representation queen who can do no wrong (and yes, I’m aware that she’s not responsible for the way people chose to portray her). Luckily for me, she’s somehow less popular on Tumblr that she once was and I get to have a break from her weird bullshit.

#this is so long and i feel i don't even say that much but oh well #y'all know i can't express even the more basic concept in less than 218729 words #anti rainbow rowell #racism #racism in ya #answer #cedrwyndden

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lhaewiel · 5 years

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Watership Down (2018): the review no one asked for

But the review I am going to do anyway because of all the feels.

Premise

Not so many of you know that I LOVE Watership Down to bits. The book has been a huge presence in my life and I have read it countless times. Especially during the times where I was hopeless and those times where I nearly let myself go into dangerous areas like suicide, I would read the book and it would console me.

This is also a huge memory from my mum, who passed away, and this book was handed to me by her. This book is a huge deal for me and this is also why I am doing this today.

I have seen also the 1978 animated adaptation and I’ve seen the 1999 animated series. I will talk briefly about them in a few moments.

I will keep the rest under the Read More, as this will be long.

Without further ado, I’ll start the review.

The book

As mentioned, the book is a huge deal for me. The story, besides the already mentioned emotional hang on me, is a very interesting one. It tackles themes like the fear of changing, the dangers of the unknown, plus the dangers of a regime, there’s a bit of environmentalism and it’s overall well written and a 11/10 would recommend.

It is a story about growth.

It is told from the point of view of wild rabbits, which is unusual. Richard Adams, the writer, is passionate about the subject and has read/consulted/conducted studies on wild rabbits, their language and their behaviour before writing this masterpiece. There are notes and explanations and every chapter starts with a literary quote that hints on what the chapter is about - and I sometimes propose this structure when writing down my fics.

Anyway.

I was really happy to see the 1978 adaptation, although not completely satisfied, and I also watched the animated series, which deviates a ,lot, but creates an interesting storyline and I would love a reboot of it at a certain point in time. I was not particularly thrilled at the beginning, but then it grew on me and this series is a beloved of mine.

The 2018 adaptation: the five stages of grief

I have written, in these two days, a lot of comments, which I will be listing here as FYI. They illustrate perfectly how I feel overall about the 2018 movie.

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15 / 16 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 20 / 21 / 22 / 23 / 24 / 25 / 26 / 27 / 28 / 29 / 30 / 31 / 32 / 33 / 34 / 35

For the full comprehension of how fucking livid I am I suggest you read the comments above, they are all one-liners, quick to read and easy to understand.

I think, as mentioned above, this movie has made me pass through the 5 stages of grief and I think I’m still processing part of it. The problem, I think, it’s because this whole miniseries was 99.9% aimed at those who don’t know anything about the book, or the 1978 adaptation, or the 1999 series. As a standalone piece, without the knowledge of anything prior to this, the movie can be considered good.

But, considering that Watership Down is a niche work and not so many know about it, the whole fanbase is made of people who know this work and any adaptation by heart - trust me, this is not a huge fandom, it’s not DC or Marvel, it’s something you need to have read about previously because otherwise you wouldn’t know anything about it. We are the same 15 people in this fandom - let’s call it fandom ok?

I barely missed this because this new series was not even advertised and I did not miss it because 1. I am a huge nerd and b. I LOVE WATERSHIP DOWN.

So to say, the 99.9% of people don’t know about Watership Down, the 0.1% does, therefore only the 0.1% is watching this movie, which is not aimed at this 0.1%, but at the 99.9% who knows nothing. Of course there will be backlash. Of course there will be discourse. The 99.9% of people who know nothing will look at the 0.1% in the discourse and go “WTF, this movie is amazing!” and the 0.1% will probably yell “GO READ THE BOOK!” and there will be more discourse. Well done. Slow clap to BBC and Netflix. SARCASM.

*inhales*

To be honest, there were moments where I liked the movie, and I am going to go more into detail now.

What I liked

I want to give props for the cast chosen to voice the characters. I mean, Peter Capaldi, John Boyega and everyone else? I am pretty satisfied with the choices and I think the voices compliment each other really well.

I do like the soundtrack and the songs. I mean, “Bright eyes” by Simon and Garfunkel is iconic, but “Fire on fire” gives more atmosphere to the whole series.

I do like the animation a lot, I like the scenery and the various shifts. The warren of the snares was something out of a horror movie and I loved it, I think the scenes were created very well. Fiver’s visions were well rendered and Efrafa actually gave me chills on how it was rendered better than the other adaptations.

I liked Strawberry, she was very sweet and I guess I can see why they chose to make them a doe instead of a buck. Oh and the relationship between Dandelion and Hawkbit, and Blueberry and Blackberry, that was gold.

Unfortunately here it ends.

What I disliked

The overall OOC of the characters. Like, Hazel questions his abilities, but he is charismatic and is a born leader and this is why everyone follows him. He’s respected and the sentence “My Chief Rabbit told me to defend this burrow” is said by Bigwig out of pure and sincere respect for Hazel and the Efrafans literally shit themselves.

