#I see so much art of what's obviously the movie version but they make him whiter than me

[obi-mom-kenobi]

Tempted to start blocking anyone who draws poc paler than me

[the-gateway-to-madness]

Platonic dynamics I want to see more in the (tiny) Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragons fandom:

Jack being like an older brother to Hiccup and sort of seeing an older version of Jamie in him and not scoffing at how nerdy he is ("holy crap you MADE this? Man show me how it works!!")

Rapunzel post-her-movie being all gung-ho and cheery, and Merida trying to get her to stop being so naïve, only for Rapunzel to calmly list all the ways she was betrayed and abused throughout her adventures (and you'd only have to go through the canon events of the movie and show to make this work, btw, girl's been through STUFF) and tells Merida she is upbeat and kind because she chooses to believe that most people are good, because so many people stuck with her through so much and so many people came back to her after betraying her. And Merida is like "well dang ok, wanna learn to shoot a bow"

Jack being calm, responsible, and protective of the others without becoming too angsty in the process- playing harmless little pranks to bring everyone's spirits up, that sort of thing

Merida being annoyed by Jack at first, but it's because she misses her brothers, not because she categorically dislikes the pranks. She tells Jack this and he asks her to join him doing pranks. She has much more fun after this.

Rapunzel is good at many things, but not so much inventing, as we see in TTS; her trying to assist Hiccup and him being good-natured about it but entirely accidentally outclassing her

Jack very deliberately keeping his past and loneliness to himself, and the others figuring out something's off because they never catch him sleeping, he's pensive when he's not interacting with them, he's got such wide and extensive experience, and he starts admitting bits and pieces like "I'm older than I look" etc etc

Jack never openly getting angry with the kids because they're kids and he's a Guardian, so instead when one of them is upset or trying to pick a fight with him, his staff will glow brighter or it'll get cloudier or windier or snowier- his magic responds, but Jack refuses to, making his calm all the more scary.

Jack being the first to realize Rapunzel has been through Stuff and sitting down with her when the other two are asleep "what happened to you?" entirely gently and patiently because HE'S A GOOD BIG BROTHER DANGIT I WANT THIS SIDE OF HIM TO SHOW MORE-

Hiccup worrying/getting upset/doing that I Have To Stand Alone thing and Rapunzel approaching him like "you're not the only one who grew up alone, you know. It's okay to rely on us, we won't let you down"

Hiccup doing the I Have To Stand Alone thing in general cause I don't see that a lot in crossovers or at least the arts

The others finding Jack in weird places because super-balance go brr

Jack being reluctant to touch any of the kids for any reason because he doesn't want to see the way they treat him change once they realize how cold and inhuman he really is

Merida recognizing Jack immediately as the only other obviously competent fighter by the way he moves (she was raised around all manner of warriors and guards, after all) and immediately setting about allying herself with him because Heaven knows they all need as much protection as they can get

Merida helping Hiccup to have a moment like he has in the HTTYD books where he realizes he's actually a really amazing swordfighter when he actually uses his dominant hand

Hiccup and Rapunzel asking Merida and Jack what siblings are like

Jack just treating them all like his little siblings

Jack and Merida gathering ingredients together and, depending on the region, Jack teaching Merida the safe local vegetation and herbs because he's been everywhere. Also, Jack teaching the others how to cook with local ingredients

Jack knowing a lot about herbal medicine and helping and teaching the others

After much internal deliberation, Jack choosing Hiccup to hold his staff while he takes care of two-handed tasks

Jack knowing how to style hair because of Mary, and he and Merida helping Rapunzel tame her hair

[al-the-remix]

New ask game! Please recommend at least three of your favorite BuckTommy fic authors, artists, meta writers, gif makers, or edit makers. Maybe sing their praises a bit if you'd like. And if you want to, send this to a few other people and spread the good vibes 🥰

@thatmexisaurusrex thanks for the ask!

BuckTommy Fan Work Recs

Fic Authors:

(obviously this isn't a comprehensive list, but a collection of fics I've read recently and really enjoyed)

all the vices i can't give up by @starryeyedjanai - this one is so fun and hot, I love sexting/identity porn fics so obviously I clicked right away. I also really enjoy this author's Buck pov; just funny, horny, zero impulse control Evan Buckly and his dick pics against the world.

one way trip to the sun by @newtkelly - this fic felt like a special treat crafted specifically for me. Zombies are my all time favourite movie monster and I'm a big George Romero junkie so finding a bucktommy/dawn of the dead mashup was like striking gold. I also just really loved this version of Tommy and also the narrative structure of the fic. Some really cool stuff done here.

You’ve Got Me Up in a Frenzy by @emphasisonthehomo - Trans!Tommy. Trans!Tommy with bottom surgery, how I love you so. This is so sweet and hot and nuanced and also fun. 10/10.

bright as the morning, soft as the rain. series by @milominderbindered - these were some of the first buck/tommy fics I read and I really loved this version of an alternate first meeting. Buck and Tommy's dynamic here is so cute and fun and flirty, I enjoyed reading Buck's slower realization here that, yes, this man in flirting with him, and oh boy is he into it. Also, there's just something about this version of tommy that really gets me, it's like I can see through the screen how much of an absolute catch he is.

1-800-DAYBREAK by @epiphainie - (ngl I love all your fics) but this one especially. I just really enjoyed seeing a younger Tommy and Buck here where their dynamic is flipped--Tommy being the one unsure of himself and Buck reassuring him that what he wants is okay-- it was also very hot and sweet. I'm a big sucker for phone sex operator fics, so this just reeled me right in instantly.

Goon by @alchemistc - I did not foresee my venture outside of hrpf to end up with me reading hrpf... This has everything I love about the genre and it's best tropes: hotel escapades, and locker room intimacy, and the hero worship to sexuality realization pipeline (...and Sidney Crosby haunting the narrative). Looking forward to seeing how it ends!

Paint Me in Neon and Make Me Glow by @letmetellyouaboutmyfeels - Fun, sexy, caring, D/s kink-discovery. I love how out of his mind horny Buck is for Tommy in this, and for being watched, and specifically getting watched WITH Tommy. I loved every section of this fic and how the author kept upping the stakes as they built towards the climax (ha) of the fic, which I wont spoil but you should definitely got find out for yourself.

take guesses on exits, one has to be right series by @queermccoy - The trucker!Tommy / lot lizard!Buck AU I didn't know I needed but am now eagerly awaiting the next instalment of. This was surprisingly cute and as well as scorchingly hot.

bottom tommy pleasures series by winterbucky (WinterLadyy) (if anyone knows their tumblr @ i'll tag them) - Just what it says on the tin! Bottom!Tommy I love you 😌

Artists:

@kinardsboy - Their art is always so fun and cute! I love all the buck/tommy memes they make.

@blue-arts-stuff - Their art is both sweet and also manages to hit me in the feels every time.

@lazybakerart - All of their art is beautiful, but I especially love what they've done for the @kinley-cafe!

(And of course Kinley Cafe itself for doing an amazing job spreading positivity and engagement within the fandom.)

Gif Makers/Editors:

@lengthofropes - their gifs are all so gorgeous, I don't understand how they manage half the stuff they do, but I love staring at it an inch away from my face like brightly coloured visual candy.

@sunglassesmish - my Tommy Kinard / LFJ gif dealer and has provided me with enough images of the man to construct a 3D model in my mind to rotate while painting.

@xofemeraldstars - I always look forward to their daily kinley posts! My obsession is being enabled and i'm okay with that.

[itsajollyjester]

yessss that defo answers my questions! ur thoughts on compassion & community intertwined w rebellion definitely show up in ur art lol. something more specific i have been curious abt is ur version of the endings of each specific hunger games & ur characterization/portrayal of the victors at those points! if u have any more thoughts abt any of those characters or their games id love to hear.... im also very not neurotypical abt hunger games

For sure!! But this is a novel and a half so I apologize in advance (also most of this is from memory so anyone can correct me if I'm getting any details wrong)

((TW: For visual depictions of Blood, Gore, and Wounds))

I realized I'd seen barely any art showing what the victors would have looked like when they won their games. They were all just kids and I feel like it can be easy to forget that sometimes

For all of them, I made the background one of their main "weapons" but tried to make it look like its turning back on them instead since there are no victors as Haymitch said.

I'll try to explain them all more in depth individually going in the order I drew them:

Finnick Odair, 65th Games:

His main weapons were his trident and nets that he made with vines. His background is one of the nets ready to trap him.

Finnick was the youngest victor ever at only 14. I really really wanted to emphasize just how little that is. (Especially since we know exactly why the Capitol loved him from the start…) Once I actually drew him looking that little I had to step away for a bit because I made myself too sad…

Outside of just how horrific his age is as a concept, I tried to think about what circumstances would lead to him actually winning when surrounded by older tributes. I think he would have had to avoid any kind of fight he didn't have the upper hand in. We know that he got the most expensive sponsor gifts in the history of the games (a trident), so he probably got plenty of sponsors outside of that as well. Because of that I doubt he needed to go looking for supplies much if ever so it was easy to avoid people there. He was also probably in a career pack, despite his age, due to his training and his popularity, and they would have hunted other tributes down together much like the one we saw in the first book (safer in numbers). Once it was narrowing down and the pack broke is when I think he started catching people in nets. All of that is a long winded way of saying that's why, unlike the other victors I drew, I only show him with minor cuts and bruises.

