#now where have we seen that before

[epicfirestormer]

Okay so I have no idea if anyone has pointed this out before or not, but I haven't seen anyone talk about it, so I guess I'll do it.

In Chapter 944, Kid says thay Killer wears a mask because he would beat up people who made fun of his laugh and decided to hide it by wearing a mask one day. Which is like, the weirdest reason I've ever heard.

How exactly does wearing a mask meant to hide his laugh?? It's not soundproof, we know that for sure, because 1. He talks normally and doesn't sound muffled at all, and 2. We can still hear his laugh. We see this in the raid during Act 3, multiple times. So, what's the point??

Is he functioning on the logic of "if no one can see me physically laugh, they can't make fun of me for it"? Which is like, I guess makes some sense, but still feels like a stretch.

Technically speaking, covering his face has close to nothing to do with stopping his laugh. Because it doesn't. It's to hide his face.

Killer wasn't made fun of because of his laugh. It was because of his face- or more accurately, his third eye. In this essay I will-

[luck-of-the-drawings]

FOR A BEAT OF HEART, THE BREATH IS SHOT. AND WITHIN A BREATH, THE HEART IS CAUGHT. THE PIPES ARE BURSTING, UNDER GREAT STRESS, BOLTS TORN ASUNDER, MAKING A MESS. A FINAL COUGH, A FINAL RETCH, A GOREY SLOUGH, CLAIMED BY WRETCH.

[uncanny-tranny]

Passing as a trans man is a nuanced and complex topic, but one thing I have been noticing as somebody who is a cis-passing (white) trans man is the way I'm treated when there is conflict.

I've noticed that in conflict, people are almost meek around me, willing for me to try working with them up until a woman is involved. When a woman (or, really, anybody who the other party assumes is one) is part of the conflict, they direct all their anger and rage to them. It's fucking insane the way a woman is treated when there is conflict, even if it isn't her fucking fault. These people are fundamental cowards for seeing my manhood as the only reason they can't be openly hostile to me, but it reveals a lot about how a misogynist thinks on an almost primal level.

I'm watching the women and people around me I care about being torn apart by people, and that's unacceptable. I can't sit around to watch it, and I don't want to do that. I need other people to perhaps read this and remember to not stand by if there is something that you can tangibly do to help, even if it's to lend a listening ear or let the person vent.

[jq37]

Descendants: The Rise of Red is kind of a bizarre movie to talk about critically because, imo, it almost doesn't make sense to talk about it in the usual terms of good vs bad or enjoyable vs not enjoyable when the way more obvious tension is finished vs unfinished.

Because, more than any other movie I've ever seen, it does *not* read as a full movie. And I don't mean in a "this movie has a cliffhanger" kind of way. The Empire Strikes Back and Across the Spiderverse fit that description. They end on big dramatic cliffhangers that point to a resolution in the third installment.

But Rise of Red just sets all this stuff up and then...ends without concluding anything. It doesn't feel like the first movie in a trilogy (or duology). It feels like the first act of a two-act musical. It very specifically reminds me of the end of the first act of Into the Woods where all the main characters sing the song Ever After about how they all fixed their problems with magic and nothing bad will ever happen to them again and then the narrator ominously says "To be continued" before the curtain drops. But in Into the Woods you know there's a second act and this movie wasn't sold as the first act of a bigger story. Like sure, it has the, "You didn't think this was the end" tag at the end like all the other movies, but those movies were complete, self-contained stories even though they had sequels. This was NOT a full story. It's half of one story.

Like, if we're supposed to take this as a full story, there are so many bizarre choices:

Why did they make sure to mention that Cinderella and Charming fell in love at the ball at the top if it wasn't meant to set up Back to the Future style, "Oh no, I accidentally got my mom banned from the ball so she's not gonna fall in love with Dad and I won't be born" shenanigans?

Why did Maddox very pointedly have that bit about "you could lose your mom completely" if that was never going to come into play? Red never did anything to endanger Bridget or endanger her own birth so it doesn't make sense as a warning in that way.

Why was there all this focus on this Carrie on prom night moment for Bridget if we LITERALLY NEVER SAW CASTLECOMING? Why dance around this moment and talk about it all cloak and dagger with no specificity if they weren't building up to some big reveal that it wasn't as straightforward as it seemed? And like, they leaned in HARD with making Bridget the nicest, sweetest, cotton candy princess as a teen so I need WAY more than, "She got pranked by known bullies she's been enduring with a smile very handily up to this point" to buy that she went from that to "murderous dictator". And even if she did become murderous, I find it insanely hard to believe that she'd include her best and only friend on the list of people she wants to suffer unless there was a betrayal. I find it INSANE that there wasn't a falling out scene at any point in this movie with how thickly they were laying on the admiration and camaraderie.

