#Barbie is also an elaborate girly | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

enthblaze · 1 year

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Good morning (or afternoon or evening or whatever but for me it's morning), here is an incoherent list of facts about Roselyn Althea Jones because I feel like gushing about her (list is subject to be added to):

- One of her go-to vocal stims is Baby Girl. The only way you are safe from being called Baby Girl by her is if you make it explicitly clear that you are uncomfortable with it.

- She is a Barbie girlie first and a person second. One of her most treasured childhood memories is finding a handwritten note from Barbie herself on top of the DVD cases with her most beloved Barbie movies, Princess and the Pauper (aka the Best Barbie Movie Ever) and Magic of the Pegasus (Barbie Comfort Movie number 1 of 4), with brand new DVDs inside because the old ones got so worn out they no longer played.

- She doesn't know what the fuck her gender is outside of the concept of pink.

- Her pronouns are she/her and pink/pinks! She usually uses she, but somedays prefers pink.

- She cried the first time she played Undertale. The first time the line "Despite everything, it's still you" came on screen, she had to physically put the controller down and put her head in her hands.

- She enjoys experimenting with eye makeup! She has yet to find a foundation that doesn't set off her sensory issues, let alone contour or concealer, so she's stuck with elaborate eyeshadow and eye art, which she's cool with.

- In a similar vein, she hates the feeling of Casey's facepaint. There's a super sick selfie of Rose and Casey with Casey's facepaint on, Rose's facepaint was photoshopped on. She despises the feeling of it, she can't even look at the containers for too long.

- She's autistic, and got diagnosed at fifteen.

- Pink owns several different pairs of rollerskates because they look pretty. Pink's better on rollerskates than pink is on the ice.

- She hates being cold.

- In addition to being a Barbie girlie, she's also an MCYT girlie! Her favorite youtubers are Shubble, LDShadowlady, and Markiplier.

- She is astoundingly good at learning languages.

- Pinks hair is long and curly and pink adores taking care of it. Seeing pinks curls be pretty and healthy makes pink happy stim from just a glance in a mirror.

- She jumpscares so. easily.

- She gets bitey, sometimes. Like she'll see a stray finger and the impulsive thoughts will win and she'll go *chomp*. *bite*. *attaka* even.

- *Slaps roof of car except its Rose and I accidentally knock her headphones off her head* This baby can hold So Much Rage In Her.

- Her brain is playing music At All Times and if she doesn't like the music her brain is providing her, she will blast different music through her headphones. It might be loud enough to give her hearing damage later down the line, but if she can't feel it rumbling through her bones than what the fuck is the point?

- Somehow, she has gotten several girls at school to crush on her without even trying. She has no idea how, and it drives Casey insane.

- When pinks emotions get really overwhelming, pinks magic will have what pinks family calls 'fits," in that she will inadvertently make things start to float and glow or pinks big emotion will literally be emanating off her.

- She hates eye contact.

- She and Casey have stupid nicknames for each other; Casey calls her Freckles, Rose calls him Bandana.

- Her most common nickname is either Rose or Ro.

- She once threatened to stab her brother if he made her fuck up her eyeliner.

- Pink and Casey have an elaborate handshake that ends with them bonking their heads together.

- Pink can do a *killer* winged eyeliner, but she has to use eyeliner pencils directly on her skin cause liquid eyeliner squicks her out, but she can handle liquid eyeliner *overtop* of pencil eyeliner.

- She once hotwired a motorcycle and stole it from the Purple Dragons, that thing has become her pride and joy and she keeps her stolen prize at her dad's mechanic shop because he's teaching her how to take care of it.

- Rose and Casey are known to unceremoniously and unexpectedly smacking the shit out of each other with pillows. The Cain Instinct is. So strong with these two.

- Casey is her favorite person.

- Despite what her grades may say, she does actually enjoy learning new things.

- Her best classes are dance, choir, and whatever language class she's taking (she's working on her third language credit).

- "You can't handle the uber instincts of my uber autism. Observe." *fails to flirt with her autistic crush*. /ref

- Her vocal range is fucking *insane*, she can go up to whistle notes and down to low tenor. Bass is where she has to draw the line tho :/

She's so baby girl, I love her sm <3

Also!! Food for thought!! What would Giovanni think of Rose? 👀 Or, whats your favorite little fact (or facts) about Vanni?

stop...if i didnt already love Rose before- THEN I ABSOLUTELY LOVE HER NOW

omg SHES AN LDSHADOWLADY STAN?? QUEEN SHIT !!! LOVE HER FOR THAT

AND AUTISTIC??? pink and i are the same fr fr,,,like how did u make it possible to make a charactee so lovable?? i will give my life for pink

oh i am gladly taking all this info and shelving it for later, i love little details about characters, they make me so happie

as for Vanni...he's more so curious about her as to wary. Rose, i think, would intrigue him, but i think they'd be quite good friends

i will say tho, i think Van would be a bit intimidated at first lmao but then he'd find her pretty fun and honestly? they'd be a chaotic duo

Van doesn't often break out of his responsible "eldest brother" role but Rose would deffo get him to loosen up a little

AND FAVE FACT!!!

Van is semi-verbal !!! (projecting onto my boy fr) as he grew up, he got better at handling it and now often appears to communicate pretty well, but there's days where speaking is a little too hard and communicating comes to a standstill

as tots, the boys and Splinter learnt sign language to help Van during those days, and during the farmhouse arc, it became a common form of communication bcs Leo had to rest his throat as well

Casey & April also learnt sign language, simply bcs it would make their lives so much easier, and also bcs whispering during missions wasn't always the best way to go about things. being silent was an important part of being a ninja, after all

#ryo asks #tmnt twins au #tmnt giovanni 2012 #tmnt giovanni #tmnt 2012 #tmnt 2k12 #tmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtles #teenage mutant ninja turtles 2012 #tmnt au #universal misplacement au #UMAU

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gontagokuhara · 2 months

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2019 vs. 2024 hot takes exactly 0 people asked for (now with opinions on the dr3 characters!)

and because im mentally ill im elaborating below the cut because at least i’m cognizant of how few people share this illness with me ❤️

first of all. some categories were edited (+added). we shall address them all in due time 🫶 but just for posterity before we begin: top of the category is the one that best exemplifies the category title and it moves in descending order; so as gonta is my #1 my GOAT, pedo udg guy is the one i want to kill himself most. understandable? ok 🫶

2019 top 5-tier is slightly unfortunately named but other than that changes in 2024 are somewhat minimal. as is perhaps obvious if you have seen even one (1) danganronpa post from me: gonta is My character hes mine spike chunsoft dont get him like i do. AND i love sdr2. nagito is my very very close second i am so incredibly mentally ill about him Oh if you all could see the hundreds of thousands of words ive written about that fucking guy. also true of hajime. still true of sonia (<3 i love u girlie) and fuyuhiko but to a lesser extent (i have written so much sdr2. its a problem. we persist). they are characters we see a lot of and in that same vein give SO much to build upon in further character exploration. and boy do i do that. holds the five of them In my arms i love you babygirls

S tier excellents again prove i am an sdr2 enjoyer. i think it also showcases how much i REALLY love the v3 characters while absolutely hating the plot they were stuck in. kaede and shuuichi are SOOOO special 2 me u dont understand…….im going to have so many thoughts and be So mad when i replay v3. kokichi is VERY interesting and my thoughts on him are endless (hi evan) and there is soooo much there even if i also have to fundamentally hate him somewhat because of 3-4. also a wide array of sdr2 characters are here of course……on my most recent replay i have come to really appreciate imposter (better sexier byakuya ❤️) and ibuki . and i was kind of surprised how high some of the dr1 characters are (besides chihiro who has consistently been my dr1 #1) but sorry dr3 made me love the makoto/kyouko/aoi trio sooooo bad.

lots of variety in the A tier which are all characters i enjoy, they just arent my Favorite barbie dolls to mash around u know. so many very unique personalities like mahiru, angie, tenko, and ryoma that weren’t explored as well as possible in canon, so its harder for me to personally invest in them. junko is iconic and she gets worse as the games go on but god. dr1 was craaaaaazy so she and mukuro have to be given props for that. im ignoring e-girl junko and v3 entirely <3 also again in watching dr3 while replaying sdr2 i really came to appreciate natsumi and her dynamic with hajime :[ rip girl i miss u. also also i liked koichi way more than expected LOL it must just be cuz hes hot but his death was sick as fuck and i liked his thruline with jin (the weird flirting with kyouko aside……)

B tier! bit of a mixed bag, from characters i like very begrudgingly (byakuya, sorry, i latched onto him as my rich terrible boyfriend when first playing years ago and the fondness kinda stuck 💔) to ones i do genuinely like, but they were not given much to do in canon (ryota) or their arcs fell flat (kirumi). also here are dr3 + udg characters i didnt mind or were just somewhat nice to makoto (also chisa, who is very interesting but i very much disliked how her character ended off) so shout out them (they are all dead) (or orphaned like monaca and kotoko).

