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DANANDPHILCRAFTS x LOVE AND HORROR
Tathève Simonyan, "Colourless Musings" // Richard Siken, “Wishbone” // George Abraham, Birthright // Richard Siken, "litany in which certain things are crossed out" // Natalie Diaz, "The Hand Has Twenty-Seven Bones — : These Hands If Not Gods"
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idk somebody posted about fucked up devotion and it really spoke to me so i made this
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danandphilcrafts and the tarot's devil
a queer perspective
dan and phil crafts is a short horror film quartet created by famous queer youtubers dan howell and phil lester. there is intentional use of imagery from the devil tarot card in the climactic shot of this installment, as you can observe below:
(images used with permission from the wonderful @danrifics' post)
phil has a long history of including tarot on his channel in videos such as robot death machine (2009), PREDICTING MY FUTURE! (2017), PREDICTING DAN"S FUTURE! (2017), trying to predict 2021 (2020) shorts doing readings for astrological signs on lessamazingphil (2022), and in viewers pick my birthday gifts 2024 (2024).
as someone who's been both a fan and a tarot reader for over a decade, i find this nod to the devil card one of the most essential shots in communicating the complex themes addressed in this video and the craft series as a whole.
how so? i'll start with discussion of the devil tarot card and how it relates to the lovers.
in tarot, the lovers and the devil are both a part of the major arcana, the 22 cards representing more significant, intense & impactful life moments than the cards found in the minor arcana. they are two of very few major arcana cards that mirror each other visually: the other duos in the major arcana are the high priestess + hierophant and empress + emperor.
in both other cases, the cards hold connected meanings as applied to different areas of life, but reflect a gendered difference - the high priestess and empress are women, and the emperor and hierophant are men. from this we can conclude two things.
first is that the connected imagery between two cards connotates connected meaning. even without the connected imagery, these cards would be an inverse of one another; they're sibling cards, sharing the same numerology (6).
so what do the lovers symbolize? the lovers symbolize healthy, balanced relational connection, collaborative communication, choice, etc. their relationship is blessed/holy/watched over by an angel.
the devil, on the other hand, symbolizes unhealthy relational connection, exploitation, addiction, hedonism, etc. the figure in this card is the demon baphomet, and the relationship is taboo.
the other conclusion we can take from the pattern of meaning found in visually similar cards is that the variation between these cards is related to gender/sex/sexuality.
it is extremely straightforward to conclude that the couple in the devil card differs with the couple in the lovers card by being sexually deviant in some manner, and all forms of queerness fall under the umbrella of sexual deviance.
baphomet as the specific demon in this card ads to the overall queerness associated with the devil. i am not able to speak about it at length as i am not an occultist, but you can read at length on wikipedia. i know i’ve read good posts about baphomet from occultists on tumblr, but am struggling to find those that go into detail. what i’m able to remember is this: depictions of baphomet always show her with a mix of sex characteristics, typically both breasts and a penis, making her either transgender or intersex.
(a baphomet post in line with the one i’m looking for)
my goal with this essay is a queer reading of the devil, though, not a reification of the societal norms regarding gender and sexuality as held when the rider waite smith deck was created in 1909. we can queer the devil by being critical of the institutions and social norms that name the deviance depicted in the devil as bad.
when doing this, the devil can become an empowering figure signifying acceptance of and actualization of queer sexuality, rejection of internalized homophobia and transphobia, freedom from normative expectations, solidarity taking action, and connection with/creation of community.
you can see similar subversions of christian ideas of the devil in the work of lil nas x, particularly in the music video for MONTERO (call me by your name) - it’s a common queer theme. the rates at which satanic imagery and touch between two men appear increase both rapidly and in tandem with each successive video in the DanAndPhilCRAFTS back catalogue.
i'm not going to delve too deep into past videos, but i will mention that the horror in the first three exists largely in implication: the pentagram in glitter faces is has happened before and happens whether they're trying to make it or not; the "he" they are "friends" with in potato prints never appears onscreen.
tying this back to the devil as a card that stands in opposition to societal homophobia and gender roles, the first indications of this theme appear in DanAndPhilCRAFTS-Slime's opening still:
and the dialogue taking place from 0:17 to 0:24 of the video, which i've transcribed below.
