#not really a lesson

[jq37]

I've been thinking about Descendants 4 again today and, having had more time to think about it, it's even more disappointing than I initially felt it was. Because it actually has all the ingredients to be my favorite of the four.

-Brandy coming back as Cinderella (along with her prince) is an inspired move (as a Black girl and theater kid in spirit, I obviously loved her as a kid). -I also love a Cinderella focus in general because she's one of my favorite princesses--in Disney and in general. My MFA thesis project is literally a Cinderella retelling. -I love a focus on platonic relationships and an interesting mother-daughter dynamic is one of my faves. -Likewise, as cliche is it is, I love two characters with almost violently opposite vibes being forced to work together and getting close along the way.

This movie has all these things that I love which makes it extra disappointing that the movie seems uninterested in basic tenets of storytelling.

The two main relationship rifts in this movie are between Cinderella and the Queen and Red and her Queen and neither of those relationships grow or develop in a way we can get invested in. They're just fixed by stealing a book. The Red Queen doesn't learn to be a better person. They just erase one bad thing that happened to her and it's all fine now I guess? Ella doesn't reconcile with her friend. Whatever caused their rift (which we never see or even are told about in any detail) is just poofed from the timeline. There's no emotional climax. There's no real action climax. Every time it seemed like something interesting was going to happen or be revealed, they hard pivoted to something else. The connective tissue in the movie is super weak and the foreshadowing leads to very little if anything.

I've really never seen a movie so bizarrely unfocused and disjointed. It has real first draft vibes.

[ariazou]

“Well? Don’t you want to save your friends?”

Iconic moment with Iguin and Coco 🪄 So excited to see how that storyline goes

[paranormeow7]

liberal hunger games posting is so funny because like. the hunger games are sold as books for teenagers. these are generally basic political statements about war and capitalism and exploitation meant to be understood by teenagers. these are not radical stances. we should have all learned these things by now. but one thing I have noticed is that the American public just simply do not know a lot of things about the world that other people already know, and even more embarrassingly, they end up needing to learn these things from children’s media. It’s not a good look to realize that you need to be kind to others because you watched a Bluey episode about it at the age of 25.

if you are seeing this post donate to @mosabsdr

[spineless-lobster]

Churchill: I hope I can be like napoleon

Napoleon: I hope I can be like caesar

Caesar: I hope I can be like alexander the great

Alexander the great: I hope I can be like achilles

Achilles: I hope patroclus fucks me today

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The Yiling Band Tour!

[hajihiko]

It runs in the family

[transfaguette]

one major thing ive had to learn about my pain and fatigue is that overexertion does NOT result in more sleep. a healthy person might have a busy, physically active day and then have a really good sleep as a result. When I do this, I can’t fall asleep at all, and i’m often in terrible pain. So I end up being miserable twice, first when I pushed myself past my limits, and second from the resulting pain and insomnia. So here’s my message to you, chronically fatigued person: don’t push yourself when you don’t have to.

[emmabirb8]

It really is SO funny (and meaningful, actually, if you think about it) to me that Stanley was the only member of the Pines family who was never able to be manipulated by Bill.

Stan's paranoia and distrusting attitude served him in the best way possible. Yeah, it sucks that he was basically cut off from forming lasting positive relationships up until he moved into Ford's shack in Gravity Falls, but MAN, that was kind of a small price to pay when you realize he unknowingly kept himself protected from one of the most dangerous entities in all of space-time by having that mindset and keeping his walls up all those years.

Can you imagine how fucking disastrous things could've turned out if Bill had gotten to him? Successfully infiltrated Stan's dreams, utilized his connection to Ford to his devious advantage as a bargaining chip, and used Stan for all he's worth to orchestrate Weirdmageddon his way? Ford spent 30 years hiding from Bill, constructing the quantum destabilizer, and putting all his energy into taking him out - to prevent him from meddling in the lives of those he cares about and to protect the world from his evil.

But it turns out, all you really have to do to foil Bill is just... not be swayed by him in the first place. There was NO combination of words in the human vocabulary Bill could have said to get Stan on his side at any point in the story, and tbh that's fucking hilarious.

Get fucked little man, you got outsmarted by the '''lesser''' twin, and he didn't even have to put any effort into it at all.

(And as the icing on the cake, he wrecked your sorry ass too. Smashed you to smithereens in one second flat.)

Truly tho, I think Stan is Bill's match. His equal opposing force. The yin to his yang. Essentially, when put together, they cancel each other out, lmao.