Originally I was going to draw him with a kind of strained smile like he was acting for an audience from the start. But I decided I actually think its sadder if he believed he was popular because of his skill and strategy as a fighter and only learned the whole truth after he won and that's when he started acting more for the camera. Instead I gave him a more muted despair kind of look, like his world is crashing down. One of my favorite parts about the movies, mainly THG and ABOSAS, is when they give the career tributes at the end a moment of realization about what they've done, and I wanted to give Finnick his. I'm a person that believes Finnick had to have volunteered for his games. I think he would have legitimately believed in the propaganda the career districts were fed and had a bit of a (very middle school boy) ego about his abilities. (I was NOT expecting to write so much about his lmao)

Enobaria, 62nd Games

She's most well known for ripping someones throat out with her teeth. (Her background is her sharpened teeth getting ready to eat her.) This is treated by The Capitol, and by Katniss, as grotesque and terrifying blood lust (Which obviously the Capitol loves her for). However, and I'm not at all the first to say it, that sounds more like a terrified and desperate attempt to survive a fight she was losing and an example of hysterical strength. We know that Career packs have had bloody betrayals in the past and I can see Enobaria being a part of one of them. Enobaria doesn't have a canonical age, but I decided to put her on the younger side (15 or 16.) I can imagine some of the older, bigger tributes deciding she was the weakest link towards the end and that was the result. I tried to make the blood around her mouth and down her shirt look more faded, like she tried desperately to wipe it off (Also I had to step away from drawing again after I drew her little tooth gap)

I think she probably leaned into the bloodthirsty image afterwards as a way to protect herself and (maybe even started to believe it too)

Annie Cresta, 70th Games

Annie's known for losing her mind after seeing her district partner decapitated in front of her. After that, she ran off and hid until the game makers started an earth quake, which made the large dam in the arena break and cause a huge flood. Annie was the only survivor because she was the strongest swimmer. So I decided to make her background dark water that's churning up and over her head. I also think it can work well as a way to show her mental state in the moment (and afterwards) Annie is actually one of my favorite characters in the series and I've been writing out a plan for a possible comic series about her that'll go more in depth about my headcanons for her. (when I say comic series, I mean sketches and oneshots, not a full thing lmao) It wouldn't take place during her games (outside of a few flashbacks when I need more context), instead it would start at her Victory Tour and go into her first (and last) year as a mentor for the 71st Games. Which is a perfect segue to-

Johanna Mason, 71st Games

Johanna is actually first mentioned early on in the first book when Katniss is wondering if the reason Peeta is crying is because he plans to act weak and helpless as a strategy in the games. (Katniss, he just found out he has to fight in a murder tournament with his crush. He's just Sad.) She bases her theory on Johanna, who pretended she was a "sniveling, cowardly fool" in the arena until the final stretch of the games when she proved to be deadly with an axe.

OR….. Katniss is an unreliable narrator and Johanna was actually a terrified kid from a district with so few victors that she was the only name in the bowl for the Quarter Quell… This is totally just a personal headcanon of mine tho lol. I think there would have been a point in her games where she realized she actually had a chance and that's when she seemingly had a huge character turn around. Maybe there was a infighting with the careers that ended in multiple deaths and there was only a few left along with any other tributes hiding away like her. Maybe she poked around what was left of their camp, found the axe, and felt strength from her district.

Her background was a little harder for me. Just slapping a big axe behind her felt cheesy. But them I remembered her saying there was no one left that she loved. So instead I put trees that could represent her loved ones (Two fully grown trees, a younger "teenage" tree, and a sapling) that are in the process of being cut down.

Haymitch Abernathy, 50th Games

Don't worry, I'm almost done. I don't have as much to say about Haymitch since we know SO much about what happened in his games. But his background was probably the hardest for me. His main weapon was invisible after all. I thought maybe the axe that was used, but again, That would look cheesy. I tried (and kinda failed imo) to draw the cliff side the force field was on instead. But the main thing I did was split the three panels I had on the previous drawings into six for two reasons. 1: Because he had to face twice as many tributes in order to win and 2: Being the only victor of a district that's tributes are seen as fodder for the blood bath means he had to meet and watch the death of twice as many kids every year.

[ritornello]

since i can't answer myself so well, what would you say are asada nemui's distinctive storytelling traits and on a personal matter if you'd like what makes you like her stories? not so much tropes but running themes, art and such. i hope it's not too heavy of a question and thanks ^_^

Hi, this is a great question. For anyone with the patience to read all this I think it might help explain what makes Asada Nemui such an intriguing manga artist. (especially without the "it's because X reminded me of Y! - type analysis that occurs very frequently in english fandom communities)

There's a lot of images in this post, but it's not too spoiler-ish.

Comments about art

The first aspect of Asada's art I would want to praise endlessly are the page layouts. Dear, My God was one of the first stories I read by her and the flow of the panels is what really stuck out to me. I like using this sequence of pages as an example - can you guess what's going on?

I removed all of the dialogue and SFX, and it's so well laid out that the sight-to-panel direction, background design and expressions of the characters are enough to understand what's happening. It almost feels like you're looking at a scene from a movie or storyboard.

Text version:

While reading The Sound of the Waves, a page describing the plot of a writer's story more or less summarizes Asada's layout style. It generally begins with an establishing shot before laying out the rest of the scene, which with a longer story may take a few more pages to conclude.

The divisions of pages seems to average around four to seven panels, and pages with three or fewer panels show up very sparingly - likely saved for more impactful scenes.

(I'll just take a second here to add how much I love that she generally sticks to one shade of screentone. Limiting the palette to just three values is a great way to create shadows and dramatic lighting effects!)

Asada's direction is very focused on telling a story - there is always some type of visual cue that the scene is actively present and happening in front of us, the readers. I like this continuity compared to a series that might have excessive headshots or pages of flashbacks during a scene with a lot of action.

One of my favorite scenes in Sleeping Dead is in the second volume, when Mamiya is out in his van and attempting to construct a conversation. It fills an entire page, but his entire monologue could have been condensed into one "thinking" panel.

It doesn't necessarily look bad like if it were like this, but Asada intentionally uses the entire page to emphasize Mamiya's expressions, his awkwardness as he slowly loses confidence in himself. (Plus he's actively driving and looking at the road.) I like that this is a very private scene that reveals the inner character he tries to hide during the majority of the first volume.

I also like that she understands the importance of a readable layout enough to redraw areas that might be confusing to look at, like this one from the magazine version of Sleeping Dead (left side) :

In the last panel it's difficult to tell who's talking, because there are four detached bubbles and you can't see Sada or Mamiya. I wasn't sure if Sada was talking in the first bubble since it's directly below him, but the second seemed like Mamiya since it's drawn so awkwardly. For the paperback release she added a line to connect the two bubbles - obviously it's Mamiya saying both and becoming nervous as he brings up the possibility of having more sexual activities with Sada.

If you noticed the changes in the other panels of that page it also goes into her tendency to do redraws. Some of them look quite different after they've been changed - from the series I've read I noticed major redrawing for Dear, My God, the older short stories republished in Ai, Sei, and even Takatora and the Omegas (though Asada credited changes in that one to the fact that she's now working 100% digitally).

My opinion for these is kind of mixed, sometimes they do look better and sometimes I prefer her original style. This one from Dean My Love that appears in Ai, Sei is a crime lol.

There was a two-volume manga called Mangaka Gohan Nishi (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and Comic Artists) published in 2015, and it has one page comics by mangaka discussing food they eat. Asada appears in the second volume and her page mentions watching movies.

(basically it's about being bad at / injured by stovetop cooking so she prefers the safety of the microwave. But in the unidentified movie the characters make an explosive device with a microwave…)

I would undoubtedly say films are a large influence to her, and I've caught some parallels/references in her work, but it's kind of a disservice to only point out similarities in characters or genre tropes rather than her skill as an artist and storyteller.

During the last couple years Asada's also been fairly active on Twitter where she shares concept art and extra comics that add more to what she was limited to write in the published works.

For Takatora she's even been live-streamed the planning and inking of its (as of now) upcoming chapter on Pixiv Sketch. The series already has over two dozen pages of extra content judging by a numbered page she shared on Twitter.

Overall I appreciate that on top of having a high output she seems to care a lot about the quality of content her readers are getting. Not every artist makes redraws for their series on top of doing multiple serializations and lots of fanart/doujin content.

(And she has made a lot of fanart and doujinshi. For 10+ years.)

Comments about storytelling

I'm probably going to sound more rambly here, because I'm not a writer or a critic. Regardless of which series I enjoyed or disliked, I think most of them have an element of pushing boundaries in BL manga.

As one Japanese reviewer said when commenting about Sleeping Dead - Asada's manga are the type you want to recommend anyone to read...except you can't.

I think it goes without saying that the focus of sex in her manga can be a barrier, but there is enough range in her work that a reader (with some help) would be able to find a story with an amount of sexual content they'd be comfortable with. I could definitely see Asada working on more non-BL titles like The Swerve, Yoi and A Friend's Funeral, but to be blunt...she seems to really enjoy drawing men having sex.

Boundary-pushing can be apparent in most of her manga, especially when it starts as early as the first chapter. In the least extreme variation, her titles like Sleeping Dead and Call feature somewhat jarring love interests - middle-aged, sexually awkward men that are unconventionally designed compared to other BL love interests.

When the second volume of Sleeping Dead was nominated a Chil-Chil award for its story, Asada shared this illustration of Mamiya in a boxing ring. I love to imagine it as him squaring off with the much more handsome and less follicly-challenged ukes of the other nominated series.

If you check out her earlier series there are a few subjects considered taboo to look at. Sexual violence occurs pretty frequently. Surprisingly (or not, if you've been around long enough), it's not even rape that's considered risky subject matter in BL magazines.

According to a recent interview with Chil-Chil, Asada originally planned to publish Takatora and the Omegas with a different publisher (my guess is Shodensha, since they serialized My Little Inferno in OnBlue), but its inclusion of sexual health topics was considered too extreme:

[Interview translation credit goes to Ikari of Bottom of the Sea Scans, which currently scanlates Takatora and the Omegas.]

Thanks to Canna being willing to publish her more explicit story ideas, we might be able to see how far she planned to go with Takatora. The published chapters have already broached subjects including hysterectomies, abortion and sexual autonomy. I think this situation with Takatora has parallels to the struggles female shoujo mangaka faced in the early decades of manga publishing for girls.

The magazine Canna tends to serialize BL stories that include elements of science fiction and fantasy, which I think has made it a place where artists like Asada can have less restriction in their storytelling.

But...I don't want to praise Asada just for tackling difficult topics. Going back to the comments about page design, there's a huge focus on dialogue. Characters are frequently conversing and making eye contact with each other. She's amazing at writing characters with unlikable traits that are still enjoyable to read about, or are paired with a partner that helps balance out, or even tolerates their faults.

I think it can be easy to drop a series if it has unlikable characters, but she tends to put them in situations that question their ideologies, and we get to see how they change over the course of the story. Even Asada commented that she's not a huge fan of how the protagonist of Takatora and the Omegas acts:

Takatora could wind up being one of the most extreme examples of an unlikable protagonist, but we'll get to see if his bigoted views are changed as he's challenged by his peers, and as he offers his own support to solve their troubles.

