My Tokugawa Smile and My Garbage Smile

Luci/염라. Early 30s. (She/her). Traditional Marxist. Korean working abroad. East Asian history (esp LGBT+ and religions), analysis of animanga, esp robot/Mahō Shōjo. 日本語を話す。한국말 합니다.

[screenshotsofdespair]

[wearepaladin]

[greelin]

the way this video never ceases to make me genuinely lose my mind for some reason

[toskarin]

Your hatred against hopepunk is truly inspiring i remember your earlier posts about it

I've been on it for years. I was on it when that post reached me shortly after it was made. I will be on it when all memory of that post ozymandias' out of the collective conscious

[toskarin]

at the core I'm just viscerally repulsed by any idea that can be summed up as "art today is degenerate and rude, so what if the REAL subversive narratives are the ones that dare to be comfortable to me" and hopepunk/cottagecore were very pervasive forms of this

[toskarin]

while I understand the impulse to view violence and tragedy as easy to write, it requires a solipsistic view of the world where art is conjured up and presented to you, to make you feel things, to harvest your opinion of it and correct the mistakes of individual voice. people write responses to the world they live in

the urge to view optimism and pessimism as moral virtues with different degrees of ease based on the quantity of them you see around is, fundamentally, an urge to believe that everything which is written was written for you by people who share your inner world, speaking back like desynced reflections of you with their own mouths, who ought to be set on the course of making what you need, because it's what you all need

[rui-cifer]

my problem in general is that I don't enjoy looking at western mass media artistic output that isn't cinema, literature or rare occasional live-action tv show. Original animated show? Butt-ugly art style. Games with original storyline that isn't autobiographical? Boring and somehow even more myopic than autobiographies. Inspired by anime or other East Asian art? Derivative or straight-up meanspirited. It's good thing that I could never get through what I actually like in my lifetime instead because imagine growing up watching the Orientalism Cartoon as the apex of prestige animated tv

[rui-cifer]

we do mostly only get sickos with a solid vision of the franchise making Shin Megami Tensei-inspired RPGs instead of any old hacks though because of its relative obscurity so maybe I should be happy with that.

[rui-cifer]

I could also put a target on my back and say that the shtick of "Ohh here's a billionth earthbound-inspired RPG made by a westerner" was already wearing thin by the time Undertale, much less Deltarune rolled around, but you know what whatever at least Tobias Fawkes actually played Mother games unlike 90% of ppl that say they love Mother/Undertale

[rui-cifer]

Forgive me I am just cranky that the RPG series whose reception in the West even by Japanophiles ended up being "Japan is soooo wacky! Look at these untranslateable* jokes and funny interactions" gets this much leg room. A lot of this is not inherently bad within the game itself of Undertale but after a solid decade+ of this shit you could see why I would be side-eyeing the whole project from the get-go. It's starting from a massive penalty.

*the jokes are very translateable

[rui-cifer]

I could also put a target on my back and say that the shtick of "Ohh here's a billionth earthbound-inspired RPG made by a westerner" was already wearing thin by the time Undertale, much less Deltarune rolled around, but you know what whatever at least Tobias Fawkes actually played Mother games unlike 90% of ppl that say they love Mother/Undertale

[swagophile]

basically due to my contrarian nature i'm not allowed to play deltarune until years after it's finished and the hype fandom cycle and well and truly over cus then i can play it for the first time and appreciate it without wanting to hate on it because everyone around me is talking about it constantly. this is also why i havent watched much of the digital circus yet. you have to understand. this is just what i'm like

[autogynophelia]

I've increasingly been encountering cis "allies" saying they're replacing "woman" in their vocabulary with "AFAB" to be more inclusive of transmascs, e.g. if they're talking about people who get sexually harassed by men. I used to think this was a well-meaning position born of ignorance, but I've discovered that you press them on whether they think transfems get sexually harassed by men, amazingly they will often admit that they know they do. You then ask them to reconsider why they refer to "AFABs", and they just repeat that they want to be inclusive of transmascs.

The only way their contradictory behaviour makes sense is if they understand that transfems are marginalised in much the same ways as cis women, but they just don't care about it. Their solidarity does not extend to us.

[jame7t]

Planet Suckulon 5 has declared war on Earth

[slopgirlier]

[coco6420]

at what age does it start sounding wierd to call your baby "it" ?

[imjunebitch]

none. #it/itspronounsbaby #wokebaby #hellyeahwokebaby

[rui-cifer]

saw Gundam serieses divided into emperorship era and got reminded of when I was flirting with a younger girl and she said that my tastes are very heisei. I felt a billion yrs old.

[rui-cifer]

like, the USA in general is a prticularly reactionary country, and a lot of yanks have never fully grasped it because they've never been outside of their suburb. The USA sends more Christian missionaries of all denominations than any other nation in the world combined, spreading its message of hate and bigotry where their media won't reach them. this is why they have to look for nefarious intents and mechanisms in other countries; they live inundated in a country that just does that more than anywhere else in the world.

[rui-cifer]

and also this is what makes yanks of all stripes talking about Cool Japan such fucking projection. Whatever you say, a nation whose top cultural exports had to be individually approved by their top defense ministry in order not to upset the censors at the Pentagon about the depiction of the USA and its military.

[rui-cifer]

it kind of is crazy-making that they just rebranded Shang-chi, son of the best known Racist Caricature, and now they pretend that it's East Asian Representation. I hope Marvel Comics gets what's coming to them.

[rui-cifer]

also like yeah the Ultimates is the edgy imprint but they really had Colonel Abdul al-Rahma, a guy that became superpowered to fight the USA's invasion of Iraq, his home country, becoming an international terrorist villain taking money from Iran, PRC, DPRK, Syria, Russia, and inexplicably, France. Like any Marvel card is the racist card because this is the bullshit they make.

[rui-cifer]

Like, the Marvel Civil War (not the movie) is a thinly-veiled metaphor about the Patriot Act, a piece of legislation that gives broad-based power to the US government whose legacy we'll never escape from, and the people who are for the thinly-veiled metaphor for the patriot act wins the actual and moral victory? What do you mean, what's racist about Marvel? The company has always been an awful racist toady for the US govt.

[rui-cifer]

it kind of is crazy-making that they just rebranded Shang-chi, son of the best known Racist Caricature, and now they pretend that it's East Asian Representation. I hope Marvel Comics gets what's coming to them.

[rui-cifer]

also like yeah the Ultimates is the edgy imprint but they really had Colonel Abdul al-Rahma, a guy that became superpowered to fight the USA's invasion of Iraq, his home country, becoming an international terrorist villain taking money from Iran, PRC, DPRK, Syria, Russia, and inexplicably, France. Like any Marvel card is the racist card because this is the bullshit they make.

[rui-cifer]

it kind of is crazy-making that they just rebranded Shang-chi, son of the best known Racist Caricature, and now they pretend that it's East Asian Representation. I hope Marvel Comics gets what's coming to them.