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i'm cookin' something here, but it's nowhere near finished or even cohesive. i also got burnt out because shortly after i started writing this, i found out that some hollywood actors i've always enjoyed are awful people, which only made writing this more difficult and triggering. like, it's not just this genre and the influences and surrounding stars, but the culture itself.

The music genre is distinguished by a "cut-and-paste" approach that was inspired by the r , fusion, and artifice from certain music styles of the past.[9] The most common reference points were 1960s culture and Western pop music,[1] especially the work of Burt Bacharach, Brian Wilson, Phil Spector, and Serge Gainsbourg.[10]

i've gone down a bit of a rabbit hole while curating a playlist that i'm now not entirely sure should exist. the playlist primarily contains of shibuya-kei music, but there's a fair amount of yé yé and bossa nova, as well as other 60s inspired music.

i fell into the rabbit hole after hearing laila france's "trashy like tv" from her debut and final album, orgonon, an album written and produced by momus.

i was already a big fan of bands like cibo matto and air, both of which are also heavily inspired by 60s aesthetics, but i wanted more music with a similar vibe to orgonon, so i got on the internet and found out about shibuya-kei, which momus had apparently pronounced dead in 1998.

some prominent figures in shibuya-kei include keigo oyamada, a.k.a. cornelius, cornelius's band flipper's guitar, nicholas currie, a.k.a. momus, mari hiki, a.k.a. kahimi karie,

cornelius, a.k.a. keigo oyamada,

after performing in thre 2020 paralympics ceremonu, cornelius had to issue a public apology due to past interviews resurfaced in which he unabashedly admitted to bullying disabled classmates in the past. another prominent figure was momus

some of the common influences i've noticed in shibuya-kei and other 60s inspired genres include

serge gainsbourg, charlotte gainsbourg's problematic father and france's "pop poet"

david hamilton, who became famous for photographing scantily clad young girls and has a song named after him

vintage italian porn

ingenue iconography

some problematic figures include:

momus, whose entire persona is being a creep

notable mentions:

air (they are heavily inspired by the 60s-70s and serge gainsbourg is also a heavy influence for them; they also have a song called playground love which featured on the virgin suicides' soundtrack, which i think is also why i associate them with like a fetishization of young girls). connan mockasin (more jazz inspired, 50s-70s vintage pastiche, often features azn women in vids and music; sneaker pimps' songwriter (a presumably a white british dude who wrote songs from his own perspective for his azn/woc lead singer and then threw her away); momus's colallaborations with vietnamese- french lalila france and japanese kahimi karie and the connection to david hamilton

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my toxic boys 💔

Dreamscape

Day 86

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my toxic girls 💔

『serial experiments lain』（シリアルエクスペリメンツレイン）           — LAYER:12 | LANDSCAPE

[eligatovolador]

i made these collages with stills from some of my favorite queer films of all time.

there are several favorites that didn't make the cut because they're not sensual enough for this list--those can live one one of my other lists. but this list is dedicated to films i relate to or that i find particularly romantic, sexy, or compelling. most of the films feature explicitly queer couples, and while they don't all end happily, they feel authentic without devolving into trauma porn.

the only films on this list without an explicitly queer romance are 'persona' and 'arrebato' (from the second collage). but their shared themes of obsession and consumption are more relatable than any of the other films to me, and i find the unspoken and untouched desire tantalizing in a way that disgusts me. i paired them with 'the hunger' in the collage because they're the most toxic pairings on the whole list.

my favorite throughline on the list is that all three films in the third collage are about childhood friends who reconnect in adulthood and rekindle their romance against the odds. because all three are so tied to the places in which they're set, they also do an incredible job of making the locations feel lived-in and the characters feel so real.

[eligatovolador]

i left my phone on a train today. mess #234 in my life.

but then i got it back ??

and all i could think was, "when will my luck run out?"

i've had so many close calls. so many times i was spared.

and so i wait for the other shoe to drop, hoping to not step into a bootstrap paradox where my attempts cause the action.

[eligatovolador]

dreamers, doers, and everyone in between

sometimes i have all these ideas, but not enough energy to execute them. i either won't start a project, or i'll start but won't finish it, or, by the time i've decided that maybe i will try it, i see that someone else has beat me to it.

i know that there are "no new ideas" and i actually love the phenomenon of multiple discovery, but i just feel discouraged sometimes that i can't be the most creative artist that ever lived.