At this point I totally got lost in the Takatora sauce, but other little aspects I love about her manga are the humorous moments, the sometimes getting too over-her-head writing, and endings that can be unexpectedly gut-punching yet written in a way that's the most grounded in reality. And in Sleeping Dead's case, immediately followed by a whiplash of silly extras.

I hope that with Takatora and Yoi - which seemed to have planned out for a while - Asada can continue to do her own thing, because I think it's a much better creative output to make whatever the hell you want instead of conforming to the preferences of the publishers.

In conclusion:

[commsroom]

first of all thank you so much for having this blog and sharing your thoughts!! your eiffelposting (and heraposting) has literally got me through the post w359 Grieving Process after running though the whole thing in about 2 weeks and your character insight is. well. chefs kiss. Eiffel Understander Of All Time. 2 things: 1, if it’s ok, you’ve mentioned before about an eiffel version of change of mind, and the idea has (1/2)

(2/2) literally stuck with me since and i’d love to hear your thoughts on that if you have any! 2, are there active w359 discords about bc i got a deep need to yap about all this (apologies if the first msg came through twice, tumblr's being weird)

oh, it makes me very happy to hear that!! your art is a gift, and i'm glad i can offer you something in return.

as for your question... yes! okay. the basic premise is to frame eiffel losing (and regaining) his memory as a catalyst for character growth, as a narrative parallel to lovelace's death and resurrection, rather than a resolution. i think it's noteworthy that the finale has eiffel faced with himself from first a very internal (the final confrontation literally taking place inside his head) and then a very external (hearing his logs as an outsider after losing his memory) perspective and i think the natural extension of this is, well. to confront him with himself.

one of the most key things about eiffel's character arc is that he wants to escape himself. "it's taken me this long to realize that running from everyone else means that you're alone with yourself" but, as addressed in constructive criticism, he's also running from himself. he doesn't like what he hears on those tapes, but the eiffel of succulent rat-killing tar both is and isn't the eiffel of brave new world, and i think that's what's being set up/suggested at the end.

i think viewing eiffel's memory loss as a death is incomplete, while viewing it as a "fresh start" or anything of the sort is incompatible with his existing character arc. but if you think of it as part of this pattern of eiffel trying to escape himself, and ending up still stuck with himself...? if he makes the big sacrifice, "escapes" the person he is as much as anyone can, and then finds he's still stuck with himself, still has to live as the person he is...? then, what next?

(i think this also ties in well with maintaining sobriety; addiction, self-destructive impulses and the desire to not be present in his life, etc. are all rooted in the same things.)

my concept of eiffel regaining his memory would be this sort of... fever dream "life flashing before his eyes" sequence of stepping into significant moments in his life (as a stranger) and interacting with himself, and needing to accept / reintegrating all of these versions of who doug eiffel is and has been. that the question of "am i still doug eiffel?" is one of accountability for his past but that he's always been changing and will continue to grow. i think a key part of this would be him seeing these moments through a pop culture lens / as if it's a movie and then more gradually seeing what they really are. ideally, these would be moments tied to specific songs for him; eiffel's internal soundtrack is well beyond wolf 359's budget, i'm sure, but it's a hypothetical anyway. these would be real memories, in some form, but obviously none of this would be happening for real; it's just how i think his brain would make sense of it (while he's presumably unconscious.) it's like sarah shachat said about eiffel's story in limbo: to tell that story, he would first have to make it a story.

i like this because i think it works well with eiffel's existing arc. i like it because it provides a different angle on self-exploration via memory in the same vein as memoria and change of mind. i like it because it makes a good potential parallel to shut up and listen/constructive criticism, and to mayday (eiffel alone with the voices of others vs. eiffel literally alone with himself.) it feels like a natural extension + heightened conclusion to things that i feel are already implied + set up. and, while i like where wolf 359 ended and would never want to add to it, i like imagining what zach valenti would do with a bunch of different versions of eiffel at different stages of his life interacting; i think he would knock it out of the park with material like that.

i think the real core of identity in wolf 359 is in these moments where people assert who they are, or decide to be who they are. again, in parallel to lovelace... the same way that lovelace decides to be isabel lovelace, "even if [she] never has been before", eiffel would decide to be doug eiffel, all the people he's been, the person he is now, and all the people he's going to be.

(as for discord... i think there are some, but unfortunately i don't know of any that i would personally recommend. you are always welcome to ramble at Me on discord, but i know that's probably not the same.)

[blackghostm2o]

New "Phantom Ramblings" post (oh wow!)

I'VE FINALLY WATCHED PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE!!!

The soundtrack is really good, i really enjoyed its songs (listening to the soundtrack rn, haha)

It is really fast paced and chaotic (especially when Winslow hasn't become the Phantom yet), not a bad thing I just wasn't expecting it, but it works well.

This version is really distant from it's original, however its aim is not being a PotO adaptation, but more of a critique towards the music business while using the PotO story to convey its message.

Yk... With predatory contracts, getting to perform only because you sold your body to a powerful mf, the unhealthy relationship between the performers and the public, the constant search for sensationalism (like when Swan wanted to kill Phoenix, or when no one batted an eye when Beef died), prioritising everything else but music (with greedy execs that change the whole soul of a song to make easy money), etc...

Leaving all of this sad stuff behind, heh... Spoilers ahead.

I ABSOLUTELY LOVE WINSLOW!!!! (Already on the 15 min mark I was "I love him sm") SWAN DID HIM SO SO DIRTY!!! NOOOOOOO!!!! Not only he took his music, but then he got also HIS VOICE (thus taking his soul, even tho he literally takes his soul with a contract, but I digress). Swan being: "Plugged here you can sing" while giving him a robotic voice to talk was really cruel >:(. Here idk if we can say that he is in love with Phoenix... He did want her to sing... Ok, now that i think about it he rewrote his songs with her in mind and was destroyed when he saw her sleeping with Swan... Yeah he loved her, but in a totally different way from the original. The way he got his music stolen and got disfigured while trying to destroy copies of his work (here Faust iirc) is really similar to what happened in the '62 PotO movie. The Phantom's design here is really cool, I like it (but also so fucking hard to draw rhaaaaa). Also him tryng to stop Phoenix for going to Swan's house T.T THE WAY HE DIES!!!! NOOOOO!!!! *sobs and cries*

FUCK SWAN that mf sold his soul to remain always young (obviously takes inspo from Faust, but made me also think of Dorian Gray, especially because of the whole tape thing and eternal beauty). Acting a lot like your typical phantom, talking from behind mirrors, having hidden passages, asking for THE VOICE of Chr- ahem Phoenix.

Ngl I loved Beef, he didn't really deserve to die, he just did what he was asked to do, he even wanted to go away... Ohh! I just realised that he is this movie's version of LaCarlotta (sorry guys, I'm dumb). He was such a DIVA, haha.

Loved Phoenix's singing, such a beautiful voice <333. A bit sad to see her being lured by Swan, but I don't really blame her... Imagine receiving so much praise and attention for the first time... Obviously you will want more. Fortunately she ended up unscathed from this whole deal (thanks to Winslow).

Btw the movie is really fun, I highly suggest watching it :)<3

I'll try to draw THE SILLY, wish me luck. We need more potp art around here, ngl.

[fishedeyelenz]

ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE BLACK CHRISTMAS FANDOM

Hello everyone who's been following my writing and art and OC's!! Your support has warmed my heart, and got me through some thought times. Thank you very much for sticking by me, commenting, sending me kudos and asks regarding Dilf Billy and my oc-verse I made around him!

However... I have come to realize I have made Billy, at least the older 45-50 year old version of him my own. Very much my own. I think there's a discrepancy between my characterization of him, and how he is portrayed in the movie/novel/commentary. Another thing is that I love him too much. I want to make him my own, not an interpretation of a pre-existing character...

So that's exactly what I am going to do! I'm taking him and making him an OC. Currently I am in the process if changing up his backstory to make him distinct from Billy Lenz, though the Dilf version we see in Rats in the shadows and partially in So give me coffee and tv will stay similar.

My goal is to create a group of ocs consisting of the character formerly known as Billy, Camille, Bean and other side characters who will exist in a story about an ex serial killer father. I'm still early in the rework, but I feel like I don't have change too much.

What this means I will effectively be distancing myself at least partially from the Black Christmas fandom, at least in terms of my content creation though these past few months I have been in a rut given college preoccupying most of my time. I still love Black Christmas, it will remain one of my favorite movies forever. I cherish the friends I made and the experiences I had, but I want to move on to more original creations, uninhibited by primary existing source materials.

I will still interact with fan works in terms of reblogging art and writing , and I will most likely draw more of Billy Lenz and the other characters from the movie in the future. Anything regarding Camille, Bean, "dilf Billy" though, will be something divorced from Black Christmas, entirely its own thing, though obviously inspired by it.

Will I return to writing for Black Christmas? At this point I am uncertain. I have a WIP of a priest!au thing for Dilf Billy, which if I ever get around to finishing I would post under the pretense that it's a Black Christmas fanwork. However, I am not sure if I will finish it, given that I don't really have the time, and at the moment motivation to really work on it. Another story idea exists too, one which would better fit into the Black Christmas ethos with is very dark tone and heavy subject matter (while still remaining a smut work) which I would gladly have exist as a fanwork.... But once again I am lacking the time and want to do it. It would be a very big project, all things considered.

So what now? I will keep all my Billy Lenz/Dilf Billy content up on my blog, my AO3 will stay intact (though I will forward this announcement onto there), and I won't change my tags on Dilf Billy related posts. Moving forward, though, everything created for my oc inspired by Billy Lenz/Dilf Billy Lenz will be tagged as that. I need to come up with a new name for him first...

I will also make a post regarding how the plot of Rits/Sgmcatv would have went if I'd finished them, to give you guys some sort of conclusion. Though the new oc story with Bean, Camille and the new Billy oc in it will very closely follow Rits original storyline. Most of the events of Rits are canon still in regards to Camille's and Bean's backstory, with of course some caveats (no Brahms, Camille and "Billy" meet differently etc.). But the large majority of the plot points and story beats are the same.

I will be happy to answer any further questions, as my inbox is open. I'm sorry to disappoint anyone, but I've felt the need to move on, to elevate this story. I hope I can be forgiven. Now I bid farewell to this part of my life and creative era, and look forward to the new.

[whywoulditho]

hq movie review!!!

