i was thinking about that post comparing Jessica Rabbit as an asexual to Barbie and an asexual and then i thought of the Neil Gaiman post (was it a post?) about Crowley and Aziraphale being asexual sexless and then this happened.
anyways. thoughts?
sorry it took so long I meant to do this a week ago but my brain is full of rocks.
[Image ID a three sided venn diagram. the big circles show Margot Robbie's Barbie sitting in front of a mirror, Jessica and Roger Rabbit from the poster of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and Aziraphale and Crowley from Good Omens standing back to back. Between Barbie and Jessica Rabbit it says "sexualised by society". Between Jessica Rabbit and Aziraphale and Crowley it says "Knows what sex is". Between Aziraphale and Crowley and Barbie it says "no reproductive system(?)". the center is the asexual flag. End ID]
Also i haven't seen the Barbie movie as of this edit so at least please tag your spoilers.
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hm ok so interestingly, bdubs’s courthouse is built on an odd number of blocks. note the roof of the facade coming to a point, but more importantly, the nine pillars….
you don’t use an odd number of pillars. like ever.
let me get this out of the way first: i get why you’d build with odd numbers in minecraft. i usually do it myself, to not run into problems like double doors or two-wide pointed roofs or frustrating spacing/symmetry between decorative elements. however. to not even out the design of something so unequivocally done in every other example of columns and pillars…. fascinating implications…
every other example guys. every other building with columns like this has an even number of them.
doing so sets the line of symmetry at an invisible point between two pillars, an even number on each side. but an odd total number of pillars makes the central pillar itself the line of symmetry. this does a couple things.
one, it upends the sense of community and equality. which i know sounds crazy, but really, a group of columns are all put there to hold up a structure. there’s no focus on one because they are all are working as supports.
symbolically, at least when first used in ancient greece, pillars represented people. and it makes sense for courthouses, especially, to want to show an even, fair, equal number of people on each side. no focus on any one, no inherent bias right off the bat just looking at it.
with an odd number of pillars, though, one will always be placed front and center.
and THEN. and then you walk in the courtroom itself (also odd-numbered blocks) and you are immediately opposite the judge, bdubs, located exactly centrally. and true, courtrooms are often set up like this anyway. but bdubs ups the ante and reaffirms that no, focus is on him by staging it all as a daytime court show, boom mic just over his head, cameras pointed in, spotlights on him.
literally by design, it was not built for justice. it’s built for show, for entertainment. and just look at the credits to know exactly what sort of message you’re supposed to be getting from this show.
the biblical story he used, with king solomon. it’s about king solomon. isn’t really about the trial itself, or the babies, or the women. it’s about showing (off) how wise and just he is. that’s the point. hm. interesting.
now, getting to the second point that etho also picked up on: it feels like a prison.
it’s not just the color palette. when your eyes naturally draw to the center point, you aren’t seeing an open space. instead of feeling like an arch or gateway or otherwise some kind of opening, the pillar there makes it feel closed off. the overall effect is that of prison bars. not pillars lining the entrance to a place of order or a temple. bars of a cage, a cell.
imagine the lincoln memorial were set up with 11 or 13 pillars. he’d look so much more trapped in there.
having a central pillar blocks the entrance. it’s not welcoming. you have to go around it; it’s immediately inconveniencing you. and when you go to leave, it’s there blocking you again.
this courthouse was not designed and built to be fair, nor accomodating, nor equitable, on any terms. even if unintentional, i wouldn’t call it so much coincidental as i would… subconscious.
after all, y’know. form follows function.
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i love when words fit right. seize was always supposed to be that word, and so was jester. tuesday isn't quite right but thursday should be thursday, that's a good word for it. daisy has the perfect shape to it, almost like you're laughing when you say it; and tulip is correct most of the time. while keynote is fun to say, it's super wrong - i think they have to change the label for that one. but fox is spot-on.
most words are just, like, good enough, even if what they are describing is lovely. the night sky is a fine term for it but it isn't perfect the way november is the correct term for that month.
it's not just in english because in spanish the phrase eso si que es is correct, it should be that. sometimes other languages are also better than the english words, like how blue is sloped too far downwards but azul is perfect and hangs in the air like glitter. while butterfly is sweet, i think probably papillion is more correct, although for some butterflies féileacán is much better. year is fine but bliain is better. sometimes multiple languages got it right though, like how jueves and Πέμπτη are also the right names for thursday. maybe we as a species are just really good at naming thursdays.
and if we were really bored and had a moment and a picnic to split we could all sit down for a moment and sort out all the words that exist and find all the perfect words in every language. i would show you that while i like the word tree (it makes you smile to say it), i think arbor is correct. you could teach me from your language what words fit the right way, and that would be very exciting (exciting is not correct, it's just fine).
i think probably this is what was happening at the tower of babel, before the languages all got shifted across the world and smudged by the hand of god. by the way, hand isn't quite right, but i do like that the word god is only 3 letters, and that it is shaped like it is reflecting into itself, and that it kind of makes your mouth move into an echoing chapel when you cluck it. but the word god could also fit really well with a coathanger, and i can't explain that. i think donut has (weirdly) the same shape as a toothbrush, but we really got bagel right and i am really grateful for that.
grateful is close, but not like thunder. hopefully one day i am going to figure out how to shape the way i love my friends into a little ceramic (ceramic is very good, almost perfect) pot and when they hold it they can feel the weight of my care for them. they can put a plant in there. maybe a daisy.
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