#they're so faithful to the themes and sensibility of the stories

[ennaih]

Every Film I Watch In 2023:

207. A Warning To The Curious (1972)

[emkini]

WELL my best bro and I watched the first episode of the live action A:TLA series and suffice to say we will not be watching any more of them (except maybe if I want to torture myself writing a full comparison analysis).

The writing is atrocious and I felt no emotional punch from any of the scenes. This show wants to be Game of Thrones and is failing— aside from action scenes there is little to no attempt at crafting interesting shots. Aside from the very first opening scene there are zero creative changes to the story that actually improve it or even add interest, and somehow the pacing is so off that even with a whole hour of runtime it still feels rushed. I get the distinct impression that this show is more worried about being a new, crowd-pleasing take on the original than about being faithful to the original's themes and characterization.

Speaking of characterization, it leaves a lot to be desired. Now I'm not going to be too hard on the younger actors, because they are children and they're not doing a bad job for their age. Most of the actors so far do also seem to have made a decent attempt at understanding their roles, but in some cases they....absolutely failed. Iroh immediately comes to mind– he feels exceptionally callous thus far and ironically his bright and dismissive encouragement of Zuko's firebending is the most egregious example. Iroh in the original show is established early on to have depth and steel to his kindness and his reprimands of Zuko have a consistent undertone of care. This Iroh is a military general who doesn't want to be here and occasionally puts on a forced kind uncle veneer that feels more jarring than authentic. Honestly Sokka is the only character so far who has captured ANY of the original charm for me and even he's been so watered down it's laughable.

The CGI isn't....horrendous, I guess, but it's terribly overused. Bending has no subtlety and is only used for shows of skill or power. There are some impressive landscapes and locations, but a lack of atmosphere and even just good cinematography does them no favors. Wolf Cove especially feels so oddly sterile for what's supposed to be quite a small, close-knit society that I couldn't like it nearly as much as I wanted to. GranGran's exposition scene made me want to pull my hair out for how badly it was done.

In summary, the first episode was downright offensive to my personal sensibilities and I have a feeling it's not going to get better. On the upside, however, when we watched the first episode of the original show it really highlighted jut how spectacularly done it was. In just 20 minutes you get a perfect feel for the characters, something the live action couldn't seem to do even with triple the runtime.

Also Zuko's scar is just face paint and I, as an eye horror enthusiast, am extremely mad about that.

[ornithia]

Thank you so much for that last signal boost. A friend once came to me and told me that I was going to hell for liking Helluva Boss/Hazbin Hotel. They even told me to fuck myself. I legit started to question everything that I was really wrong for liking it.

1. np 👍

2. what the actual fuck ... honestly, it sounds like you need to ditch that "friend" for someone who DOESN'T let fictional interests get between your friendship. it doesn't matter what their reasons might be (the show just not appealing to them, finding it/viv problematic, feeling that the show offends their religious sensibility), friends DON'T gaslight their friends into feeling like shit over things that bring them joy. and you are most DEFINITELY not wrong or broken in any way for finding yourself drawn to different stories/perspectives, if anything it speaks well of your character that you ARE willing to give these types of narratives a chance because you're choosing to look past unsavory elements to explore the nuance of its characters and setting to find out WHY they're the way they are.

3. as for your friend:

- if they don't like the show and they can't find it in themselves to be happy for you or how the show brings you joy, they can simply choose to ignore the show. telling you to go fuck yourself is completely uncalled for;

- if they find it problematic, well ... it's a show set in hell and it's fictional. and before any antis come in to say that's a "bad excuse", no it's not - there is nothing that says that stories HAVE to be pure and unproblematic and free of conflict. in fact, MOST stories will SPECIFICALLY be about something bad/problematic needing to be resolved. literally go back and review all your favorite books and movies, etc - even your own life. if you can't find ANYTHING negative, whether from the protagonists, antagonists, driving forces, yourself, or others - you're either lying or the setting in question is a utopia where EVERYONE has unlimited privilege. and if viv is the problematic element, then lol ... actually google her supposed "crimes". the allegations are all either false or GREATLY exaggerated from minor faux pas into full criminality bc her haters will stop at nothing to tear her down. she's no saint and no one HAS to love her, but she's no criminal either, her haters are giving her way too much credit when it comes to her offensive "intent"

