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Mar. 4th, 2012 09:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shamanicshayminUsually, I look at my journal, and when I think about what to type, all that comes up is, "Where do I begin?"
A. I'm still alive.
B. My computer is still on the verge of breaking apart and still needs fixing. So I'm behind on MLP: FiM and HS, no need to tell me.
C. I have a trillion things to rant about (ex. the censorship of Derpy Hooves no thanks to SJWs, anime is a medium and not a genre and you're not magically "superior" because you hate anime, the ZOMG-Beauty-and-the-Beast-promotes-Stockholm-Syndrome argument is trite and old and I'm sick of hearing it (and no, it doesn't make you ~edgy~ to realize dark truths about Disney either), blah blah I'm fed up with idiots in general) and too exhausted to go through them all.
D. I still have Writer's Block and I beat myself constantly over it.
E. Might as well get into one of my rants from C. I fucking hate it whenever I tell people I have Writer's Block and I haven't been able to write anything for months, they tell me to "take a break for a while." Did you even hear what I fucking told you? "Not being able to write" means not being able to fucking write. At all. By telling me to take a break, you're implying that I've been working and typing, which I've been trying to tell you is absolutely not true. You're making it sound like I've been straining my brain by staring at a blank page when in reality I haven't opened Microsoft Word or a notebook in months because I feel like absolute shit. You wouldn't tell a person sitting at the beach doing nothing to "take a break" would you? That would be like telling an unemployed person who wished they had a job to "quit working so hard." It's a fucking kick in the teeth, and don't make me feel like doing the same to you if I talk about how I'm still stuck in my rut.
F. I really hope I move into Dad's office soon. I can only take one more day of listening to Dad yell at someone on the phone or Mom bitch and verbally abuse and drill Dad while he's screaming at her to shut up and yeah my brain just shut down. I feel under so much pressure and my thoughts get clouded and I feel so fucking depressed.
G. Saw Secret World of Arrietty, which is good, but that's to be expected of Studio Ghibli. It's more of a dub-specific complaint, but oh well. You get the ending where Arrietty and Shawn say goodbye, and it's all good. Then SUDDENLY NARRATION, which has never happened in the rest of the movie. In short, Shawn is all "I GOT BETTER. AND I NEVER SAW ARRIETTY AGAIN BUT YOU CAN TELL HER PEOPLE WERE STILL AROUND NEXT DOOR." I thought this was fishy, so I looked up to see if the monologue was there in the Japanese version or not. SURE ENOUGH IT WASN'T. In the original version, it was left up to the viewer to decide whether Shawn survived the operation or not, and if he did, whether or not he ever saw Arrietty again. But nope. American audiences have to be assured that the kid lives and have to be spoonfed every single fucking detail, because OH NOES WE'RE ALLERGIC TO OPEN ENDINGS AND WE'RE TOO DUMB TO BE SATISFIED BY THEM and that really pisses me off, because I find the original ending way less cliched and forced than the stupid monologue.
I'm not being anti-dub. Hell, I preferred the English!Spirited Away ending because I felt like the whole ~It Was Just a Dream~ thing hand-waved all of Chihiro's character development. But that particular detail in the English dub of Arrietty aggravated me.
H. Played and finished SA1. Was going to type in detail about my replay, but right now I don't give a fuck.
I. I've been upset for months (one of the reasons being the Block) and the little things make me madder/sadder than usual. I'm at the end of my rope and I'm already aware there's a trillion things wrong with me, okay?
A. I'm still alive.
B. My computer is still on the verge of breaking apart and still needs fixing. So I'm behind on MLP: FiM and HS, no need to tell me.
C. I have a trillion things to rant about (ex. the censorship of Derpy Hooves no thanks to SJWs, anime is a medium and not a genre and you're not magically "superior" because you hate anime, the ZOMG-Beauty-and-the-Beast-promotes-Stockholm-Syndrome argument is trite and old and I'm sick of hearing it (and no, it doesn't make you ~edgy~ to realize dark truths about Disney either), blah blah I'm fed up with idiots in general) and too exhausted to go through them all.
