#so smooth
Not even remotely kidding when I say that if you don’t fuck with the LGBTQIA+ community, I do not and will not fuck with you. Big ass love to all the queer folks out there. If you’re on my blog, you’re in a safe place.
by-grace-of-god
“Death blowing bubbles,” 18th century. The bubbles symbolize life’s fragility. This plaster work appears on the ceiling of Holy Grave Chapel in Michaelsberg Abbey, Bamberg, Germany. (+)
#willowmonth2023 ↳ favourite character: WILLOW UFGOOD played Warwick Davis
win beinganoverdramaticass
CUPID’S LAST WISH: episode 1
hold up. do we know if darcy ever found out that mr collins proposed to lizzy before he did?? or do we think lizzy just dropped that lil tidbit into conversation one day and darcy was like “FUCKING WHO PROPOSED TO YOU WHEN” and then had to go for a long walk to angst over the fact that he was almost prevented from marrying the love of his life by his aunt’s annoying little twerp of a clergyman
My friend and I would like to get to know moomin. Do you have a recommendation as to where we could start? We know of him in name and visage only.
hm so personally i'd say there are 2 good places to start w Moomin content!
you could start right at the beginning with the books. in terms of tone & target audience i'd compare them to something like Winnie the Pooh so they are very short & sweet reads. the first one chronologically is 'The Moomins and the Great Flood' but the normal tone & setting of the series isnt really established till the second book 'Comet in Moominland' so unless you're a completist i'd suggest starting there.
important to note that the books become progressively more philosophical and melancholy as the series goes along & as a result while they're all good the later books (Moominland Midwinter onwards) are IMO more enjoyable from an adult perspective.
alternatively!! if you want to jump in somewhere other than the books my personal recommendation would be the 1990s Moomin anime (this is the one that was popular on tumblr during the moomin renaissance). tonally & aesthetically it has kind of its own thing going on which is a bit cutesier than the books but it's a very nice relaxing show n i enjoy it a lot.
The phrase “moomin renaissance” makes me imagine one of the moomin standing in front of a half finished painting of some saint in a garden.
Like this? (Detail from cup):
"Why are you pointing your gun at my son? Put it down!"
This line has been bouncing around my brain for weeks, because of what it says about Kit's and Chopper's relationship, and how that in turn informs Chopper's character arc.
Kit's just been shot by Chopper. He probably doesn't think his son would go so far as to kill him, but he didn't believe he would be shot by him either, and that just happened. But in that moment, his immediate reaction is to yell at his henchmen to stand down.
Because out of the two possible risks here – he dies, or he has to see his son die – he vastly prefers the former.
Compare and contrast the similar scene between Shin and Thana in 3 Will Be Free. Thana cares for his son, may even love him, but when Shin betrays his father, Thana doesn't hesitate to throw him in with Neo and Miw to be killed.
Kit, on the other hand, only points a gun at Chopper for a second before turning it towards Nueng (who is unarmed, cradling Palm, not a threat at this moment). He is certainly angry with Chopper. He wants to punish Chopper, for stepping out of line, for being disobedient enough to choose those two over him. But he doesn't ever want Chopper to die.
And Chopper doesn't want Kit to die. (In this, he is of course entirely similar to Shin, who also cries over his asshole father, except Chopper gets his wish. Kit survives.)
In a show full of daddy issues, Chopper is closer to his father than any of the other characters. Nueng's dad was distant, Palm's harsh, Ben's homophobic. Chopper is used to being by his dad's side, the apple of his eye. Used to being told that everything Kit does, he does for him. And no, Kit doesn't listen when Chopper protests that he doesn't want it, but what BL father ever properly listened to his son?
I don't know if Kit was the kind of dad to give piggyback rides and come to school concerts, but it wouldn't surprise me.
And that's half of the reason it takes Chopper so long to stand up against his father. Resisting abuse is hard, but resisting love is hard in a different way. To look at someone who has cared for you, who you have cared for, and sever that bond in a way that hurts both emotionally and physically. To have to make that sacrifice to save not only yourself, but others, because the person who was so kind to you was a monster to others, and in order to keep their love you have to become someone else entirely.
It is, in its heightened, soap opera way, a quintessentially queer experience.
The other reason it's so hard for Chopper to take a stand is that he is by far the most empathetic person on the show. He feels for everyone. His father, yes, and his beloved cousin, but he also feels for Ben even as Ben is pursuing Nueng. He feels for Palm when he senses Palm's awkwardness in his new employment. He feels for the guy who gets his finger cut off as punishment by Kit.
And what does he do in the finger-cutting scene?
