#in ed culture & weird pedophilic themes

[cirillafionaelenriannon]

i cant even lie 2 u all i am so pretentious abt everything like i was listening to cigarettes after sex eway back in 2017 and i was listening to phoebe bridgers in 2016 & i liked the coquette style when i was thirteen maybe not that that is acceptable or appropriate But i digress. im just saying that at the end of the day everyone on earth is copying ME like all those girls w that one specific spirally ikea bed that they all stole from eachother WELL I GOT THAT BED IN 2018 BEFORE ANY OF YOU EVEN THOUGHT TO. bye. 

[ceasarslegion]

Okay i wasnt gonna say anything but actually its bothering me so i am gonna say something

A post just crossed my dash where the OP basically said "hey teenagers online: fandom culture might try to make you think that every ship dynamic youre drawn to and sexual thought you start to have has to be 100% pure or you're a terrible person, but I want you to know that being interested in a dynamic or an act in the sense of purely fantasy is not the same as actually wanting to enact it. Humans are weird, as long as you don't act it out, you're okay." And the reply that was shared with no critical thought whatsoever was like "shut the fuck up OP youre in your 20s if you even acknowledge that teenagers have sexual thoughts you're a pedophile" which is... no. That aint it chief. Thats not what the post was about, and that kind of knee-jerk response is part of the problem that OP was trying to rectify.

Like... does no one remember what being a teenager was like anymore? I know we all wanna repress it because it pretty much universally sucks being that age range, but when did "be careful about the intentions of adults" become "every adult who mentions sex is acting in bad faith"? Y'all ever think that there's a reason someone in their mid-20s, which isn't very far removed at ALL from their teen years, might wanna clear something up for teenagers that they wish they'd heard back then? Yes, we have more worlds more experience than teenagers when it comes to issues like autonomy and sexuality, and you SHOULD be wary about adults online who act a little too friendly towards you in those regards, but... a general open post that just said "it's okay to have fantasies and enjoy ship dynamics that don't conform to fandom purity culture, it doesn't mean you'll act them out" definitely didn't strike me as suspicious or possessing of some sinister ulterior motive. That was someone using that experience to try to reassure, not cause harm.

The response they got is extremely reflective of this endemic problem on tumblr specifically, in which isolationism is rampant. There's this idea that the second you turn 18 you're a Gross Adult who should never even acknowledge children exist or else you're a pedophile. Y'all... I remember being a teenager. Puberty is usually when your sexual arousal starts up, if you have it. Oh no, I am 22 and I acknowledged that teenagers have sexual desires, because I was once a teenager and remember both experiencing it myself and all of my peers talking about the same thing. How dare I, call my provincial RCMP chief on me, for I must be a pedophile now.

No. That attitude is extremely reflective of the same shit that leads to sex ed curriculums in schools either getting cut altogether, or sanitized with a bunch of pretty-sounding lies to Preserve The ChildrenTM. The answer to the very real existence of predators online isn't to cry pedophile at every adult who dares to acknowledge that sex exists in the public forum of the internet just because a minor might read it, it's to learn how to recognize good vs bad faith, which isolationist attitudes like the one I'm talking about only makes harder to do.

The more you cover your ears and pretend that teenagers don't experience these feelings, the more you fail them by failing to give them resources to tell the difference. If you make them think that every adult who talks about sex has an agenda to groom and abuse them, the less likely they are to listen to the adults in their lives who are genuinely trying to help them understand their own feelings and channel them in a healthy way.

And while we're at it, if you can understand that a kid who likes violent video games won't automatically grow up to be a school shooter, you can understand that someone exploring darker themes in fanfiction doesn't automatically make them a piece of shit abuser regardless of age.

[mitsuhasnolifebutwatchesanime]

Anime Styles- Why unique styles, new and old, can make for a better overall anime experience.

Hello, I’m back from the dead with a rant. Recently, there have been a lot of posts floating around Tumblr about anime styles and why “old anime/new anime is garbage because of these stylistic choices” which usually have something to do with the obsession with nostalgia, or the abhorrence to the old, or even… *sigh* the push of the anime industry appealing to pedophilic otaku. It’s complicated and watching these posts float around and continue to gain more interesting discourse and additions to it had definitely made me want to share my views. Oh, not on that argument-- just on style. I have eclectic tastes in anime, and I’ve been watching anime for a long time. In my free time, I even go back to watch shows as old as 30, or as young as five years old, because first and foremost I am interested in the story presented. Once you layer upon that character designs, a cool soundtrack, and yes, good animation, the show becomes deeper and more interesting.

I don’t limit myself to one single style or genre, because without that I’m unable to see the historical and cultural effects all anime has on the industry and what’s coming out that’s new. When I first watched anime, it was 90s anime: Sailor Moon, DBZ, Yu Yu Hakusho, Pokemon, and Card Captors were a few. Stylistically, those are COMPLETELY different anime, but aesthetically, they all fall into the same vein of what’s now just “90s anime” with their more matte tones, cell shading, and exaggerated shonen/shoujo styles. Instead of just going by genre nowadays, there are many overlapping styles in several different types of genre anime. For instance, you may have an anime that bleeds stylistically into several genres, while it may not resemble many other anime in that same genre.

