#anyways being gaslit as a child is a very familiar experience to me so that’s why these movies hurt so bad i guess lol

[halmoney]

both coraline and spirited away were movies that intensely terrified me as a child but they’re both genuinely very good movies. (in fact, spirited away is one of my favorite movies now and the more i watch it, the more i like it)

the thing is both of these movies scared me for the exact same reason. i wasn’t able to make sense of what exactly these movies made me feel when i was a child, but looking back now, i see why my brain made the mental connection between these two.

both movies have good-hearted, intelligent, and brave female protagonists who aren’t taken seriously by the adults in their lives and end up suffering because of that.

i don’t remember the all details of the movie coraline, but i remember coraline expressing desire and irritation and anger and how her parents dismissed her feelings as the temper tantrums of a child. her family had just moved recently and her parents had a lot on their plate, i’m sure, but it was evident from the movie that her mother had little patience for her and that her father didn’t pay much attention to her. the manifestation of the “other world”, along with it’s many temptations (ex. the gloves!!) is proof that she feels this one is lacking.

as for spirited away, chihiro is in a similar situation, just moving to a new town when her seemingly free-spirited and carefree parents decide to take a detour and accidentally end up at the entrance to the spirit world. they don’t know this ofc, and nonchalantly decide to explore the area, despite chihiro’s insistence that they leave, that this place is creepy, that they shouldn’t be here. rather than listening to or comforting this scared child, they say , “ok, stay here then, we’ll be right back.” and it’s like yeah, ok how would they have known? but it’s dismissive actions like that that end up making chihiro second-guess herself, she’s made to believe her intuition is wrong and that she’s just being a silly child. the fact is, her parents are just irresponsible and that’s made clear when they sit down and eat unattended at one of the empty food stalls meant for spirits. when chihiro discovers that her parents have become pigs, helplessly waiting to be slaughtered at yubaba’s command, she’s left all alone, terrified, in a strange new place.

both coraline and chihiro’s decision to save their parents is one maybe borne out of love, but for me, what stood out was the circumstances that brought them there. there’s something devastating about having to save the people who were supposed to protect you, because it means that in some way, they have failed you.

anyways the takeaways i’ve gotten from these films was never “but see? you should be grateful for what you have and the people in your life and the family unit is unbreakable and important because everyone loves each other in the end”, it’s “parents and adults sometimes cause children to suffer because they don’t take their words at face-value and thereby put them in dangerous situations because children will do anything just so they can momentarily feel seen and loved” and STILL in the end of both films, it’s the children who must decide to bear the emotional and physical responsibility of “saving” the people important to them.

[flyandfamousblackgirls]

RASHIDA RENEÉ WANTS YOU TO KNOW YOUR HISTORY by  Alexis Rene Moten (Culture Jock)

Let’s start this article with a quiz: Name a Black model from the 1990’s that isn’t Naomi Campbell or Tyra Banks?

Stumped? It’s safe to say that if the question were asked to name a White model that wasn’t Kate Moss or Cyndi Crawford, best case scenario you would’ve excelled with a list to provide. Maybe something like: Linda Evangelista, Claudia Schiffer, Christy Turlington, Shalom Harlow, Carla Bruni, Heidi Klum..you get my point.

At times, Pop Culture can be a fair-weather friend. Monday’s It-girl becomes Friday’s nobody and by Sunday there’s a new hot thing in town to get all the girls in a fuss. But as nostalgia-trends rises as capitalism’s newest enterprise, endorsed largely by social media app, Instagram, history is being retold by the agenda of it’s curator. The selective hearing of  Instagram accounts like @90scelebvibes (391K followers) and @90sanxiety (793K followers) present a facade that the past was rather beige, leaving largely out the credit due to the Black and people of color creatives that developed and inspired the trends imitated today.

Bay area based, Fashion archivist Rashida Reneé, takes on self-love to a familial level celebrating her love and the appreciation of Black designers, models and other fashion industry influencers that otherwise go forgotten in our modern culture. In fashion, as in anything else, things old become anew. However, Reneé takes on the responsibility as a trend gatekeeper, providing evidence of what fashion used to be and recognizing the faces we longed forgotten.  

Q: Name a Black model from the 1990’s that isn’t Naomi Campbell or Tyra Banks?

A: Beverly Peele,  Gail O’Neill, Iman, Kara, Young, Karen Alexander,  Louise Vyent, Roshumba, Veronica Webb, etc.

