#to be clear i obv think this is a very silly concept and def not canon it's just a game mechanic like come on

[ladyseidr]

i think my favorite fn.af theory that i've ever read is that, on the seventh night / custom night, the protags can Genuinely, Actually control the AI of the animatronics. like yeah they're just doing that to themselves. mike after 6 nights of almost dying turning their AIs to 20 like "you know what i can take them"

[strawberryseeded]

i spent the weekend watching various horror movies in netflix (my moms accnt obvs) cos i was too lazy to pir/ate anything. i watched uuh.. konferensen 2023 (it was fine, it was a good time), split 2016 (p good imo tho the superhuman angle was kinda silly to me. but it was interesting. solid. ending was a bit unsatisfying tbh? and the msg quite confusing? like i geddit, empowered victims.. but the kidnapper ended up becoming a perpetrator too? and the fl didnt shoot him in that crucial moment AND they also didnt show what she ended up doing abt her uncle. idk if the plan was 2 make a sequel but it all ended up coming off as.. pretty lukewarm..), the stepfather 2009 (nice. rly straight foward w the premise tho not super focused w its message.. like it was abt family but it gave too much focus to the protags gf? which i thought was a bit juvenile like we get it they are teens in love now lets get back to the dude trying to murder the whole family please.. also i kept thinking the story wud have been fun from the mothers perspective as well.. oh and a bit more bg & development for the killer wud hv been stellar), monster 2023 (indonesian) (plot was p standard (rly reminded me of that free ice cream horror flash game) but i rly liked it visually! rly cool scenography!! it almost had no dialogue & that was rly refreshing and interesting. it really didnt need any), and today i watched longlegs 2024 w my sister (which i did pirat/e)..uuuuummm... ok SPOILERS for longlegs

i rly liked the way it was filmed n the photography. also the music/sound dsgn. the time setting was confusing as hell for me tho?? like idk im not usamerican but the story supossedly took place in the 2000s but it all looked like the 70s to me???? and there are big differences between the 2 eras its not like im THAT period blind. the only scene i thought oh yeah theres no way this is the 70s is a scene in which you can see computers in the bg but anyways. the movie.

it started off GREAT. very eerie.. i had no clue abt the plot or anything btw i went into it completely blind.. so i had no idea if the movie was going for a realistic angle or a more supernatural angle. it rly reminded me of it follows 2014 not bc the fl was played by the same actress (it was) but bc everything that was happening seemed not quite real. like a dream. i loved that..

so ok. its p clear from the beginning that something is p weird (supernatural weird) abt this whole thing. the fl makes my suspicions grow bc shes some sort pf psychic so i though ok the killer is def some kind of hypnotist. i was wrong tho, whatever. lets skip a lot of stuff. plot twist it was the devil all along. i felt kinda silly bc im usually p good/fast understanding movies (esp this type of movies) but i was so confused by the end of this.. i was like huh.. wait what do you mean the devil is real in this story. it was rly easy to catch onto that btw i was just still expecting a psychic weirdo killer angle idk maybe i liked that idea more deep down lol? but it wasnt so my sister was like dude are you serious the devil was right there in one scene and i was like what. she went back to that scene. the devil was right there. oh ok. wait then what about the scene in which the mother shoots the dolls head why did she do that it the deal wasnt over. and what about the surviving victim why did she kill herself after the ball was out of the dolls head. also why didnt the fl shoot the dolls head at the bd party in the first place why did she wait until the dad started killing ppl. also the deal was supposed to end with the 13th victim i think so why did the mother say she will keep killing. me & my sister concluded well idk lets sleep on it i guess. yeah.

overall enjoyable and interesting, but i feel like the plot-twist reveal and the ending were a bit idk rushed?? like ill be quite honest i didnt feel anything abt the mother being the accomplice???? it was good in concept but was a bit lacking in execution.. like. why shud i even care.