Ah, Bigwig. Yes, he’s big, he’s angry, but he’s also POLITE, with a HEART OF GOLD, and YES HE GETS FRUSTRATED, but he’s always RESPECTFUL and APOLOGISES. I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS FOR BIGWIG OKAY?

THEY DECIDED TO MAKE KEHAAR A HUGE JERK, when in fact he loves those rabbits to bits and never thinks twice about defending them. Also YOU BLOODY COWARDS, KEHAAR DOES NOT SPEAK THE RABBITS LANGUAGE, THERE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A HUGE LANGUAGE BARRIER AND BIGWIG TEACHING KEHAAR TO SPEAK THE RABBITS LANGUAGE YOU

FOOLS

THE “BIG WATER” IS ACTUALLY SOMEWHERE AROUND THE BALTIC AREA YOU

DOUBLE FOOLS

*inhales*

You cut off the whole boat scene. THAT WAS A FUCKING PLOT POINT!! What was the point of showing that the rabbits could use a piece of floating junk to cross a river if then this was not employed later on?! The whole plan of actually make it out of Efrafa was created around that boat you

TRIPLE FOOLS

The plan was for Bigwig and the does + Blackavar to reach the bridge next to which Efrafa was built, jump in the boat and FLEE, leaving Woundworth and his Owsla so surprised they would not even have the mental and physical strength to follow Hazel, Bigwig & co. any further.

Also, during the Siege you cut off the scene where Fiver gets possessed by El-ahrairah and makes the Efrafans Shit Themselves Pt. 2

And what was the point of showing that Dandelion was the Flash of the rabbits, if he didn’t make the dog run after him to bring mayhem and destruction to the Efrafans?

Anyway, most of my commentary is linked above.

I also noticed the overusage of terms in rabbit language. If someone is not a fan of the series, they would not understand terms like “flayara”, “hrairoo”, “Tzorn”, “silflay hraka”, “Fu-Inlé” etc. You could have put some note at the bottom of the screen, like Lord of the Rings did with Elvish and Dwarvish.

Final thoughts

This whole thing gives me the feels. As a standalone piece, this movie is great, were I not to know anything about the series, then I would say a nice “well done”.

Unfortunately, with the knowledge I have, I can’t say I’m satisfied. I can’t say I’m okay. Was it nice? Yes, overall, but the whole storyline is not something I’m satisfied with. There were important pieces sacrificed for the sake of having something and considering that this was a miniseries, therefore something not to be necessarily crammed in 2 hours or so there were things that could have been better dealt with.

I’ll end this here, but feel free to come to me if you want to talk about this.

#watership down #2018 watership down #review #I had to #sorry not sorry

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mcjour · 3 years

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ok so this is a secret blog so i don’t expect anyone to be reading this (and if anyone is reading this, wtf??? leave). but just on the off chance someone stumbles across this i will include this content warning for me processing racism as a white person. and ofc my normal mental health issues and ptsd shit and bla bla bla

so i watched the interview with oprah and meghan and harry and it resurfaced some of the stuff i have been processing. with my old job. and weaponizing white tears basically.

because i have been really struggling with what happened. obviously. it’s all i have been thinking about for literally over an entire year. love ptsd. not.

basically i had a shitty boss who was my ex friend. i am white. she is a woman of color. she treated me like shit. when i talk about what happened to me, people outside of the organization are like wow that’s really fucked up. people inside of the org cut off contact with me. i THINK it’s because the org is a literal cult and i criticize the cult and obviously if you are in a cult then you can’t really accept criticism of the cult. also some people were her friend too so obviously they would side with the friend over me. idk.

but there’s part of me that is like??? maybe i did something racist??? and that’s why she was so rude to me??? or the thing that happened on the last day of the retreat?? was that racist???? i feel like i did something wrong and i don’t know what it is and that kills me.

like. i feel like what happened HAS to be my fault. because i can’t make heads or tails of why else the things that happened happened. and because i don’t know WHAT i did, maybe it was something racist that i just don’t see because i am white???? which is so............. i don’t even have the words.

but when i think back on some of the events of what happened, i could see how an outsider could think that i was weaponizing white tears and being manipulative and using mental health as an excuse...

i do not believe that is what happened.... but maybe it is..?

and i hate that, that wasn’t what was happening at all. but when abuse happens you feel like it’s your fault. it has to be your fault. news flash, marginalized people can be awful too. they aren’t a monolith and they aren’t always right about everything oppression related. granted, they are probably more likely to be right than a white person LOL, but there are plenty of problematic poc too.

it’s hard, because which of us had more power? we both held power in different ways. she was my boss, she was cis and straight. i was white.

what happened on the last day of the retreat wasn’t good. i know stepping away was a bad choice, but so was staying. i couldn’t win either way. i still stand by my choice: that i couldn’t participate in that activity. it was an awful thing as a white person to step out of. i will freely admit that. but i was literally having a ptsd flashback (that started the day BEFORE, not related to the activity), and i would’ve distracted people with my unrelated sobbing, and i would’ve gotten exactly ZERO out of the activity because my mind was literally not in the present. but they wanted my body there. idk how that was supposed to help. it was cruddy no matter what. i was happy to have that conversation at literally any other time just not during the midst of a flashback. but it is a one time event. i get that. it wasn’t fair on either side.