-----

i like to work in lots of mediums. i enjoy drawing, painting, sculpting, fibercraft, needlework--just about everything. i also enjoy writing, singing, dancing, acting, and wanna try my hand at filmmaking some day. and while i realize i can't be a genius at everything i do, especially not right away, the desire to be a prodigy became deeply ingrained in me every time someone praised how good i was on the first try. like when i hit that whistle tone at my uncle's apartment while listening to opera. and it's this desire that stops me from achieving my goals.

my full-time job and struggles with ADHD and self-discipline are very real, but they aren't the only thing in my way--i am my biggest obstacle.

anyway, i'm working thru all this by just making stuff. not just making, but finishing suff. and that means being bad at it sometimes but pushing thru.

in the spirit of this, here's a cute lil dude i made out of foam clay and acrylic a few months ago. enjoy my accidental furby who i call "thirby".

[eligatovolador]

It's time to start again

[eligatovolador]

all i want for xmas is a FREE FALASTEEN

and a FREE CONGO, SUDAN, P.R., HAWAI'I, etc.

all our struggles are connected. and we must work together to win.

been offline building networks of community care and organizing. will continue doing this as sustainably as i can, brick by brick.

if you're paying attention to what's happening in the world and feel powerless, please remember that you're not. people have worked together to change their conditions on this earth for millennia, and despite increased surveillance and suppression, they will continue doing so until the very end. love ya.

[eligatovolador]

[CWs: sexual assault; murder; human trafficking; harvesting humans]

under the skin (2013)

the plot is simple enough: there are aliens on earth and they're harvesting humans.

but the film is really about what it means to be human, explored through the eyes of an alien sent on a resource extraction mission.

scarlett johanssen plays the bait whose role is to lure men back to the harvesting plant. she performs her job efficiently and tenaciously for a while, but a series of incidents erode at her conscience, eventually causing her to identify with her human form.

one of the most fascinating aspects of how this is explored is that her identification with femininity and humanity is to her own detriment. 

even as she actively preys upon men, she finds herself their target.

**********************

this is the order of events leading to the alien's self-discovery:

[NOTE: i am purposefully using she/her pronouns for clarity, but i don't think the alien starts identifying with any form of humanity or femininity until the climax of the film] first, she witnesses (and greatly compounds) a tragedy:

she is stalking a czech man who is camping on a beach in scotland. in the background we see a family with a dog, a child, a man, and a woman. after a while a drama starts to unfold in the background. the dog has gone too far, so the woman tries to save them, but the tide is too strong and she's struggles. her husband panics and follows her into the water, but she's too far away and the waves are too strong. the czech man notices and runs into the water, saving the man. but the man can't stand it and goes back in to save his wife, leaving the exhausted good samaritan on the shore. the alien walks towards him, grabs a big rock, and smashes the czech man on the head. the baby screams in the background.

hours later, the alien's supervisor/handler goes back for the evidence. once finished, he passes by and ignores the crying child, leaving them stranded on the beach to die.

some time later she's in her car with the news on. they're talking about the man who washed ashore with a missing wife and child. her face is unreadable. shortly after, she is walking down a busy street and falls on her face. she lays on the floor while passers-by ask her if she needs help. she lays there for an uncomfortably long period of time. is she embarrassed? did she feel pain when she fell? i don't think we'll ever know. she is then shown stalking a man walking somewhere at night. she follows him until she hears a large group of women. they pass her and decide to bring her along with them to the club, where the man is also headed. the audio sounds loud and muffled; she is overstimulated and confused. too many noises at once and she can't distinguish between them; a stark contrast between the quiet solitude of her van and the empty void of the harvesting plant. after entering the chaos of the club she runs away through winding hallways, leading to a quieter section of the club. while there, she runs into the man and successfully lures him back to the plant.

this is the first time she definitively shows vulnerability. hearing about the family from the beach obviously shook her, but it didn't cause her to emote. and falling on the ground in front of people was somewhere between a new and transformative experience for her; but again, she didn't display the kind of affect most humans would have. in the middle of the film she finds herself surrounded by thugs trying to intimidate her out of her van. she seems confused and a bit shaken, but drives away unscathed. this is the first time she is actively harassed by men. after the van incident with the hooligans, she is shown picking up another man from the street after asking him for directions. he is portrayed by adam pearson, an actor with neurofibromatosis. unlike the other men she has captured, he is reserved and shy, although he does steal a brief glance at her.

she has learned enough about human behavior to know that it's unusual for someone to get groceries so late in the evening, and when she asks him about it, he says that people in the community are ignorant.

she asks him if he has any friends. he doesn't.

