#to exist and be perceived in a Children's Cartoon world | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dairy-farmer · 8 months

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how do you separate fiction from reality? just curious

well the thing is that it's not really a matter of a 'how to' or some 'technique' or a method that will "grant" you the ability to separate fiction from reality.

the ability to differentiate reality from fantasy/fiction is something that happens on its own as a result of cognitive development that begins at the age of 5+. it, along with other skills, like critical thinking and theory of mind are social-cognitive skills that develop and are further honed by life experience and education.

after the age of about 12 is when kids mostly stop playing "pretend" because engaging in imagined scenarios was how kids were able to better understand the world around them and experiment with abstract concepts that helped their brains better develop.

for example, consider how someone aged 4 might perceive a show like 'dexter's laboratory' versus how a 14-year-old would.

4 year old reasoning is very simple: this character looks like a person, talks, has the same things as me, they make me laugh etc. conclusion: that is a person that is real like me AND exists in this word.

if a parent were to ask them in that cutesy rhetorical way of 'do you want to go to dexter's lab?' they'd probably say yes, not even considering the possibility it doesn't exist because they SEE it on the screen and they assume a cartoon character has sentience just like a person does. at 5 years old they accept reality as it is presented and don't question it. like little kids at disney land who never wonder why princess tiana is HERE in disneyland speaking to them and not in new orleans. in fact, around 3-5 is when kids begin to gain the ability to lie (being able to tell when you're being lied to however is a different ability). because lying is a developmental thing as well- you have to cognitively develop the ability to do it. it's GOOD when kids learn to lie because it's a milestone in their development.

but before they reach that point, that's why it's so easy to lie to kids. they believe you're telling the truth because to them the concept of what you're saying not being true is just so far beyond their current understanding of the world and how it works that it's why they believe in things like monsters so much more easily. why they're convinced by the threat that if they don't stop crying you really will let a stranger take them ("if you don't stop crying i'm going to give you away/let that man *points at stranger* take you).

it's very simple and logical to a child who has no understanding or critical thinking or the cognitive development to know and understand better.

but for a 14 year old: they may enjoy the show as well. they might laugh at all the things that make a show entertaining. but if their parent asks them if they want to go visit 'dexter's lab' they'd probably be confused, maybe even offended at such an infantilizing question. because they know and understand that dexter and his lab isn't real. it's made up. a lie.

they know dexter's body and enviornment are drawings on a screen created by animators. dexter's voice is that of a grown woman who is an actor and not of a little boy. there is no "dexter" in the real world. he's a concept someone made up. if they try to "touch" him their fingers will just be touching a screen. if they try to speak with or interact with him he won't respond because he doesn't exist in the 'now' and 'here' or in 'this is real life' reality.

being incapable of telling fiction from reality is a VERY real issue because the only ones who should be having a hard time telling fiction from reality are very young children whose brains have literally not developed enough to have the capacity for it.

but there's more reasons than just your brain/mental ability for why an otherwise healthy person can't tell fiction from reality.

lack of intelligence

lack of education

naïveté

overly trusting nature

underdeveloped critical thinking

susceptibility to manipulation/deception

cognitive bias/ confirmation bias

no access to a method for verifying claims.

everyone has the ability to tell fiction from reality but the skill might be purposefully or accidentally suppressed due to one or more of the reasons above.

beyond that no one should be having a hard time with separation of fiction versus reality. if they are it's either because they are being purposefully obtuse, they failed to develop those skills adequately, or they undiagnosed in some capacity for disorders impacting their perception.

#answered asks #asks #anonymous

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flameswallower · 6 months

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I'm genuinely very sad that twitter is slowly dying. There just aren't good alternatives for me-- this website and blue sky are the closest, but not only will trying to build a following be pretty exhausting, the culture on both sites is terminally square. Sorry, but it's true! In different ways; still, nevertheless.

The culture on twitter, conversely, was always a toxic waste pit, but in ways I generally found/find it easier to evade or ignore than most people seem to. Some of that is luck; some of it's that I'm white and not a woman or someone who reads to most people as a woman, and I don't get into direct arguments with transphobes, and so I evade the worst harassment brigades.

But I think a lot of it comes down to the same reason I prefer to hang out with overtly "mean" and "scary" people than with "nice" people sometimes. I would rather be in a situation where

1.) I know others can stand up to me and won't take any bullshit if I accidentally make them uncomfortable, overstep boundaries, etc.;

2.) conflict and disagreement will not be perceived as abusive or as The End Of the World, ditto if I have an Oops! It's the Autism/ADHD! moment and respond in a socially inappropriate way because I misunderstood a situation or couldn't control my impulse to say something/laugh at something I found funny;

3.) I need not fear that anybody will clutch their pearls and get on my case for being a little *~**edgy**~*, for existing as a sexual being, for using drugs, for describing things that have happened to me in the past, for writing horror fiction that sometimes deals with extreme or taboo subject matter, for not keeping myself scrupulously PG-rated the way I would around children when I'm with other adults, and/or for inadvertently saying something insensitive/ignorant that I later apologize for;

4.) my contrarianism gets to manifest as being kind and considerate and unusually patient/open/compassionate with people who are being jagoffs or are clearly disturbed or whatever, as opposed to manifesting in argumentative behavior, pushing boundaries, and telling people to go fuck themselves

Basically, I need to find the social media platform or subsection thereof that's equivalent to a group of goths and punks in a condemned building imbibing unwise chemical combinations and giving each other terrible stick-and-pokes of cartoon characters smoking weed or doing tijuana bible shit. One of the punks named himself a slur (it's okay, he can reclaim it). Several of the goths are sex workers. Practically everybody has been to the psych ward, jail, or both. A few people use it/its pronouns specifically as a fuck you to normies. One girl's clothes are filled with rats.

#also like #i can handle being made fun of pretty well #i can handle an implicit 'you're stupid if you think that' from anyone not a close friend/partner well #i canNOT handle implicit 'you're A Bad Person if you think/do/don't do...' nearly as well #anyway in life i've learned i can choose between #in the millennial's proverbial lexicon #being the sweetest cinnamon roll in the hive of scum and villainy #or being like. an unspeakable cosmic horror among Care Bears #i prefer the first one! i like being a breath of sunshine and fresh air!#i like being a LITTLE tricky and i like freaking out people who are happy to be freaked out!#i'm like that mute guy with the dog in nightbreed!#i'm just hanging out with my friends who eat people #and technically i'm one of them but it's like the least badass possible version

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incarnateirony · 10 months

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Try to warp the story as much as you want. People already are turning against you in the server. You will see... just as they saw who you really are.

? The server I haven't looked at for 2 months? People are having opinions because they don't know how to read and can't delineate your warped allegations, or the disproven ones in the document? They're... turning on me for something we went over a year ago?

[checks my field of fucks reserved for reactionaries that can't read]

hm. barren.

truly you're like shaking your fist like a cartoon character right now and refuse to let yourself perceive how negative my fuck field is about anything you can try. Shit man. Empty out the server if you want. I'm elsewhere with real life friends. Is this something you understand? RL? Friends? Why would I care about the opinions of people that turn on me because they did some reactionary ignorant BS? They were never my friends. Why do i care. what part of "I do not care" is so fucking complex to yall. And furthermore, honestly, shoo. Goodbye any retard dumb enough to fall for this, saves me future headaches. If they're so retarded they can't see through the blatant venom and malice behind your actions to understand how blatantly warped it is, you're doing me a favor removing them from my radius. I do not want people who intentionally prey on trauma, use children as tokens, refuse to read before accusing, or victim blame and pretend domestic violence shelters exist for humor's sake while pretending cops will save you. Probably while unironically watching Grace struggle on Big Sky.

the friends i'm chilling with right now were THERE, dumbass. They KNOW what happened. Your terrible dramatic reading of dismissed allegations won't convince them of SHIT when they saw the blood. durdeedurrrr anon box full of threats durrheehurr u'll lose ur best friends bc we forget theres a world outside the internet durheedurhurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr you guys literally want so bad to imagine yourself as powerful to control a social space I haven't even looked at for months. Get. Lives.

can honestly only imagine them stunting this shit on John and how hard he would laugh like. Naw. Sorry stupid, he was there, but he might pretend he wasn't for a few days to waste your time and energy.

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rhythm-trainer-nori · 1 year

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Teachings we value

10,716 days left to achieve the mission to "Change 20% of the way Japan's future will be in 30 years".

In my life, I have learned and taught many things from many people.

When I started working as a hairdresser at a salon in Kyoto, I learned from the salon owner, senior staff, and valued customers.

After returning to my parents' house, I learned from the instructor of the cutting class I attended every month.