And I just know Bill will be forever haunted by that old man. He can make all the pitiful attempts to reach out from the Theraprism all he wants, but even if he were to escape someday, somehow, there is no coming back from that level of pure humiliation. 🤣

[mentations]

𝑰𝒇 𝒐𝒏𝒍𝒚 𝒔𝒉𝒆 𝒌𝒏𝒆𝒘 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒎𝒖𝒄𝒉 𝑰 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒌 𝒐𝒇 𝒉𝒆𝒓,

𝒔𝒉𝒆 𝒕𝒐𝒐 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒇𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒊𝒏 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒇.

[aventuras-de-andre]

bbc’s merlin should’ve had a time-travel episode where merlin is transported to an unspecified time in the past. (he changes his appearance to avoid upsetting the timelines.)

during the whole episode he bonds with Some Kid who despite not having magic has a lot of friends who do, and he loves and appreciates their abilities. and it’s pretty much a buddy comedy where merlin’s trying to find a way back home and his new little friend is following him like a duckling. the kid finds out about his magic and proceeds to be wayy too into it, becoming a tiny hype man. He introduces merlin to young gaius and merlin has a very emotional moment where he sees gaius, happy and in love in a way he has never seen him and he KNOWS it will not last due to the purge. and at the end of the episode obviously we find out the little kid was a young uther.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Another year has passed, and with it the opportunity to reflect back on all that has happened. While my growth was not as dramatic as last year, I can still see lots of positive change.

I'll never have enough ways to say thank you for all the love and support you have given me this year. On to 2025!

(2023 summary here!)

[somepinkthing]

"Hector was a good man" "diomedes was an honorable man" BZZZT WRONG. Diomedes was there to steal, burn, and wage war same as the next person. In fact, he was pretty adamant about it. Hector had no issue with the greek's actions, merely that they were directed at him—I mean look at what he wanted to do with patroclus's body, only to then cite respect for funeral rites when it was his own turn to die. Hector also owned slaves within his own city walls—people that he likely took from their homes during troy's own conquests. All that seperated him and the greek warriors was which side they were on.

The Iliad isn't a story about morally upstanding men. Sure, it has men who have honor and perform honorable acts, but these are not good samaritans. It's is a story about war and grief and the real victims of fights between so-called-honorable men and gods. The urge to find a "good guy" in this story is wasted. Hector doesn't have to be morally good just because achilles isn't. Troy didn't lose because they were more or less evil than the greeks. It all just. Is. Because of fate? Because the gods said so? Because people will always make disastrous mistakes and it will always end up biting not only them, but everyone else around them? Who knows? In the end though, doesn't it all feel so pointless in the face of the endless amounts of grief and destruction that war leaves behind? Maybe that's the whole point

[proselles]

Getting older is realizing bill cipher was sexier as a triangle anyway.

[stevenrogered]

LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY | 1x07, "Book of Calvin"

[iamhereinthebg]

Let's talk about the clock keepers boundary!

(warning: spoilers until chapter 124!!)

I've had some guess on where they could be from so let's look at what we have in the manga for now. I will keep things on surface level for the most part but it's just some things I noticed!

The first mention of the town is in chapter 111, where we finally have a view on their boundary.

A lot of fans already guessed from their clothes that they were not from Japan, this panel definitely confirms it and even points more precizely to a European country, mostly Western Europe. And also a country where Winter with snow exist.

It's also not an English speaking country, since Akane cannot understand the language and we know he has english classes at school.

Now there are several things we can look at to have more clues!

First, the architecture.

This type of house is called Timbered framed houses. It’s important to note that the roofs on those houses are really really sharp here. Which means theywere built for snow, so it can slide off the roofs more easily. The trees are also pines, something that can be found in a lot of Europe. (wood was needed to be able to create houses made of wood/with visible Framework( Little note: I know Italy was a guess for a lot of person because of the link to Pinocchio, but Italy main material for houses is stone not wood. And it is also not known for its winter.)

Here we can also see bricks which is something more associated to countries like Germany, Belgium or the Nertherlands, we don't have the colors so we can't guess from which minerals it was made for now.

But we have even more informations when we look at chapter 124!

The bridge and tower may be inspired by a fortified city, something that you could find A LOT in Western Europe during the middle age, not a lot of cities still have their entire walls but you can still see it if you go into old medieval towns. We can also see something that looks like a Belfry on several panels. Towers used mostly to indicate each passing hour of the day (may be a campanile or a bell tower (the difference is wether it's linked to religion or not basically)

Second! Let's do a little bit of clock making history!

I won't go into details, but there are some countries to point for this. England, The Netherlands and Germany. We already took out England before and we can easily erase Nertherlands from the list with the next step (my favorite one).

