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#can’t consume media critically
wyndlerunner · 10 months
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All of these Tumblr tutorial posts for Reddit Refugees talk about avoiding fandom discourse on this site at all costs
But I literally joined Tumblr in 2020 to participate in discourse
I’d started rereading all of the Stormlight Archive in preparation for Rhythm of War and spent months lurking on tumblr in my browser without an account. I also lurked on the Reddit cosmere threads. Halfway through Oathbringer, I caved and finally made an account on Tumblr cuz the discourse here was less unhinged than what I saw on Reddit
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musclesandhammering · 6 months
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If shippers are making you this pissed off, you need to stop interacting with them instead of being so fucking negative.
And if seeing negativity makes you pissed off enough to anonymously (lmao) send me a message about it, you need to adjust your filters accordingly to avoid posts that are specifically tagged as anti from blogs that have anti right in the name 🤷‍♀️
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youhadme-atgminor · 1 year
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i fear that if gregory were to actually go to the hr department NOW to report ava’s sexual harassment toward him, they’d be like “well it doesn’t look like it’s affecting your ability to do your job so nothing we can do 🤷”
like maybe if ava got fed up with gregory not accepting her advances she could threaten to fire him unless he reciprocates and then MAYBE we could finally have a serious conversation about sexual harassment in the workplace (especially when it’s done by a superior)
I don’t think the show would go in this direction (bc if it’s one thing bbc sherlock taught me, it’s that many screenwriters/showrunners aren’t that smart 😒), but i’m so tired of this being treated like it’s funny bc iF tHe RoLeS wErE rEvErSeD there would be more of an outrage I think
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tariah23 · 6 months
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I hate stsg shippers sm they’re so annoying talking about some “Gojo wanted to be with Getou again and he got his wish 🥺...” Likeajajakk they like anything just as long as someone is topping and bottoming bro
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iamthemaestro · 8 months
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asking self reflective questions such as am I ready to get back into critical role. am I capable of getting back into critical role. will I ever be able to catch up on critical role
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runvash · 2 years
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what yts don’t understand is that the misrepresented people can’t just look away and “enjoy the game.” why do y’all love acting oppressed and bullied for stanning characters built on racism.
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thrilling-oneway · 1 year
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Why are bandori and sekai fans so critical and angry about D4DJ all the time like most of you don’t even play it and your game has problems too
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zeb-z · 2 years
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reading a really good dsmp fic that’s semi-canon: 😁😊😚
author very clearly does not like cSam: 😯😔🫡
author very clearly is a cTechno apologist: 🥶🫠😶
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gothhabiba · 9 months
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The 2023 Barbie film is a commercial. I’m sure it will be fun, funny, delightful, and engaging. I will watch it, and I’ll probably even dress up to go to the theater. Barbie is also a film made by Mattel using their intellectual property to promote their brand. Not only is there no large public criticism of this reality, there seems to be no spoken awareness of it at all. I’m sure most people know that Barbie is a brand, and most people are smart enough to know this and enjoy the film without immediately driving to Target to buy a new Barbie doll. After all, advertising is everywhere, and in our media landscape of dubiously disclosed User Generated Content and advertorials, at least Barbie is transparently related to its creator. But to passively accept this reality is to celebrate not women or icons or auteurs, but corporations and the idea of advertising itself. Public discourse around Barbie does not re-contextualize the toy or the brand, but in fact serves the actual, higher purpose of Barbie™: to teach us to love branding, marketing, and being consumers.
[...] The casting of Gerwig’s Barbie film shows that anyone can be a Barbie regardless of size, race, age, sexuality. Barbie is framed as universal, as accessible; after all, a Barbie doll is an inexpensive purchase and Barbiehood is a mindset. Gerwig’s Barbie is a film for adults, not children (as evidenced by its PG-13 rating, Kubrick references, and soundtrack), and yet it manages to achieve the same goals as its source material: developing brand loyalty to Barbie™ and reinforcing consumerism-as-identity as a modern and necessarily empowering phenomenon. Take, for example, “Barbiecore,” an 80s-inspired trend whose aesthetic includes not only hot pink but the idea of shopping itself. This is not Marx’s theory on spending money for enjoyment, nor can it even be critically described as commodity fetishism, because the objects themselves bear less semiotic value compared to the act of consumption and the identity of “consumer.”
