#like compared to other stuff did we watch all the same movies this year??

[wanderingpages]

Bf just looked at me and was like “Barbie was a comedy??”

[cameronspecial]

Hi, so I have a scenario in mind; where Zach loses his memories and instead of fixating on a relationship, he can't even remember having, he instead finds himself falling for his best friend, and conveniently, the only person he does remember. And it's just Y/n trying to convince him of all the good times he and his girlfriend had (because she's a "good friend that wants him to be happy even if it's not with her") but he couldn't care less, because none of the superficial shit she tells him, compares to the memories he has of her.

She'd be like, "Oh, you two are so cute, omg 🙄 you take walks together, you eat together, everyone thinks you look cute together. Blah blah blah..."

And he's basically like, "and what? A dog and his owner could do that. But us? That's the real shit, baby." Sorry, this got long xx

That Shit Has Nothing On Us

Pairing: Zach MacLaren x Reader

Warnings: Swearing

Pronouns: She/Her

Word Count: 0.5K

Masterlist

When Zach got hit by the car, the only person he could remember was Y/N. Even though they were best friends and attached by the hip before the accident, he, now, clings to her like Winnie the Pooh to a honey pot and not in the same way he did before he got hit. He becomes more affectionate and touchy. He always wants to have skin-to-skin contact with her in some way. He always wants to be around her. She’s tried to tell him that he has Zoey Wallace. That she is his girlfriend, he just doesn’t care. Sure, she has had a crush on them since they were five, but she knows he is Zoey’s and she doesn’t want to do anything to jeopardize his relationship. 

They are watching the Scream franchise and he knows they don’t scare her, yet he insists on wrapping his arm around her. “I don’t know why you wanted to have a marathon. They aren’t scary and are so predictable,” she complains, groaning at the not-surprising death of another character. Zach shrugs, “Come on. Don’t tell me you aren’t a little scared.” His arm brings her closer to his side. “Zach, they literally do the oh no the killer isn’t actually killed bit in every movie,” she points out. He grins at her, “Well, if you don’t want to watch the movies, then we can always make out.” “You have a girlfriend, Zach. You guys used to be so in love. You would go on walks to practice together. Kick the ball around. Eat with each other,” she argues, moving out of his hold. He gets up and looks into her eyes, “Everything I’ve done and talked about with her is all surface-level shit. It’s like I’m a dog and she’s my owner. But us? That’s the real shit, Baby. Everything I remember about us has always been so much deeper than anything I have with her.” “You can’t compare the present with the past. You just don’t know the deeper stuff you’ve had with her,” Y/N disagrees with a shake of her head. 

“I’m comparing the present with the present Y/N. She’s always on the move with life and stuff and never takes the time to just stop. She never lets us get to know each other again.” 

“I don’t know what you want me to do, Zach?”

“I want you to say that you’ll let me kiss you.”

“You have a girlfriend.”

“Not anymore.”

Y/N freezes at his words. “W-what? What do you mean you not anymore?” He gives her a smile, “We broke up. I didn’t feel it was right to keep dating her when I’m in love with you.” “Y-you’re in love with me?” she asks with hope in her eyes. He steps closer to her, “Since we were five years old.” Her arms wrap around his neck and their lips meet in a fiery kiss. Who knew amnesia could be the start of a beautiful thing? 

Taglist: @winterrrnight @loves0phelia

[twisted-wonderland-but-gayer]

Just thought up the other potential reactions from the g7 counterparts:

Alice would be curious, as always, of yuu because she’s never seen the queen of hearts just being patient-ish with someone. Also yuu is definitely much more normal (somewhat) unlike the rest of wonderland’s residents. She asks a lot of questions like child simba but because she just wants to know how and why this happened? Depending on the yuu, she might look up to them? Although that depends on who someone wants to characterize them.

Like you said, Ursula would try to keep yuu away from ariel but I think the same goes for king triton. So either they meet up by accident or one of them sneaks away to meet the other. Once they do finally meet, ariel wants to know all about yuu and but also probably asks them about human stuff (depending on how old she is). Yuu and ariel end up sharing stories for the whole time till they’re found. She might try to introduce them to the rest of the family, but probably doesn’t really go far intimately. They might eventually open up, but it either takes a lot of time and they don’t really have full trust or it just doesn’t happen at all. Is that cousin that you only see every other holiday at grandma’s house but despite that you guys are like best friends.

Like Snow, don’t got a lot of thoughts on aurora. I think she would just kinda neutral meeting yuu, honestly the whole interaction is her being just chill while talking to them. Depending on the relationship between she and maleficent is, Maleficent might introduce yuu to aurora herself or just kinda keeps an eye on them while they interact. The fairies absolutely distrust yuu and don’t want them anywhere near aurora.

Aladdin doesn’t trust yuu at all 100%, same goes with jasmine. He won’t be outright rude, but definitely goes out of his way to avoid them or keep any interactions short. Although does keep an eye on them to see how they interact with jafar. He would probably one of the last people they interact with and is either formally introduced to them through Hercules, Snow, or Aurora. He joins in on any antics that might happen but when alone with yuu, both are just sitting there awkwardly. Kinda like a going out friend and their friend you don’t really know and your friend left so you’re both waiting in silence for them to get back. If yuu and aladdin eventually get along, he’s that friend thats message you or you message to see if they want to go on a 3am mcdonalds run and than hang out in a walmarts parking lot afterwards.

And completely fair on misreading the first ask, I probably would’ve if I didn’t send it. Also sorry if I don’t got the characterizations right, it’s been a long time since I watched any classic Disney movie that wasn’t aristocats or robin hood.

I love Aladdin and Jasmin having beef with like 13 year old and is like "we don't trust you!!" "Damn what did I do???"

I feel like Ariels would be the most interesting. The two sneak out together realize who each other are and have conversations comparing things.

"You're never allowed to go to the surface?"

"It's dangerous, father says."

"Humans aren't so bad... besides doesn't your father also say I'm dangerous cause of my mother?"

"I guess so yeah..."

"Mom says to stay away from your side of the family, cause women there are only ever seen and not heard and he did bad stuff to my mom too. Maybe, you should start questioning him"

Hercules is just "don't you fucking try anything" and Meg is like "OK that's valid but after working with Hades I can tell you the kid is cool" and now Hades is trying to be the cool cousin

Aurora and Yuu should be like siblings change my mind.

Also rip Alice. "How are you the queens child??" "Idk bro I fell from the sky and she was like "oh cool" and now I'm royalty.

