#I rewatched this movie the other day and it just reawakened stuff

[imma-bunni]

Sun Wukong - Monkey King: Hero is Back

Some character face sketches because I really want to be good at drawing him.

A precious baby below the cut

(this face makes my physically clutch my heart it hurtss)

[my-personality-i-guess]

I’m gonna post spoilers of WW84 under the cut, because I did not like the movie and you all need to know why

So I’m gonna start out with what I liked about it, because honestly it was kind of good. Gal Gadot? Phenomenal, gorgeous, 10/10 I rewatched the first Wonder Woman and the woman loving side of my sexuality has reawakened. Costumes? I am not a fan of the 80s, but damn could I get behind every single outfit. I don’t even need to talk about the Amazons, they were beautiful, like I said, women. The cinematography was also quite good. 

But the first Wonder Woman movie was definitely better. 

WW84 started out fantastic. I loved the opening scene with young Diana, and it set up such a great concept for the movie. Would’ve been great if they stuck to that huh. Then we meet Kristen Wiig, who honestly I’ve never really liked. Maybe I haven’t seen her in enough stuff though, because I absolutely fell in love with Barbara. Especially the obvious gay subtext between her and Diana. All starting out phenomenally. There’s great setup for Diana to fall in love with Barbara, work out her love for Steve and the trauma she got from the war. I’d even go for a love triangle with Barbara, Diana, and Max. Then everything switches.

It feels like there were two different writers for the film. One writer set up a phenomenal plot line, a budding romance, and a storyline about healing from your past and moving on. Then the second writer scrapped all that and resurrected Steve. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Chris Pine in both Wonder Woman movies, and he was pretty funny in WW84, but his whole character just seemed to be there solely to put an end to the romance between Barbara and Diana. He played a role with very little impact. Honestly, I finished WW84 literally 5 minutes ago and I forgot Steve was even in the movie. All of a sudden there’s no plot. My whole family was confused. My dad said it was “just like a stereotypical 80s movie.” Where was the brilliant storyline that had started? Why are we skipping over what could have been a revolutionary film for a literal remake of Aladdin? (literally it’s just Aladdin. That’s the whole thing. Aladdin and queerbaiting) 

If we skip over the Aladdin bits (the entire plot line yes it’s as basic as it sounds) all there is is some forced relationship between Diana and Steve to cover up the blatant queerbaiting and, I would argue, homophobia. It’s so incredibly obvious that Barbara is in love with Diana, even though she apparently falls in love “every day, all the time” (which feeds into some harmful stereotypes about bisexuality, by the way), and yet the screenwriters try to play it off like Barbara just really admires her. I was 100% sure that Barbara was going to wish that Diana fall in love with her, but she instead wanted to be like Diana? Yes, she’s insecure, that was made blazingly obvious, but she was in love with Diana, and Diana had just told her how much she enjoyed Barbara just the way she is. Generally people don’t change what others, especially those they are attracted to, like about them. And there ends the romance. Not even a hint at the date the two went on, nothing about the feelings between the two. Steve shows up, and Barbara is no longer an interesting or relevant character. In fact, she’s killed at the end of the movie. Way to dive headfirst into the pool of kill your gays (electrocute them if you want to be vague about whether or not they’re actually dead). To top it off, Steve just is gone an hour after he was resurrected. Steve just showed up to ruin Diana’s relationship and mental health, cuz I’m sure it wasn’t at all traumatizing to lose the love off your life twice, the second time pretty much directly killing him. 

Other little things I’m pissed about:

1. Lack of diversity. The first Wonder Woman movie had an incredibly diverse cast, and WW84 had the only main character as a POC be the villain. 

2. We never learned more about the Amazons. Woah, they do the Olympics and don’t like cheating, so what? Where’s the deep delve into Amazonian culture that we got in the first film? Why didn’t Diana ever go back to Themyscira?

3. The whole plot is just Aladdin if the genie was evil. That’s it. I’m sure you’ve all seen those posts of “be careful if you meet a genie, they’re evil and manipulative”

4. There was almost no mythology. Nothing. Just 30 seconds of babbling about the “language of the Gods” and the “God of lies” no explanation, no backstory, just a throwaway explanation about how the wishing could vaguely go along with the theme. We didn’t even get any resolution about that? Considering Ares apparently killed all the Gods, I wasn’t really expecting any Godly intervention from whoever that God of lies was, but there was absolutely nothing about what happened to the rock. How did it get out of Max? Did every single person in the world take back their wish, cuz that’s unrealistic. If even one person kept their wish, what happened to the rock. It probably didn’t reform? What happened to the magic???

5. That beautiful suit of armor that’s in all the promo pics, posters, the most iconic part of the trailer? That was there for literally 10 minutes and built into the plot solely for the cameo in the end credits scene. And not even well? The armor was supposedly built to withstand the world? It was torn to shred in 30 seconds, in a fight against a woman with brand new powers she doesn’t know how to work and exactly zero fighting experience. A cheetah hybrid scientist destroyed that armor in 30 seconds flat and you expect me to believe it held back the whole of mankind?

