blackcur-rants

[blackcur-rants]

In all seriousness, I could talk a lot about the parallels between them as characters and in particular how they kind of correspond to Odysseus and Penelope in certain ways (why do you think I chose the name Penelope for female!Pip in "The Pip and the Penny"?).

Like, Pip and Odysseus are fairly obvious. Hero who sets out from their homeland and encounters trials and tribulations before returning home wiser and more world-weary but also having found true happiness at last. Although there is that one fascinating contrast of "Odysseus brings harm to a brutish monster and that ends up being the cause of pretty much all of his problems on the way home" vs "Pip brings health and comfort to the seemingly brutish Magwitch and that ends up coming back to help him and allow him to begin finding himself over the course of many years". And then of course, there is Estella's whole status of concealing her true feelings for Pip and having to deal with pressure to turn away from him by both Miss HAvisham and later by Bentley Drummle until they are reunited and realise how much they truly love each other.

And meanwhile, Davey kind of has parallels with Penelope, as I have discussed before. Both Davey and Penelope are marked from early on by the absence of a strong male figure in their lives (Odysseus' absence on the Trojan War and his later voyages/Davey's father having died six months before he was born) that allows toxic infiltrators (the Suitors/the Murdstones) to come into their lives and wreck things up. Oh and there's also an important friendship with a nursemaid (Eurycleia/PEggotty) and the whole chapter called "The Tempest" can easily be seen as a tragic ending version of "The Odyssey" wherein Odysseus dies at the hands of Poseidon and PEnelope must continue to go on without him (hell, Dickens literally compares him to a famous married couple when Davey sees himself as Sheherazade and Steerforth as Shahryar while they are at Salem House together).

Also, here's some fanart I commissioned @kaereth to draw of Copperpip reimagined as trans sapphics in a non-patriarchal alternate history world called Albion for all my followers' viewing pleasure.

[Image description: A commissioned piece of fanart showing Pip from "Great Expectations" and Davey from "David Copperfield" here reimagined as sapphic transgender women in an alternative version of England. Diana Harriet Josephine Copperfield is on the left and is a tan-skinned woman dressed in brown and white and gold who is watching as Penelope Isabella Pirrip, here depicted as a red-haired Japanese woman dressed in brown and green, is reading one of her books and is cheerfully discussing said book with Penny. They are sitting together underneath a statue of Sir Galahad as well, sword planted firmly in the ground and a cloak draped over one arm and a cross emblazoned on his tunic]

@eleftherian @dachi-chan25 @cynicalclassicist @carcosa-commune @secretmellowblog @disregardcanon @kittyissorad

Also, if there was a larger Dickens fandom on Tumblr, imagine how popular shipping Pip and Davey together would be.

I mean. Pip would be SO MUCH BETTER to him than Steerforth was 👀

[blackcur-rants]

So I have recently taken time out of my busy schedule of life to watch the two post-Michael Bay live action “Transformers” movies, namely “Bumblebee” from 2018 and “Rise of the Beasts” from 2023 (I wanted to watch “Transformers One” on streaming, but I cannot find a way to watch it that does not give money to Biff Jayzus and his giant evil post office). I watched “Bumblebee” on Paramount Plus and “Rise of the Beasts” on Netflix. I enjoyed them both immensely, though I think I got just a little more invested in “Rise of the Beasts” (though that might have just been the fact that I watched RotB on a TV with better sound than the TV on which I watched “Bumblebee”).

And what I Want to talk about in this essay is about one line in “Rise of the Beasts” that really speaks to me both in terms of the film itself and how it relates to both of these films and how they easily outclass the Michael Bay movies of 2007-2017.