(not spoiler-free)

went to see the haikyuu movie: dumpster battle today and i wanted to share my thoughts!!

first of all the movie had better animation than season 4 of the series! even though it stuck with the same animation style and character designs this was a much more neatly done project for sure. it felt like they had finally adapted into the style and managed to bring out the best version of it. in that sense i feel like season four was their experimental phase, if that makes sense? the movie's animation was so much smoother than i expected. i still prefer the first three seasons' style, but this wasn't bad at all in my book.

they used the same OSTs from the series as far as i've noticed, and they did make the match dramatic enough in most parts, (-we'll get to those other parts) and the voice cast did a good job as always.

they cut the arc a little shorter, trying to fit it into a 1h 30m runtime. it's a three set match so it was bound to be shorter than the five set matches like the shiratorizawa and the inarizaki matches, but it still deserved a good two hours in my opinion. you might think, well obviously they weren't going to animate every single point but honestly? furudate drew almost every single point and people READ that, on paper. we would have eaten up a two hour long movie. but well, since it's all done let's talk about what we had, and what we didn't.

the movie opened with a redrawn version of the season one scene where hinata meets kenma for the first time. it was a nice, nostalgic touch. they kept focusing on the random crow and cat they added to the background of the scene for peak symbolism and frankly i kinda loved that. i don't care that it's overdone it's still good okay? 😤

oh and even though they reanimated that first scene, there were still many instances in the movie where they cut to flashbacks from earlier seasons taken straight from the original version with the older animation style.

the first half of the movie was weaker than the second. they skipped a bunch of points and tried to only show the important lines but without the leading rallies the lines just looked kinda goofy and out of place. this one for example,

when they threw in this line i was kinda thrown off?? because like, the build up just wasn't there? does that make sense? this whole bit about yamaguchi finally catching up to tsukishima and then actually surpassing him was very well done in the manga. and it was a huge thing too, the two of them were the first page art of that volume, but the movie tried to get it over with in like, thirty seconds, i'm not even joking.

this part:

was made into a weird little slideshow type of thing that transitioned into their high five and it looked so goofy to me... i'm sorry. i just wanted them to have this moment so badly. and they did, kind of, but it wasn't all that satisfying.

also, they didn’t give us tsukkiyama having a telepathical conversation, HOW DARE YOU.

tendou and tsutomu watching the match on tsutomu's ipad was also in the movie! i was really happy to see that because that's one of my favorite things from this arc lol. though they didn’t give much of tsutomu's frustration with tendou.

the first half was pretty bland, accurate to the manga but with most inner monologue cut and some parts skipped.

through the middle they gave us the kuroken childhood flashbacks, it was cut shorter than it was in the manga. and get this, i feel like the way they delivered their childhood memories were like they wanted to make them more about kuroo's love for volleyball than exploring kuroken's bond with each other. i feel like the movie tried too hard at focusing on one thing at a time, they cut the tsukkiyama scene short because during that bit they were focusing on kenma. they cut the kuroken memories short because they were trying to focus only on kuroo.

this kept going, honestly. even though this match was ALL about parallels and the bonds these characters have with each other, friendships and rivalries. in the manga, furudate made this match about exploring ALL the dynamics he'd been building up since the beginning. it was more random, yes, but that's what made it natural. kenma and hinata's rivalry/friendship, kenma and kageyama's rivalry, yaku and nishinoya's rivalry, kuroo and daichi's rivalry, tsukishima and kuroo's mentor-student relationship, nishinoya and asahi's trust bond, whatever the fuck yamaguchi and tsukishima had going on. the man took the time to give us crumbs of all these dynamics in the middle while a volleyball game was kind of just playing in the background. i know that sounds like i'm saying playing volleyball wasn't the main point, that's because that is what i'm saying. inarizaki v karasuno was about volleyball. shiratorizawa v karasuno was about volleyball. nekoma v karasuno wasn't. it was about two teams. because furudate made sure that we know every single player in each team, through and through.

this match wasn't just a simple match, it's something that they never shut up about since season one. this match was the end goal of all the relationships and parallels and dynamics they have been building for these characters, and the movie did a half-assed job delivering their fated battle.

it's like they looked at the arc and thought, "this is about hinata defeating kenma. let's focus on that and mention everything else briefly." so it was a whole mess of characters throwing these one liners back and forth and you just sitting there trying to catch up. look, maybe i'm blinded by nostalgia. but i don't remember feeling this way while reading the manga.

(edit: totally forgot to mention this but THEY CUT OFF THE COACHES' BACKSTORY !!! no young nekomata :((( )

okay, moving on, they did give us the birdcage scene:

and better than the manga, if i'm being honest. like i know it's a bad picture but LOOK at that composition. i love it so much.

they also included the one where kenma and shoyo shoved knives up each other's throats (they're such good friends fr 🤧)

they did this scene:

so well i was about to cry. shoyo literally screamed it was kinda overdone but i'll take it. kuroo's laugh was beautiful.

there was also this other scene where kenma is exhausted from running and is just desperately trying to keep playing and they did this amazing 360 degree perspective shot from his pov and IT WAS SO GOODDD. the heavy breathing kept getting louder and intenser and you could literally FEEL his breath and the voice acting in that scene was top notch i had fucking goosebumps. there was this bit where he faced the ground and his sweat was dripping down on the floor and YOU COULD SEE HIS REFLECTION ON THE WATER DROPS?? LIKE???? i'm still shocked this studio pulled that off you guys it was awesome.

and at the end of the match, they took this scene,

and made it 10 TIMES BETTER?? AS IF THAT'S POSSIBLE???

in the movie my boy kenma was fucking FLOORED. he was lying on the ground all sweaty and limbless and he had this beautiful smile on his face as he looked up at kuroo and said this line. I LOVED THAT SO, SO MUCH YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW WARM IT MADE MY HEART. THANK YOU WHOEVER LOOKED AT THIS BEAUTIFUL PANEL AND THOUGHT, "YOU KNOW WHAT, I CAN MAKE THIS EVEN GAYER"

oh, and they also included this for some reason lol:

okay, so, the movie wasn't as bad as we thought it would be.

i was really surprised by the quality of animation. they definitely solved the problem they had in season four where even the smallest movement always looked stiff. i don't think they paid enough mind to what the arc was actually about, to be honest. they tried to make this into just another one of their matches. well, maybe it was and i'm just reading too much into the character dynamics, who knows..

oh, and the bitter sweet news is that in after credits they teased the kamomedai match. since we're getting only one last movie for the finale it was a given that either the kamomedai match or the time skip were going to be cut short or cut off entirely. well, it doesn’t seem to be the kamomedai match... so. yeah. i guess we're kissing our beloved brazil and V league and olympic arcs goodbye. there was no way they did all of them justice anyway.

while the time skip is a high sacrifice i have to say i'll still be pretty happy if they make the kamomedai game full-length. that's my favorite match in the whole series and it definitely deserves more love. i doubt it will receive any if it comes in the expense of the time skip though...

so have you seen the movie? let's chat on the comments!!!

[thetownwecallhome]

TNBC Shower Thought: Comparing the worst to best TNBC posters

((OOC:

I know how much you love my pedanticy-pedantics about unimportant TNBC details and reviews. Or, at least, I think you like em and none of you have told me to can it yet...

So I figured in the spirit of that and Christmas season, why not compare some of Nightmare Before Christmas's movie posters? Comparing posters and covers is a fun activity for me. There different kinds of posters and cover art throughout the years for all sorts of things that are great at subtly, creativity, minimalism or just being a good cover overall. One day I hope to compare some of the Walt Disney features' many fantastic poser art for their films, but for now lets stick to Nightmare.

I'm starting from the bottom to work my way up into the GREAT stuff. Lets not waste anymore time...

This is easily the worst cover for the film and what I hate is that it's the most current cover. I already hate when they try to make the clipart we're used to all shaded and three dimensional-like, but just...LOOK AT THIS?!?!

Who thought THIS looked good? Honestly?!? The characters are all way too colorful and smooth and it's plastered on top of the film cel like it fits together...it DOESN'T!!!

Next we have the 2008 DVD cover.

I'll try not too be too harsh on this one in case anyone here grew up with it...but I'm sorry I am so not a fan. It tells you nothing about the film and is more of that '3D-ish take on the og lineart that looks ugly to me.

The 2023 30th anniversary art is...fine?

Like there's nothing WRONG with it, but it feels incrediblly lackluster compared to some of the screen-capped and colored up artwork I've seen on things like T-Shirts and even fan made posters.

Also, and I hope this ISN'T true, it's so basic I worry that it at some point was made by or with AI or at least with an artist who wasn't paid that much in a short amount of time. Like, the composition is all there: Sally and Jack in the forground, Lock, Shock and Barrel under them and above the title, Oogie in the moon behind them all...but I don't know why they didn't do something really cool like make all the intricate purple and blue-shapes into silhouettes of the other characters and other iconic imagery or scenes?

Look at how...ALONE Zero feels off the side there!!

This is another older image I remember on the back of my VHS growing up, though I never knew it was used for an actual cover of the movie.

It does INFINITELY look better than the first shaded-lineart image (this was done in the 90s...how...) but while I love the composition of Jack and Sally and them walking around in Christmas Town, I never liked the colors of the image at all.

I also never got why Lock, Shock and Barrel are there, chillin and watching them like they're Belle and Beast and they're Beasts' servants trying to wingman for him...Where's Zero? Everyone knows HE'S jack's wingman.

This is an image I found on IMDB that took my by surprise. To be honest I have no clue if it's an actual film poster or a fan poster, but I like the composition of it all as a Universal Horror film poster. Doesn't work as well as Frankenweenie, but still...

And now, the classic. The one you most certainly grew up seeing everywhere or around the place regarding this movie in the 90s or 20s. It's the cover to the soundtrack and VHS I had. This is obviously the most famous version.

But there's also this slightly different version with Jack's arms in a different pose 'to receipt Shakespearean quotation'. This is the same version of the cover used on our "The Film, the Art and the Vision" book as well.

But, for my own PERSONAL favorite cover of the film (even if it's just a simple photoshop), I have to go with the original 'special edition' DVD my sister and I still have.