When I became a rhythm trainer, I joined a business group in Tokyo and learned from business owners.

Looking back, I think that if I had learned from the adults around me and from my teachers when I was a student, I would have led a different life than I have now.

The reason I think so is that I have had so many opportunities to be involved with high school students, and all the things I tell them and teach them are things I have learned as an adult and still value!

The things I value are: 1) the habit of words, 2) the habit of thinking, 3) the habit of gratitude, 4) the purpose of life, and 5) talking to my heart (feelings).

Habit of Words

The sounds you make as words may be what you think you are saying to the person in front of you, but in fact it is you who hears them first. Therefore, we must value the sound of words.

I often see people, regardless of whether they are children or adults today, who start with negative words when they are expanding their own potential. Parents, especially those who are raising their children, should be careful about their language habits.

Children do not know words. They learn words from the adults in front of them and at first they do not know the meaning of the words, whether they are good words or bad words,

I myself am a father of four sisters. Since I learned the influence of my parents' words when I was single, I have never used or said negative or negative words, complaints, whining, jealousy, envy, backbiting, or words that apply to self-denial in front of my children. I have made up my mind to do so.

Even so, there are times when I do mumble negative or negative words in my mind. Stress arises because not everything in life is good. I think it is different to voice it out loud in front of unrelated children, so I sometimes shout it out in my mind.

I have heard that most of the words in our lives are uttered unconsciously. The realm of the unconscious has tremendous power. We need to consciously change our language habits at first, but for whom?

How you perceive the world in front of you is entirely determined by your verbal habits.

Second, the habit of thinking.

I was taught that the habit of thinking is also important for living one's life in one's own way.

How you perceive the events in front of you and how you will act next depends on your own thoughts.

In order to raise the level of your thinking, you need to have a variety of experiences, read books to learn, output what you have learned, and change the way you use words. Because each person's living environment and position in life are different, we need to exchange words to think and expand our thinking domain.

When the domain of thought is narrow, people inevitably think negatively and negatively, narrowing their perspective and making it difficult to live. It is important to first think about what you can do now and move forward one step with heavy feet.

Third, the habit of gratitude

The baton of life of my parents was passed on to me, and the life of my parents was passed on to my grandparents, and the life of my grandparents was passed on to my grandparents, and so on.

The baton of life of our predecessors who have lived through times when life was more difficult than it is today. If I had a time machine and went back in time and prevented the people I was supposed to meet from meeting each other in some other era, I might not exist in this world.

I know it's only an imagination, but in the world of movies and cartoons, there are scenes where bad guys try to change the future by doing such things!

Gratitude for life is something we should never forget, and next is gratitude for things. Nowadays, we take things for granted. We should not take that for granted. Someone somewhere made it, maintained it, and even if it is just one thing, there are actually many people involved.

Gratitude for what you can see, gratitude for what you cannot see, and gratitude for what you can't see, will be reflected in your actions, and will surely come back to you.

Fourth, your life purpose.

The clearer your life purpose becomes, the clearer your principles become, and the less you waste your life. And there will be no more hesitation.

If you focus only on your goals instead of your purpose, you will be prone to burnout. The world today pushes us to focus only on our goals rather than our purpose, which narrows our vision and makes it hard to live. And the things you want to do become more and more distant. The moment your life comes to an end, you will regret it.

What is your purpose in life? What is the purpose of your current work? The energy that your purpose has is actually so much greater than the energy that your goals have.

Fifth, talk with your heart (emotions).

The human heart is something that no one can ever see. However, we can feel our own heart and acknowledge its existence.

Those who cannot speak their own words are those who are not in dialogue with the little self within their own heart. They ignore their own heart (feelings) and react only to the other person's feelings in vain, unconsciously doing what they do not want to do.

I was once told by someone that if I don't listen to the voice of the small part of my heart that is in my mind, my spirit will die. I was once told, "If you don't listen to the voice of your little mind in your heart, your spirit will die. At that time, I was struggling with many things, such as my current position, even though I had things I wanted to do.

If I had not been told those words, I do not think I would exist today.

I have summarized these five things and I talk about them and share them with students, parents, teachers, instructors, companies, and organizations that I work with as a rhythm trainer and diet advisor.

I believe that for every 100 people, there are 100 different lessons to be learned. I believe that one of the best ways to improve one's life is to always be humble, neutral, and willing to learn from the events and relationships in front of you in order to make yourself better today than you were yesterday and tomorrow than you are today.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

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maacwanowrie · 1 year

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Top 5 Reasons to Use Animations

Similarly, people are more likely to retain data presented visually than data presented in word form. Additionally, unlike live video, animation allows for greater customization of the final product's look and feel. Animated movies can be customized to your brand's aesthetic by using its colors, language, and imagery. Grab an opportunity to learn from the best 3D animation courses in Pune.

1. people will always remember and associate with your brand.

Through the use of novel approaches to marketing. A lasting impression on current and potential new customers is a great asset for businesses and brands. Companies might elaborate on their goals, values, and plans. customers have a more distinct picture of who they are dealing with in the company. What they stand for and how they may aid clients are also highlighted.

2. it's not hard to grasp

Explaining a complicated concept or item purely through text can be a daunting task. How well and how technically the copy is written will determine how well the target audience understands and responds to the content. In some cases, an animated video can do what copy and static visuals can't and really bring an idea to life.

Technical and sophisticated ideas or messages can be presented in the style of a short story using animation.

3. The use of animation increases the success of a sales pitch.

People are more inclined to stick around and explore a website that has video content than to leave immediately. Additionally, after seeing a video, 64% of users are more inclined to take some sort of action, be it filling out a contact form or making a purchase.

Users are more inclined to view a full animated film that explains the benefits of your product or service rather than read the same information on your website. As a result, the consumer is able to absorb your content while also becoming more acquainted with your company. It's a good idea to include a call to action at the video's conclusion to encourage viewers to take some sort of follow-up action.

4. It's interesting and fun to see.

Marketers try to get people interested in their products in the same manner that animated children's films and cartoons do through amusement and originality. Customers are more likely to pay attention to animation than they are to regular commercials because they perceive animation to be more of a form of entertainment than a form of promotion.

Because it doesn't have to be realistic or correct, animation is free to be whimsical, inventive, and creative with its audience, making it a terrific storytelling medium as well.

5. It is simple to update content without having to reshoot

In today's hyper-connected world, particularly if you work in a dynamic field like technology, demonstrating your ability to evolve with the times is crucialif you work in a dynamic field like technology, demonstrating your ability to evolve with the times is crucial in today's hyper-connected world. Marketing materials and messages should be revised to reflect this change.

The use of animation in video is a fantastic way to maintain interest in your material. Rather than reshooting a whole video, editing an animated one is a lot more efficient and affordable option if you need to modify the content to appeal to a new audience or alter the message or aesthetics.

To sum up, animation is a potent marketing tool that may help you get to know your audience, stand out in their minds, increase conversions, and strengthen relationships with existing consumers.

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somecynicalanimator · 1 year

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Module - Professional & Cultural Context

This paper, “The Effect of Cartoon Movies on Children’s Gender Development” (2010), discusses how depictions of gender within animated works can ingrain sexist attitudes into children at an early age. Children (Likely only discussing neurotypical children) between 18 & 20 months old begin to understand/believe that they are male or female. It’s with this understanding that children begin to form their own ideas of gender roles. While the way parents teach their children about gender roles influences how they perceive people, this study found that peers have more power over present gender preferences than parents, while media affects how children view future gender expectations. It’s in this way that media helps to consolidate gender discrimination, imbedding sexist ideas about gender roles in the minds of children from a young age. The study also found that gender discrimination was especially more common in TV produced before 1990, although the problem persists beyond the 20th century. In cartoons produced during the 1980’s, males made up 75% of characters compared to just 21% female. Examples of the work they cite include The Smurfs (1981) as well as Ranma ½ (1989), specifically the animated adaptations of these works.

The conclusion of this study was that gender discrimination in cartoons is ominous, given its ubiquity in entertaining children who can’t yet distinguish between reality and fiction, and that since many negative views of women in media are inputs from real-life, more women in work life could alleviate this problem somewhat, as well as more socially conscious producers aiming for fewer negative stereotypes being depicted in their work. I agree with many of the points made, specifically about gender discrimination. Reading this paper did make me consider more deeply how gender representation in cartoons affects how children view gender, and even made me consider how the media I consumed during my childhood may have shaped my own views, and how they must be challenged. One aspect of the article I feel may not have aged well is their discussion of the Teletubbies (1997), specifically how they refer to the characters’ asexual depiction (Although the more appropriate terminology than the what the paper uses would be agender) and how gender non-conforming characters might be confusing to children. The article fails to anticipate the discussions on trans rights that have occurred in the decade that followed its release. Given that cis-gendered people pre-2010 would still be reasonably expected to know that intersex people exist, this does seem to be an oversight, however small given its focus is specifically on how women are depicted in media.