but i could see, if you were someone who didn’t realize i was literally in a flashback, that it would be wacky af to see me just skip that.

and that brings up the question of like??? which trumps the other?? a mental health crisis or a conversation on racism?? IDK. I guess that’s where I get stuck. i think a lot of white people can feign a mental health crisis to evade those conversations. and that’s really fucked up. and makes me look bad. that wasn’t what i was doing at all. but from the outside, how do you see the difference? my crisis was from something the previous day, but how would anyone know that? even i was at a loss for words. i mean, i was legitimately in a ptsd flashback, i didn’t exactly have the words for why i needed to go home at that moment.

and i thought maybe people could see that. like. i’m not advocating for a “free pass” or anything like that. but also i have the demonstrated history of having and facilitating these conversations. i speak up all the time, participate in a lot of these things. i’m not saying it’s enough. i’m not saying i’m a perfect ally. but idk there’s a difference between skating around issues all the time and walking out just one time.in fact i fully intended to ask others about what happened/ but in nicer words. i wasn’t trying to avoid the conversation, i was literally sick.

i hate that they did that to me. they didn’t really give me a good option. the best option was to let me go home. i was very very unwell. i wish i had asked the night before, but i didn’t realize how bad i was. i thought i could sleep it off. i couldn’t. what the hell. they talk about self care a whole lot yet they trigger a flashback and don’t let me take care of it?

then we did go home bla bla bla weekend happens and monday happens. and my boss is pissed about what happened. not for me, but for what i did. i can’t blame her. i knew it wasn’t a good look. and i couldn’t really articulate what was happening. so when she was yelling at me, i wasn’t really upset about the yelling and the tone. like i understood. well that’s not the right word. but what really got to me was the cruel things she said. it was personal attacks. not even about what had happened anymore. just attacks on who i was as a person. and truthfully i had not even fully come out of the flashback yet. in retrospect i should’ve stayed home that day, but i felt like i would be judged for that. so here i was, in a flashback, and this woman is kicking me when i’m already down. and that pushed me to the edge. i was inconsolable. they brought me to the hospital because i wanted to hurt myself

and this is the other place i’m stuck. like... was that me being manipulative?? was this me weaponizing my mental health? once again, what trumps what? i think she had a right to express her frustration with me. but i was still in a flashback! that’s not her fault either, and how would she have known that? but i think she still took it too far when she was saying things like everybody hates me, i’m a terrible person who has never done anything for anyone but myself, etc. and she used to be my friend, so it felt like she was targeting exactly where she knew it would hurt. so where is the line, i guess. i don’t want to tone police an upset woman of color, but it felt like this became something else entirely. like this was no longer about what happened the previous week before.

and it’s not true??? people didn’t hate me (or, idk, i guess she must’ve), and i did things for people all the time....

and once again i wish i had the language back then to better communicate what was happening. it would’ve helped me. and maybe some people would not have been so upset. i may not have been forgiven entirely and that’s ok, but at least i would’ve stood a better chance with some things

i try to think about it in another perspective. i am not saying racism and other forms of oppression are equivalent and can be switched out. i know this is not true. but for the purposes of my own processing exercise, i had to imagine, what would i feel if this were me. if we were having some sort of conversation about homophobia perhaps, and a straight person disappeared.

LMAO first of all that cult did not give a fuck about lgbt people anyway so it’s not even a realistic exercise.

ok well. truthfully.... i might be confused. maybe a little annoyed. i think i would give someone the benefit of the doubt. like idk... most people wouldn’t just leave to go fuck around for an hour (and those people who would are not relevant to this conversation). or i wouldn’t even notice they were gone.

there is one person i would notice actually. because i would probably keep looking over at her. because she was homophobic and was not exactly secretive about it. so of course i would want her there. and would probably be pissed if she wasn’t. but also i know she has a disability. and so if she had said “oh my disability is acting up” maybe i would be suspicious, but why not believe her? and yeah it would suck that she missed that conversation and all those testimonials. i would also probably check in with a few people to make sure she was caught up on the things that were said. not personal stories, but whatever else was said. i could see being truly very annoyed about it. i could see snapping at this girl maybe, not knowing what to believe (and i think that’s kind of ableist of me, honestly). but i can not imagine the conversation ever turning the way it turned on me. telling her that everyone hates her and she’s never done anything for anyone, etc. ???? what???????

and i wish i came up with another excuse. i mean i didn’t come up with any excuse, i just told the truth. but i wish i lied and said i was shitting my brains out or something. i feel like that would’ve been more acceptable, a physical illness isntead of a mental illness. like if i said i had stepped out because my bowels were exploding, could people be mad at me??? idk.. like would they want me to poop my pants to say my body was there? probably not. so what is the difference between diarrhea and ptsd?