C tier is basically my ‘i barely remember’ tier sry……i did not finish udg so i have so very few opinions on most of the characters. chihiro aoi and yasuhiro’s parents are chill tho shout out. not much to say tho

and now we enter the hater zone with D tier……look. some of these are hot takes and some arent. as much as i love sdr2 i just cannot ever make myself like hiyoko and teruteru. theyre kinda fucked from the getgo theyre never treated as especially serious characters but their glaring flaws are so bad i cant bring myself to care when the rest of the cast is SO GOOD. i also do not like kazuichi LMFAO as a sonia ride or die just as i cannot look past teruteru’s sexual harassment NEITHER CAN I LOOK PAST KAZUICHI’S ‼️‼️ yes i think he can be fixed but sonia needs a restraining order + when she was hoping he was the ch4 killer i was cheering. everyone else this category are just mid ass dr1 characters and the dr3 characters i found actively annoying. also monokuma. hes cringe but iconic and doesnt fit anywhere else

not much to be said about F tier. i did not finish udg but i know enough that i need haiji towa to die. i need the asshole who beat up hajime to die. i need the asshole who tried to kill makoto to die. i need that stupid old fuck heading the future foundation to die. the monokubs are fucking annoying. the only like Real characters here are 1) miu because she is written terribly and her cool talent is wasted, treats gonta like shit, isnt funny, is just nasty perv bait and her most meaningful contribution is to be fodder for the 2nd worse written case in the game. and as for NUMBER ONE WORST: tsumugi mostly just symbolizes my hatred for v3’s ending because outside of her role in 3-6 she has very little impact on the story before her reveal. also got my girlies kaede and rantarou killed God i hate the end of thisgame

and finally: oh my poor sweet bastards. why would they do this to you. these characters are either underutilized in a way that is DEVASTATING (izuru 💔) treated like shit as joke characters their potential is totally squandered by dogshit writing (everyone else — sdr2 you could have been so much better WHY!!!!!!). mikan and korekiyo’s motives are dogshit and make the ch3 double murder so much weaker. nekomaru and akane are played as jokes essentially their entire screentime and akane is especially egregious because shes a survivor among characters like FUYUHIKO!!! like SONIA!!! like HAJIME!!!!!!!!! AND YOU SQUANDER HER LIKE THIS!!!!!!!!!!! kaito suffers from really flip-floppy writing and he sucks a lot of the time Especially pre-localization but ive adopted him a little bit in writing him and i love my construction of him in my brain.

ok thats it. im so mentally ill. give me ur thoughts or do the tierlist urself. now pointy objects lockdown time 👍

#dr #meow

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makyougenkai10 · 2 years

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STOP CALLLING EVERY 80′S SHOW SEXIST BECAUSE YOU DON’T LIKE THEM!

I was a little girl back in the 80's, when She-Ra and Jem were in their first run. Shows like these were incredibly empowering. We really didn't see competent women. We usually saw damsels in distress (think Daphne though she was slowly growing out that) or nerds (think Velma or Penny though they were more competent than their bumbling male counterparts). But here we got a woman warrior as competent as any of the men. In Jem, we got a woman CEO. These things were HUGE. People today trying to claim that shows like these are sexist are fucking idiots who should try talking to those of us who were the actual target audience of shows like this, and ask us what we think. Yeah, She-Ra had her crystal castle (I remember getting that castle, and it made my life up until that point), but she was also knock the bad guys in their place. She could have girly aspects while still kicking asses and not taking names. In this show, as well as He-Man, the people with the most power tended to be women. Yes, even in He-Man. By the way, in He-Man, the woman who often assists him (he kinda needs her held despite being frickin' He-Man), Teela, is the daughter is the sorceress of Castle Grayskull, and the sorceress is the one with the most power. That kind of show didn't treat kids like we were stupid and shallow. Neither did She-Ra. Those shows treated us like we were competent, which was amazing. This not-a-reboot is an insult to what She-Ra and He-Man really are all about. Even my 9-year--old thinks this new show is stupid, an likes the old one. (And no, it's not because that's my view--she's more likely to like something I don't just to spite me.)

She-Ra was never meant to be a “girly girl” show. Like He-Man, she was strong and powerful. This Reboot is a fraud. A poser. Wanting to be She-Ra without knowledge about She-Ra. It represents the type of women that made it. Selfish, insecure women.

“She Ra was meant to be an elaborate Ad for kids , so that Mattel could sells Girls She Ra dolls and toys... People should stop deluding themselves, the show was garbage at the time, there's no way, that anyone in today's age is gonna make something good out of it... Nostalgia give everything a nice Look, but it is dreadful to watch.”

it’s people like this who ruin things for everyone because they never experienced true happiness, because they’re over analyzing everything. Let people be happy and stop being a wet blanket.

I'm sorry, but am I missing something here? I thought “She-ra and the princesses of power” was meant to target "progressive feminists”. The very same people who attack Barbie for being too pretty, and seem to hate anything and everything that represents being feminine or girly, ya know, like wearing dresses, ball gowns in particular, and dances, because “that's not progressive”! Because being all glam up and pretty to go to a dance is somehow the most disempowering thing a girl can do these days, just ask Cinderella and Barbie. Yet prom is the episode people praise and is the one to get plot moving? Again, did I miss something? These characters look plain...I watched She-Ra back in the 80s and the story development was so much better. Once again this is an attempt to make characters, especially female characters, powerful when it is not necessary because if the creators had done their research they could have made something great for everyone to share and appreciate, but unfortunately it is all about the $$$$$.

At this point, I'm Convinced that These Rebooted iconic Cartoons are Intentionally Made to Piss off People who Grew up on the Originals. Just like the So called Jem Reboot did. I'm sooooooo, Glad Jem Bombed at the Box office.