The second paper I looked at was “Masculinity Between Animation and Live Action, or, SpongeBob v. Hasselhoff” (2011). The paper primarily focused on the 2004 SpongeBob SquarePants movie, specifically the tension between adulthood (specifically adult masculinity) vs. childhood in the film. The argument is made that the film represents a battle between a grotesque, hypermasculine adulthood represented by live action vs. ambiguously gendered, polymorphously perverse childhood represented by animation. Through this interpretation animation is not only more childish, but also more loving and even more ‘natural’ compared to the live action aspects of the film. There are many segments of the film in which live action elements are presented as evil or, at least in the case of David Hasselhoff as himself, well-meaning but uncanny for the childlike world of SpongeBob. This tension is essentially ‘Kids’ (A gender-neutral term) vs. ‘Men’ (A gendered term). One adjacent aspect that is explored is how same-sex relationships and queerness relate to this film. This paper was an interesting read, making me not only want to rewatch the film, but also making me question and more closely examine the themes and elements of the SpongeBob series.

#ma #ma animation #professional & cultural context #gender representation in animation

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incomingalbatross · 3 years

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I think it’s funny how Alex Hirsch’s take on Gravity Falls Stuff always seems to turn out to be Lighter and Softer than the fandom’s...except when it’s about Bill.

I mean, there’s that great post that’s like “Fans: how did Stan fake his death? where did he get a body?? Alex: he put a bad dummy in a car and yelled I’M STAN PINES OH NO MY CAR” But this is also a continuing trend, honestly. Like...

Fandom: Oh man Ford must have all these terrible scars from his portal adventures, right? That’s why he always wears a turtleneck. It’s grisly. He’s been through so many Terrible Things on the other side of the portal...”

Alex: “So anyway, Ford has a tattoo of a friendly cartoon star with an ‘All Star’ quote attached to it.”

Fandom: “Why do you think Ford wore glasses as a kid and Stan didn’t? Was it because Stan’s got broken more? Was it because Filbrick just didn’t think Stan was worth spending money on? :(”

Alex: “Stan didn’t wear glasses during some periods of his childhood/teen years because he thought they looked dumb and not cool enough.”

Fandom: “...So, Bipper—”

Alex: “Oh yeah! Bill was totally planning to kill Dipper and make it look like a suicide, leaving Dipper’s spirit to wander restless forever while Bill moved on to torment a grief-stricken Mabel next!”

Fandom: 0_0

Gravity Falls usually turns out to be Not That Dark from the creator’s perspective, UNLESS Bill is involved. Bill is apparently always, constantly Actually That Dark.

#gravity falls #bill cipher #suicide mention #90% of journal three is 'it's not that angsty guys' and then there's THAT #theory: bill invaded not just from another dimension but from another *genre* and his funny triangle shape is just the price he has to pay #to exist and be perceived in a Children's Cartoon world

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titleknown · 2 years

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...This reblog of @afloweroutofstone‘s post on how “Just let people like things’ ruined critical thinking" ended up bloating into being an essay elaborate on the views I mentioned in the replies, so I may as well make it its own post because I’m genuinely terrified of being mocked for having an essay in a reblog.

But. TBH I think the idea that "Just let people enjoy things” ruined critical thinking is horseshit on both a specific and broader level, and in fact the inverse of what actually happened.

It wasn’t that there was some drop in thinking skills, it’s that that people didn’t change their rhetoric, at least in terms of the whole “nerd pride” thing that’s been around for goddamn decades at this point, even as “nerd culture” kinda... broke bad on an institutional level in terms of the nightmarish current level of media consolidation and how it warped everything around it.

“Let people enjoy things” was just yet another manifestation of that fact that people’s mental maps hadn’t really changed to realize that There Is A Problem.

And like, as much as the way “Why are you so defensive, you own pop culture” has been discussed, I think there’s a much larger dialogue to be had about how market competition RE: Art creates the worst parts of that defensive mentality in general.

IE, the winner-take-all nature of markets meaning that “If you’re not #1, the thing you care about will be neglected and left to die,” along with the consumerist notion that sales = votes for a thing to exist, which leads to the vice-versa view, IE “If this is critically hated, that translates to lack of sales, meaning it doesn’t get to exist anymore.”

Which then leads to people treating goddamn everything that could theoretically be perceived as negative towards what they care about as a threat. Which basically leads to criticism being treated as advocacy of a personal vote-with-your-wallet boycott or an attempt to rally such.

And there’s a lot that needs to be discussed about that; from the ways in which things like copyright or lack of arts funding help fuel it to the way in which corporate entities do leverage those fears to their advantage; and even more that needs to actually be done to push back against it.

But also, thing is, that defensive mentality came about because of another reason, IE the critical ghettoization of certain forms of “pulp” art in popular spaces and the cruelty (often low-key ableist) regarding it on a personal level, and as I said in the replies, I am genuinely worried about the backlash replicating those genuinely ugly phenomenae without actually enacting the institutional changes the people saying it supposedly want, leading to us getting the worst of both worlds.

Like, there’s a reason that as an autistic person I’m scared of the uptick I’ve noticed in the way people’ve been shaming people over their interests with; like; a thin veneer of that praxis. Like, the way the grand majority of it focuses on aesthetics and revulsion towards those who like them to make their point is A Thing I’ve noticed.

Like, that’s why I get so mad at Brett over his dogshit pop culture takes! Because again, most of it indicates they’re more interested in being smug as an act of praxis than any on-the-ground mobilization via the actual institutional issues, lofting Real Adult Critique from their perch at us plebs instead of actually getting anyone to do shit.

I’m angry that people doing that like Brett are totally unaware that the use of shame regarding media lends itself to abuse moreso than mobilization towards actual change, especially since they’re not going to be the ones who get hurt when this does break bad!

Like, shitting on people for heavily watching “children’s cartoons” isn’t going to get people to diversify their media viewing, but it is going to lead to animation fans being pushed out of the public space.

Shaming people for reading fanfic isn’t going to get them to expand their reading horizons, but it might end up either pushing them out or; more likely; doubling down on their defensiveness towards certain predatory institutions pretending to be their protectors (By which I mean Ao3) mark my words.

And I’m angry that this is going to get either ignored or; inversely; taken up by the very “nerd pride” crusaders like Ao3 or Gisney lickspittles who are part of the problem, I’m mad at y’all too...

#media #media critique #yelling #shut up titleknown #the discourse

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gumjester · 3 years

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Your meta about the narrators and time is absolutely incredible and for some reason it made me think about sound. Which. Arguably wouldn’t exist in EAH, right? Because it’s a book, and those don’t speak, you “hear” it in your head when you read but it’s not the same as actually making a sound. Unless you’re reading out loud, and there’s SOMETHING in there that I haven’t thought about long enough to articulate. something about taking a bit of the storyworld and making it real or bringing the narrators to life or being, in a sense, a narrator and therefore involved in the story on that level. But ok when do people read out loud? Well parents read to their children (I’m starting to sound crazy aren’t I) and now I’m just imagining Brooke’s parents “reading” to her through IRL parents reading to their children. Like the parallels... the MIRRORing... the cyclical nature of family... the cyclical nature of storytelling (yep completely crazy)

NO FUCK NO YOU'RE ONTO SOMETHING

now there is some confusion to be had here about the existence of sound in the tv vs the book universes - we're not about to get into whether they're different universes entirely or different articulations of the same universe because otherwise i'd be here all night - but we at least know in the books, sound is not a tangible component of that universe, along with lots of other things (that is a fun thing about the books: everything is a lot more conceptual, so reality can be squished and poked about in ways the tv show wouldn't allow. it's also why i think that a wonderlandiful world would never have translated well to screen, despite my burning need for a cartoon adaptation).

and you're right! the only way you can involve sound as we perceive it with the story is by reading the story aloud! my thought was that the book narrators were reading the story aloud in a more meta-textual sense, in that, they are manifesting the words to the paper so there is anything to read at all (we've been over the whole "eah exists as an unspoken concept" thing in another post so i won't go on) but yes! in reading a book aloud we become the narrators of our own dimension, i suppose!

and the thing about the cyclical nature of storytelling is REALLY TRUE! because the idea of true existence being granted by reading aloud links brilliantly back to the origin of all fairytales which was, of course, folktales! stories told around fires and to children in beds and at the weaving table, fables that were passed down orally from generation to generation and eventually harnessed into the written word by the brothers grimm (in their most commercial form, of course) (ooooo something something stories existing in their purest form as spoken word and the brothers grimm constraining them to writing = stifling nature of the destiny system something something)

GOSH, much to think about, this is such a brilliant brain snack, thank you for bringing it to my attention!!