[...] Part of the brilliance of the Barbie brand is its emphasis on having fun; critiquing Barbie’s feminism is seen as a dated, 90s position and the critic as deserving of a dated, 90s epithet: feminist killjoy. It’s just a movie! It’s just a toy! Life is so exhausting, can’t we just have fun? I’ve written extensively about how “feeling good” is not an apolitical experience and how the most mundane pop culture deserves the most scrutiny, so I won’t reiterate it here. But it is genuinely concerning to see not only the celebration of objects and consumer goods, but the friendly embrace of corporations themselves and the concept of intellectual property, marketing, and advertising. Are we so culturally starved that insurance commercials are the things that satiate our artistic needs?
— Charlie Squire, “Mattel, Malibu Stacy, and the Dialectics of the Barbie Polemic.” evil female (Substack), 2023.
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applejuiz · 4 months
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James Somerton sucks and his erasure of queer voices is such a horrible damning crime, but I think the biggest thing that I took away from hbomb and Todd’s videos is that we need to be more intellectually curious. It’s so easy to read a post or watch a YouTube video and absorb information that sounds cool and move on. Everything is hard and I am tired and it would be so much more fun to just trust people who sound smart and say they care about what I care about. But this guy’s whole schtick falls apart the second you try to look for a source or more information, attempt to read more about his ideas or his lies and find that there’s nothing there or something all too familiar there.
It’s so hard that our energy is sapped away into the capitalist machine, but going forward I want to be intellectually curious again. I want to follow up on things that sound fascinating and read different voices and books about a topic I care about and think critically about the world and what I consume. I want to formulate my own opinions based on research and share my own words with an ongoing conversation.
It’s so upsetting that, like so many other areas, critical thought is being reduced to an aesthetic. This hack got to use a fancy camera and lights set up and pre-made graphics to give the illusion of an educational environment, while creating a space completely hostile to original, researched thought and conversation. Don’t ask questions, don’t cite sources, don’t do more research, just say something that sounds smart or that someone else has said exactly without thought and start working on the next video. It’s antithetical to all progress.
Knowledge isn’t something that you can consume, it’s something you have to engage with.
P.S. I don’t think this was on the list of other queer creators that hbomb recommended, but I can’t recommend CJ the X enough. Their unwavering dedication to thorough research, thoroughly deconstructing every and any topic, and respecting their audience’s intelligence has taught me more about media analysis and why I care about what I care about than four years of a film degree. Any one of their videos feels like a dissertation and I can feel my brain engaging and synthesizing new thoughts. They’re also very funny and hot.
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transmutationisms · 7 months
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I was reading your porn addiction post, and I just wondering what you consider addiction if not some sort of disease? I also think porn addiction and stuff in that vein is fake but I also can’t think that addiction is just people choosing to be that way even though they hate it. I say this as someone who was actually addicted to substances like I feel like there was something going on there that can’t be explained by the idea that addicts just choose to be like that. (I don’t think you think addicts just choose to be like that I just don’t really know any alternative schools of thought lol) I don’t mean this in an accusatory way I’m sorry if it comes off that way, I am genuinely curious what you think cause your posts are always so enlightening.
