cviperfan

[cviperfan]

I really didn’t feel like drawing the comic so here have this edit instead

[cviperfan]

Okay I just reread the ending of Claymore and the thing about the ending is. The thing is.

(Spoilers for a manga that ended over a decade ago)

The thing is that Teresa’s return, in any other story, would be hokey cliche saccharine nonsense. It’s literally just the Power of Love made manifest. You can’t get any more cliche than this.

Except the entire story has been working up to this. Every single revelation about how Yoma power works has been laying the foundation for how this can happen. Every time Clare learned a new skill from someone she met has been establishing the pattern that leads here. Every emotional plot beat around our main characters has been reminding us that they’re stuck in the past and can’t move on.

It all comes together at once to pay off in Teresa’s return, and that makes it feel not only earned but natural. This is what the story always had to be.

[cviperfan]

Me: "No you see, THAT'S THE POINT. The romance IS meant to be shallow. It's written to be shit on purpose. These girls are in love with the IDEAS they project on this guy they just met who has absolutely no personality or agency"

[cviperfan]

Now I get it!

It's pronounced GQuacks

because it was written by one OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH GOT EM

[cviperfan]

NEW: A Letter To The Trans Teen Thinking About Giving Up

The #SCOTUS decision on U.S. v. Skrmetti was devastating. This decision does massive harm just by existing, and will absolutely do harm to many young #trans people in the United States. But please don't interpret this decision as a death sentence, or believe anyone who tells you that without the government's support, you or all young trans people in the United States will die. As Andy Izerson explains in this deeply caring and thoughtful letter for trans teens, trans people have always existed and survived without the government's help, and you can exist and survive yourself now without it if you must (you shouldn't have to, but you can), because we always have each other. "I really wish that the circumstances were different and I was writing you this letter to say, “Great news friend! The supreme court gave us a break today!” or to say, “Guess what, here’s how to run your endocrine system on manual without having to ask anybody’s permission!” or to say, “The state has given up on trying to destroy us!” From the bottom⁠ of my heart, I’m so sorry that this sucks so bad. I wouldn’t blame you if you feel scared, because I’m scared, too. But listen: there’s a story of the future that has you in it. That story has some scary parts and some parts that hurt, but it also has some beautiful parts. There’s a future you who is surrounded by meaning and connection and beauty, and who has people around them that will catch them when they stumble and hug them when they get up. There’s a future you who doesn’t depend on the state for anything because they are seen and held and loved by community, who can reach out their own hand to the next generations of queer and trans people and pass along some of this stuff to them, just like I’m passing⁠ it to you now. There’s a future you who is living a life that’s cooler than you can even imagine in the present, and who doesn’t feel the way you feel in the wake of this decision. And I am determined to meet that person and high five them." You'll find the letter here:

And don't forget: we're some of that community you can always reach out to for help and support. <3

[cviperfan]

Obsessed with vacuum-sealed Haro

[cviperfan]

Quick yorusoi drawing

[cviperfan]

for $1 name your favourite fictional lesbian. and no "straight female character popularly fanonized as a lesbian" or "this male character is a lesbian to me" allowed

[cviperfan]

remember when bleach was good instead of bad

[cviperfan]

Fuck it, I didn't want to make a post on this but it's bugging the hell out of me so let's exorcize the thought.

Lilo and Stitch is an extremely good children's movie. I've been working at a daycare for over five years now, and out of all the children's movies I've shown to an auidence of twenty or so school-age kids (i.e. between the ages of 5 and 12), the only movie that's held their attention as well as Lilo and Stitch is The Emperor's New Groove, and the only one that's held it better is An American Tail. Of those three, Lilo and Stitch has won the vote of "what movie we will watch" the most. It not only entertains kids, but emotionally captivates them from start to finish, because it very thoroughly understands how to engage children on their level. It's a smart, tightly written children's movie.

The feat of story-telling genius it pulls of lies in its ability to reach both where children's imaginations want to go and where their lived real-world experiences lie - most children's movies focus on one or the other, but Lilo and Stitch dives deep into both. On the imagination side, there's Stitch's whole plotline of being a little alien monster being chased by other weirdo aliens onto earth because they want to stop him from running amok and causing havoc (which, of course, happens anyway in fun cartoony comedy/action spectacle). On the real-world side, you have Lilo's plotline of being a troubled little girl who has an abundance of very real problems that, like an actual child, she struggles to comprehend and deal with, as well as the many adults in her life that care about her to some degree but all struggle to fully understand her. Kids want to be Stitch and run amok and cause cartoony havoc. Kids, even the least-troubled kids, relate to Lilo, because all of them have been in a similar situation as her at least once in their lives.

Balancing these two very different stories, with very different tones and scopes to their respective conflicts, is a hard writing task, but Lilo and Stitch manages to do it in a way that seems effortless with one very powerful trick. The two plots are direct mirrors to each other, complete with the characters involved in each having foils in the respective plot. To break it down:

Stitch, the wild and destructive alien gremlin who everyone has labeled as a crime against existence, is Lilo, the troubled young girl who's viewed as a "problem child" by all the adults in her life. In both plotlines, Stitch and Lilo are facing the threat of being "taken away" from the life they know because they act out, and in both plotlines, we see that this is an unfathomably cruel thing to do to them and will not actually solve the problems they have.

Dr. Jumbaa, the mad scientist who made Stitch because making monsters is what mad scientists do, and who had no intentions of ever being nurturing or parental to anything or anyone in his life, is Nani, Lilo's older sister whose parents died when she was young and now is forced to act as a parental substitute despite not being mentally or emotionally prepared for that responsibility yet. Both Dr. Jumbaa and Nani are trying to get their respective wild children in line with what society wants them to be, and both are struggling hard with it because they in turn have a lot of growing to do before they can actually accomplish that.

