Rakuninmura is a reference to Rurouni Kenshin (Samurai X to most people), probably my favorite anime of all time. Basically, it’s a village of outcasts, a place for those who had given up on life. It’s the place where Kenshin ran off to and had a little mope when he thought Kaoru has been killed by Enishi. But yeah, this doesn’t really have anything to do with that. I just wanted a cool and pretentious name for my Tumblr. This is just pretty much the place where I’ll post my junk because I’m a loser with no life. I’ll probably picspam a lot of LOLcats because I find kittehs so hilarious. Just a touch of madness and other random things from my brain. And I may, MAY, post some personal stuff like expect some whining or moaning about something or other every now and then. So, if you don’t mind all of that stuff, feel free to drop by and have a taste of my brand of Weird, because Strangeness- I has lots of it.
Do you know, I have never really grown up? It’s a hard thing for me to play this game. In politics one must meet people, and that is not easy for me… It’s been hard for me all my life. When I was a little fellow, as long ago as I can remember, I would go into a panic if I heard a stranger [sic] voices in the house. I felt I just couldn’t meet the people and shake hands with them. Most of the visitors would sit with Mother and Father in the kitchen, and the hardest thing in the world was to have to go through the kitchen door and give them a greeting. I was almost ten before I realized that I couldn’t go on that way, and by fighting hard, I used to manage to go through the old kitchen door back home, and it is not easy…
President Calvin “Silent Cal” Coolidge in an incredibly rare moment of openness with a close friend.
Depression is a real thing and a hard thing and even Presidents get it. He lost his mother and sister very early and his father was distant, and when he was president he lost his son in a freak accident. Despite all that, going through the old kitchen door back home still felt like the hardest thing in the world. But, hey. He still did it.
Now remember, a lady rides sidesaddle, NOT astride. Your mother would be in hysterics at the very idea that a daughter of hers would ride a werewolf astride! Why, next you’ll be showing ankle…
Are gods really gods if no one believes in them anymore?
Zeus takes walks in the rain and tries to talk up joggers in central park. When they bolt, or only return his advances with polite smiles that look like fence posts too high for even him to jump, he sighs. He tells them he is a god, and his words echo back to him, accompanied by laughter. No one believes him
He picks up his wife, who might be his sister in this time, in a beat up car with a beautiful flame job, Hera is a marriage counselor with peacock feather bags under her eyes, her advice falls on her own deaf ears as her jealous eyes roam over every girl they pass, and she is right to. She knows this. She has always known.
Poseidon’s hands are rough and calloused, he raises cargo too heavy for a man his age, the young ones say. He laughs his fisherman’s laugh, all depths and riptide, because no one should be his age. He reminds himself he is one of the lucky ones, he gets to be around what he loves. He may not have his dominion any more, but salt water and sun still weather his face.
Hades stalks the streets at night, women cross the street to avoid him, and he smiles with his needle-teeth, they are right to. This winter he is without a bride, and he still wants to usher souls into the afterlife, the pistol hangs heavy in his pocket, his tongue glints gold, the coin to pay his Charon, his most loyal employee. He brings knives to gunfights and guns to fistfights, he stands with his arms out like their new God, these fickle humans, he welcomes the bullets. He dares them to kill him. They try.
Ares and Athena spit curses laced with whiskey from across dive bar floors, they are moving human pawns across a chessboard. They were strategists before they were gangsters, but it doesn’t matter now.
Apollo sings in a nightclub, his crooning voice from a forgotten time. He has his sister’s blood under his fingernails, from stitching up wound after wound, Artemis forgets she is not invincible anymore. He sings about the moon and wonders where she is, picking a fight with some would-be rapist, maybe it’s Zeus. It’s probably Zeus. Again.
Dionysus drinks away their shared pain, dealing LSD in dark alleyways, he whispers sweet promises and his followers believe him, he was human once and he can be again, like wine, he knew nothing so sweet could have lasted forever. Icarus sidles up to his side, asking if he’s got anything that can make you feel like you can fly. In this life, he is a junkie, and Daedalus watches with ancient, sad eyes. Icarus is melting and Dionysus is letting him.
Hestia sits by the hearth and waits for her family to come home. And she listens while they all curse their immortality. She shakes her head slow and clicks her tongue, I know, my darlings, I know.
Are gods really gods if no one believes in them anymore?
I’m against putting POC characters in tales of European origin, because, y’know, historical and ethnic accuracy is an actual thing. It’s folklore and it comes from this or that European culture so, yes, accuracy IS a thing. BUT. I’m all for making more movies based on mythology and folklore of other cultures, for example, African or Native American ones. This I support, it would be a great thing. Because, in all honesty, no one needs Black or Asian Cinderella, that’s just stupid (and, yes, inaccurate). but everyone needs more tales about a child lost in the forest meeting spirits and forest gods. Or at least lets make a movie using an Asian variant of Cinderella fairy tale, there’s more than one, y’know? Because I’m all for accuracy and I’m all for representing more than one dominant culture in multicultural society.