[marsixm]

edit sorry this post is both long (if the readmore fails i am truly truly sorry) & longwinded im just reflecting and thinking; (another edit: u can probably just read the tl dr and get it)

anyway allow me to spin some very personally based theory here for a mo while i put off/warm my fingers up from the cold in preparation to email my therapist

so growing up i had, i think only, het ships, but i never quite had the ones you were (narratively speaking) “supposed to” have

in most media i recall when i was a kid, there were like, 2 diff structures of character romance plot arcs in media i consumed, there was the main lead and 2 best friends model, where thered be the star of the show who had outside romantic leads and the 2 best friends (who were always a boy and a girl) would have their secondary romance, OR there were ensemble shows where there was a more clear romance set up between the main boy and main girl, then side characters whod pair off in whatever ways ended up happening. in the first, see: hannah montana, the second, see: zoey 101. obv this isnt a hard rule and there were loads of exceptions but like, lets just say i tended not to care for the romances set up for the main girls in the trio models, or quite as hard for the main boy and girl in the ensembles, and in general if there was an obvious romance between two leads i either didnt care or outright hated it

basically i never liked the ships they set up for us in straight media, as a kid (namely, a girl) i liked being that “ew pink!” “i hate valentines day” sort of contrarian, but what i remember actually disliking was the predictability of it, because i clearly still shipped characters, so it wasnt /really/ that i hated romance, per se

looking back on it i think it was probably or at least to a degree more like that i hated the hetero expectation of it- i can nit pick down to more specific examples of why i disliked the main pairings (kataang, for example, i thought was weird bc katara acted like a mother/older sister figure to aang, and i didnt feel like there was romance between them at all except where it felt shoehorned in) - maybe it was also that i thought it made more sense for a main character to be with someone they clearly already spent a lot of time with and not some random new hot boy in town (i very distinctly remember shipping miley and oliver on hannah montana, and i believe that was the first time i ever read fanfiction @ age like... 11 lol) as is often the case w like these things.

theres another level to this though, which is that i notice i tended to ship characters who were more vaguely similar to each other, like, physically (ie, similar heights, or hair colors mainly) obviously this is funny now since my main pairing is johnlock which is such a physically different ship we can construct them from basic shapes and colors and theyre still recognizable as who they are, but i have some thoughts about this- but i think there might be two interesting things about this again in retrospect

first of all, this sounds silly ik, but shipping the vaguely similar ones as a child’s way of queering heterosexuality is an interesting concept and not that difficult, like, two boys are also vaguely similar to each other in a similar way a boy and a girl with the same hair color and height might be, which is something i thought of a while ago

the other way in which this is really interesting to me now, that i think might have been more actually pertinent to myself as a trans child, is that i think i shipped the characters i did in an attempt to morph the concept of boy and girl? to find the boy counterpart to every girl??? that second one makes more sense actually. anyway, i digress

2 start off i definitely had gender feelings starting from a very young age so i think these observations ring more true than just reflections, PERHAPS

so the first thing i remember shipping, ie wanting them to be together, thinking about it an inordinate amount of time outside watching the films, even imagining them eating ice cream together in their pjs (i was NINE DHFJGghfkg) was jack sparrow & elizabeth swan from potc (basically my franchise of choice as a kid bc i never read harry potter) now this doesnt quite fit the “visually similar” thing bc actually orlando bloom looks more like kiera knightly and is prob due to them like making out in one movie, but i think this works for the “shipping as gender expression” theory, because elizabeth swan dressed up as a boy, spent most of that movie wearing boy’s clothes, etc- meanwhile jack was a wacky pirate which like hello duh i’d want to be. so i wonder if beyond the fact that they kissed and flirted, there was something to this concept of me wanting two characters to be together, meant i wanted to marry together two conceptual things happening with two characters, or absorb the cool dude and the boyish girl characters into each other to make one whole archetype for myself? i likewise shipped aang and toph (toph who, normally doesnt really have anyone to be shipped with, since she likes sokka but he has a gf) who we all know is the VERY boyish girl character, so boyish im p sure her actually being a trans dude later in life is a p decently accepted headcanon (i dont actually delve into aatla fandom though so i can only hope) 