"what about a girlfriend?" he stays silent, looking ashamed.

she asks him when the last time he touched anyone was. silence and shame again.

at a certain point she tells him that he has nice hands, "beautiful hands." and then she asks him if he'd like to touch her. she places his hand on her face and neck, and eventually she takes him to the plant.

the scene plays out as usual: she walks backwards, removing her clothing items, one by one. by the time he sinks, she is completely naked, the only difference so far.

she gets dressed, goes downstairs, and after catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror of a dark hallway, she gazes at herself for a long time.

she is then shown pulling the man, naked and alive, out of the house in a rush and jumping into her van alone.

as she escapes, he is forced to walk home naked. but the ever-efficient handler beats him to it and kidnaps him back to the plant. 

**********************

the next portion of the film is where she really begins to explore her own humanity and womanhood.

but first, i want to talk about my trans narrative theory:

i still dislike scarlett johanssen for feeling as though she can play anyone [e.g. a trans man and a japanese woman (and no, idgaf that the major has a full cyborg body)]. but regardless of this, i view this film as a trans narrative.

in this case, her character is a trans human woman.

now, i want to be perfectly clear: trans women are women, regardless of anatomy or presentation. and i have a pretty easy time identifying this particular character as a woman due to the experiences i've listed, as well as the experiences she has later on in the film.

however, to also identify her character as human feels a bit more complicated, especially since she participated in such a vile form of human subjugation. while many so-called humans have also participated in utterly vile forms of human subjugation, i think her attempt at redemption and starting a new life is what earns her the badge of human for me. now, back to our regularly scheduled programming:

she is in her van driving far away. she stops (maybe because she runs out of gas?) in a desolate area on a foggy road.

she gets out of her van and ends up in a small town diner, ordering a slice of chocolate cake. she delicately cuts a piece, puts it in her mouth, tries to chew and swallow, but quickly vomits it up. this attempt at performing a typical human behavior has failed. but there are many disabled people that can't eat regularly, so i don't hold it against her.

as she walks aimlessly through the village, she passes by a man smoking a cigarette while leaning on a rail. after she passes him, he tells her that the bus stop is, "over there." she pauses, considers the information, and goes to the bus stop across the road from the man. he doesn't bother her.

while on the bus, the driver tells her that she has on the wrong clothes for the weather: it's cold and she's only wearing a thin sweater. she looks shaken, but says nothing.

eventually, the man from the bus stop moves closer and asks if she needs help. after a while, she says she does, and he gives her his jacket. they end up going to a store together, and then to his home. he gives her a room, toiletries, and some clothing, and leaves her alone to sleep.

the next day they go to a cave. she seems scared, so he helps her up and down some narrow steps. eventually, they kiss.

i don't know if this was his game all along. but even if it was, i think she very much wanted it, as it is an expected human behavior and she has very limited knowledge and options.

they go back to his place and start to have sex. but when he tries to penetrate her, something goes wrong. she panics and grabs a light and mirror, looking into her vagina: there is nothing there.

**********************

here is where she dies a violent death:

she is next shown running away in panic into the forest. i don't know what her plan is, if she has one. maybe she went to the forest to bide her time and figure out her next steps.

either way, she runs and runs, until she runs into another man in the woods. he is 'very nice,' asking her the same questions she used to ask her prey. "do you live around here?" "are you alone?" "what are you doing walking here?" until they part ways.

she keeps walking, but seems weary of the man, unsure if he is really gone. finally, she reaches a refuge for hikers and lays down to sleep.

unfortunately, she wakes up to the man SAing her until she fights him off. she runs into the forest again, eventually reaching a 16-wheeler on the road. she attempts to drive it away, but the keys are gone, and the man turns up: it's his truck. she runs away again, but he catches her and tries to SA her again.

in the process, he ruins her skin suit.

he backs away confused.

she staggers forward, removing the suit, and revealing an almost vanta black alien body. she gazes at her scarlett johanssen mask, clearly in pain.

the man comes up behind her, throws gasoline on her, and lights her on fire.

she dies in a clearing in the woods. it is implied that the handler will eventually find her and dispose of her body due to the smoke signal caused by her burning body.

**********************

and this is why i think she dies as a human woman, regardless of her alien body.

she chose humanity. she chose to stop harvesting humans. she chose to save that man and run away, knowing that her handler might find her. she chose to live as a woman, even after experiencing some of the horrors of being female-coded in society. and then she died as a woman after being SA'd by a man.