jotadoul

[jotadoul]

Schiaparelli | Spring/Summer 2024 Couture

#jjba

[jotadoul]

sorry your kid wouldnt stop naming pokemon in order so we had to flatten em into a sheet of lasagna

#stop being weird. autism road roller da

[jotadoul]

The Forgotten SDC Villains

#steely dan winning over n'doul atm... the disrespect is wild. oh you don't like his hair. He's on avant-garde high fashion runway shit #oh you don't like his vest. It's called having culture. #He has bigass hoop earrings and a flirty little laugh and we're still debating this

[jotadoul]

somehow people are finding my old art and posts SO— and thank you for liking it!— i just want to reiterate that the bulk of the art and thoughts saved on this blog are outdated, from 2016 or earlier (i think? i had some even older iterations of jjba blogs but those are long gone, so i'm not actually sure which crossed over into what.) my deadname too is all over the shit on here, which is tough. but, since i have my little renaissances now and then, i've kept it up.

my bio basically says this but: i'm an adult, i'm trans, he/him only, butch, leather, pervert, and while i mostly focus on my original work now, love is crucial and never dies 🖤 whenever my partner and i dip back into our collective hysteria i'm always gripped by the same (though expanded) joy i felt when we first started really getting into it, both reading jjba and reading About jjba/araki. i was lucky enough to focus my thesis partially on jjba way back in college and give some (sorta) scholarly presentations at conventions. honestly, now that the scope of my interests and passions have expanded and evolved, that's something i'd love to do again someday when the public health situation allows me to have any fun at all.

[jotadoul]

i had a big post going in my drafts but was nerfed by media limits. why "post" when i can simply make an entire website for my passions?

i'll be updating it periodically, when time allows ^__^

#jojo's bizarre adventure #jjba ova #n'doul #ndoul #stardust crusaders #jjba #html #design

[jotadoul]

🥰 anka and i are sharing a prion disease right now so we're rewatching the JJBA OVA. and okay. maybe it was the weed but i think it might be... i think it's my favourite thing ever made. that's ever existed. for all time. it's my favourite thing that exists. my favourite thing that Is. it really does makes me feel exactly like the ending of HEAT... LOL and i'm serious about this. it's like a stun gun or like being sandblasted where i'm shot outside of my body helpless to what's happening. horrible feeling and i love it very much.

and i feel soooooooo fucking VINDICATED because i dug deep into japanese forums + blogs and found people celebrating it ;__; there are discussions from this year (2024) even! people agree that it's gorgeous and that if you're going to watch (or even read) any version, it should be this one. that it rewards you on rewatches... which is true. every time i see it, i find something new, some extra bit of care that goes toward the structure of the mood. so many subtle movements in the acting, so much elegance to the balance of exposition in the dialogue. mainly in the japanese version, but it's not like it's lost in the english dub, just different. the voice actors did an amazing job with tone— notably there's this shaky tightness in Jotaro's voice during moments of fear/stress that enhances his expressions, actions.

i found people talking about the tension, acting, a wonderful review on the use of shifting, dynamic lighting throughout the OVA, the way the sound design— engineered by Skywalker Sound with score by a very young (~19) Marco D'Ambrosio— fills in SO MUCH for the animation with tasteful specificity in implying things like unique weight for footsteps, for Avdol's rings, or how the sound of Geb is like a strange layered scream. and fortunately found many people talking about being in awe of n'doul's humanity and how he has serious rizz lol and that he, in any version, is the only serious sobering moment of the glory gods... WAAAAH then i come on twitter or whatever and people are like "looks like shit, worst fight in the thing," and it's like jesus h. christ get a LIFE. i'm sorry you were tricked and lied to, but bad taste can be fixed if you just open your heart a little.

i do not feel moved whatsoever to watch the rest of the TV series (i made it up to the hunting episode of DIU.) something can be faithful and also a major downgrade, by intending to be as faithful as possible, misses the elements that make it what it is. besides, modern anime looks like real shit right now and i won't force myself through it solely because it exists. but i love this adaptation. i would rather see a beautiful interpretation that prioritises an effective, effecting mood, that tries to compromise with purpose and synthesise the source into what an animated version— the short film that this is— can do for it. what the form can heighten. there are little movements, upticks in speed or anxious stillness. the breathless timing and gravity of jotaro touching down and star platinum ripping right out of him like a major leaguer performing another major league hit. n'doul reacting to iggy, jumping slightly while kneeling. jotaro wiping off his fingers with a hanky and then rubbing them together. the entire scene with polnareff on the crates. oh GOD and the opening with the inverted sun... the cane... the cane scene cannot Not destroy you, be honest.