and i hate that i dwell on that shit. working at that place was toxic as fuck, and i needed to quit. honestly, i had considered it a bit before that, and by the time my boss was calling me names, i was leaning further and further towards it. but i loved those kids. and so it was difficult for me to plant both feet firmly in that truth. maybe i would’ve gotten there sooner rather than later. but they fired me for having mental health problems. how truly fucked up, fired for having a ptsd flashback that THEY TRIGGERED WITH THEIR STUPID ACTIVITY THAT THEY KNEW WAS TRIGGERING! AHHHH! anyway back to the point. i hate that instead of being like “wow i wish i quit before it got to that point/ got that bad” all of my thoughts and my nightmares have been like “well if i did this instead of this, and if i had done xyz, then maybe they wouldn’t have fired me” i know leaving the org was so important, regardless of how it did happen. but my brain is still stuck on “how can i not get fired. what could i have done differently”

and the truth is probably nothing. like ok even if i had been the most angelic person ever that whole retreat (therefore no need for the follow up), i’m sure something else would’ve come up down the line. this wasn’t truly ~out of nowhere~, i had been gaslighted etc for the months prior.

(which reminds me how she said i was disengaged and disrespectful the whole retreat. what? if you just remove the mental health drama for a moment.... i led an activity, actively participated in another activity (about, gasp, racism), shared during a writing activity (where people complimented me, and one girl even came up to me crying telling me about how i impacted her) so yeah... so disengaged... (did you mean.... dissociated)... such a bad role model

also......... that cult is racist. not explicitly i guess. i mean they parade themselves as a social justice org. but.... the whole org reeks of white saviorism, and they def exploit labor of all of their “volunteers” but esp the marginalized ones. so idk why i care if these random white people think i’m racist when they clearly don’t have a grasp on their own. i don’t mean that in any “holier than thou” way, just.... i hate the way my brain works. in that i just crave acceptance so badly that i can’t even step back and be like “why even want these people”

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allthislove · 6 years

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I’m not proud of myself.

Today, I finally blew up at my roommate- soon to be former roommate. For me, it had been a long time coming. Living with her hasn’t exactly been a walk in the park. Though she stays gone much of the time, usually not coming home before 9 or 10 PM and leaving before 8 AM, when she is home, she treats the apartment like it’s her domain. You ever met someone who wants everything done their way, or it’s a problem? She’s this way.

She’s belittling, undermining, and controlling... and per our conversation today, and the last time we had a big discussion like this a month ago, manipulative. (She loves to turn my complaints around on me, or twist the conversation into me somehow being in the wrong.)

Here’s the thing. She isn’t a bad person. In fact, I think if we hadn’t ever lived together, we could’ve been friends. She and I enjoy some of the same things, and she has a jovial attitude, when she’s... not in her “do as I say” mode.

The major problem is that she just sees herself as the boss of the apartment. I believe she sees it as her apartment, and I’m just the person she let live with her. It’s my fault, though. For one, when we secured the apartment last summer, I hadn’t yet moved up to Brooklyn and had no intention of doing so until my semester started at NYU. So, she actually found the place (which is nice, but is in an area I hate), and she moved into it before me (though we signed the lease at the same time, and I paid rent and all deposits even before I got there.) I was assured that these things wouldn’t be a problem, but they were. The first few months I lived there, I felt like a guest. Not like.... she was treating me with hospitality and with courtesy. Like, I was a person invading space that belonged to her. Space that I paid equal rent and utilities for, mind you.

Then, as time went on, she became more and more of a control freak. It was blaming me for not taking out trash or washing dishes, it was manipulative lies about “not feeling like I(she) should have to clean up after someone.” It was “I just feel like if you use my dishes and don’t wash them right after, it’s disrespectful.” When I moved in, she and her mother insisted that she had all the dishes and appliances we needed, and I didn’t have to buy anything. When I expressed discomfort with that idea, they assured me it would be fine. I knew it would become a problem, and it did.

My biggest mistake, thought, was getting hooked up with her in the first place. Her family is friends with my aunt’s family. They knew we were both headed to New York around the same time, her for work, me for grad school, and everyone was suggesting to me that we should move in together. Something inside of me said that wasn’t a great idea, but I did it, anyway. It was convenient and I figured it couldn’t be a bother, because I was mostly focusing on school. Now, I’ve told the girl off, and my only worry is for my aunt’s relationship with her friend.

My final straw came today. I’m back home with my family, and my roommate, like she does, sent me a Venmo charge for the electric bill. Which is fine. What isn’t fine is that she kept sending me reminder notifications. Which she’s done in the past, which I’ve asked her not to do. Then, I texted her and asked her not to send me reminders. She responded “Please me then”. I don’t know what she meant by that, and I sort of think it was a typo meant to say “pay me then.” But either way, it was rude and ugly and my LAST STRAW. Mind you, I pay all of my bills on time. I pay other bills than the measly one(s) we share together. This bitch has been trying to mentally paint me as a deadbeat who doesn’t pay bills for M O N T H S, which is fucking annoying, because I PAY ALL OF MY BILLS ON TIME. I pay 1 credit card, 1 cell phone, 1 medical payment, 2 insurance bills, Hulu, Netflix, HBO Now... EVERY MONTH. Not including the rent, electricity, and internet we pay together. (Oh, I also sponsor a child every month.)