(Note: And adult Cinderella def has guilty vibes re: the Queen at orientation. Which I know I'm not imagining because it's literally spelled out in the Jr Novelization!)

Before the time travel element of the movie started, I thought they were going for something like they go to the past and realize that Bridget was bullied not by the VKs but by the spoiled royals, and Ella ends up joining in the bullying once she gets with Charming, betraying Bridget and justifying her whole "Love Ain't It" philosophy. Or Ella ditching her at the last minute to be with Charming meaning she has to deal with the monster prank alone and it was the being alone rather than the prank itself that hurt her (though that is NOT a good enough reason to go all off with their heads on your subjects). The fact that, as far as we know right now, it literally was just a relatively mild and reversible prank that caused all of this is just, such flat storytelling, you know?

But! All of this makes way more sense if this is meant to be the first act of a single contained story. And I don't wanna be all "Pepe Silvia, secret good 4th episode of Sherlock" about this but I did see this picture:

Which seems to indicate that this was written as a Part One. Which, if so, idk why they wouldn't advertise it that way but whatever. The point is, if that's the case then it means that we're potentially in bad pacing territory rather than straight up bad storytelling territory. Because this isn't a bad place to be halfway through your story:

The heroes, warned that time travel is dangerous, have gone back in time to change the heart of a brutal tyrant before she can stage a coup. They seemingly succeed in their mission and when they come home, everything is great! But then, the side effects of time travel start to catch up with them. Chloe realizes that, in breaking the vase, she prevented her mother from going to the ball and falling in love with her dad (who was conspicuously absent from the final scene btw) which means she's starting to be forgotten and erased from the timeline. And Red realizes that though this new version of her mom is as sweet and kind as the teen she once met, she's a complete stranger to her (fulfilling the Hatter's warning that she could lose her mom completely). So they have to go back in time once more to make sure the Ella and Charming fall in love again, perhaps at the cost of whatever bad thing that happened to Bridget happening again and bringing back the original version of her future self. But, now with more context of how her mom became that way, Red can now talk to her mother and persuade her to give people another chance.

Boom, that gives us time to go back and hit everything we haven't yet hit. We can pay off the time travel tropes that were set up but not explored. We can go to Castlecoming which feels so obviously set up to be the centerpiece of this story (like, come on, Back to the Future literally does the school dance thing. This is Time Travel Storytelling 101). We can actually get info about what the prank was and why it affected Bridget so completely.

(Note: This is a side thing but it really strikes me as so crazy that Bridget would so SUCH a big 180 here. Like, I know the Queen of Hearts is a silly, goofy, campy villain, but she straight up murders people and there's no way to get around that if we're taking her out of the surreal story she comes from and putting her in a (comparatively) grounded story. If I wasn't doing a betrayal plot, I would make the twist that the spell that turned Bridget into a "monster" didn't just have a physical effect, it had a mental effect and it magically twisted her personality to be the way it is now. So they broke the physical half of the curse, but neglected the other half and it's been festering the whole time, turning her as evil as she was sweet. Because like, a simple physical transformation isn't that big of a deal to have such heavy security--Bridget made cupcakes with a transformative effect and that was totally fine. I'm not saying that that's what's gonna be the case. I just think it would be an explanation that makes sense for why she changed so crazy much that makes more sense than a simple prank or even a betrayal. Her mom wasn't even evil! How did she go from zero to murder without even an evil mom to push her onto the path? But I'm super digressing right now.)

(Note #2: OK, one last thing. The trap on the book presumably would have hit the VK's and trapped them in Merlin's office regardless of what Chloe and Red did, right? That's like, net zero influence on the timeline. I genuinely can't tell if that's a straight up plot hole or set up to be like, "Oh no. Actually when she said that she was turned into a monster in front of everyone it was meant in a less literal way." Like she was just made to look bad and that was the real thing that pushed her over the edge. Like idk. It really feels like the only thing they really did that would change the timeline was get Ella banned from the dance and presumably out of the way where she couldn't hurt Bridget. OK NOW I'm done.)

Anyway, my point is that this is not how I would have structured my movie and I think this was a super weird way to go into the second era of Descendants movies, but they can still tell a complete story if that's their plan. I'm genuinely really curious to see if this pans out to be a fairly competently told story that just happens to be split over two movies or a complete fumbling of the narrative bag because it could really be either at this point and it's fascinating to me.