6. Where’s the fun feminism of the first movie? No talk about how women are great? Two and a half hours and the best you can do is the villain beating up the dick who was catcalling and assaulting her and framing it as an evil thing? The entire movie Diana and Barbara were being catcalled and harassed by men who thought they’re gorgeous. Absolutely they don’t have to respond to these men. They don’t have to stick up for themselves to prove that they’re worthwhile. Good for them for ignoring the jerks. But when the only instance of a woman sticking up for herself in the whole film is framed as an evil deed, it’s a bit sketch.

7. The fight scene between Barbara and Diana at the end when Barbara is a Cats movie reject was incredibly boring and not at all riveting and iconic like the fight scenes in the first movie. In fact, every fight scene in WW84 was really flat. It felt like there was a lot of effort put into dampening Diana’s powers. In the first movie Diana was a dynamic and strong individual who had friends who, while not as powerful as her, were important to ending the conflict. In WW84 Diana did everything (except for stopping the mall heist) really poorly, and relied on Steve to get her out of nearly all of her tight spots. For how bad of a character he was, you’d think he wouldn’t do a lot in the movie, but he was constantly saving Diana. Then Diana couldn’t even do anything against Max, it was all the people reversing their wishes. Considering she literally killed a God in the first movie, you’d think she could do something about a man-rock.

tl:dr, it’s an Aladdin remake with queerbaiting and bad plot

[elegant-etienne]

Quarantine Q & A

• Are you staying home from work/home?

I am! I’m actually enrolled in an online degree program from my university as it seemed to most practical for my financial and emotional needs, and I’ve been enrolled since the spring of last year. However, my flow has still been disrupted, from not being able to escape to a coffee shop to push myself to finish essays, to not seeing my IRL friends regularly, to my parents (already retired and spending a ton of time around, mind you), being constantly around.

• If you’re staying home, who’s with you?

My cat, Mica, and my parents. They both have health problems and at first, it was a bit of a fight to get them to take social distancing seriously.

• Are you a homebody?

Not really! I like to go out a few times a week and hang out with my friends. I’m okay if I can get out of the house for just a walk (and a PokeStop, lol) around my neighborhood but this is getting to me.

• What movies have you watched recently? What shows?

I think the last full movie I saw was The Hustle (2019) ... I like Anne Hathaway, the movie was so forgettable I had to check my Netflix history to check the name. Pretty sure the last movie in theaters was Birds of Prey which was, as they call it, fantabulous. I’ve been rewatching the 90s Sailor Moon with some friends and I watch a lot of cooking shows and Urbex stuff on youtube while I study. I recently finished Keep Your Hands of Eizouken!! which is probably in my top 10 anime. I heard the new season of Kaguya-sama: Love is War is out, so I’ll probably start watching that.

• An event you were looking forward to that got cancelled?

Sakuracon, my best friend was coming to stay with me in a hotel and hang out with me for a while, and we would’ve gotten to a lot of fun activities like karaoke, bar hopping, and seeing sights in the area. We also canceled a family trip to the beach, and a trip to Madison in September is on the rocks, as well as Fanfest, probably. On a similar note, my parents were going to leave me to house-sit for almost the whole summer and now I’m not going to get that break from them. :’)

• What music are you listening to?

Right now, Sir Babygirl’s album Crush on Me. I’m pretty obsessed. Lately, I’ve gotten into a ton of artists I didn’t know much of before - especially Mitski and Screaming Females. Going to the goth night event the other day reawakened my old love for Buck-Tick and Malice Mizer, and before that I was listening to a ton of old school Alanis Morissette and Fiona Apple. Honestly, you can’t ask me a question about music without hearing dozens of suggestions. My taste is pretty eclectic

• What are you reading?

I’m currently studying In Between, poetry comics by Mita Mahato, for one of my classes. On my downtime, a friend of mine recently suggested I read Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden so I’ll be checking that out.

• What are you doing for self-care?

I’ve been trying to do social media dry days on Mondays for a while now, maybe almost a whole year now. Except, honestly, I still log onto Tumblr and just stay off Twitter on Mondays. In general, I try to check in with myself so I don’t spend hours endlessly scrolling on anything. If something makes me upset, I stop looking at it. This means I almost never go on Twitter anymore, or it isn’t long before I say, “This makes me feel like shit, I’m stopping.” Letting myself spiral into anxiety and depression distracts me from completing my schoolwork, and even if I’m nagged by the existential dread that it’s all meaningless, given the choice between completing a task and starring blank-eyed at Twitter, I’ll take the latter.

I bought myself a Switch Lite and then Animal Crossing in anticipation of social distancing. I might get FFVIIR, but everyone’s around and RPing so much right now I’m not sure when I’d find time to play it!

I’m gonna start trying out Hello Fresh for family meals since my motivation to cook and appetite haven’t been the best, and I’m hoping that having some of those needs curated will encourage me. I bought myself a huge supply of San Pellegrino so I can have something a little bit extra fancy with my lunches that doesn’t have caffeine since my anxiety level is bad and I’m cutting back on my daily caffeine habits.

I take a walk every day or get out of the house somewhere.

I’ve made some purchases of personal items that are fun and I’ve been putting off, like a new spring jacket and cologne.

TAGGED BY: @actualkomodo​, thank you for the tag!

TAGGING: This one’s personal, so do it if you like and tag me back!