And In the end, Nu!Ra is just another shitty tween girl show that we saw a-plenty back in the early 2000s. What Noelle is presenting to us isn't groundbreaking in the least and let me tell you from my own experience having seen those same shitty cartoons back then. Noelle is no better than the 'toxic males' she and others often site as being out of touch with female viewers because she's pulling the same stops but just adding a lot of unneeded sexual drama to a bunch of pre-teen characters. What Nu!Ra reminds me of is an even less comprehensible and more overly dramatic Trollz, the TROLLS reboot that was so bad that the Damm family (the family of the man who created the dolls) SUED DiC entertainment and later sold the rights of Trolls to, guess who, DREAMWORKS which is why Trolls made their semi-kinda-almost faithful rebound a while back. But if you remember TROLLZ it has the same elements to Nu!Ra right down to how the rights were just thrown around and even the whole magical girl elements and trying to make the series for girls despite both, Trolls and the MotU series, being an overall series that could be picked up by anyone, regardless of their gender. As a result, both failed because they were being handled by people who didn't understand the universal appeal to the series and tried too hard to look like they were doing something. With Trollz, the promise of girl-power sort of series was bogged down by the fact that our main heroines were all stereotype girl characters anyway even with their massives responsibilities. One of the biggest parts of the series was that only female trolls could use magic at all after a power split between the trolls and ogres, with the trolls defeating the ogres but then coming up with this confusing reason why only females could use magic. And even then, they couldn't balance how magic and technology existed because Trollz took place in what was supposed to be modern day 2000s but we're made to believe that magic exists yet it does so along the same modern conveniences that people had but somehow those things were POWERED by magic yet even male trolls could use some of them which sort of negates the reason to even use magic at all given the main five were the only ones who seemed to even use it outside of pulling pranks and using it for makeup. The show was that shitty and it was written by a bunch of out of touch guys who just assumed this was the only thing that girls would like rather than just making something, I don't know, enjoyable? Nu!Ra is suffering from the same problem but in this case, the show isn't being lead by some out of touch old guys but an out of touch old woman (I know age is a stretch with Noelle but it's the same sentiment) but rather going in with the misguided intentions the Trollz guys had, Noelle and her crew have loudly made it clear that this is what they want and that people have to accept it for how it is and accept them as well by obligation. The way Trollz was handled can come off as DiC and Hasbro being massively clueless and trying too hard to mix tech with Harry Potter but Noelle is just spiteful. She is using a show she had no hand in and never liked to begin with to flag around her inner unclaimed fantasies of her past, giving off a somewhat creepy look into a stunted, bitter person who wants to take everything she can from other people and wave it around gleefully when they can't reclaim it. Noelle already has success with Lumberjanes but it's one of those things where it's 50/50 in people sort of know it but then there are people who are like 'Wut?' about it. It's a niche comic that satisfies a certain demographic and when I did use to watch her when I began using Twitter, she was nice enough but the more and more she complained about OTHER people not giving her what she wanted, the more uncomfortable I got until I just unfollowed her. And as I watch Nu!Ra, those feelings of hers are just leaking out of my computer and onto the floor in a big, sticky, nasty mess. What we have been watching isn't She-Ra but rather an idea that Noelle and her friends shared among themselves and with the way it is going on, we can see for ourselves that it was a very weak premises that would have gotten no one but the small Tumblr crowd everyone jokes about. The problem with the OG She-Ra vs Noelle's version is just this; filmation made a series that anyone could fall into and I know it might sound weird but this is what I mean. With the OG She-Ra, the way it was written, designed, and overall played out was simple enough for anyone of any demo to get around. It didn't matter that She-Ra was an adult, White, and fit but what could get girls and boys into her were her ACTIONS and HEROISM. The outer image of She-Ra that we see is but a part of her and even if you see her looks as goofy for their time, kids loved her for being powerful and that goes ditto for her teammates and He-Man as well. Yes, their looks were good but it was like an added bonus. There was a full package given to you and if you didn't like one thing, there was at least something else you could find and adore. With Nu!Ra, all of that has been stripped away and replaced for the excuses of 'safe'. Let's ignore that She-Ra herself is a kid. If she had been given a somewhat similar ATTITUDE to Adora from the OG show, I would have been fine because she still would have been a HERO. She still would have held onto that heroic sense that makes her worth looking up to in the world her story belongs to but we don't get that. Adora isn't even a coming-of-age type of person as she is always clumsy, always antsy, always unsure and she never learns. She never grows as a character and that's the problem with EVERYONE. Everyone in this series is a broken, horrible person but unlike a GOOD series they don't have character growth where they are shown to develop from these kinks of theirs to become the heroes they are meant to be. Instead, all the aspects that would make them terrible people to be around are meant to be seen as their POSITIVE traits. We're supposed to love Glimmer because she is argumentative and dismissive, we're supposed to love Bow because he is useless and only comes in handy when the time calls for it. We're supposed to love all these horrible characters for their 'quirks' and why? Because these characters ARE Noelle and her friends. It's why they act so pained and hurt when you call out these characters because they ARE these characters and takes these comments as personal attacks on them. And the reason they don't grow is because they believe themselves to be fine just the way they are and it's everyone else who is at fault. This is the type of people they are and these are the types of stories they write. Nu!Ra is yet another example of why you shouldn't hand series off to armchair activist who have no idea how animation works or basic storytelling at that. The reason reboots and movies that have been done in this fashion don't work is because these people are not telling stories, they are making the audience listen about how they wish their lives could be. It's bragging and no one likes a braggart.

The reboot is a joke and an insult to the original She-Ra, its voice actors, and its creators. It could have been good, but Noelle and her friends/team ruined it. This series couldn’t have come to an end fast enough.

#She-Ra #80's cartoons myths debunked

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jasmineforrestsartdoings · 3 years

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The ‘Girly’ Aesthetic

I’ve decided I want my art to be about the abstraction of ‘girly’ magic tropes that were aimed at many girls in childhood through marketing and media. Though it is true that strictly binary representations of gender are fed to us in our childhood, and a failure to swallow these tropes are often met with distaste and shame (even in childhood), the ‘girly’ is something that sits precariously in our culture. ‘Girly’ tropes have a negative stereotype attached to them, with many passing them off as lacking in substance or intellect of some kind, and being silly and frivolous. Young girls in our culture are in a catch-22, as they are encouraged to be girly in youth and later in adolescence when this mindset continues, ‘girly’ things are suddenly shamed and judged for their interests.

Music acts, certain films and shows aimed at girls, even so far as makeup and feminine ways of presenting are judged harsher by society, particularly in comparison to similar media types aimed at boys. Examples of subjects of this ridicule are the twilight movies, acts like Justin Bieber and One Direction , and negative connotations of makeup being ‘fake’ and phrases like ‘take a girl swimming on the first date’ that demonstrate these attitudes.

Therefore, I think it an empowering stance to celebrate the femininity that many people in our culture have related to from an early age. This media, because of the strict divide in binary, was often made in the absence of the male gaze and was more emotion driven . This ‘culture’ relates to films, shows, toys, website design, clothing and more, and something to notice is that much of it shares a particular aesthetic style.

The ‘Barbie’ movies were female led films driven by a female perspective. The movies, have light pastels, soft warm yellows and oranges and lilac in their overall aesthetic. The characters wore dresses that young girls would love to wear and didn’t cater to what a male audience would call ‘sexy’. In the design of the cartoon, there often featured elaborate swirls and tiny white stars or dots that would represent a ‘sparkle’. A soft, hazy fade is also employed to show the glow of light. Across the board, pink and purple are used heavily which makes sense when you consider these were the ‘girly’ colours in society at the time.

Here, in the Polly-pocket game website, (a toy marketed to girls but was expanded into an online game) we can see a very similar colour palette. A mixture of bright, sunny colours and pastels, with a heavier focus on pink and purple. It’s also worth noting that the protagonist, as with the barbie movies, is Caucasian, and presents as feminine, meeting all the beauty standards inflicted on girls at the time. Both Barbie and Polly Pocket have blonde hair and blue eyes, which caters to the standard of western beauty that has been popular since the golden age of Hollywood. Design of the room incorporates florals and bold pattern into it’s design and furniture is rounded and soft looking.

The Winx show was a main inspiration for my early pieces in this vein. The show had a heavy focus on fashion and individual style, features the same colour palette as aforementioned and heavily relied on the white dot ‘sparkle effect’ to animate their ideas of magic and fantasy. The ensemble of girls had different styles, ranging from hyper-feminine to tomboyish and sporty. In the cast it is also important to note that more diversity was present, there being a black, hispanic and East Asian members. However the protagonist of the show was style caucasian, and in the latest reboot of the show, two of the POC characters were actually white-washed and stripped of their cultural back-story.

