rollingpenny:

calantheandthenightingale:

theblacklacedandy:

typette:

I remember posting somewhere once in a thread about why girls aren’t exploited in animation anymore where some guy said, “all the disney girls are drawn to be generally attractive, but I don’t think there are any eye-candy men… or are there? Are there any Disney men that lots of girls like?” and I mentioned Roger. Tons of girls replied agreeing with me and the original guy was like “wait, Roger? from 101 Dalmatians? What’s attractive about him, he’s tall and lanky and has a big nose, he isn’t muscley at all! Wouldn’t you all prefer Gaston or something? Or do you girls think his big nose is indicative of something else?” and I was like “no, you idiot, he’s a silly, goofy guy who likes animals and can play a bunch of instruments, that’s why he’s attractive. What’s the matter with you? Gaston, seriously?”

This is why we need more girls in animation. And more guys like Roger apparently. 

I HAVE THE BIGGEST CRUSH ON ROBERT

SCUZE ME HE IS SUPER ATTRACTIVE

Roger <3  Definitely the best Disney guy out there.  In a way, he’s probably a more idealized interpretation of what girls want in a guy than any of the princes; he’s funny, nerdy, talented, and passionate about his work, whereas all the Disney princes are just generic hot guys with maybe one personality trait— and that’s if you’re lucky because most of them don’t even have that.

And tall, lanky guys are super attractive.

I don’t know about you but the big nose sells it for me.

Gosh I love retyping analysis posts after my phone drops them on upload.

Okay, so let’s compare these two guys to get an idea of why the average girl (on tumblr) might find Robert more attractive than Gaston.

1. They both want to bring their work home with them.
   For Gaston, that means racks and racks of antlers on the walls, a pack of hunting dogs lying all over the place, making a right proper mess which would be the wife’s responsibility to clean up.
   For Robert, this means an apartment full of music, improvising little jingles about the unreasonable boss to cheer his wife up.
   So, by basic count, it’s a better situation for the chick to be involved with Robert—sure you’ll probably be poor, but home will be a fun place to be.
2. The nature of the relationship to women
   Gaston expects his little wife to agree instantly to marry him, the day of an impromptu wedding, and then settle into a life of cleaning up after him, cooking for him, and bearing, birthing, and taking care of half a dozen kids—fine strapping young lads! Within the cultural context, he believes he’s providing a good life for the woman. However! He completely discourages her natural traits of independent thinking and love of books. That is not a marriage to look forward to.
   Robert, however, is set up to be a partner to his wife. They both already have careers and independent lives and responsibilities when they meet, and then after a happenstance meeting they bond over mutual interests—those responsibilities and mutual interests including two Dalmatians. Neither of them need someone else to take care of everything for them. They are set up to work together on unexpected issues, like say their dogs getting up at 5 AM to make all these goddamn puppies. They start out as equals and continue to be equals.
3. Personality
   This depends on the person, but personality can be at least as important than the physical person, and I want to say more often than not personality is much more important.
   Let’s make no mistake about Gaston: he is difficult to objectively view as an attractive partner because he is the villain of the movie. However, those traits are reasons why he is not a desirable partner. He is manipulative, controlling, views the desires of others with complete disregard, and is violent past his hunting. (He doesn’t appear to be blatantly violent towards women, but he has about one scene alone with a women, and his cultural context isn’t the most auspicious for this standard.) At best he is ill-suited for Belle and worse down the line is just, well, worse.
   However, in 100+1 Dalmatians, dogs are used as a visual motif to indicate the sort of people how have the dogs. (C’mon, you know you loved that sequence when Pongo was choosing a pair for himself and his master.) A lady with a dalmatian is visual shorthand for a lady who is very similar to Roger, and that similarity would make her a good partner. The story goes on to prove this—they are both kind, creative, and funny with each other. They match. (It’s worth noting that their marriage is more complex and more interesting than that of John Dear and Darling in Lady and the Tramp. They are simplistic images as suits the different relationship between dogs and people in that movie—they are Husband and Wife, while Roger and Anita are two people who fall in love.)

All of this to say: Yes, Roger’s a good one to look at. There’s nothing wrong with a lanky figure, and the nose doesn’t detract from attractiveness but rather move him a bit away from the standard of perfection, and since perfection is a frakking difficult and scary standard, that’s great! Gaston believes in the standard of perfection, and it makes him overbearing and in many ways grotesque. It is the person that can more often attract a girl and cause her to remember. (By no means am I saying girls to not sexually objectify men or characters—oh ho ho, that happens plenty. But usually our absolute favorites are important to us for other reasons, or rather, additional reasons.) What a man wants from a woman is at least as important as what he offers her. What Gaston offers is unwanted and what he demands is unreasonable, leaving his masculine ideal of perfection even more undesirable. What Roger offers is respect, companionship, laughter, music, and an equal sharing of talents and life. What he asks is essentially the same. And going back to the visual motif idea, he and Anita are well suited physically as well. It is appealing to girls to be equals, to be partners in being loved rather than to be a convenient object of affection (as Gaston projects his Little Wife concept onto Belle, superimposing it over her actual character). This is more appealing than a masculine ideal of perfection.

me-again5:

Warning: Huge-ass rant below the cut

Read More

PREACH.