Somehow Sally just being on the spiral hill next to Jack and holding his hand is so sweet and doesn't feel like the cheap and quick edit it is. I think it's because, despite being a reference to the scene I never saw this cover as directly portraying "Jack's Lament", that this was Jack having a nice moment of peace after the events of the films somehow and waxing his poetics in reference to the film...so somehow the idea of Sally coming up to join him in that with his other arm let out to her is ADORABLE.

Here's a different version on a French DVD.

Lastly, since it does technically count as a poster for the movie itself, I'd be remissed not to mention Nightmare Before Christmas 3D's poster. This this was great back in the day and it's still great now. I'm fairly certain they just photoshopped stills and photos of puppets themselves but y'see kids- THIS vvvv

This is how you photoshop. Everyone has a unique face and pose. Everyone's doing something you think that character would be doing if they were going to MT3K their own film (Sally that's rude!) and they're all drenched in theater accurate lighting. That's more like it!! Besides Oogie being smol, this is the perfect poster to catch the eye of a rerelease!

Hope you enjoyed!

))

[wwillywonka]

1, 6 + 7 !!!!!!

hiii thank you so much for the ask! link to the ask game here. also, for context if anyone doesn’t know, my special interest is willy wonka/charlie and the chocolate factory, though you can probably tell from my url lol.

going to answer these two together because i think it makes more sense!

What first got you into your special interest? & 6. How long have you had this special interest?

okay so this is always hard for me to answer exactly because i've always loved willy wonka and catcf. i literally can't remember a time when the story didn't matter to me. i read the books when i was little, and i used to watch the gene wilder movie over and over as a kid (j have it on laserdisc lol, my family is very into physical media). i really could not tell you how old i was the first time i saw it. also, i have a very distinct memory of being very young and walking into the living room to see my dad watching catcf 2005, specifically the scene right after the shoe-shining conversation where willy bumps into the glass elevator and goes, "i gotta be more careful where i park this thing teehee<3.” i was 4 years old in 2005 so i really can't say if it was actually that year, but i don't think it was too long after the film's release (though i don't think my dad would have gotten it from the library/blockbuster. he's a huge film buff but has always hated burton's work, and he was probably just watching it because he caught it on cable).

anyway, all that being said, i became interested in burton's work back in 2013/2014 when i was first entering fandom spaces as a preteen, and i remember seeing a lot gifsets, fanart, etc. of various burton films (as was very common for the twilight years of emo culture during the early 2010s). my family has had our nightmare before christmas vhs since the movie came out, and it was another i watched on repeat as a child, so me getting into burton in general wasn’t that far of a stretch. i watched and rewatched all of his main films during the halloween season of 2014, and for some reason, the two i latched onto were catcf 2005 and alice 2010. (also i saw alice in theatres when it first came out and i remember enjoying it because alice 1951 was another film in the regular rotation during my childhood). looking back now, i genuinely think it was because i was first discovering my queerness, and 2005 wonka is just the Epitome of gender fuckery and general offbeat-ness. he's queer in every sense of the term, and i found myself relating to him, especially, too, because of his relationship with his father. because, well… things.

fast forward to 2020 when things were obviously Bad. let's just say i was pretty lonely and discovered a little thing called self-shipping. though i didn’t really participate, it became something i entertained myself with in the privacy of my thoughts and various google docs. i found myself fascinated by the f/o community and, along with my budding interest in studying fandom from an academic angle, i delved into this world of self-inserts, y/n, and canon character x reader fics. i know, to some, that culture is considered “cringey” or what have you, but i think the art that comes from those communities can be very beautiful and heart-warming — not to mention that it’s a far better and healthier coping mechanism than some, ah, more socially acceptable ones. anyway, i then created my character ross able (who i reference often on here but haven’t really explained in depth. there’s not much to say other than he’s me if i was a 200 yr old british man with a world-famous chocolatier for a wife). i listened to and watched bootlegs of the musical, then, i bought my own copies of the dahl books and annotated them. and i started writing heaven on their minds. AND THEN THE PREQUEL WAS ANNOUNCED, and i became even more dedicated to creating my own version of the story. and now we’re here.

(this also lead to me being generally interested in dahl’s work, too, which led to my interest in wes anderson, which led to my interest in bong joon-ho and on and on and on. not to mention being into burton’s work led me to oingo boingo and danny elfman, whom i’ve seen in concert three times, and to my general interest in film music, music theory, and their intersection with psychology and emotional development. it’s all connected.)

it was also around this time, around summer 2021, that, after lots of research and discussion with therapists, etc., that i realised i’m autistic. and it wasn’t long before i understood that my interest in wonka is… different, special if you will, from the “normal” way people interact with their favourite media. i genuinely think i would be a different person if wonka wasn’t so important to me. you know this if you have a special interest, but everything i read or watch or listen to seems to come back to him and catcf. i don’t really know how to describe catcf’s presence in my life other than it’s here and i can’t rid of it, not that i’d ever want to try. 
 


Have you had any other special interests before? What were they?

correct me if i’m wrong, but don’t most people only have One Main Interest? like something that is part of their identity and way they live their life that they couldn’t rid of if they tried? at least, the way i’ve always experienced my own interests is that, while other things come and go, wonka never wavers. i could be, as i have been lately, deep deep deep into star trek: it being the only thing i can think about, the thing that makes want to get out of bed in the morning, the only thing i want to talk about with others - but wonka is always here. sometimes, my need to watch star trek or make art about it can make me genuinely forget about my responsibilities to the point of consequence. but other times, i simply don’t care about it at all in favour of another piece of media (though my love for it never truly goes away), like arcane for example. however, when it comes to wonka, i have that Need to engage with him always, but unless i’m deeply focused on him, as i was while writing heaven on their minds, i can go on with my day-to-day life without feeling like my skin is on fire with withdrawal. if that makes any sense.

genuinely curious because i see the term confused with hyperfixation A Lot, and i’m always curious if/how other people experience it differently.

anyway, i would consider alice in wonderland to be my second tier Main Interest, even if it isn’t necessarily special. the level to which i’ve researched the lore and history of catcf has also applied to alice over the years. when alice through the looking glass came out in 2016, i became more invested in the story because of my need to fix it, lmao. a lot of my motivation to engage in fandom, especially to write fanfic, comes from that need to amend. i get really protective (and possessive) of my favourite characters, and the hatter became one of them. as you might know, i’m currently publishing my attlg 2016 rewrite, so if you’re curious to know more of my thoughts, i’d recommend checking it out…

other than that, i was known from late middle school to early college as That Guy Who Likes Loki Too Much, and while i never published any fic about him, the majority of my fandom engagement during my teenage years was centred around him and marvel. i definitely didn’t actually start participating in the wonka fandom until 2020 despite enjoying catcf so much on my own. i even performed a poem i wrote about loki during my college freshman orientation. i am cringe but i am free.

tldr: my main interests, besides wonka, are alice in wonderland, loki, and star trek. also doctor who but that's a long story for another time <3.

this was super fun to write about, thank you!

[weaselbeaselpants]

For those curious, I don't got dirt or shit on VivziePop. As I've made clear before I followed her back in 2009 and I talked to her like on devintart and tumblr 1 or 2 times. No, I don't remember what was said between us really or exactly. The tumblr blog I remember hearing back from her is long dead so I have no receipts.

I kinda lost interest in her because her fanbase was way too intense and mean in 2014 (no idea about any of the Dollcreep drama), and because I was also in a soft antisjw phase myself then and reading BadWebcomicsWiki - I saw her being talked about all throughout the forums on that hellsite up and until 2017. I also saw the completely different forum posts made there about Hazbin at the time- which os of course how I learned about the Dollcreep fiasco, frootrollup1, and Angel Dust r@pe art someone did of Viv.

If you interested and/or curious about any personal anecdotes I can remember from the best of memory -these are NOT facts, though I'm happy if anyone else can back them up if u also have memories of this- I can list those out:

-I found Viv through her fanart first and specifically her fanart of Shane Acker's 9. I loved Viv's fanart- it was always so distinct in her own style but still recognizable. Anyone else in the 9 fandom remember that "design a beast" contest deviantart had? Yeah she took place in that. She also did artwork of the stitchpunks inspired by Kinkei's chibi-pinup style. They were not as sexy as that would have you believe. She did fanart for Rango, Adventure Time, Regular Show, Rio, and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Also remember her begrudgingly liking Tangled after the fact because it wasn't 2D like Princess and the Frog was.

-The first time I saw Viv's characters in comic form it was in a comic where it was Halloween and the ZP gang (Zill, Kayla, Jack, Spam, and Vanex) were trick or treating and got stuck in some dark twisted version of their home. Isn't this the plot to the Invader Zim Halloween episode?

-Ickle!Viv was pretty skilled at drawing animals. Personally I think she still is but this was specifically the thing which stood out about her to me. I really love when she drew/draws animals. I also actually think her creatures look genuinely good, especially the dragon looking ones.

-Viv was ALWAYS so clamoring and adoring of her fandoms, especially animated stuff. Even on deviantart, animation fans are cynical and snarky so it was nice to see someone with their own established style be into movies that other people would mock you for as a teenager or god forbid an adult. Didn't make you feel so alone.

-I saw Viv's ZP gang develop in style from 2009-2013 and I gotta say I liked her og cast so much more when they were teenytiny and children. Zill just looked better then.

-Speaking of Zill, before I saw one of her posts getting mad at people who called Zill a "neopet"...I said her style reminded me of neopets. I was 12! I didn't know and also I hadn't gotten to that one doodle in her gallery at the time where Zill and 2009!Viv were cursing out this blob for calling him that.

-I also personally saw Alastor develop from out of those days, or at least the character who would become Alastor. It was the red black, buck-looking deer from 2006-2008ish who's disc Viv said was "the evilest character in all of zoophobia!!" I know she liked the directtovideo disney sequels and really liked Bambi II. I'm not convinced Alastor and Autumn don't exist souley because of Bambi II.

-I have no proof of it happening on my end because I ended up deleting a shit ton of crap on my old deviantart out of embarrassment and I think Viv deleted her posts about it. But a distinctly remember an artist in around 2011/2012 w I was really into art trades did a trade with me where they drew my 9 oc, in spite of us really not connecting in any particular way or being 'close'. They worked in traditional medium and had he/him pronouns and their art was so obviously inspired from Viv's. It wasn't traced, though- just very Viv-inspired.