Pleakley, the nebbish alien bureaucrat who ends up being assigned to help Dr. Jumbaa despite being mostly uninvolved in creating the whole Stitch situation, is David, the nice but mostly ineffectual guy who's crushing on Nani and wants to help her but doesn't really have much he can provide except emotional support. Ultimately Pleakley and David prove that said emotional support is a lot more helpful than it seems on the surface, as they give Jumbaa and Nani respectively a lot of the pushes they need to become better in their parental roles.

The Grand Councilwoman, who runs the society of aliens that is trying to banish Stitch forever for his crime of existing, is Cobra Bubbles, the Child Protective Services agent who is in charge of deciding whether or not Lilo needs to be taken away from her home forever for, ostensibly, her own good. Both are well-intentioned and stern, with a desire to follow the rules of society and do what procedure says is the most humane thing to do in this situation, but both lack the understanding of Stitch/Lilo's situation to actually help until the end of the movie.

Finally, we have Captain Gantu, the enforcer of the Galactic Council who is a mean, aggressive, sadistic brute but is viewed as a "good guy" by society because he plays by its rules (well, when he knows can't get away with breaking them, anyway), who is the counterpart of Myrtle, the mean, aggressive, sadistic schoolyard bully who is viewed as a "good kid" by other adults because she plays by the rules they established (well, when she knows she can't get away with breaking them, anyway). Both Gantu and Myrtle are, in truth, much nastier in temperament than Stitch and Lilo, but are better at hiding it in front of others and so get away with it, and often make Stitch and Lilo look worse in the eyes of others by provoking them to violence and then playing the victim about it - in fact, both even have the same line, "Does this look infected to you?", which they say after goading their respective wild-child victims into biting them.

The symmetry of these two plotlines allows them to actually feed into each other and build each other up instead of fighting each other for screentime. The fantastical nature of Stitch's plot adds whimsy to the far more realistic problems that Lilo faces so they don't get too heavy for the children in the audience, while the very real struggles of Lilo in her plotline bleed over into Stitch's plot and make both very emotionally poignant. When both plotlines hit their shared climax, they reach children on a emotional level few other movies can match - the terror of Lilo being taken away from her family, and the emotional complexity of that problem (Cobra Bubbles pointing to Lilo's ruined house and shouting at Nani, "IS THIS WHAT LILO NEEDS?" is so starkly real and heart-breaking), is matched and echoed in the visual splendor and mania of the spectacular no-way-this-is-going-to-work chase scene where Stitch, Nani, Jumbaa, and Pleakley all team up to rescue Lilo from Gantu.

The arcs of the characters all more or less line up. Nani confronts her own failures to be a guardian and parent to Lilo and resolves to do better and learn from her mistakes. Jumbaa, who through most of the movie protests to be evil and uncaring, nonetheless comes to not only care for Pleakley, but more importantly for Stitch too, and ends up assuming the role he never wanted but nonetheless forced himself into from the start: he is Stitch's family. Hell, the moment that reveals this is really clever - Stitch goes out into the wilderness to try and re-enact a scene from a storybook of The Ugly Duckling, hoping, in a very childish way, that his family will show up and love him. Jumbaa arrives and, coldly but not particularly cruelly, tells Stitch that he has no family - that Stitch wasn't born, but created in a lab by Jumbaa himself. But in that moment Jumbaa is proving himself wrong - because Stitch's creator, his parent, DID show up, and did exactly what happens in the story by telling Stitch the truth of what he is. It can't be a surprise, then, that later in the movie Jumbaa ends up deciding to side with Stitch, to help him save Lilo, and to stay on Earth with his child.

David and Pleakley go from being pushed away by Nani and Jumbaa respectively to essentially becoming their partners in the family. The Grand Councilwoman and Cobra Bubbles finally see how cruel their initial solution of isolating Stitch and Lilo from their family would be, and bend the rules they are supposed to enforce to protect and support this weird found family instead of breaking it apart. Gantu and Myrtle are recognized for the assholes they are and face comeuppance in the form of comedic slapstick pratfalls. And most importantly, Stitch and Lilo both get the emotional support and understanding they need to thrive and live happy lives as children should be allowed to do. It's like poetry, it rhymes.

It's a very precise, smartly written movie. It's a delicate balancing act of tone and emotions, with a very strong theme about the need for family and understanding that hits children in their hearts and imaginations. It's extremely well structured.

...

So it'd be kind of colossally fucking stupid to remake it and start fucking around with the core structure of it, chopping out pieces and completely altering others, with no real purpose beyond "Well, the executives thought it might be better if we did this."

[cviperfan]

[cviperfan]

The American people overwhelmingly oppose Trump’s plan. In fact, a recent poll found that only 14% of voters support cutting social services to fund an extension of Trump’s tax cuts. That’s why Republicans passed the bill early in the morning when no one was watching — because they know how wildly unpopular it is. This bill is NOT a done deal. It still needs to pass the Senate. It's important that we get in touch with our senators and tell them to vote NO on this bill. Keep calling. (202) 224-3121

[cviperfan]

*very emblematic of disney sanitizing the fuck out of stitch.

[cviperfan]

hey! we thought this might be coming and here it is. and it sucks! mass vaccination is one of our best tools at preventing the spread of COVID. public comment is open until 11:59 PM EDT on the 23rd of May.

you can leave a comment here:

you can leave an anonymous comment, but usually non-anonymous ones do carry more weight.

[cviperfan]

[cviperfan]

Its so well made its perfect

[cviperfan]

Well shit, the Republicans brought a certain anti-online porn bill back to the table.

The Interstate Obscenity Definition Act.

This should alarm you guys.