#e: rebirth

[stormingfrost]

Kinda obsessed with the historical context of Rise of the Guardians. Pitch wanting the Dark Ages to come back, which historically was the decline of culture and records. The Guardians rose at the same time as the Renaissance with the rise of culture, knowledge, and science. (Tooth in particular mentions that she hasn’t been out in the field for 440 years, give or take, which would put that smack dab in the middle of the Renaissance) 

The way Pitch doesn’t want the world to change, the way the Guardians change in tune with the world. The way Jack, who lived in has a human in the 17th or 18th century, who lived in the time after the Renaissance and lived witnessing the world all the way to the modern era, is there to show the Guardians how much they missed and how they can further change and improve for the more modern world. These characters are immortal beings who have so much power over the world, it makes so much sense that when they fall and rise in power it impacts the world that they want to influence, for better or for worse. 

[likeafantasy]

[b0tster]

i dont think im ready for what ff7 rebirth will do to me emotionally

[allgirlsareprincesses]

Love At First Sight (2023)

Okay, we’re going to talk about the new Netflix romance directed by Vanessa Caswill, Love At First Sight, because I’m seeing almost no chatter about it and that cannot stand. Full disclosure, I’ve never read the book on which this movie is based, The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, so I’m reacting only to the film (which I’ve now seen 4.5 times in 2 days).

The Surface Reading

It’s a perfect, tight, adorable little RomCom that’s heavy on the Rom and light on the Com, with a wrenching dash of angst and the most hair-twirling chemistry between two leads that has graced our screens in years. Truly, if all you want is 90 minutes of two actors being saccharine precious cinnamon rolls, look no further!

There are simple takeaways here, like that chance can only take you so far, but in the end you have to choose to love. Or that change and loss are part of life and you can’t run from them. Or that London is a massive labyrinth of eccentric people that probably looks 400% cooler onscreen than it is in reality (I wouldn’t know, I’ve never visited, so this and the 90s Parent Trap are the extent of my knowledge about the city, sorry).

Anyway, I adored how straightforward the story was - that the narrator (played brilliantly by Jameela Jamil) tells you directly in the first two minutes that it’s a story about love, fate, and statistics. She then repeatedly describes every development as it is happening, the characters’ histories and internal monologues, and all the context you need to follow the thin but fast-paced plot. The writing, performances, and production design are all solid, allowing the audience to get lost in the romance as it unfolds.

BUT if you’re slightly unhinged like I am and you’re always looking for more layers in your media, HAVE NO FEAR! There is in fact more going on in this little movie than you might expect.

Color Theory

For starters, the use of red and green in the film is fascinating. Yes, I realize the action of the story takes place a few days before Christmas, so you might assume it was just a seasonal aesthetic choice, but if you look closer, you can see very carefully selected shades of red and green repeating throughout the film. The red is a cool, deep rose color, sometimes pink, while the green is cool and dark, like oxidized bronze rather than emerald. Further, while they appear over and over, these hues are rarely used in a purely decorative or festive way. Instead, they play a role in the separation and coming together of the couple. On a color wheel, red and green are complements, perfect opposites that are never adjacent but always joined in the middle.

The title card during Hadley’s introduction is literally a green stripe over a red stripe, then the hallways of the airport are green, and of course Hadley’s ever-important backpack is a rosy red. As the couple grow closer on their flight, the light turns pink. Once in London, a green van takes Oliver one way while a red taxi takes Hadley the other. At her father’s wedding, Hadley is dressed in red (“the color of a bruise” she calls it), contrasting beautifully against her green jacket. Upon realizing Oliver’s true purpose, she chases after him on an iconic red double-decker bus. Meanwhile at the living memorial, Oliver’s father is dressed in red while his mother wears a faded green, as if to say she is already beginning to fade away. The event is decorated with green drapery and streamers, and there are even stacks of red and green chairs in the stairwell where Oliver begs his mother to receive treatment.