first of all you have to keep in mind that 'addiction' has no singular meaning. even if we confine ourselves to talking about psychoactive substances, 'addiction' can range from the 'classic' case of increasing, compulsive, self-destructive use, to cases where a person's usage may actually be stable in the long term but they're chemically dependent on the substance (think: the way doctors talk about chronic pain patients who are dependent on opioid painkillers; then compare to how they talk about psychiatric patients who are dependent on SSRIs. for example). you can get dx'd with a 'substance use disorder' purely on the basis of how much you take/consume, even if you don't feel it's causing impairment in your life, particularly if you let slip that someone else in your life has expressed concern or tried to stop you. race and class contribute to distinctions here as well, where certain people have leeway to be seen (even in a psychiatric setting!) as 'experimenting' with substances, or using them 'recreationally', where the same usage pattern in a person who's otherwise marginalised might be flagged as 'addictive' and in need of intervention. all of this gets even messier when psychiatrists and physicians try to justify applying discourses of 'addiction' to eating, gambling, sex, social media, and so forth. recall that 'addiction' in the roman republic and middle ages had contested legal and augural meanings that could be positive as well as negative, and that by the seventeenth century it was largely used as a reflexive verb with a predominantly positive meaning—as in, "we sincerely addict ourselves to almighty god" (thomas fuller, 1655) or, of plato, "he addicted himself to the discipline of pythagoras" (thomas hearne, 1698). it was not until the twentieth century that "addict" came to be widely used as a noun defining people who were passively suffering on a medical model.
i don't mean to be evasive here but to point out that asking "how do we define addiction besides a disease model?" presumes already that the disease model is the singular and inescapable way of understanding addiction in the first place—this is not true historically or presently. addiction is a muddled concept and has always involved moral discourses; attempts to present it as a 'pure' or 'objective' medico-scientific judgment are in fact recent and still unstable.
to the extent that it is useful to talk about addiction as a disease—that is, as a state of suffering that is imposed upon the sufferer, that is a disruption of a desired state of health and well-being—i think it is critical to keep in mind that such a disease is social as much as biological. you can start here by pointing out that substance use is often precipitated by the necessity of withstanding miserable life conditions (ranging from extreme poverty, domestic abuse, social marginalisation, &c, to the 'standard', inherently alienating and miserable conditions anyone endures in capitalist society). but there are other social factors that contribute to the presentation of substance use as compulsive, escalating, and self-endangering. eg, lack of a safe, steady supply is a huge factor here! when people are forced to rely on inconsistent, unregulated supplies to get high, this contributes greatly to drug 'binge' behaviours and endangers users. there is also the fact that drug users are often already marginalised (esp along lines of race, class, ability, &c) and are then further marginalised on the basis of being drug users. what would substance use look like in a society where using didn't relegate people to the social margins, or render them socially disposable? what if people had social supports, and weren't forced to toil away their entire lives at jobs that make them miserable for pay that's barely enough to live on? what sorts of patterns of substance use would we see then? so then, is it the drugs themselves that are the problem here, purely neurobiologically? or is there a larger story to tell about how people come to exist in such a state where substance use is increasingly hard for them to engage in with safeguards; where being a substance user causes them to lose whatever degree of social connection and support they may have had, which was often insufficient already; where they are often unable to integrate substance use into a full and connected life because they are told they must either give up enjoyment of a substance entirely, or be continually branded 'relapsing', 'non-compliant', 'dangerous', &c &c.....?
at the end of the day i don't think it's helpful or accurate to talk about addiction as a disease because it decontextualises drug use from all of these factors: why people do it, why it becomes harmful for some, why it's assumed we must simply 'stop' and 'resist' in order to 'get better'. disease explanations blame the substances themselves on a reductive bio-mechanical level (& again, this becomes especially untenable philosophically when we think at all about 'behavioural addictions'). the point here isn't to say that addicts are just blithely waltzing into addiction—or, indeed, to say that drug use is intrinsically a bad thing that should be avoided! it's a pretty typical feature of human existence that many of us enjoy consuming substances that alter our mental and physical states, and that's not inherently bad. when i push back against a disease model of addiction, i'm not invoking a model of personal responsibility or individual choice. i'm asking how we can understand drug use within a much broader social and historically contextualised frame, and how that can help people who are in many different states wrt drugs, from 'currently engaging in patterns of usage that feel compulsive and terrible' to 'never done a drug in their life'.