[aloekat]

🍫 chancellor lapin cadbury 🐇

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bulb above i think about this chocolate rabbit WAY TOO MUCH!!!

he's no riz gukgak or barry syx but there is just. something about him. he's so cool and interesting. as a random youtube comment i saw said, "zac oyama plays low intelligent/himbo characters as a blessing for brennan" and it SHOWS with lapin, it really does.

so yeah here's a fun little sketch of him! i think it turned out very silly :]

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reblogs > likes but any interaction is greatly appreciated :D! tysm for seeing my art regardless :]

[letmerambleplease]

I just remembered that Ryogas whole schtick as a character was a poor sense of direction, which I still find hilarious after all these years. Like it's such a unique character quirk. And if there is something I can relate to, it's getting lost XD

[sukugo]

i started watching jjk without knowing anything other than what i knew from your blog, and i never realized sukuna and gojo was a RAREPARE OF THE HIGHEST KIND. wym these dudes have only interacted like four time???

in conclusion: you conditioned me into shipping a rarepare i didn't know was rare.

GSJDGSJSGDJDHSJDHDJHD WE GOT ANOTHER ONE BOYS

and it's not even 4, they interact 1.5 times in literally the SECOND episode and then NEVER again. like literally never ever ever again GDJDHDKDHD im not even kidding

well. ok later they do have their promised Fight, but that's only happened in the manga, and for the anime.... it's a WHILE until we get there

(but also the fight and everything related to it was so fucking gay i don't even know what to tell u. just that it makes it all worth it)

but also, no worries my beloved claudia, u've come at a good time fandom wise hahah. u don't have to go through the drought i went through. sukugo has risen from the rarepair trenches and are doing pretty okay i feel (downside being obv with greater popularity comes more Shit) (and well, hella spoilers if u're watching the anime the fight is pretty much the only proper interaction they have fgsjdhfkf)

BUTTT GGSHRGRHE HELL YEAH LET'S GO SUKUGOOOOOOOOO THEY MAY NEVER INTERACT BUT THEY ARE VERY SEXY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

in conclusion: teehee :3 im sorry but also am i really? (no)

[the-meme-monarch]

my brother and i have been going on walks a lot lately and have been checking out public buildings if only to see them, and in one it finally happened where someone thought my brother and i were a couple. even though Earlier in the conversation i mentioned ‘our little sibling’ like twice while gesturing to my brother and i both times. this wouldn’t have been so horrible and i could have easily brushed it off as her just not having caught that, if not for the part where after clarifying We’re Siblings she said “well even if you did have kids…” and kinda trailed off and didn’t complete that thought. she was talking to us about our futures/careers bc this was the town hall building so she probably meant it like If We, Individually From Each Other, Have Children but. i didn’t press for clarification but was ready to Leave after that. she was talking for a while still, after saying that. i had a cold soda and it was room temp by the time we finally left

[hecatesbroom]

Blanche's grandma's place is the only place she felt consistently loved in... no I'm fine. I'm fine

[shannonsketches]

lays on the floor do you guys ever think about how in ResF Bulma falls for Vegeta's fake-out with Freeza and both she and Yamcha are worried about Vegeta's villain fake-out strategy in Champa and Beerus' mini tournament and how it's only been a couple of years since the Buu saga and how Vegeta straight up stopped using that strategy after that tournament

[aeolianblues]

I'm not an extrovert. At all. In everyday life, I'm a yapper, sure, but I need someone to first assure me I am okay to yap, so I don't start conversations, even when I really want to join in sometimes! It's just the social anxiety acting up. God knows where from and why I lose a lot of my inhibitions when it comes to talking to people about music. I don't know where the confidence has suddenly sprung from. I've made a crazy amount of friends in musical circles, either just talking to people about common music or (since it is after all in music circles) talking to bands about their own music. I let out a sigh of relief any time an interaction goes well, because in truth it's going against my every instinct. I wish I could do that in everyday life

[helioptilie]

i wish i hadn’t seen so much hype around Armand before starting the show bc i think i was waiting for some shocking revelation instead of truly following the story and developing opinions on my own and now I really don’t know how to take him

[dullahandyke]

didnt even touch on the sandra lynn stuff int he tags of the last post bcos if i talk about her im liable to explode. get behind me, middle-aged divorced woman proficient in archery

[infizero]

people on twitter be normal about acht's gender (impossible)

[goregrishdotcom]

If the world were in a better place we would've had an ask-kratsplayboy venigni ask blog by now and people would be sending anons asking him what he thinks of P and trying to get him to confess to being a virgin then a magic (m!) Anon that swaps his body with P for ten asks and there would be moments where polendina will talk to the viewer and share a secret. You know

[kingdomoftyto]

...BIG FEELS AND BIG PLOT DEVELOPMENTS AT THE END OF THAT BOOK, HUH