Hey—hey you. You there, Takagi. Yes. I have a good idea for you.

You like Aoki so much in comparison to Miyoshi? Fine. Great. Good for you. Date her instead. She’s meek and quiet and feminine and thoughtful and intelligent, and if I’ve been paying enough attention to character designs, her breasts aren’t half bad either. That’s what you liked about Miyoshi, right? You always complained about how loud and jealous and tomboyish she was—so break up with her! If you like Aoki so much, and you dislike so much about Myoshi, then what the hell is stopping you?

Oh yeah. You’re waiting for her to fix things for you.

Earlier when I read the chapters with the beginning of Takagi and Aoki working together, I kept saying “This ship is poison,” because I just knew that hoping for two creative and passionate people to be together would never work out if those two were him and her. But I’m beginning not to think that this ship is poison—I’m beginning to think that Takagi is the problem. “Toxic” is the wrong word, so “problem” is what I’ll go with, and the tag Problem Takagi.

W-whaaaaaat’s thaaaaaaat now? I-you say it’s hard to get things done on time without an unpaid assistant happily jumping in on any job you’ll give her?

And I just felt like documenting further evidence that Mashiro probably actually cares about Miyoshi more than Takagi does. Mashiro thinks they should pay her for her work, Takagi says “Don’t say that so loud.” Mashiro says “If it’s for the manga… But don’t do anything that will make her cry.” Takagi pays no attention to her, doesn’t notice when they haven’t spoken in over a week, and doesn’t do too much to clear up that misunderstanding that causes her to cry. Mashiro admits her value on multiple occasions, Takagi doesn’t want to be reminded of shit like that.

Guys. I’m sorry. It’s just that Takagi bothers me, and that guys in real life like him exist bothers me too. (I just want the two of them to have a definitive breakup and go their separate ways—is that really too much to ask? I’m not even asking for Takagi to change! I’m just asking for him to get in a relationship that suits him better so he can theoretically learn to value someone personally in a way that he just doesn’t value Miyoshi.)

When your best friend is always the one to consider your girlfriend before you: you are boyfriending wrong.

Okay. I think it’s finally time for me to talk about my Miyoshi feelings.

I’m not going to start at the beginning—I’m going to start at the turn.

I’m starting at the turn because I don’t want to talk about how much I disliked Miyoshi at the beginning. I don’t want to talk about how clingy, selfish, loud, violent, stupid, inconsiderate, and above all else pushy she was. I don’t want to talk about how I disliked her appointing herself Takagi’s girlfriend, forcing herself into their lives when she wasn’t really wanted, and clinging to Takagi with demands.

Which is why I am going to talk about the turn, the serialization period. Here, she was certainly a great help. She made the guys food and drinks. She spent hours upon hours reading and watching mystery after mystery, analyzing to take all kinds of notes so Mr. Big Important Writer could write. She was concerned with helping the guys to be a success, and her bad features decreased—she was less pushy, worlds less self-centered, and less generally annoying.

And then the turn came. The turn came when Sekai said to Takagi that they should pay her for working as hard as the assistants, and Takagi immediately shot that idea down. Equal work for equal wages meets free labor as a relationship perk. Fuck you, Takagi.

What happened there, even when she has her pushy moments like proposing marriage, is she is becoming independent from Takagi. This matters. When she is defining herself by her boyfriend, she annoys me. When she is defining herself by their corporate author, I want to fight for her workplace rights.

And that’s why this brief scene is important to me: because she is expressing a desire in a direction away from them, and is meeting with jokes rather than support. Her boyfriend didn’t want her going to college with them so he could have a bit more freedom to talk to girls, but Sekai was the one who wanted her with them. She immidiately jumped on their bandwagon because that’s her character and what she does, and I seriously doubt her commitment to that hypothetical girls’ college, but there’s no consideration of her. And again, Takagi’s the one making comments against her while his buddy is the one who is at least thinking of her skills when he speaks.

In short: I actually want to see Takagi and Miyoshi break up. I want to see them acknowledge they’ve learned important lessons from each other, they’ve had a good time, and break up on decent terms. I want to see her pursue things, figure out what she wants in life—because it’s okay to not know what she wants out of life right then and there, before high school graduation. And I want to see Takagi enjoying his freedom with other girls, doing his own story research, cooking his own meals and making his own all-nighter food. I want to see them grow individually as characters, and I’m cool if that growth happens off-screen as Miyoshi goes to have her life somewhere else.