Hadley gifts her red and green bouquet to Tessa, and when she is driven away, a green-clad narrator returns the red backpack to Oliver. Wandering London alone, Hadley exchanges her painful red heels for a pair of green trainers (“sneakers!” she insists), and tries to call her dad first in a red phone booth and then on a phone from a stranger sitting in a cluster of red chairs. Finally, Oliver chooses to pursue Hadley to the wedding reception which is lit in pink, and where they finally share the long-awaited kiss.

There are many more examples, but in general we see that green indicates separation and loss, while red symbolizes joining, intimacy, and (what else?) love! It lends the film a gorgeous, subtle aesthetic without being garishly festive, and shows the lovers’ emotional journey from lonely childhood to vulnerable, loving adulthood.

Death and Rebirth

Speaking of which, there’s plenty of rebirth imagery too! When Hadley and Oliver meet, they are both still children, struggling with the impending loss of parental security through divorce and death. Thus, when they board the plane, it is as if they enter an underworld or womb, separated from their families and remade as new adults. They emerge on the other side into a hallway (read: birth canal), as each must still confront their own dying childhood before they can join as full and equal partners. Hadley journeys to a bright, red-strewn celebration of life, while Oliver must enter a dark green commemoration of death, his fear driving him deeper to hide in another hallway. Here his mother comes to find him, begging him to emerge into life, but Ollie still can’t confront her death alone.

Thankfully, Hadley travels to this underworld to find him, bursting into the memorial like a bright red flower. Even the bruise metaphor works, acknowledging the pain they are both experiencing at the changes in their lives. But Oliver still refuses to face his fears, trying to take a shortcut around death to life with Hadley. Still, she knows he’s not ready (likely because she’s not yet, either), and gently pushes back. And so, Oliver returns to the underworld, and Hadley walks off alone until she descends barefoot through a soggy riverside tunnel (birth canal again!). Finally, she calls her father and admits she is “lost.” When he arrives, Hadley at last gathers the courage to ask why he ended their old life, and to tell him how much it hurt her. But as Oliver predicted, she forgives her dad and even begins to accept his new bride.

Back at the memorial, Oliver is reminded by Hadley’s red backpack - his unaddressed emotional baggage - to be honest about his pain. In at last openly mourning his mother and his own childhood, Ollie takes a step into adulthood, just enough for his family to nudge him that extra bit to go after Hadley. And so, the family delivers him to his bride, who has meanwhile learned to dance again, even through her heartbreak. With one last confession, the two consummate their love with a kiss, bathed in pink light before an open door.

Happily Ever After

There’s so much more, with the hand-holding, numbers, Shakespeare, Dickens, the music, and beyond, but the point is that this cute, charming little romance is actually very deliberately constructed. It follows timeless patterns and motifs which we instinctively understand through visual and auditory language. And the narration plays a huge role in this as well, not unlike the prologues and epilogues of the Bard’s plays in that they state the story’s lessons plainly: that we cannot always be prepared for unwelcome surprises, but that we can make the choice to love every day.

Anyway, Vanessa Caswill deserves all the flowers and if you haven’t seen her gorgeous adaptation of Little Women (with all due respect to the marvelous Greta Gerwig and Gillian Armstrong), please do yourself a favor and watch that after you finish this!

[finalfantasymusicdaily]

J-E-N-O-V-A -Emergence- Arranged by Yoshinori Nakamura

[verflares]

reading more tp manga. this link is growing on me a little more i think

[anon-e-miss]

Rebirth

This goes back to 2020. It's old as fuck. I don't expect anyone to remember or to find the original parts so, here, I dug through my archive on your behalf. XD

Considering the trauma Bluestreak had undergone, he was holding up incredibly well. It was Prowl, Jazz thought, that that was the reason for this. There were other Praxians in Iacon and even among the Autobots but there was only one Prowl. He was wholly unique. Many of the Autobots that served under the SIC called him cold and unfeeling and many more called him a drone. They sneered at the joors he spent glued to his desk never bothering to consider that he spent those joors trying to keep their ungrateful afts alive. Prowl care more carefully than any mechanism Jazz had ever met. Despite Prowl’s huff at Jazz’s observation that he was good with sparklings, it had not come out of left field. Jazz was not in denial, he knew his twins were scamps but Prowl endured their antics with a beatific grace and even encouraged their hobbies with little gifts, not only for holidays but just because.