#and thank u for the kind words about my meta SKLJD im glad someones enjoying my insanity #eah #ever after high #ask #gum talk

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iimpavidwrites · 3 years

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Benzaiten Steel and the Fragility of Perception

or: reasons why setting boundaries is important #1283

I’ve figured out a reason why Benzaiten Steel stayed with his mother instead of doing the “sensible” thing and moving out. I think that it’s possible, too, that Juno has always been aware of the answer but, in the scope of Juno Steel and the Monster’s Reflection, he isn’t able to face it head-on because it contradicts his black/white, either/or sense of morality.

TL;DR: Despite Juno Steel’s unreliable narration we are able to see clearly the enmeshed relationship Benzaiten had with their mother Sarah and the ways in which that unhealthy family dynamic shaped Juno Steel as a person.

Sources: 50% speculation, 20% lit crit classes, 30% my psychology degree.

Juno’s perception of Ben is shallow and filtered through the limitations of human memory. We all know by now, too, that Juno’s an Unreliable Narrator™. In light of this, we need to ask ourselves why it is that Juno remembers Ben as happy, supportive, and only ever gentle in the challenges he poses to Juno. Throughout the episode, Ben’s memory is clearly acting as a comforting psychopomp: he ferries Juno through the metaphorical death of his old understanding of his mother (and also himself) and into a new way of thinking. He does this through persistent-but-kind questions, never telling Juno what to do or how to do it. This role could have been played by anyone in Juno’s life (Mick and Rita come to mind first) which makes it telling that Juno’s mind chose Ben to fill this role.

Juno’s version of Ben is cheerful, endlessly patient with Juno and Sarah, and above all he is compassionate. He acts as a mediating presence between Juno and Juno’s memory of Sarah and he doesn’t ask a whole lot for himself. If this is Juno’s strongest memory/impression of Ben’s behavior and perspective, then we can draw some conclusions about the roles they each played in the Steel family unit: Juno was antagonistic to Sarah and vice versa, and Ben was relegated to the role of mediator for the both of them.

Juno: She’s just evil. Ben: That’s a big word. Juno: “Evil”? Ben: No, “Just”.

We can see in this exchange that Ben is a vehicle for the compassion Juno needs to show not only to Sarah but to himself, too, in order to move on and evolve his understanding of his childhood traumas.

This is not necessarily an appropriate role for a sibling or a child to hold in a family unit.

In family psychology, one of the maladaptive relationship patterns that is discussed is enmeshment. Googling the term you’ll find a lot of sensational results (e.g. “emotional incest syndrome”) that aren’t necessarily accurate in describing what this dysfunction looks like in the real world. This is in part because enmeshment can present many different ways. So, in order to proceed with this analysis of Benzaiten Steel’s relationship with his mom, I need to define enmeshment.

Enmeshment occurs when the normal boundaries of a parent-child relationship are dissolved and the parent becomes over-reliant on the child, requiring the child to cater to their emotional needs and to otherwise become a parent to the parent (or to themself and/or to other children in the family). This is easiest to spot when a parent confides in a child as if they’re a best friend, disclosing details of their romantic life, expecting the child to give them advice on coping with work stress, and similar. Once enmeshment occurs, any kind of emotional shift in one member of the enmeshed household will reverberate to the others; self-regulation and discernment (e.g. figuring out which emotions originate in the parent and which ones originate in the child) becomes extremely difficult for the effected child and parent. When an enmeshed child becomes an enmeshed adult they often have issues with self-identity and interpersonal boundaries. For example, they may struggle to define themselves without external validation and expect others to be able to intuitively divine their emotions. After all, the enmeshed adult could do this with their parent and others easily due to hypervigilance cultivated by their parent and they may not understand that such was not the typical childhood experience. These adults are often individuals to whom the advice “don’t set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm” is often relevant and disregarded. They may perceive their own needs as superfluous to others’-- and resent others as a consequence.

Another layer of complication is added when the parent in an enmeshed relationship is an addict, as Sarah Steel was. The enmeshed child often times becomes the physical caregiver to their parent as well and must cope with all the baggage loving an addict brings: the emotional rollercoaster of the parent trying to get clean or the reality of their neglecting or stealing from their child to support their habit or their simply being emotionally absent. Enmeshment leaves children with a lot of conflicting messages about their role in the family, how to conduct relationships, and how to define themself.

We only get an outside perspective on this enmeshment in the Steel family. It’s clear in the text that Juno’s relationship with his mother was fraught. He jokes in The Case of the Murderous Mask that she didn’t kill him but “not for lack of trying”, implying that Ben’s murder wasn’t the first time Sarah Steel lashed out at Juno-- or thought she was lashing out at Juno but hurt Ben instead. During the entire tenure Juno’s trek through the underworld of his own trauma, Juno asks the specter of Benzaiten over and over, “Why did you stay?”. This is a question that Juno himself can’t answer because Ben, when he was alive, probably never gave him an answer that Juno found satisfactory. There are a few possibilities, which I can guess from experience, as to what the answer was:

Ben may never have been able to articulate that his relationship with their mother left him feeling responsible for her wellbeing.

Or, if he ever told Juno that, Juno may have simply brushed off this concern. After all, as far as Juno was concerned, Sarah was only ever just evil. To protect himself from his mother’s neglect and codependence, Juno shut down his own ability to perspective-take and think about the nuances that might inform a person’s addiction, mental illness, abusive behavior, etc.

It is likely that Ben thought either his mother needed him to survive or, alternatively, that he couldn’t survive without her-- as if often the case with children who are enmeshed with their primary caregiver. It was natural and necessary for him, from this perspective, to stay. Enmeshment is a very real psychological trap.

It is often frustrating and hard as hell to love someone who is in an enmeshed relationship because, from the outside, the damage being done to them seems obvious. See: Juno’s assertion that Sarah was just evil. Juno is, even 19 years later, still angry about Sarah Steel and her failures as a parent and as a person. His thinking on this subject is very black-and-white. He positions Sarah as a Bad Guy in his discussions with Ben-the-psychopomp and the childhood cartoon slogan of “The Good Guys Always Win!” is repeated ad nauseum throughout Juno’s underworld journey. This mode of thinking serves two purposes:

First, it illustrates the role Juno played in the household: he was opposed to Sarah in all things and Sarah did not require any compassion or enmeshment from Juno. Juno was, quite possibly, neglected in favor of Ben which would create a deep resentment… toward both Sarah and toward Ben. This family dynamic would reinforce Juno’s shallow moral reasoning and leave him with vague, unachievable ideals to strive for like “Be One of the Good Guys” or “Don’t Be Like Mom” -- ideals that he can’t reach because he is a flawed human being and not a cartoon character, creating a feedback loop of resentment toward his mother and guilt about resenting Benzaiten. That guilt would further bolster Juno’s shallow memory of Ben as being infallibly patient, kind, loving, etc.

Second, Juno’s black/white moral reasoning is an in-text expression of the meaning behind Juno’s name. When “Rex Glass” points out that Juno is a goddess associated with protection, Juno immediately has a witty, bitter rejoinder ready about Juno-the-goddess killing her children. Juno was named for a deity who in some ways strongly resembles Sara Steel and he resents that he is literally being identified as his own mother. Juno-the-goddess has one hell of a temper, being the parallel to Rome’s Hera. Juno is not a goddess (detective) who forgives easily when she (he) knows that a child (Benzaiten Steel) has been harmed. This dichotomy of “venerated protector” versus “vengeful punisher” causes psychological tension for Juno that is only partially resolved in The Monster’s Reflection. The tension is not fully resolved, however, because Juno never gets a clear answer for the question, “Why did you stay?”

The answer is there but it is one that Juno doesn’t like and so can’t articulate: Ben is enmeshed with Sarah who named him, of all things, Benzaiten and that is why he stayed. We’ve already seen that names have intentional significance in the text. Benzaiten is hypothesized to be a syncretic deity between Hinduism and Buddhism, is a goddess primarily associated with water. Syncretic deities are fusions of similar deities from different religions/cultures; their existence is the result of compromise and perspective-taking and acceptance. Water, too, is forgiving in this way: it takes the shape of whatever container you pour it into... not unlike a child who is responsible for the emotional wellbeing of their entire family unit. Not unlike Benzaiten Steel.