Culture Jock: What is a typical day for the most hated hoe in the city?

RR: (laughs) It’s weird, I kind of like to keep it to myself. Keep track of what I like and my thoughts. I don’t know. I'm very low-key person in real life, but when I do leave the house (pauses) I do, I promise! I just like my personal time, but when it’s time to be out I am present, as much as possible. I do what I do becauseII like giving information to people and give them links and information just so they know.

CJ: What brought you into fashion archiving?

RR: My whole archiving process was originally for myself and filling in spots of information where there it was empty of black people. Of course, there is street fashion, but in terms of online fashion, sites like Manrepeller, you didn’t see a lot of black girls doing it and the people doing it I thought were lame. Finding other black people who weren’t anti-black in those kind of spaces. I felt a lot of people were trying to make us to assimilate. Everyone was kind of like doing the same things and it was like, ‘Naomi Campbell!’ But if it were any other dark girl it didn’t matter. So, I started my own blog and then I had to stop myself from posting Naomi Campbell’s photos too. I would do one picture of Naomi Campbell a day and try to really give props to other black woman involved and black people in general. When I was younger I was familiar with the other models not just Naomi Campbell, my mom was really in it with Naomi. She worked in a beauty salon, which had magazines of all the models. Like, black hair magazines, they always listed the models so, no matter what you knew who they were. Whoever it was in the 90s, ‘this is who that is and this who that is.’ You’d see the oldest Destiny Child’s video shoots in black hair magazines. I just haven’t seen other people doing that. There are other girls now that focus more on Hip Hop in 90s and 2000s. Livejournal, fashion spot, Tumblr, people didn’t go out of their way to scan the black models or even try to name them. It’s funny, people online, they don’t even try to hide their biases. No one was really fashion blogging the way I like or how I see .

CJ:In your piece for Office Magazine you mention, from Patrick Kelley to today’s influence of Dapper Dan, American culture from its roots drips of Black influence and culture. Why do you think Black culture is so immutable and where do you see the ownership of our creations.

RR: People I mean know, it’s just like, it’s weird and odd to even talk about. Not just people referencing me or copying, I feel like I am being gaslit all the time or being told that. People love stealing from black people. People love stealing from black people. People love stealing from black people and lying about it. People hate black people but they think we are cool. I can’t even (pauses)yeah it’s very weird. The twitter thing is weird (sighs).

CJ: It is weird.

RR: (sighs) It’s not really helping them. It’s boring to live with no personality. To see someone interesting and steal from them to bolster themselves. [On social media] we have the means to share with each other, like, moments that are of shared experiences of oppression and that is even imitated. I don’t know why the copy of things are okay. It is such a multi-layered thing. Or the way the Stans talk like mainly the Black queer and Black trans talk and how all of that is now being used by everyone. Ariana Grande, ya know, icons talk like girls on the ballrooms did back in 2006. Parodying things. It helps them develop their own brand, I don’t understand their fascination with us anyway. I’m into my own shit and own culture. I like the way black people express themselves and other people use us and what we do to talk to each other or communicate and then take that to feel cool. I’ve always been,like, ‘why would someone want to be like this?’ or pretend. I don’t get it. People run out of content. I know people used to make fun of me and the things I used to be and ironically they are into it now. People need to find their own hobbies. They are bored.

CJ: The internet is complex. It’s a parody of itself.

RR: Knowing your history is important. You need to know where you came from to know where you are going. When it comes to fashion archives the question is, ‘what is it that you are looking for or trying to highlight?’ My concern is that fashion archiving is feeding into nostalgic trends, where it’s easier to mimic what was done before rather then create new moments. Do you share the same sentiments?

CJ: What is it about fashion that excites you?

RR: It’s so fun and so funny. The dolls are taking over. That’s how most things go, the things that happened come back with a hyper focus. It really is going full out now. It’s interesting to see how people are dressing now. [Fashion] is always reflective of the political climate. Think about the 80s everyone is dressing like a dickhead. Then when people got sick of dressing like a dickhead, minimalism comes in. We cycle through trends so fast, today. I remember a girl wearing a hair clips and no one was into it. Then the next week everyone was wearing them, then I see Cyndi Lauper in an interview wearing hair clips. She’s like 50-something and she’s wearing hair clips made out of Swarovski crystals. It’s so interesting. It’s funny how it happens. Now everyone is into fashion.