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gaileyfrey · 2 months
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I'm seeing tons of people dive deep into Hugo Awards discourse and analysis so here's another set of numbers to get invested in.
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If these numbers make you want to use your time and skills and money to a useful purpose, here's a round-up of links and resources for you.
If these numbers make you feel like you might as well just shut down and ignore the ongoing genocide in Gaza, there's resources for you here, too.
Resources for others 
This informational Google doc is updated almost daily with information and direct actions Canadians can take to pressure the Canadian government into withdrawing its support for genocide by demanding a permanent ceasefire.
Learn what it actually takes to escape Gaza. If you are currently wondering why people don’t “just leave,” this reading may help you develop a new understanding of the situation.
Donate to the Red Cross. As a dear friend told me when I expressed a feeling of helplessness, this is almost always a good move when you’re not sure how to help.
Donate to Doctors Without Borders, who are working to facilitate the movement of medical supplies and staff.
Get involved with PCRF, an organization that provides quality medical care to children throughout the Middle East regardless of nationality, religious or political affiliation.
Connect with Jewish Voice for Peace, an organization committed to the liberation of all people. They continue creating opportunities for you to turn your rage and grief into meaningful, strategic action.
Check out and share these resources, curated by Room Magazine, including ways to call on governments to demand a ceasefire, how you can donate and support the relief efforts, ways to fight disinformation, and a reading list to educate yourself. This list includes resources for Canadian citizens looking to take action.
Check out and share additional resources, curated by Autostraddle, including international legal and humanitarian aid resources, and organizations that are currently on the ground in Gaza providing medical aid and support.
Use Resistbot to message all of your representatives at one time, demanding a ceasefire, immediate humanitarian aid, and an end to occupation.
Resources for you
Those who bear witness are not at the center of destruction, but that doesn't change the fact that bearing witness is painful and can be scarring. If you need help managing your reaction to exposure to this subject and subjects like it, especially on social media, here’s a helpful image-free resource based on Trust & Safety best practices. This resource is oriented toward people who must engage with violent and traumatizing content as part of their work. If you can’t cope with bearing witness, then you can’t help people who are truly hurting when they need you. Taking the time to attend to this isn’t self-centering or weak—it’s a matter of making yourself more useful, and it’s a skill that will serve you in the long term. Here’s that link again.
Strengthen your media literacy. If you are consuming a huge amount of new, emotionally intense information, you need skills to parse that information into understanding. This isn’t a matter of simply being smart—it takes active critical engagement. Click here to download a pdf of some media literacy basics, dive into some deeper questions here, and continue learning fundamental skills of media literacy here.
Attend to your nervous system. You’re not meant to be able to handle situations like this one well. That’s the whole point of war. Take care of yourself so you can take care of others. Here’s an old Stone Soup post that rounds up some tips for taking care of yourself when your nervous system is screaming at you. This is a starting point, not the finish line—self-care is the foundation you build on.
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pretty-weird-ideas · 9 days
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If you cannot make a cognizant sentence about racism, you cannot make a cognizant sentence about anything else in this fandom.
Once you admit that you aren’t consuming IWTV’s textual elements in good faith i don’t trust any analysis you could possibly have.
I just saw a post telling fans to stop reading into race in this show, and I shit you not, that the show should be read in a colorblind lens. You know, the narrative about interracial relationships and power dynamics in the 1920s south with a Black MC who is oppressed on screen and verbally describes said thing happening consistently.
“It’s okay to not understand the basic readings of the text” is an insane take when these same people are known for chasing after black fans with a baseball bat over their own theories not being taken seriously.
Anyone who sits up there and agrees with “watching IWTV colorblindly” can go ahead and stop posting their analysis or block me because I don’t trust analysis from people who don’t understand the basic reading of the narrative.
If someone tells me the sky is green… I won’t trust them saying the Earth is flat either. If you believe that race is negligible in a show that centers RACISM as a prevalent theme, you cannot make me believe you understand ANY of the show.