“So Blue,” Jazz said as he set up the Tilting Tower for their next game. “‘M thinking wit the help Prowl is gonna need for the next bit, ‘m gonna need to move’m in wit me. What do ya think ‘bout joinin’ us? I got two mechlings yer age. They got lots o’ toys to share.”

“I don’t have to go into an orphanage?” Bluestreak asked, optics bright and hopeful.

“Not a chance,” Jazz replied. “Prowl would scrap anyone who suggested it, ‘n I’d scrap what was left. If ya got kin that weren’t in Praxus, Sweetspark, we’ll find’em. Otherwise or until then, ya got a home wit Prowl.”

“I don’t have kin,” Bluestreak said. He made a face and Jazz frowned. It was not the grief Jazz knew would haunt him on some level for the rest of his cycles. It was different.

“Is there somethin’ Bitty Blue?” Jazz asked. “That maybe ya outta tell me?”

“It was always just me and Origin,” Bluestreak explained, he turned one of the blocks over in his servos. “I’m a bastard.”

“No, Sweetspark,” Jazz crooned. “Never say that ‘bout yerself.”

“Origin wasn’t bonded when I emerged,” Bluestreak said. “The mech that sired me didn’t want me and my grandprocreators disowned Origin when he wouldn’t leave me at the orphanage. It was always just us. Forever.”

“That’s heavy, Bitty Blue,” Jazz said. “Y’re progenitor missed out on ya. Y’re a great little mech. But what ya aren’t is a bastard. Y’re illegitimate, okay, Sweetspark? That glyph, bastard, is meant to tear ya down ‘n make ya think y’re less ‘n ya ain’t.”

“Thanks Jazz,” Bluestreak sniffled. He knocked the blocks over as he came in and wrapped his arms around Jazz’s waist in a fierce hug as he cried against his plating. Jazz stroked his back.

“Been happenin’ all yer life, h’uh?” Jazz asked. “Mechanisms treatin’ ya ‘n yer origin like ya was less?”

“Mhm,” Bluestreak replied.

“Not gonna happen here,” Jazz promised. “They wouldn’t dare.”

“Why not?” Bluestreak asked.

“Only Bot got more power here than Prowl is Prime, Blue,” Jazz said. “He’s Second in Command. When Bots fall outta line, it’s Prowl that puts them back into place ‘n no Bot tests him twice.”

“That makes him sound mean,” Bluestreak complained. “Prowl’s not mean!”

“Prowl ain’t mean at all,” Jazz promised. “He’s firm ‘n he’s fair. Mecha don’t like gettin’ embarrassed ‘n Prowl’s real good at findin’ punishments that put the nastiest sorts o’ bullies in their place. Only mecha to razz ‘m on the regular are my twins ‘n he gives ‘em presents ‘cause he knows they’re playin’.”

“Will they razz me?” Bluestreak asked.

“I hope so,” Jazz replied. “It’d mean they like ya. That’s why they razz Prowler as much as they do.”

“Okay,” Bluestreak said. “Prowl’s a good mech. Isn’t he?”

“One o’ the best I ever met.”

Prowl was alert when Ratchet wheeled him back in, as if he had not just undergone six joors of surgery. That was a quirk of Prowl’s Jazz was familiar with, he brushed off anaesthetics and painkillers quick. Bluestreak sat back with Jazz as Ratchet saw Prowl transferred from the gurney to the berth. As soon as Prowl was settled, Bluestreak scrambled up onto the berth with him and cuddled in close as he dared. Prowl rumbled his engine and ruffled Bluestreak’s helm. As important for Bluestreak’s recovery as Prowl was, Jazz thought Bluestreak was for Prowl’s. Of course, Prowl was not showing it, but Jazz knew the slaughter of his home state weighed heavy on him. He had not stopped to rest at all after he had landed in Praxus. It had taken him a long time, longer than it ever would have a drone, to conclude there would be no survivors. A drone would then have left the dead where they have been laid out but Prowl had ordered the grave be dug.