I remember watching Viv and also that guy when suddenly Viv and Faustisee made a huge callout graph showing the artstyle and characters that had been stolen from her and she showed that guy's work. I also distinctly remember saying in Viv's journal abt the callout something along the lines of "this is bad, but, this guy is a friend of mine [rlly barely mutuals], he didn't mean it". To which Viv replied with something like: "then tell ur friend that what he's doing is bad >:c". So I did and that's when he told me he'd been told enough by her base how to feel and that he was leaving dA. And he left. and nuked his entire gallery, including his part of art trade, which made finding the proof of this encounter even harder to track down. Because he was no longer there, I deleted the piece I did for him as part of my mass embarrassment deletion.

-There was one other encounter I had personally' with Viv that I do remember and it's only because she was actually friendly to me and I liked that coming from my what was, at the time, a fav artist: I like the 2012 Frankenweenie remake and was really incensed back in the day that people weren't liking it because it is a ymmv-case. One of those people happened to be Viv and I def remember messaging her about how "I disagree with you, hmf" and then having INSTANT REGRET and suddenly spamming her with this way too personal "I'm sorry please don't hate me"-ventrant thing and, for all I know the Viv stans can be overly apologetic, I really do think it was my indiagnosed OCD/ADHD talking there. Anyway, what was sweet of her to do even in a passing way was she was all "it's okay. you didn't upset me but lol yeah ur not changing my take on frankenweenie either".

Viv describes herself as "being everyone's friend" and really- where there are a lot of points now that I don't think she cares if she is, most of the time I think the problem is she doesn't know how mean or backhanded she is. She really does strike me as the kind of person who never grew out of 2000s-2010s highschool and that petty thing were you get angry and lash out at others behind their backs but then sweet up after that, and where you think lovebombing = being genuinely appreciative. And yeah, that's still abusive and volatile. Because, and this is all from a decade ago and an antidote I only recall because it was Viv, but I truly didn't get the feeling that Viv thought I was beneath her or that she was trying to own me buy telling me she didn't like the movie I did. The vibe I got from her was "I don't really care about this but also I don't want you freaking out, calm down".

I rb a bunch of critical stuff (still don't like antiHazbin shit) because, and I still mean this, I do still genuinely like her style and wish I could be in her fandom w/o her stans basically gatekeeping me from being my own fan. I really am disappointed as the fan I am that Viv doesn't take better care of herself, her shows or the people working for her.

[shakespeareallanpoe]

Batfamily Secret Santa

With the holidays coming up here's my headcanon for what each of the batfamily members would get each other if they were doing a secret Santa. (And yes, I know Bruce is canonically Jewish, but I believe either Tim or Dick are some denomination of Christian so I'd imagine they have a mixed holiday celebration at the manor)

Bruce (got Stephanie)

Ok so Bruce is super generous on a good day and I can't imagine Steph wouldn't be dropping hints since Thanksgiving, so he'd probably give her everything she asked for plus a new movie Wayne manor doesn't have, so after the celebration they could watch it together as a one-on-one bonding thing since he's pretty big on quality time in some versions.

Dick (got Bruce)

Bruce really doesn't expect anything for the holidays which is perfect because I have this headcanon that Dick is actually really bad with giving gifts. Someone bullied your little sister? Not on his watch. Life advice? He'll pull from his past experiences to tell you what not to do. Emotional support? Bro he's there. But birthday/anniversary/holiday gifts? Expect a mug with Snoopy's face because you both watched Charlie Brown together once. In July. He's just that kind of gift giver. So I'm thinking Dick would get Bruce a dinosaur themed 1,000 piece puzzle because Bruce likes dinosaurs and he likes puzzles so boom! Match made in heaven, ya boi is a genius. 😎

Barbara (got Jason)

Babs is a pretty practical person so her secret Santa to Jason probably consisted of a gift bag with manly smelling body wash, a gift card to Barnes & Noble, and a CD mixtape of Jason's Spotify favorites so he can pop it into a car and listen to it during long car rides.

Duke (got Damian)

So Duke is a pretty creative person when he's passionate about a project and his ideas are definitely one of a kind, but I think for some time he would really struggle with coming up with a secret Santa for Damian because he isn't all that close with Robin. He knew Damian appreciated weapons but he's also the type of person to not want Damian to think that weapons are all he is by getting him one. Presents for Damian's pets are off the table since Damian spoils them on every day of the year, so Duke would probably gift Damian something for the child he is, since Damian never had a childhood. Maybe a telescope so Damian could look at the stars with his family on clear nights. Just like what Duke's mom gave him as a boy for the holidays one year.

Cass (got Dick)

Cass didn't receive material gifts for most of her life so she probably enlisted Alfred's help. Given that the butler knows Dick pretty well, they decided to give him a gift basket with blue ribbon that had a T-shirt of his favorite band, some flash fuzzy socks (Wally would approve), and his favorite holiday candy. Dick is really more of a quality time kind of person if you want to make him to feel special, so it didn't need to be elaborate anyway.

Jason (got Cass)

I don't care how much people try to make Jason into a sexist, ignorant-to-the-fine-arts kind of person. Jason doesn't give a fuck about gender stereotypes and he loves learning, especially about classical things like literature or fine arts. For his secret Santa to Cass he got them both tickets for a weekend trip to Russia to see a ballet in person in one of the grandest cities in Russia. Cass has obviously been to many places across the world, but it was always for a mission and nothing more. For the holidays, Jason gifted her two days where they could travel and explore the culture, living like locals or being those stereotypical tourists just for shits and giggles. Just a few days without work to relax and live happy lives as regular people. When Cass got her gift Jason pulled her aside afterwards to explain it, so she wouldn't cry in front of everyone. And she did cry. Just a little. So did Jason.

Tim (got Duke)

Tim wouldn't think too hard about Duke's gift since he knows the people Duke hangs out with. Or could find them. Getting Duke a gift was as simple as casually running into Duke's friends and asking them about what Duke likes. Not that he or Duke's friends ever mentioned this to Signal, so when he opened his secret Santa and found some hyper-specific things amongst some more generic gifts, he began to wonder just how much Tim knew about his life.

Stephanie (got Babs)

Steph is absolutely the type of person to get someone for Christmas something they want themselves. So a lot of the gifts Bruce gave her look similar to what Babs got from Steph. Not that she means anything by it, but in her mind if it's worth wanting, someone else close to her probably wants it too. And Babs doesn't mind. She already bought herself a new desk light after the old one got knocked down one too many times, so it doesn't matter if she has a cute keychain to go on it.

Damian (got Tim)

Regardless of his age I think a younger sibling will always be a younger sibling. Damian would probably give Tim a large fancy gift bag filled with tissue paper... and nothing else. He'd do it just to see Tim's reaction to rifling through the bag for several moments to come up empty. Then, when Tim admits defeat, Damian would hand over a gift he asked Jon to pick up for Connor, nicely wrapped with Tim's forged signature and everything. He wasn't about to get Tim a gift but it's okay because he knew Tim would've somehow forgotten to get his boyfriend a holiday gift anyway. (And he did)

[capnsupernova]

I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep so here is a running list of all the reasons I will always love the Kiera Knightly and Matthew McFadyen version of Pride and Prejudice over any other remake ever:

The music. Every time I hear that opening song I feel like the opposite of crawling out of my skin. Like crawling back into my skin after letting my skin sit in the sun for a little while. And the song that Lizzie and Darcy dance to is so moody and angsty and perfect for their relationship and conversation at the time. And the song that plays when her and Charlotte aren't speaking is such a mix of light and life continuing to go on even when you feel such intense loneliness. Ugh. Just the music.

The scenery and the cinematic shots. They turned that movie into an art piece. The scene where here and Charlotte aren't speaking, with the music, and her just sitting on that swing, spinning as the seasons change and people just go on with their lives as if she hasn't lost one of the most important people in her life until she finally hears from Charlotte again. Everything about Pemberley and the journey leading up to it and the way you can see her falling in love with Darcy as she walks through his house and how that alone is enough to get a better understanding of him and his softer, homely side. The scene at the end in the field with the soft light of the rising sun and the fog in the field. The scene after she turns down Mr. Colins, with the pond and the geese and her mother screaming at her. Every scene was given it's absolute optimal shot of emotional and aesthetic quality.

Her parents. The people who play Mr. and Mrs. Bennet are just peak in my mind. I wanted Mr. Bennet to be my dad. His affable distance, his voice, the way he smiled. The way he obviously loved his daughters but also obviously didn't understand them at all. MRS. BENNET I don't care what anyone says. She was peak Mrs. Bennet. I cannot accept anyone else. Her kind of airy, high-strung voice and way of speaking. How her hair and clothes were always in slight disarray. The scene where she learns that Lydia has been married and her family isn't in ruins, how she goes from prone and distraught to immediately like "Married?" with an absolutely light and wistful and hopeful face/voice. A full 360 of her previous mental state.

And then just the individual scenes:

Like a few of the ones already mentioned, the scene after her and Charlotte's fight. How it emphasizes so strongly the relationship between them and how that is so clearly more heartbreaking to her than anything that could possibly happen between her and Mr Darcy. Without a single word spoken or a single action taken besides the spinning and the passage of time it conveys how lost and alone she feels in those moments. The pigs being chased in the background adds a touch of humor but also is a great shot of her despair. This is something Lizzie Bennet would laugh about, something she'd find silly and wonderful and she can't do that now because her friend isn't there with her.

And the scene where she gets the letter from her family about Lydia running away and she comes out after reading it with the intention to tell them what's going on, but she's so distraught and stressed that all she can do it make that sound so she just goes right back into her room and then shows up again a few seconds later much more composed and just says "Lydia's run away" and the look on Darcy's face like "babygirl, I'm gonna fix this. You don't need to know about it, but I am going to fucking fix this because you are sad and that hurts me" just with his face.

(Also Mr Darcy in general, the way Matthew McFadyen's face can go from gloomy and bored and apathetic to so so so soft. Like. kill me, please. If anyone’s face ever did that when they looked at me, I would cut out my whole entire heart and just give it to them, bleeding and beating and all.)

(Full disclosure, this movie was probably my actual first bisexual awakening. Kiera Knightly and Matthew McFadyen can do whatever they want to me.)

The scene where Jane is leaving to go on her trip after Bingley has left her with no word, and she's sitting on the back of the coach and she's smiling but it's such a frozen, practiced smile that never reaches her eyes so you can still see her heartbreak.