Okay, so here’s a quick recap for “Rise of the Beasts”: Our main character is Noah Diaz, a young man in 1990s New York who used to be a Marine for the United States Army before he retired to look after his chronically ill little brother Kris. Basically, he buys a car that turns out to be an Autobot named Mirage and gets drawn into a case where an archaeologist discovers a statue that contains one half of the Trans Warp Key, a Cybertronian Device that can open up gateways and portals across the galaxy and which is currently being sought by a bunch of bad Transformers who want to use it to free their Master Unicron from the galaxy in which he’s been imprisoned so that he can go back to eating planets again, as he is wont to do.

So basically our heroes have one piece of the Trans Warp Key from a statue of Nubian origin (as I have discussed before) and they need to go find the other piece so they can keep it safe from Unicron. And fortunately, Elena (the archaeologist who discovers the statue in the movie) happens to recognise the symbols on the back of the old statue as being from a Peruvian culture in origin. And so they all go to Peru to find the Trans Warp Key’s other half. And because they’re being guided by a Maximal Transformer named Airazor, they are quick to find the Maximal leader Optimus Primal (short version: The Maximals are a group of transformers who can turn into animals rather than into vehicles and who have been hiding out on Earth since their planet was destroyed and devoured by Unicron).

So they start walking along and having a conversation with Optimus Primal and how the Maximals have been hanging out with the indigenous folks of the region for the last few thousand years, and Noah decides to ask Optimus Primal if they played any part in the creation of artefacts such as the Nazca Lines, to which Optimus Primal responds:

“We cannot take credit for human ingenuity”.

Not gonna lie, when I first heard that line in the movie, my jaw dropped just a little. It’s such a masterful little subversion of the standard shallow-ass “Aliens came down to the primitive brown peoples and taught them how to build stuff and wear clothes”, instead depicting a strong state of cooperation and acceptance between Amaru’s people and the Maximals. And of course, this state of peaceful coexistence and mutual cooperation is a strong contrast to how much Unicron in this movie (and in the Transformers Mythology more generally) can be seen as a metaphor for colonialism, particularly in how his whole thing is taking the resources of other worlds for himself and how he uses people from the worlds he has consumed and devoured as his foot soldiers. And of course, this Godlike Personification of Colonialism is opposed by a team led by two Black brothers whom the film explicitly mentions as having experienced intense marginalisation at the hands of White American society. And thus we have a truly excellent thematic and ideological conflict between the Autobots and their allies on one side and the Decepticons and their allies on the other side, with the Autobots symbolising cooperation and mutual connection while the Decepticons represent colonialism and conquest.

And of course, this also ties into the other factor of these two movies simply having much better written and acted and more likeable protagonists than any of the Bay movies. To put it very simply and bluntly, it is much, much easier to care about “How will Charlie Watson be able to deal with and move on from her father’s death and her resultant grief while also helping Bumblebee get the message to Optimus?” and “Can Noah Diaz and Kris Diaz find a way to care for each other and help each other even as the world seems set against them?” than it is to care about “How ever will Sam ‘Shia LaDipshit’ Witwicki ever get to make out with a girl who’s honestly way cooler and more interesting than he is (Thank you, Lindsay Ellis)?’. It is also very important to note how both Charlie and Noah are shown to have mechanical talent as engineers even before they meet the Autobots, while Sam just stumbles into owning things (Again, thank you Dan Olson for this observation). This makes them feel like active participants in the stories of the Autobots and the Decepticons rather than just being dragged into it and then just kind of winning by default.

It's almost like having themes and messages and political ideas (however basic or simple) in your story actually makes things richer and more interesting and meaningful while trying to ‘avoid’ politics and political messages makes a resulting experience that is far more bland and forgettable and also far less interesting as a whole.

Think about that, will you, as you write your own stories.

@sepublic @acephysicskarkat @cynicalclassicist @dachi-chan25

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You know, I actually one of my college essays on “Sweeney Todd” in comparison with “Taxi Driver” and I talked about how both stories are about patriarchal power fantasies and especially how “Sweeney Todd” deals very heavily with objectification.