another thing about this ship thing, is most of my ships had brown hair (like miley and oliver), just like i always have, and in certain cases the girl character would look a LOT like me (i also shipped logan and quinn on zoey 101, which to my surprise n delight actually came true later (although looking back im like... 11 yr old me is glad they made out a lot but adult me is like uhhh why were the kids on this show making out a lot? anyway thats another issue) and i def was a weirdo girl with glasses and long brown wavy hair) which sort of further fuels my feeling that this was an attempt by my brain to do 1 of 2 things, if my own involvement really was a greater motivating factor in this thing, 1. ship MYSELF with a boy (which is like def possible for my gay kinnie ass, but not quite my thesis here) or 2. morph these boy and girl counterparts by imagining them together, seeing them together, etc

for example, i realize now, when i was a kid i drew an avatar sona for myself and said sona looked an awful lot like how id imagine a katara/zuko fusion would be, and the fact that i shipped zutara (very hard lol) was what lead me down this thought path rn

i feel like even to me this concept sounds weird and far fetched but like, gem fusion made enough sense for someone to write with its clearly, usually, romantic implications and we all “get” that, so whom knows???

another thing ive noticed while writing this is for a good few of these ships you can argue the boys in them can be read gay, like jack sparrow and zuko and aang, which feels even more strongly like me trying to marry my gay boy feelings to my tomboy realities [thinking emoji]

the biggest reason i think this makes sense to me is because when i was 10 i became obsessed with the idea that this boy i was friends with and i were secretly twins separated at birth, like i was so into the concept that we looked alike, i like hoped and wished so hard for it to be true, i wished a christmas miracle would happen for fucking real and a magic door in my house would open and be his new room and itd all work out perfectly! and you might think this was a manifestation of my difficulties with my family and wishing to leave it, but in my dream world my parents were still my parents and he came to live with us- which makes me think the obsession of ME looking like this BOY was a manifestation of my gender feelings, which i think can maybe be traced to this concept of pairing a visually similar, possibly gay, brunette boy to every brunette and/or tomboyish girl

anyway. if you actually read all of this id love it if you lmk somehow (doesnt need to be a like) like this is clearly very long and strange but i hope it makes sense. i think i stop myself a lot from ever commenting on gender or theory or whatever but i am a living breathing trans person who has experienced things and i have opinions and i dont think im claiming anything destructive with this lol i think its not unusual to reflect on the way you interacted with the world as a gay/trans kid

also im obviously not saying that shipping straight things is somehow inherently queer, im not trying to retroactively claim something about straight ships, like, those two characters are still functionally straight, and i definitely also shipped probably all of them for normal shipping reasons (although, kid ones, so less “oh theres a lot of ACTUAL romantic subtext between these two” but rather “oh theyre friends and would be cute together!” (or like they kissed and i was like O: )) but im just trying to theorize about something its possible my tiny trans brain was trying to express- and who knows maybe im not the only one!

anyway i guess the TL;DR is: when i was a kid i had a lot of “unconventional” straight ships- i already observed that i eschewed the main canon pairings in kids media in what was probably my tiny baby brains rejection of hetero culture, but i also actively shipped side characters who looked like me, and also looked like each other (ie, both tall and brunette, a boy and girl counterpart of Each Other) OR characters who seemed to be a gayish boy and a tomboyish girl, and im theorizing that maybe the reason that was was my tiny trans brain wanting to gem fusion those two together because of my Gender Feelings and fuse the boy with the girl and this desire manifested in shipping therefore thinking about a lot these pairings of boy and girl counterparts

[thefragileglass]

Valerian and why you shouldn’t watch it.

This is full of spoilers, so if you don’t take my advice and actually go see it, don’t read this, I guess.

I don't want people to think I hated #valerian bc it's a dumb space movie. I LOVE dumb space movies- that is why I went to see it, that is what I wanted. I want people to know that I hated it for SO MANY other reasons.

So, the first...4 minutes (?) are pretty interesting. Cool aliens. Timelapse of progress, etc.