He turns away.
Empathy isn't always positive. Empathic distress is a term used when someone is so overwhelmed by other people's emotions that it starts to hurt them, and that's a common cause of burnout and can be a hindrance to actual help and compassion. You don't want a surgeon who starts crying in the operating room.
Chopper wants everyone to get along. He wants everyone to be like him, and not hurt anyone. But not everyone is like him, and someone is going to get hurt. The longer he waits to act, the worse the situation gets. Chopper has been trained to shoot, but it's not until the end that he can steel his heart enough to do it – and even then, just until his father is arrested. Then he's swept up by his emotions again, taking on all the guilt that Kit ought to be feeling.*
"You are nothing like me," Kit admits at the end. He spits it out in anger and disgust, a curse – but in a way also a blessing. At last, he truly sees his son, and through that, Chopper is finally set free.
*A couple of thoughts from Scandinavian children's fantasy: I've been thinking about the Shamer Chronicles, Drakan who does so much evil and feels no shame vs. Rosa who does no evil and feels so much shame. Also, the argument from The Brothers Lionheart about how Jonatan can't kill anyone and Orvar says, "If everybody was like you, evil would get to rule forever!" and Skorpan counters by saying that if everybody was like Jonatan there would be no evil. But I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with either of those thoughts, so that's why they're stuck in the footnote. :-)
My friend and I would like to get to know moomin. Do you have a recommendation as to where we could start? We know of him in name and visage only.
hm so personally i'd say there are 2 good places to start w Moomin content!
you could start right at the beginning with the books. in terms of tone & target audience i'd compare them to something like Winnie the Pooh so they are very short & sweet reads. the first one chronologically is 'The Moomins and the Great Flood' but the normal tone & setting of the series isnt really established till the second book 'Comet in Moominland' so unless you're a completist i'd suggest starting there.
important to note that the books become progressively more philosophical and melancholy as the series goes along & as a result while they're all good the later books (Moominland Midwinter onwards) are IMO more enjoyable from an adult perspective.
alternatively!! if you want to jump in somewhere other than the books my personal recommendation would be the 1990s Moomin anime (this is the one that was popular on tumblr during the moomin renaissance). tonally & aesthetically it has kind of its own thing going on which is a bit cutesier than the books but it's a very nice relaxing show n i enjoy it a lot.
somehow, amazingly, i have hacked the impulse that makes me mindlessly scroll on my phone. it's not gone but i've paired it with a conscious thought process that goes like, "what's my goal here? i'm looking for entertainment, for information, for something that makes me feel more optimistic and interested in the world i live in..."
and because that kicks in between apps, too, i'm not doomscrolling as much. i'm intentionally seeking out posts or videos or whatever that actually mean something to me. when i'm not satisfied i walk away or pick up a book instead. most subtle yet impactful change i've gone through in years
i did not intentionally set out to change this. i've just been working on my mindset in general. hey, turns out having a good therapist again helps
thank you to everyone who has liked this post for reminding me to keep up the habit. just caught myself doomscrolling and remembered i have a nice podcast i could be listening to instead
My Agatha Christie re-reading project, #37: The Hollow
I breezed through The Hollow in only a couple of days, largely because I had forgotten almost everything about it.
That doesn't sound promising, but I really enjoyed this one!
The setup is classical Christie: a country house where family and friends gather, one person is murdered, and all must be suspected. But the murder doesn't happen until a third into the novel, and this is another one of those Christies where she's more interested in exploring the people than the crime.
We have the man, the devoted wife (too devoted?), the mistress, the ex, the man who is in love with the mistress, and the woman who is in love with the man who is in love with the mistress. In other words, a relationship mess. Throw in a sulky young intellectual, a whimsical older lady and her more stable husband, some loyal servants, a policeman, and Poirot, and it's a full cast.
Christie claimed that she ruined the book by having Poirot in it, and I think she's a little hard on herself, but it's true that he's not exactly necessary. An interesting aspect of this book is that most of the people involved know who the murderer is, and so Poirot isn't actually revealing anything to anyone who doesn't already know it. Except of course the reader. It's not quite a Murder on the Orient Express situation, but a little bit similar.
The most prominent character is probably Henrietta, a modern artist with a good head on her shoulders (and the unfortunate bad taste of being the mistress to the murder victim). Her take on the situation, as well as the artistic process, are interesting to read about.
The exploration of Henrietta's fairly realistic view of her lover, contrasted with his wife Gerda's idealistic reinterpretation of him, made for a good foundation for the mystery.
