#It's just not that era anymore

[http-wolfstar]

Moony got a widdle flustered

[courfee]

17 December 1975 / 15 May 1976

[moomanmilken]

>p<

did a bit of a panel redraw, that's all

here's the original panel from x-men (2019-2021) Issue #4

[hinamie]

fire nation festival wear aka a blatant excuse for me to push atla clothing design conventions to the absolute Limit

jjk atla!au with @philosophiums

[luciferscowgirl]

If I speak-

[tiktaaliker]

MAN some of the things i miss the most about blaseball were the really small things. like "the inning is now an outing" and how wins and runs were physical objects with weight and how you could click on your peanuts to eat them and how items like the Skate Board was depicted as a wooden board with the Skate element or the Iron Glove was pictured as a clothing iron. and the silly random chance stuff like Socks Maybe getting Theoretical Shoes or Fish Summers being the first player to get launched from the Salmon Cannons or Sutton Picklestein having the returned mod proc the same election they got necromanced in. It was all just so fun and silly and now its gone

[swordmaid]

bhaal’s bride 🔪🩸

my durge yves before the lobotomy 🥳

[royaltea000]

Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me ;)

[missegyptiana]

the fact that most of the fandom hated on “hey kids! spelling is fun!!” in ME!, so she took it out of the song. then people continued to make fun of the song so much that it’s not even apart of the eras tour setlist. when it was the first single of lover!! and now it maybe won’t even be a surprise song. but i’m just thinking about the video where taylor was making the song and how much fun she had and saying how much she loves the song. and how it sends a good message not only to us but to kids. and then swifties start making fun of it and now it’s not like it even exists anymore? i understand some of why people don’t like it because of brendon urie, but it went too far imo. it’s such a fun song and it’s kind of like shake it off and it breaks my heart that it went as far as to make taylor never perform or talk abt it.

[aquaaquila]

She was grounded, not banned from a ball. And if Ella is willing to do anything for those she loves as she states in "get your hands dirty", she would go to the ball regardless of the ban for Bridget's sake. There is a set up and there is a pay-off, it's just not as satisfying and you're looking at this point at stereotype of subverting expectations, where's satisfaction in that? Nothing new is happening because we are in the past. The very thing that is new is prank not happening and Bridget and Ella meeting two girls that soon will look like their daughters.

We're not supposed to witness the prank, we're supposed to prevent it long before it happens. We didn't came here to dance. And Chloe explains perfectly: without the book, the very prank that traumatised Brudget won't happen, so no point in wasting their time in the past anymore.

My bad, missed that part, got distracted + I already seen too many "Ella did it", so a force of habit. And Ella did hurt Bridget but once again, it was not the prank that was an issue. Bridget said herself "stupid I would forgive". Like seriously, no prank that ELLA would pull be anything serious as Ella would not hurt her best friend, and even if it do south, Ella would apologize profusely and Bridget would forgive as mistakes happen, even Bridget said she once mate gingerbread people that bite. So no, narratively it doesn't make sense since Ella is too close to bother doing harm to Bridget. The only way she hurt is by "abandoning" her which really can tie back to "must be home before midnight". Making a character act OOC to make plot work does not serve narrative. And mind you, Ella is kind, but not necessarily nice. There's a difference between the two and while Ella acts kindly towards Chloe in the past, she also does give her attitude due to Chloe's privilege, which isn't exactly "nice". So Chloe already has a reality check that morality isn't simple.

Honestly about no. ASTV still has clear lose threads whereas D4 achieved its initial goal. The point of the movie was to change the past and change the heart of Bridget. Consequences of such actions were not part of the narrative. If QoH remained unchanged, there would be zero payoff. If the future is however too different then there's also no real payoff. The movie ended with its objective, QoH remained sweet and that's what mattered to the plot.

Or maybe you expected something else?

It isn't. We didn't saw how Maleficent grew into a villain in the first film while arguing with her mother in spite of being told as such in Evil Like Me. We were never told how Mal figured out Hades is her dad. The characters have their lives outside of the movie and we as the fan base should have a chance to imagine what happens outside of the focus of the camera. Like seriously, we literally have Audrey singing in D3 "there's nothing to lose when you're lonely and friendless" and it's not as if we saw how exactly Audrey became friendless but saud motivation did reasonate with people because being alone can hurt a lot and Bridget was alone and bitter for 40 years. And said dance number also included VKs dancing along, in musicals you dance with anyone regardless who they are. Said number is introduction to the world through Bridget's rose-tinted glasses.

The movie was still released and for all we know that's all we have. As life sometimes is unfair and Disney likes to cancel nice things if they don't do right by the executives. The movie can be said is more complete because sequel just may not be guaranteed, so good the story at least has some resolution that Red achieved her goal of this movie.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[courfee]

prompt #46 "Sirius is showing Regulus’ baby pictures to James and Reg is MORTIFIED" for the @marauderswithpalestineproject !! 🍉

thank you @kat-m-toast for the donation (and the prompt, which was just SO up my alley, i loved it) and also thanks to everyone else who donated and participted! 💕

and as a bonus a little closer look at those baby pictures :)

[nelkcats]

Melted Boy

The day Danny discovered immortality he felt happy, but as the years passed his happiness faded and he realized that it was more of a curse than a blessing, he couldn't stand it. The deaths of everyone he knew weighed heavily on his shoulders. Every day he felt more alone.

When the last member of his family dies, his core can't take it anymore and an ice dome forms around the halfa, putting him into hibernation and freezing everything around him. Amity disappears on a frozen land.

Hundreds of years later, Danny opens his eyes to find that the world has changed and is full of heroes. Phantom, the first hero, rises from his rest with the eyes of the Justice League following but refuses to be part of their team. It's time to explore the world and leave his hero life behind, as his family would have wanted.

Of course, many people are not satisfied with his decision.

[katsu-punk]

This is so incredibly niche I’m sorry… but Marauders Modern Goth Dive Bar AU?? Anyone??

(fun fact: both of their outfits are based on things I’ve worn to my local goth club)

Pretty please accept my contribution to the marauders era fandom 🙏

[whenemmafalls]

Taylor Swift Eras Tour Poster for Each Era Part 1: The Taylor Swift Era (2006-2008)

[foxy-kitsune]

240721 & 240723 haechan will go down in history

[marsabillions]

worst type of rosekiller headcanons are ones like “what if they were friends with the marauders and they were never death eaters and never believed in pureblood ideology and werent assholes and never did anything wrong ever and are a different ship and characters 🥺 would you like that” why do you want to be boring