- and if it's about religion (christianity, specifically), well ... that's a whole separate can of worms. but if that's the case, then your friend REALLY needs to learn to separate reality from fiction. this is going to get long, but it's at least informative (and i speak as someone who grew up christian):

DISCUSSION OF CHRISTIAN ELEMENTS/BELIEFS BELOW:

by treating hazbin's hell as a literal "threat" to their beliefs, your friend (not you) is the one actively "sinning" and giving hazbin's "demons" the means by which to infiltrate reality and their "holiness". bc THEY'RE the one lacking faith in god/are putting way too much faith in demons - it's literally in matthew 8:26, that whole "oh ye of little faith" bit, which is honestly a recurring theme throughout the bible and can be found in a few other places. it's basically the same concept behind that one commandment "hold no idols before me", which literally addresses the notion of "giving" power to vices/fears/prejudices so that they hold more control over you than god, because god is "jealous" and frankly probably still reeling from the loss of his firstborns (first angel + first humans) to "sin" and thus prone to aggressive helicopter parenting. it's essentially the spiritual equivalent of being insecure in your masculinity/femininity/sexuality, which more than anything is a bigger reflection on the person's own doubts than any influence of the events taking place around them

furthermore, them manipulating your emotions bc you choose to engage with "problematic" elements isn't going to get them any heaven points, either. literally, tell them to re-read the bible - jesus, literal son of god, hung out with and regularly entertained sinners over meals and prayer; murderers, whores, thieves, even the occasional demon. by this point in time, humanity was sinful by nature thanks to "original sin" - he'd have accomplished nothing if he'd gone full anti/critical and focused only on the flaws of his host surrogate species; rather than tell all humans to go "fuck themselves", jesus chose friendship whenever possible, to help his new friends realise their virtues so that they WOULDN'T drown in their sins and go straight to hell despite their inherent flaws (the demons he just sent back home, and he only told satan to fuck off but that was because satan wouldn't mind his own fucking business when he was politely asked to leave the first few times during the desert fast) - in fact, he spent his last few moments as human basically chatting up the two convicts who were being crucified alongside with him, knowing FULL WELL they were guilty of their crimes. and if your friend CAN'T see the obvious parallel to charlie's passion project of redeeming sinners already in hell to give them that second chance which jesus would have also offered then well, lol - they clearly weren't paying close enough attention to the bible, were they?

which, regardless of any of that - so long as your heart and soul are pure and good and generally supportive of "creation" aka don't be an exclusionist towards other people/creatures/experiences (which is the original sin of lucifer who couldn't stand the idea of humans bc who the FUCK do they think they are, stealing dad's god's attention away from ME, most perfect of creations), then you have nothing to worry about in a christian context, no matter what bible thumpers will have you believe

[panvani]

What makes you starting thinking a character is gay? I mean obviously if they're attracted to someone of the same gender lol, but it seems like with characters like Vincent and Lacie (disclaimer I haven't gotten far in PH myself) it isn't that simple to you, and indeed there are times when it feels hard to determine a writer's intentions in that regard... so I'm curious about your thoughts on that if you want to share

This might be kind of long but in summary: I don't assume authors are stupid, if something seems extremely gay I assume it's being gay on purpose- the subsequent challenge is to discern authorial intent. This process is mostly esoteric and done off of vibes. Vincent and Lacie are complicated only because the former was a character I disliked for a long while, the latter because of her history of abuse obscuring any real attempt to ascribe certain traits unto her. Vincent's actually pretty unambiguously mlm, arguably the most of the series and a kind of semi-canon.