Ben stayed with his mother because his relationship with his mother was enmeshed, leaving him little choice but to stay, and this ultimately led to tragedy. Sarah Steel’s failures as a parent are many and Juno still has a lot of baggage to unpack in that regard, especially where Ben is concerned. It’s unlikely that we’ll get the same kind of “speedrunning therapy” episode again but I know that The Penumbra is committed to a certain amount of psychological realism in its character arcs so I am confident in asserting that Juno Steel isn’t finished. Recovery is a journey and he’s only taken the first steps.

#juno steel #benzaiten steel #meta #the penumbra podcast #benten steel #sarah steel #psychology #enmeshment #bad parenting #iimpavid writes #chatter #the monster's reflection #the case of the murderous mask

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cavehags · 4 years

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i realize this will probably bring up old drama so you might not want to answer it. but do you ever regret, however on purpose or on accident, bringing all that unnecesary hate towards Katara? i'm really sad and dissapointed tbh. i'm a woman of color and katara was so important to me growing up. my favorite animated woman ever. and then this resurgence comes and theres so, so much unnecesary hatred for her and everyone ignoring everything that makes her a good character.

(2/3) 2- and you know, i expected this from the male side of the fandom. they were misogynistic to her and the others even back then so i would expect it to be even worse with how internet culture is more mysogistic now that ever. and i wasnt wrong. male atla fans had some truly horrible takes and views that just came across as racism and misogyny. but, i expected these circles to be better. to be a safe space for us woc who love this character. but i found the same weird hatred for her.

(3/3) 3-i just, i cant believe i feel less welcome now that i did even back then. and back then i didnt even paricipate really. but at least i could enjoy fandom content without stumbling into misogyny and racism every other post. also sorry for sending this to your personal blog b i just wanted to let you know you controbuted to that too even if it wasnt your intention. at least you realized that and arent contributing to it anymore right? cause honestly the hate has only gotten worse not less.

hey anon. thanks for asking this question, because i hadn’t addressed this topic previously and this gave me an opportunity to do so.

no, i don’t regret publicly interpreting a character whom i love through a nuanced and human lens. and i don’t regret combating the one-dimensional interpretation of this character, which posits that she’s merely an vaguely defined object of attraction for some boy or another, and a singularly gentle, mature, maternal figure whose sole purpose in life is to nurture others. those interpretations suck. they rob her of the humanity and complexity that make her character unique and they stem from misogynistic tropes that reduce women to the services they can provide to men. the thing in the world that matters most to me is fighting misogyny, and this trend to diminish a proud and powerful and angry teenage girl by exaggerating only her most socially acceptable traits is misogyny.

unlike you, i did not grow up watching avatar: the last airbender. the shows i watched growing up did not have a lot of girls who felt real to me. the girls i saw on tv growing up were simple. they were the main characters’ crushes. they were simple, desirable, usually sweet and loving, and not much else. if they had a flaw, it was that they were, at best, “awkward.” whatever that means. or if they were the protagonists, which was rare, they were nice enough and tried to do the right thing, but they never had strong feelings like resentment and anger. they weren’t allowed to be unfeminine which meant they weren’t allowed to be bitter, angry or in any way flawed. they didn’t look like the version of girlhood i knew to be true for me personally, which included a lot of anger and frustration and powerlessness.

that crappy representation left me with internalized misogyny that chased me for longer than i’d like to admit. i did not learn to think of girls as humans who could be as interesting and flawed and messy as the boys were. i did not value myself as a girl, and later a woman, because i thought the best thing a girl could be was... bland. boring. pretty, but empty. passionless.

it would have meant the world to me to see a character like katara.

because katara is angry. she has every right to be: she’s had so much stolen from her, including her mother, her people, and her childhood. katara has a short fuse. she yells. she snaps. she fucks up. sometimes she makes mean jokes! i never saw a single one of those dreamily perfect cartoon love interests make mean jokes when i was a kid. she is extremely idealistic--it’s her defining character trait--but we see the bad side of that as well as the good. we see that her need to help others leads her to act rashly, to get herself into danger, to put others in danger too.

and she has her very own arc. it’s not about her love for another person, either (what a snooze of a storyline); it’s about growing up and learning to break down some of that stubborn black-and-white thinking that we all indulge in as children. it’s a true coming-of-age arc and it belongs to a fourteen-year-old girl.

when i, to use a phrase i find crass, “entered the fandom,” i quickly realized that other fans’ perceptions of katara did not line up with the things i valued most about her. other fans seemed to valorize her most socially acceptable feminine qualities: her generosity, her kindness, her dedication to helping others. and of course i love those parts of her--i love everything about her--but what is really remarkable about avatar: the last airbender is that katara’s many important virtues are also counterbalanced by equally significant flaws. a good character has flaws. katara is a good character, and a deviation from the characters who made up my formative media landscape, because she has flaws. her temper, her idealism, her stubbornness--these are flaws. flaws make her seem real and human and challenge the mainstream sentiment that girls are not real or human.

it simply did not occur to me that celebrating these aspects of katara that make her a realistic and well-written teenage girl would spark ire from other adult fans. it absolutely did not occur to me that i would then be blamed for somehow causing misogynistic interpretations of this character, particularly given that misogynistic interpretations of this character are the very thing i sought to correct when i began to blog about this television show.

i’m told there are “fans” on instagram and tiktok who think katara is whiny, annoying, and overly preoccupied with her trauma. i do not use instagram or tiktok, so i wouldn’t know, but i’ll take your word for it. respectfully, however, they didn’t get that from me. misogynistic takes on katara have existed since before i came along. i have never, ever called katara whiny. and seeing as i have been treating my own PTSD in therapy for nine years, you can safely conclude that i don’t think anyone, katara included, is overly preoccupied with their trauma. that’s not a thing. do i think she’s annoying? of course not! as a character, she’s a delight. does she sometimes find real joy in aggravating her brother and her friends? yes, because she’s 14. i, an adult, am not annoyed by her. sokka and toph often are, because that is katara’s goal and katara always succeeds in her goals. she’s not “annoying.”

if there are “fans” who are indeed following lesbians4sokka and somehow misreading every single post and interpreting them to mean that we hate katara and they should too, i don’t really know what you want me to do about that. l4s has over ten thousand followers and we have already posted so many essays disavowing katara hate. our feminist and antiracist objectives in running the blog are literally pinned with the headline “please read.”

furthermore, you cannot reasonably expect my co-blogger and me to control the way our words will be received. we should not have to, and are not going to, add a disclaimer to every post saying that when we critique or make jokes about a teenage girl we are doing so through a feminist lens. our url is lesbians4sokka, and we are clearly women. if that alone doesn’t make it obvious, then refer back to that pinned post.

it is indescribably frustrating, and really goddamn depressing as well, that people are so comfortable with the misogynistic binary of Perfect Good Women and Flawed Wicked Bitches that they perceive any discussion of a woman’s flaws to be necessarily relegating her to the latter camp. if that is how you (a generic you) perceive women, then i’m sorry, but you’ve internalized sexism that i cannot cure you of. and it’s unjust to expect my friend and me to write for the lowest common denominator of readers who have not yet had their own feminist awakenings. we do not write picture books for babies. we write for ourselves, and with the expectation that our readers can think critically. reading media through a feminist lens is my primary interest; i have no intention of excising that angle from my writing.

as i go through my life, i am going to embrace the flaws of girls and women because not enough people do. as long as the dominant narratives surrounding women are “good and perfect” and “unlovable wh*re,” you’ll find me highlighting flawed, realistic, righteously angry women in the margins. and for what it’s worth, it’s not just katara. i champion depictions of angry girls in all sorts of media. that’s sort of my whole thing. my favorite movies are part of the angry girl cinematic universe: thoroughbreds, jennifer’s body, hard candy, jojo rabbit, et cetera. on tv, in addition to katara, you’ll find me celebrating tuca and bertie, poppy from mythic quest, tulip and lake from infinity train, korra, and more. i adore all these women and see myself in them. i hope you find this suitably persuasive to establish that i have sufficient Feminist Cred, according to your standards, to observe and write about these very flawed and human fictional women.

what i’m saying is this: i decline to take responsibility for the misogynistic discourse orbiting a children’s cartoon. as someone who writes about that series from a perspective that seeks to add humanity and nuance to the reductive, one-dimensional, overwhelmingly sexist writing that already exists, i am pretty taken aback that i am the one being blamed for the very problem i sought to address. except not that taken aback because i am a woman online, haha! and this is always how it goes for us.

finally, i think it sucks that you’ve chosen to blame me for a problem that begins and ends with the patriarchy. i can’t control the way this response will be perceived, just like how i can’t control the way anything will be perceived because i am just one human woman, but i do hope you choose to be reflective, and consider why you’ve chosen this avenue to assign blame.