Basically, “Sweeney Todd” is in many ways a proto-“Wicked” in that it is a Jewish composer named Stephen taking a work that reimagined a previously one-dimensional pop cultural villain into a fully realised three dimensional character with sympathetic reasons for doing what they are doing and adapting it into an operatic-style musical. However, a key difference between Elphaba and Sweeney is their motivations for going against the Wizard/Judge Turpin. In “Wicked”, Elphaba’s motivations are almost entirely idealistic. She has no personal beef with the Wizard when she decides to go against him during “Defying Gravity” (she doesn’t even know he’s her dad for the entirety of the show), she just wants to save the Animals from his oppression and tyranny.

Sweeney Todd, meanwhile, is very much the opposite. He’s not opposed to Judge Turpin because of what Turpin represents as a corrupt symbol of the Victorian British class system and all of its inequities and injustices, or because of how Turpin is an implied serial abuser of women or because of all the people Turpin has murdered through execution. He’s angry because Turpin tore him away from what he sees as his rightful life as a middle-class husband and father and took his wife and his daughter from him (there’s a reason why Sweeney constantly refers to them as “My Lucy” and “my girl” and with lines like “You’re gone and yet you’re mine!”, as if they are beloved pets rather than people). He shows a profoundly callous disregard for everyone else in the world around him, to the point where in “Epiphany”, he says “In the meantime, I will practise on less honourable throats!” as if all of his future victims are just a dress rehearsal for finally killing Turpin. And he never stops to consider that his behaviour and worldview are part and parcel with the same system that allowed Judge Turpin and Beadle Bamford to get away with their crimes for so, so long.

@disregardcanon @cynicalclassicist @carcosa-commune @dachi-chan25

finally got to see sweeney todd live (seen the movie and a few boots) and i have some Thoughts about utilizing sexism in your setting without the writing itself being sexist. because sweeney todd is SO good at it.

if you haven't seen sweeney todd, uh, both spoilers and trigger warnings for sexual assault, murder, cannibalism etc?

in sweeney todd we have three critical female characters

the entirety of sweeney todd happens because a man with wealth and power decides that he wants to rape benjamin barker's wife. he makes up a sham crime to get benjamin out of the picture and ships the man off to australia. this leaves young lucy as a single mother in victorian london.

he horrificly and publicly rapes her in a setting where other people jeer and laugh during the act. eventually she tries to poison herself, and the combination of poverty and cruelty is left to fend for herself on the streets, slowly losing her grip on reality due to the past trauma, ongoing trauma, and presumably brain damage from the poisoning.

when her husband, now calling himself sweeney todd, returns to their street, she is quite literally still there. he's cruel to her even before he "learns" from mrs. lovett that lucy died. the absolute revulsion he experienced towards her due to her being a homeless woman blinded him to even the possibility that this person who is in the right location could be his wife, even before she's "confirmed" as dead. she's just his beautiful, lost ideal. (but she isn't. she's there she's suffering she's insightful and caring and she's THERE-)

sweeney and lucy's daughter, joanna, has been stolen and locked away by the very judge that sent him to australia and raped her mother. she's spent all sixteen of her years confined to a single room, and the moment she catches the attentions of our young hero, the man she calls FATHER decides that he must marry her.

forcefully.

when she presents resistance and tries to run off with her young man, her captor forces her into an asylum where she will wait until she decides to become his wife the way that he is "owed".

sweeney never once acts to save her, despite both mrs. lovett and our hero's prompting. she, again, is the lost ideal. she would remind him too much of his lost love! oh no, however could he stand it! she is just something to mourn, even though she is here. breathing. singing frantically longing for freedom making connections with others and clever choices-

and then we have mrs. lovett, his wonderful, conniving soulmate. she's hilarious! she's far more clever than anyone gives her credit for, because she's just a silly woman after all! she snorts! she tells bad jokes! she's kind to children!