Honestly it depends pretty heavily on the context of the specific series. With PH specifically, there's the benefit of its having blatant, "oh ok so the author is definitely thinking about gay people" type homoeroticism pretty early on, which never really gets toned down or contradicted. VnC was written by the same author, so whether or not the author was even thinking about gay people as she wrote isn't something that needs to be called into doubt. That's not the case for all stories. With a work like Scream, gay people aren't directly acknowledged and there's a fair bit of room for doubt in the movie itself, but the author is a gay man, so it's pretty well agreed that the homoeroticism was intentional and a way of communicating themes within the story itself. I was gonna give an example of this but neither I nor my friends consume media that isn't overtly deliberately homoerotic.

Another big factor is marketability. With series like Love Live, I really don't care to describe the sexuality of any given character, because each characters' sexuality is only intended as "whatever gets us money." Similarly, I don't give a damn if the Honkai Impact girls are gay, because they're gatcha characters, and the homoeroticism only exists to generate profit. Sometimes it gets blurry, though; I wouldn't consider Free!, for example, to be a series whose depiction of sexuality I particularly care about, but it's not as obviously money hungry as a gatcha game. I think an important aspect is whether or not the series seems to deal with sexuality in general in good faith- sure, X has homoerotic interactions, but is the series erotic? This is why so many of these shallow gaybait series are about high schoolers- it relieves the pressure of enforcing actual agency and thus sexuality onto characters.

So, Rin Hoshizora isn't gay, and neither is Rin Matsuoka. After you get through "is this a complete fucking accident and the author's never though about gay people in their life?" and "is this a cash grab and the author couldn't give less of a damn about depicting actual sexuality?" you're pretty much only left with "is this the most sensible explanation for how this character is depicted within their universe and in relationship to our own?" In Doki Doki Literature Club, Natsuki writes a poem called Amy Likes Spiders. The poem does not make any goddamn sense whatsoever unless it's about being gay, and is directed at a character named Yuri. Put two and two together. This can work in other ways, though- in OwaSera's Mikaela Hyakuya is a pretty good example of "oh, they're gay, that's why the author hates them so much."

All in all, it's just very context driven. If PH didn't have a blatant, unambiguously intentional instance of gay subtext early into its run I probably wouldn't be quick to assume as many characters were gay as I did later. If Revolutionary Girl Utena were not a show in which the ED features two girls kissing on screen, I probably wouldn't have reached the conclusion Saionji was gay.

For PH specifically though, when I call a character gay, the author usually did it first.

[uncheckedtomfoolery]

Thoughts on Aki Minoriko/Aki Sisters, since they're often considered as one?

Sure! This might get a bit long (edit: It absolutely did, you’ve been warned), so I’m putting it below the cut.

‘Often considered as one’ is both spot on and a little off the mark for how I view them. One of the new books (I can’t cite a page or anything, I don’t have the book) mentions that the Akis used to be one goddess, I believe. It gave me some ideas to layer onto what I already had. The Aki sisters are an excellent example of a few things: Namely, the way both gods and youkai are beholden to, and then constrained in most aspects of how they are, by the legends that shape them. It’s hard not to think of this post I made about kappa trying to separate themselves from their origins to a degree.

(IMPORTANT UPDATE: I have been corrected on the point in the above paragraph.)

I see the original… let’s say Aki Prime becoming two goddesses as a consequence of people generally disliking shades of grey (though mythology does have examples aplenty of that too!) and loving categories. You have the goddess of Good Autumn Things (harvest, general bounty re: food), and the goddess of Bad Autumn Things (death, decay, the coming cold). They couldn’t possibly be the same person, right? And then, just like that, they aren’t. I don’t (again, I haven’t read the new stuff about them in full, I just overheard bits and pieces) treat them as being aware of their past as one person. I do think, like basically any deity, they’re quire aware that worship pigeonholes them.

So the question is, what does this do to them? Let’s go over what each one of them is like, and then their place in Gensokyo.