Are you for real? I bolded the above statements because you know what?
*I* needed a Black Cinderella. And I bet a lot of readers here did, too. We still do.
Because of colonialism, most of us have been force-fed European history, mythology, fairy tales, and Medievalism; told it’s the best, the highest, the only. It’s everywhere we look: movies, cartoons, books, tv shows, and we’re told that this is something you are required to learn, and in some cases, the only context you’re allowed for your imagination, but it’s not really for you. It’s not about you. Because you aren’t “Historically Accurate.”
You claim you’re all for accuracy? And yet, a “Black or Asian Cinderella” is in your words, “just stupid”??? None of these women are “Accurate” to base a Cinderella on??
All of these women are just automatically disqualified from having their own Cinderella Story because of their races? No matter how “Historically Accurate” they are?
I’m against putting POC characters in tales of European origin, because, y’know, historical and ethnic accuracy is an actual thing.
LISTEN UP: MY WASTED TIME IN COLLEGE STUDYING FOLKLORE IS ABOUT TO PAY OFF.
CINDERELLA IS NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT FUCKING NOT A “TALE OF EUROPEAN ORIGIN.”
Every motherfucking culture out there has a variation of the Cinderella folktale. The earliest example of the story is from EGYPT. The story falls under a broader heading of “persecuted heroine stories” (Aarne-Thompson 510, specifically 510A, but seriously fuck A-T in general). There are stories that follow the exact same theme everywhere.
Oh, but you specifically mean the traditional “Cinderella” story, right? With the glass slipper and the pumpkin and the fairy godmother?
All of which come from the version of the story written by Charles Perrault in the late 17th century.
But Perrault HIMSELF changed things about the story. Read the Brothers Grimm version: no fairy godmother, Cinderella gets her dress and shoes from a tree that’s actually her dead mother. Actually, make that DRESSES: she gets three different outfits for three different balls. The slipper used to identify her is GOLDEN and her stepsisters CUT PARTS OF THEIR FEET OFF to fucking fit into it. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the birds then peck out their eyes.
AND THE GRIMM BROTHERS VERSION ISN’T THE MOST “ACCURATE.” Because they were just recording stories they heard told all over the place. Theirs is not the “original” version of the story.
Oh, but we’re talking about not changing folktales of “European origin.” Europe’s a big place. So, we using the Scottish version with the coat of rushes and burying a dead calf to get the prince? The Irish version where they’re not stepsisters but blood relative sisters and one of them pushes the Cinderella character into a whale’s mouth and takes her place? The Russian version with a talking dead fish?
And THOSE are just the closest variations on the story. You wanna get into stuff like Vasilisa The Beautiful, you get Baba Yaga, a magical doll and, oh, yeah A SKULL ON A STICK THAT INCINERATES HER FUCKING STEP-FAMILY (which, honestly, I’ve always thought was fucking awesome). You go to A-T 510B (again, not my favorite folklore examination system) and you get stories extremely close to the Cinderella story but mostly with added gross incest shit.
WHAT I’M GETTING AT HERE: if your argument about the race of Cinderella is some kind of “respect for the story” thing, fuck you. Because you legitimately have no fucking clue what you are talking about. The nature of folktales is to adapt and change for the times and places they are being told in and the audiences they are being told FOR. And, fuck, I mean, even SHAKESPEARE has been altered through the years depending on who was in power and what audiences wanted to see.
There’s NO fucking “historical accuracy” for Cinderella because IT’S NOT A HISTORICAL DOCUMENT. It’s a fucking STORY and stories belong TO EVERYONE.
“There’s a lot to be said for making people laugh. Did you know that that’s all some people have? It isn’t much, but it’s better than nothing in this cockeyed caravan.”
This is literally what I tried to do through my entire time at college, and yet my teachers still yelled at me about not trying to ham-fist meaning into my art an animations.
I’ve watched so many Good For You ™ movies, so many that people recommended like prescriptions.
Not a single one of those, not a single one, gave me the emotional response of, say, Pacific Rim.
I don’t care what you think of that specific example, I just want to say that sometimes stupid escapist ridiculousness is exactly what the world needs.
“People don’t want the truth! They want opiates! They’re just sheep! They don’t care about my Important Meaningful Insights!”
Yeah, no, fuck off. My life is kind of difficult, I’ve been suicidal, I’m hella poor, I’m mentally ill, things aren’t rosy. I don’t want your fucking Saving Private Ryans. I don’t want your Brokeback Mountains.
I want Pacific Rim. I want The Rocketeer. I want Enchanted.
Because my life contains enough truth. Too much truth.
Take me away from that truth. Don’t dice it up, garnish it, and serve it back to me.
Take me away. That’s the real challenge. That’s the only art I really want anymore.