[doomsdaydicecascader]

What would you say was the thing that really shifted your opinion on postcanon stuff? I remember reading your long form posts about it and finding them pretty eloquent and interesting given the information I had (and I admit they did nudge me to me to end up not reading the epilogues along with the sheer length and my own squeamishness, though of course you also gave them their due when you felt it was fair)

if i'm being real, it's primarily interaction with other homestuck fans - my social media spaces tend to be pretty heavily curated, i basically only follow people i trust to be intelligent, since like. there is a level of comfort and complacency with social media? i don't like following new people, i don't like unfollowing old people. so i just dont branch out that much.

but i joined the mspfa discord in........ may of last year? while i really enjoy playing the role of like, i compared myself to solaire of astora once. guy who is there to help. i enjoy doing that, there is fun in that. i have spent many hours over the past months explaining homestuck plot points in ways that basically only i would and it is largely, pearls before swine, because the fact is that people dont want to understand post-canon, they don't want to like, pick at it critically, to understand why the decisions were made, they want to hate post-canon. and this is a very critical difference between me not liking post-canon and the majority of people hating post-canon.

and there is something to be said about experiencing homestuck as it is perceived by other people, to really solidify what i liked about homestuck post-canon, because there was stuff i liked to begin with. and seeing people who hate it without good reason frustrate me! genuinely, if you had to see the same "i heard jade has a dog penis" discussions every 2 weeks from some sprout who showed up only to be mad, you would start to defend it too.

like, i actually delayed that second blog post at the time because hatred for the team was flaring up again, for whatever reason, i don't even remember. but i remember putting it off because i didn't want to contribute to people who were blindly angry about homestuck^2

there are reasons to not like post-canon, lord knows there are plenty. i actually stand by basically everything i said about it not actually working and the times where it goes too far. in the second blog post, not the first one. but like, there is a total and all-encompassing difference in what the conversation is, "yeah, the meat and candy thing doesnt really work and dirks graphic suicide is ill-considered at best" doesnt matter at all when the level people are operating on is "say a plot point as a joke, make people mad, have fun circlejerking over how bad it is"

part of it is also that in the process of writing my own comic, it kind of comes with the territory to be less precious about the characters. like, team slime, my home discord server, watches movies every saturday. for a while, our theme was musicals, and eventually, we watched hamilton. and i realized that lin manuel miranda writes alexander hamilton in the exact way i am always afraid i am writing jane and vriska, like. just. truly relentlessly protective of them. and so being less precious about these characters means recognizing the flaws therein, not being afraid to write them just being kind of disasters. i still am pretty precious about them, but its a work in progress. you gotta get your hands dirty with them, and that puts it in context of respecting when others do the same

like, there are still a lot of really glaring flaws in post-canon, dont get me wrong, but theyre not insurmountable, and it helps to have spaces like burning down the house for me to express directly like. what i wanted out of homestuck. post-canon is not what i want it to be, but when has homestuck ever given anyone what they wanted without any complications whatsoever

and i think it is genuinely capable of being extremely good - this recent update (yiffy overlooking the rosemary drama) is extremely choice! i genuinely love how everyone involved is characterized, the panels are flashy, it puts to bed really stupid shit, like. its unbelievably fucking good how the problem kanaya has isnt "rose had another kid with jade in secret, our marriage is in shambles" but "jane knows about this kid", like. the absence of infidelity conflict is refreshing and says so much about everyone involved. and i have been thinking nonstop about how rose and jades daughters takes after caliborn of all characters. like. "you hope they eat each other alive" with the perspective of like, a caliborn grin is such an INSANE direction to take yiffy! holy shit! its awesome!!!!!!!!

[crepe-of-wrath]

Benefits Package AU St. Valentine's Special Part 1 (Alucard x Fem Reader)

Notes: not a direct continuation of BP 1/2, but happening in the same AU continuity; this is the set-up for the Main Event on Tuesday so no smut here; this is more light-hearted/slice of life

Picture it: the Hellsing Manor, sometime in late 1998. You had learned many unexpected things about Alucard since Sir Integra ordered him to start 'taking care' of you. For example, he had a surprising Boys' Own impish streak that occasionally broke through all his weightiness, and at the most unpredictable times...

You caught him emerging from the wall out of the corner of your eye and screamed right over his (presumed) greeting.

The vampire just grinned at you as though he was totally unaware of how badly he'd frightened you, which, as you had come to learn, was probably the truth of it, as age and...whatever else had happened to him had made him completely blind to temporary flashes of human emotion.

To be fair, the fact that you were now laughing--I mean, he did look ridiculous, only phased halfway through the wall, attention now turned to your TV and DVD player--didn't help.

(Thanks to his Master, Alucard had not only been one of the very first beings on earth to have his own DVD player, but he also had perhaps the finest collection of action movies on DVD in the world. There was an entire folder in one of your cabinets that contained volumes of correspondence negotiating for one-off DVD copies of Alucard's favorite films that hadn't seen regular public release yet. As a result, the cinematic world now labored under the assumption that Sir Integra was a great admirer of thrillers. She was not.)

"I heard you opening something. Did I get a new movie?" asked Alucard, with all the genuine enthusiasm of a twelve-year-old child.

"This is actually for me," you said. "You won't like it. It's sitcom stuff." You had just unwrapped the world's only version of The Simpsons (Seasons 1-4) on DVD. (Many DVDs, to be precise.)

Alucard shrugged.

"Enjoy, little human." And, with that, he was gone.

You were skipping from episode to episode in Season 4 while doing your usual late-night work when there was a knock at the door. You squealed in surprise.

"Little human," said Alucard, who just walked through the door instead of waiting for you to open it, "is there any method of entering a room that doesn't upset you?"

"It's late!"

"Yes it is"--now he sounded like Walter when he lectured you about taking care of yourself--"and you should stop working." With no effort, he pulled over a large, ornate wingback, plucked you out of your office chair, and settled you in his lap. He let you wrap your comparatively little hand in one of his and prop your head on his chest as he gently scratched your scalp with the fingers of his other hand.

"That's right," he quietly whispered. "All done for today, little human. Tell me, what are we watching?"

"Well," you said, "the girl in the dress gave that boy next to her a paper valentine because no one else gave him one and she felt sorry for him, and now he thinks she is his girlfriend and she's about to embarass him at this public event on camera by telling him she's not."

" And...this is funny?"

"Yes," you said, although in the moment you found yourself unable to explain why.

"What sorts of Valentine's presents do you usually get, little human?"

You laughed. "The only person who ever got me anything was my father. I think it was so I wouldn't feel left out when he and my mother exchanged gifts."

"Hmmm," said Alucard. "And what did he get you last year?"

"Oh, he hasn't gotten me a Valentine's gift in some time," you said, only realizing in that moment that this made you a little sad.

"Hmmm," said Alucard.

TBC

[loving-family-poll]

(Confession) I think I’ve got some fucked up cheryl blossom shit going on. growing up I was isolated as an only child literally living in the middle of the woods with only immediate family and I had imaginary friends to keep me company. But they weren’t friends to me. They were my siblings. I actually fucking called them Sister and Brother. Like that was their names.

I was so lonely growing up I used to write fanfiction about me having a twin brother. I wanted someone my age to play with and be close to and I was always drawn to sibling type characters as well as emotionally incestous stories but I didn’t know what that was back then because I was so young. I knew objectively incest was wrong but I was so desperate for someone to be mine, to be close with me and stuck with me so they couldn’t leave me like my friends had as the years went by.