The food! I already had my suspicions confirmed with this bonus art from volume 22.

First of all, they have tea which is not something that was in Europe before the XVII century. But let's look at the sweets they have here.

Chocolates which look close to Belgian chocolate ( I say Belgian but other countries' chocolate is pretty close to it) , Christstollen Cake, and Spiztbuden.

We have even more to look at with the new chapter! And they confirm that it's indeed a stollen cake.

With all these foods it's now pretty obvious which area the clock keepers are inspired from.

Stollen cakes are German cakes, ginger cookies are from Germany too. I will also add that there is a chance the crescent moon cookies are VanilleKipferl. We have another panel showing Sausages and bread. Only the Almond is something not typical from Germany but which clearly was all over Western Europe with trades.

Their city already looked like the 'perfect christmas city' you can see in movies, inspired by German culture. And they also mention Mulled Wine which is THE beverage to take in any chritmas market in Europe.

Chritmas markets are inspired and coming from Germany first, but I wanna point something more.

My main guess was, Nuremberg, the city where the ancestor of the pocket watch was created, the Nuremberg Egg. It's also a Fortified city and it has forests around it. It's also known for its Ginger cookies!

So Germany would be a great pic, but the more I think about it the more I can also see the link to another region: Alsace.

Alsace is a region from France right now BUT it's a mixt of german and french culture (I will not make a history lesson but it is a place that always switched between France and Germany basically, now it's French).

All the food mentionned before are also made in the Alsace region!

It's situated in the Vosges, a chain of mountains known to have a lot of forets of pines and which is known to have villages like this:

Which were also the main inspirations for movies like Howl's moving castle for example. You can see the similarities between the artchitectures

The first ever Chritmas Market was in Strasbourg, the capital of Alsace, when it was German and it spread accross Europe after.

I will now look at something I usually don't do because I exclude Aus from canon but it's just a funny thing to point out.

This au shows a snow town inspired by ginger bread houses. I just find it funny because Aoi is shown as a baker, with bread (which are not baguette I think, it's way larger here) but with some croissant on her table (disclaimer: Croissant are not french at first, this form here is, but it's from Austria otherwise) And Kako clearly has something similar to a Wine bottle in his hands. This au is the only one featuring them, was given with their volumes and the vibes are really similar to their boundary.

I would say no matter what it's definitely closer to German culture but I wanted to point out this region which is known for it's Christmas season and its typical houses.

I will mostly say that it's an inspiration from this region of Europe, I don't know if a real country is the reference for it since we don't even know where tbhk takes place, but it's always funny to look at those things :DD

Little bonus:

In a more messy note, the clothes. I put them at the end because besides their hats, I had no idea how to describe it, since it seems pretty typical of what people could wear in winter.

I did the research in the other way, to look for German and Alsacian clothing to see if it match and it kinda does but I don't think it's speficific to this region. The girls wear classic white Charlotte and big clothes with layers for Winter.

The clock keepers clothes are different, it looks like a mixt of Japanese and western European clothing (especially from england).

Their main outfits for Akane and Kako really just look like a typical waistcoast/costume you can find in the XIXth century in Europe and Mirai's seems more inspired by a mixt of a Kimono with several layers(she also has sandals and frills) and a coat? The little knots Kako and Akane have on their coats look like something inspired from Mizuhiki knots too (I actually saw a costume with those exact same knots in a museum but I didn't take a picture rip)

So I would say they probably changed slowly their attire when they arrived in Japan, we don't know since how many times they are here, but we know that what is happening in the deeper place of the boundary is linked to memories previous to their arrival. According to their origin I think we can say that it's pretty sure they arrived after the Meiji/during the Meiji Era in Japan (1868/1912), since it's a this time Japan mostly imported Western culture (for clothing here, the first contact was before this. And note: it was mostly rich people who dressed like this). And If we look at some others dates like the things they are eating, used to have or even their clothes, I would say it's more probably the Meiji Era and not in the XVs.

Another note is that their clocks have the numbers written in japanese on it (in the og version but it maye just be so it's readable for the japanese readers? idk if it's a choice or not).

I haven't searched much on their clothes but it was still something I wanted to note here ^^

[elodieunderglass]

I have a fictional horse question and I would appreciate your perspective!

I read all of Tamora Pierce without being or becoming a horse girl. But! A fic idea I have been rotating in my head for months needs a Horse Response and I can’t rotate the idea without it.

Peachblossom, a strawberry roan gelding who is tricksy, bitey, and grumpy, has just saved the life of a person he has previously annoyed. Person (and the other people present) respectfully thank Peachblossom for doing so. And Peachblossom gives a Horse Response, to the effect of “you’re very welcome; I’m very wonderful; apples plz.”