Pixel Chix were popular toys around the time I grew up. The ever-present ‘girly’ colour palette still features. I think it is note-worthy that these toys were built in the shape of a home, and the character moved around this domestic sphere as part of the game. The games also encourages girls to nurture and mother the character in the toy, which can be seen as another way society inflicts this expectation of women to carry children on cis women.

Here is a good example of the sprawling swirls and shapes included in the girly aesthetic. The ocean wave curls under at the bottom, and is adorned with swirly shells and creatures. A chrome sheen is applied to the dolphins in this picture, showing a favouring of light reflection like sparkles, chrome shine and metallics in the girly aesthetic.

My intention in my practice is to further explore and emulate the girly aesthetic in order to celebrate the feminine culture aimed at children that was unabashedly feminine and did not cater to the male eye, as a way of reclaiming ‘girly’ culture from the society that shames it.

#contextualresearch2 #studiopractice2

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whitehotharlots · 4 years

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Frost bite

When I was a teen, I bought a mystery bag at a dollar store. It was two dollars and guaranteed to be worth at least six and was marked “Boy” instead of “Girl” so I knew it wouldn’t be filled with a Chinese Barbie or pink pogs or any other undesirable girly toy. These would be boy’s toys—calculators, wallets, soldiering irons, plastic crap dyed blue instead of pink.

Inside there was a small jacks set. The jacks were plastic covered in a bright silver mylar to make them look metal and the mylar rubbed black stains against my hands when I tried to play with them. Also the ball didn’t bounce very well. There was a fake Ken doll, too, shirtless with his legs painted blue like jeans. He confused me to the point where I was tempted to hang him from a wall or otherwise display him for guests to see, but I didn’t for fear of being called gay.

Who the hell wears full-length jeans without a shirt? Teen heartthrobs posing in Tiger Beat and maybe gay bikers, but that’s it. Just what were the Koreans who made this fake Ken doll thinking, and why did the staff at the dollar store assume that boys would want it? I didn’t play with dolls. I was like sixteen and had bought the mystery bag only for the thrill. Couldn’t bring myself to throw it away, though; it was just too strange.

A year passed. My room was small, about the twice the size of current bedroom’s closet, and filled with an amount of worthless crap that would have been impressive stored inside a room several times its size. The doll fell into a pile and was kicked beneath a rug planted under the bed and then swept into the cracks. Once every long while I would find an ant in my hair or realize that I had been sleeping next to a half-eaten pizza for over a week and so, sick of the filth, I’d put up a half-hearted effort to clean, which usually resulted in my throwing away two or three Hefty bags worth of crap. On one such cleaning bender a friend stopped by and sat while I sifting through refuse, asking questions here and there about the nature of that or another item.

The doll aroused particular attention, because it seemed so gay. I made up an elaborate story to explain why I had kept it. It still came from a mystery bag, of course, only instead of being brown paper with the word “Boy” written on it in creepy Bic ballpoint, there was a big question mark inked by a sharpie. It came in a wrapper that was covered in far eastern characters despite being stamped Made in Korea. All I could make out was that it was called “Frost Bite American” and that it was a popular myth in some middle eastern countries to tell children that America is a cold wasteland where large numbers of people freeze to death every year, so even though they might have microwaves and porn you should be glad to be living on a sand bar, praying five times a day. My friend promised to give me five dollars for the doll, which he never paid, and last I knew kept it above his computer desk.

People ask him about it and he tells them my story. As far as they are all concerned it’s really a custom in the arid middle east to say that all of us Americans die of frostbite. It makes sense—we’ve all heard of the studies that prove that people are more likely to believe plausible fiction than fact. Only I feel a strange pride whenever I think of him telling people about it and especially when his listeners take it for truth. A whole world—a culture, a folkway, a tradition, has been created by me, and to the people who hear the story it’s fact. By saving that doll and lying about its origin I essentially created a reality, and the more people that believe in it the more real it becomes.

Details will be inserted—it’s from Iran. No, I heard Saudi Arabia. No, no—I read on Snopes that it’s only half true. In Turkey they thought that we all died of frostbite like in the 1800’s but now they know it’s just a story and they made dolls to celebrate that story. It doesn’t matter. If it succeeds and I die I will have left something behind more viable than a child, more impressive than a lifetime’s worth of service to some company or other. My legacy will be a whole world and it will be as real as people want it to be.

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falling-f0r-svt · 5 years

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OKAY girlies! Here’s the scenario: it’s a raining evening and you want to play dress up the boys. You dress him up in different items from his closet and do his hair.You can elaborate on how each boy or just a few would respond to it!

thank you for requesting 💕

Okay but I think Minghao would love this so freaking much

Seungcheol:

Would laugh awkwardly when you suggest it not too sure if you’re being serious or whether you’re just kidding around. When you make sure you’re being serious you will probably have to qualify you don’t mean doing his make-up or anything, just a dress up. I think he would want to keep up a tough act, but would eventually give in because you would give him puppy eyes and he has a weak spot for that. In the end he would have loved it though.

Jeonghan:

Would act like he doesn’t want it, but would gladly give in and let you do all of it. Though he agreed to it, and clearly wanted you to do all of this, he would whine and complain about you forcing him to give in to this. But whenever you would say you could stop and do something else if that’s what he wanted, he would immediately get some lame excuse to continue anyways. He would love it and praise the end result for sure.

Joshua:

Looks hesitant at first, but would let you do it. Lowkey loving how excited you were for it and how curiously you looked through his closet. He would praise the end result so much and insist on taking pictures for instagram. Would 100% kiss you afterwards with that smirk on his lips.

Jun:

Would get very excited after seeing how excited you were for it. Might be a little anxious about you going through his closet. Watch him take 600 selfies afterwards though.

Soonyoung:

Will honestly let you do anything. You want to turn his hair into one big spike? He would let you. Want to dress him up in a big fluffy hamster onesie? Will totally support it and love it. Want to do his make-up and turn him into a clown? You go. Will honestly just love the intimacy. As long as you repay him in cuddling after you’ve cleaned up. Will praise the end result maybe a bit too much before pulling you in for cuddles.

Wonwoo:

I’m not to sure whether Wonwoo would let you tbh. I think he would be okay with it as long as he decides what clothing you can pick from. He would go through his closet himself, take out the things he likes and would let you pick from those. He would be okay with you doing his hair. As long as you don’t make it too crazy. Will, however, praise the shit out of the end result.

Jihoon:

Depends on his mood. It’s either “No.” or “As long as you don’t make it too crazy.” He loves you and seeing you so excited would make him happy he gave in anyway.

Seokmin:

Yes. He wouldn’t care at all, you could make it as crazy as you’d like tbh, he’d love everything. He’d play along with it all. You dress him up as a clown? He behaves like one. Dress him up like death himself? He will act like it. And honestly he would praise you so so much when you’re actually finished. He’d look amazing and would make sure you knew he thought so too.

Mingyu:

Would love it but would have trouble giving you all the control. He would let you do anything, but might tell you when a piece of clothing wouldn’t look good with another item you picked. He would try not to and just let you do your thing, but he couldn’t. He would praise the end result, and leave out any critique he may have, to make up for it though.

Minghao:

Would love this so so much. He often gives you fashion advice, though he secretly thinks the way you dress is perfect, and he would love it if you would want to dress him up. He would honestly let you do anything, you could use him as your personal barbie doll. He would even let you do his make-up if you’d want, you wouldn’t even have to ask considering he would suggest that himself. He would look at how happy you looked the entire time, smiling to himself because he found you utterly adorable. When you would present the end result he would praise everything about it, loving how you would blush because of his words. He would want to take a lot of pictures to post on instagram so he could gush about how amazing you are on there too. #s/ofashion

Seungkwan:

Would love it very much but, like Junhui, might get a little shy for what is in his closet. Not that it contains anything embarrassing or something. Would let you do anything as long as it’s not too embarrassing. Will get into it as you go and even lets you do his make-up. Wants a cool picture of the end result so he can post that on instagram and twitter.