CJ: Who are your biggest fashion influences ?

RR: My biggest influences are Naomi Campbell and my mom. Girls I follow on the internet. My mom is from San Francisco lives her own life and is very eclectic. I get a lot from her and different taste. Foxy Brown is also very inspiring, I reference her a lot I think about her and Steven Miesel. Steven knows how to do everything. Steven can do everything. Everyone knows I am a crazy Beyoncé fan. But, I have different girls for different moods. My main inspo is Naomi and Foxy Brown. I really gravitated to Foxy because she was more into Prada and Chloe when Stella McCartney was there. Because of Foxy I love Chloe. She was very cool. Naomi is, you just aspire to that level of greatness. There is no one else. Even in her flaws she handles them so well. I can’t imagine someone else with that kind of rap sheet to not get fully canceled. I judge people by how they react to criticism. She handles it really well. I find that really inspiring.

CJ: What film or television do you think has the best fashion catalog? If you could what character's closet would you love to raid?

RR: I am so frazzled. There’s so much stuff I like. I write things down specifically, because I can never remember. I watched The Nanny last year with Fran Drescher, when I was really depressed and was like, ‘Wow this is inspiring.’ Brenda Cooper, her mind. Everyone had a look in. Pose, is another one. Everything has intentions from the main characters to the background characters. I really like the first season of costume design. It’s commitment to that era. Someone is always dressed like, Karen White or Jodi Whitley. Elektra is very dynasty, that high lady energy. I love that about the show. I love Glow, the costume designer, Beth Morgan. I love when people do era shows, specifically the 80s and they don’t try to soften it, especially in makeup or hair. They aren’t scared to embrace the ugliness, I love that. That’s what good costume design is about. High fashion is easy, but what really gets me is watching old movies and looking at the clothes.  

CJ: We are moving into a new decade of 2020. I have a feeling it may be the year of 2020 vision and final clarity. What are your aspirations for this new era and what do you hope to see from the world?

RR: I feel like the children are our future. That’s what I’m looking at, to see what the kids are into. People are more focused into what they look like and I remember if someone dressed a little bit out of fashion it was a huge deal and get talked about. But now they are embracing their weirdness and experimenting. Do you watch that Tik Tok stuff? I just want a regular life. Happy, healthy, all my kids are happy and healthy. When I move to [Los Angeles] and get hotter, hotter and I want to  become, what is that called, a wellness person? I want a Goop moment, but with Solange aesthetics. Maybe make a propaganda film to get people to stop wearing wigs.

[ckret2]

And I got so into writing out that Worst Case Scenario last night I forgot to mention my second misgiving with the whole damn prompt, which AS IT HAPPENS covers some headcanons I've been meaning to bring up AND is relevant to a prompt coming up in my list that I am gonna write, so I'm gonna devote a post to this:

The very scenario "x character gets upset over y character CHEATING!!!" is based on the presumption that, like... the characters give a shit.

In the case of Rodorah, it assumes that two giant animals, one of which is an alien, both:

1) are familiar with the concept of monogamy as humans understand it

2) believe in and adhere to the concept of monogamy as humans understand it

3) consider dating or banging anyone outside their relationship a breach of trust in regards to said monogamy

4) would have the exact same emotional reaction as a human to said breach of trust

Which is a lot of assumption to put on a dinosaur and a dragon. And also anyone who dates Ghidorah is automatically in a polyamorous relationship so monogamy is kinda out the window right from the get go, you know?

So I'm gonna dig into why all those assumptions are unnecessary to assume. Half based on canon and half covering fic headcanons.

Gonna go out on a limb and assume that we don't know anything worth discussing about the mating habits of pteranodons; but Monsterverse Rodan's also got a lot of bird in him, so let's go with that. Lots of birds are socially monogamous, but not sexually monogamous. What that means is that once two birds are committed to each other—went down to bird city hall and signed their bird marriage license, exchanged tiny bird rings, whatever birds do—they've committed to sharing a nest and splitting egg-guarding and child-rearing duties in that nest. They HAVEN'T committed to only screwing each other. Depending on the species, 10% to 33% of the eggs in the nest could have a different genetic father than the male bird in that couple. (And some even have a different genetic mother, which boggles my mind. Like did she fly all the way over to someone else's nest just to lay the egg like "I don't wanna deal with this one thanks" and they're like "that's fine have a nice day"? I'm sure that's not how it works but the thought amuses me.)