What’s wrong with these posts coming out is that they’re cherry-picking terrible examples. They’re choosing THE BEST (not really) of 80s/90s nostalgia anime, and then the most generic of generic modern anime, or vice versa. The moral of the story is style is a fluid thing, that may have a major influence on any particular era of animation, but every era has their good and bad examples, and cherry-picking is *stupid*.

What I want to tell you is that if you start looking, you will find cool anime with styles that entirely subvert the genres you’re most used to seeing. Shows with styles that you might be surprised to see, or maybe even turned off by, but you should totally watch, are shows like Katanagatari, The Eccentric Family, Tatami Galaxy, Dennou Coil, Flip Flappers, Gatchaman Crowds, Kyousougiga, and Little Witch Academia. These shows are good, not only because they’re well written, epic at times, and even because they might be a little weird. It’s because their styles and breaks from convention are much needed, refreshing perspectives on visual story telling. 

I love these shows because they look so damn good. Simplistic art styles and character designs allow for more crazy and nice looking animation. Even stuff like giving different faces and body types to the characters allow them to be expressive and emote more.  The shows I picked out earlier all have cool stuff. They have cool character designs that vary, sometimes to the extremes, interesting experimental animation styles, and varied and beautiful settings where the characters aren’t just superimposed into a boring background they don’t quite fit into.

The is done more elegantly in shows like Shingeki no Bahamut, Fullmetal Alchemist, and My Hero Academia, where the variety in body type, exaggerated emotions, and a variety of palettes and settings allow for more variety. Even just a variety in character designs, like what we see in MHA, make for a wider audience appeal than Moe McBigTit Sameface who has existed in anime FOR DECADES MY GUYS. MHA’s variety in designs make for more body types, more color palettes, more expressions. I was so glad to watch the first ED for season two where the main girls of class A are all side by side and they all look so different in height the way their eyes and mouths are set, not to mention THEIR FACE SHAPES ARE ALL DIFFERENT. Stylistic choices like character design, even down to making a very stylized silhouette can make for a unique anime. Anime like the Eccentric Family and Tatami Galaxy (both by the same author, but by different animation studios) just showcase the character designs in their opening themes because they’re so damn good. They draw in the viewer, who in turn, is excited to see these static, but interesting, designs animated.Sometimes I feel like some animation companies take some of their designs too far, and too anime, if that makes any sense, by pushing the envelope on “here’s a special boy” haircuts, and obnoxiously colored and cut clothing, but some show use exaggeration to their benefit, like Shiki and especially JoJo’s.

Nothing pisses me off more than a cool, aesthetically pleasing anime, with an interesting premise getting thrown into a boring and plain looking school setting, the biggest offenders being Owari no Seraph and Makai Ouji. Also, nothing makes me want to rip my hair out like taking COOL looking character designs and neat world building and dumping ugly on it, like how Rokka no Yuusha tossed its Inca inspired setting into FUCKING FOG FOR 10 EPISODES. One of the cardinal sins that I try to avoid nowadays is the high school anime. Occasionally a show like Orange or Tanaka-kun is Always Listless will catch my interest, because they do something interesting with that boring setting. The anime needs to be set in a high school if it is relevant to the plot. You can have characters of high school age, like in Natsume’s Book of Friends, or Yu Yu Hakusho, but the story isn’t set in high school. Shows like Myriad Colors Phantom World, or your typical Run of the Mill™ high school anime, find themselves trapped in a land of boring settings and endless tropes, whereas anime like My Hero Academia and LWA not only use that school setting as a theme, but they make it into something interesting and new.

Smear frames are also becoming more common in anime, as they were originally in traditional western animation. Smear frames make for smoother, more fluid looking animation, and really fun expressions, like we see in Little Witch Academia and Mob Psycho 100.  This is also thanks to simplistic character designs. You don’t have to worry about a character being a block of on-model pretty boys with lips flapping, or worry about making them ugly when they start doing action sequences. Simplistic character designs lend themselves to better animation, and more interesting characters.

I think I’d like to showcase Kyousougiga especially for its interesting style choices. Every character looks wildly different, even the background characters. Each scenery set both feels bizarre and otherworldly, yet lived in and nostalgic. On top of all of that, this anime does a disgustingly beautiful job of balancing its animation, story, style, and tone. You’d actually be doing yourself a disservice by not watching this anime at least once, just don’t watch episode 0. It has nothing to do with the anime and will only confuse you.

No matter what anime comes out, or if you’re more into new or old stuff, there’s always something that is stylistically challenging the norm. There’s always a show out there that’s overlooked because it’s style isn’t “pretty” enough or it looks too out there. Always take a chance on anime that isn’t quite your aesthetic if you want to find truly interesting shows.