D. I still have Writer's Block and I beat myself constantly over it.
E. Might as well get into one of my rants from C. I fucking hate it whenever I tell people I have Writer's Block and I haven't been able to write anything for months, they tell me to "take a break for a while." Did you even hear what I fucking told you? "Not being able to write" means not being able to fucking write. At all. By telling me to take a break, you're implying that I've been working and typing, which I've been trying to tell you is absolutely not true. You're making it sound like I've been straining my brain by staring at a blank page when in reality I haven't opened Microsoft Word or a notebook in months because I feel like absolute shit. You wouldn't tell a person sitting at the beach doing nothing to "take a break" would you? That would be like telling an unemployed person who wished they had a job to "quit working so hard." It's a fucking kick in the teeth, and don't make me feel like doing the same to you if I talk about how I'm still stuck in my rut.
F. I really hope I move into Dad's office soon. I can only take one more day of listening to Dad yell at someone on the phone or Mom bitch and verbally abuse and drill Dad while he's screaming at her to shut up and yeah my brain just shut down. I feel under so much pressure and my thoughts get clouded and I feel so fucking depressed.
G. Saw Secret World of Arrietty, which is good, but that's to be expected of Studio Ghibli. It's more of a dub-specific complaint, but oh well. You get the ending where Arrietty and Shawn say goodbye, and it's all good. Then SUDDENLY NARRATION, which has never happened in the rest of the movie. In short, Shawn is all "I GOT BETTER. AND I NEVER SAW ARRIETTY AGAIN BUT YOU CAN TELL HER PEOPLE WERE STILL AROUND NEXT DOOR." I thought this was fishy, so I looked up to see if the monologue was there in the Japanese version or not. SURE ENOUGH IT WASN'T. In the original version, it was left up to the viewer to decide whether Shawn survived the operation or not, and if he did, whether or not he ever saw Arrietty again. But nope. American audiences have to be assured that the kid lives and have to be spoonfed every single fucking detail, because OH NOES WE'RE ALLERGIC TO OPEN ENDINGS AND WE'RE TOO DUMB TO BE SATISFIED BY THEM and that really pisses me off, because I find the original ending way less cliched and forced than the stupid monologue.
I'm not being anti-dub. Hell, I preferred the English!Spirited Away ending because I felt like the whole ~It Was Just a Dream~ thing hand-waved all of Chihiro's character development. But that particular detail in the English dub of Arrietty aggravated me.
H. Played and finished SA1. Was going to type in detail about my replay, but right now I don't give a fuck.
I. I've been upset for months (one of the reasons being the Block) and the little things make me madder/sadder than usual. I'm at the end of my rope and I'm already aware there's a trillion things wrong with me, okay?
no subject
Date: 2012-03-06 12:58 am (UTC)SDJKFHDKJGHJFDF I HATE THAT SO MUCH. Yes, as you get older you might realize some less than sweetness-and-light things about Disney, but people who act like those realizations suddenly make them so mature and smart and edgy and anyone who still likes Disney in spite of those things is dumb and naive just make me want to hit them.
Sorry people are being so dumb about your writer's block. ;_;
no subject
Date: 2012-03-06 03:36 am (UTC)I don't know, I just never got the impression that BatB was about "changing him." Beast had to do that on his own. He started to respect Belle for her assertiveness and intelligence (for beauty is found within and all that), and she respected him back in return. And that was when they fell in love with each other.
Nomnomnom tl;dr about Disney, nom.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-06 03:42 am (UTC)The funny thing is that according to the Nostalgia Chick SotS is known for being boring as much as it's known for Unfortunate Implications. Actually, the boring-ness is WHY people only know it for the race angle. And the song.
YES. The whole "There must be something there that wasn't there before" musical number was ALL ABOUT how Belle was falling for the kinder, gentler Beast. Just because the road to romance had a few bumps doesn't mean the entire romance is full of Unfortunate Implications!