Jazz did not know what it was about that spot that had made Prowl choose it for the grave site, but he believed it was not simple luck that had made the Autobots dig so deep in just that one perfect spot. Neither did he believe it was just bad luck that had made the ground and the window give way under Prowl, leading him to fall into the catacombs and to ultimately find Bluestreak. Jazz believed a power beyond them, the will Bluestreak’s origin, the will of their ancestors, that had lured Prowl to just that spot. Prowl had been meant to find Bluestreak and Prowl alone. This, Jazz believed deep in his spoke.

“How long does Ratchet wanna keep ya?” Jazz asked.

“Just a mega-cycle,” Prowl replied.

“He’s gonna want someone lookin’ out for ya so ya can rest those new treads,” Jazz declared.

“Yes,” Prowl replied. “I know you have assigned yourself that role.”

“Natch. I been gone more than a bit,” Jazz said. “I cleared it wit Blue. While y’re healin’ the pair o’ ya can move in wit me so ya can take it easy.”

“Jazz...” It was a coolly yet quickly spoken glyph, an anxious warning Jazz had heard before. He smiled and squeezed Prowl’s leg.

“It’d be dicey for me to run back ‘n forth between y’re sweet ‘n mine nonstop ‘n I gotta think o’ the Twins too,” Jazz replied. “It just makes sense for the mechs that care ‘bout ya to take care o’ ya, Prowler.”

“Your originator is already living with you,” Prowl argued. “You cannot have the space.”

“It’ll be a lil cozy but I know I done worse,” Jazz declared. “We all have. Ain’t a burden, Prowl. Don’t think I don’t know exactly what y’re thinkin’.”

[dyinggirldied]

Looking at the comment from my poll of Bunnymund vs Death and suddenly, I have a new sort of crack-ish rare crossover pairing!

An exact from Bunnymund’s wiki: “According to the Rise of the Guardians App, Bunnymund protects spring and ensures the cycle of life, which is all symbolized through eggs”

Also, love it that both actually come from Dreamworks

[brevelilium]

Rating: E

Fandom: Final Fantasy VII

Pairing: Sephiroth/Cloud Strife

Main tags: Established Relationship, Modern Setting, Fluff and Smut, Semi-public Sex

Summary: Sephiroth has to work late, the perfect occasion to ask Cloud to keep him company and try out something new.

[luthwhore]

not reblogging the post because i don't have the energy to get involved in discourse but i love seeing a post about how lex luthor is a completely irredeemably evil, awful person with no redeeming qualities and every single piece of evidence is either from john byrne or pre-n52 geoff johns lmao

[dark-elf-writes]

I’m going through and collecting all the Gold Saucer dates and NO ONE TOLD ME YUFFIE’S WAS SO CUTE OH MY GOD I LOVE HER

[todayisafridaynight]

WHY did they call it bleach japan in y8 wouldn’t that carry negative connotations after the founder was exposed and subsequently stabbed to death by another high profile member. sure yeah its ominous to ichi but is that worth the risk of bad pr

oh brother dont get me started everything about ebina pisses me off but the bleach japan bit ESPECIALLY jesus fucking almighty that was so annoying

[dieletztepanzerhexe]

comrade michał said that he supports prostitution and that it should apply to all unmarried women 😬that in a communist society every unmarried woman should be obliged to go on a "date with a stranger" once a month in "nice and civilised" conditions but "it doesn't mean that sex must happen"

then also added that he's "simplifying" by describing all prostitutes as women and all johns as men bc "in a communist society other variants will be present too ofc"

literally some babilonian bullshit 🙄

[finalfantasymusicdaily]

J-E-N-O-V-A -Tenacity- Arranged by Yasunori Nishiki

[fromthe7thsidelines]

[ mulling over adding 7r cid on here 🤔 always love me a good yeehaw boye lmao

i might or might not, unsure as yet, but i'm considering it - even tho he's not exactly a 'side' character really, or at least won't be in the next game lol ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ]

[snowboundranger]

My first foray into Final Fantasy fic writing, where Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith have an unexpected reunion post Rebirth to bring themselves closer together.

(or: Aerith breaks time and space for a booty call).