#anyway! this answer is too long and it's undignified to answer ''fandom drama'' queries on le blog #but here we are in 2020

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witches-in-caravans · 3 years

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My thoughts on a commonly used term when discussing kids cartoons.

One thing that often frustrates me about the argument "it's a kids show" when discussing the contents of a children show is that they don't think about why that term exists. Most kids shows back then got a somewhat fair amount of slack on criticism for a reason. A lot of it was because of the shows goals on what it wanted to be in service of.

Shows in the 80s had the purpose of action and fun, simple characters in order to sell merchandise (transformers, mlp g1). More shows back in the 90s/early 2000s had the goal on making its audience laugh or entertain if anything. Shows like dexters lab, Kim possible, spongebob or my life as a teenage robot were selling themselves on their gags or action rather than complex themes or drama. It might be fun to joke that spongebob was about communism and workers rights and shit, but we know that wasn't the creators or writers goals. So audiences tend to be gentler on criticism. And it's not like people never critic anything these shows produce. A lot of shows here dabbled or even went hogwild with homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic and sometimes even racist jokes.

If there were shows to teach lessons, they were relatively simple like ("sharing is a good thing", "don't make fun of children with 'weird habits'", ect..) in shows like Recess or Hey Arnold. Even then a lot of the "lesson" shows were set in world's with very low stakes, which was the real world in 90% of them. Many of the more dramatic kids shows weren't really high stakes, big action pieces. They were mostly mellow if anything. And they did get criticised as well.

This was probably what made avatar the last airbender so unforgettable to its young audience. It mainly had the premise and characters of your typical Saturday kids action series. Protagonist with a superpower, lots of fighting, a team of underdog kids fighting a big bad empire. It's premise was pretty trite and already flooded the cartoon market. But it was special at the time for exploring topics such as war, trauma and abuse in a way that was fun, respectful and most of all, easy for a younger audience to understand without being too overbearing with the topic. What made avatar work well for itself is that it treated the severity of most of these topics differently than the simple lesson programs at the time. Forgiving the person who personally bullied you in 1st grade is not the same as forgiving the man who caused you to see your mothers murdered corpse actually!!! The writers in avatar realised that if your gonna explore these kinds of themes in a world with larger stakes which include severe child abuse, war, trauma and mass genocide, you can't treat the people causing this as some cartoonist henchman or shitty little kid in the playground. You can give some of these characters sympathetic moments or explain the circumstances of how they were like this (azula, zuko), but you can't forget about what happened. At least you can't immediately as soon as they become the "good guy". Sadly the writers in atla seem to forget a lot of this information judging by their other shows such as lok or the dragon Prince.

I mention all this to explain why the "it's a kids show" doesn't apply as well to certain modern kids shows. Some of these shows are trying to cover pretty heavy topics such as abuse, imperialism and coloniasm, war, human experimentation and a whole list of rather dark concepts. And more so they are trying to teach lessons about them. But the creators want to have a "dark, angsty scene where the characters cry at the hands/actions of their colonizers/abusers" scene, but they don't want to actually think about how these atrocities affect the decision making of our horribly traumatised protagonists. Or how it would affect their feelings towards the antagonist. Writers usually only care about how the villain is going to get their redemption arc. And it's not like its inheritably bad that you give your antagonist a redemption story (though there's a limit to how far you can go depending on what they did). But when you give your antagonist 2 hours screentime about whatever angsty backstory you slapped onto them, and then you either completely ignore the pain and psychological state of your protagonists friends and even harshly criticise them for being angry and unforgiving at the antagonist for the miniscule actions of... Psychological or physical torture of you or loved ones, repeated attempted murder, mass genocide.... What I'm trying to say is that your message of empathising with the people around you falls a little flat in its face.

Subject matter and tone will heavily change how your audience perceives your theme.

This is why nobody complained about Dr Doofenshmirtz' rehabilitation. He was in a pure comedy show mainly focused on humour in which his eeevvviiiilllll plans includes ludicrous shit like ridding the world of mustaches cause he can't grow one. Absurd stuff. He ain't ozai or even azula. He didn't genocide a race of people, mutilate his kid and waged war against the world. He didn't travel around universes, pillaging cities or attempted to destroy the whole universe cause they were mad at one person. Stuff like that changes audience perception. He was so harmless for that his "arch nemises" often took his sweet time stopping and even indulged his ridiculous schemes.

This is why I don't criticise shows like she ra the same way I criticise kids programs like miraculous ladybug or the fucking winx club. The winx club has the rare emotional scene, but it's mostly a show about 6 fairy friends defeating a dully coloured comic book supervillain. It's conflicts are mostly simple and straightforward and it's purpose is to entertain children (and sell cheaply made plastic dolls). She ra as shown in its tone within the cartoon and by the creators intentions on twitter is different. It's clearly trying hard to explore themes of child abuse, war and imperialism. Its the font line topic of the show. And when exploring heavy themes such as this for a audience of children, you have to be careful. Because handling them poorly might have a chance of sending a wrong or muddled message to kids.

This is why the term "it's a kids show" isn't universal.

#writing #writing for children

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avoutput · 3 years

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Mario Mario & Luigi Mario || Super Mario Bros.

The beginning of any quest has its starting pains. In the early 90’s, Hollywood set out to begin getting a cut of that sweet video game money. At the time, video games were mostly considered toys, and they were advertised as such. As the medium grew more adult, so did its films. Still, they had to begin somewhere, and why not with the biggest gaming property on the planet past and present: Super Mario Bros. This provided an unknowingly impossible challenge for creatives, one that is still a topic of intense discussion to this day. How does one balance the adaptation of a property from a completely different format into film? At the time, other films that looked similar to what Super Mario Bros would become had succeeded despite the challenges of adapting comics for film. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the first re-imagination of Batman since the 60’s went on to invigorate their respective properties. Today, comic book movie adaptations are the tent pole of every major movie studio. In the case of Super Mario Bros, despite its critical failure at the time, I honestly feel like the creatives succeeded. The ire this film would glean over time from both fans and the people behind the camera fuel its bad reception to this day. In my opinion, it is actually a success story in the world of video game adaptations, and a great place to start if you plan on watching every Hollywood attempt. I promise you this: it could be so much worse. And for later attempts, it was! But, does Super Mario Bros thwomp?

In my initial argument, I raised that these films should be broken down into categories including: Originality, Preservation, Construction, Delivery, and Fanservice. Originality and Preservation can be at complete odds with one another. In the case of Super Mario Bros, it turns out to be a good combination of both. They offset each other just enough to find a balance between the reality of our world and the fantasy of the mushroom kingdom. Sit back in your chair and imagine the real world of 1993, what films looked like back then, the landscape of video game culture. I think the creators had this very much in mind when they penned this movie. The very first thing that happens in the Super Mario Bros movie is the NES theme song with all the depth a stereo sound system can provide. It really sets your little gamer heart aflutter. It conjures up images of the brightly colored games. Using narration, they make promises of dinosaurs, meteors, and other dimensions. If you don’t think too hard, it kind of sounds like a version of Super Mario Bros that was advertised via the game manuals and cartoon show. If you are familiar with either, a pair of New York plumbers essentially get sucked down a drain pipe. This process is a little more drawn out in the film, but It turns out more or less exactly as good as could have been expected in 1993. In fact, the film really isn’t above sucking them down a drain pipe, they do crazier things, but I suspect that they wanted the plumbers to have a more direct conflict that would lead them to try and save princess Daisy.

The plot of the film is par for the course in a children's film and a direct consequence of the game itself, especially if you consider the 3rd entry. A good king and an evil military general, betrayals and coups, princesses sent to live in another realm only to return home with a pair of knights to dethrone the evil king. A tale as old as time, one that continues to be retold because it resonates with us. The filmmakers were really focused on this being a performance of realism meets fantasy This would come to be the major struggle that other video game movies would continue to have problems balancing. They took concepts from the game and gave them an original spin and most within the framework of the original work. Their creative license is often challenged for these choices, but in the context of making a live action Super Mario Bros movie in 1993, those challengers should check themselves. The real question you should ask yourself is, in this context, what would you have done differently? And would it really have been better? I struggled to find a way to truly make the concepts of this movie any MORE appealing, but it was surprisingly easy to make it worse. In one way, this film was a by the numbers kids adventure story, but it's being held to task mostly for failing to be a good adaptation of the game, a bar which didn’t exist when they made it, but one they set and cleared simply by attempting to do so much. All the Mario concepts are easily recognizable, which should be applauded, even in the face of them being a little wacky.