Vernon:

Would let you, he doesn’t have anything in his closet that wouldn’t look good so he’s not worried. Would love it if you did a serious job so he could post it on insta, but would also love (and maybe even prefer) if you didn’t do a serious job and make him look funny so he could send it to his sister and make her laugh. Will try to praise you but wouldn’t be very good at it verbally: “Wow, yes. Nice.” will try to show you how great you are in other ways though.

Chan:

Would kind of be insecure “Dress up games are for girls and little children.” But will let you do anything with him once you start pouting. Will love absolutely love it, smiling and joking around. He would love the intimacy that comes with it and would praise the end result so much it’s insane. He would never admit he was wrong for declining at first however, though he obviously does think it.

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joyofcrime-elinorhigh · 5 years

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Barbie: Princess and the Popstar REVIEW:

Hello everybody, my name is JoyofCrimeArt and I hate myself. Barbie.

The Direct-to-DVD Barbie movies aren't something that I, and I assume many of you reading this, ever really thought about to much. They we're always that movie that you would see in the Wal-mart "five dollar" DVD racks. Or maybe you'd see a snip-it of one airing on Nickelodeon at like, twelve o'clock on a Sunday afternoon. Compared to, say, the direct-to-DVD Scooby-Doo movies the Barbie movies seem to be a lot less attention. Which is why it came to such a shock to me that there are SO MANY! Thirty-six. As of the time of me writing this review there are thirty-six direct-to-DVD Barbie movies. And not only that, but they are divided into several different continuities and "seasons" as Wikipedia list it. The Barbie movies are a massive franchise! I just can't wait until their next film. Barbie: Infinity War. That one will make all the money! So in order to honor such a long lasting franchise, I figured it was about time somebody gave Barbie the respect she deserves. The movie we're going to be talking about today, Barbie: Princess and the Popstar is the twenty-third entry in what I have titled the Barbie: Cinematic Universe. I had actually seen this one a couple of years ago on Nickelodeon. And it is, as of the writing of this review, the only Barbie movie that I have seen. Why did I choose to watch this movie oh so many years ago do you ask? Well, it was because of the title. Princess and the Popstar. Most Barbie movies have kinda dumb overly girly titles, but this one takes the cake. Princess and the Popstar! Somebody was PAID to come up with this! And you wanna know the really crazy thing? This isn't even the first Barbie movie to be an adaptation of Mark Twain's "The Prince and the Pauper." There was another, I'm assuming more straight forward, adaptation in 2004. But I guess marketing decided that Mark Twain's classic novel just...didn't have enough pop stars to meet "Girls between the ages of 2-7" demographic. But hey, maybe the film won't be so bad. I mean the film is directed by Zeke Norton, who directed both Scary Godmother films. And those films...exist. Anyway, no more stalling. Let's dive head first to Barbie: Princess and the Popstar.

The movie begins with a pop concert. And honestly, I can't imagine it starting any other way. Famous pop star Keira (voiced by Ashleigh Ball.) is preforming a music tour in the fictional kingdom of Meribella, in celebration of the 500th anniversary of the countries founding. We see her preform her set. We then cut away the kingdoms princess, Princess Tori (voiced by Kelly Sheridan.) standing outside her castle's balcony, listening to the event from a distance. And if those voice actresses names sound at all familiar to you that's because our two heroines are voiced by Applejack and Starlight Shimmer, respectively, from My Little Pony.

UGH! As if I didn't already have enough reason to hate Starlight Shimmer! ... Starlight Shimmer is the one that everybody hates, right? Princess Tori wants to go down to the concert, but she is stopped by her Aunt, Dutchess Amelia. And I want you to guess, purely from her design, what her personality is.

If you said, stuffy old authority figure who's too focused on tradition and doesn't get the joke, than congratulations! You can predict a Barbie movie! Princess Tori wants to go to the concert, but her Aunt forbids it because Tori has to write and preform a speech for the kingdoms five hundredth anniversary event. And she hasn't even started writing it yet. But Princess Tori isn't one for all this "traditional, princess stuff." She's goofy, mischievous, and a bit of a prankster. She's just too much of a rebellious free spirit for all this noise. Like all princesses in animation she dreams of something more. She dreams of being able to live her own life, free from all the rules and restrictions that being royalty presents. But, y'know, she still wants all the riches and glamour. Cause hey, that shit is sweet! Meanwhile, Keira is busy dealing with all of her pop star duties. She's headstrong, and a bit of a workaholic. She runs every part of her tour, from lighting, costumes, to TV broadcast all herself. She doesn't even let her manager, Seymour Crider, do any of the work and ignores all of his advice. Keira is under pressure from her record label to write a new album. She says she's working on it, but with all the workload of running the music tour she just isn't feeling very inspired. And Crider is the one who has to deal with all the heat from the higher ups. Keira is just tired of all the pressure from the studio, and wishes she could not have all the responsibility of being a pop star. But, y'know, she still wants all the riches and glamour. Because, as we previously stated, that shit is sweet! I can relate with Keira. The constant stress of deadlines and work on other projects can make ANYBODY feel uninspired. Sometimes people will become so desperate that they'll be willing to do any half-ass project in order to to stay ahead of deadlines. Like doing a lazy Q&A, or reviewing a Barbie movie. ... Wait.... So as you may have noticed by now, none of the characters in this movie are named Barbie! So already, this movie is clickbait. As it turns out, a lot of these Barbie movies don't actually star Barbie. Rather they star "characters portrayed by Barbie" which is all sorts of confusing. But hey, it could be worse I guess. They could be portrayed by Amy Schumer. But luckily we still got a few years before that happens. Oh, by the way, magic exist in this world. Yeah, I know I bring that up pretty suddenly, but so does the film. Princess Tori has a magic hairbrush that changes her hair, and Keira has a magical microphone that changes her outfit. And nothing is really brought up about this. Like the characters in the film say that it's magic, but nothing else is really elaborated upon. Because outside of the magic, the world the film presents seems to more or less be the same as our world. It's not like it's some fairy tale kingdom or anything, it's set in contemporary times. It's never brought up where the magic comes from, it's just there. And it's even weirder because all they use there magic for is for changing there hair and outfit. Y'know, THINGS YOU CAN DO WITHOUT MAGIC!

Either that dress has a very large pocket, or this scene about to get a lot more uncomfortable. Anyway, the studio blames Keira's manager Crider for not having the album done already. Because like in the real world, pop stars don't have to suffer any responsibility for there actions. Crider is by far the best character in this movie. He is the most over the top, foppish gay man you've ever did see. We learn a bit about his backstory, as he was once a child star himself on this universes version of Alvin and the Chipmunks. But when puberty hit he fell from the lime light faster than Macaulay Culkin. So naturally he is not only bitter at Keira for having to be blamed for all her actions, but also because he is jealous of her fame. He's a great villain not just because of how over the top flamboyant he is, but also because he gives a refreshing breath of cynicism and bitterness that the movie is otherwise lacking. Also he's voiced by Rolf from Ed Edd'n Eddy. He doesn't sound like Rolf, like at all. But simply knowing that makes the whole film a lot more enjoyable. He tells his bumbling sidekick Rupert (Because why wouldn't he have a bumbling sidekick? I mean have you seen the type of movie this is?) that he plans on meeting Princess Tori's Aunt Amelia during a PR event, wooing her, and then inheriting all her money when she eventually passes away.

