#I could write an essay about this movie

[gods-no-longer-tread-here]

oh another little detail about Nimona that fucked me up:

I thought Bal refusing to call Nimona a monster, instead saying “You know what you are”, was him struggling with caring about her but also fearing her. After further thought, no.

It’s respectability politics.

He’s a cis, presumably gay man, who lived his whole life in the same confines as Ambrosius. The same rules, the same “don’t be Weird, don’t be Defiant, Kill Monsters On Sight”. Just because he was expelled for being accused of being the wrong kind of gay murder doesn’t mean he isn’t still chockful of “I need to be accepted by the people in power.”

Which always, always results in trying to be more straight than straight people, more cis than the cis. It’s part of why the ‘queer is a slur’ bullshit spread so far. “Monster” replaces “queer” in that scene. Bal can’t bring himself to call his friend a word that he has since learned is painful and was used to hurt her, but he still means it. He won’t let it out of his mouth, but he still means it, with the same spitting hate as everyone else.

Monster. Queer. Faggot. Dyke. Tranny.

Bal still hated That One Part Of Her. He loved Nimona, his friend and ally, but she was Monster, and just like all the “LGB without the T” fuckheads, he was scared Nimona’s transness would drag him down even further. He still wanted to assimilate, be accepted.

It’s impossible to do that. We are not different. Cis people are not “more acceptable” than trans. Gays and lesbians are not “more acceptable” than bi, pan, and ace people. We’re all monsters to the people who hate us. Stop polishing their boots with your tongue and fight.

[cryptoriawebb]

Them: it’s Romeo and Juliet but with lions

Me: Simba’s Pride is about healing generational trauma and standing up against the expectation you’ll grow into someone you’re not.

[noodles-and-tea]

You're the only person I know of who still has Luca on their pfp never change I miss 2021 Luca fandom so bad

He’s just so special to me!!!

[son1c]

i've been thinking about the sonic movies a lot lately and honestly the more i think about them the more they kind of piss me off but that's not what this post is about because i was thinking about how i would've written them if i was in charge and i know i've spoken before about how i would've made tom a fire fighter or park ranger instead of a police officer but honestly? i don't think i would've had sonic end up with tom and maddie at all. the small town rural life really just doesn't fit sonic. he's high octane high energy and maximum cool and living in a sleepy town of like a thousand people doesn't pass the vibe check for me (as much as i cherish #nebraskan sonic)

like i just think it would've been more interesting if he'd wound up living in the city. you know? it's not like it would've been impossible for him to hide there. ofc there's the teenage mutant ninja turtles route where he hides in the sewer but honestly i don't think he would've needed to do that. there's plenty of empty/condemned buildings in cities. he could've camped out in one of those and set up his living space there, OR and this is very funny in the ironic sense, he could've lived in an empty, disused water tower. that's basically like a cave but it has a VIEW. since they're situated high up, i can just picture a shot where he's sitting on top of it looking out over the city wistfully...

anyways as for WHO he'd eventually end up connecting with i think the choice is obvious. rachel... she has so much more swag than tom and more importantly she's RIGHT about everything. plus her kid is the one who gave him his shoes canonically???????? i just think it'd be fun for sonic to have a human adopted sibling like if he's already getting adopted by a human why not go all the way and give him a whole human family yk.

i was imagining in my head some interactions like once rachel finds out he's been living alone for the better part of a decade she's like ah. I See (<- barely contained rage at The Owl for doing that to him). well, you're going to get chili dogs EVERY night. and sonic is like "i love chili dogs :)" and she's like "i know you do baby <3"

idk. basically rachel deserved better

[commsroom]

mission launch for minkowski's crew was in march 2013. ostensibly, they were put through some mission training, though the extent and effectiveness of that is kinda dubious. pagliacci takes place in 2013, exact date unspecified. but it has to be early. let's say... mid-january.

eiffel thought he had ruined the rest of his life before he'd even turned thirty. he probably spent his thirtieth birthday in jail. and then... for some number of days, weeks, maybe even a couple of months, he exists in this state of, well. of limbo. cutter gets him released from prison, and flies him out to canaveral. he doesn't speak to his family, obviously. they don't want to hear from him, and don't even know. he's still a prisoner, but no one around him knows that, either. at some point in this time frame, goddard first exposes him to decima, before hilbert even knows who he is. and he lives wherever goddard is accommodating him, and he has to go about his day-to-day life in this transitory state between a 26-year sentence he'd just started really grappling with, and the very immediate reality he's now about to be sent into deep space instead.