Despite its failings in authenticity, it actually packs quite a lot of fanservice into almost every frame. If you pay attention once they enter Bowser’s domain, the walls are littered with little ads and jokes all based on Mario properties. This is all in an effort to please fans, but the film does tend to leave these little things in the background, the camera more focused on the characters and plot, so blink and you miss them. If anything, this duty to fanservice seems somewhat creatively arresting. Had this film not been an adaptation of another work, they may have opted to skip a few things, like how Mario and Luigi employ the use of mushrooms. In the game, these would make the bros bigger, but this would have been a bit at odds with the backdrop of the grimmy New York City analogy they chose, not to mention technically difficult. People have been squashing miniatures for years, but I just don’t see this being a good use of the film’s time given every other decision. The film's overwhelming attempt to create entirely new flesh on the skeleton of an animated game is really only hampered by the audience's willingness to enjoy it for what it is, by questioning every creative decision. A lot of effort was taken to make the world feel cohesive, especially in its attempt to be parallel to existing New York City. They even take time on some more clever jokes that go somewhat unspoken. Everything in Bowser City runs on electricity, including the cars. The idea here is that fossil fuels do not exist because the dinosaurs of this world haven’t ever fossilized. Or maybe the dinosaurs knew it was bad for their planet? The film is constructed and delivered in such a way as to not take itself too seriously, but to appear parallel to something familiar to our own world in conjunction with the Super Mario world.

After having sat through the film with an earnest critical eye, I am not going to tell you the film is greater than the sum of its parts or that it's fantastic because it set out on an uncharted path. Instead, what I will attest to is that it was truly competent. It made every attempt to give you what you wanted and also took a few of their own twists on the formula. Bullet Bills turned into fuel for jumping, Bomb-oms wear Reeboks, shoes facilitate their ability to jump but also satisfy the boot you wear in Super Mario Bros 3. They even use the lightgun from the NES to navigate screens much like a mouse and the SNES super gun as a weapon! All this and still they found a way to make it all fit within the italian brothers from Brooklyn framing. Unfortunately, it would seem no one really learned anything from the success or the failures of this film. If the 90’s game films are any indication, the only thing they learned is that the box office is fickle and to double down on fan service even when it doesn't make sense, and in some cases, abandon everything about the game entirely and simply slap the name on a completely original film. And yet, despite all the bad press and internal struggles the Super Mario Bros production had, they came out the other end with an inoffensive, enjoyable film that both kids and adults can enjoy. Especially if they forgive the film any perceived sins, a gift that all film adaptations deserve, and just try to recognize what they really accomplished. Bringing to life a world that only existed in your Nintendo. It may not have been pretty, but damn if it wasn’t entertaining.

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adventure-hearts · 4 years

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Question: Why is Sora becoming a fashion designer perceived as a “non-empowered” or “non-feminist” choice, in 2020?

To begin with: this analysis isn’t about if Sora’s Epilogue career choice was foreshadowed or developed enough. That issue belongs in a more general discussion about why some fans felt dissatisfied with the Epilogue, in particular those jobs that were considered to be unexpected or more left-field.

It also isn’t about individual fans’ personal disappointment with the character’s trajectory. Obviously, there are many factors at play that could lead one to be unhappy with how Sora’s turned out — dub changes, the cultural background information that isn’t always evident, or just personal reasons. No-one needs to agree with Sora’s job or feel compelled to justify their personal dislike.

Nevertheless, I will propose the following four explanatory hypothesis for why people might harbor a negative view of Sora’s career choice:

1. Being a fashion designer goes against Sora’s previously-established personality, interests, and values. 2. Her future career isn’t empowering. 3. It’s regressive, because all the female characters just ended up with stereotypical, traditional feminine activities. 4. Sora stopped being a role model for gender non-conformity in girls.

In this post, I’m going to try and demystify those points of view, in order to try to show that Sora’s career is both fitting and empowering.

***

Hypothesis 1: Being a fashion designer goes against Sora’s previously-established personality, interests, and values.

I believe this perspective is more connected to a general misunderstanding or lack of appreciation for Sora’s character arc.

To make a generalizing statement, many fans felt frustrated when Sora went from being presented as not particularly “girly” (playing football, wearing more practical clothes, being friends with boys) to “suddenly” becoming more feminine post-Adventure (playing tennis, wearing more feminine clothes, being paired off romantically with a boy, doing ikebana). This “dramatic change” culminated in her in her becoming a fashion designer in the Epilogue.

Similar complaints exist about Miyako’s endgame. In both cases, dissatisfaction is based on the notion that a girl who doesn’t present as typically girly or has “masculine interests” in childhood wouldn’t gravitate towards “feminine things” later on. Some people believe that, in 02, becoming more traditionally feminine was associated with growing up and becoming more mature. Consequently, Sora and Miyako’s Epilogue jobs were a “correction” to their earlier presentation as young girls who challenged traditional gender roles.

While I think this is an understandable complaint, I must emphasize that a more deeper analysis of Sora’s character arc might help explain her trajectory in a more straightforward way.

Consider:

It’s clear that Sora is coded as not a "girly girl” in Adventure. Not only does she have a unisex name, but she is often presented as a contrast with the hyper-feminine Mimi.

Despite of this, I would argue that Sora was never portrayed as a full tomboy. For example, she speaks in a feminine way; her manners are delicate, even dainty; and she undertakes roles that involve being caring and nurturing, such as Big Sister / Group Mom — and, at one point, even damsel in distress —, which are normally associated with femininity. You never get the impression that Sora considers herself to be “one of the boys” or that she constantly struggles against gender expectations. Even her digimon partner is pink!

In Adventure, Sora’s preference for football over ikebana and annoyance when her mother asks her to act more “ladylike” are explained as a being a reaction against the pressure of Sora’s position as heiress to an old Ikebana family. To give the Cliff Notes version of the story: Sora rejected feminine as a way of rebelling against her mother’s perceived lack of love for her, and against the pressures of her position as ie-moto Crown Princess.

After Sora made up with her mum, she became more open-minded and gradually began to embrace and enjoy more feminine things, including tennis (it’s weird to me that people consider tennis “girly”, but I digress), cooking, and flower arrangement. As a teenager, Sora is also often seen wearing skirts and more feminine clothes, suggesting a more ‘womanly’ presentation, and she even ends up becoming romantically involved with a boy.

I don’t see any evidence in Adventure or 02 that Sora wouldn’t be fond of art, design, or fashion. On the contrary: she practices and enjoys flower arrangement. Sora’s hobbies and personality traits in Adventure and 02 include sports, flower arrangement, resourcefulness, responsibility, sensitivity, and an eye for detail. Is that really incompatible with a future career in fashion design? The fact that she comes from an Ikebana family directly influences her career choice, notably the fact that she uses traditional Japanese elements in her designs. This establishes a strong connection between her Epilogue Job and her arc.

TL;DR: Sora wasn’t really a tomboy to begin with, and her becoming “more feminine” as she grew up is explained in the series as being a direct consequence of her Adventure character arc.

Hypothesis 2: Her future career isn’t empowering.

I think this stems from from the belief that being a fashion designer isn’t an important enough career.

Since Sora is a Chosen Child, fans would expect grown-up Sora to be saving the world or being involved in Digimon issues, instead of doing silly things like making dresses and kimonos. After all, she is supposed to be a Strong Female Character™!

This point of view probably relates to the perception of creative professions — or anything related to art and culture — as “superficial”, “not serious” or “useless” for society. Fashion design, in particular ,is often seen as vapid or superficial, rather than a legitimate art form that can full of beauty and meaning. It’s the old story that if a career isn’t “powerful” or “useful”, then it’s less valid. (It’s interesting how no-one seems to question if becoming a footballer or a rock star would be “impactful” or “strong” enough for the two male protagonists.)

This might be also be tangentially connected to fans’ dissatisfaction with Sora’s decreasing importance in the team as the story goes on. Many people would have preferred to see her in a position of leadership, or in the front lines of the battle. In this sense, her career choice could be perceived as the writers sidelining this female character even further.

In short, Sora’s career isn’t baddass enough.

Counterpoints:

There are many reasons why Sora wouldn’t want to be involved in fighting as a grown up. I’ve written about it earlier, but I think nothing illustrates her choice better than the short film To Sora. While it’s fair to question to what extent this decision was linked to Sora’s increasingly smaller role in the team (meta-wise), it’s still based on established character motivations. Sora doesn’t work in digimon business because... she doesn’t want to.

Sora becoming a fashion designer is also a huge step for the character, in the sense that it means that she also does not end up taking over over as Ikebana grand-master. Instead, she forges her own independent path: she does something she wanted to do for herself.

Moreover, based on the little information we have, Sora either works on a relevant position or works in her own name, considering she is able to run fashion shows and make creative decisions. This means Sora isn’t just an artist with a vision: she’s in a position of power within the business.

