mitkitty

[mitkitty]

[mitkitty]

if u make clark kent say soda you are grossly mischaracterizing him and i wont stand for it

[mitkitty]

Can I just say, uh, I’m pretty sure noticing you’re asexual is harder than noticing you’re gay, straight, pan or otherwise. Like, I just read someone’s desciption of hitting puberty and, like, there’s nothing like that. There’s no sudden ‘boob’ moment, no sudden ‘fuck, I’d fuck that’ moment, not sudden anything. You just, like, plod on through life as usual going ‘oooh, that’s pretty, I’d like that hair’ or ‘oooooh, they’re nice, I’d like to be close to them’ but there’s no like, ‘oh, someone would want to fuck that but I don’t’, you know? You just- you don’t notice, you don’t realise everyone else has ‘had a moment’ but you haven’t, you just- keep going as you always have.

And then, much much later, you start to wonder why people are getting so caught up in drama for romance or sex, like, why bother? It’s not worth it, they’re not worth it, why are you doing stupid things for something that’s so- and then you wonder if there’s something wrong with you, start mentally over compensating. Like ‘uh, okay, um, who should I date? Who can I stand to date? Who could I stand to fuck?’ like- it’s not, it’s not something you want, but you want to fit in, to be normal.

Sometimes you don’t even know that you’re doing it.

Sometimes you don’t even know asexual’s a thing.

I dunno, I guess, I just feel like, uh, people should understand more?

idk sorry thank you for listening to me

[mitkitty]

Mega Tinkaton

[mitkitty]

“eldritch horror beyond your comprehension” and it’s just a generic monster with tentacles and eyes

[mitkitty]

Wonderful PreCure! - Official Illustration

[mitkitty]

[mitkitty]

Madoka Magica is a modern Buddhist folktale

With the new film coming soon I was going to talk about one of the most neglected aspects of Madoka Magica in the English fandom. It’s very explicit use of Buddhism which is often discussed by Japanese critics.

The show is Buddhist in two primary ways

The wish system is based on the first two Noble truths

Madoka is the story of a young girl choosing to become a Bodhisattva, specifically Madoka’s story is a retelling of the popular Buddhist figure Kannon in a modern setting.

Both of these are done in a way that would be very obvious to a Japanese audience. While the show has a reputation in the west as dark or subversive I’m going to argue that it’s not out of line with common Buddhist themes.

(As a note, There is controversy that “suffering” is too strong a translation but since the show uses despair I’ll keep it.)

First the wish system and Despair. Though many see the show as dark and nihilistic, in Buddhism suffering is considered an inevitable and unavoidable part of life. Suffering is inherent in Buddhism because we desire and cling to things but nothing is permanent, everything is in a state of mutual dependence and change flowing forever.

We might achieve happiness, success, our goals but these are temporary. We age, we lose the people we love, the world we are born into changes around us, our relationships change. Even in minor ways the happiness of achieving what we want is not permanent. Consider any major goals you have accomplished in your lives, was that happiness itself totally permanent and unchanging and enough to carry you through for the rest of your life? Notably in Goethe's Faust, Mephistopheles offer’s Faust only one perfect moment for his soul.

So while the discourse has always been on if the wishes were selfish or not the real issue is that no wish other than those that threaten the wish system could ever work.

Sayaka wishes to help her childhood friend and crush. She thinks she’ll never regret the wish until she discovers the true cost. Hitomi and Kyosuke start a relationship none the wiser to what Sayaka has done and she can do nothing as her lifelong friends move on from her. She tries to throw herself into the magical girl role only to find out the people she protects are sometimes unsavory. Sayaka was attached to a naive view of the world that changed while she bore the cost.

Kyoko wished people would attend her fathers ministry to help her family. For a time this worked but her father discovered magic was involved and she lost everything in a night.

Mami wished to live after a car accident, she was left alive but lonely and without a family. This loneliness was so deep and crushing when she was given the chance to no longer bear it she became careless, got herself killed and dragged her friends into her dark world.

In the other timelines Madoka wished to save someone else. In every single one she was either killed or fell into despair when the threat was eliminated but the costs were made clear.

All the wishes provided real happiness to the wisher but when that wore off and the cost remained the girls either fell into despair or were left alone to fend for themselves. Only Homera’s wish and Madoka’s final wish, wishes that threatened the system, avoided this.