Now, this fucking electric bill. I have actually never seen the actual bill. I never see how much the fucking bill costs. I have never seen when it’s due. I just take her word for it when she sends me a Venmo charge. And I pay it. Usually not that exact second, because I DON’T HOP TO for anyone and it’s Venmo, and the bill is PAID to the company, which is what matters most- essentially, I’m just paying HER back for it. Which is actually not a mode I like, and I didn’t tell her to set it up this way, and I’d much rather send money directly to the electric company than pay her back, but whatever. Mind you, I asked her months ago to tell me WHEN the bill was due and how much it was so I could determine my half and pay it to her on my own. I don’t need anyone to remind me to pay bills. I’m actually adult af, I’ve been paying bills on my own for Y E A R S. She has never shown me a bill nor told me when it’s due. She also claims she Venmos me on the same day every month, which is patently false.

So, yeah, usually by today (the 28th-ish of each month) I’d pay rent and electricity and internet at the same time (meaning I’d pay rent to the landlord, and pay this roommate over Venmo).

So, anyway, she texted me “please me then.” Which was a fucking weird ass text. So, I text back “Wtf. How about you sent me an actual copy of the bill. This shit is annoying af.”

Then she called me. She called me, thinking she was gonna “Queen Mother” and manipulate me into submission. But little does she know, the week I left to come home (the day after my birthday, May 18), I vowed that she had ONE MORE TIME to try me. And she caught me on the right day. When she started out her mouth with her bullshit, I LET HER HAVE IT. I READ HER FOR FILTH. And she kept trying her manipulative “no, you’re the problem” bullshit, but every time she came out her mouth with some shit, I read her even more. She even tried some “I don’t see what’s the problem with reminding you about a bill that’s PAST DUE”, to which I said “HOLD UP, sis, I PAY MY BILLS ON TIME. And you never told me when this bill was due, EVEN WHEN I ASKED YOU TO, so don’t even start that bullshit.”

And, like... I’m happy that I stood up for myself, and let her know that I’m not her doormat, I’m not her underling, and I don’t need her nor answer to her, but I’m sad that it had to come to this. Because I know she’s going to cry to her mom, and it’s going to get back to her grandma, and then to MY AUNT, and it’s going to be a whole thing.

And I know she’s going to lie and say “my roommate never wanted to pay bills and stuck me with everything.” Because, she said similar things about previous roommates when we first moved in together. She said she’d had problems with roommates in the past. Which is a red flag. Which I ignored, because ... I don’t always trust my intuition. But I guarantee her problems with roommates in the past is because she’s a bossy, manipulative person who wants everything her way and thinks people are supposed to fall in line after her. Which... is not me. Could never be me.

And, like, it SUCKS because my aunt is really good friends with her family. Like, besties with her grandma. And also, I’m NERVOUS about my social interactions with people, and never wanted to have a roommate because I think I end up making everyone hate me (which isn’t really true, but you know... the few bad times always stand out.) And, like, I have one more year at NYU, and I have to have one more year of having roommates, probably, and I’m really scared to have another situation like this.

And New York City is so expensive that living by yourself is hard or impossible. Like, unless I find some kind of really well paying job that is willing to allow me time to finish my classes, getting a place by myself isn’t really an option, or is a very unlikely option.

ALSO, I think living with her was so stressful it was making me physically sick, and making my body have really adverse stress reactions, so there’s that. (Seriously, like... I was having a lot of stress-related health issues that ARE GONE AND I’VE ONLY BEEN HOME A WEEK.)

So... anyway, if any of y’all read this and care... please wish me luck in finding comfortable, nice housing in a nice area so that my home life can be comfortable and my only stress can be finishing my thesis so I can graduate next spring. And please send me “great roommate” vibes! I’ve heard of so many people finding roommates that become like family, and I need that in my life....

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coldtomyflash · 6 years

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So I've been following your tumblr for a while now, and I've seen everything you've had to say about the crossover. I should preface this by saying that I am white with no Jewish ancestry. So I suppose my place isn't the question, because this does not affect me directly. However: I do not understand how showing Nazis as villains is a bad thing. I am not questioning that it hurts people. I've seen that it clearly does. What I question is "Why?" I don't grasp why Nazi=villains is a bad thing.

I’m going to be bluntly honest here. I had to mentally dismiss about ten blithe responses to this that were on the order of that now-infamous tweet “I don’t know how to explain to you that you should care about other people.” I know that’s not what you’re saying, but I struggled, when I read this, to grasp how you could say that you see the harm (hurt) it is causing and yet don’t see that it’s wrong.

