5rzefona - Untitled

shakarian roleplaying

based on this vine

My comedic genius is vastly unappreciated on twitter

Shepard stealing her LI’s clothes?! YES PLEASE.

Bonus: Garrus not being quite as thrilled about it. Wanna tell us again how much turians hate the cold? 

LET’S GROOVE! an ode to unsettling dance scenes

Good movies for my fellow feminists (interesting female leads and stories)

Gravity

An astronaut tries to survive and find her way back to earth after an incident left her stranded in space.

Gett, the trial of Viviane Amsalem

A woman tries to divorce her husband but faces the misogyny of a rabbinical court.

Gerald’s Game

After being coerced into BDSM by her creepy husband, a woman finds herself abandonned, handcuffed to the bed and starts remembering the sexual abuse she endured as a child. She tries to free herself (both figuratively and litterally).

Doubt

Two nuns start suspecting that the priest of their parish is a pedophile and decide to confront him despite his authority as a male leader in a patriarchal institution.

M.F.A

After the man she had a crush on rapes her at a party on campus an art student realizes that most rapists get away with it. She decides to take matters into her own hands and becomes a serial killer of rapists.

Midsommar

After a tragic loss, a woman is struggling with grief and panic attacks. Her boyfriend is an absolute douchebag but the only person she has left. Him and his friends invite her to a trip to Sweden where they join a bizarre cult which turns out to be deadly. Keep in mind this is a horror movie.

Trust

A young girl is groomed by a pedophile and a culture that sexualizes girls more and more. After she is raped, both she and her father struggle to recover and communicate as she denies that it was rape claiming the pedophile loved her and he feels powerless to help her.

Camp X Ray

A young woman joins the army and is sent to Guantanamo Bay to help protect her country from terrorism only to discover that she is in fact helping her country commit human rights violations against muslim men emprisonned without trial, one of whom she becomes friend with. She also has to face sexist discrimination and sexual harassment from her peers.

Beatriz at dinner

Beatriz is a gentle and thoughtful vegetarian woman from Mexico who is invited to a dinner with rich white people. Throughout the dinner she can’t help confronting them about capitalism, racism and animal cruelty. As the evening gets more and more heated she starts considering murdering the rich white man who embodies the destruction of her values.

Another Earth

A young woman responsible for a car crash that killed a family is working as a cleaner and ends up working for the man who’s family she killed. She tries to help him recover from depression and grief. A relationship begins but he doesn’t know who she really is.

Hard Candy

Pretending to be a clueless teenager online, a girl is invited to a man’s house where she drugs him and holds him hostage accusing him of being a pedophile.

Ingrid Goes West

Ingrid wants to be popular like all the bourgeois instagram influencers who’s lives always seem so perfect. She becomes obsessed with one of them and starts stalking her and creating a fake identity to try and become part of her life. 

Monster

Monster tells the real story of a prostituted woman who was executed for killing her rapist and other “clients” after him. The movie also focuses on her relationship with her girlfriend.

Notes on a scandal

A narcissistic and deeply manipulative teacher becomes obsessed with the new teacher at her school. She sees a love story… where there is none.

Precious

With the help of a sympathetic teacher, Precious, who comes from a poor family and is abused by her mother, tries to find a way out and build the confidence she never had after years of humiliation.

The Others

An isolated and very strict mother of two is frustrated with her daughter saying there are ghosts in the house that she calls “the others”. Turns out… there’s definitely something creepy going on. If you like intelligent scary movies without the gore this one is great.

The Stoning of Soraya M

In a remote muslim village, a man tries to get rid of his wife by accusing her of adultery and getting her stoned to death. The movie takes us through the surreal process of patriarchal “justice” with its inescapable and gruesome ending. Based on a true story.

Wild

After the death of her mother, a woman decides to go on a hiking trip alone for the first time, with all its difficulties, especially as a woman.

