#I REFUSE TO TAG ALL THESE CHARACTERS

[imjustavenuxwithaboomerang]

re-rating rise of red songs as i listen to them on spotify

see the first rating here

red by red, jack of diamonds, and guards: 7.75/10

i've warmed up to the chanty chorus so that made the rating go up. again, kylie sounds really good. don't know how to feel about the pre-chorus. still don't care for jack of diamonds and the guards' parts (other than the "oh oh oh oh" parts but those go on a little too long imo)

so this is love by cinderella and king charming: 9.75/10

literally almost perfection! paolo and brandy sound SO GOOD. it's so so pretty omg. the pacing again is the downfall, some parts sound slightly too fast but i almost don't care, it's that pretty

love ain't it by red, queen of hearts, chloe, cinderella, and auradon citizens: 6/10

same ranking. mainly the same notes as the first ranking post, i like the beginning and chorus but it's (as a whole song) a little messy. again didn't really care for the citizens and guards singing and wanted a lot less rap. rita sounded great though

what's my name (red version) by uma and red: 7/10

the "stop us" is thankfully fixed as far as i can tell. the new instrumental is taking some getting used to but i like that the song isn't just the 2017 vocals on top of a new instrumental. red's talking parts in her verse are what's throwing me off and what brought down the ranking down a number. i am fine with the rap part though. the "that's my name, that's my name" adlib at the end sounds slightly off to me too

fight of our lives by red and chloe: 7.75/10

it definitely picks up after the first chorus. speaking of the first chorus, there's odd editing on the line "running out of hope" that takes me out of the song. i really like the instrumental though (the wannabe drummer in me is very happy about it). kylie, again, sounds very good but that's a given (i really like her chorus) and like i said in the first ranking, malia and kylie's voices sound very nice together and the layering and harmonies are nice (TO ME)

life is sweeter by rise of red cast: 6.75/10

again the chorus and the villains's (specifically hook, morgie, and uliana) part are the selling point to me. however why is maleficent's part like drowned out?? (actually a couple parts of this song are) ruby's voice sounds very nice on the chorus's melody. still haven't decided if i like that the song is everyone's introduction. the verses don't click with me, save for the first verse. the instrumental shift to the villains' introduction could be better. and the final chorus is very jarring with the villains interjecting, and not in a 'so bad it's good way'

perfect revenge by uliana, hook, morgie, hades, and maleficent: 6/10

i feel like this song is the definition of a grower and an earworm. i'll probably sing it over the next week even though it's my least favorite song. basically it's objectively catchy and i would understand why someone would like it. i personally don't love the melody of the post-chorus and i don't care for hades and maleficent's voices or parts (no offense). i do like dara's ad-libs at the end and the song makes my choreographer brain start ticking so i guess that's an upside.

shuffle of love by bridget: 8.5/10

one point off for the fact that i had to strain my brain and ears to figure out the lyrics of the first line of the chorus (it's "first, one two-step to start", had a feeling disney+ captions were wrong and they were). a half point off for the MORE unnecessary rapping (it wasn't bad just unneeded). other than that i really like this song. i especially like chorus, which i mentioned before, and i was robbed of this being fully in the movie

get your hands dirty by ella and chloe: 8/10

don't know why it went down, just vibes. everything i said is still true. i like the melody and absolutely love the songwriting and the rapping/talk singing is a bit more bearable. and again morgon sounds very nice.

life is sweeter (reprise) by red and queen of hearts: 7/10

pretty reprise, same ranking. nothing much to say that i haven't said already

life is sweeter (remix) by rise of red cast: 5/10

i like the little nuggets of vocals that can be heard but like i said before, not always a fan of remixes. ranking went lower because the scene talked over the remixed instrumental so i couldn't get an opinion on it.

bad reputation by red: 3/10

this is a lot at once and will probably be the only song i don't add to my soundtracks playlists. the instrumental is very loud and very distracting but kylie sounds nice

[lucabyte]

On autonomy, and what it means to be Obliged to Help.