I have two cousins, both a few days apart from me in age. One a guy, one a girl. For some reason I always wanted a brother specifically, I couldn’t tell you why. This guy cousin, I’ll call him Scott, felt like the answer that I had prayed for. I used to daydream about him being my brother. Similar to an anon a while back, we physically fought a lot. I bested him everytime because I’m a buff girlboss or something. I was obsessed with him and there definitely was some emotionally incestous stuff going on from my end—and from what I’ve observed over the years, especially pretty recently now that we are in college, it seems he’s physically attracted to me.

Whats strange about this is im not physically attracted to him. I’m not physically attracted to men at all, really. I’ve always liked women. They were what my first sexual fantasies were about, the first porn I watched, I could go on. Somehow I didnt realize that I liked women until highschool even though I did all of that. It was all because of a movie I watched and I fell in love with the movie character who was a woman and I realized oh. I’ve never felt that way about any of my boyfriends before, or even Scott. Like not even comparably close. That weird nervousness I had around him paled completely compared to the feeling I have for women.

I didnt feel this call for a sister as desperately as I did a brother, but I think that might have been because I always found it easy to become close with other women. An example of how this affected my realization of my sexuality was that I definitely had love for my best friend who I only knew for a year. I’m not sure if I was really in love, but when she moved away it was absolutely fucking horrible. I wrote her letters and left kiss marks on them as my signature and I cried every day for months imagining kissing her before she left “as sisters”. Like that was an actual verbatim thought I had. As sisters. I thought about telling her I loved her and eventually this led to my having fantasies about her etc etc etc. I never thought anything about it until years later.

The other cousin I mentioned, I’ll call her Laura, definitely had some emotional + physical incestuous feelings for me as we grew up. She used to beg me to shower with her, bathe with her, skinny dip with her, do anything and everything with her. She once begged me to let her shave my pubes. I have never had good boundaries and I didn’t really see a reason to say no even though it make me a bit nervous. She was the one with sisters, this was just some sister ritual that I didn’t understand because I had no siblings. So I let her do whatever she wanted and I catered to whatever she asked of me. Over time she started to pull away from me and I didn’t understand, hadnt I done everything she had wanted of me?

About eight years passed where I barely saw her but I learned to live with it because essentially the same ghosting happened with my friends in school. I didn’t understand why they left me but I couldn’t change it so I went with the flow. But randomly she started talking to me again. It was weird because it felt like we were getting along way better than we had before which I hadn’t even noticed was strained. And she was flirting with me. Telling me that my makeup looked so pretty on me, that my hair smelled good, and that she loved my dimples. I smiled at her once and she said, “ohmigosh, you have dimples. I love dimples on girls.”

Very quickly we made it clear without being explicit that we both were into girls one night. Nothing happened, but I think being open like that made her decide to stick by my side for the rest of the visit, unlike her usual routine, and she made me sleep in bed with her and go everywhere with her, like when we were kids.

Then she got a boyfriend.

Last visit I was dejected but happy for her because she seemed so much more happy than she had at any other time in her life. But then, I think, she made a move on me. We were at the local pool at nighttime, all alone. She mentioned wanting some ice cream before the shop closed next to the pool and because my love language seems to be acts of service and turning into mush when pretty girls bat their eyelashes, I very unsubtly ran off to get her ice cream. I think she knew by then that she had me in her clutches because her entire mood changed.

She came up close to me as she ate and very slowly crowded me against the wall. I was like an actual pile of mush trying and failing to eat my own icecream as she talked and I got that feeling in my chest, one I had never had with Scott, ever. She reached to me and adjusted my swim top strap and then brushed my hair out of my face and my body actually buckled. I had thought I was a top up until that point but im. I guess not. And then she fucking asked me if I thought the two of us would be able to fit into the bathtub together, again, like we used to.

I said yes and we rushed off back to the house and I was in the bathroom waiting for her and….she never came in. I went out to see where she was and she was with our grandfather and I did actually subtly ask her did you want to take a bath or anything? Because I’ll take a shower if not….and she told me she was just going to wait etc etc etc. and then I remembered. Her fucking boyfriend. Shit.

If Laura asked I would do absolutely anything for her. I think with Scott we have this Something Weirder Than Sex shit going on and I don’t know what to do on either front.

This is long as fuck but a good read that shit w Laura is wild

[trainsinanime]

Everybody is posting their opinions about the interview about the Miraculous Ladybug season 5 finale, and I feel like I should as well, but I'm not sure I have much to say. There's just a few things that stick out to me:

First of, it's just very funny to me that the team started out with Bug Noire, and worked backwards from that, and that's why Adrien ended up in the isolation chamber. One of the most controversial things about the entire finale happened because Marinette wearing both Miraculous would be cool. That's just plain funny to me.

Second, I have not yet seen a better option for the finale. They did kind of write themselves into a corner there. The story is all about Marinette, but Adrien is the one to whom all the plot points attach. What do you do with that? Compare and contrast the movie, which I saw on the same day as the finale: It's all Marinette's story, until the big finale, where she just lays there and watches as Adrien and Gabriel resolve the main story by themselves. That option sucks, too. It's not terrible, but it's disappointing. I think all the arguments of Adrien can't be there because of Chat Blanc or Ephemeral are nonsense, even if they come from the show's head writers. But it's true that Adrien can't be there, because if he is, the story becomes about him instead of Marinette. If you know a fanfic that found a good way to resolve that, let me know!

As an aside: I know there are people who are disappointed that we didn't learn more about Emilie and the past of the adults, but I think that was never going to happen. I know I made a post about this years ago but I can't find it, but basically: Emilie was an interesting mystery for fans, but she was never relevant to the plot, least of all Marinette. This is the same kind of stuff as with the Marauders back in the days of the Harry Potter fandom, where a certain subset of fans went wild over all the hints. But those were never promises, they were just flavour, telling us the world is bigger and adventures have been going on since forever.

My final and most important point here is something quite different: I am grading Miraculous Ladybug on one hell of a curve. Have been doing that since the first episode I watched. I am willing to forgive most any jank in the storytelling if I get some cool and cute moments, and the show is full of those. So in that regard, the season 5 finale was no problem for me whatsoever. Yes, there is a lot of jank, but also a lot of cool stuff, and that makes me happy. There's a kung-fu crocodile! What more needs to be said?

(Aside: I know there are people who hate the kung-fu crocodile, and that the Couffaine boys are now mystical monks out of nowhere, with no explanation. I assume these people either hate fun or are arguing out of bad faith. If there's one thing in the finale that was obviously objectively 100% a good thing, it's that the crocodile knows Kung-Fu.)

Now, I'm not saying that you should grade the show on a curve, I'm just saying that I do. Yes, it's not entirely rational. Yes, there are plenty of shows out there, including shows aimed at similar age ranges, that don't require this. But if I didn't grade Miraculous Ladybug on a curve, if I didn't rate cute and fun and exciting over great interesting story, if I didn't separate the potential for fanfics from the actual way the stories are told, then I wouldn't be in the fandom to begin with. This is explicitly not a defence or apologia, it's just an explanation for why I have no trouble disregarding the janky parts. I know others disagree, or agree in principle but then some of the janky parts were just too bad for them and broke the spell, and that's valid.

