All I Do Is Cry, Read Books, Listen To Music, And Stare At The Moon

I honestly do not give a flying fuck what right wingers are about to say about Dr Who. Cos you know fucking what it was beautiful. The UK is full of transphobia at the moment and it's fucking terrifying. So that was all needed every last bit of that was needed. Every fucking moment. Because we exist and we need to be seen. And that scene in the kitchen with Donna and Sylvia my parents were sitting there nodding along because they felt seen. Because they have had to try so hard to get it right with me and my siblings and sometimes they fucked up but they found a way through. And us being like this is better than us pretending to be something we're not and they get that now. And there was a person in a wheelchair an actual fucking person in a wheelchair who was there for longer than 5 minutes and mattered. So I don't care what GB News and the Daily Mail and the Tory party have to say because I will always love this silly little sci fi show about dustbins with guns and metal people and an alien and their friend who do an awful lot of running. I will always love it. It has done what it has always done, it has made the people who felt alone feel seen. And to Russel T Davies and David Tennant and Catherine Tate and Yasmin Finney thank you, thank you so fucking much.

Constellations, from Munro's Navigation

So I watched War of the Rohirrim

The ending of monster is perfect.

(My thoughts on the finale, the series, Johan’s character; and why I think it fits so well)

Before watching the last episode I thought “oh it’s the finale they’re only gonna wrap things up and tie some loose ends” but it’s done beautifully.

I know that everyone says that monster is a show about humans and their inner monster and how society creates monsters, and I agree.

But when they show you that, it’s not a way to excuse people of their bad actions, it’s to show that even in their “villainous” acts, they’re still pretty much human, you never think “oh this is something that couldn’t happen in real life”.

Eva, Roberto, Rosso, Bonaparta and so many more, they’re so different from each other, but at the core they’re still painted in the same way. They’ve done despicable acts, some more than others, but in the end they’re just people who made their choices based on their beliefs.

As I said, all human.

All presented as human except for Johan.

While the writer tries and succeeds to humanize all the other characters, giving them many layers, he dehumanizes Johan from the very early episodes. Not only he attaches to him a very “supernatural” evil presence;

«you mustn’t look at him doctor, you’ll die» / «we were hired by a monster» (in the very early episodes)

«he said that he shot something with seven heads and many horns» (in the penultimate episode).

But also the way Johan is shown doing terrible things, is very “simplified”. In his scenes they don’t really dwell a lot on the why he does what he does. Sure, they give you enough insight to keep you interested in the character and to not make him bland. It’s the viewer that with the very few lines and appearances that he has, tries to decipher his personality and his motivations. And yeah, one of the reasons for the lack of his physical presence is to add to the sense of dread that fills the viewer when he really appears. However, during the journey that Tenma has, even if Johan is not physically there, his presence is. We feel it in the tales that fall from people’s mouths and the dead bodies that Tenma encounters and the hundreds of people he corrupted. And while Tenma meets these people the show always gives a glimpse of their humanity; but with Johan it’s the opposite, it seems that every tale about him it’s evil and eviler.

You keep asking yourself why? Why? Why?

Does this kid really feel nothing?

Is it because what happened at the orphanage? But in its destruction we see him smiling, delighted by the events that unfold in front of him. Why does he keep killing the people that show him the good in humanity, the people that treat him and his sister well? What kind of kid (that is already capable of orchestrating human feelings) kills people that helped him and tells his sister to shoot him in the head, with the calm of someone that’s asking the most trivial thing?

The most beautiful thing about Johan is the complete juxtaposition of his character. Yeah he doesn’t have any morals or ethicality, whether it is to accomplish something or just to mess with the psyche of a child,

(«you can’t kill a human being!» — tenma

«why not?» —johan)

but at the same time he feels emotions. He feels sadness, he feels rage, gratification, fear, guilt

(«I wonder if I had forgiven him from the beginning what would have happened» — Nina

«Johan are you crying for me?» — Karl

«While he was seeing the drawings of us as happy kids, he was crying just like me.» — Nina

«the thing I’m most afraid of is...forgetting Anna» — Johan

«Did she try to save me or did she confuse me for my sister?» — Johan)

For the whole series, Tenma’s ideology and Johan’s are (as we all know) in contrast. I won’t make a long post about Johan’s nihilistic view of the world, because there are already tons of them. But I’d like to say this: in one episode there is a scene that involves two characters that are neither Johan or Tenma; but it sums up Johan’s character very well. This guy says something along these lines to Lunge:

«you won’t believe that Tenma is not guilty, because all your life you have been an investigator that’s never been wrong, not once, and besides that you have nothing; no hobbies or family. If you’re wrong about this case, then you won’t know who you really are, and that would break you.»

That’s why johan kills people and wants Tenma to kill him.

If someone tries to give him a name he kills them, (he believes that his mother never gave him a name.) if someone is kind to him he kills them, (he has a nihilist view of the world), if someone tries to separate him from Anna, his other half, he kills them. («it’s just me and Anna in this whole world»)

Him being wrong would break him, and that’s why we see that desperate expression on his face when in the penultimate episode he almost begs Tenma to shoot him; because if what he believed all life is true (and to him it’s the truth because people kept demonstrating that he was right) “that not all lives are created equal”, then Tenma had to shoot him. Johan had no doubt in his mind, it was logical to him: even the most benevolent man, put in the right situation, can kill a person.

Tenma doesn’t shoot. He doesn’t kill him. Chance comes in play, and that’s something that even Johan couldn’t predict.

The finale gives you an answer to your “but WHY does he think the way he thinks!” question and as a viewer I find that very satisfying.

In the last episode we find ourself in a metaphorical mexican standoff of ideologies.