But my favourite character was Lucy, the whimsical older lady. While she isn't always the nicest, I had fun with her way of speaking, where her thoughts were so far ahead that whatever she actually ended up saying could be hard for others to comprehend. Also, her habit of starting to make kettles of tea and then going back to bed, to the point where the servants had extra kettles just lying around for when one was ruined. She felt like a gentle parody of an actual person, maybe someone from Christie's life.
The solution is very typically Christie, but I don't think it is in any way obvious to the casual reader.
As I understand it, she rewrote the story for the stage without Poirot, and I would be very intrigued to see that version!
Verdict: 4/5
Reblogging myself to say that I just discovered the All About Agatha podcast and listened to their episode about The Hollow, and as it turns out, the Swedish translation is censored. As in, the original has some pretty heavy antisemitism that was cut out of the translation. Not surprising for Agatha, but certainly a bit extra yikes for a book published in 1946.
I let my verdict stand since it's based on the version I read. So far, I haven't mentioned when I read a translation or not, except in some cases when it's been relevant, but maybe I should.
Moonlight Chicken Chapter 3: The Dream of the Eternal Moon.
when your beloved mutual turns your zero note flop post into a one note flop post <33333
Hi! My mum and I had a conversation in the car where I mentioned how funny I found this bit, because I had read it as Anathema thinking that she had, in fact, just been run over by a very campy gay couple, and a campy gay couple wouldn't harm her. But my mum read this as Anathema, who she thought could feel that Crowley was a demon, realizing that she was also in the presence of an angel, and an angel wouldn't harm her. And I guess I just wanted to know which was the intended message?
The version that Terry and I had in mind when we wrote it was the former.
Reading the comments I realize that things that were perfectly obvious to readers in the UK 33 years ago don't land the same way now.
If anyone has been in any doubt about what Anathema was thinking the line that would have made it utterly clear would have been..
...the "two consenting cycle repairmen".
In the UK the 1957 Wolfenden Report recommended that 'homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private should be no longer a criminal offence'. And the phrase "consenting adults" became a euphemism for gay men once the recommendations of the report were put into action and male homosexual acts were decriminalized. (It took a decade and happened in 1967.)
So, yes. She thinks they're gay. And she was safe.
Just finished season 1 of Gay OK Bangkok
which was wonderful. Stylewise, it's a bit unpolished, but that mostly just underlines how real it feels. I don't know how much of it is based on actual people's lives, but all of it could be.
With almost every gay Thai drama I've watched, someone has argued that it's "not really a BL", but this one truly isn't a BL. There's no true love winning at the end. It's people who are in love but mismatched trying to figure out how to navigate that. It's people who keep trying to find love and failing. It's people bursting into tears because the search can be so exhausting. It's a very frank discussion – with PSA even! – about HIV. And despite all that, it's not depressing. On the contrary, it's very compassionate to everyone involved, even when sometimes they're acting like dicks.
It feels a little bit ungenerous to complain about things like the soundmix, or how the lack of translation of the character introductions meant that it took me a while to figure out who all of those people were and how they knew each other. But, well, it did affect my enjoyment, and so on MyDramaList it's half a point down from my highest rated dramas, at 8.5.
(Wait, you ask: what about the 10? Listen, MyDramaList is for all things Asian, right? Meaning that my movie ratings are also up there, though the reviews are on Letterboxd. And I cannot in all honesty rank any of these dramas as high as The Seven Samurai.)
(BTW, I'm still looking for more people to follow on MyDramaList, so if you have one, please let me know your username!)
I have no one now. I am alone. I'm so lonely. NEVER LET ME GO Ep 10 | Me
Was your favorite book turned into an absolutely god awful movie?
If so, you may be entitled to emotional compensation! In this tournament, the worst adaptions will duke it out to determine which is, actually, The Absolute Worst.
Qualifications:
- Must be an adaptation of a book. If I allowed things like comic books, the entire mcu would be submitted
- It doesn't actually have to be a bad movie-- take How To Train Your Dragon, for example. It's a great movie! I love it! I would even say that it's my favorite movie! It's not a good adaption, though. Very different from the books (or at least, the two that I read)
- It doesn't have to be a movie-- if a book got adapted into a really shitty show, then that would be allowed in
Rules:
- Be civil. It is a silly tumblr tournament. If you absolutely must, then beat down the adaption of your fave, rather than beating down the original, or you know, REAL ACTUAL PEOPLE.
- Propaganda is allowed and encouraged, both during the voting and submission periods
- Honestly there's nothing I can think of to ban so I'm just going to leave you here with another message: I know where the block button is.
Automatic entries:
- Percy Jackson
- Eragon
- Artemis Fowl