But personally, I have no major problem with the season 5 finale. Yeah it was weird and quite a few decisions were stupid and didn't help any overall story. But I had fun, I'm looking forward to season 6 and I am going to write more fanfic. That's what matters to me.

[thekimspoblog]

For the record, I did finally see "American Fiction" a few nights ago. I am recommending you watch this movie, so I don't want to spoil it too much, but I wanted to share my thoughts.

When a slice-of-life movie is done well, I can really enjoy it, but if that aspect fails, a movie can become very cloying and tedious. In this case however, it was done well. "American Fiction" is a very cozy, very digestible movie that just follows this one family through the highs and lows of their summer. There are multiple subplots which have little to do with eachother, let alone the main story, but that's okay; it feels more realistic that way and the subplots are quite charming in their own right. The dialogue expresses familiar sentiments from other movies, but in a way that still feels fresh. In a sense, the trailer almost feels like a prank on the audience; white moviegoers were promised a mean-spirited satire on race relations, and instead what we got was 90 minutes of black people existing comfortably with minimal conflict. But if you're disappointed, that's on you. Setting aside the politics altogether, it's just refreshing to - every once in a while - watch a quieter movie about normal people being kind to eachother. Nobody has to die in order for a drama to be good... well... almost nobody.

The A-Story is basically just a rip-off of Spike Lee's "Bamboozled". Like I said, the story we saw in the trailer really only made up less than a third of the plot. And if you're upset about the bait-and-switch, "American Fiction" succeeded at what it was trying to do, but... also if you really wanted a movie about a writer pushing the envelope of prejudice for personal gain, you can still just go and watch "Bamboozled". For that matter, "Bamboozled" was already vaguely the same plot as Mel Brooks' "The Producers". I guess my main question is what it says about the psyche of white people, when you compare "American Fiction" to a movie made 24 years prior which had basically the same premise. Does it represent improvement, that a film can make the same social commentary without resorting to the same extremes to get the point across? Or have we grown more sensitive; is "American Fiction" a more toned-down version of the story simply because you could never make "Bamboozled" in the PC world of today? I hope it's the former. You probably couldn't remake "Bamboozled" today, but more importantly, "American Fiction" couldn't have been made in the 90's; the imagery of Monk's book was so commonplace back then, I don't think it would have occurred to white audiences that anything was even amiss. On the other hand, I think the white people in "American Fiction" are somehow more cartoonish; I remember a few moments while watching "Bamboozled" where I went, "Oh shit! Ok, I have said/done/thought stuff like that IRL", and I never had that moment watching "American Fiction". I call the movie "digestible" and "cozy" because I was able to get through the whole thing and not once did it feel like the movie was attacking me. But again, even if your movie sets out to make white people uncomfortable, that's still centering the story too much around our emotions; "American Fiction" had the more important goal of simply telling a story where black people are allowed to be happy.

The cringe comedy is extremely funny. This is the main reason I'm recommending the movie as lighthearted fun. Half the jokes boil down to "Jeffery Wright is annoyed" (and IMO that itself is enough to sustain a film), but there were also some lines of dialogue which completely caught me off guard. The movie is still more CUTE than it is FUNNY, but for a "cute" movie I was laughing almost all the way through. The other film I'd compare "American Fiction" to is "Dan in Real Life", and I definitely prefer this one, both in terms of likeable characters and quality of dialogue.

Spoilers ahead! I liked how the story had three endings, and like "Clue", the audience is left to pick which one they want. I still won't be spoiling what happens but I did want to talk about this part: It's fine that Ending A was never explained in detail; Monk has made his feelings about the situation pretty clear at this point; anyone with two braincells to rub together can use their imaginations and guess what he would have said at that podium. Ending B is pretty obviously the correct answer. Not only does a "rom-com" ending fit with the tone of the rest of the movie, but I think it gives the best resolution to what the story was actually about. I said none of the racist characters made me embarrassed about my own behavior, but that doesn't mean I didn't see Monk's personality flaws as a reflection of myself. "Tortured artist realizes at the 11th hour that his judgmental attitude has been isolating him from the people he cares about" is a theme I very much relate to, and it's the kind of story I've been wanting to write for years. Ending C was a little bit predictable, but still worked as the climactic punchline. It was the moment the story went from feeling like an unintentional ripoff of "Bamboozled" to a more direct parody of it. Ending D causes the rest of the story to become confusing, but it at least retroactively excuses some of the more contrived/cliched moments which happened at the beginning of the film.

So yeah. In conclusion, good movie, little forgettable but pretty damn funny. Go see it. Jeffery Wright is a DILF and I could watch another 90 minutes of him meandering around the beach, staring soulfully out at the ocean.

[olderthannetfic]

I’m probably more forgiving than I should be, but I would say most people understand there are perfectly reasonable and compassionate people who have their personal reasons for continuing to enjoy mainstream or other media with massive issues. We all have our own opinions and baggage and that doesn’t make us enemies. But “its just too hard to find indie stuff!” isn’t that. If someone has enough internet access to send a defensive anon ask they can use Google or just ask for recs.

--

It's more than that.

Fandom is a subculture, or a set of subcultures, even with how mainstream fic is now. Supernatural was on for years, so yes, it clearly had a lot of people viewing compared to some novel. However, SPN had garbage viewership compared to lots of hit shows, and most randos at one's job likely did not watch it. It was an inescapable pillar of fandom culture for a while.

Film Bros have such distinct taste someone made that hilarious fanvid to Pretty Fly for a White Guy that used all of those movies they love. Sure, everyone's heard of most of them, but have we seen them?

Film noir nerds have festivals where they go watch increasingly obscure films noir, and there are "classics" all of them have seen that other people haven't.

I know no one who cares about The Secret History... aside from literally every dark academia social media account ever.

Everyone is the protagonist of their own story if they'd just act like it.

People come to my tumblr as a sort of central location, so when I'm melting down about Beyond Evil or even some indie novel, a certain number of people will go consume it too. I'm always picking up tastes from costubers or whatever internet micro-celebrity I like this month.

If you are excited about the stuff you like, other people will consume it so they can talk to you about it. You do not have to passively jump on every bandwagon. Even the supposed normies don't all watch the same shows. (And the idea of normies is a mirage anyway.)

There are whole facebook groups and social circles around indie original m/m novels these days. There are tastemaker super fans who seem to mostly engage in that sphere, and people who hang out in those spaces have all read the big names... big names absolutely nobody outside of the m/m world has heard of.

Go look up the website for GRL, the industry conference, and see how many of the attending authors you've heard of. Probably five of sixty or something unless you follow m/m very closely.

Last time I bothered with After Ellen, they were breathlessly following that Spanish historical soap's f/f subplot. Who else outside of Spain even heard of that show?