Crider, Rupert, and Keira arrive at the castle the next day and Crider begins his plot to woo the duchess. Meanwhile, Princess Tori and Keira and immediately hit it off. They are both huge fans of the other, and become fast friends. Tori offers to give Keira a tour of the castle. They begin talking about the problems that they are both going through. This is where they hatch the idea to switch places, and do so using there magic hairbrush and microphone, in order to make themselves look exactly like the other. Oh, and they also each have a dog. Because hey, little girls like dogs. There are some brief scenes we see between the dogs where they talk to each other in "animal language." but overall they don't contribute much to the plot, other than added marketability. Interesting side note, in the 2004 Barbie: Princess and the Pauper film they both had cats instead. Again, I guess dogs were just deemed more marketable. Keira and Tori, now disguised as each other, continue there tour of the castle. This is when Tori decides to show Keira, the person she literally just met, the castles most valuable secret. A secret that only members of the royal family are permitted to know about. And this is where the movies gets WEIRD! Okay, so they activates a secret passage and find a tree. And this tree, which only blooms once every five years, is a magic tree. That is guarded and cared for by a group of magically fairies. And the tree grows diamonds, which Tori says royal family uses the money from these diamonds to help the people! Though the fairies still give a diamond each to our protagonist. Again, it's weird because the world they create in this films universe SEEMS fairly real to our own. But then they just add random magical elements to it with no explanation. They could of at least included some backstory on where this tree came from. It feels like there just trying to check stuff off there "pandering to little girls" bingo sheet.

AH! BINGO! I GOT BINGO!

Unfortunately for our heroines, Tori FORGOT TO CLOSE THE SECRET DOOR PANEL BEHIND HER and Aunt Amelia ends up finding the two snooping around the secret garden. AND SHE DOESN'T CLOSE THE DOOR EITHER! How the heck has this secret been kept for five hundred years? She get's mad at Keira (Who's still disguised as Tori) and the three leave the chamber. But unbeknownst to them, since Aunt Ameila DIDN'T CLOSE THE FRICKIN' SECRET PASSAGEWAY Crider finds out about the diamond tree. And now he decides to change his plan from marrying into money, to just stealing all the diamonds for himself. But that conflict can wait, because we have pop songs to preform.

This movie has a lot of pop songs. Like, about a third of the movie is pop songs. And I have to say...there actually really good. If you're into that kinda pop punk type of music that is. The voice actresses each have a separate singing voice in the form of Jennifer Waris (Tori) and Tiffany Giardina (Keira) and both singers really knock it out of the part. Not only that but there is also some really well done choreography. Not only that, but the film also really takes advantage of the CG medium, with some impressive camera angles and panning shots. I mean it's not the greatest thing ever or anything, but for a direct-to-DVD Barbie movie, I was pleasantly surprised. I feel like this is where the passion was when it came to making this movie. Like the story was second to the music.

However, I would be lying if I said that the music didn't drag on a bit. Just due to how much is in the special. Not only that but several songs are used more than once, which isn't that bad because they sound really good, but it does make it feel a bit repetitive. That said though, I was suppressed by how good this aspect of the film was.

So Tori and Keira both begin trying to fulfill the role of the others. However, the both seem to have a bit of trouble living up to the expectations of there new roles. Typical stuff you would expect from a

"Prince and the Pauper"

adaptation. Tori, now being disguised as a low class...world famous pop star....decided to take this opportunity to explore her kingdom beyond her castle without escorts.

(Because, yeah, a pop star TOTALLY wouldn't have escorts with her when she's walking through the slums of a foreign nation.)

And Tori ends up coming across something she's never seen before. Poor people!

More specifically two poor little girls, who are taken a back by "Keira's" presence. We learn that, despite how glamorous the castle life is for the royal family, the kingdom itself is actually suffering. A major drought had occurred in the kingdom the year prior, and while the wealthy nobility we're not effected much the poor people are still suffering, and Princess Tori was completely oblivious to what was going on the entire time.

So now that Princess Tori has finally

Checked

HER

CIS

WHITE

PRIVILEGE!!!

-she decides to try to do right for the people by holding a free concert for all the underprivileged children. (Since the kids she met weren't able to afford to go to the concert at the beginning of the movie.) Not only that, but the whole royal family would be in attendance, and the concert would be broadcast live on TV to help raise awareness for the issue. Though Tori and Keira agree that they need to make sure they swap back before the concert starts.

Keira (disguised as Tori) begins to finally be able to relax without all of her pop star-ly duties. She begins to play and have fun with Tori's two little sisters, (who quickly figures out who she is.) And as it turns out, this break from all the stress of preforming and recording is what Keira needs in order to get re-inspired.

The day of the concert arrives, and Keira tries to meet up with Tori to swap places before the show begins. But rut-row, Aunt Amelia shows up and finds that "Tori" never ended up writing her speech. And because of this, Amelia refuses to let "Tori" go to the concert and locks her in her room. I do like that Keira actually does try to tell Amelia about the body swap ploy, in order to get her to let her out of the room. But Aunt Amelia doesn't believe her, and heads out for the concert.

As this is all happening, Crider and Rupert begin there plan to steal the diamond tree. They walk back into the castle claiming that the duchess sent them, and because plot the guards just let them in unsupervised.

Meanwhile at the concert, the crowd begins to get restless, and Tori is forced to go on stage and preform as Keira. She get's onstage, and is nervous. She begins to preform, badly. But then, with the power of "doing it her way"...whatever the hell that's suppose to mean, she is able to give a performance good enough that nobody is able to tell who she is in a pop song performance that last a total of five minutes straight in this seventy minute film!

The concert is a success. But wait, Crider and Rupert have successfully broken into the castles secret garden and have to face off against the fairies. Hey look, it's fairy vs fairy!

...

Am I allowed to make that joke?

Also Rupert brought bug spray to kill the fairies, which is pretty horrific for the villains bumbling side kick. Especially when you realize that this would be a Barbie movie that would have one of the villains using chemical weapons on his opponents. Granted, this doesn't happen, because Rupert accidentally bough hair spray instead, but still. It was his INTENT to use bug spray! Also, of course the villains of a Barbie movies use hair spray as a weapon.

Crider cuts the roots of the diamond tree all of the trees in the surrounding area begin to die. To which I have to ask....why? Is it like a redwood thing, where all the trees are actually just a part of this one organism? If that's the case than why don't all the tree's grow diamonds? Or is this a magic thing? Prior to this scene the tree was never implied to have any magical abilities besides growing diamonds. Was a jewel heist just not deemed an exciting enough climax, so they felt the need to raise the stakes here?

Keira, with the help of Tori's dog, are able to find a secret passage way out of the room and she and Tori both notice the dying trees and run to stop Crider from escaping with the tree. They also switch back into there real identity, and I just now realize as I'm writing this that Crider does not question this very much. HE DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT THE WHOLE IDENTITY SWAPPING THING.

Also, let me talk about something that bothers me. There was this character earlier named Prince Liam who's "potrayed by Ken." He had a few scenes early on with Keira (who was disguised as Tori at the time.) I didn't bring him up because he honestly didn't really do anything that was important to the plot. But then, suddenly in the climax, he shows up like he was a main character or something. And he's annoying. He feels really tacked on, like the producers realized that there wasn't a romance element to this film and decided at the hour mark that there needed to be one. Except that doesn't even work because he doesn't even end up with either girls. With I admit was a pleasant surprise, that neither girls in the movie end up with a love interest. But it makes Liam's existence even more worthless. Also he's kinda misogynistic, talking about saving the "damsels in distress." even though they save themselves. All Liam does is take down Crider's sidekick.