Speak

An introverted teenager who doesn’t fit in stops talking after she is raped at a party. No one understands what is wrong with her. Slowly she tries to find the strength to trust and speak again.

some thoughts on ONE and his themes

i’ve been sitting on this for a little bit bc it’s a more personal thing and super tough to articulate besides, but here goes.

Most shounen mangaka center their stories around superpowered teenagers and children, which is just fine! I like wish fulfillment just as much as the next person. But I have to give a shoutout to ONE for doing what I haven’t yet seen another mangaka do, and capturing the particular mid-to-late-20′s sort of mini crisis a lot of people get after college, where they’ve been working justt long enough that they’re starting to stare down the barrel of “is this what i’m going to do forever and ever until i die oh god” and “I have a job and checked off all my ‘accomplishment’ boxes but now am floundering without the structure of childhood and academia”. As someone who went through a complete 180 career change in my early 20s, it means so much to me to see a young-20s character like Reigen, or Saitama, be disillusioned with their careers and switch tracks, or be depressed and unable to find fulfillment in their “same-old” routines, and have that be an important, central point of the story. I relate painfully to Reigen sitting at his desk and thinking about how he was bored and unfulfilled at his old job, and i feel like I can really appreciate the fact that he left it and made a change for himself. I relate to Saitama, if not to his godlike powers then to his feeling of “is there all there is to life? what is there to live for besides just my accomplishments?” It sounds dramatic, but it’s easy as a young adult, especially a financially struggling young adult, to ‘work to live’, and neglect everything else to the point where when you finally stop to take a look around you, you realize you’re not sure what you’re actually living for. What did you dream of doing as a child? What do you want, on your deathbed, your life story to be? your memories to be? 

What does fulfillment even mean? 

With Saitama, ONE answers this question first by pointing out that challenges and obstacles give life meaning. When we watch OPM, we’re not rooting necessarily for Saitama. We root for Mumen Rider, or Genos, or any of the myriad other heroes that we know don’t stand a chance. Saitama’s punch might give catharsis, but the pathos is all in the side characters. And Saitama knows this! the manga is all about Saitama struggling to find meaning in a world without those obstacles. And this leads to ONE’s second answer, through King: life is not just about maxing out your level- it’s also about exploring the game. it’s about collecting every outfit, or talking to every NPC, or befriending all the companions, or completing every side quest. ONE shows us that once you look up from your single minded drive to climb the ladder, there’s a ton more to see! friends to make! hot pot to cook! cool new stuff to investigate and explore with those friends! And this is so comforting to me, as a young adult, to have a piece of media show me that not only is struggling okay and good, but that it doesn’t and shouldn’t consume everything and that there’s more to explore.

With Mob Psycho- god, where to start with Mob Psycho. First of all, I was expecting a typical ‘everyone’s 12-14 years old and OP as fuck’ shounen. I was not expecting one of the central characters to be Reigen “I’m almost 30 and I’ve switched careers and am not succeeding in the traditional sense” Arataka, or that another central character would be Serizawa “I AM 30 and I  d e f i n i t e l y  switched careers and have doubly not been successful in the traditional sense” Katsuya. Both these characters struggle with the same question in different ways. Serizawa has a more straightforward narrative: he shows us that it’s never too late to turn your life around. At 30, socially anxious and with nothing on his resume besides “dropped out of middle school to become a terrorist”, Serizawa gets a haircut, gets his act together, goes back to get his degree, and by the end of the manga is not only well on his way to academic success but is really becoming his own person, with a supportive friend group, self confidence, and his own hobbies and interests. Reigen struggles to find meaning in his life beyond just being a boring salaryman - to “become someone” - and eventually through lifting his head up from the daily hustle and opening himself to others, realizes that he HAS become someone, though perhaps in a different way than he expected: he has become a very important person to all of the esper kids and to Serizawa, and through influencing them he becomes the backbone of the manga itself. Reigen shows us that personal growth can be nontraditional, and responsibility can be scary, but both lead to fulfillment. 