Operating by that definition, Rodan's image of "totally committed and faithful" would be "there's only one person whom I split daily chores with, and I can have kids with anyone."

(Some bird species are both sexually and socially monogamous... but then, some bird species also are only committed to one partner for one breeding season, then break up and commit to a new partner next year. There's variation, is the point—and more than that, "you can't logically assume that a species like this is going to be sexually/socially monogamous for life the way humans idealize" is the bigger point.)

The fact that Rodan's species, like all titan species, seems to be in a perpetual state of "less than two dozen deaths away from total extinction" would actually select against sexual monogamy, because a species that goes "I'm not having kids with anyone except my one true love. Who died a century ago," is gonna go extinct a lot faster than a species that goes "boy won't my one true love be excited when she hears about the prime real estate me and Ms. Krakatoa found to lay our eggs in."

And I've established in prior headcanons that because parents might die long before their kids are born and because volcanoes act as natural fortresses/incubators for eggs, Rodan's species doesn't share nests, doesn't need to protect or incubate eggs, and doesn't rear their young—so what would social monogamy even entail for them? It doesn't need to entail much of anything, if they even subscribe to it at all.

Ghidorah's species is alien so there's no need to try to compare them to their "nearest related species on Earth" because they aren't related to any species on Earth. But, if we're gonna use Earth species as a framework off of which to base their headcanons anyway: dorats/Ghidorahs, when taken all together, are like 50% snake, 30% cat, and 20% bat.

Snakes are the least monogamous bunch of animals you could ask for. During mating season, males and females both have multiple partners, females can lay eggs from multiple fathers in one clutch, and most species don't even bother incubating their eggs. (In the few that do, the mother does that without a partner.)

Domestic cats are into gang bangs. When a female cat is in heat, she will yowl to attract as many male cats in the area as possible. When a male cat wants some, he'll yowl in hopes a female cat in heat will zip over. They'll mate with multiple cats in a row, loitering around watching while they wait for their turn. They'll mate with whoever shows up. They'll mate with their own relatives. Cats don't care. Cats are gross. Get your cats fixed.

Most bats will have multiple partners. Some bats are polygamous—one or two dudes with a collection of multiple female partners. In both of these cases, males don't help rear the young. A few bats are monogamous and share parenting duties—but these are the minority.

So Ghidorah's most closely related species are three counts of "I don't care who you screw, I don't care who I screw, once a year there's like a month where anyone could screw anyone else at any time and nobody is safe. I'll screw you and then I'll screw a space chicken cyborg and then I'll screw myself, watch, I'm flexible."

One hopes they're a bit more selective than that, but those are the nearest Earth analogues we're starting with as our basis for their species.

Based just on that, between Ghidorah and Rodan, if one of them is gonna be fussed about the other having additional partners—sexual, romantic, or otherwise—odds are it ain't gonna be Ghidorah. Ghidorah's gonna be the clueless alien trying to figure out what weird Earth etiquette rule he broke while Rodan's upset—assuming Rodan cares either.

So beyond Earth animals: what's been established about dorats so far is that they live in big groups with multiple aeries. The basic dorat social unit is a flock (30-200 adults), not a nest (1-2 adults). Since they communally share nests, eggs from multiple parents will end up in the same pile, and so it's likely no one gives a damn about who's had kids with who. (And—although I haven't gotten into dorat reproduction yet—eggs are laid immediately after mating, so it's impossible to have dubious paternity in a dorat mating—which IRL, aside from "doubling the amount of parents looking after these kids," is one of the driving factors of monogamy in the wild.)

The Xilien military HAS witnessed aggression based on sexual jealousy between adolescent dorats, enough so that they think it's a threat to their experiments. The Xilien military is locking up dorats in cages and experimentally fusing them together. The Xilien military is not observing dorats in their natural habitat. The actual dorat breeder is absolutely horrified to hear of dorats behaving like that, because it's a sign of extreme stress and trauma. Viciously competing for mates and chasing off other potential sexual partners, therefore, is abnormal for dorats.