the dynamic between her and tobias only works so well because she's a woman. even if mr. todd was kind to him in a very similar manner, little boys don't show their affection for grown men with I Must Protect This Person. that is a way that little boys are taught to show their affection for the older women in their lives. because their grans and mums and aunts and older sisters, why, they're just so delicate! so kind! grandpas and dads and uncles and older brothers might need help and deference, but their favorite women need protection.

they can't be aware of the terrible things that are happening, or god forbid, a PARTICIPANT! that's just my auntie nelly! she's not capable of such a thing. she says things like "poor thing" and tells silly, bad jokes, and flutters around after the man she has an unrequited crush on.

surely she can't be in on this dastardly plot! she can't be its true author! the one that takes an angry, short-sighted man and gives him a purpose. that would be absurd!

sweeney never suspects her until seconds before he kills her. toby never suspects her at all. she's just a silly little cook with a crush that needs protection after all.

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You know, I’ve been thinking a lot about Disney’s movie “Wish” a lot since I saw it in December of 2023.

Now, I know one of the (major? -ish?) issues some people have with this movie is Amaya becoming queen after Magnifico is overthrown, which does kind of fall into the whole “Good Monarch, Bad Monarch” trope rather than criticising monarchy as a whole (although no one has that problem with Zuko becoming Fire Lord at the end of "Avatar: The Last Airbender" or Simba becoming King of Pride Rock at the end of "The Lion King" or Glimmer and the Princesses being monarchs in "She-Ra and the Princesses of Power"). And this does kind of tie into my thesis of “Wish should have been a miniseries so that we could actually. Develop all of these ideas and themes in more detail than we got to do so in the movie itself”, especially since that would have allowed us to spend more time with Amaya and grow to appreciate her the same way we did with supporting characters in more recent animated shows (“The Owl House”, the aforementioned “She-Ra and the Princess of Power” and “Avatar: The Last Airbender”, “Amphibia”, “Centaurworld”, “Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts”, “Arcane”, “Hilda”, etc).

However, there is one detail I’m surprised not to have seen covered in other works or essays about this movie.

At the end of the film, the roles of ruler and wish-granter, which were one position under Magnifico, are now separate positions with Asha as wish-granter and Amaya as ruler.

Now why does this matter? Well, let me tell you.

Well you see, my dearest readers, Rosas under Magnifico is very heavily coded as a theocracy. It’s not super-blatant and in your face about this theme, but the structure of this society is very much “There is a singular Prophet/Priest/God-King who rules over this society with unquestioned might and if you obey him, he will grant your deepest wishes of your heart and if you don’t, you will suffer in misery and loneliness and isolation forever and ever”. In fact, even the fact that the movie is set on an island near the coast of Spain (a country notorious for its history of theocratic repression and religious strife) adds a strong if unexpected layer to this dimension/theme of the story. Hell, Asha’s own name is a modified form of the common Arabic name Aishah, which connects her on an implicit level to Islam and Moorish culture, with her obvious mixed race heritage meaning that she probably would have been targeted for persecution and/or execution under Spain’s infamous “Limpieza de Sangre” rules (although I do think “Wish” takes place a good while before those laws went into effect, so maybe this metaphor is not 100% perfect).

Hell, Magnifico actually shares a number of traits with previous theocracy-coded bad guys in other animated media. Like Judge Claude Frollo, he is a profoundly arrogant European aristocrat whose biggest enemy is a woman of colour and who has a song in the movie that mirrors a song that the protagonist sings (“At All Costs” in “Wish” and “Heaven’s Light”/” Hellfire” in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”). Like Horde Prime in “SPOP”, he has a silver and white colour scheme, has eyes that glow green when using his magic and powers, and also brainwashes the hero’s friend into attacking them at one point in the story. And like Belos in “The Owl House”, he is a guy who came to this island from elsewhere and destroys objects that represent people’s deepest hopes and desires in order to gain power for himself and his biggest opponent is an Afro-Latina girl.