I can’t believe people are proudly saying that they’re intentionally media illiterate and are handing out “passes” to other fans to join them in flagrant misunderstanding of the narrative. Mostly just as a grift to explain why black fans who they disagree with should be ignored wholesale if they tell enough people that it’s hip and trendy to be ignorant of the DIRECTLY STATED THEMES.
Fellas, is it trendy and cool to be intentionally dense and uncritical to win an internet argument against black critics and analysts who have more understanding than you do?
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elodieunderglass · 6 months
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Referring to you "anxieties of the culture" horror tropes post, I just watched the 1990 adaptation of IT and this comes less than a month after watching both Kolchak movies & starting the TV show. What do you think it was about the late-70s/early-80s that led to "the killer is a monster that hibernates for a set number of years before returning to perform the killings again, as a grim echo of the past, and it's up to the heroes to stop it now before it rears its ugly head again"? There's gotta be some "pass-the-buck" crisis that PEAKED in that time period, something that was a long time coming before that and may or may not have continued since. I don't think it's climate change, that wasn't really at Critical Mass yet until the HFC hairspray crisis of the mid-80s. Your thoughts?
(In reference to this post: https://www.tumblr.com/elodieunderglass/729604545735458816)
Oh that is SO interesting! I also like the Horrors of the Past that Re-Emerge. You get them in fantasy too. To some extent they’re quite nice, because they displace responsibility, allowing the heroes to grapple with something distanced. necromantically resurrected Zombie Nazis will always be a more appealing enemy, for a broad market, than your present-day actual real life QAnon uncle. You can blow up an Ancient Horror as much as you like, can’t you? You don’t need to worry about the tricky present-day political circumstances that birthed the serial killer if it’s actually an ancient time-travelling monster. Monsters are often articulated and described and used because they are “safe” in this way: a displaced thing that can be used. Separate from us in species, appearance, home planet, history of origin, motives, spacetime - the farther they are from us and our shared background, the more justifiable it is to nuke them from orbit, to make a splashy movie.
HOWEVER. As I said in that post - “horror reflects social anxieties” is a SUPER well-described piece of media study and you can read proper writing about that anywhere. I encourage you to seek it out! They say it much better than I do.
I also said in that post that I, myself, don’t watch horror/movies/film. It isn’t due to contempt for the genre, or fear of the content - I just can’t get into it or get immersed, which defeats the point of an immersive genre meant to provoke response. (For example, despite being explicitly told that I would love Stranger Things Season 4 and that I was required to write fic about it for a friend, I gave out at the beginning of season 2; despite being really fond of Welcome to Night Vale at a formative time of my life, I dropped out before StrexCorp. And those are things I generally liked, wanted to consume, and knew I would enjoy! It’s a me problem, and I’m not bothered by it. I am TOO BUSY.)
That’s just to say that I could spitball some thoughts, but I’d be out of my depth.
But here’s an idea. A very small minority of people in the notes took offence to me having meta thoughts about horror when I don’t consume the genre - and worse, saying them out loud, while also openly admitting that I’m out of my depth and would prefer an expert to say it better. “YOU are a COWARD,” they say. “The audacity of commenting on a trend in a genre that you don’t even watch.” “You complain so much but don’t even watch these films” “imagine writing all this with such a bad attitude about horror.” etc.
I think those people have effectively volunteered to write you an essay. They clearly have the horror-consuming chops! Perhaps not the reading comprehension … or analysis skills… but they definitely watch a lot more horror media than I do, so why not give them a crack at it? (This is jokes, don’t bother them.)
Alternatively - there are a lot of clever and savvy people with good takes around here, so they’re welcome to spin out some answers on this post.
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lurkingshan · 10 months
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Kinou nani tabeta/What Did You Eat Yesterday?
You should know that I attempted to start this write up about half a dozen times before I managed to get a single word down. Every time I tried I just ended up staring at the wall. I don’t think I’ve been this emotionally stunned by a show since I Told Sunset About You, and I don’t say that lightly!
