If You're A Carry On Fan, Please Read This!!

CAT by  By 九米 / Zhaobangni (1631123)

A lot of people ask me what my biggest fear is, or what scares me most. And I know they expect an answer like heights, or closed spaces, or people dressed like animals, but how do I tell them that when I was 17 I took a class called Relationships For Life and I learned that most people fall out of love for the same reasons they fell in it. That their lover’s once endearing stubbornness has now become refusal to compromise and their one track mind is now immaturity and their bad habits that you once adored is now money down the drain. Their spontaneity becomes reckless and irresponsible and their feet up on your dash is no longer sexy, just another distraction in your busy life. Nothing saddens and scares me like the thought that I can become ugly to someone who once thought all the stars were in my eyes.

rainer maria rilke, letters to a young poet

male gaze is not 'when person look sexy' or 'when misogynist make film'

death of the author is not 'miku wrote this'

I don't think you have to read either essay to grasp the basic concepts

death of the author means that once a work is complete, what the author believes it to mean is irrelevant to critical analysis of what's in the text. it means when analysing the meaning of a text you prioritise reader interpretation above author intention, and that an interpretation can hold valid meaning even if it's utterly unintentional on the part of the person who created the thing. it doesn't mean 'i can ignore that the person who made this is a bigot' - it may in fact often mean 'this piece of art holds a lot of bigoted meanings that the author probably wasn't intentionally trying to convey but did anyway, and it's worth addressing that on its own terms regardless of whether the author recognises it's there.' it's important to understand because most artists are not consciously and vocally aware of all the possible meanings of their art, and because art is communal and interpretive. and because what somebody thinks they mean, what you think somebody means, and what a text is saying to you are three entirely different things and it's important to be able to tell the difference.

male gaze is a cinematographic theory on how films construct subjectivity (ie who you identify with and who you look at). it argues that film language assumes that the watcher is a (cis straight white hegemonically normative) man, and treats men as relatable subjects and women as unknowable objects - men as people with interior lives and women as things to be looked at or interacted with but not related to. this includes sexual objectification and voyeurism, but it doesn't mean 'finding a lady sexy' or 'looking with a sexual lens', it means the ways in which visual languages strip women of interiority and encourage us to understand only men as relatable people. it's important to understand this because not all related gaze theories are sexual in nature and if you can't get a grip on male gaze beyond 'sexual imagery', you're really going to struggle with concepts of white or abled or cis subjectivities.

Can't think about Romeo and Juliet without going insane (affectionate) about how genuinely good of a play it is and without going insane (derogatory) about how often it's been misinterpreted that a lot of conversations about it completely disregard the context of the story to make Romeo and Juliet's love seem superficial and "just being overdramatic dumb teenagers" instead of them both being born into a war they didn't ask to fight in, both having recently been put in awful situations regarding their other romantic relationships (Romeo having gone through what was more or less a bad breakup and Juliet being forced to marry an adult she doesn't know or love- of course they'd fall for someone who understands how they're feeling when nobody else will listen to them), and both of them having friends and family die over this feud that neither want to participate in. Why the fuck wouldn't they want to try to make things better??? Why wouldn't they plead and fight and kill and, eventually, die themselves to try to prove this battle pointless after every other attempt at both peace and escape has failed them??????? Gods I know I'm definitely overreacting but I get so frustrated when people water it down to "see this proves that love at first sight is a stupid trope" when that's literally the opposite of the play's themes. ALSO the story- while it's very common knowledge these days that it's a tragedy- WASN'T PORTRAYED LIKE THAT!!! Like yes, the prologue tells you that the main characters are going to end up dead at the end- but it's impactful because you're supposed to almost forget about that line, and wonder "how could things possibly go THAT badly?"!!! The entire first half of the play is framed as a comedy!!! You've got overdramatic monologues, a silly sidekick, old men swordfighting in their pajamas, a nurse that is well-meaning but ultimately incompetent! And then the silly sidekick dies. And very, very suddenly, it's no longer a comedy. Now it's a tragedy. And when this silly sidekick curses both the Montagues and the Capulets? Now you know. They're doomed. No matter what they try, something will go wrong, because the blood this feud has shed has cursed them all. And while they may try, and oh Lord, these characters try, they can't escape their fate.

Joan Didion, Blue Nights.

After investigations

(sorry about the ugly borders)

rin, nezha and kitay resemble the trifecta so much its scary, but i can't quite agree on their placements.

kitay is definitely the gatekeeper, the calm but impressive scholar with hidden talents, but rin and nezha both have the potential to be the warrior.

but since nezha is the charming and powerful one, he fits the vipress' role. rin is cruel, direct, and powerhungry like the warrior.

god i love these books.

TW: animal death / injury / death For grandma, who loved pigeons, and for grandpa, who did not but wanted her to be happy. Please hear me out <3 WEBTOON

september is coming up so here’s your yearly reminder to leave billie joe armstrong the fuck alone