Crider runs to his limo, but is blocked by the dogs. Cause y'know, a pug and a King Charles spaniel just COMPLETELY BLOCK THE ENTIRE PATH! So he ends up be stealing a horse drawn carriage in order to make his escape. Tori get's into Crider's limo and we get a kinda fun car/horse drawn carriage chase striped right out of the end of Ouran High School Host Club. How is it that I've reviewed two things with that very weird and specific climax? Anyway, they cut off Crider's carriage, but he has an ace up his sleeve. Turns out his leopard print tuxedo is also a GLIDE SUIT and he jumps off a cliff to make his dramatic escape! And that's why Crider the best character in this movie. But then Keira just zaps him with her magic microphone and turns his suit into a dress. And Tori zaps his hair to make it look more feminine. The villain is defeated, but the tree is still dead. But Tori has an idea. They suspect that maybe the diamonds that grew off the tree could act as the trees seeds. They go back to the garden and take the diamonds that the fairies gave them earlier and plant them into the ground. The fairies use there magic and at first it doesn't look like it'll work. But then, the tree begin to regrow and all the life returns to all the other trees all over the castle. This is actually a clever twist, except for the fact that the tree still has diamonds on it, even though they specifically say that it takes five years for the diamond to bloom. BUT WHO CARES ABOUT THAT, WE HAVE A CONCERT TO FINISH! Yeah, Tori kinda just bailed in the middle of that. Tori and Keira both show up on stage, and preform together. Tori writes her speech and and talks about making changes to the kingdom's irrigation and social serves system to help the people harmed by the drought. Tori learns about responsibility and Keira kinda learns to relax...I guess? And the movie ends on a pop song. Y'know, a good book end.

Puffy Ami Yumi?... So that was Barbie: Princess and the Popstar! Overall what do I think of it? Well, to be honest, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't kinda checking the time while watching it. Heck, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't even a little bit tired of thinking about it while writing this review. The main problem is the basic premises. Princess and the pop star. The whole point of "The Prince and the Pauper." is that it's a rich person with a lot of responsibility and a poor person with no responsibility changing places. But here, it's a rich person with some responsibility swapping roles with....another rich person with some responsibility. There's no real contrast, and because of that we only get the bare basics of character development or an actual moral. The overall animation is...okay. You can see there's ambition, but the lack of budget really makes it look like a Sims 3 machinima. The main villain is fun, but the rest of the characters are pretty basic. And the pop songs, while being extremely catchy and well choreographed take up somewhere between a third and a half of the film. And I feel like if the film used more of that time on more important things than maybe it would of been better. If you want a movie with some so bad it's good elements (some actual good elements worked in) you MIGHT enjoy this film. But you have to have the patience to get through some of the more tedious bits. Also I feel like a REALLY little girl might like this. I know people say "Kids deserve good things too." and there not wrong. But it's important to remember that kids have different taste than we do. When I was a kid I loved the Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! anime, so that should be evidence of that. But if you want a GOOD girl power type of show or movie....there's plenty better out there. Steven Universe, My Little Pony, Star vs, Hanizuki, the list goes on and on. Those shows are girly AND can be legitimately enjoyed by anybody, young or old. This really can't. That was my review of Barbie: Princess and the Popstar. If you've seen the movie by some...odd chance...tell me what you think of it in the comments down bellow. I would love to start a conversation. Anyway, see you next time for hopefully something better. Have a great day. (I do not own any of the images or videos in this review all credit goes to there original owners.)

https://www.deviantart.com/joyofcrimeart/journal/Barbie-Princess-and-the-Popstar-REVIEW-744926224 DA Link

#Barbie #Barbie Princess and the Popstar #Prince and the Pauper #review #direct to dvd

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socjuswiz · 7 years

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Masculinity, anime, and gender dysphoria

An analysis of media-induced transgender identification

Depicted: Rui Ninomiya. Actually just a cross-dressing boy but I wanted to use his image because it’s cute and fitting.

Anyone who spends a lot of time with the transgender debate will notice sooner or later that there are a ton of young trans-identifying males who are into anime, using anime girls for their social media avatars, sharing memes related to cute anime girls, and so on. We don’t have statistic or anything to confirm it (would be a strange thing to research), but the correlation seems beyond coincidence, and in this article I will put forth a theory on the dynamics behind the phenomenon, as someone who spent 5+ years in the anime community of 4chan, and developed a very mild form of gender dysphoria and autogynephilia during the same time.

Indeed, it’s a regular occurrence that people from the “Anime & Manga” board of 4chan visit the LGBT board and ask, explicitly: could it be that anime made me trans? Here’s a good example of a thread with many people admitting there being a connection:

https://archived.moe/lgbt/thread/7538520/

Their theories vary of course, and those convinced by gender identity ideology frame it as merely “discovering” themselves to be trans after getting into anime, as they don’t believe one can develop the conditions that lead to trans identification. They believe one can only be born trans.

Depicted: A formerly “cis” 4chan user talking about how he began identifying with an anime girl

To properly understand the phenomenon, or at least my theory of it, one needs to begin with an analysis of boys’ socialization into masculinity.

Masculinity

The stereotyping of humans in accordance with their sex begins before birth.

Yes, before birth.

I’ll update this article if I manage to find the study again, but basically, scientists observed how parents react when the unborn baby kicks, and found that, if the parents know the baby to be male, they are more likely to ascribe the kicking to the fact that the child is male and therefore assumed to be more physically active by nature.

Another study found that adults stereotype infants with accordance to the pitch of their cries. Low-pitched cries are attributed to boys whereas high-pitched cries are attributed to girls. When the sex of the infant is known, the pitch is assumed to signify how feminine or masculine the child is. When a male infant cries with a high pitch, it’s assumed to have a more serious cause than when a female infant does so, because female infants are assumed to cry with a high pitch anyway.

I’m giving these examples not to argue that kids begin to be affected by sex stereotypes starting before or soon after birth. I’m not an expert on neurological development, but would assume that babies that young don’t have the capacity to process how others treat them beyond a very basic level. My point is, rather, that by the time a child’s mind is developed enough to respond to such stereotyping treatment, the stereotyping is already happening. We spend not even the earliest phases of our mental development in an environment free of sex stereotypes. Our consciousness is born into a sex stereotyping environment, and grows within it starting from day zero.

For stages later than infancy, I’m not sure if there’s scientific evidence, but I would assume that my claims here are relatively uncontroversial: watch how parents, perhaps men in particular, interact with boys who even just begin to walk and talk, and you are likely to notice that expectations of masculinity are already there. Vaguely, the boy will be taught to be loud, active, self-asserting, to be king. If he is meek, passive, gentle, or otherwise “feminine” or “effeminate,” the boy will be met with disapproval or disappointment. Toy preferences will be policed: no, you don’t want to play with the pony with the glittering mane or the Barbie doll with the pretty hair and dress, those are for girls. Clothing is policed: only girls wear cute, pink, frilly dresses and skirts, or t-shirts with pretty kittens or princesses or whatever on them…

Now, I’m not trying to give a gendered upbringing 101 lesson. Especially for people well versed in feminist theory, all this stuff is basic. Instead, I want to draw attention to a very particular aspect of masculine upbringing, which ties into our topic.

A large part of masculine socialization is dependent on the killing of positive emotions that are deemed feminine, and the prevention of many ways of thinking and behaving that simply make a person feel wholesome, because they are simultaneously deemed to be girly.

I’m not the first to point this out. Andrea Dworkin talked about it as well if I remember correctly. (I probably picked it up from her.) The brilliant bell hooks explains the same thing the following way, as I’ve found just recently:

Depicted: bell hooks

The first act of violence that patriarchy demands of males is not violence towards women. Instead patriarchy demands of all males that they engage in acts of psychic self-mutilation, that they kill off the emotional parts of themselves. If an individual is not successful in emotionally crippling himself, he can count on patriarchal men to enact rituals of power that will assault his self-esteem. -- bell hooks

To elaborate: the boy has to be loud and active, so he can’t relax. He has to assert himself, which means conflict and stress. He can’t be too gentle — even to the things he loves — because he’s not some kind of faggot now, is he? It becomes worse when boys begin to ridicule, ostracize, bully each other based on perceived effeminacy. It becomes really soul-breaking at that point. Sure, masculine socialization means learning to be the oppressor under patriarchy, but for the individual boy, especially the one who has no natural predisposition to the characteristics expected of masculinity, who instead is soft and gentle by nature, the role he is expected to play is his doom.