Then we travel to 400 years in the future on a paradise island. Very pretty. I was immediately apprehensive when the obviously female alien that was a completely different species and culture untouched by humanity- had titties (but still slightly covered them up) and wore a skirt. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with these things, but i just find it pretty suspicious that a completely different species and culture would 1. have the same parts and 2. have the same hangups about who can display them.  If you have such a limited imagination about anatomy, at least have some creativity about the culture, I mean, c’mon. Not to mention the fact that the titties were covered but still enticingly uncovered and it was all obviously done to tantalize male viewers. It was like being punched in the face by the male gaze. Like obviously, if we don’t want to at least subconsciously fuck her, there’s no way we can possibly care about her! And I’m deliberately calling them titties bc she was naive and childlike- so pure in her uncorrupted state of innocence (eye roll). Ugh- it just makes it all so much more icky. Then there was the very thinly veiled reference to some “primitive” culture (side-eye) where everyone is, again, so naive and peaceful and just live in blissful ignorance. It is then Very Important to the plot that she dies so that the Main Character can save this poor, primitive species. This is like, the 6th minute of the movie.

Then, we meet the Main Character.

Oh man, where to start? We’re introduced to him being a total asshole to Secondary Character, who is introduced walking towards us in a bikini. Phew, another woman to look at, I was getting worried, it had been like, a whole 10 seconds since I had one. Again, there’s nothing inherently wrong with a woman in a bikini- it's the way the scene is shot and who the scene is for. So then we start off with some weird sexual wrestling- which it didn’t seem that SC was into- and then we find out he’s her superior officer. In the space military. And he’s actively trying to convince her to have sex with him, but obvs she doesn’t want to bc he’s a ~*~ playboy ~*~ and won’t commit to her by forgetting everyone on his “playlist”. When I say actively, I mean he’s literally following her down a hallway. And when I say convince, I mean he’s literally just bragging about how great he is by listing awards and commendations he’s gotten. Who acts like this?! I have no explanation about MC’s behavior, but to paraphrase Allison, SC acts like how men think women act, with the reasoning men imagine women use. Regardless of the fact that I don’t think her reasoning makes much sense, no matter what it was, we’re supposed to believe that she’s just playing hard to get. Like, you know they’re going to get together at the end and so the audience is just supposed to assume that she secretly likes him and thinks he’s endearingly oh so silly and that she’ll change her mind eventually, as women are wont to do. It’s obvious that MC thinks SC is just playing hard to get too, which is why he acts the way he does- acting as if their relationship is a matter of “when” and not “if” and so its ok for him to act as if he has the right to talk and act like that bc they’re basically already in a relationship. It’s also obvious that the writer/director/producer thinks the same thing, which is why MC never gets called out for what this is- sexual harassment. This is so terrible for people to see and internalize.

Then they talk to a superior who scolds SC about dressing appropriately on a mission. Then MC asks SC to marry him, even though she’s still been very clear that she’s not into it at all. But of course, everyone thinks she’s just playing hard to get, so obviously she’ll want to get married. And then they go on a mission, which, to be fair, I think was a pretty cool concept of another dimension and such. Like, if it wasn’t steeped in all this other shit and this movie was the fun space romp I wanted, I probs would’ve thoroughly enjoyed. That is, except for the fact that SC goes on this mission in a DIFFERENT fucking bikini! She gets scolded about wearing a bikini and then CHANGES HER CLOTHES TO A DIFFERENT BIKINI and a little scrap of a coverup. “To blend in with the tourists.” IN THE DESERT. We see the other tourists- I’m pretty sure no one else was in a bikini- I cannot imagine a flimsier excuse. It is just so obvious to me that the director or producer or whatever man made these costuming decisions just wanted to have SC in the least amount of clothing for the longest amount of time. She’s in the military on a mission for god’s sake! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a character so blatantly disrespected by a movie before or I’m just too angry to remember if I have. Also on this mission, they basically leave their people to die and then all they comment on is how SC’s “dress�� got ripped. And then they’re going to meet up with the commander, so they finally dress in their military uniforms, and her’s is a mini skirt! Like, at this point, I’m just glad it wasn’t a green bikini, I guess.