So, is this a good show? My god, YES. What an understatement. Let me tell you, as my MDL can attest, I’ve watched nearly 300 dramas. I’m sure I’ve watched even more Western shows since I had a 30 year head start on those. And I can say confidently that I’ve never seen anything quite like this gem.
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Kinou nani tabeta, or What Did You Eat Yesterday?, is a drama about two middle aged gay men living their everyday lives, making and sharing food, reckoning with their identities and expectations, and figuring out how to be together in a long term relationship. That’s it, that’s the show. If that sounds boring to you, I gotta tell you: YOU ARE WRONG.
We meet Shiro and Kenji when they’re in their mid 40s and already a couple years into living together. Over the course of the show, we learn more about their relationship - how they got together, how they differ, where they struggle, where they shine, what they are still figuring out - and we see them work through it all, together. We see them at work, with friends, with their families, out in public, and in the privacy of their own home - we get a full and complete picture of their lives. And we are invited in to experience it with them and get up close and personal with their relationship in a way that feels both cozy and thrilling.
Now, I am not going to go into detail about everything that happens in this show, or attempt to provide deep analysis about its story, its characters, or the various cultures it depicts. This show was released in 2019, the manga began its run many years before that, and there are folks on this website - like @isaksbestpillow and @bengiyo - who have been at this a hell of a long time and thus have a broader context and lived experience from which to critically examine the show and its messages as they relate to Japanese familial values, life as a queer man from an older generation, and building community while living in a culture that is actively hostile to who you are. I implore you to go read their thoughts and learn from their wisdom. But what I will do is mention a couple (3… no 4, okay 5!) things that really made it stand out to me, a lifelong romance reader, avid media consumer, and drama enjoyer (I’m going to keep plot stuff vague because I hope if you’re reading this, you will be watching very soon!):
Let me repeat: this is a drama about a middle aged couple in a long term relationship, and the ongoing growth and deepening of their relationship is the main plot. Do I have to tell you how unique that is? The romance genre is rarely interested in what happens after the couple gets together, and even in other dramas featuring a couple in a LTR, the plot is usually about something else with the relationship in the background. And I’m fairly sure this is the only show of this nature in the entire bl genre (@absolutebl please fact check me if I’m wrong). In this show, the relationship is the point. It’s a rare look at what it actually takes to learn to deal with your baggage and share your life with someone, and I found it deeply moving.
My god these actors. With all due respect to the many fine actors in the bl industry, these two are on another level. We just never get to see seasoned actors of this caliber headlining ql dramas. If I have one tiny critique of this show, it’s that I found the moments when they let us listen in on the characters’ internal monologues mostly unnecessary - every emotional beat played out in their faces and body language. There’s this one scene I can’t stop thinking about, where the main pair are fighting, and one of them says something he doesn’t mean, and you see the regret on his face instantly, followed by a quick aborted movement as if to take it back, but his partner has already turned away and doesn’t see it. Just perfection. And the acting was so good in the finale (@waitmyturtles informed me my absolute fav moment was improvised for fucks sake) that it actually laid me out for like an hour, I was just sitting there in a crying daze.
The writing is so fucking smart. What’s absolutely brilliant about this show is that it’s structured like an episodic slice of life drama, but there is a deeper long term emotional arc at play and the writers forget nothing. Just like in life, in each episode something will happen, it won’t really get fully resolved, and the characters will move on. But on this show, it always comes back around, usually when your guard is down and they can inflict maximum damage by sucker punching you right in the solar plexus. I can hardly believe how many times this show managed to sneak attack me with emotional realness (official Shan cry count: 8/12 episodes caused me to burst into tears, sometimes more than once).