For many, the result is massive repression. Repress all the positive emotions. Even if you’re not very active, never just relax and enjoy the calm; sulk around with a grim face instead. If you dare to feel light-hearted joy in the first place: don’t dare expressing it with a heartfelt laugh, because laughing is for when you’re victorious over your rival whom you’ve just dominated — otherwise it’s a frivolous girly expression. Gentle touches and caresses are for girls and faggots, so you don’t let anyone touch you. If you can’t be the glorious masculine hero, you become the emotionless robot, the gloomy depressed kid who’s indifferent to pretty much anything, because then at least he’s not girly.

This more or less describes most of my childhood, adolescent, and young adult years, and currently I have to watch the same thing happening to a younger brother, who has a lot of softness inside of him just like me.

Of course, repression never fully works. The boy is left with a deeply seated longing for all those “feminine”-deemed feelings. A longing for enjoying life again. For being allowed to enjoy life, even.

And now, enter the anime subculture.

Cute Girls Doing Cute Things

Depicted: Yuyushiki main characters being cute

This is literally a genre of anime. Frequently abbreviated CGDCT.

Famous examples: Azumanga Daioh, K-On!, YuruYuri, A Channel, Hidamari Sketch, Non Non Biyori, Yuyushiki, Gochuumon wa Usagi Desu ka, Yama no Susume, and the list goes on. These are all just off the top of my head.

Officially, their genre tends to be listed as comedy and “slice of life.” Slice of life is sometimes also called iyashikei — a Japanese word meaning literally “healing.”

Depicted: Miyako from Hidamari Sketch. One of the overall best anime in history, to be quite honest.

Generally, all the main characters are female. Male characters tend to be rare, sometimes entirely absent from the series. The context is oftentimes a girls’ high-school or something similar.

And all the characters are ultra-feminine blobs of cuteness who tend to express their utter joy in life in the most cheerful and dramatic ways possible, or at least represent various stereotypes of femininity that exist in Japanese culture. They showcase purified, sterilized, highly idealized versions of femininity.

So this is like My Little Pony and “bronies” then, right? Adult men creating a subculture around cartoons made for young girls?

Well, not quite. These anime are made for men. The official target demographic is more often than not “seinen,” meaning adolescent boys and young men, sometimes older men even. Which is also why the female characters are frequently covertly or overtly sexualized. (I won’t even get into the whole pedophilic aspect of it.)

The Japanese seem to have learned to turn the repressed femininity of young men into profit.

By the way, said representation of female characters is not unique to CGDCT. Romantic comedies, action anime, and really any genre of anime frequently contain female characters of the same nature. One doesn’t need to indulge in die-hard CGDCT subculture to be bathed in this representation of joyful hyper-femininity.

Depicted: Inari with the divine foxes. One of my all-time favorite characters. Maximum cute, maximum healing.

For the repressed lonely boy, getting into such anime is first of all a way to indulge in the joys of femininity in a way he himself finds acceptable. It may not be entirely socially acceptable for young men to watch “girly” anime, but the male-dominated subculture around them, and the knowledge that the anime are “officially” made for young men, provides sufficient self-justification to overcome the internal fear of indulging in the “girly.” Moreover, the female characters are not only adored, but frequently also sexualized, which provides further masculinity-conformant justification.

Eventually, since the anime girl represents all those repressed emotions in the purest, most concentrated way possible, and as the boy indulges more and more in the media, he is overcome with the desire of becoming like her. A strong identification with the cute anime girl forms. He finally admits he always wanted to be soft and gentle like her, carefree and cheerful like her, enjoy life in its fullest without the heavy chains of masculinity, like her.

And a belief in “female gender identity” begins to form.

I have to go on a slight digression at this point.

I don’t have a straightforward explanation of why this identification also leads to the development of autogynephilia — why the boy begins desiring to be sexually passive and submissive, even becoming “pseudo bisexual” in Blanchard’s terms, when he is originally heterosexual. Sure, masculinity very strictly forbids sexual submission (especially submission to other men), so if there were a natural desire for submission then those feelings would be repressed along with the others, but why would an average straight boy have feelings of sexual submission in the first place? (I doubt that any person naturally has such feelings.)

I suppose it has something to do with seeing such sexually submissive performance as part of the whole package of glamorized femininity. Perhaps, frequent consumption of pornography, in which women are portrayed behaving sexually submissive and enjoying it, causes the boys to subconsciously associate sexual submission with pleasure, and after the floodgates of femininity are opened, this also surfaces. Indeed, many people seem to have an autogynephilic fetish that is more strictly sexual in nature, and that in turn has often been theorized (by the men who have the fetish) to be related to porn consumption. So possibly we’re dealing with an interaction between two distinct psychological processes: a porn-induced subconscious association between behaving sexually submissive and receiving sexual pleasure, leading to the development of a latent autogynephilic fetish, which then surfaces through the embracing of total femininity when repressed feelings explode through identification with cute anime girls who are able to enjoy life.

Perhaps a little far-fetched, but it’s the best I’ve got for now to explain how autogynephilic fetishism ties into the theory of repressed positive/feminine feelings.

Let us go back to feminine identification and gender dysphoria though.

The boy who had repressed positive, life-affirming emotions his whole life has finally found salvation through his cute anime girls who show him how to live life to its fullest. How to be a cheerful person radiating all kinds of love and joy. It’s not merely a superficial attachment. It can be experienced as a very deep, sincere feeling, which finally pulls him out of a life-long depression.

This is why the boy begins to feel not just regular discomfort with his body, which he finds ugly according to conventional beauty norms; rather, the mere maleness of his body starts to feel like a profound contradiction with what he finally finds within himself. The boy still being brainwashed by masculine ideology, the body causes extreme cognitive dissonance and distress, because it’s connected in his mind with the polar opposite of his newly found true and inner self. If I’m a cute, soft, cheerful girl on the inside, he thinks, how could I possibly have a manly body like this? How creepy, disgusting, and plain ridiculous would I look behaving like the cute girl that I am on the inside, when I’m going through all the motions with this male body?

So there you get gender dysphoria. Your whole life you’ve been taught that you’re supposed not to be like the feminine girls and instead a masculine boy, which you subconsciously hated, perhaps to the point of suicidality, and now you’ve finally discovered, and fully embraced, that you’re “really” a feminine girl, but the male body is still there and ruining everything. It’s reminding people that you’re actually male — no, it’s making them think that you’re male. So you jump around between trying to modify (maybe even mutilate) your body into a more feminine shape, and yelling at people that just because you have a male body, doesn’t mean that you’re not really a girl.

It’s a miserable state to be in, and I don’t wish it on anyone.

Not to excuse any of the misogyny coming from guys like this. Women didn’t do this to them, and women aren’t responsible for fixing the issue.

Depicted: Transgender male on 4chan expressing violent hatred for his female psychiatrist, attached with an image of an angry anime girl. For some reason, he thinks serious gender dysphoria precludes the possibility of having an autogynephilic aspect to the condition.

As a final remark, let me add that anime with cute girls in them is just one possible way in which repressed femininity can explode. Representations of glamorized femininity exist in a lot of media and around us, so for any individual young man, the gateway to gender dysphoria may be something entirely different, and may occur in various stages of life. I suspect that the story I’m telling here applies not only to anime-obsessed transgender males, but to many more of them. Possibly, the same general phenomenon explains the dysphoria of many younger boys as well, and not just adolescents.

One way or another, we must abolish gender if we want to fight this issue. Until then, expect to see more young men who hate their body to the point of desiring medical intervention, and who enter an existential crisis if you even just suggest to them that they are perhaps not literally a girl.

#radfem #feminism #radical feminism #trans #transgender #gender #anime #autogynephilia #bell hooks #dysphoric #mtf #social justice

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