I get not wanting to be 100% alone forever, but there is no such thing as universally popular media. We make little pods of taste, some of which amount to full on subcultures.

Those taste groups form when we take a stand for our particular Thing, whatever it is. It requires a tiny bit of proactiveness, but honestly, not that much. People who are already un-normie enough to spend their time on AO3 and Tumblr instead of Instagram or whatever are already making choices about what kinds of tastes to prioritize and what circles to join.

We could make a minimal effort for our favorite types of content and build indie versions into small but viable industries.

Or we could be lazy, spineless cowards.

[breannastewart]

i’m worried she’ll get cancelled for this like i know she’s a big hp but she can’t do that in 2024…

alright, I’m gonna be 100% real with all of you when I say all of this, and I am saying this as someone who was directly targeted by JK’s comments when they started publicly years ago: this whole notion of cancel culture, is complete bullshit, and does nothing productive for the people you’re supposedly canceling all these people over for. I haven’t touched the books since the first tweet got posted years back, and I would literally curl up under the covers and stay up for hours reading them as a kid when I discovered them (very late compared to others, but still) and when she went out and did all that, it was the first time I felt truly hurt by a famous person. however, I still watch the movies after Dan Rad’s statement. and ultimately decided not her, nor anyone gets to decide how I react or interact with any of it. you have no idea how exhausting it is to face this stuff day in and day out, and knowing there are people in power in the country I live in who would love to strip every right and safety from me and others with the single stroke of a pen. that scares me more than her dumbass twitter fingers right now or whether or not I care if the online warriors “advocating” for us care if I watch the movies at the same time. I have to pick my battles at this point for my own mental healthy and energy. if you want to cancel me for still watching the movies, then by all means. if people want to cancel Stewie for this, then by all means. the people who most likely will, are just teenagers who think that will save people like me, or whatever cause it is we’re canceling people for not being perfect about. it was the same nonsense the new teenagers in the fandom pulled with sue when one tweeted about her being a “raging z*onist” and claimed she signed this or that and blah blah blah, when it took me a couple google searches to debunk that as false. it’s literally that easy to think for yourself. these people are so quick to jump the gun because if they don’t look the most perfect online to oomfies then they might get canceled too. the world is not that black or white.

you can be like oh that’s disappointing, or oh that’s not the “perfect” response to something. but at the end of the day, literally none of us are gonna be perfect. if you wanna view the world this way constantly worrying about will I get canceled or omg my fave might get canceled :( then we all might as well stop engaging with any form of anything because none of it is going to be perfect. and if I’m being perfectly honest? it wouldn’t be a total loss if that demographic decides they can no longer “stan” her because it’s not like they actually care about any of these causes beyond making sure their online persona looks good and they can post a bunch of smut instead. these people drop who they stan for every other day when they find out one did this or that. I really don’t care if they decide she’s canceled. am I gonna personally post anything about the shoes? nah. am I gonna cancel and unstan her over it? nah. those people will just come crawling back to her eventually anyway because like I said, it’s not about caring about the cause, it’s just making sure you look like you care enough until it all blows over.

and I have friends who are also trans who don’t agree with me, and I don’t agree on every point they have either, and we’ve talked about it in depth and detail, literally did it today when stewie posted the shoes. but we don’t love or understand each other any less. I’d encourage people to have those conversations with people like us rather than making sure they scream the loudest that so and so is now canceled. at least that’s actually productive.

[luescris]

Okay I have a bone to pick with the Sonic fandom in general.

This is something that I see on Twitter mainly but I haven't looked at any tags or anything for. Well, any fandom really in general so it's been a minute but like.

We need to talk about something. Rant under the cut.

What do you guys want. Like seriously. Everything that Sega/Sonic team does you guys hate on without purpose, sometimes within reason, but it also comes off as rude, spoiled, and petty. I'm not saying that everyone does this, but it's happened so many times for as long as I've been a Sonic fan and like. I think this was the last straw.

Because when Sonic Prime came out, everyone loved it. We were able to get three whole seasons for the show because people actively enjoyed it cuz it was good, compelling, and had amazing animation/character depth and other kind of stuff.

But now all I'm seeing all over Twitter is hate for the show. Out of fucking nowhere. The same shit happened to Frontiers.

I've heard people call it the best Sonic game we had yet. And we got three whole new updates and content for free. But people are now shitting on it like it's the worst thing we got. Like what is that?? It's happened with the IDW comics, it's happened with the Sonic movies, y'all switch your opinions on what game is the best constantly and compare every game to everything else and like.

What the hell do you want.

I get it. Some games could be better. Sonic 06 is an example of that. But some of y'all call games perfect, and compare almost everything to the Sonic Adventure games when even that has it's flaws. I know I'm only one person, I know not many people will probably see this, but this is seriously pissing me off and getting out of hand. Watch the same thing happen to Sonic Dreams I bet you.

Sega isn't perfect. The Sonic team isn't perfect. But they're trying again. Isn't that good enough?? Isn't that something that we haven't got in a while???? This was actively the best year for Sonic that we've ever gotten in so long and the fact that y'all are hating this much this badly is just. It's unreal to me. It's insane.

Stop pretending to be a fan of all your gonna do is unnecessarily critique everything that Sega comes out with. Penny Snapcube has made some good points about what she thinks could've been done better in Frontiers, but she did it in a way that wasn't mean spirited. It was genuine.

A lot of you need to learn how to be fucking genuine.

[dearreader]

my tldr version of the media around brat v ttpd would be: the media and a loud group of fans are so focused on the potential conflict and drama (for clicks/views) that they neglect to engage with the music as an art form and then everyone is disappointed bc instead of knowing the background that’s needed to appreciate the art they’re just listening so they can dig for gossip that may or may not be there

but maybe you’re thinking of something else, I think there’s a lot to discuss

this is also true! i was thinking more about how we’re in a massive media literacy crisis and more and more people are getting upset when art isn’t easily digestible.

before i start this:

THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH LIKING STRAIGHT FORWARD ART!

but what i was thinking was that brat dives into complex emotions but in a more straight forward/simplistic way. that’s not an insult at charli xcx or the album at all! she isn’t going for the same type of lyricism as other artists (think taylor but also chappell roan or flyna boss). it’s all to personal preference. but a big issue with people discussing brat or preferring it is that they’re saying they don’t want to decipher a bunch of lyrics to relate to it, they just want it and can go. which is fine. but it does create a problem of people then misinterpreting other lyrics because they refuse to actually see what is being said or done. i really enjoyed ttpd:ta because im a pretentious english major but i knew i wasn’t gonna be for everyone or it would take awhile for others to understand it, which is fine. but instead of doing that people instead just conflated it all to being bad. which is where ive seen a lot of the two albums being compared to.