they give him a certain amount of freedom; it's not like he can go anywhere. he doesn't do much, anyway, is not feeling appreciative for his momentary second chance at life, given the circumstances. he blows off most of his mission training, and they're surprisingly lax about that, which in retrospect probably should have been a sign. he sits around and smokes, mostly. gets takeout food. but he goes to see movies, as much as he can. as much as he wants to punish himself, he needs to do something, or he'll go crazy, and it's not like he'll get a chance to see a movie in a long time. he was already resigning himself to maybe never going to a movie theater again.

the film adaptation of les misérables was released in december 2012. it's entirely feasible it could've been one of the movies he saw in this time period. i think the idea adds some resonance to his shared reference with minkowski in the finale, at least, in the way it pulls things full circle. intentionally or otherwise. and, incidentally, the 2012 film adaptation of les misérables, a story that notably features an ex-convict protagonist seeking redemption, was released on december 25th. call that serendipity.

[mostlyvoid-partiallyflowers]

The most recent episode of Interview with a Vampire let's us see Lestat's side of the story and see how it compares to Louis' accounting of their relationship. As a result, it reaffirms just how unreliable of a narrator Louis is, but it also further illuminates elements of his character that the director and writers have been playing with since the beginning of the show.

There's this part in the episode where Lestat turns to Louis and apologizes and it's framed with Lestat turned to Louis on one side and Claudia on his other side. They're the angel and devil on Louis' shoulders, but who is the angel and who is the devil? And as my friend said, Armand and Daniel are placed into that same dynamic with Louis later on. We are being asked to decide who to trust, who's telling the truth, who's the good guy, but the fact of unreliability robs us of that decision.

This whole story is about Louis, he's the protagonist, though not the narrator, and he is constantly being pulled in two directions, no matter when or where he is in his story. He's a mind split in two, divided by nature and circumstance. He's vampire and human, owner and owned, father and child, angel and devil. He's both telling the story and being told the story. His history is a story he tells himself, and as we've seen, sometimes that story is not whole.

Louis is the angel who saved Claudia from the fire but he's also the devil who sentenced her to an life of endless torment, the adult trapped in the body of a child. He's the angel who rescued Lestat from his grief and also the devil who abandoned him, who couldn't love him, could only kill and leave him.

He's pulled in two directions, internally and externally at all times and so it's no wonder that he feels the need to confess, first to the priest, then Daniel, and then Daniel again.

He's desperate to be heard, a Black man with power in Jim Crow America who's controlled by his position as someone with a seat at the table but one who will never be considered equal. He doesn't belong to the Black community or the white community, he can't. He acts as a go-between, a bridge, one who is pushed and pulled until he can't take it anymore. He's a fledgling child to an undead father, he's a young queer man discovering his sexual identity with an infinitely experienced partner. He's confessing because he wants to be absolved, that human part of him that was raised Catholic, that child who believed, he wants to be saved. He wants to be seen.

Louis wants to attain a forever life that is morally pure, but he can't. He's been soiled by sin, by "the devil," as he calls Lestat, and he can never be clean again. Deep down, I think he knows this, but he can't stop trying to repent. He tries to self-flagellate by staying with Lestat and then tries to repent by killing him, but can't actually follow through. He follows Claudia to Europe to try and assuage his guilt. He sets himself on fire, attempts to burn himself at the stake, to purify his body, rid himself of the dark gift.

Louis is a man endlessly trying to account for the pain he has caused and he ultimately fails, over and over again, because he can't get rid of what he is. A monster. He's an endlessly hungry monster. He's hungry for love, for respect, for power, for forgiveness, for death. He's a hole that can never be filled. He can never truly acquire any of those things because he will always be punishing himself for wanting and needing them in the first place. He will never truly believe he deserves them and as a result, can't accept them if they are ever offered. He can never be absolved for he has damned himself by accepting the dark gift and thus has tainted himself past the point of saving.

[merehumsafar]

spinoff where phool has her own little shop is very much needed

[chloecherrysip]

We're going to save your brother.

[iwozlegit]

|| 🍍• I’m a sappy fuck - but fr i can’t help but picture a “found family” end credits scene in Sonic 3 for Shadow.

It’ll never happen but, say that Maria had a bucket list of all the places she wanted to go when she got to Earth. And Shadow being the cool brother ultimate lifeform remembers it back to front, left to right.