why did they include the red granite obelisk, notably from aswan, one of which was at one time commissioned by hadrian for his boyfriend antinous who drowned in the nile? that didn't have to be there, but isn't it beautiful? (and they put the eye hieroglyph right where we can see it... uuugh.) never mind the actual canonical content, with jotaro and n'doul mutually captivated, delighted, by each other's skill until the end. it's so painful knowing the inevitable outcome but it still somehow sneaks up on you with the way it's paced and i love to be rocked by it every time. the only guy ever to be spared on purpose— respecting him that much! and the respect is mutual! jesus, his monologue! he's the only one to be mourned. THE only one to be buried. by hand. alone. the fight begins under high noon sun and the burial completes at dusk. he's 17. fuck me.

i love when a story is never allowed to fully wrap up into the typical "and it was all worth it!" sort of vibe, which, in a way, is what happens, but it never rises to the point where... where that positivity matches the intensity of what was shown to you previously, or that those losses are meant to be forgotten in the wake of righteousness. and as far as i can recall, this is something araki has perfected over time. i'm thinking about the brutal bit in DIU with josuke carrying? dragging? okuyasu, and the particulars of kira's fate. but i'm REALLY thinking of VA, with giorno &co. in the office, and the epilogue. and then obviously SO. and then SBR. and JJL. this approach, the bittersweet heartache or outright mourning, has become a precise weapon and i can see the through-line from SDC. now that i've watched HEAT i can see why araki said that he cries every time he watches it. it's wrenching. and a big part of that is that you don't necessarily expect it because of genre or style flourishes, and that's really special. to be caught unawares, because you were already caught, you've been caught this whole time and now you have to take it.

i now know that yeah. yes. this is The definition of a special interest. because i have to, must, rotate this object in my head compulsively and purposefully so i can see every angle and crevice. i intuitively understand that i shouldn't be so bowled over and bitchy about it after so many years, sooo many years, but i can't help it! you like what you like and this is the benchmark. it pains me that it is so finite. that i've confusingly hung my heart on something that no one on earth could give one (1) solitary fuck about, and therefor there is an abrupt end to material. so i AM left rotating shapes in my head sussing out indentations in the form. kinda crazy. but fighting against it is maybe more punishing in a way.

this fight was chosen as the opening to the OVA because it's one where everyone is present. this fight was also going to be the entirety of the OVA, but araki liked it so much he requested more episodes 🥰💕

#jjba ova #n'doul #jojo's bizarre adventure #jjba #ndoul #ova

[jotadoul]

a while ago i grabbed the Capcom Secret File from 1998 for Heritage for the Future just so i could have hi-res versions of the N'doul drawings. thanks

#n'doul #ndoul #jjba #jojo's bizarre adventure #heritage for the future #hftf #stardust crusaders #i thought i posted this before but couldn't find it #strange but here we are

[jotadoul]

#jojolands #jojolands spoilers #part 9

[jotadoul]

copy/pasting thoughts direct from 2015. don't read this

it might be because i've been reading every single Araki interview i can find (and feeling so insulted on his behalf that people still think he's a slapdash idiot) + working on a new story so my brain's going a mile a minute but I JUST THINK it's incheresting that even aside from it being the moment in which The World awakens (possibly hinted in the OVA, intentionally hinted in DPP) and aside from star platinum ROARING after its attack to portray/release jotaro's tension, and aside from it being a crucial enough turning point that 2 lush OVA episodes were dedicated to it, oh and aside from it being jotaro's special fight in jojo's venture/heritage for the future,

it's also that jotaro beat all the prior (and future) enemies to shit til they were dead/retired without any care and then... and then... the very first guy whose life he wants to spare, the first since taking on his homies polnareff and kakyoin... well, he's not allowed, that choice is taken away from him by the guy committing suicide right in front of him. HUH???