i saw people on tiktok (my first mistake was opening the app, i know) saying that charli is actually making GOOD pop music while taylor isn’t. and while ive already established “brat” isn’t for me i was still very surprised by how well recieved it was. it doesn’t seem like what mainstream pop music would want or like, and while charli has her fans and does deserve her praise and roses i was still surprised. i do stand by my statement that i think in 1-2 years a lot of the general public will say brat was an album of the time because it, to me in my opinion, won’t age well to the general public. i can be wrong, we’ll see. but i think people like it because charli is diving into emotions or relationships we’ve all had. sympathy is a knife and girl, so confused are at the top of my head because those are somewhat universal situations we all have been in. and with charli’s writing style she’s more straightforward so people don’t have to think to hard on it. they can get it on the first listen and go. but this is then tying back to what i wanted to discuss with the media literacy crisis.

i’m going to use my favorite album of all time, “the good witch” by maisie peters, to explain this since i think if i continue with ttpd and taylor people will ignore my point. but i loved tgw because it was not only phenomenal on my first listen but the more and more i listened the more details i noticed and the more i saw just how talented of a writer maisie is. history of man is a prime example obviously, but in watch she uses antanaclasis, which means using the same word but in different ways, with the line “I fought it, but I saw it and it sawed me right in half”! this is an incredible line and realizing she did that word play made me love the song more! and the more i listened the more i found stuff like this and became obsessed with it. and this was because i kept going back and listening to it because i wanted to know more. art and literature are supposed to do this, we’re supposed to sit and think about it and find deeper meaning. not all art but we’re supposed to sit and think on what we saw and what that means for us and the art.

another example with a movie is oppenheimer. i remember when the movie came out people were saying not to see it because it was problematic. and one review i saw even said “all biopics are problematic because the director controls the narrative and therefore controls how you’ll view the person” which was the worst take id EVER seen because this person just said they never think critically about any media they consume. they just let the person making it control them and don’t think about the implications. because oppenheimer is a great movie that explores and discusses war and destruction. and it is a good film to watch but i don’t think the guy who made the ATOMIC BOMB is a good guy and was rooting for him. i still think he is awful cause he is awful. but i still enjoyed the film and thought critically on it and what it means for society. like art should be. but not every movie is like that or intends to have that same meaning. another movie i like is bottoms, which is literally about lesbians starting a fight club to get pussy. no one meant for it to have a deeper meaning than that and it succeeds in what the plot is. this doesn’t mean it’s a bad movie but rather the art is doing something different. it’s a silly comedy for wlw to just have fun. and yet, both films are good.

or with books to. ali hazelwood is a fine author who writes cute romance stories and doesn’t go farther than that while RF kaung is writing books that ask you to think and contemplate what she’s discussing which has made people upset. i remember when babel came out a person read it and made a review talking about how she hated it because she thought it would be a fun fantasy book to read before going back to grad school and was instead confronted with colonialism and racism. she said she made this review to tell others it was okay to not like the book while missing the point that the book was literally describing people like her.

this has gotten slightly miss jointed and is all over the place, but my point is that people are slowly gravitating toward more simplistic or straightforward media that doesn’t necessarily ask them to think more on something. which isn’t inherently bad, you aren’t required to always think hard on everything you consume, sometimes you just wanna listen to fun club music or watch lesbians kill football players. there’s nothing wrong with that. but we’re in a media literacy crisis because a lot of people refuse to sit on media that makes them think. they refuse to think about how songs can have deeper meanings and will instead just focus on “the golden retriever line in the title track is stupid.” and ignore that it was intentionally done like that because taylor was trying to show her and her muse weren’t being smart or as tortured as they thought they were, they were just two idiots being high together. but people refuse to think on that and will only look at a surface level example.

which is what i was getting at, brat isn’t bad and if you like the album im happy! but ive seen a lot of people use this album to tear ttpd down and miss the albums are not only doing two separate things but also then trying to create unnecessary drama.

i hope this makes sense, it was why i wanted to kinda wait to post it so i can get my thoughts in order but this was what i was getting at. it’s not on charli or her album but im more so just talking about the general public.

[marciabrady]

i rewached the hunchback of notre dame on friday for the first time, in a long time, and i'm still in shock.

hond was a film that was around when i was a child, because it had just come out, and the merchandising was still prevalent. it was being pushed a lot, so to speak, and growing up in the era that i did, the kids on the playground or online were either belle, meg, or esmeralda girls- there wasn't room for anyone else. as a child that gravitated more toward the classic princesses and femininity, it was not a movie that spoke to me and the fact that i felt it was shoved down my throat turned me off of it for a time. too much happened, even in the first five minutes, and there was constantly a wild series of events that i would try to reel my head in from. it wasn't a universe i wished to inhabit and, frankly, i think the crux of the reason why i didn't like it was because esmeralda was really the only female character (aside from laverne) and there wasn't enough for me, as a child, outside of the violence and shouting men and misery showcased. i revisited the film when i was twelve and i loved it so, but i think parts of me valued it at even higher a premium because of how rare and forgotten it had been. i even wrote esmeralda for a time. needless to say, it didn't last, and until now i've kind of been undecided about it

but watching it on friday...wow. i'm filled with both wonderment and despair. after craving quality content from disney for so long and continually being disappointed with tangled and frozen and moana and brave and raya, and every other movie i've tried to watch, i was instantly transfixed by how adult hunchback was, from the opening frames. the epic scale of the art, how ambitious it seemed, how elevated the jargon was- but mostly, how raw and realistic the storyline was. this movie threw no punches- it contained swear words, topics relating to disabilities, religion, death, genocide, se*ual assault, you literally name it. it exposed an underbelly of society that could be flattering and unflattering. while parts didn't age well, i'm surprised at how nuanced the conversation was around certain topics- decades before me too and social activism became more commonplace. i couldn't believe how beautiful it was and how much guts it took for the artists and writers to really go there. i was in disbelief for how evolved their viewpoints seemed, and this was before the internet was commonplace and they could've gotten as many viewpoints as readily as we can get them now...but then it filled me with instant sorrow, because i know they all got so much pushback and this film was so discouraged, we never saw the likes of it again.

it's funny because this film came years after the little mermaid, and you can tell how much of a higher budget this crew had to work with. the film's crew had sharpened their abilities and skills from previous years and made astounding technical advancements. that, mixed with how varied and diverse their topics became really signaled them finding their footing- or trying to. can you imagine, if they didn't give up on these types of movies, where we'd be today? how many more diverse stories, in diverse settings, we would've gotten- all adult in nature? the beautiful 2d designs and animation mixed to heighten the effect and impact and how it would've rounded out walt's vision, of wanting these films to not only be kid's stuff but genuinely be able to compete as a film genre unto itself? how different this movie was from any other??? and compare that to now, where they're all the same. what's the difference between dreamsworks, pixar, and disney movies anymore? and the activism they push now is 20 years too late, nothing cutting edge, and it's all the same. this female character is this much more badass, our first (minor) gay character that actually has no weight, addressing x about generation trauma, etc. even the topics we address in films now have been so sanitized and vetted out for audience approval that there's no real risk or edge to anything anymore, it's all monolithic and as safe as you can get.