What might that look like? I’ve put in a series of complicated ear flicks as a placeholder but it doesn’t feel correct.

Thank you for any horse thoughts you may have! It’s been very fun learning about Killie and his entourage. I’m particularly fond of Derek.

(killie the jockey OC's tumblr tag) Aww that's very kind! I'm continually amazed by meeting new people who say they're fond of Killie and his absurd network.

Peachblossom!! EXCELLENT hateful and independent strawberry roan representation! I remember him.

One sweet way that horses show affection and build bonds is to share breath. it's as sweet as it sounds. they place their foreheads close to each other, touch noses, and gently blow air from their noses into each other's nostrils. that serves as general greeting, kiss, affection, scent-sharing, gratitude, and various other expressions of intimacy, kinship, and/or friendship. in the image below they are being VERY sweet and completely pressing their faces together (saying LOVE LOVE LOVE and PEACE PEACE PEACE.)

I'll go into more detail below

if you want to do this with a horse, you should empty your mind and try to be relaxed and peaceful and indicate psychically that you want to do it. they'll usually have to put their head down for you to reach.

Another thing horses do to each other is to scratch each other's withers - the high point of the shoulder. they do it like this, which is super cute and heart-shaped:

they cannot reach this space of the body for themselves, and so this is especially delicious Prize Scratching Opportunity. to scratch each other's withers, they stand shoulder to shoulder and nibble each other with their teeth. it is Extremely Good. if you want to do this to a horse, you can usually offer to do it by saying something friendly and putting your hand on their shoulder - if they move away, they don't want it. scratches will normally be received well (only do this with horses that you're allowed to touch, of course, and upon invitation.)

various horses may do these things to each other in various different ways (or not at all). we are also differently shaped from horses. so the body language can be funny in translation. Horses actually do recognise this, though.

I had a horse friend once (a big stupid retired Thoroughbred - he wasn't mine, he just lived with my friend's horse) who would lovingly reciprocate a withers-scratch by wrapping his neck around my body to delicately, gently and respectfully remove my ponytail holder with his teeth and lips. this, to him, was the equivalent in body language. You can see EXACTLY how his mind was working! reach a high point of the body that SEEMS kind of like withers, this is where the mane is on humans, isn't it - this is the highest point - I'll give it a nice - OH you've got a big knot there!! I'll get it out for you!! Don't worry, I'm exceptionally popular BECAUSE I'm so good at grooming. OH MAN IT WAS ONE OF THESE THINGS AGAIN! you're always picking these up! do you roll around in them?! and then he would carefully give the hair elastic to you, with his mouth. Can you imagine - how careful and gentle he had to be to do that. And of course the correct thing is to say: "WOW big guy thanks SO much!!!!" and resign yourself to having a certain amount of green horse-smelling grass-slime in your hair. that, you see, is an expression of genuine cross-species love and communication - an invitation to love and be loved as a fellow member of the planet - and is to be treasured, even if you stink now and didn't really want your hair down.

And finally, a horse that thinks you are going to give it some treats will nuzzle and mouth at your clothing to find where you are keeping the treats. in case you have temporarily forgotten that there are treats in your clothing. their lips are surprisingly mobile. hi. hello. horses get treats.

those are all things that nice horses do.

now, horrible and rude horses do exist. they all have different personalities. they are extremely social animals. in an ordinary horse social life they will have size differences (sometimes quite significant!), dominance structures, breed differences, and multiple-species friendships. and therefore, each horse will initiate contact or express emotion in a different way.

a CHEEKY way to express affection, for example, can be just straight-up knocking a human over with their face. that's because a charming, kind and sweet thing for a horse to do to another horse is to firmly press faces together and share breath; the human/horse equivalent (as polite and intelligent horses know perfectly well) is to carefully imitate this by lowering their nose to your face level so you can blow in their nostrils with your little tiny face; the CHEEKY thing to do is to whack you with their nose and blow pneumatic amounts of snot on you. GET LOVED IDIOT. SNOTTED ALSO. and then laugh about it.

I can imagine that being in line with Peachblossom's sense of humour (not that I remember him especially well.)

tossing his head and arching his neck and dancing a bit to do a bit of stallion-ish showing off (I am tremendously gorgeous, aren't I) and then getting serious and calm and still for a second and putting his head down as if to nuzzle and share breath (I do actually like you a little bit) and when you fall for it, a very slight headbutt (hahahahaaahahaha you THOUGHT! you THOUGHT!!!!) followed by WHERE'S THE FOOD LMAO.