And how it could be true that you’ve actually read this post, and this one, and this one, and this one, and this one, and this one, and some of the other stuff I’ve put in my tag for the crossover, and yet still be confused about this. And one of those posts, mind you, explicitly explains why it’s more than just “they made Nazis the villains of the crossover”.

And part of why I was tempted to answer blithely is because, given all that, I think it’s been explained time and again what the issue is here, and how it goes so far beyond the fact that them making Nazis the villains is the problem. The other part is because to re-explain it, to break it down to its elemental components? That takes time - hours from the time I started thinking about this to the time I’ll be done writing it - and energy - in terms of research and resources. I’m doing a lot of labour for you, emotionally and physically here. And part of me wants to shirk that labour, to put it on you to do it.

But… I can’t. Because I can answer your question, at least from my own perspective, and it is an important one to answer. Because before I understood just how much my own privilege impacted how I see the world and started to actively push back against it and expand my perception, I probably wouldn’t have fully understood either.

So I can’t explain this as eloquently or succinctly as some other people. And I can’t explain this from the perspective of someone who’s directly being harmed by this crossover (because I am also white and a gentile). And I’m sure many people people who are direct targets of Nazis would tell you that “isn’t it enough that it is harming me?” and they would be right, full stop. That would be an acceptable answer.

But I’m going to do my best to give you the understanding I genuinely think you’re looking for, allowing for the fact that others may have more to add or clarify, and allowing for the fact that my answer is inherently limited by my privilege.

I trust that you’ll read to the end, even though it’s long. And if at the end you still can’t understand, or you think I’m exaggerating, then I urge you to think on this, to sleep on it, and to read more and more about it. And even without understanding, to respect the voices of the Jewish (and gay, and Rroma) people who’ve spoken out about these problems time and again when things like this crop up. Amplify those voices, even if you can’t see the long-term ramifications of why this is ‘Bad’ yet.

First, the issue here cannot be reduced to “Nazis are the villains of the crossover.” Because that [.] at the end is actually a […]. It really goes like this: Nazis are the villains of the crossover…

… and the premise is based on the notion that Nazis won and have world domination.

… and that premise implies that Nazis are so powerful that with a bit of ‘bad luck’ in history, Nazis could have won.

… and that premise contributes to the mythic aggrandizing of Nazism that makes so many people Nazi sympathizers or apologists.

… and many heroes doppelgangers are Nazis.

… and Jewish-coded heroes’ doppels are Nazis.

… and a Jewish-coded hero who came to earth at age 12 and was raised on better principles than that still became a Nazi.

… and that notion spits on the original intent of the Jewish creators of these characters.

… and all of this implies that “good and heroic” people can still turn out to be Nazis, undermining the very message heroes should send. (Being a hero only when it’s easy is not being a hero at all. Doing the right thing when it’s against what society enforces is what makes them heroes.)

… and this turns the heroes that people (including Jewish people) look up to for hope and comfort into symbols of hatred and genocide.

… and the Nazis interrupt an interracial marriage between a Black woman and a Jewish-coded hero (who is canonically Jewish in parallel media like the DCEU) for the sake of drama.

… and the Nazi doppelganger outfits are designed to look ~*sexy*~ to an uncritical viewer.

… and the ~*sexy*~ doppel outfits include genuine Nazi symbols from WW2, which are pretty damn triggering to a lot of people. (But yet no sign of a swastika because that would most likely turn those uncritical viewers too far off).

… and they’re ~*sexy*~ enough that people already want to cosplay that Nazi and buy merchandise of that Nazi paraphernalia.

… and the promo photos show that a Jewish woman and a Black woman are going to be targeted specifically, thus capitalizing directly off threats and violence to actual historical victims of the Nazis.

… and the promo photos treat Wellsobard (many people’s fave villain) as an allusion to Dr. Mengele, one of the most infamously disgusting and reprehensible people to ever exist.

… and the promos show us images of a gay character and actor wearing a ‘Pink Triangle’ once again being used as a symbol of hate and shame.

… and there is a good chance that a Jewish character (Martin) is going to get killed off during this crossover.

…and the storyline is likely focused on the love story between a white gentile and a Jewish woman who gets targeted by his evil Nazi doppelganger.

… and the shows already have a history of antisemitism by putting a Jewish woman in a gas chamber (wtf Arrow), killing a Jewish one-off villain with radiation in a compressed chamber (Atom Smasher, wtf The Flash), erasing the Jewish identity of some characters (e.g., Ray Palmer) and failing to mention another’s (Martin’s) in three seasons (c’mon Legends), and no-doubt more.

… and … this list goes on. It really does. This is not exhaustive.

And you might be tempted to think “but if the Nazis are defeated, and shown unequivocally to be the bad guys, then isn’t it okay? Isn’t it historically accurate that the Nazis would target the Jewish and Black and LGBTQ characters and wear Nazi symbols anyway? Many of the main producers are Jewish or gay, they’re not trying to say anything good about Nazis.”

So this is where we have to talk about narrative framing, implicit associations, and sociological implications.

The concept of framing in psychology deals with how we can present the exact same information in different ways and get vastly different responses. How we present information, even paired down to simple basic statistics, massively impacts how people internalize and encode that information and therefore how they respond to it.