Minoriko is a goddess with an entirely positive aspect, and is deeply affected by it. She is generous and kind almost by definition, and greatly approves of hard work (which she puts in herself; she keeps a garden/field and built their little mountain cottage even though she could miracle it all up); a goddess of the harvest is necessarily one of rewarding effort, after all. She is still a goddess, and that’s going to affect how she thinks of her relation towards the world, how people ought to interact with her and so on to a degree. See my post on Yukari and Okina, albeit less extreme; she’s fairly humble as divinities go, though not as much as Hina, who pretty much doesn’t count for these purposes.

It also affects her outlook in other ways; not being a goddess, but the specific kind she was shaped into. Minoriko is the goddess of the nicer side of things. Minoriko and Shizuha are basically a sensible, natural duality forcibly split in two, and it shows. Minoriko is not just optimistic; she pretty much always finds cause to be cheerful and see the good in everyone and everything, even if this isn’t particularly making good sense in the eyes of others. She doesn’t see anything strange about it because, of course, it’s what she is.

Contrast Shizuha, an exercise in trying to break away from the archetype. Partly because being a goddess of negative things, but not so much that you require worship to placate you, is basically a death sentence in this business. She’s probably propped up entirely by faith Minoriko brings in. For her own satisfaction as much as anything else, she’s turned to other fields.

Yes, Shizuha is the goddess of the dying autumn, essentially: Plants wither, the air turns cold, and animals retreat to their burrows until spring, at best. There’s one plus to all this: Japan’s fixation on coloured leaves. I don’t actually know the English term for this off the top of my head, but in Japanese it’s 紅葉 (Kouyou, lit. crimson leaves), and despite the name it refers to basically any shade of orange, yellow and red that trees take on en masse in autumn. Maple is the most famous but by no means even the only big entry on the list.

And this gives her an out: Shizuha takes on a secondary theme of beauty and art (painting the leaves, and all that). It helps that in traditional Japanese art, finding beauty in more subtle things, in decay, and the passing of transient things is a big running theme. Right up until they try to continue claiming this while adoring enormous, garish explosions of bright pink flowers in spring, I mean.

Thus, Shizuha is the goddess of endings, if she were to put it a bit more tactfully, and of the little things you can still find in darker moments. It’s not much, it sure won’t bring in worship, but it’s a bit more satisfying. It also rescues her from solely just being the sad goddess who sees the worst of everything. Her viewpoint goes from “everything is awful” to “everything is awful, but at least…” and that counts for a lot. She’s no Parsee, no, but she does tend a little gloomy and pessimistic, which probably helps her act as the walking reality check to Minoriko.

I also take the view that she’s not actually older than Minoriko. I mean, yeah, originally one person anyway, but I believe she was assigned the role just by being the one who is explicitly associated with the passage of time. I also don’t believe she resents being the less popular one, per se. It’s probably a bit unfortunate, and sure she wishes things went differently, but it can’t be helped and she’s not about to hold it against her sister.

Lastly, I’d like to suggest that for all their relatively humble attitude, minor presence in the stories and so on, the Akis are actually a pretty huge deal, especially to ordinary humans in Gensokyo. I mean, think about it. There’s some competition from the harvest-related aspects of Kanako nowadays, sure, but otherwise? It’s just Minoriko, who is the goddess of having enough food to survive the next year. That’s kind of important in a small, marginal agrarian society, though perhaps less so to youkai. I suspect that no effort is spared in making sure they’re in her good books. I would not hesitate to even call Minoriko (less so Luigi Shizuha) one of the most popular deities in Gensokyo; even if you don’t own a farm because you’re a youkai or something, she’s just generally pleasant.

Given the worship=power dynamic with most deities in the setting, this might seem to clash with their fairly minor presence. I would contend that this isn’t terribly out of place, because of their fairly benign, harmless portfolios. Shizuha with sufficient clout might get a bit scary; Minoriko, on the other hand, just brings even better harvests.

That’s about all I’ve got for Happy Potato and Sad Leaf. Goodness, that went on longer than I expected.