I never truly thought about these kinds of things when I was younger, because I wasn’t living them. and the beauty of it is that both OPM and MP100 can be read by an audience without them; they can be enjoyed just for their comedy and their crazy nuts action scenes. But ONE put in characters struggling with these young-but-not-SUPER-young-adult issues, and it makes me, at least, feel seen. It makes me feel like I’m not alone in worrying about these things, in fearing the mundanity of routine, in struggling to find meaning in life while I’ve got the strength to grasp it. And it makes me feel like becoming an adult doesn’t have to be such a bad thing, after all. 

how to live life like a ghibli film

1. go out in nature more. every studio ghibli film has some aspect of nature intertwined with the storyline. sometimes its hard to get the energy to go outside, but just going out on your deck or opening the window in your room or taking a walk around the block is enough. if you feel like it, go for a hike! go into the woods and look at every flower, and every tree. look at the mushrooms and streams and notice the beauty of them. look at nature like you’ve never seen it before. wake up at 4 and watch the sunset. put plants around your room. realize how beautiful the world is around you. appreciate it. 

2. get a hobby! this step is certainly easier said than done, but its so worth it. struggling with mental illness makes it especially hard to get a hobby, but its very important that you don’t spend the majority of your time on social media. Start small. If you want to start drawing get a coloring book and fill in a picture with beautiful markers! If you want to write find a random prompt online, give yourself 30 minutes and see what you can come up with. Want to try baking? Start with an easy recipe, like chocolate chip cookies, and share them with your family or friends, or just yourself! Try out a bunch of hobbies, and see what you like best. Maybe you like making jewelry or writing poems or creating digital collages or making video edits or decorating your room or riding a bike or sewing or reading. The possibilities are endless, and getting a hobby you enjoy is very important, and fun.

3. start appreciating small things and noticing details. I don’t know how to explain this step, but in studio Ghibli films, small things always stick out. There are beautiful tiny details that make the story so much more magnificent. small details make the studio Ghibli films what they are. maybe on your way to school/work the sky was a really pretty color. Or the tea you made in the morning was perfectly steeped. appreciate small details of life that you don’t normally notice.

4. appreciate food. Pay attention to your food. If you can, try and make/bake your own food! But if you can’t, just be mindful of your food. Try not to eat while you’re on your phone. Dedicate times to just eating. Appreciating the food in front of you. Make yourself the ponyo drink with milk and honey, or ponyo ramen! Make yourself your own blend of tea like the Baron!

5. be kind and help others. Being kind doesn’t have to be a grand gesture, it can be smiling and waving at a baby in a café, or helping your mom finish the dishes, or paying for a friend’s coffee. Small gestures not only put good out into the world, but they also make you feel better. When you can, help others. Try volunteering at an animal shelter, or babysit for your aunt without charging her, or just listen to your friend when they’re going through something and be there for them. In every Ghibli film, the main character is always helping others, and being kind. Try to be like kiki, when she returned the pacifier to the mother who forgot it, or like chizuru from the cat returns, who risks her life to save a cat. Kindness comes in all shapes and forms, so just try your best to do what you can!

6. be your most authentic self. Stay true to who you are. dress how you’d like. Cut your hair like you’ve always wanted to. Stay confident and true to yourself. We all feel insecure sometimes, but we need to remind ourselves that we are great. Don’t try and force yourself to be someone you aren’t. Kiki felt insecure in her abilities as a witch, but she stayed true to herself, and believed in herself, and it paid off. Love and appreciate yourself, just the way you are.

7. (not really a tip but a fun suggestion) start collecting something! This is just an extra step that I wanted to include because I think its nice. But start a collection of things that interest you. It could be anything! Candles, stamps, teacups, antique figurines, 19th century photos, lip balms, books, key chains, flowers, hats. The choices are endless.

Priorities, Garrus…. Plus there’s probably a reason why there are so many rules against bottle shooting on the Citadel

LET’S GROOVE! an ode to unsettling dance scenes