At the end, when her and Darcy meet in that field, and he's confessing his love to her and all she says is "Your hands are cold" which isn't I love you, exactly, but then she brings them to her lips and there is so much care and gentleness that it might as well be I love you.

The scene where Mr. Bingley comes back to propose and their all just chilling, lounging in the sitting room until they get the call and they flurry around the room to get "presentable" and then the door opens and they're all just sitting perfectly poised and pretty as if they weren't just flurrying around the room.

Listen.

There are some things I would have liked more of. Like the scene where she comes to visit Jane while she's sick and Caroline says that bullshit about how she looks "positively medieval" and Darcy is supposed get all snappy and say "well, actually, I think the walk made her look more lively." LIke more of him defending her when she's not even around to hear it, becasue that foreshadows so much of his behavior towards the end, including him specifically asking Lydia never to tell anyone that he was the one that helped her get married.

But just about everything else.

Everything.

I don't care that it wasn't as true to the books.

Because in some ways, with the changes they made, it was more true to the books and the characters and the intent of the book. I am of the camp that movies shouldn't be exactly like the book. It should be its own experience. Translating books directly and perfectly into a movie/tv show is just boring to me. Make it something unique. Make it an extension of the story, not a carbon copy of it. Like the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. There is not a single remake of that book that is exactly like the book itself or is exactly like each other, on purpose. Changes should be made, but only if those changes are actually meaningful and better express what is happening between the characters. And the changes made for this movie are so perfect and lovely.

There is so much that is captured without the need for words.

Everything about this movie will always immediately put my heart and soul into a good place. This movie single-handedly makes me believe in love. And not just any love, but a love of understanding, a love that takes work and communication, love between women and the importance of female relationships over all else. The way the scenery and music speak just as much as the characters do.

I just think about that movie sometimes and it makes my heart feel so many inarticulable things.

Anyways. yeah. That's all. Thanks for coming to my 4AM rant about P&P.

[rovingotter]

My Wish Rewrite

Everyone under the sun has done a Wish rewrite at this point so I thought I’d try my hand at it.  I’m going to try to keep both Magnifico's and Asha’s characterizations relatively intact while giving Asha a more compelling motivation, and also keep the structure fairly similar to what we got in the movie.

Note:  I use he/him to refer to Star for the sake of clarity, though Star has no official pronouns.

Much of the setup is the same:  Asha giving a tour, going to her interview, etc, with the major difference being that rather than Saba and his wish, the focus is on Simon.  Why?  Because he’s the only person we see in the movie who’s suffering some kind of negative repercussion from losing his wish (aside from just disappointment at it not being granted).  And in this version it’s made clear, in the scene with all the friends gathered in the kitchen, that Simon isn’t just sleepy:  he’s depressed.  He’s lost interest in most things, even the cookies he used to love.  Asha is troubled by this.  Dahlia says something like, “I’m sure things will be back to normal once he has his wish granted.”

Gabo replies, “You mean if he ever has his wish granted.”

“Gabo…”

“You don’t really think everyone’s wish gets granted, do you?  Asha, your saba is one hundred and he’s still waiting.  There’s only a ceremony once every month. How many people do you think live in Rosas?  Do the math.”

Asha:  “Right, but…the good and worthy wishes get granted.”

“And?  We don’t know what Simon’s wish is.  Even he doesn’t know, now.  Maybe he wants to rule the world.”

“Gabo!”

Simon:  “It’s true.  I don’t know. It could be something awful.”

The scene with meeting Magnifico and seeing the wishes goes much the same, but then after “At All Costs,” Asha asks for Simon’s wish to be granted.  And when Magnifico is obviously disappointed that she would ask for favors when they just met, she clarifies:  “Oh, I wouldn’t ask, except…since he gave up his wish, he just hasn’t been himself.  He seems so…sad.”

Magnifico softens visibly.  “All right.  Let me take a look.”

I’m also changing Simon’s wish:  he’s the one who wants to inspire people through music (or art or writing or whatever) but specifically, he wants to inspire a great change and to create a new dawn for Rosas.  As Magnifico examines the wish we can see that this hunger for change is what disturbs him.  He flinches back, quickly sends the wish back to the ceiling, and gives Asha the speech about how some wishes are too vague to grant:  there’s no telling what could happen.

“…then can’t you just give it back?”

“Excuse me?”

“His wish.  You could just give it back.  Then if it’s dangerous, it could be stopped, but if not—”

“That's not how it works. The wishes stay here until they are granted.  The system only works if everyone follows the same rules.  That’s the only way I can keep us all safe.  Look at this kingdom.  I’ve drawn together people from all over the world, and they live here in harmony, wanting for nothing.  Where else do you think that happens?  Do you believe that’s a coincidence?  I don’t just grant the good wishes.  I keep the bad ones from hurting anyone.”

“But Simon is hurting now.  Surely, in this case, you could make an exception—”

“If I make one exception, then everyone will start demanding their wishes back, and the whole system will crumble.”

“That’s ridiculous!”

The argument keeps escalating to the “I decide what everyone deserves” line.  And this is what causes Asha to start questioning the system she’s believed in her whole life.  She’s always seen Rosas as a paradise—and it is, for most.  But now that same system is harming her friend and Magnifico is unwilling to rectify this due to vague fears about the potential consequences of Simon's wish. 

She doesn’t get the job. Magnifico grants someone else’s wish at the ceremony.  Asha’s not just sad, though:  she’s pissed.  When Magnifico takes the newcomers’ wishes and gives her that little smirk over his shoulder, we see her eyes narrow, we see her maintain eye contact with him until he looks away, a hint of something like confusion or regret in his expression.

That night, she talks to her family about what happened, and they urge her to trust the king’s judgment.  It escalates to a furious argument and she storms out.

Asha doesn’t just wish upon a star, though.  She summons Star, deliberately.  How?  Her dad was a philosopher, but also secretly studied magic, specifically star magic, and Asha alone knows where he kept his books of spells.  Before his death, her dad also cautioned her to never to use the magic unless there’s no other choice:  it’s too difficult to control, and it can have unforeseen consequences.  Asha decides that desperate times call for desperate measures; she’s going to steal back Simon’s wish from the vault, using this power…which is still not a great plan, and she hasn’t even talked to Simon about this yet.  But here, her recklessness is driven by anger and desperation, not a vague sense of unfairness.  Her “I want” song also becomes a spellcasting song.  And—somewhat to her surprise—it works.

This gives Asha more agency in her own story, but also, I think it better reflects the attempted theme of Wish:  self-determination.  If you’re going to write a story about the importance of people pursuing their own desires and being in charge of their own destiny rather than waiting around hoping for someone else to give them what they want, I think it’s kind of hypocritical to have the main character get a necessary power boost by essentially praying and receive divine aid because the heavens judge her to be good and worthy. Here, Asha makes the decision to cross a line for the sake of her friend.

Star is still a cute little glowing bob who doesn’t talk, and he’s still whimsical, but in this version he’s got a bit more of a mischievous edge.  He’s a chaotic little gremlin.  He does things that are a bit more bizarre than just giving animals and plants the power of speech:  maybe he starts swapping body parts, giving a rabbit’s head to a bear and vice versa.  Maybe he gives consciousness to a mushroom and it starts experiencing existential confusion ("Who am I? What am I? Why am I stuck in the ground?") and asking about its purpose, only for Star to giggle and kick his stubby little appendages in the air. 

“You’re a Star” wouldn’t work in this context, since it’s too straightforwardly empowering, and in this moment, Asha is experiencing some genuine anxiety over what she’s unleashed.  Maybe she can sing about that. The song is called, "What Have I Done?" Some of the animals can chime in.  The mushrooms sing about their existential angst.  The song wraps up, Asha decides that, now that Star is here, she’s going to go ahead with her plan, despite her many questions.

“Star.  Listen to me.  I need your help to…”  She takes a breath.  “To commit a crime.”

Star squeals in delight.

“But it’s a good crime.  We’re helping my friend.  We have to retrieve one of these bubbly ball things from inside a locked room in King Magnifico’s castle.  Okay?  Can you help me?”

Star produces a small flame.

“No, we’re not setting anything on fire.”

Star’s little face droops in sadness.

“I’m serious.  No arson.  Okay?  Just some light breaking and entering, and then we’re done.  And once King Magnifico realizes the wish is gone…well, that’s a problem for future Asha.”

Star nods in agreement and winks.

* * *

Meanwhile, King Magnifico has seen the burst of light in the sky.  He’s tearing his study apart looking for answers.  Amaya asks him what’s going on.  And he tells her.

He recognizes that light:  he’s heard of this.  It’s star magic.  Very powerful, very rare, and most of all, unpredictable.  Such magic has brought down entire kingdoms, in the past.  Who in Rosas could possibly have the knowledge to summon such a thing?  Who would dare to so brazenly break his law against unauthorized sorcery?  He thinks of the interview earlier.  “Asha?  No.  No, surely not.  She’s just a child.”  But the suspicion has been planted.

The scene of him almost turning to the book, then being talked down by Amaya, would play out similarly.  But here it parallels the scene of Asha finding and using her father’s book.  Both Asha and Magnifico have flirted with a kind of Faustian bargain, but so far only Asha’s actually taken the plunge.

Asha introduces Star to her friends, including Simon.  Star causes some more mayhem, including briefly transforming Dario into a donkey and Hal into a wooden marionette. (There's some Disney Easter eggs for you.) Star cures Safi's allergies and then gives them back. One of the chickens now constantly sings opera solos and cannot be stopped.

Asha promises to get Simon's wish back.  He’s troubled.  “Asha…I never asked for this.  I don’t want you getting hurt for my sake. I don't want to cause trouble.  I can wait—”

“Simon, you don’t understand.  He’s never going to grant your wish.  He thinks it’s dangerous.  But I know that it’s not.  What he’s doing—it isn’t right.  Please.  Let me help you.”

They argue back and forth a bit, with Simon ultimately agreeing, though still obviously nervous about the whole thing.  Dahlia helps Asha get into the study, and here, Star starts setting things on fire and creating havoc…not accidentally, but because Star really likes fire.  Asha manages to put the fire out and distract Star from what he’s doing (turning Magnifico’s collection of rare books into squalling, pointy-toothed purple blobs).  Star then helps her get into the wish room, where she locates and retrieves Simon’s wish.