This show will take you through every possible destination on the spectrum of human emotion. I was so emotional while watching this show, in every sense. Crying both happy and sad tears. Swinging wildly between giddy delight, deep sadness, low key anger, and belly laughing. Sometimes the switch happens literally one scene to the next! And yet, there is an evenness to the tone and assuredness to the filmmaking that makes it all feel smooth. You never feel jerked around by the narrative. This is a credit to the writing, acting, and editing all coming together with perfect precision. The people who made this show are masters of their crafts.
OBVIOUSLY I MUST MENTION THE FOOD. Every episode of this show features at least one instance of a character making Japanese food that looks like the best thing you’ve never gotten the chance to eat. I do not recommended watching this without feeding yourself first, because it will have you salivating. And they don’t just show you the characters making the food (even narrating the recipes for you!), they always show you the characters actually eating and enjoying it. Some real foodies were involved in this production and as someone who loves to eat and absolutely was raised to view feeding people as a love language, I loved it.
So now that you are obviously dying to watch it, you must be wondering: where can I find this show? Let me point you to this post on @kinounaniresource, where the amazing Siiri has compiled all the video files and English subs you need. If you’re not familiar with how to use these, you’ll find instructions on her blog (if you get confused come ask me, please don’t bug her about it). I know sometimes shows being a little hard to access is a big deterrent to watching them, but please trust me that this is absolutely worth your time and effort, you will not regret it.
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heavyweightheart · 2 years
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i’ve spent most of my life in milieus where beauty culture had a muted influence. i currently work with a group of body liberationists who don’t wear bras or makeup lol (a statement?? see: sara ahmed). but recently i’ve been sucked into the vortex of skincare youtubers, media writers, redditors, bloggers, etc. and i’m soooo very interested in this phenomenon (tho only moderately interested in skincare itself). there are such interesting and disturbing parallels to diet culture, a lot of which are obvious. there’s also a subtler dynamic that i’ve been observing, and i and others have named it about diet culture, and i’ll call it the “moderation frame.”
the moderation frame in diet culture gives injunctions like: don’t be overly preoccupied with food and diet (cringe! get the dsm!); but don’t just eat whatever you feel like eating (the body isn’t that trustworthy)/we all know intervention in your instinctive diet and body’s processes is needed; have thorough nutritional knowledge but only trust The Credentialed Experts (many of whom are in fact untrustworthy). we’re expected to do quite a bit of work to maintain a certain nutritional state and a certain body status. but the state and status are culturally determined, along with their desirability--without the baseline assumption that there is only one right way to have a body, there is no point in the quest to attain it. and of course, i am deeply critical of norming the quest to obtain it, bc bodies can in fact be trusted to regulate eating, shape, and size largely on their own. we are intervening in processes that don’t need intervention, and the intervention itself is the point--to keep us distracted, self-hating, and buying.
the analogue in skincare and “anti-aging” is sth like: don’t go overboard (sad! bimbofication!), but obviously you can’t just :/ let your skin have wrinkles and spots :/ i think we can all agree that’s [a horror] to be avoided. and the knowledge these people have (superficial and memed as it is), even lay people, about skin and skincare ingredients? it’s a staggering investment that requires, and so like orthorexia and other EDs where we become encyclopedias of nutrition facts. and dermatologists are some of the worst peddlers of cosmetic skincare bullshit, like many nutrition and medical professionals (particularly if they have influencer status) in the area of food/body.
in both areas, too, it makes sense to be thoughtful--that we’re eating enough and eating in ways that support our own bodies; that we’re taking care with skin cancer risk. but what’s demanded of us as good citizens and consumers in skincare and diet cultures is, again, an anxious preoccupation that’s based in the assumption that the body can’t just be, can’t simply be what it is. it has to be controlled and normed and understood “scientifically” to that end. it’s all so very rational, right??
we’re all aware of the political underpinnings and implications of these things. awareness of those things is literally my job! and even i get sucked in. i am not immune to propaganda, and neither are you. it’s good to reflect on our investments of time, energy, money, and emotion. i have personally pulled myself out of a week-long skincare-culture hyperfixation quagmire and i won’t be going back!
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