Little Forest

FANTASTIC MR. FOX (2009), dir. Wes Anderson

really love dynamics that are like 'it honestly doesn't matter if you view them as romantic or platonic, the point is that they love each other. the type of love is inconsequential, all that matters is that it's there'. gotta be one of my favorite genders.

Raskolnikov talking for three full pages about how there's Ordinary People and Extraordinary People, and these people are allowed to kill the Ordinary People in order to advance humanity. And the police commissioner humoring him and asking questions about how often these people come about, to what extent their rule reaches, how to tell the difference between an Extraordinary Person and an Ordinary Person. And Razumikhin finally interrupting them by yelling WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU FUCKING TALKING ABOUT

Can we stop acting like two people deeply loving each other has to mean they have something romantic or sexual going on? Can we stop talking as if platonic love just can't be that deep? Because that's not true. Platonic love can be just as deep, and sometimes even deeper, than romantic love. What I'm saying is, we need to stop putting romance on this pedestal and act like every other form of love is less important.

Stop motion movies are so comforting and joy and a lot of it is insanely underrated and deserves way more attention

Another thing I really like about Koisenu Futari, is how it exemplifies the ways amatonormativity also impacts allo people.

When Sakuko’s sister Minori gets proof that her husband is cheating on her (after actively investigating to make sure).

She’s still hesitant to divorce him.

Not because she still loves him (that doesn’t come up even once).

Not because he is a great husband beyond the cheating (the screaming match about how she was the only one taking care of their daughter shows pretty clearly that he wasn’t pulling his weight).

Not even because it’s a lot harder to raise two kids on her own (tough it is mention in passing - did I mention she’s 9 months pregnant at that point? and then promptly goes into labor?).

Not even really what society is going to say about her (even tough it would be completely justified, especially in Japan).

But because she’s terrified of being alone.

And then again while she's in labor

In that way, she mirrors Sakuko’s own fear of loneliness.

And of course, she associates being single with being lonely. Because amatonormativity.

She verbalizes the relationship elevator: getting married, having a child, buying a house, another child. She calls it "a game of adulthood".

But while she comes to the conclusion that she failed at this "game of adulthood", she doesn't really get to the conclusion that it's bullshit.

Even with her sister's example right in front of her, she has trouble imagining happiness outside of marriage.

Most likely because she still sees Sakuko and Takahashi's relationship as abnormal, and therefore reserved to abnormal people. So she can't apply their example of being happy outside of marriage to herself yet. Not when she's tried to hard to be the perfect normal woman.

But no matter if Minori believes it or not, single doesn't have to mean lonely, which Sakuko proves immediately by promising to always stand by her sister's side.

And then Sakuko meets Takahashi’s ex Haruka, who explains that she moved to the countryside after their break-up, and then started up her (now very successful) farm.

Sakuko’s reaction is to say it was then a blessing in disguise

To which Haruka thanks her, saying that most people are just sad for her because she’s “old” (around 40) and still single, even tough she’s perfectly happy as is.

She’s a really good illustration that:

amatonormativity impacts everyone who strays out of it, it doesn't matter if you're aro or allo

you don’t need to be aro to be happy outside of amatonormativity’s expectation

And in that way, I feel like that makes her an optimistic answer to Minori’s concerns about loneliness.

(And then of course there is Kazu-kun, but there is so much to say about him, he'll get his own post.)

I really liked that the shows takes the time to talk about those experiences, because it makes amatonormativity much more real. It is a systemic issue, so of course it impacts everyone.

And I think we've all had discussions like this, where other people's own internalized amatonormativity also completely invalidated our experiences.

So it was great to see it explored so clearly here.

(also this has nothing and everything to do with it, but the fact that in the credit, Minori is called by her husband's name. I don't think it's used in the show itself but. You know. All of a woman identity depending on her husband. All that.)

The Shining (1980) Hannibal (2013-2015)

Roma (2018), dir. by Alfonso Cuarón

Kodama:*Comes out as aro and starts lecturing her family on how harmful putting expectations on marriage can be.*

Takahashi:

I don’t think I am physically able to put, A Little Life, Jude St. Francis, into words of how he makes me feel.

I’m reading a lot of people who are angry at Jude for k-lling himself in the end: and then there are people who are angry the way he was written, which was Jude’s belief of “I deserve this pain” and “no, I won’t go to someone who will help me.” And let me just cast in my 12 cents.

Jude believed that he deserved to be hurt and should pay for his “badness” by punishing himself. He was told at a young child that he was wrong, bad, wicked, over and over by people he believed where good and were their to take care of him, example? Brother Luke.

But why didn’t Jude stop? Even after he was hold he was good and kind, why did Jude believe he would keep hurting himself? Simple, he believed that it was just who he was and how he was to be treated. I’ll explain, when someone is raised to believe that they are the best, and that they should get everything they want and everyone should do everything in their power to get them what they want. And when you tell that person they need to be humble, they are going to tell you off and continue in there ways and thinking. Jude is the same way, he was told he was wrong, and everyone else who was trying to tell him he was good, he wouldn’t believe them. He couldn’t allow himself to believe it because he saw love as a lie.

He believed that hurting himself was just part of him, something he had to do. Like brushing your teeth and taking out the trash, he had to hurt himself because it was who he believed he was. It was his identity. And he was afraid that if he took away that self loathing and self hatred, he wouldn’t know who he was.

And that’s where William comes in. William helped him understand who Jude was. Something to be loved, and cared for, something to want to come home too. Sure Harold also showed him this, but it wasn’t the same relationship. William loved Jude without reason, but Jude believed that Harold loved him like one would love a puppy. You bought the puppy, therefore you must take care of it. But this does not mean that Jude didn’t see Harold love for him, he couldn’t see why or how he could be loved from a Father relationship.

William proved to Jude that no matter what he did, William would be there. William wanted Jude to be better, William took steps to making sure Jude was getting better, William set up healthy walls to tell Jude to fix himself, seek help and to take care of himself. And with William help, Jude gave himself a new identity. He was not completely whole, but he was seeing himself of something deserving of love, and to be cared for. And when William died, Jude lost that part of himself. Jude couldn’t see himself of someone deserving of love because that one person who he believed could loved him with all his scars and walls down was gone.

Even with everyone around Jude telling him that he is loved, he couldn’t believe it, or had a hard time believing it because it was all words to him. He saw their actions as something he should be angry at because they were made out of sympathy and not out of love. And even at the end of the book where we see Jude get better and start taking the necessary steps to getting better he still died in the end.

And that is what is the biggest pill to swallow in the end. At the end of the book, we all fell in love with Jude. Each of us grieved for him, I cried harder over his death and mourned for Jude harder than I have ever wept for someone I knew personally. In the end, Jude still died. And for this reason, I can’t put what this book makes me feel into words. This book makes me feel that I need to go in a room all alone and just stare into the stars and wait till my body is ready to keep on breathing.

As a person who chronically wants to end their own existence I saw myself in Jude. I saw his pain, his sufferings and understood why he believed he was “made for pain” or “made to suffer.” And this is the same lie I was telling myself for years, I said it so much that it never accorded to me that I deserved anything else until someone showed me the reason why I should be loved. But Jude died believing that people saw him as a burden. And I don’t have a response for that. Other than just unending tears.