But that obviously isn’t going to happen, so I’ll shut my mouth.

I just realized why I like Kate Nash’s relationship songs, like this and “We Get On”—because she doesn’t write love songs. She writes relationship songs. There is so muc realism to it, and good melodies and the cathiest hooks.

Since I write so many things that are non-love stories because non-love in romantic situations is more real to me than lovey-dovery romantic love, I’m unreasonably ecstatic about this realization.

Bless Kate Nash.

kylesawkwardface:

Ji-Hoo: If the person you love is suffering because of you, can you let her go?

JoonPyo: No. I don’t let go. I can’t let go. I will hold on tightly to her… and definitely make her happy

Caution: Post contains language.

Okay, I really really really fucking hate this.  I hate this so much. I hate that women have this reputation for mindless double talk. I hate that women have done so fucking much to earn this reputation. I hate it that I have to bear this godammed reputation simply because I was born female.

1. If you have a problem, you had better God damn well say so about it. If you won’t open up your mouth and say “I have a problem with…” then please don’t think you have room to get mad. Your passive-aggressiveness is bringing down the entire gender, bitch.
2. If you express care for the other person’s tiredness, then perhaps don’t do so with completely selfish motives?
3. A possible exception, because this isn’t just female twofacedness, this is human twofacedness. This is the fact that our culture has this sort of stigma about crying, and one will put on a brave face in order to get somewhere private to do the crying. But this could also be my thing about taking what people tell me at face value.
4. Here’s an idea: state what you want clearly. Or hint clearly.
5. No. No. No. No. No. No, let’s nottell the male population “When I say one thing, I mean the exact opposite. When I tell you ‘go away’ it means ‘come hither.’ When I tell you ‘no,’ especially ‘oh God no please no’ it means ‘yes, very much yes.’” Just… just dear God, how is it okay to send this message?
6. No. Love is a no-fault business. You can love without being loved in return. It’s not nearly as fulfilling, but just because you give those words unsolicited is no reason to demand returns.

Here’s the big thing that it keeps coming back to for me: for the love of God, why can’t we communicate at face value? I mean, everyonelies. Everyone. But the thing about lying is that there should be a reason, a motivation, a desired end. It should be a choice, not just incidental. Fucking say what you mean, and mean what you say. And for the love of God, women! Men are not mind readers!Weare not mind readers! It is completely unfair to expect them to know what you mean if you won’t tell them so yourself.

And that is my rant on the subject of The Stereotype of Female Twofacedness. Summary: Fuck all, why can’t women just be face-value about things so I don’t have to put up with this? Or, if you’re not being face value, let’s at least have some property value to the masks we wear, because masking can be important as well. 

mementomoryo:

gyzym:

domics:

Friend Zone: A barren land where hopes and dreams of intimacy are crushed within the walls of misunderstood companionship.

Alternately:

friend • zone [frend-zohn], noun:

1) A mythical place believed in by assholes and those who do not know better, invented in line with the deeply fallacious concept that physical and romantic intimacy precludes friendship rather than relies on it

2) A phrase commonly used by, or in conjunction with, those individuals possessed of the dreaded “Nice Guy Complex”

3) Unfounded, incorrect, and utterly ridiculous in every way [see also: bull • shit]

I forget who originally wrote this, and I’m paraphrasing a bit, but I’ve incorporated it into my personal philosophy. It goes a little like this:

If a guy isn’t good enough to be my friend, then he sure as shit isn’t good enough to obtain access to my vagina.

 However: there is another mystical zone, referred to as the Brother Zone. You have been Brother Zoned when the girl uses the phrase “You’re like a brother to me.”

In order to be removed from the Brother zone, try one or more of the following:

• An actual romantic gesture. The girl will likely be receptive to the “hey, you want to go out and [do an activity together]?” because she views you as completely harmless. Your weapons are: chocolate covered strawberries, her favorite music, inside jokes, and conversations that lead her to the realization that no one understands her like you do.
• Beating up the guy who broke her heart, or at least trying to. Revenge is sexy, and what starts as a rebound can become something beautiful.
• An honest conversation about the relationship, minus the romantic gestures.

God go with you in combat, gentlemen.

Sometimes I feel lonely. Sometimes I sigh and wonder to myself what the heck I’m doing wrong that I don’t attract men with my looks, conversation, or personality. Sometimes I wonder if what I’m asking for in a boyfriend is simply too much.

And then my roommate comes in and talks about (or yells about) or has legitimate complaints about her boyfriend, and I say “thank God I’m single.”

Stay frosty, my friends.

Go out to a lovely Valentine’s Day lunch with my parents (Golden Corral=chocolate waterfall=chocolate covered strawberries w/o depending on a man to give them to me), but my appetite’s wonky because I’m exhausted, so I come back to the dorm for a lovely nap.

