lizqueenofshadows

[lizqueenofshadows]

i think it's ok to play fighting games to cum. there are worse reasons to do something

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what fucking hell dimension are y’all blogging from

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does anyone have any more posts in this style? I'm making a collection

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I Am A Cat - a short comic

This is a comic based on an actual event from my childhood that's been seared into my memory ever since.

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Had to draw smth post relevant.

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Imagine this whole post in the TikTok text to speech voice.

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princesses of the people

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they should have just given lady gaga her own harley quinn solo movie with poison ivy as her gf

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Meta-review of Folie a Deux

I'm one of the few people who didn't like Joker (2019). Most people seemed to love it. I believe this was due to some directorial sleight-of-hand that made people think they were watching a better movie than they were. See my original two-sentence review and an exhaustive teardown.

I also predicted, when the trailer dropped in April, that it would also be bad. I speculated on some plot beats based on the trailer, analyzed the role of Harley Quinn in preceding media, and concluded Todd Phillips doesn't know what he's doing with the second character any more than the first.

Now Folie a Deux is out...and everyone seems to hate it, even (especially?) people who liked the original. But what I find odd is the complaints people have with FaD are, essentially, the same problems I had with the original. The second film isn't different--it's the same, but more so (plus some pointless musical numbers).

I'm not going to watch a movie I know is bad, that everyone else agrees is bad. But I will review why I think the spell is broken in the second film, based on spoilers and reviews from other content creators.

We need to start by being explicit about something. Todd Phillips does not like the Joker. This was never a secret; it was explicitly in the marketing buzz for the first film. Todd Phillips was openly frustrated that he was asked by Warner Bros to make a film about the Joker that he didn't want to make, and so he made it his own, and just slapped a paper-thin Batman facade over it.

A better filmmaker might have done something clever or subversive with that. Like Paul Verhoeven taking the fascist Starship Troopers Heinlein novel and making it a self-parody of a film. Or Stanley Kubrick taking the cosmic horror of King's The Shining and making it a survival horror film about being trapped in the woods with an axe-murderer. Adaptations can add to their sources.

But Todd Phillips isn't so clever. Instead, he has Arthur Fleck spend the whole first movie trying to distance himself from the Joker persona that other people put on him. In the same way that Todd Phillips doesn't want to be the Joker director, Arthur Fleck doesn't want to be the Joker. The first film wants to be a tragedy; it wants to be a story about someone being forced into a role they didn't want and do not accept, and we're supposed to feel pity and empathy.

And it doesn't work. Because Todd Phillips is wrong, both about himself, and about his self-insert character. Arthur Fleck's suffering is at times self-inflicted (taking a gun into a children's hospital, later, murdering people) and at times systemic injustice (trash collector's strike, losing his social worker), but Arthur spends the movie insisting that he, personally, as an individual, has been unfairly wronged and deserves an apology. He doesn't want to be treated as a symbol for larger issues, but he also doesn't want to own up to the fact that yeah, he's a murderer. If we look backward through the camera lens, Todd Phillips is complaining that "woke culture" is preventing him from making another The Hangover...but my dude, you also made Project X and The Hangover Part II and III, own up to the fact that you made some bad films.

But then people liked the first Joker film anyway. Why? Well, it's vague enough that, if you squint and wish hard enough, you can pretend that at the end of the movie Arthur has "leveled up" from a sadsack loser into the actual comic book Joker, a manic, remorseless, mass murdering psycho...who is also an iconic, fun character that people love. Or, alternatively, if you are understandably suffering from superhero fatigue, you can squint the other way and pretend that there is no Batman mythos, no Gotham in the film at all. It's a neat trick, appealing to Batman fans and Batman haters by letting them each see the film they want, although I don't think this was on purpose.

People liked the film, and wanted more. They reacted to Joker as a symbol, putting their own frustrations and desires onto him, because he's a literal supervillain and that's just how these things work. Todd Phillips made a successful superhero film as an act of protest against being "forced" to make a superhero film, and for his sins, was told to "make another one".

And so in the second film, Todd Phillips has become even less subtle. If Arthur is a stand-in for Phillips himself, Gaga's "Lee" is a stand-in for his audience. She does not love Phoenix's Arthur, she loves the Joker persona. She doesn't see his fall from grace as a tragedy, but as a triumph. Arthur is forced to choose between the adoration of someone who loves him for what he's desperately trying not to be, or being honest that "actually this sucks and I don't want to do this any more". And, ultimately, he chooses the latter, just as Phillips is hammering home the message that he hates the very film he's making.

And, just as a failsafe, to be absolutely certain that no one could possibly get it wrong a second time, the movie ends with what is implied to be the actual Joker killing Arthur. Phillips is taking no chances here--he's saying that "The first movie was not about the Joker, I did not want to make a sequel, and I flatly refuse to make a third one". He has scuttled the ship, burned the bridges, and given everyone in the entire world (studio execs, first film fans, and comic book fans alike) a huge middle finger.

And people are pissed. Rightfully so. Telling your audience "you are wrong for liking my art" is just about the most disrespectful thing an artist can do. There is no way to confirmation-bias misinterpret the second film; people are now seeing what's actually been there the whole time. Todd Phillips never made, and has not now made, a film about the relatable struggles average people face in society. He made a film about himself, and his relationship to the art he was making. And people hate it because he's being a self-entitled asshole, whining about his own successes and failures. In the process, he's abusing a beloved franchise, destroying something beautiful out of sheer callous contempt.

In this, Todd Phillips and I agree; he should not make any more superhero movies.

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We've all been living in your walls and came out for the FNV content...

Which is amazing btw

Where'd you all come from ?!

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estrogen lipstick so when I kiss boys they become girls

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✨Your Lazy Furry Comic✨

Based on this tweet by @pupwltch

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Twig: Fog Flowers Many of you want to read Twig. Twigs official story isnt online, these are exploration comics. I am however working to put together a pitch for the publisher Glénat! they have put out some of my favourite works and it would be a dream to work with them. If you have any experience pitching comics Id love to hear from you, Im admittedly struggling with what to include

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Right, considering the current state of corporate politics on this site, and that it seems that only those affected seem to be actively speaking on the matter, this needs to be dragged out to a wider audience.

This extends to refusing to believe in bogus call-out posts for frankly minuscule thinks such as being horny or kinky, especially if the target is presenting in an ‘unconventional’ manner, (therians, etc.) this double standard where it is seen as ‘degenerate’ for transfemmes to merely exist in certain spaces, yet everyone else is fine to do so is disgusting and part of the reason for the backlash.

PUTTING TERFS DNI IS NOT THE BE ALL AND END ALL, YOU GENUINELY HAVE TO PUT YOUR MORALS OF BEING RESPECTFUL INTO PRACTICE.

REBLOG IF YOUR ACCOUNT IS A TRANSFEM SAFE SPACE.

We need to show these higher ups how much we truly value them.

Edit 1: Changed the wording of the post and decided to put in a reminder.

Edit 2: Further Re-iteration on the wording and format edits.

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