DAN: We've had important events to prepare for.
PHIL: I've been in a box.
[footage of a presumably deceased PHIL from DanAndPhilCRAFTS - Potato Prints]
DAN: They tried to stop us.
PHIL: But they didn't.
from these two moments in the film, we can infer that the "they" who tried to stop dan and phil includes the church of england, and that phil's death at the end of the previous video was not permanent.
how does the story change if our baseline assumption is to trust its protagonists rather than the vague "they" trying to stop them, the "they" who recovered the footage?
on that note: how does the fact that dan and phil came out between potato prints and slime impact the way that the story is consumed, and the way that the story is depicted?
i am not well versed in horror. i cannot meaningfully speak to the tradition of horror and its elements and how they manifest in this film particularly.
i can point out what i can identify as worth talking about: the things that are portrayed as horrific. the presence of blood; to lose one's life - specifically to kill or be killed by a penetrating weapon; allying oneself with demonic forces. to my knowledge there's a lot to dig into with that, both regarding horror in general and horror through the lens of queer analysis.
what i'm able to come up with is this: blood is a bodily fluid disease can pass through, and there's a lot of history there with both AIDS and more recently monkeypox; many people lose the life they had before when they come out; i don't think i even need to elaborate about penetration; religious homophobia's insistence that queerness is of the devil is extremely old news.
i would love for someone more versed in horror and queerness than I am to elaborate where i can't.
something i can elaborate on is this: how the video was received.
this video wasn't posted to the gaming channel or either main channel; the only people who will have seen it are people who never unsubscribed to the crafts channel or people who are connected to phannie spaces. this core swath of dan and phil's audience primarily consists of queer people: those of us who are aware of their relationship. those of us who are in on the joke.
to a cisheteroallo audience, especially one completely unfamiliar with dan and phil, this video would likely be experienced as straightforwardly scary. this hypothetical audience doesn't know, as we do, that it's deeply unrealistic that dan or phil would ever harm one another as depicted in the film.
the reactions i have seen in phannie spaces have all found and delighted in the humor in it, and many have enjoyed the well executed horror. but beyond that, this queer audience widely perceives and enjoys the eroticism of the film.
there is intimacy in the violence, and a thrill in the transgressions required for two people to align themselves with the figure of the devil.
something i particularly enjoy: despite the sources of horror i listed earlier, none of them result in consequences for the characters dan and phil play. they end this film in a place of power beside the devil figure. what is frightening is the threat they pose to the "they" who tried to stop them, the threat they pose to institutional cisheteroallo normativity.
the way that DanAndPhilCRAFTS - Slime presents imagery from the tarot's devil card is unequivocally, undeniably queer and in opposition to oppressive structures. the way this film expresses ideas is incredibly coherent, and the nod to tarot serves it so well to that end!
thank you for coming to my fucking ted talk.
and thank you to @danandphilandthedevil, @dnphobe, and @yonpote for hanging out with me on discord and contributing feedback as i wrote the first... half? of this.
#dan and phil#dan and phil crafts#danandphilcrafts#dnp#danandphil#phan#tarot#this is so well thought out holy shit
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pure solace.
(📸: @maybirdie, HFW PC photomode tools mod)
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Kajol in Hamesha (1997)
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MatPat: The Final Theory
Lore Keeper Ending
(It's fucking Scott Cawthon in a tux holy shit)
#matpat#game theory#film theory#food theory#style theory#matpat retirement#scott cawthon#fnaf#five nights at freddy's
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Aloy, Horizon Zero Dawn fanart in honour of my best girl ❤
@ Guerrilla Games release Horizon Forbidden West on pc pretty please 🥺
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need me a girlfriend to yap about dan and phil with
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Draco got cuteness aggression for a moment there i don't blame him
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8th year
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no bc dan and phil titling their videos like clickbait so when people look it up their videos are the first thing that comes up gives the same energy as taylor swift naming a song slut so that when people look up ‘taylor swift slut’ the song comes up
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phil’s hands throughout a festive bob ross painting tutorial
#everything about him is so pretty#it hurts#i like him so much#phil lester#amazingphil#amazing phil#phils hands#amazingphil hands#phil lester hands#dnp gifs
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by miphasou on instagram (shared with permission)
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