but that's the thing with how experimental these later movies were- pocahontas, hunchback, hercules, mulan...while certain elements aged better than others, these movies should've been the beginning of an entirely new genre, not the last of their kind? how disturbing and offputting is it that tangled and brave came out decades after these films? that we've replaced the 'hellfire' villain type song with 'shiny?' we really could've had so much and it's sad that everything collapsed out from under us in that last breath of disney creating true art

the only thing that gives me hope is that we, the generation that grew up on these films, are the marketplace now. perhaps that will make these films come back into vogue and disney start producing them once more? but can they ever pick back up after such a long hiatus, without the original creative teams? is it all just a lost art form? also disney is making more money than ever with their marketable, but soulless, movies that are coming out now...also if these movies are to be in the spotlight again, does that just mean they'll be primed for another unnecessary remake? don hahn recently said disney only did animation because they couldn't make the special effects look real, but now that there's cgi to achieve hyperrealism, there's no need for 2d anymore and that's so sad to me. just because photorealism is in (which looks dated by the minute) and 3d is what people prefer, does that mean 2d is banished forever? that's like saying the invention of photography justifies the banishment of art. idk i just hope our generation can get these renaissance style movies back and to stay

[phantomspren]

The absolutely fucking wild thing about media is how in many ways it resists the linearity of time.

Full disclosure, I'm a baby, I'm nineteen.

I do not limit my media consumption by when it was created.

I read a lot of classics, I read The Count of Monte Cristo (published from 1844-46 I think) this winter. That story has been in the world for 200 years. It's still wildly entertaining and millions of people continue to enjoy it and interpret it in new ways and inspire them to tell stories.

Don't even get me started on older stories! One of my favorite musicals is based on The Iliad and The Odyssey!

Shakespeare? You can't get through high school without reading some of his stuff. The 1996 Hamlet is one of my favorite movies ever. I've got a copy of the play from 1888.

I have totally normal relationships with these kinds of media.

But my brain gets really weird with media that was coming out from around the 70s to maybe 2010. (I was born in 2005.)

It almost can't accept that I wasn't alive/overly coherent when those things were coming out. They feel really recent compared to things like The Odyssey or Hamlet or The Count of Monte Cristo. But like. I know people who were alive and functioning adults in the 70s. So those feel way less separated from me, especially because a lot of that media is still well known. I'm listening to Queen right now, and I'm listening to Queen because of Good Omens, which was published in 1990, Good Omens also got me into Sandman which started coming out in 1989, and I just watched Return of the King today (2003). (Good Omens and Sandman are largely as active as they currently are due to the shows, which are fantastic and I'm really grateful the fandoms are still going strong.)

I know I'm nineteen. I feel like I'm nineteen. I know I was born in 2005, I'm very much an early 2000s kid. But at the same time my brain cannot wrap itself around the fact that I just wasn't alive when some of this stuff was coming out.

Beyond just knowing people who were alive at that time, I think there may be two other reasons I feel like this. One is that my mom is weird, and was kinda adverse to showing me more modern movies and TV shows when I was a kid, so up until I was maybe ten, I would primarily watch stuff like original Disney movies, Zoboomafoo (1999), Mr. Rodgers' Neighborhood (1968), and Fraggle Rock (1983). So I was just kinda disconnected from more recent stuff. My mom would also regularly read books to my sister and I, and a lot of them were things that she read growing up, like Over Sea, Under Stone (1965) by Susan Cooper. So I really just had a weird perception of media. I wasn't allowed to watch Spongebob.

Another is that maybe almost every other thing I've gotten into the last five or ten years, I've gotten into while it's in the middle of it. Owl House? I started watching when season two was wrapping up and actively coming out. The Locked Tomb? Just read this last year, we still don't have a release date for the final book. Hollow Knight, still no Silksong release date. I got into Good Omens through the show, and season three is going to start filming in January. Brandon Sanderson has been putting out like ten billion books a year since I started reading his stuff in 2017. Most music I listen to is by small indie groups who are still putting music out. So I'm largely really used to being in the thick of things and experiencing it all.

On one hand I do feel like I missed out on so much.

Which I did.

But that's kinda how being human goes. (I also missed out on some really terrible things and I'm really grateful for that, though I'm definitely worried about the future.)

Maybe people will feel this way about tOH and tLT and GO and Silksong at some point a couple decades down the line.

On the other hand, it's. So fucking cool that these things are still around and easily accessible. I mean, everyone knows Queen for a reason. Sandman and Good Omens are getting TV adaptations now for a reason. A bunch of people at my job are listening to Tolkien while they work for a reason.

And it's so exciting just thinking about all the amazing things that have yet to be created.

This is secretly a post about why we should be able to physically own media so that things like this can still be easily accessible for years down the line, not subject to the whims of streaming companies. /hj (I've really been enjoying my access to my parents' fancy DVD player while I'm home for the summer. :p And this is making me grateful it is now nearly impossible to watch VHS tapes, I did not like those things.)

Okay thanks for coming to my really weird ted talk.

[raidergamerspice]

While scrolling through my last posts on Twitter, I came across a rant thread about a particular episode of Race to the Edge concerning Hiccstrid. And considering my last Hiccstrid post seems to be doing well, perhaps I should bring this one over here too, especially since I'm not limited in space? I'll reword it in some places, but the overall discussion is the same as it was on Twitter several months ago.

So, when I binged Race to the Edge for the first time in a few years, I was pleasantly surprised to find that, of course, I still love this show. Though not every episode is perfect, it's overall a great show, and I thought that I wouldn't find an episode I would hate.

Until I got to Mi Amore Wing. Yeah, despite the fact that I'm a hardcore Hiccstrid shipper and I love their interactions in this show, this episode was definitely their worst. Like, did there really need to be a "does he really love me?" conflict for Astrid? She heard Hiccup say that their relationship was built on years of friendship. Now all of a sudden there's doubt, just because she saw Dagur and Mala show highly exaggerated, almost cartoonish, romantic affection?

For the record, I really hate the trope female characters have that's like "Ugh, my partner doesn't know what's wrong with me because I didn't tell him, but if he REALLY loved me, he should already know!" Sorry, but that is just not Astrid. And seriously? She was ready to END HER RELATIONSHIP with him just because he didn't notice her wearing the betrothal necklace? This was literally the first time she's worn it since he gave it to her (that we've seen), she has no reason to be mad at him! Like, when I watched that scene during my recent binge, my jaw literally dropped. I couldn't believe that I didn't remember this from the first time I watched this episode, much less that it even happened in the first place.

Despite that, I do love that they at least resolved this issue quickly, and we even got to hear Hiccup say he loved her for the first time. But still. I get that relationships aren't perfect, and couples fight over stuff, but I feel like this just wasn't necessary for them. There could have been much more reasonable things for them to fight over, like battle tactics, or even how to handle the antics of the twins, or just something that would be in character for them. Anything other than what we got. There's absolutely NO reason for Astrid to doubt Hiccup's feelings, and I'm just a tad salty that she needed to realize that their relationship would be different compared to others'. Like, no shit?