Bonus:

[ryllen]

something i promised on my kofi 6 months ago... 🫠

[ineffectualbookseller]

The way Azirphale is underestimated and practically infantalized by heaven is so closely tied to his femininity and I think we should talk about it more because I just want to shout about how relatable the way he's treated in his workplace is as a woman working in a traditionally male field

It's in all the little niggling comments from your boss about personal things that hold no bearing on your work

and the assumption that what you're doing must be simple if it was assigned to you

your work is trivialized

and you get these the placating smiles when you're told plans and proposals are rejected and passed over

or when your complaints are dismissed

and you get more of the same from upper management

it all feels so frustrating and draining but you're at work so all you can do is take a breathe put on that mask and move on with your day

It is all so deteimental to your emotional well being and textually, so much of this is tied to Aziraphale's softness, his gayness - his femininity

The thing about working in an environment and gives you this feeling - of being simultaneously destrought watching your belief in yourself get chipped away but also just so irate becuase you know you don't deserve it - is how it builds. It sinks under your skin and feeds into this indignant dejection until you can have a moment of release - but Azirphale doesn't get to bitch about it over drinks with friends, he doesn't get a lunch break where he can go for a walk and listen to an angry scandi death metal playlist, he doesn't even get the chance to cry about it in the bathroom for 5 minutes before confronting it again

(And I talked a little bit about it in the tags of this beautiful photoset but this all comes into play whenever Crowley dismisses his plans or calls him an idiot. These are purely emotional reactions; I really don't think Crowley means much by it - he respects Aziraphale's opinion and genuinely thinks he's brilliant - but Crowley is so quick to use this terminology when Aziraphale is making a decision Crowley thinks is wrong and he doesn't know how much this hurts Aziraphale. Just like Aziraphale doesn't understand the true impact the Fall had on Crowley, Crowley doesn't understand the ways heaven has been tearing away at Aziraphale's self worth)

Aziraphale has been facing this constant drip of denigration since before the beginning of time and has never released the pressure valve. At this point, he's a bomb waiting to go off

[ube-bluebay]

i have a problem

really long rambling in tags

[lobstermigration]

Once upon a time…..

[buttercuparry]

I am going to say that what Arya Stark needs is salwar kameez (for the lack of a better word). People go on and on and on about her not liking dresses. And truly she doesn't like it when they hinder her from doing what she wants. But we do see her in Braavos. She isn't constantly complaining about her dress while selling oysters or working as an apprentice under Izembaro. Like i am a bit frustrated that there is nothing to imagination in a fantasy series when it comes to costuming. I am not saying to appropriate a dress, but the inspiration to fashion for make a believe world is so limited when it comes to Hollywood. And I am sitting here and thinking...

Like do you see the pants?

Arya and dresses and pretty frilly things won't ever really comfortably mash but to see fandom people and actual GoT costume designers going from rags to bland boiled leather when she is a princess. Even during celebration where she is being celebrated...😭😭😭😭😭😭 like you know Michelle Clapton spent so little time on Arya's costumes and excused it with "oh Arya is not like other girls!"

[m-kyunie]

marching forward through the Gates of Hell

[simpletailoring]

so I’m about a third of the way into A Stitch In Time and I just have so many thoughts.

this is unexpectedly one of the most fascinating books I have ever read, because the circumstances of its existence (tie-in novel for established tv show, written by the actor, largely taken from his character-dev writing) create a novel that would’ve never existed otherwise.

in any other normal novel, the protagonist with a sad childhood who gets shipped off to train to be a weapon of the state, in a violent, loveless institution, would be… taking a stand against the status quo! that’s what protagonists do, they make unlikely friends and they stand up for what’s right and they change their world etc etc. yahoo. yay !

but as we good and goddamn know: garak’s not a protagonist

these flashback portions follow so many classic sf/f coming of age tropes of a young lad finding himself in a harsh new world, but instead of the main character being guided by a convenient moral compass and growing in defiance of the competitive, cruel environment– garak adapts, learns to outcompete his peers, learns to be crueler.

it’s not so much that you’re reading garak becoming worse (though he is, for sure)

it’s more that garak is drifting from being a mere product of his environment, to a perpetuator of it

[purpleleavesday]

Alright I feel like my problem with the Eustace Winner name (Sebastian my boy I'm so sorry) is that he's a really major character with depth and development.