So then some action happens they mouth off to the commander and MC is off being an expert pilot chasing some things while SC roots for him and tells him to be careful and he crashes and she’s worried, yadda yadda. And then to find him she has to talk to birds to hire a submarine captain to steal a jellyfish from a big whale thing so that she can put it on her head and it can give her visions of where he landed. It also gives her visions of the past hour that we literally just saw so that she can realize that she really does care about MC and so she can finally catch up to the men and understand that she WAS playing hard to get this whole time. I honestly think this whole plot sequence was specifically so that she could wear her hair down for a little bit. Also, somewhere in here, she straight up says “oh, you think humans are predictable? Then you obviously haven’t met a woman before” before she shoots something. Haha, woman are so mysterious and hard to understand. She finds him, and then argue about how he wouldn’t even thank her for finding him and some other stuff that is totally out of character for SC up to this point. And then he rebukes her while sexually harassing her some more and it's all terrible. Then she gets captured- bc obvs it's been awhile since MC’s been the hero- so we def need to give him the chance to save her.

Sigh. Ok- so, in order to save her, MC has to go to the red light district to get an alien who can change shape, named Bubble, to disguise him into where she’s being kept. OBVIOUSLY  the way to introduce this character is to have her (obviously a female) perform a strip show changing into all of the different male fantasies we haven’t gotten to see yet- including some super fun cultural fetishization! It has been 4 minutes since a woman was scantily clad on screen, so they have to make up for it somehow. <allison>I think it’s worth noting that despite the MC declining an actual lapdance/sex, it is made perfectly clear that he is enjoying the show for the MUCH-LONGER-THAN-IT-NEEDED-TO-BE DANCE. *Shot of female character spinning in a lace cat-suit followed by shot of MCs drooling* </allison> After the show, which the entirely straight male audience of the movie (bc ugh who else would be watching this movie) is extremely glad to have seen, she comes up to speak with MC. Its pretty clear to me that this is some kind of human trafficking situation bc “she’s been practising since she was 4.” And she comes up searching for validation from this asshole who’s been objectifying her and if he didn’t need her for his mission of saving his damsel would probably not care about the situation at all. Overall, it's a pretty horrifying exchange- not just bc of its inherent awfulness but also bc the movie treats it as if it's not a huge deal. MC offers to help “free her” after the mission if she’ll help him, and she agrees. <allison> OH SHIT DON’T FORGET WHEN BUBBLE BECOMES BABY-MC and MC SAYS “GO BACK TO YOUR NORMAL FORM” AND SHE GOES BACK TO HER NATURAL FORM AND HE LOOKS DISGUSTED AND SAYS “YOUR OTHER NORMAL” AND SHE GOES BACK TO SEXY-LADY. </allison>

While this has been happening, SC has been interacting with her captors who are trying to make her put on a dress. She’s been in pants for WAY too long- like, 7 whole minutes of screen time. Next we see her, she’s in a pretty white dress, walking down a long aisle to present herself as a meal for the big, fat evil king guy. And just as she’s about to be eaten, her ONLY plan, despite being a military officer, is to scream for MC. We’re all so lucky he was actually in the room to save her! She certainly didn’t know he was there, so if he hadn’t been there, I guess she would’ve just been eaten. Oh no, what’s a girl to do?

Fighting, running, quips. Bubble dies in the rescue. Of course she does! She served her purpose, so screw her. Who cares about the tragedy that was her life and the promises that MC made- he saved the damsel, so everything else is cannon fodder. There was literally NO REASON for her to die, if they didn’t want to try to deal with her story any more, they could’ve just had her leave or something. Idk, I guess I forgot female characters don’t exist when not in proximity to the MC.  

So then we get back to the white savior plot where we find out the commander was the bad guy who killed this whole race of primitive people...just because? I think he crashed an enemy spaceship into the planet just to kill the enemy and it exploded the whole planet? Not too sure. There are a couple of neat transphobic remarks bc the life force of the alien lady that died at the beginning has been possessing him bc she chose him to save their people. MC and SC have the pearl MC stole and the little creature indigenous to their planet, which the aliens need. MC has this whole crisis about not giving them the creature bc “that was our mission and I’m a soldier and I follow the rules” when he’s literally been breaking rules and challenging authority since the BEGINNING of this godforsaken movie. And then SC convinces him that loooove is the answer and why she’s been resisting him this whole time bc he’s never been in love. And then the boring, average white guy saves the poor, helpless primitive people. And then, of course MC and SC get together bc we all knew she was just playing hard to get the whole time, anyway.