schrödinger's monster

no toddlers (included toddlers who are +20) | dont be stupid here | mainly using this blog for venting/bitching so yknow if you have a problem with it you are more than welcome to go away

[sratatata666]

i tjijk i spent too many hours staring at this part of the interview jfc old man

[sratatata666]

what makes this even funnier is that pluto is aggresively international XDDDDDDDD jfc old man [2] your vivian darkbloom gene is showing

[sratatata666]

he was in a *seconds before spiking the wine* mood after seeing what happened to the *Monster* anime ✨💅 Fun fact: it dropped on Netflix in January 2023. The interview is from May. I WONDER if this pretentious diva spent those four months clicking one freshly manicured nail against the desk, silently observing THE OUTCOMES, before finally deciding to drop this little bomb.

*calm down, agents of the curiously transferable signature. i’m only having a tad of creative fun with a piece of media. jfc, hard to believe how humorless and uncreative some of you are.

[sratatata666]

small clarification to the Monster anime: it started in 2004, so the nameful (have you seen the magnificent collection of names?) monster had even more time to collect the data. the Netflix drop just made the anime even more accessible to overseas audiences.

ps: whats the point of the thinly veiled blorbification of these works? making cute, wholesome products with borrowed humanitarian prestige and slogan-level depth? maybe just follow your own advice and make your own ocs at this point and show some actual respect to the collective work?

[cloverinblue]

I’m still sort of confused as to Takashi Nagasaki’s role in Urasawa’s manga but I guess it’s something like a co-writer or editor? I guess he takes input and smooths out the edges and/or bounces ideas back and forth with him?

Anyway, he authored a manga, illustrated by Junji Ito in 2010, called Yuukoku no Rasputin and I’m so curious… Because I always wondered what bits in the manga I’ve read come from who.

[labasesecrete]

He has various titles but he is basically a co-author with more or less influence depending on the series. For example, he is said to have had the original idea for Billy Bat.

One of his own mangas, Ilyad, is an archeological story which clearly shows that most of the historical elements from Urasawa’s stories are probably of Nagasaki’s doing. The drawings and “directing” are quite ugly though.

He describes himself as a “mangaka who can’t draw”. I could write a short article about his career and role if you like!

[cloverinblue]

Oh, please if it’s not too much trouble at all! *_* 

[labasesecrete]

Ahem, let’s forget the fact that I took more than a month to write this article, shall we? I translated the french biography of Nagasaki already published on my site, in english : http://www.labasesecrete.fr/takashi-nagasaki-biography/ I tried my best to avoid basic translation errors but some probably remain, so, please excuse me in advance. Feel free to ask any question regarding Nagasaki or some points of details, it is indeed a really interesting subject!

[sratatata666]

wait, wait, wait. so an anglophone Urasawa fandom circle had access to a whole English Nagasaki biography explaining that he was basically a co-author back in 2014, and twelve years later the fandom still routinely treats him as “just some editor guy”?

ps too bad the site is dead, there was this, if my memory serves me right, interesting interview with Nagasaki, sth sth comparing him to a tanto, idk, not there anymore!

[sratatata666]

[sratatata666]

[sratatata666]

Let’s take Lunge as an example, since he’s one of the fandom’s Chosen Ones.

The flattening mechanism here is reducing him to his obsession with one of the fandom’s Ultimate Chosen Ones: Tenma. (And note: this flattening doesn’t happen only through shipping; the Tenmacentrification of Monster is much broader than that.)

Meanwhile, the manga places Lunge in a very specific context from the very beginning. Here are some panels as hints, from chapter 6, “The BKA Man.”

[sratatata666]

Okay, jokes aside, I think Nagasaki’s “this isn’t character-centred, it’s story-centred” distinction is genuinely important when discussing Urasawa’s work in general. It’s not about “omg, now it’s illegal to like characters/let people have fun” (bla bla bla) It’s about how often fandom separates those characters from the stories they are part of until the story and its world become mere AESTHETICS rather than integral forces that shape them.