From the start AA has had really stupid pun names and I loved them. April May, Redd White? I thought those were the best when I was playing ace attorney for the first time.

But characters who were actually important -- Phoenix, Maya, Edgeworth, von Karma, I could be wrong but their names aren't as stupid of puns as Redd White or my beloved Detective Detective Detective (love you gumshoe). I mean, Wright is literally just a play on right, but it's not a phrase, like I feel Eustace Winner (Useless Winner?) Is supposed to be. And Phoenix is a reference to his nature, how he "rises from the ashes", it's about his general overall character and doesn't feel like a mean joke. To me, naming Sebastian Eustace Winner is like if Edgeworth was named Meenin Evil so you know he's a bad guy when you meet him.

Poor Sebastian though, he has a LOT that happens (I never finished aai2 actually but I want to give him a hug and a mug of hot chocolate), hes a very important character, and it feels like they gave him a side character name? When he has a lot more importance to the story than just one case

[lovesick-level-up]

Natlan Edits + Icons

nobody requested, self indulgent. we did these edits when the trailer came out, but we're posting them now. remember to sign this petition and don't spend any money on genshin, honkai or zzz.

feel free to use with credit as long as you aren't on our dni, but don't claim as your own! like/reblog if you save or enjoy. and don't start arguments on this post.

[artbywaffless]

Lots of things

[ki1ldeer]

Ahh the escapism of drawing my silly guys

[rainboneish]

i see some people on tiktok and twitter acting like gojo not getting memorialized is the only logical conclusion to his arc to either

1) symbolize how no one really understood him and/or could reach him or

2) he shouldn’t be an exception and no other sorcerer got a funeral/memorial either, that’s just how sorcerer society is

and while i firmly believe there is no objectively correct way to end a story, the attitude some of those fans are showing trying to act like everyone who wanted something different is less media literate than they are is annoying me so time to bring up reasonable counters to those arguments:

on 1): complete understanding isn’t a prerequisite for affection and/or grief. Multiple characters (Yuji, Yuta and Shoko at the very least) are shown to have some amount of care for him and them wanting to lay his body to rest, or at least offhandedly mentioning that it was done does not contradict their lack of complete understanding of him in any way. Yuji himself says that he will never forget Gojo (Yuji is also arguably the only character really given closure about Gojo’s death in the story through that flashback (with the exception of Satoru Gojo (hehe see what i did there) and the other deceased characters in 236)

In fact, one could argue that them not fully understanding that Gojo wanted everyone to move on from him and “forget” him would have been reinforced by them grieving him

(I don’t personally think that them processing his loss in a healthy way (read, all the studies about how funerary rites are important to a healthy grieving process) would be contradictory to his wish but since people want to argue that that’s why it was done i think it’s fair to bring up the counter)

on 2) this could easily be solved by having the characters honor all of the recently deceased. (Nanami, Yuki, Choso (what better way to mark him accepting his human side like Yuki told him to)) People keep bringing up how none of the sorcerers got a funeral (as well as Todo’s speech in Shibuya about how they live in through their comrades) and while that is correct (in fact, Todo’s speech represents the whole reason why the last couple chapters are named after Gojo’s dream of a reformed jujutsu society, a dream that his students are now carrying out for him, one of the main issues with traditional jujutsu society (and consequently one of the reasons that lead do Geto’s defection and the formation of Gojo’s dream) is the fact that sorcerer lives are treated as expendable, the fact that sorcerers aren’t given the time and support they need to process the trauma they are put through on their missions.