iAlso and furthermore, while I fully acknowledge that “I’m a Star” is the weakest song in the movie and probably eats up a bit more screen time than it needs to do so, there is a strong hint of this anti-theocracy theme present even within that song. Whereas Magnifico espouses a very traditional organised religion view of “The Divine Power and the Divine Message are enshrined in me and in me alone and any attempt to challenge this power is akin to heresy and/or blasphemy”, what Star shows Asha in “I’m a Star” is a much more pantheistic world view wherein the Divine is enshrined in all living things and we are all part of a greater cosmic whole. And that, of course, pays off in the wonderful climax of this movie, wherein all the citizens of Rosas finally unite against Magnifico and use their shared power to seal him away forever inside his own magical staff.

So basically, what I am saying is that when the roles of wish-granter and ruler of Rosas are separated out to Asha and Amaya respectively at the end of this story, it’s a pretty obvious allegory for the separation of church and state. No longer will Rosas be this tyrannical metaphorical theocracy under the rule of an arrogant and power-hungry prophet-king, but it will instead be a proudly multicultural and pluralistic and open society that shares its wish magic with the world instead of hoarding it for itself behind its castle walls like it was under Magnifico.

So…what am I saying with all of this? Well, not all that much, just that this is honestly a truly fascinating theme buried within the storyline of this movie that not many people seem to have noticed. And honestly, I wanted to bring it up mostly because I haven’t seen that many people talking about it even though it's incredibly obvious to me at least. And also because I think it makes the movie really interesting to analyse it through this lens and because even flawed, imperfect movies like this one can actually yield some fascinating and wonderful food for thought if you actually think about them like this.

@cynicalclassicist @whencartoonsruletheworld @writerqueenofjewels

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[Image description one: A drawing of Jane Eyre and Edward Fairfax Rochester in a universe wherein they are reimagined as an Afro-Caribbean trans lesbian named Joan Ayala and a bisexual cisgender JEwish woman named Eleanor Rodinsky-Rosenberg. Joan and Eleanor are dancing together against a white backdrop, with Joan being dressed in a black dress with white gloves and a sapphire-and-pearl necklace while Eleanor is dressed in a blue-and-white dress with white gloves. They are both smiling and happy with each other's presence and their love for each other]

[Image description two: A drawing of Odysseus and Penelope reimagined as queer women. Odysseus is now a Black Butch Lesbian named Oduzessa who has long black hair and wears a red dress, while her wife Penelope is now a Chinese-descended trans woman of biseuxal persuasion who also has long black hair, although hers is straight while Oduzessa's is curly, and is wearing a golden dress. They are both resting together in their famous wedding bed as they both smile and Oduzessa holds Panelokeia's face in her hands while Panelokeia keeps her hands placed firmly upon Oduzessa's chest]

Once again, @kaereth, this is truly excellent and you did an amazing job on all of this. I particularly adore the absolute tenderness and gentleness with which Oduzessa and PAnelokeia are touching others' faces and the sense of a wry smile upon Eleanor's face.

@cynicalclassicist @carcosa-commune @dachi-chan25 @disregardcanon @flaretheidiot @celticbotanart

Commissions done for @blackcur-rants !!

[blackcur-rants]

So as a fan of Tony Goldmark and his threads on social media, I’m still really thinking about how he defines Liberals as basically “Leftists who recognise that we are stuck with Capitalism and want to find ways to make things better from within the System That Exists instead of hoping in vain for a Glorious Revolution that will probably never come”.

And honestly, I think that’s a really good summary of “Wicked”. A key point of contention between Elphaba and Glinda is basically this:

Glinda: Elphie! We are stuck with the Wizard! We aren’t going to get rid of him any time soon, but if you let me, I can find a way to get within his system and mitigate some of the damage he’s doing.

Elphaba: Sorry Glinda, I can’t accept that because it goes against my morality. I still love you, but goodbye for now.