When despair becomes too great a magical girl dies and is reborn as a witch. Witches have motifs based on the magical girl's thoughts, a death echoing some Buddhist beliefs . While these witches share continuity with their magical girls they cannot be reached even by people they knew in life, in line with Buddhist rebirth. Becoming a witch is like being reborn into a hell realm of which there is no going back.

Now it’s necessary to compare Madoka to Kannon.

Kannon is a Bodhisattva and extremely popular in Japan. Bodhisattva is someone who can achieve enlightenment but vows to forgo it to help all sapient beings achieve it.

Her Chinese counterpart Guanyin is described as a woman in white robes like ultimate Madoka.

To become a Bodhisattva one must have good karma from many lifetimes. Homura provides this as Madoka’s kindness inspires Homura to loop time over and over again. Kyubey explicitly confirms that Madoka is the center of Karma of many timelines.

Kannon saw the suffering of different beings and released her good Karma to either purify a hell realm or create a pure land for those suffering to go and achieve enlightenment. Madoka uses her karma to create a mysterious realm for magical girls she rescues.

Kannon is said to rescue those who are in their last moments who cry out for her help and save them from a negative rebirth. Madoka rescues magical girls in their last moments before they can become a witch.

Both Kannon and Madoka cleanse the Karma of those they help.

Kannon works tirelessly for others' salvation, Madoka assures magical girls that she is always fighting for them.

Madoka has a similar origin to Kannon and other Buddhist figures in general terms. She is relatively sheltered and privileged, unaware of the full extent of the suffering of the world. She still however suffers and has little sense of worth but great compassion for others. She wants to help but is ineffective until enlightenment.

Madoka after rescuing all magical girls past present and future achieves Nirvana. She describes Ego death with her consciousness spreading through the cosmos.

edit: corrected error

[mitkitty]

super nerd

[mitkitty]

[mitkitty]

oh you're in a horror film/book and your phone died/has no bars? how boring. I think phones in horror SHOULD work. they should ding only to have the protagonist check and find nothing. they should get calls from somebody you don't know but is still somehow in your contacts. google maps should lead you to one place, no matter what address you type in.

phones are such a big part of our daily lives, removing them from horror removes the horror from our experience. what if the horror felt like it could happen to you, right here, right now? what if it felt like it was already happening?

[mitkitty]

got a call about a pokemon holding up traffic. found this

[mitkitty]

Zacian & Ammy !!! :>

I love my sword puppies so I had to draw them together ^^ tho funny enough I forgot to draw Ammy’s sword 🥲

If Zacian is a big sister to Zamazenta, then Ammy is a big sister to Zacian LOL

[mitkitty]

melanistic gull chick! (reddit thread here)

What a sighting!! Gosh this really enchanted me. Thank you so much for sharing.

[mitkitty]

it is so fucking funny how often starscream tries to declare himself leader in the original transformers cartoon only for it never really go anywhere until the 86 movie. like he hardly even gets that many actual schemes, he’ll do his shtick without even having done anything

It's the best. Every fan who gets into Transformers through more recent iterations and then goes back and watches the G1 cartoon for the first time has the same revelation that the jokes about G1 Starscream weren't exaggerating at all. Megatron will literally get hit once and Starscream will declare "MEGATRON HAS FALLEN! NOW I, STARSCREAM, AM THE NEW LEADER OF THE DECEPTICONS!!!" and then Megatron gets right back up and slaps him and the plot of the episode continues. It's incredible

His most notable example of an actual long-term scheme to overthrow Megatron that actually went anywhere was the Combaticons two-parter over 60 episodes in, which Anthony and I just got to in our current watch. But even THAT had an inciting incident of Starscream screaming "NOBODY TURNS HIS BACK ON ME!!" and shooting Megatron in the back after receiving mild criticism, declaring Megatron dead and himself the new leader, and then Megatron immediately getting back up and banishing Starscream from the team. It was only after being banished that he had to come up with an actual plan for his next attempted coup

Starscream ordering the others to kill Megatron and save him and looking over to see Astrotrain, Thrust, and Soundwave just standing there staring at him like this is the funniest goddamn thing though

[mitkitty]

butch hartman when femme soulwoman walks in