Part of letting the kids experience their youth is also giving them healthy coping mechanisms and while i am not someone who believes that every character needs a “therapy” ending (hence why i’ve been yelling about not wanting Gojo (who is satisfied with his own death and afterlife) to come back to life to un-learn all of his unhealthy coping mechanisms and his (partially self imposed) isolation as the strongest) i do think getting time to acknowledge and process their losses is part of that.

(Looking at Megumi especially, he might have kept distance between himself and Gojo, and fanon portrayal of their relationship often makes it deeper than it is in canon, but Gojo was still the most consistent adult mentor figure he had in his life, and he experienced Sukuna killing him with his body, a letter isn’t gonna cut it i’m afraid… Megumi’s character arc in general is one people are criticizing and i do to some degree agree that while him freeing himself from Tsumiki specifically being his sole motivation is something, him immediately finding new people (Yuji and Hana, the latter for guilt reasons) to base his reason for living on is a bit… but that’s part of characters not needing to have a perfect therapy ending i guess…

people like to bring up that Nanami, who has been dead for a while now, was also never shown getting a funeral but characters were shown processing his death once the fight was over, both through the conversation between Gojo, Shoko and Ijichi and through Ino requesting and using his weapon in the fight against Sukuna. Yaga’s death was also discussed between Gojo and Gakuganji (changing his conservative outlook) as well as as a motivator for Kusakabe

While Yuji was definitely shown processing Gojo’s death (in chapter 265 and 271) the characters i personally would have liked to see processing/commenting on Gojo’s death the most are Yuta and Shoko,

Yuta for “i will share the mantle of becoming a Monster to take some of the load of Gojo-sensei” reasons (all this talk about how concerned everyone was about what it would mean for his humanity to have to take over Gojo’s body and then we don’t get a single panel about how he actually felt about it after the fact)

and Shoko because we get all these glimpses of her caring about him in her own way (most notably the “i was there too, wasn’t i” moment as well as her stress smoking during his fight against Sukuna, and in a way still being his closest and oldest confidant, even if they never connected the way he did with geto (hence why he felt comfortable leaving the letters for Nobara and Megumi to her, as well as being the reason why he was a little miffed at her lack of reaction to the body-switching plan). Shoko isn’t an emotional character, she is very desensitized to the death and injury of people around her, but the scene by Tsumiki’s grave and her comment about Geto’s body confirms that she (to some degree) considers it an honor and a privilege to be able to give them post-mortem care. I never wanted a scene of her crying over his body or anything, but a scene of her standing by his grave (which could have been inserted between the Tsumiki grave scene and the panel of her throwing away her cigarettes) would have done enough for me.

People like to make fun of everyone asking for a funeral by saying “sorry y’all didn’t get a ten page funeral with everyone crying about Gojo”, but personally i would have been happy with a single panel showing his grave/ossuary with an epitaph (possibly the same for Geto so we finally get confirmation that Gojo’s (and the Hasaba twins’) wish of having his body put to rest was fulfilled, especially after those panels in 270 sowed more doubts), maybe a couple extra panels of the characters i mentioned earlier

also not to be extra brain rotten stsg but Gojo being put to rest in a way where he is with suguru (Shoko being the person most likely to make those arrangements for both of them and also being the person who knew how much they meant to eachother the best) or him being memorialized together with everyone else who fell in those past couple months would symbolize that while he might have been lonely in life, he is not lonely in death (just like he wasn’t lonely anymore in the airport scene in 236)