Cue Shads actually getting to Earth, and not doing the “very Shadow thing to do and die protecting Earth”, and deciding to embark on a quest to experience everything Maria wanted to do and see - obviously on his very cool motorcycle…can’t forget the very cool motorcycle…

Coincidentally, a certain blue hedgehog also kinda wants to see the world for fun rather than getting his ass kicked across every biome playing hero…(and he’s most likely at an age where he probably wants to spread his wings a little away from home).

Somehow after incessantly pleading, Shadow agrees, although not without a strict and rigid “do not do this, this, that, or this” list for Sonic.

So off they pop on his…now theirs…travels.

Initially, like Shadow’s strict and rigid “do not do this, this, that, or this” list for Sonic, Shadow is also very strict and rigid with where they go. And this continues for a while. But Sonic the ever talkative little fuck rambles on and on about some cool places he’s seen or has heard about being amazing…and that’s when the detours start to crop up. Shadow begrudgingly thinks it’s fine. An hour stop here and there, two tops.

Weirdly though, these new places he’s certain Maria would’ve loved. First just one or two short stops, but then eventually whole days worth of detours.

And eventually…a good few months in perhaps, Shadow realises, through Sonic’s bubbly and energetic zest for life, he doesn’t mind as much, because he’s got an eternity to see what Maria was so keen to see, but Sonic doesn’t…make every moment count, am I right?

So they go wherever the roads take them and the end credits is just snapshots and photographs of all the idiot things the two dumbasses get up to…

That’s it. You’re welcome.

Should I write this?

[purplemessidk]

Raph and Leo's dynamic drives me crazy because it evolves so much to the point of the movie. In the first season they always worked together and complemented each other very well. Leo was the brain cell and was aware of the danger of the missions, but if something bad happened, it was Raph's responsibility. As the show progresses, Raph takes things more seriously, and while he was never the best at attack plans or strategies, he no longer considers fighting villains to be a superhero game.

But then Leo is the leader, and we know that he often runs away from his problems or responsibilities (like the episode where they met Big Mama and Leo abandoned his brothers), so it's no surprise that he avoided the responsibility of being the leader of the team (taking his brothers to play instead of training for example).

Raph is no longer the leader, but he has to act like one because Leo is not, the problem is that this feeling of protection comes from paranoia that something will happen to his family, he wants them to be prepared for anything and probably in the time after Shredder he made them train a lot. Leo on the other hand just wants to act as if nothing happened, he doesn't agree with Raph's paranoia so he decides to contradict him, leaving Raph with the only option of taking responsibility again and return to the previous dynamic. But Raph only sees his younger brother ignoring a very big responsibility that he always had to deal with, he wants Leo to take things seriously and assume the responsibility that corresponds to him.

In the end, Leo does it, takes responsibility, gives his hero speech, makes a plan, and fights the Krang. But in the end a major decision is made, a leader's responsibility is to keep everyone safe, so he does it, he does it by locking himself with the Krang in the Dimensional Prison.

And for a moment, there was no time for Raph and Leo to resolve things, it was just left with a conflict that had been going on for months, a conflict they never resolved, a dynamic that wasn't even half of what it used to be.

[neroushalvaus]

No wait let me talk some more about Bridget Jones and how despite all of it's faults I think it's a positive movie for women in general and fat women in particular

So yeah, Renée Zellweger is not fat. While I think we should not forget that she was still body-shamed in media for the slight weight she put on for the movies, she was never fat or even "chubby". It is obviously a problem that in the first two movies she is constantly treated as fat when she never was. But even thought I do not like it, that is how it is. And in the Bridget Jones cinematic universe, Bridget Jones is seen as fat. As someone who is not desirable, who is embarrassing to date and who should constantly feel ridiculous for daring to exist in the world.

And you know, when you grow up fat, you learn that you need to compensate for the crime of being too big. Especially when you are seen as a woman. You need to be smart as a whip, and funny and entertaining to be around, and talented in so many ways, and you may never be clumsy because when a fat girl falls down, the first reaction is not "are you okay", it's laughter. And you may not have standards. If a guy likes you, consider yourself lucky. You can't be too loud or annoying because you already take up too much space. When it comes to looks, you must excel at femininity. You must wear make-up and have a beautiful face and lovely eyes and you have to wear clothes that compliment your body, that draw the attention to your breasts and hips. You must always be ready to be sexualized because that is the closest thing you can get to having your body accepted.