While this is happening, Magnifico—heeding Amaya’s advice to look to his people—calls the gathering, and things play out pretty similarly to how they do in the movie, with him becoming increasingly agitated when his citizens start questioning the system.  He storms back into the castle, telling Amaya he’ll be with the wishes. 

And here, now, we see an unexpected side to the king, who has (up to this point) always appeared as dignified and serious:  to unwind, he plays with a set of toy people and does a cute little dance to his “villain song,” acting childlike and rather silly as he sings about wanting more respect, embracing his own personal chaos as an escape from the pressures of leadership…similar to the movie, but it’s more obvious that the song’s silliness is a deliberate stylistic choice.  We’re seeing an aspect of himself he normally hides from people, and even from his wife.  (The vibe of the song remains the same, just imagine the lyrics are better-written and reflect this theme.)  At some point, Amaya comes to check on him—because she doesn’t like the way he’s been eyeing that book lately—and catches him in the midst of his goofy dance.  He freezes.  The music stops.  They’re both embarrassed, and she makes an excuse and quickly leaves.  Kind of like that scene in Spaceballs where Dark Helmet is playing with his dolls and Colonel Sandurz walks in on him.

The song resumes, the lyrics now shifting to King Magnifico being self-critical—why is he messing around with these stupid toys?  There is a traitor in Rosas!  A dangerous magic is afoot! He needs to Get Serious.  It is at this point that he starts working himself back into a panic, with his reflections in the mirrors (which previously praised him) now chiding him, yelling at him and egging him on.  He turns to the book.  Like Asha, he’s now been driven to the breaking point of using a power he’s been cautioned against using.  Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Asha, meanwhile, has successfully stolen back Simon’s wish.  She gives it to him, and we see him healed.  We see the spark of life come back into his eyes.  We see him smile for the very first time.

Then Magnifico bursts in, and it’s clear something has changed.  He’s not acting like himself.  He tells Asha that he knows what she did.  In this version, see, it’s not Simon who tells Magnifico the truth about her:  it’s her family.  Except they didn’t even see it as a betrayal.  They have total trust in Magnifico, and Asha’s been acting “strange” lately, so when the king comes to their house asking about her, they tell him about the forbidden book of star magic they found in Asha’s room, hidden beneath the bed.  They’re so embarrassed and shocked that their daughter/granddaughter would experiment with such dangerous magic.  Magnifico reassured them that he didn’t blame Asha—she’s just a child, after all—and that once the star was destroyed, their daughter would go back to normal.  (Of course, the irony being that Magnifico’s made his own bargain with the devil at this point, and they have no idea.)

Magnifico, Asha, and Simon—who’s got his spark back now—have a heated argument.  Magnifico demands that they turn over Star, and they refuse.  He becomes more and more enraged as they hurl accusations at him, telling him that the entire system is rotten and they’re not going to take it anymore.  When his fury reaches its peak, he growls, “You gave this to me…and I’m taking it back.”  He wrenches Simon’s wish out of his chest again and crushes it…and then he gets the unexpected rush of power from the magic.

Star emerges from hiding.  He grants life to a table, which goes ballistic and attacks Magnifico.  They flee.  Simon’s depression has returned, even worse than before. He's practically catatonic.  They search for a safe place to hide him and go to Bazeema’s sanctuary (let’s just say they already know where it is—no need for them to conveniently stumble across it by chance). 

Much like in the movie, Magnifico starts putting up wanted posters for Asha, he creates his wish-powered staff, Amaya stumbles across him and is horrified.

Asha and co. sing “Knowing What I Know Now.”  Amaya bursts in to tell them about the forbidden magic.  She asks for their help in finding a way to break its hold on her husband.

The main difference here is that when she’s introduced to Star and learns that Asha summoned him, Amaya isn’t charmed and delighted, she’s appalled that Asha’s first action was to start experimenting with a magic she didn’t understand.  “If you had come to me, if I had known, I could have done something.” 

We then get the story of Magnifico’s past, from Amaya:  we see it on the wall in the form of shadows and light.  His family was not killed by thieves or invaders, but by revolutionaries.  In his homeland, there was a bloody and chaotic uprising.  The rulers were overthrown, but countless ordinary people were killed as well.  And it all started with a seemingly benign wish for change, with songs and poems about freedom.  This is why Magnifico finds Simon’s wish so threatening and why, when he saw Star's light, he interpreted it as a threat.

Dahlia starts to defend Asha, to say that it wasn’t her fault, it was Magnifico's, but Asha speaks up—“No, Dahlia.  Amaya’s right.  I should have talked to you, first—to all of you—instead of taking things into my own hands.  I was just so…so angry.  And scared.”  (Look, see, I gave her an arch.  This also emphasizes the thematic parallels between her and Magnifico.) "I need to fix this.  But I can’t do it alone."

Cut to Magnifico, who’s now having a conversation with his reflection—a reflection clearly meant to represent the forbidden magic and its influence.  He’s rattled by his own actions, asking himself whether he went too far, but the magic shows him the horrors of his past in the mirror, reminding him of what happens when order is not maintained…though again, we see only vague shadows and light, hear distant echoes of screams.  “Look at Simon as a sacrifice for the greater good,” the mirror said.  “Nothing is achieved without sacrifice.  You called upon me.  Put your trust in me, now, and I promise—you will never feel that despair again.  I will protect you…at all costs.”

Amaya and Dahlia, meanwhile, are looking through the book of forbidden magic and find the passage saying that there’s no way to break its hold.  Once someone embraces it once, they commit for eternity:  it’s a rule of nature.  But Asha interjects:  “That only means no one has found a way yet.  And we have a star.  Star magic is all about breaking the rules.  So let’s break some rules.”

Asha and her friends infiltrate the castle to free the wishes so Magnifico can’t crush and absorb them. Amaya, meanwhile, goes looking for Magnifico, hoping she can still reason with him, but when she finds him, he says, "You're too late." He uses a blast of magic to put her to sleep.

Magnifico—who now fully under the magic’s sway—ascends to the top of the castle, absorbs all the wishes, pulls Star into his staff, and uses its power to block the sky.  He hauls Asha to the top of the tower with his magic and tells her that he’s going to add her wish to the collection.  When he pulls the wish from her chest, it’s an image of Asha sitting quietly with her father in the tree.  His rage falters.  His own wish emerges, unbidden, from his chest—the family he lost so long ago.  He stuffs it back inside his chest, but the reminder of the shared loss between them pierces his armor.

His breathing speeds up.  His eyes shift from green to blue, green to blue.

It is at this point we get the Reprise of “This Wish,” but this time, Amaya (who reappears at the last minute, having woken from her sleep) is the one spearheading it, and they’re singing to break the magic’s hold, using the combined power of their wishes.  The staff glows, Star and the wishes burst free. 

In a spasm of panic and horror, Magnifico throws himself off the tower.  Asha cries out to Star to save him.  Star shoots straight into Magnifico’s chest and slows his fall, and he drifts down like a leaf, landing in the midst of his people.  There’s a burst of green and gold shimmers from within him, spreading outward, mingling and then winking out like fireflies.  The forbidden magic’s hold is broken, but the cost—as he soon finds—is that he can no longer use magic at all.  He’s powerless.  He stares at his hands and laughs until he weeps.  Amaya comforts him and gives him one of the toy people she found in his study.

The freed wishes return to their owners…including Simon’s now-restored wish, which has become a self-fulfilling prophecy, having inspired Asha to bring great change to the land.  And Simon finds to his surprise that his wish, too, has changed:  he no longer wants to be a revolutionary, but a healer.  Star returns just long enough to say goodbye.

There’s no magic wand.  Some of the animals can still talk, the mushrooms are still questioning their existence, but Rosas can no longer rely on magic:  its gods have departed, and the people are left with themselves and their own choices, their own fragile wills and hearts. 

[saemi-the-writer]

Like Disney Hunchback of Notre Dame? Then: Phoebus/Esme, Quasi/Esme, FrEsme please?

Oho, ohohoho? 😃 HERE I GO!!!

Phoebus/Esmeralda

Since it's Disney version we're talking about, HECK YES!! I loved them as a kid and I still love them as an adult. The two work very well together and have an excellent chemistry. I never agreed with the "Phoebus gets the girl only because he's handsome" and I get annoyed each time I hear/read a similar comment (especially when it's from a guy, incel much?).

The second movie did them dirty and a disservice so I'll ignore it because if these two had to face struggles as a married couple, there were more interesting things to work with like Phoebus struggling with PTSD or any sign/reminder that he's a war veteran and needs time to adjust, how would they live, what about their families, etc. That would have made them less bland and not made a fool out of Phoebus or Esmeralda accusing him unfairly of being judgemental when him not being was the whole reason she felt attracted to him to start with!

Quasimodo/Esmeralda

So far, I've only read two fanfics that had a characterization that made them work for me. Otherwise, I see them as platonic soulmates💞 I get why Quasimodo falls for Esmeralda (who doesn't? 😳) but let's not forget she's the first person/woman to show him compassion and to treat him with kindness and respect, and he idealises her, so it's more infatuation than true romantic love. Because yes, I do think and agree that they love each other deeply, just not romantically and that makes it even more touching in my eyes. I believe Quasimodo might find someone that will want to share their life with him as a spouse when he's ready too.

Frollo/Esmeralda

Now, I'm in a "divise subject" territory 😆

I understand why the pairing is popular, but too many fanfictions/art show Esmeralda as resigned and becoming submissive to Frollo's authority and sometimes cruelty for my taste. Sometimes, I feel like Esmeralda serves as a self-insert for some authors (which I don't mean as an insult btw) who are fond of the dominant man/submissive woman dynamic. To each their own, I guess, definitely not mine.

I'd like it a lot more if Esmeralda was the dominant one - and not just because I like femdom or out of spite or anything! Esmeralda is feisty, courageous and wouldn't just bow her head silently in my opinion; plus I am a big fan of the heroine/hero catching the villain off-guard and getting the upper hand (y'know, like they do in most stories but not to win/kill the villain here, see where I am going?) Show me Esmeralda getting things (cough) into her hands and making Frollo kneel!! It's a pairing I have difficulty seeing them have a happy ending without changing the characters quite drastically (not impossible though), so unless it's like canon: the one-sided and tragic end, I see it more as "it's complicated", star-crossed lovers at best or bittersweet, borderline or obviously toxic for the two of them.