If you made it to the end of this rant, please understand that even though I don't like this episode because of the Hiccstrid plot, I still very much love Hiccstrid and think they're one of the best animated movie couples out there. I just think that, if there had to be an episode where they got into a fight as a couple, this shouldn't have been it. That's all.

[coulsonlives]

As requested by @sidsskullshirt, I watched Ruby Gillman and here's my review for it! This isn't the most positive review because I'm super conflicted, but it's my honest opinion. :)

First, the main thing that stood out to me: Ruby Gillman lifted a lot from Turning Red.

The opening sequence about sea monsters was intriguing and drew me in! After that, there was a minute or two of basically the same as Turning Red's opening titles, where the main character explained things in a quirky, 'welcome to my life' way. She even had the same voice affects/lilt as Mei, I wondered if she had the same voice actor until I checked.

I liked how Ruby went all tentacle-y to grab things at home, like the rest of her family, it was a nice bit of worldbuilding compared to how they had to act in public. I liked the comment about the protest and the ASMR video thing was funny lol.

Unfortunately, the opening of the movie kinda set me up to view the entire rest of the movie in a comparative RG vs TR way, so I noticed lots of other similarities:

Ruby had three friends who were like Abby, Miriam, and Priya. They had similar character tropes, ie one friend was the 'chill one', one friend was the 'exuberant' one, one friend was the 'tomboy one'.

Ruby had to hide her monster-y ness from the world.

Ruby said she's from Canada.

Ruby talked about her mom ruining her life.

Ruby turned into a big monster version of herself, just like Mei turned into a monster.

Ruby's mom could also turn into a monster.

Only the women in Ruby's family turned into monsters, just like in Turning Red, where only the women on Mei's side of the family turned into monsters.

In both movies, they were 'gifted' the ability to turn into monsters.

Ruby freaked out because her mom hid the monster thing from her, and her mom was only forced to explain things after she monstered-out.

The 'your body is going through changes and blossoming like a flower' low-effort puberty reference.

Ruby's mom saying 'don't let them tell you how to live your life and raise your children' to her clients, just like how Mei's mom was told something similar by her own mom.

I totally don't mind if movies are inspired by other movies, but this many similarities and within a year of Turning Red's release, it felt super derivative and distracting. 😭

I saw a lot of Luca in the premise too, as in the, 'sea creatures are hated by humans, they blend in to avoid persecution, also, being in contact with the water reveals what they are' thing. This wasn't as obvious to me as the Turning Red stuff, but it was on my mind for a bit..

It was weird how Ruby somehow blended in, despite being blue and having tentacle hair/ears, because visually, people wouldn't buy that. I wish the writers did some kind of charm thing, like having a lil bag of sand in her pocket, to make her look totally human and bypass the 'would people really be convinced by this?' deal. That said, there was obviously commentary on how some people are painfully, obviously different in some way, but they try hard and manage to convince people they're normal, and it's exhausting to them, and Ruby even ranted about this, and maybe the blue skin was a super overt way of showing that, but idk, it was so hard to buy.

'I don't even know you!' lol.

Ruby's friends seemed like peas in a pod with her at the start of the movie (her 'squad'), and significant because of the whole prom thing. But once they caused the inciting incident and Ruby-kraken appeared, they were relegated being part of the town's whole kraken conspiracy, and prom subplot, which took a back seat to everything else. Idk how I feel about this.

There was some kinda xenophobia allegory in the movie, between the ship captain dude and the townspeople. I liked this, but it wasn't the main focus, and it felt like it got lost among the other storylines?

We had the 'princess' storyline, the 'fighting mermaids' storyline, the 'becoming friends with chelsea' storyline (which for most of the time seemed like a totally unrelated storyline to the 'mermaids' one), the 'fighting with mom' storyline, the 'three friends' storyline, the 'fitting in' storyline, and the 'prom' storyline. Omg fam. There were so many competing things! The movie felt unfocused, especially once all the storylines started getting mixed into each other.

I personally can't do radio pop music in movies, it always dates em. The pop music playing during Nerissa's reveal was especially out of place to me.

I loved the part where Ruby's mom told her with authority to talk to her, but then was sympathetic and tried to cheer her up. It seemed like a realistic mom thing to do, I dug it! I also liked how Ruby quietly called out her mom's hypocrisy when she said she didn't have to hide anything from her. I think that'd be cathartic to see onscreen for kids who have (or had) shitty parents.

Chelsea saying Ruby was super lucky or whatever in the bathroom struck me as tone-deaf lol, it definitely didn't take into account how isolated Ruby felt and kinda invalidated how she was feeling. But I could see how Ruby would get sucked into that and want to obey what she was saying anyways.

The kraken-training scenes were probably the coolest part of the movie between the colours and just. the creativity? That said, the luma on the white parts of the shots seemed super overexposed or blown out?? I was like ?? is this supposed to look like this?

So the ship captain had a panic attack once he learned the guy was a kraken, then somehow magically got over his kraken-phobia as soon as he slapped him once?? Ugghh. The movie set up the captain with obvious prejudice against krakens, and by resolving it in a comedic scene like that, there wasn't any chance for payoff. The townspeople had a better payoff, it actually felt warranted (Ruby saved the ship from Nerissa which was a big deal, they had a right to cheer her on). And then, obviously, when she defeated Nerissa.

The character models were ugly to me. They were just solid colours with unappealing proportions, noodle arms, and no texture on the skin. The big Kraken designs had glittery/scaly skin which was better than their small designs, which had no texture, but this doesn't look like a cohesive design to me. The legs look super heavy, the neck is just a cylinder, the head is a ball, then there's arbitrary fins and those weird tentacle legs, which have tentacle toes at the ends.

I really liked Nerissa's character design though. It was appealing in a proportions type way, and the colours didn't clash, the water hair was cool too.

I really liked the bait-and-switch they pulled near the end! I can see how some people would call it, though. Also: I feel like the bait-and-switch undermined the concept of how a popular teen can also feel left out for varying reasons, which is how Chelsea was presented at first, and I kinda wish they explored that instead, and explained that she was acting out because she felt alone etc. The way she was introduced and how the movie until that point centered around high school, I was convinced there would be something like that instead of what we got. So I'm conflicted.

Every time I think about how something could've gone different I can't help but think, there was way too much happening in this movie..

I didn't like the deus ex machina where Ruby suddenly said they could destroy the trident if they combined their powers or whatever. There was no indication or Chekhov's gun about how their laser eyes could do serious, significant damage in the rest of the movie, so the whole thing seemed like they just pulled a random way to destroy the trident out of nowhere.

I liked the ending, ie how they embraced their differences from the other townspeople and saw it as a net positive, instead of something to hide/a net negative.

As requested, I didn't watch the trailer before I saw the movie. I did watch the trailer afterwards and oml, the entire movie was spoiled! I wonder if that's why the movie was considered a box office disaster on top of the advertising.

Those are my thoughts, sorry for the essay <3