i wonder if there was a prompt, like "create an enemy Jotaro would actually respect." there are so many little humanising details, including us hearing n'doul's running commentary/internal thoughts due to him being alone.

why would i waste time thinking about something as nothingburger as jotaro/kakyoin, something for which you have to mash your brain into a donut shape because they have no chemistry (compared to the well-established and very sweet ongoing friendship with polnareff) plus kakyoin being MIA— i don't know why should i bother being distracted by that when the thing i'm being shown, with purpose and intent, is SO compelling that my brain goes tesseract mode. i feel like i'm taking CRAZY PILLS

though that's how i feel about most jjba ships/how they're done. actually, most ships from anything. usually the stuff i like is so good (LMAO?) that i find maximum satisfaction exploring it along the axis of what it's dishing out... i want the narrative to double down, i want to accept that this is what an author has decided is important and if they think that then what does that mean? and forget that i'm delusional for a second OK

another example is phoenix/edgeworth in ace attorney. jesus christ. it feels like someone told a big lie in like 2006 and it spiralled into a game of telephone and everyone was like "oh, ok!" but replaying it since then, i find there are So Many fascinating relationships/dynamics to explore, things that are so much more captivating to me than that ship. both edgeworth and phoenix are rude as fuck, one a highfalutin uncontrollably transparent bitch and the other an intense and abrasive dirtbag leftist, both very petty, and them being friends, and them being friends with larry, is gold to me. because ok, if that's true, and it is, and it's funny and fraught and complex, then THAT'S what i want to daydream about.

i really don't think it's lack of creativity on my part, i think i just get inspired by different elements of a story. i did a big search trying to find "films similar to HEAT (1995)" but every recommendation is just... crime. it's not examined much further than that. i haven't found anything that comes at it from the angle of how emotions/atmosphere are structured, guided, even purposefully distracted in HEAT, the anxiety and guilt and sorrow and relief you're made to feel. if Michael Mann is known for his meticulousness, then meticulousness of emotion, of breathlessness, and how that's crafted, should also be a point of study and comparison! i don't need it to be identical in genre— HEAT could've been a great heist film in terms of cleverness, but it's the tone and connection formed which elevates it.

i'm so much more interested in the symbolic turning point of the n'doul fight because of exactly what it is, it's a literal sudden gut punch causing a jarring reflection and sense of humanity that was easy to bypass before. that's amazing to me. if someone had only watched the garish DPP version and hadn't read the manga or seen the OVA then i could maybe understand since there isn't much in terms of colour or set dressing to carry what's going on, but, like i said, that Is the one with The World, it Is the one where we get a glimpse of N'doul with DIO... idk. i'm an insane person and i've been thinking about it off and on for almost 10 years and that's probably medically abnormal but unfortunately i can convince myself of anything and i never disappoint myself

#n'doul #ndoul #jjba #jojo's bizarre adventure

[jotadoul]

#the people are finally waking up #anyway i'm chronically pregnant

[jotadoul]

how my ass taste

#ndoul #n'doul #jjba #jojo's bizarre adventure

[jotadoul]

finally got around to posting this. a huge chunk was moved to the next chapter which means, hopefully, it won't take as long to complete. anyway... jotaro and n'doul time

FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN AND THE BLAZING SUN

III. The lure of scenery

1990

          Aswan basks with open arms to the oncoming light. Shadows in the dunes and rocks plunge to deeper blue-greys as rosy golds climb victorious from the old earth’s sleep, the pale surface of the river finding renewed life as warm reflections cut between the ripples. Down in the flatland, Jotaro can just make out the muezzin calling morning prayer.        Quietly, or as best he can, he slides out of bed and stands in his underwear to peek out the window. It shows him the sun baking the hills and houses red. He fits his hand through his hair. He is suddenly cramped for space again, and his tired eyes surprise him, becoming misty in a way he quickly finds he can’t control. Colours rush in and overwhelm him.    Aswan doesn’t benefit from being pulled back unwillingly to fit his memory. He wants to scrub the conversation from last night off of his skin, and let it drain with the dirty water.  This is now, not a year ago. This is now, not a year ago… It's his own small mantra, pulling him and the town back out of there. At times he catches himself, like last night, young and deferential to N’doul’s retelling, but suddenly surprised when their accounts split in two directions. He obsesses over instances where he barreled by too hastily, speaking past N'doul. It's breathless work. Or maybe he's breathless. Yes. He sits down and tucks his head between his knees. Fingers clasped to the back of his head.   It’s too early for this. And the knives have all been ripped out, and that they were ever there at all is recalled by the scar tissue threaded in their place, where his clothes can cover. He lies back down, and concentrates on breathing. 