And then there is Bridget Jones. She drinks too much, she smokes too much, she talks too much and I love her with every fiber of my being. Look at how they dress her in the first two movies. Look how they style her hair. The clothes are often ill-fitting, the hair is messy and flat. When she goes to parties, she tries so hard to look good but never looks like a typical romcom lead. She is reaching towards femininity and falling face first into mud. She is crass and has a weird sense of humour and she always says the wrong thing in every situation.

But she is sincere. She is loved by her friends, she is desired by several men (and one woman) and she is allowed to have standards. The first movie's plotline with Daniel Cleaver is so good in this regard. Daniel sends Bridget sexual texts, sleeps with her, never says he loves her and then he cheats on her. Do we laugh at how silly Bridget was to get her hopes up when she thought this guy played by Hugh Grant could like her when he never said he did and obviously only wanted sex? No. We focus on how hurt Bridget is. And I love the scene where Bridget is with her friends and Mark Darcy when Cleaver comes to apologize. He comes through her door and seems surprised she's not alone, waiting for him. It is her birthday. Of course she is with her friends. Who you would know exist if you cared about her life at all, Daniel. And you know, then he apologizes and doesn't wait for Bridget's response, he just assumes she takes him back. Because how could she possibly do better? And after Daniel and Mark have their legendary fight for Bridget's affections and Bridget tells Mark to piss off, Daniel just assumes this means Bridget has chosen him. Because a woman like Bridget needs to have someone to make her feel less like a waste of space, right? Which makes it delicious when Bridget counters Daniel's pathetic little love confession "If I can't make it with you then I can't make it with anyone" with "That's not a good enough offer for me". She is still looking for something more extraordinary than that.

And she gets it!! I can not stress this enough! She is seen as a fat woman who isn't brilliantly smart, isn't polite or suave, is clumsy and crass and socially awkward, and can't cook anything but blue soup and marmalade and is a hot mess express in general, and the archetypical romantic hero, literal Mr Darcy falls in love with her just as she is. Bridget never needs to become smarter or less awkward or less clumsy, she is loved and treasured just as she is. That is why I have loved her for twenty years.

[awaythe-clock]

The Green knight is like. Its about honour. Its about regret. Its about fear. Its about courage. Its about shame. Its about the cyclical nature of the world. Its about mirrors and parallels. Its about your mom and you. Its about death and decay. Its about choices. Its about magic. Its about trying to avoid the unavoidable. Its about aging. Its about changes you aren’t ready for but have to go through anyways. Its about chances you wanted but were too scared to take. Its about gently kissing and caressing dev patels face. Its about expectations. Its about disappointing people. Its about how you look back at all the things you couldve done differently and forward to the things that may come. Its about the unyielding but loving power of nature and life. Its about being a person.

[magic-can]

[starw1sh]

The Dead Poet's Society is about being gay and in an unaccepting world. It's about McCarthyism. It's about learning how to love art and in turn love life. It's about the red scare and firing gay people from jobs in the 1950s. It's about coming of age. It's about the blindness of white privilege. It's about class relations. It's about white Americans' perceptions of Native Americans in the mid 20th century. It's about the constraints of masculinity. It's about the beatnik poets but it's also a poor reflection of that history. It's about the constraints of Christian nationalism and the "tradition" that comes with it. It's about generational struggles. It's about martyrdom. It's about American identity. It's about violence and how it's used to inforce conformity but also fight back. It's about privilege and sacrifice and if there's any actual meaning behind that. It's about the power of education. It's about autonomy and the lack of it. It's about gender roles and how men perceive women. It's about friendship. It's about grief. It's about the complex relationship between abusive parents and their children. It's about dreams. And it's also about about 10 million other things, and for those reasons. It is an endlessly rewatchable film.

[lesbianlotties]

thinking so many thoughts about the way Eleanor looks at Drea after Drea says "Don't pity me. And definitely don't touch me" because isn't that literally the story Drea made up about Eleanor years ago? i mean, that's the face of someone that was thinking about changing her mind suddenly deciding to take her revenge to the next. level.

[giantkillerjack]

One of the things I love about Glass Onion is the way that the camera and music work together to tell nonverbal jokes.

Like when Benoit basically has to hold Miles' hand to get him to the conclusion that someone reset the puzzle box Benoit lies about receiving:

Benoit asks if it's possible that someone reset the box, and Miles then declares that someone must have reset the box like it is this huge reveal - and the camera zooms out while the music subtly swells as though he really has figured out something smart, when actually he literally restated what Benoit just said.