These characters only become as rich as they are because the story has formed them. Once fandom strips all of that away and leaves only the Blorbos (and Anti-Blorbos), the characters become much flatter and much more boring.

So, in other words, that pretentious diva has given me even more reasons to yap about why the CEE dimension of Monster can’t be overlooked. It isn’t atmospheric wallpaper surrounding the Beloved Characters; it is part of what produces them. And because I see Monster and PLUTO as twins, the same problem of character worship applies to both.

[mo-nee-ta]

and even more

A Failed Reader Redeemed: "Spring in Fialta" and _The Real Life of Sebastian Knight_

"Spring in Fialta" is one of Nabokov's stories whose narrating protagonist might be characterized as a "failed reader.&qu

[mo-nee-ta]

and for desert

WesScholar Teaching Lolita Through Pushkin' s Onegin

WesScholar Teaching Lolita Through Pushkin' s Onegin

[mo-nee-ta]

this as well! enjoy the sip!

Nabokov’s Critics: a Review Article

Several insights should by now be clear to all students of Nabokov who have assimilated the critical literature of the past twenty years: th

[mo-nee-ta]

Happy Explorations! ^_^ Ahoy Nabokov Tumblr Fandom (this is a good read, trust me)

[sratatata666]

btw to be perfectly clear im still character obsessed old man wont tell me what to do

[sratatata666]

i tjijk i spent too many hours staring at this part of the interview jfc old man

[sratatata666]

what makes this even funnier is that pluto is aggresively international XDDDDDDDD jfc old man [2] your vivian darkbloom gene is showing

[sratatata666]

he was in a *seconds before spiking the wine* mood after seeing what happened to the *Monster* anime ✨💅 Fun fact: it dropped on Netflix in January 2023. The interview is from May. I WONDER if this pretentious diva spent those four months clicking one freshly manicured nail against the desk, silently observing THE OUTCOMES, before finally deciding to drop this little bomb.

*calm down, agents of the curiously transferable signature. i’m only having a tad of creative fun with a piece of media. jfc, hard to believe how humorless and uncreative some of you are.

[sratatata666]

i tjijk i spent too many hours staring at this part of the interview jfc old man

[sratatata666]

what makes this even funnier is that pluto is aggresively international XDDDDDDDD jfc old man [2] your vivian darkbloom gene is showing

[sratatata666]

i tjijk i spent too many hours staring at this part of the interview jfc old man

[sratatata666]

my FAV part of the slop anti machine tm discourse is that machine tm *as such* is the material expression of the tech-bro worldview. which ironically still puts them on a pedestal. evil genius pedestal, but still a pedestal. jfc. can this already stop.

ps can someone spread a rumor that the wildly popular t0m0dachi life game contains machine tm made slop so that there will be a chance the discussion about this little design nightmare will be more critical. crumbs of hopium.

[sratatata666]

https://www.tumblr.com/sratatata666/823048693925183488/is-it-just-me-being-delululu-tm-hiding-ableism-in?source=share Since it is this site and these framing skills:

a) idgaf if it was AI-assisted or not.

b) AI hysteria (both pro and anti or whatever) has added a lot to the pathologization of entire art styles.

c) I forking hope the manga also captures the myth of the Sole Genius with a Sole Style Born Entirely from Sole Genius, because yes, plenty of anti-AI hysteria runs on it. No, it doesn’t need to show explicitly or in a 1:1 way. For example: how disappointed are you when the MEEEEE element of your art isn’t praised enough?

d) C*pitalism—and other systems built on ownership etc.—was killing art WAY before AI. It shows in some of yous’ #notallofyous intellectual-property approach to art.

Yes, this is more complex, and the way I’m describing c*pitalism here is simplified and may be inaccurate in places. This is a rant blog. Don’t cite me.

e) Criticize specific uses all you want, hate the tool, refuse to touch it, sratata. But pathologizing the mere use of a technology, regardless of context, is dumb.

[sratatata666]

want something translated? just learn the language or pay a translator. how dare you use machine translation. its the same source of Evil TM.