In narrative, we know that how we frame a character’s motives and background influence how they’ll be perceived by the audience. So many heroes in action movies kill and murder their way through a scene, but their crimes are justified by the narrative frame, whereas the villain’s won’t be. Or in order to humanize villains and make them sympathetic, the narrative may shift the viewer’s paradigm by re-framing the information: yes this villain is an asshole who hurt your favourite character, but they’re doing it because of [x].

So when we look at the crossover, we have to interrogate how it’s being framed. Are the Nazis villains? Yes? Good, check. … But the Nazis are also doppelgangers of our beloved heroes?… Okay, right off the bat, that’s bad.

That will make some people inherently sympathize with the Nazis doppels and like them. We have an emotional and automatic response to these faces, to these people, that is going to work faster and parallel to how our conscious brain responds to them, and many viewers (those who don’t have an automatic and massively negative knee-jerk response to the premise or the symbolism already built in) will have to be consciously and continuously inhibiting any decision to feel some positive sense toward those characters, and many viewers aren’t going to put in that conscious effort, especially not while the narrative is so distracting.

(For the record, if you consciously create this negative association it’ll become automatic. We aren’t born hating Nazi symbolism, we encode associations to it, and if you continuously encode negative ones, then you’ll hate other things associated with that symbolism too!)

So now in the crossover, by how our brain creates associations, if we have a positive association with that hero, there is an association now between that hero and their doppelganger, and that doppel and Nazi symbolism. That creates a link between positive feelings and Nazi symbolism. Say what? Look, our brains are simple in their associations and categorizations. There’s ways around this, but if we leave these associations unchecked, this can happen. Especially for viewers who won’t recognize and understand the symbolism like the ‘SS’ on Overgirl’s chest (i.e., younger viewers who are most impressionable and who the education system has seriously failed, and privileged viewers who weren’t taught to have strong negative associations to these less well known Nazi symbols).

And we already know this is happening. This is literally why we have articles on popular press outlets saying they want to buy merch of Overgirl (Supergirl’s Nazi doppel)’s outfit, which is literally emblazoned across the chest with Nazi symbols. People are saying they want to buy actual Nazi merch and the crossover hasn’t even aired yet. Just… let that sink in for a sec?

So.

That’s one reason why making heroes as Nazis is bad, and why making Nazis sexy is bad. Because of the automatic associations our brains make with those beloved characters, and even with attraction. If we find something attractive or beautiful, we tend to have automatic associations with that as ‘good’. Beautiful = moral is one of the stronger associations we have and it’s reinforced by media time and again. (Conversely to ugly = evil, or evil = queer. And female villains are often designed for sex appeal but it’s misogynistic anyway because it deals with a lot of bullshit about feminine purity and evil seductresses, and still conflates these associations our brains are going to make).

And look, it’s 2017. We have Richard Spencer the literal Neo Nazi on TV and articles about how this ‘alt-right’ leader is sexy and cool. We don’t need DCTV to jump on the bandwagon of making Nazis seem “cool”. Human beings experience approach motivations toward things we find attractive. The only option is to experience disgust and anger in response to people like Spencer and characters like Overgirl, or else we may fall prey to the implicit associations put forth by the media itself.

And that’s the problem: the media (the DCTV shows) are putting these associations there and forcing the viewers to work against them if we want to watch this and not come out of it as worse people for it. It’s designed to be entertaining and thrilling and they spent millions of dollars making it that way, and so much of that budget went to making the villains what they are.

So it’s not enough for them to say that Nazis are the villains or even to show them getting their asses kicked if they set the Nazis up to start as all-powerful world dominators. It’s not enough to have these characters say “I hate Nazis” when they show their doppels as Nazis and capable of those atrocities.

And if you’re starting to think “there’s an important message here. About how Nazis can look classically attractive but we shouldn’t be taken in by that, and about nature versus nurture and how we need to actively push back against evil within ourselves or else, in another dimension or if things had gone different, even we could be evil.”

That’s… tempting to argue. It’s an important message, to be sure. But given the stylized outfits and triggering imagery and the way they’ve set up the narrative, I don’t anticipate that’s the message we’re getting here. I mean, I think it’ll come up, most definitely, but I don’t think it’s what the viewer is ultimately going to take away from this. Not in the “I need to look within myself and push back against my own biases” sort of way. That’s not the way they’ve framed this.

And for a comparison point, if you want a narrative that says “White supremacists are all evil, don’t get taken in by one who seems ~reasonable~ and looks normal, and see what these modes of thought actually look like” then watch the movie Imperium (2016) and see how they handle it. (And then compare that to American History X, which apparently some Neo Nazis like, even though it’s inherently anti-Nazi, because it paints them as being powerful and is full of the visual symbolism they uphold).

Because the way they’re currently framing the CW crossover, it’s really just about amping up the drama? And they’ve capitalizing on intergenerational trauma of the Jewish community and the collective trauma of the Holocaust to the gay community. And I’ve said elsewhere that I have no doubt the intent was good, but good intentions aren’t enough.