no subject
Date: 2012-03-06 04:34 am (UTC)Hahaha, I watched that review too. I hadn't seen SotS myself (except for snippets in my Sing-A-Long tapes, with "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" and "Everybody Has a Laughing Place"), but I was impressed how Lindsey handled it considering the huge controversy surrounding the film. The live-action bits look dull as hell and I don't think I'll be missing anything if I don't watch it. :P
I'm tempted to Youtube the animated bits though, including where James Baskett is talking and interacting with Br'er Rabbit and the fishing frog such.Just 'cause it's a little rocky at first doesn't mean it's abusive. Moderation, people. :P
no subject
Date: 2012-03-06 07:48 pm (UTC)Yeah, I like how she addressed the racial controversy, but also the film's actual flaws as a story. From what I've seen and read it's not my kind of story; bullying PLUS a meddling mother who doesn't approve of her child spending time with another adult? Pass. :P
no subject
Date: 2012-03-06 01:31 am (UTC)I totally agree with you on the Disney thing, though! It's such a fad to be all ~dark and intelligent~ pointing stuff out, when all they're really doing is ignoring a good three-quarters of the movie's actual canon. So obnoxious.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-06 03:20 am (UTC)Disney's record is hardly clean (just ask the lemmings), but it's not like the same couldn't be said of any other studio. I guess with Disney it's popular 'cause hey, the purer it is, the more satisfying it is corrupt, I guess. But you can only tell the same jokes ("Uncle Walt was Anti-Semetic/racist/sexist/etc!") over and over and OVER and OVER until it gets obnoxious. I don't really watch Family Guy, but you know the episode with the parody Disney sequence, and then a Jewish guy opened the door and almost everyone (including the singing forest animals) went to beat him up? Yeah, I rolled my eyes at that.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-06 04:01 am (UTC)And I agree! I think a big part of it is that as people get older, they get this urge to sort of... take apart their childhood, I guess? Sort of look at it from a darker POV. And I've actually seen really, really cool stuff come out of that approach, but some of the time (like with the Belle thing) I just get the feeling they're seeing things that aren't even really there. I haven't seen that particular Family Guy epsilon, but I've seen enough to imagine it, haha.
/Bitter Belle fangirl.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-06 04:19 am (UTC)I know what you mean. Part of the reason I love Nostalgia Critic is because I love going back on stuff I enjoyed as a kid from an adult, more experienced mindset. Nightmare Fuel/Things Slipping Past the Radar in children's media (including Disney) fascinates me now, 'cause I'm a sucker for the darker/more mature aspects of things most people assume is kiddy and innocent. I adore jeftoon01/Jeffrey Thomas's "Twisted Princesses" on DA.
But yeah, then there's stuff like that, which is just people going, "lol Disney sucks and this is why." It's like people going, "Look, I can say the f-word!" and that's... special, kid. It's really lost its novelty, especially after everyone else has done it.
/Fuck yeah, Belle~ ♥ *fist-bump*
no subject
Date: 2012-03-06 05:19 pm (UTC)And the whole "Yeah, I'm so MATURE for seeing dark aspects of Disney and therefore I'm superior in pointing this out to you to tell you why it sucks!" drivel is getting really annoying. But then it reminds me of this article here: http://www.vnnforum.com/showthread.php?t=52639 It's an article telling people why the book 'Tintin In The Congo' shouldn't be banned (I am all for a warning to be put on if people are uncomfortable about reading it, especially if they are PoC but I don't think banning it is a good idea, either) and brings up a good point - books and films like these serve as a good way of educating people about their ancestors' attitudes so they don't end up like them.
Oh, and yeah - trigger warning for talk of extreme racism behind link.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-09 04:42 am (UTC)This reminds me of the reprints of a few Raggedy Ann books. For example, this is from the publisher's note on the 1999 reissue of Marcella: A Raggedy Ann Story (originally published 1929):
"To keep this a complete and authentic reissue, all of the stories in Marcella are included with only minor text changes. We have also chosen to retain all illustrations of and references to the Beloved Belindy character. While her portrayal may offend some readers, her inclusion was due to an effort to maintain the original look and feel of Marcella, and to represent the time period in which the book was written."
Beloved Belindy is a Mammy doll. While she speaks the same as the other dolls and is treated as an equal, there is NO fucking way she'd be caught dead in a modern children's book today, especially due to her design. There was also a similar warning in a reprint of Raggedy Ann Stories (1918) regarding the "wash" story, in which we meet Dinah the cook. Yep, we definitely don't keep black maids anymore.
Publisher's notes like this are nice because not only does it "update" the text while keeping the integrity of the story, it also gives the opportunity for parents to talk to their kids about race and racism. (This is assuming the parents aren't morons and leave the TV to babysit their children, of course) I'm surprised the article didn't mention Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind. Racist as hell even back in the day it was published and a big gigantic glorification of the Old South (hell, the movie cuts out the Klu Klux Klan, where in the book they were portrayed as heroes), but the book is still considered a beloved and epic classic by many readers to this day.