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⁂

“Yes. Yes. You will follow me to the stairs, won’t you?” Dio demanded hungrily. “When Heaven comes down to meet us.”      His God described seeing the world still and dark and cold. Every person, child, animal, petrified, waiting, ready and overripe, to burst in sacrifice, to become new.

#n'doul #ndoul #jotaro #jotadoul #jjba #jojo's bizarre adventure #my writing #stardust crusaders

[jotadoul]

thinking about eden's crush in jolyne cujoh hype squad uniform

#jjba #video post #stone ocean #jjba part 6 #jojo's bizarre adventure #Youtube

[jotadoul]

some glory gods & mansion squad love

#all these bitches is my sons

[jotadoul]

i exist in the most barely-there subniche and still i will encounter things. i am thinking about them here (and maybe i'm wrong!)

a character comparing/contrasting visuals to describe other visuals....

.... to someone frequently characterised (intentionally or not) as a NLP (no light perception, ""fully"") blind person

i do think it's okay and important to show someone fucking up. because people fuck up. i love mistakes and consequences, and hey, maybe Blind Character appreciates them trying, maybe there is an acknowledged learning curve, and maybe someone is just an asshole! but when it's played completely straight-- the author wanting me to suspend disbelief that this is a genuinely charitable act-- i find it obnoxious. it centres an abled/sighted experience despite disabled people interacting/communicating with the world on different terms. (even if learned within schools/programs/standardised systems-- and often without them-- individual, reflective, reflexive responses persist!)

similar to that, i think there's gotta be a big difference between reusing the "blind person touches other person's face to 'see' them" trope, versus like... a blind person touching someone's face as an act of intimacy the same way anyone else might.

there are so many communication styles and reasons why one might employ one and not another. accommodating this isn't just... face-touching. and i mean if they DO have PERSONAL disability reasons for it, i'd love to read those instead of invoking an old poetic shorthand that we're all just supposed to accept. anyway,

using food to describe the complexion of people of colour....... hell yeah dude...

the prose (or art) version of the War Zone Yellow colour grading in western film

leaning hard into real world ableism; referring to disability as a shattering tragedy-- despite n'doul unoquivocally stating that he didn't experience or perceive blindness as weakness

^ not like araki didn't encourage this by leaning on the myth that when one "sense" goes, another "compensates" for it. ability isn't universally (or typically?) a leave-a-penny-take-a-penny situation

i'm real dirty for Big Angst and there are ways to explore this in a limited, subjective, character-driven way that feels personal and dramatic and compelling when exploring "difficult" emotions/responses frustration/guilt/ableism/self-hatred. but like in general

a) if you're not disabled/if you're sighted, maybe interrogate the compulsion to do so wrt (for example) disability specifically.

b) imo a more omniscient voice for something like this can unintentionally say a lot about what opinions an author holds about disability.

c) we can extrapolate and expand on so many more aspects of a person, in what way are those things related or unrelated to ability and sense of self? if n'doul (for example) is reduced to [your understanding of] blindness-- especially if that's the ultimate takeaway from this one-off antagonist-- is that being faithful to the character, or is it just a way to avoid something more complex? Idk

i'm really just working thru this stuff myself and despite crawling out of my grave only a month ago, i know it's not new. this happens with Johnny and Polnareff a lot as well, who DO have a lot of tragedy to cite/explore/process! but if supported by outdated/ableist/purely fictitious tropes alone, it falls flat real quick..... in my ho opinion

#n'doul #JJBA #text #If this needs 10+ disclaimers i promise you i've thought of them #I am simply bitching

[jotadoul]

send this to your friends and loved ones so they will never forget what araki wrote in kira’s character profile

[jotadoul]

Oppressed Gamer Kakyoin Noriaki

#best jojo content ive seen in lifetimes