If the producers don’t understand the damage they can cause by making ~*sexy*~ Nazis literally capable of world-domination (they’re not, they never were, they were superstitious and put genocide and hate over actual scientific advancements and their disgusting experiments on humans didn’t teach us near as much as people pretend they did), and re-writing heroes as Nazis (which, if anyone recalls, created a huge outcry when Marvel wrote Captain America as a Nazi) then regardless of their intent, they need to rethink their storytelling. Or if they really think that the right way to make a statement about the rise of Neo Nazism in the wake of the Trump election is to put the ‘SS’ symbol on Supergirl’s chest and make Eobard into Dr. Mengele, to recycle imagery of actual Nazis from WW2 and put a pink triangle on a gay man’s chest in 2017…. they don’t get it. Whatever their intent and regardless of where they’re coming from, they don’t fucking get it.

Sorry, I’m getting worked up. My point is that if they wanted to make a statement about things today, there were a million better ways to do it, and I could list at least 5 off the top of my head right now. But those would be more controversial, harder to pitch and sell, and not as stylized or easy to promote. So stylish Nazis is what we got. And that’s just… such a problem, including literally the ‘stylish’ part of that sentence.

Nazism and white supremacy are inherently performative. Nazis were all about the #aesthetic. They aligned themselves with famous designers for their uniforms. They had the villainous dramatic flair, and they used it to their advantage. Having that in the crossover might be historically accurate, but it falls right into what the Nazis themselves do: make themselves look good to amp up this notion that they are good.

And a problem with depicting them this way (instead of making them pathetic, vacuous, hate-filled to the point of self-defeat, self-important to the point of being ultimately silly and sad, punching down their notions of grandeur) is that actual Nazis like it. They like being portrayed as sexy, powerful, and cool. And depictions like that help them with their recruiting. “Look, isn’t Overgirl sexy? She’s like our mascot. They know that when we take back this country from foreigner invaders, this is how it’s gonna look.” Because they say when, not if, and they recruit by framing themselves as the victim in a struggle against invaders and usurpers. Make no mistake, white supremacy is a victim complex of untold proportions and having attractive, fan-favorited characters championing their cause helps spread their message.

But let’s get back to the crossover’s broader sociological message and stop talking about actual modern-day Nazis for a sec.

Nazis have been the villains in DCTV before. On Legends in 1942, and with Damien Darhk (again, actual literal Nazi, and again, the narrative has made him “entertaining” in the eyes of some viewers and keeps bringing him back over and over as a villain?). Nazis have also been the villain in pop culture for half a century. Indiana Jones. Star Wars comes to mind in particular. They’re not shy about the fact that their villains are explicitly based on Nazis and the Nazi regime. Which is working out so well considering how many people are mooning over Kylo Ren when he’s a genocidal fascist who murdered his own father (”but it’s okay because he’s just misunderstood, and by that I mean I find the actor attractive and I, too, have anger and angst so I identify with him, this Nazi”). At least in Star Wars it’s figurative, I guess?

And the thing about these narratives, the problem with these narratives, is that they fictionalize Nazis. This isn’t necessarily a reason to vehemently boycott these media or rail against them, but just, as a general phenomenon that’s happened over time, many people - and by this I mostly mean privileged people and people who don’t feel particularly targeted by Nazism - tend to think of Nazis as this cinematic enemy. This prop, this simple narrative device. This way of commenting on the past more than the present, or alluding to something about the present as a mere metaphor, and that metaphor tends to go over the heads of half the viewers anyway because most people aren’t taught to critically evaluate media except in high school english classes that no one takes seriously.

And fictionalized Nazis don’t look like real Nazis in the 21st century. So when real Nazis do gather, many people don’t realize just how bad that is, just how violent their coming together is going to be, and just why need to fight back against such demonstrations and against letting Nazis have any space or voice in our society. It’s like that “this is fine” dog cartoon where he doesn’t see an issue until the house burns around him? Making Nazis into a fictional narrative device can make it harder for many people to actually see the flames burning around them, because they’ve been taught that “real” fires look different than the ones already starting to burn their house down.

Finally, I’ll just come back to point number 1: this is hurting people. In a way that going to 1942 and letting Mick Rory roast Nazis didn’t. And as privileged individuals, we have a responsibility to call out and call attention to the issues in this media and to amplify others’ voices. But as human beings more generally? We also owe a duty of compassion to others.

Sure, there are a lot of people who aren’t hurt by this, but there are a lot who are. Who are shaking and sick to their stomachs and afraid for what’s happening in 2017 and how the tides of the world are turning. Who worry that this crossover is just another example of how casual people are about Nazism and who worry about everything I’ve listed here in detail as the broader effects of media like this and its current framing, even if they don’t have the language to articulate it all in one place like this. People who feel these effects, and feel the target on their back.

We owe those people some compassion, yeah? So when they say it hurts, we don’t need to say: why? That can come later. Our first question should instead be: how can I help?

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