Walk into the room and a roommate is yelling over the phone about Valentine’s Day frustrations.

Thank God I’m single today. Stay frosty, my friends.

…Now, does it make me a horrible person that I’m not buying the whole “don’t worry, etc. God is writing your love story, soul mate will come in time” thing? Not that I’m knocking it or lack faith in it, but… really? A person expresses frustration, disappointment, or lonliness, and the immediate response is “Marriage will happen in time!”

…Um, I’m not looking to get married, sorry. Not right now, at least. Seriously. If I’m saying “gosh, it would be nice to have someone to spend my Friday nights happily wasting time with,” then you don’t talk about God’s perfect plan for who I’m going to spend the rest of my life with. You either say, “hey, I know this nice guy,” or “I totally understand. Pride & Prejudice?” And the answer would be yes, because I love me some Davenport.

Perspective, my dear fellow Christians, that’s all I’m asking for.

Been a while since I wrote a post (partially b/c I’m so far behind on reading Pride & Prejudice that there’s not much sense in trying to cram 20 chapters in to finish the novel on schedule, and without my close-reading, I’m not getting my analysis to post).

So, here’s a post about awkwardness.

I hang out with too many guys. I really do. Almost all of my “hey let’s hang out” friends are guys. One of those guys shows pronounced signs of facebook stalking me (but then he may facebook stalk a lot of people and it’s just normal for him). There have been times when our conversation may have been flirting, but then maybe not because I’m used to constantly joking and having pleasant conversations with people, so it could have just been that.

Because we (collectively my large group of friends) were unable to get a lounge for movie night last night, I got my friends properly checked in and we had movie night in my room with my 20” TV. This is all fine and well.

But aparently one of my roommates used to date the male spoken of above. I try to avoid speaking of others’ business, but some of it is relevant here. And it’s my tumblr, and I ought to be able to talk about my own life here. Because the internet is a totally safe place. Forever.

You see, I’m still learning a bunch of this feminine-relationships junk. Hanging out with guys doesn’t help, go fig. So Roommate 2 was so good as to warn me of the former relationship when he was out of the room, and mentioned that Roommate 1 would probably be staying out of the room for the evening because apparently she can’t stand him. When she came into the room after her night class (having been warned by good Roommate 2 of his presence), she was certainly civil, even pleasant, if a little quiet. But her current boyfriend was there, and made a point of walking across the room to hand Roommate 2 some coffee she’d requested Roommate 1 to bring. After Movie Night finished and my friends left, Roommate 1 made a point that it wasn’t an issue if my friends and I needed the room for our movie nights, and she was ticked off with her own boyfriend’s “She’s with me now” alpha-posturing behavior. The unnamed male in question knows that Roommate 1 is with her current boyfriend, so walking across the TV to assert his presence. It was pretty passive-aggressive, and if I were more perceptive I would have read that into it instead of merely thinking “Huh. That’s off.” So.

So there’s often this disconnect between what ladies say and mean. This is one of the things that really frustrates me about being female because people both male and female expect this of me (particularly males) when I never learned how, and I sure as heck never learned how to decipher it. Roommate 1 may indeed be fine with whomever I wish to hang out with, or she may have been filtering her feelings in order to respect my feelings and acquaintances. Maybe Roommate 2 is the one who is less than cool with him being around, because aparently when his relationship with Roommate 1 was on the rocks, it fell to R2 to comfort him, and I try not to read into things lest I do so badly, but I would not call her tone happy, so the possibility that she’s projecting is also within reason. Or, because we’re freaking females, it’s all possibilities at once with just varying degrees of intensity.

Gahr, and we’re not even to the end of the issue! Freaking emotions and interpersonal relationships.

So the thing is, I haven’t got a freaking clue what I want here, and I hate it when I don’t know what I want. Indecisiveness is an unattractive personality trait, I don’t care who you are. In the hierarchy of priorities, being on good terms with the ladies with whom I live is higher than pursuing/facilitating the pursuit of a relationship with someone I cannot say that I have pronounced feelings for. (Certainly he’s a decent guy who shares some mutual interests with me, and Roommate 1 said he’s a decent guy and better than a number of others. Apparently one of the contributing factors to their breakup was that she was not a fan of some of the things he had done. And that I have written is absolutely all I know of the matter. Oh, and R1’s boyfriend was apparently ticked that we were not watching Scott Pilgrim vs. The World as planned. He’s kind of a jerk, but thankfully not in ways that are my problem.)

I. Am. Out. Of. My. Emotional. Depth. So my decision is just to sit back and try to be chill about this, and thank God that other friends than just him are joining me for a Big Band [Valentine’s] concert this coming Friday.One of my few current female friends and her boyfriend are joining me for that, and the last thing I want is an awkward ambiguous double-date.

Stay frosty, my friends. Someone at least should.