@cynicalclassicist @carcosa-commune @disregardcanon @dachi-chan25

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and in the true spirit of 9-1-1 on abc it is like. comedic levels of melodramatic. he literally looks like a sad dog that’s been abandoned on the side of the road by his owner.

[blackcur-rants]

night at the museum is crazy because it’s like omg this monkey is slapping ben stiller! haha! this statue come to life is a bust so he can’t scratch his nose! and then it’s like. what does it mean to be alive? to have history, to know that history? to make an impact on the future? is there any truer purpose, any greater fulfillment than bringing joy to children? than helping them learn? are museums not the most noble, earnest creations, because they are monuments to our human dedication to knowledge and understanding? what matters is not the amount of time spent on earth, but the brilliance of that brief burst of life and love. we are all reaching out, connected, touching each other’s lives for forever into eternity. do not fear the darkness. rejoice at the inevitability of a shining tomorrow, even though you will not be there to see it. and then it’s like omg the monkey’s slapping ben stiller again! he peed on his shoes!

[blackcur-rants]

official elon musk hate post reblog to hate like to hate reply to hate

[blackcur-rants]

You've been cast into a fictional setting, and you don't get to pick your genre. This wheel picks it for you.

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people with tooth decay aren't bad people. they aren't lazy either. neither are they unclean or irresponsible. tooth decay doesn't make you a bad person. you don't deserve mockery, judgement, or tooth pain for having any. the only thing people with tooth decay deserve is healthcare.

[blackcur-rants]

You know, I’ve been looking at and loving the art that @manhattancrossrip has done for Checkmatch and it’s made me realise how fascinating it could be if they continue developing Phoebe’s queerness in future movies of this series.

Just how fascinating would it be if the ultimate punchline to which this new series of films has been building up the whole time is “Behold! We have taken one of the all-time great beloved Guy Buddies on an Adventure comedies and used it as the jumping off point for the story of a young queer woman’s voyage of self-awakening!”. And also, they need to keep developing the idea that these characters are autistic folks trying to make their way through a neurotypical world.

Just…there’s still so much you can do with the “Ghostbusters” universe if you keep developing the ideas and themes you already have in these two most recent films and don’t just try relentlessly pandering to people’s nostalgia just for cheap bucks. Look, I know everything looks bleak now after the Election, but Ghostcorps…you have something good here. Really good, as a matter of fact. So don’t throw it away, use it! And use it well, for all your fans’ sakes!

@manhattancrossrip @seasonallydefective @cynicalclassicist @carcosa-commune @asexualenjolras @dachi-chan25

After rewatching Ghostbusters: Afterlife and also seeing Frozen Empire, can I just say how much I love the autistic, queer, butch science girl rep??

I ultimately grew into a transmasc NB but as someone who is AFAB I still would have been wow’d by that as a kid. And it still makes me feel seen, now.

Possibly controversial statement but I also love that none of Phoebe’s character traits are Big Plot Points; they’re just there. I do love her weird as fuck jokes though. That’s definitely a mood from my childhood 😂

[blackcur-rants]

"I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy"

My dude if your worst enemy is some worthless piece of MAGA trash then it's your moral duty to wish it on them and if you don't then I'll wish it on them

[blackcur-rants]

Everyone say thank you american indigenous people for cultivating corn, potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, cacao, pumpkin, squash, and anything i missed. Makes life more meaningful globally

[blackcur-rants]

Everyone say thank you american indigenous people for cultivating corn, potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, cacao, pumpkin, squash, and anything i missed. Makes life more meaningful globally

[blackcur-rants]

I'm still thinking there's some kind of hijinx going on with the system in so many states. I honestly don't think all of the votes were counted correctly.

[blackcur-rants]

anyway i love trans people and gay people and queer people and i love Palestinians and i love immigrants and i love people of color and i love women and i love abortion and i love vaccines and i love gender affirming care and i love the earth and nature and renewable energy and i love unisex bathrooms and free lunch and i love that i'm not the only one who feels this way and i never will be