[Astarion] is a cat. He’s a black cat. There’s a stray that comes into my house called Red… and he’s quite feral. It took me three years before I could pick him up and hold him. He’s totally cool with me now. Three fucking years. He gave me a lot of inspiration about Astarion.
- Neil Newbon, on developing Astarion’s physicality and mannerisms
Disability rights means nothing without body neutrality, and I mean this 100%. Plenty of disabled people look different, have scars and are missing limbs, have poorly maintained hair and teeth, and calling yourself a disability rights activist but staring at people who “look/act weird” cannot be ok.
You are going to laugh until your stomach hurts again. You’re going to be in awe of a sunset. Watch your favorite show while you eat your favorite food. Find money on the street. Discover a great band you haven’t heard of before. You will find your way back.
someone who loves you just told a sweet story about you. someone else just saw your favorite food in the store and almost bought it even though you’re far away. someone walked past your house and thought the garden looked nice. you are never as alone as you feel
I’ve seen so many posts like this lately and it’s like, I understand the sentiment to some extent. I get that it’s very annoying when people insist hays code style that media needs to be uplifting and morally correct or it shouldn’t be produced. But I’ve seen this sentiment used to express frustration about any political/ethical/analytical framework being applied to gothic horror like “well it’s gothic horror!! It’s supposed to be fucked up!! Stop analyzing it to death!” But gothic horror, any horror, is about conventional morality. It’s about violation of the boundaries between what is normative, “correct” behavior and what is taboo. Something has to feel “wrong” to us, the viewer—whether it be bodily, socially, psychologically, etc—for us to be scared of it. If everything is permissible nothing is scary. All horror is a reaction/rejection/affirmation, which is to say an exploration, of the morals a given culture. Like horror is asking moral questions by it’s very nature. To have any meaningful analysis of horror at all “morality” has to be a part of the conversation. And if you don’t want to have that conversation, fine. But it seems like people do, they just want to use the term gothic horror selectively to dismiss things they don’t feel like addressing
Additionally, the word gothic is thrown around so much as if it’s a particular type of horror in which characters are allowed more latitude for bad behavior which. Like idk the gothic is a very loose genre, so loose some considered it an aesthetic, but it’s not more permissible/less severe in regards to villainy. Like hauntings and the return of the repressed, the consequences of long past actions, is one of the few hallmarks of the genre. Like there’s a genre wide focus on the consequences of misdeeds. If you want horror without having to think about the implications of said horror the gothic isn’t the genre for you
I feel like I should’ve been more specific that I was thinking about anti blackness here, and this insane idea that blackness has no place in the gothic, or if it does it should be treated as “neutrally” as “whiteness” is (obviously whiteness isn’t neutral but it’s largely experienced that way by white audiences), when, in speaking about the American Gothic specifically, slavery is the ultimate abject, the Big Thing being repressed
I don’t have children so take this with a grain of salt but I hate when you can tell people like the concept of their children more than their well-being. Parents like the concept of an all-beige nursery that’s photogenic more than they care about the development of their kid’s brain. They like the concept of a cutely dressed kid in designer clothes more than they care about their comfort and personal desires. They like the concept of a child who never eats poorly more than they care about the happiness that can come from a child eating some candy now and then. People need to stop treating their kids like little dolls