We don’t have many clues to estimate how successful she is, but options range from her running her own small independent label, to being head-designer of a company, to becoming a proper superstar designer with her own successful global brand. All of those possibilities mean Sora has achieved considerable career success. If she’s doing some form of haute couture, then Sora’s arguably one the most “career accomplished” among the all group (if you use the usual questionable methods society uses to evaluate “accomplishment”, namely fame, power, and money).

And think of all the skills and talents necessary to be a successful fashion designer! Creativity; innovation; vision; diligence; hard work... to think of fashion design as an unimportant or “minor” profession is really reductive. Don’t you think icons like Valentino, Yves Saint-Laurent, Alexander McQueen, Coco Chanel, Vivienne Westwood, Hanaé Mori or Rei Kawakubo aren’t respected and influential? I’m not saying Sora’s at that level (yet) — I’m just saying she might be.

TL;DR: In the Epilogue, we learn that Sora followed her individual dreams and is triumphing in a challenging and important industry, producing high-quality art in her own terms. She even has the potential of becoming powerful, wealthy, and famous. She’s the definition of an empowered woman.

Hypothesis 3: It’s regressive, because all the female characters just ended up with stereotypical, traditional feminine activities.

This view is based on the observation that all the boys ended up with “important” careers, while the girls ended up with “feminine” jobs or, in Miyako’s case, not even a career at all. In other words, fans believe that the Digimon Epilogue wasn’t exactly good at providing progressive role models for girls.

I do have some issues with this view.

First: Isn’t the idea that traditional “feminine” activities are automatically lesser in itself sexist?

Why do we assume that a fashion designer or a school teacher is “less” than a writer or a doctor? I’m not saying the Digimon Epilogue is problem-free or that promotes gender equality (it is, after all, a Japanese children’s cartoon from 2000), but considering the reality of working women in Japan, is the Epilogue that bad and regressive?

(Also, there are twice more men in the team than women, so there’s more room for wider representation on the boys’ side. The four girls in Adventure always carry the burden of having to stand for half the population. As I mentioned in section 1, the fact that Sora was perceived as a “tomboy” means her career choice receives even more criticism.)

Second: Is being a fashion designer truly a “traditional feminine activity”?

I would argue that considering fashion designer (especially in the “higher ranks”) as “woman’s job” is both stereotypical (“clothes are a woman’s thing!") and historically inaccurate.

Here’s a fun fact: As of 2018, only 40% of womenswear fashion brands are designed by women and only 14% of the 50 major fashion brands are run by women.

Think of the most famous fashion houses you know; you’ll find that the majority are almost all founded and/or lead by male designers. Looking at the list of Japanese fashion designers on Wikipedia, just over half of them are men.

In other words, the fashion industry was and continues to be overwhelmingly dominated by men, it’s plagued by lack of diversity and opportunitues for women, and women fashion designers a lot of obstacles and discrimination. So much for Sora having a “woman’s job”!

And don’t even get me started on how difficult it must be to conciliate this career with being a mother of two.

TL;DR: Sora is working in a male-dominated field were being successful as a woman is still incredibly difficult. Not that different from playing in the boy’s football team!

Hypothesis 4: Sora stopped being a role model for gender non-conformity in girls.

I think the previous sections have already negated this to some extent.

First, Sora was never that gender-conforming to begin with and she began embracing femininity long before the Epilogue. Also, the two things aren’t mutually exclusive. Liking football and wearing jeans doesn’t mean you can’t like fashion and wear dresses.

Second, being a fashion designer is a respected, demanding, and possibly lucrative career. Sora is both an artist and a successful businesswoman in a leadership role she chose for herself.

Third, fashion is a male dominated industry and fashion design isn’t “a feminine occupation”. Sora is still going to have to break barriers and face a lot of obstacles based on the fact that she’s a woman and a working mum.

TL;DR: Sora’s challenging of social expectations, her “less typical” childhood presentation and hobbies, and her being a source of inspiration for little girls isn’t invalidated by her becoming a fashion designer.

Conclusion

Upon reflection, Sora’s career not only makes sense for the character, but it’s a very empowering one.

Sora Takenouchi remains a feminist icon, thank you very much.

PS: I’ve always suspected that, on a meta level, Sora’s Epilogue career was very loosely inspired by Stephen King’s IT, which was listed by director Hiroyuki Kakudou as an influence for Digimon Adventure/02: more, specifically, the character Beverly Marsh is a red-haired girl who grows up to be a fashion designer.

#digimon #analysis #meta #takenouchi sora #the epilogue

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zombiesun · 3 years

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wait ur dad post is throwing me off, I want to be on board for these vibes but I can't tell if it's satire. god told him to be homo? near children sacrifice? this definitely explains a lot of ur mind and way of speaking and perceiving the world. did you have fun with ur dad or was this a way of putting a fun twist on a traumatic time? bc I can relate to that

this is probably the funniest ask I’ve ever gotten and exactly why I overshare on the internet. it’s not satire! my dad is really just like that! g-d did not tell him to be a homo (my father is very homophobic in a very righteous, g-d fearing way) but his relationship with g-d is very homoerotic. it’s not a joke or performance for him, he really does love his g-d more than anything or anyone else on the earth and he would do anything he felt “called” to do which was a rather unstable element in my childhood. however, there is a sense of romance between him and his terrifying deity and I think that devotion and passion is something that scared me a lot growing up but also something I see streaks of in my own faith practices. I’ve always had a very corrupted idea of faith/love before and seen them both as things that ultimately degrade/distort a person because the best parts of my dad were not his faith but it was unfortunately the biggest and most dominant part of him.

and he did tell us he would sacrifice us (lol, we were making sandwiches for lunch and I asked him jokingly and he responded with a severity I really will never forget) and since my family homeschooled us a lot of his religious abuse was ultimately never documented/held accountable so he could really get away with running his own, tiny, horrific religious cult consisting of my mother, me, and my three siblings. it was a really traumatic way to grow up. his faith was so unorthodox that we would keep on changing churches because of none of them matched his extreme, insane devotion and understanding of the bible. I talk about the story a lot where he woke us up at three am because g-d gave him a vision that we were all going to hell if he didn’t dunk us in water to “seal our entry to heaven” because it was really traumatic and vivid in my mind and one of the many instances of realizing “oh, my father is a really unwell man and there’s no one who is ever going to stop him” as a child. it was a really difficult way to grow up and the source of a lot of my anger against christianity as a faith and my fascination and knowledge on cults and how they function. a cult can sometimes be a family lead by an insane, unchecked, deeply unwell man and his complacent wife and four children who don’t go to school and aren’t allowed to leave the house. there was a period where my mom hand sewed all of our clothes because modern clothing was too immodest and we had to look different then other people. my childhood was really unorthodox and it was also squarely because of his idea of how people should act/exist and it being very different from mainstream society. (it was very captain fantastic sans the wilderness survival and replaced with him wanting us to be college athletes and making us train five days out of the week for it for the majority of my childhood/high school years.)

“this definitely explains a lot of ur mind and way of speaking and perceiving the world. did you have fun with ur dad or was this a way of putting a fun twist on a traumatic time?” anon I am telling this to my therapist verbatim because it’s so funny and something I would write in my own journal. if you wanted to tell me why exactly it explains my mind/way of speaking/perceiving the world I would absolutely be fascinated to hear it.

I did have fun with my dad though. He’s a funny, jovial, spirit of a child sort of man. A lot of my childhood was fun in a weird way, we had a six foot basketball hoop in our living room and bags of plastic balls to host neighborhood ball fights. He collects movies and since we didn’t have cable/internet for most of my childhood he would either pirate or buy movies for us to stimulate the feeling of Saturday cartoons. He’s eccentric and passionate, he doesn’t fit in with other people so in many ways he encouraged me to exist in my own strange way. He thinks I’m funny and smart, he always tells me that he loves me and he gives good hugs and there’s something comforting in that. I did hate him for most of my life though for very good reason. He’s the source of a lot of my issues with boundaries/forming healthy relationships because he was emotionally immature in a way that required me to parent/apologize for his actions at a really young age. I also had to deprogram my siblings after I escaped but three of the four of us still live with him despite my best efforts.

That was the most oversharing about my family I have ever done on this app lmao. It was a fun twist, because like, it’s funny now because I haven’t had to live with him for over five years and he can’t control my life anymore but also I think if I took it seriously again it would probably send me back like, five years worth of healing you know?

#mailbox #anoncore #religious trauma #cult trauma #lmn if this needs additional tags #sorry if this is more than you wanted anon you just really sent me down oversharing about my weird family lane #thanks 4 asking though #here's 2 coping with humor <3 #and frl if you want to go in further of how that makes me make sense #I would love to hear it #Anonymous

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