what i haven’t seen people bring up much is that sorcerers as a whole are said not to be religious. Despite the heavy buddhist themes in the story, sorcerer society as a whole is described as secular, something pointed out by the chairman of the star religious group. On the world building front i think it would have been interesting to know how they process their dead, past the general vague description of “shoko handling bodies” and “having to make sure the body can’t be misused/the sorcerer won’t turn into a curse after death”. Maybe that’s my little goth heart but i really would have liked to know, we see people end up in the morgue but no one really knows what happens after that. Maybe everyone (whose body can be recovered) is cremated and disposed of in some unknown location (Greek cemeteries have “bone digesters”, big pits where bones are put if the family doesn’t rent an ossuary/claim the remains after the lease on the grave plot is up, maybe it’s something like that), maybe there are ossuaries like the one pictured in the Shibuya OP (it’s still unclear to me how much input Gege had in those), maybe the cremated remains are given back to the family on a case by case basis (especially for people from non-sorcerer families who might have religious beliefs). Either way, it’s something i think would have been interesting to know, plus lack of big funerary rites doesn’t really mean the characters can’t think of/mention their deceased comrades.

now i’m not saying everyone who has a different opinion on this is wrong, again, that’s not the approach i like to bring to media analysis/commentary, in fact this whole rant is prompted by my distaste for people doing that, but that is what i personally would have liked to see to call this a 10/10 ending for ME

[mbat]

i literally read the book of bill days ago but its only now kinda hitting me how fucked ford and bills whole thing was though cause ford literally talks about being so unable to sleep (to try to keep bill away), and when sleep inevitably caught up to him, he would wake up to his body abused and things messed with and he just couldnt seem to find an escape (and he literally didnt get to truly escape until 30 years later)

(also keeping people awake for unhealthily long periods of time is another tactic used to mess with and control people because of how it impairs brain function)

listing off the things we see in those few pages in the book of bill:

i mean, punching and scratching at a steel door for hours would be so damaging to your hands and probably hurt like hell for at least 2 days after. then bill says he was hitting fords head against a wall, though its said in a post-it as if its a joke, but he also isnt exactly above doing that, and honestly he says most things like its a joke.

i also dont need to say 'bill really doesnt know how to take no for an answer' because he makes that very clear in literally any interaction we see with him.

bill literally puts a venomous snake near ford while fords asleep, which could have killed him if he wasnt lucky+skilled enough to deal with it.

he nearly gives ford hypothermia, and in the same action actively threatens ford with the idea of making him jump off of a high spot, and like ford says, doesnt do it just so he can send a message to ford about how hes the one in control.

he gets ford in trouble with not only the law, but also with other people that are probably not very happy with him after. he mutilates fords body in several ways, and i dont think i need to go into detail on them because theyre... so ew. and he even exposes part of fords body to the world. like, its just taking his shirt off, but thats still showing off his body in a way that he didnt agree to or want

and then he attempts to (or purposefully fails to) call stan, using fords voice to threaten suicide and tell stan that ford never loved him.

and he punctuates it with a final power move, in a hallucination that he creates, hes messing with stans memories and making him feel like his body was basically about to implode

and like. okay, we all joke about toxic old man yaoi, and its a good joke and toxic old man yaoi is great and its an interesting ship, but holy fuck.

like. to say the absolute least, that had to be so, so deeply violating. its no wonder that when we see ford in the past, when he finally contacts stan, he looks like hes on the verge of shattering into a million pieces. he just went through, and still wasnt yet out of, some deeply abusive shit.

like... everything coming out lately both in this book and what ive heard is on the website, mixed with what we already knew from the show itself... the stans are both so, so fucking tragic dude. their whole lives were thrown away over things that really didnt even need to be the way they were, and then they both get into situations that are pretty damn screwed, and those situations follow them for the rest of their lives. its basically a miracle that things worked out in the end for them.

i dont really have a point, i just had to talk about all that. i read almost all of the book of bill in one sitting, and while i was really enjoying it, i was also getting kind of tired of sitting in one spot only doing this one thing for several hours straight. i still felt a lot of the emotional bits of it of course, but man this part specifically just really didnt hit me until now.

i mean, to say the absolute least, i know what its like to feel violated in a similar way, though not anywhere near to the extent of what he went through at all. someone get that man some therapy got damn

[laufire]

early 00s comics be like. everyone was SO mean to stephanie for NO reason.