«Humans are equal only in death» Johan’s ideology, because if that wasn’t true, then why was his mother capable of making a choice between her two twins. Her children, that should be equal in the eyes of a mother. But when forced to make a decision, she choses one over the other, and what messes Johan up even more is that he doesn’t know if his mother choosing him was her choice or a mistake; but there certainly was an “unwanted child”. (as he puts it)

On the other side there is Tenma, that made one choice many years before, thinking it was a difficult, but fair one. A child over a privileged adult. The child that he saved though, was a monster, and he brought it back to life unknowingly of that fact. It caused the death of so many people. If Tenma had a time machine, would he save the kid again? Or would he just let him die?

There’s no need for a time machine, because the choice presents itself to him one more time. This time he knows the true nature of the person that he has to save. And he saves him. It’s hard, but he does it not only because it’s the right thing to do according to his ideology, but if he didn’t, he’d only prove Johan that he was right. It’d be like he had shot him himself.

That’s why he goes to Johan to prove him wrong once more, when he tells him that he does have a name, that his mother did give him a name.

Is it enough to convince Johan?

(Will he unlearn the hatred that humans are capable of, like Dieter? Will he accept that he has a name, like Nina did with hers? Does he, like Lunge, discover that the simple things in life do matter and are a part of why we live? Does he forget about what he was before, because like Eva says «we only remember the good things; because otherwise humans wouldn’t be able to keep on living»? Does he “turn human” again, discovering the peace that Grimmer found in his death?)

We don’t know.

We only know that the nameless monster isn’t there anymore.

It’s like he never existed in the first place.

Moments women make me forget men exist:

- when they just don't give a fuck

- when they laugh really loud

- when they're comfortable enough to be ugly

-when they're fearless in the face of god

- when they dance

- when they don't compromise

- when they're kind to themselves and their friends

- when they're lgbt <3

- when they feel themselves

portrait of a lady on fire, dir. céline sciamma // doubt comes in, hadestown // eurydice, sarah ruhl // metamorphoses: book x, ovid trans. anthony kline // “eurydice”, ocean vuong // talk, hozier

[Image Descriptions not found in alt text:

image 4: text from Metamorphoses: Book X by Ovid that reads “They took the upward path, through the still silence, steep and dark, shadowy with dense fog, drawing near the threshold of the upper world. Afraid she was no longer there, and eager to see her, the lover turned his eyes. In an instant she turned back, and he, unhappy man, stretching out his arms to hold her and be held, clutched at nothing but the receding air. Dying a second time now, there was no complaint to her husband (what, then, could she complain of, except that she had been loved?). She spoke a last ‘farewell’ that, now, scarcely reached his ears, and turned against towards that same plane.”

image 6: screenshot of lyrics from “Talk” by Hozier that reads “I’d be the voice that urged Orpheus / when her body was found (Hey, yeah) / I’d be the choiceless hope in grief / That drove him underground (Hey, yeah) / I’d be the dreadful need in the devotee / That made him turn around (Hey, yeah) / And I’d be the immediate forgiveness / In Eurydice / Imagine being loved by me”

End Image Description]

rawest fucking florence and the machine lyrics in no particular order:

no more dreaming of the dead as if death itself was undone

want me to love you in moderation, do i look moderate to you?

this will be my last confession, ‘i love you’ never felt like any blessing, whisper it like it’s a secret only to condemn the one who hears it

because i am done with my graceless heart, so tonight i’m gonna cut it out and then restart

tenderest touch leaves the darkest of marks and the kindest of kisses breaks the hardest of hearts

you don’t have to be a ghost here among the living, you are flesh and blood, and you deserve to be loved and you deserve what you are given, and oh how much

but the loneliness never left me, i always took it with me, but i can put it down in the pleasure of your company

at seventeen i started to starve myself, i thought that love was a kind of emptiness, but at least i understood then the hunger i felt, and i didn’t have to call it loneliness 

the fabric of your flesh, pure as a wedding dress

it’s an evensong, it’s a melody, it’s a battle cry, it’s a symphony 

but i know it’ll have to drown me, before i can breathe easy

to the crowd i was crying out, and in your place there were a thousand other faces

and it’s over and i’m going under, but i’m not giving up i’m just giving in

in a moment of joy and fury i threw myself from the balcony like my grandmother, so many years before me

and it’s peaceful in the deep, cathedral where you cannot breathe

i know i seem shaky, these hands aren’t fit for holding

i’m not beat up by this yet, you can’t tell me to regret, been in the dark since the day we met, fire help me to forget

it seems that i have been held in this dreaming state, a tourist in the waking world, never quite awake

shower your affection, let it rain on me, pull down this mountain, drag your cities to the sea

and i did cartwheels in your honor, dancing on tiptoes, my own secret ceremonials

a year like this passes so strangely, somewhere between sorrow and bliss

in the spring, i shed my skin and it blows away with the changing winds

i swallow the sound and it swallows me whole until there’s nothing left inside my soul

And how does it feel now you’ve scratched that itch? And pulled out all your stitches? Hubris is a bitch

and i want you so badly, but you could be anyone 

drink too much coffee and think of you often in a city where reality has long been forgotten, and are you afraid, because I’m terrified, but you remind me that it’s such a wonderful thing to love

i was in the darkness, so darkness i became

The Gaang Grown Up

Another wip cuz I do wanna draw all the robins,,, initially was planning to wait until I finish the whole thing (this will never happen-) but I’m still figuring out what details to put for Jason since I’ve been trying to revolve the compositions around their costumes 🥲🥲

Thinking about aligning his symbol with the all caste tattoos and the negative space showing his robin phase,,,

Aaa they look so nice all side by side 🥹 Steph Damian next if my art block passes 🥲🥲

Fushiguro: I like a person who's environmentally aware

Itadori: *pointing up* that's the sun