Using Ghidorah as they are now as an example of what dorats are like is dicey, since they've lived such a strange life and so much of their psychology is shaped by trauma—buuut, it's evident from them that dorats can feel romantic love, but we don't know what function it would've had among normal dorats. Maybe it's supposed to be a temporary thing that fades after a mating season, maybe it's supposed to encourage a few members of one flock to latch on to members of another flock and move as a means to discourage stagnation in the genetic pool of a single flock, maybe its primary purpose has nothing to do with driving reproduction but rather is supposed to strengthen social bonds between members of this naturally empathic species...

So the presence of romantic feelings doesn't inherently correlate with monogamy, or a desire for monogamy, or sexual/romantic exclusivity, or sexual/romantic jealousy...

So add all that together and what do you get. Of the two of them, Rodan is more likely to have a natural and/or cultural inclination toward any sort of monogamy than Ghidorah is, and even at that it's most likely to be romantic monogamy than sexual monogamy. Ghidorah's the one more likely to assume against exclusivity from the outside. However: to the original premise, if Ghidorah DID find out Rodan had taken another sexual partner (and let's be frank, it would be sexual because nobody in this fandom is writing a damn thing about infidelity plots that don't eventually fall back on "o noez Rodan screwed someone he shouldn't have," even when romance IS involved it boils down to sex, and yeah it's always Rodan—)

That parenthetical went on a bit of a tangent. Anyway if Ghidorah found out Rodan had taken another sexual partner, there'd be three possible reactions:

1) The LEAST likely: as in the potential scenario yesterday written on the "okay, let's assume that cheating is a thing for them" assumption: an apocalypse with a potential side of murder/suicide. In order for something like that to happen, Ghidorah's experiences on Earth would have to have pushed them into full Despite All My Rage I Am Still Just A Dorat In A Cage mode. Their baseline mental state is at about 45% on the "stressed caged dorat" meter. Right now they're hovering around 30% and gradually dropping. Being an enslaved war machine kept them at a steady 75%. They'd need to be at like 90% before they started flipping their shit over romantic jealousy. To get them to that level of stress, they'd need to be getting constantly harassed by Godzilla and human military units, psychically bombarded by Mothra, and on top of that probably getting gaslit to hell and back by Rodan re: their relationship status so they couldn't be confident of where they stood with him—and that leads into the other factor that's necessary for this scenario to happen. Rodan would need to 1) insist to Ghidorah that he's the only one Rodan's got any sort of sexual/romantic involvement with, and 2) convince him that the stability and continued existence of their relationship is predicated upon Rodan being interested in only Ghidorah. They'd need to be specifically convinced of these things first in order to feel lied to/betrayed if Rodan had a relationship of any kind with someone else, because they wouldn't naturally assume either of them.

Since we've got no evidence Rodan is a raging abusive asshole who would go out of his way to convince an ignorant alien that their happiness is dependent upon Rodan being exclusive and then go off and not be exclusive, this scenario isn't happening.

2) Actually likely scenario, bad outcome: Rodan comes home and Ghidorah asks where he's been all day and he goes, oh yeah, he found another member of his species today, they're gonna try to make eggs, it's great—because to Rodan that's no big deal, that's normal, he's got absolutely no reason not to tell his mate that he's banging another bird. Ghidorah gets nervous solely because they DON'T know what's normal here. They don't know whether monogamy or polyamory is the norm for Earth in general or Rodan in particular. Are they still a thing or is this Rodan's way of saying the relationship's run its course and he's moved on? Was he always planning to move on once someone of his own species became available? Was he expecting Ghidorah to expect that? Because they did expect that, they've always feared they were just a temporary substitute for a more desirable partner, they just didn't know if they were supposed to expect that. At which point they go "oh" and Rodan goes "'oh' what?" and they go "so is that it then?" and he goes "is what it?" and they actually communicate for thirty seconds and everything's fine. So hey the bad outcome isn't even bad. It probably just takes them a month to have that conversation while Ghidorah invents mental worst case scenarios.

3) Actually likely scenario, good outcome: Rodan comes home and Ghidorah asks where he's been all day and he goes, oh yeah, he found another member of his species today, they're gonna try to make eggs— And Ghidorah goes EXCUSE US if they're in a relationship with him and he's in a relationship with her then that means they and he and she are all part of the same flock and they are DEEPLY offended that he hasn't brought her by to meet them yet, come on, go get her, they need to know what she looks like so they don't accidentally get in a fight with her if they see her in Rodan's territory. Also they need to know where her volcano is so they can get their scent all over it.