#Subtle charm

[candylandphotos]

beautiful women

"Empowering Beauty: Celebrating the Essence of Beautiful Women."

[nite-puff]

this was what their dr:s interaction was originally gonna be. trust me. i’m mr. danganronpa

(no cuz seriously. how are you gonna have them interact and then forget that hiroko canonically has a bit of a thing for takaaki?) (i say this like the dr:s writers even knew who the other captives were)

[secriden]

The audacity of this man *U*

[bdor1995]

everyone's ships from the first game are MIA or in Time Jail but charmes shippers keep winning

[gummi-ships]

Kingdom Hearts 2 - Christmas Town

[thinwhitedoc]

STARTUP | Martin Freeman as Phil Rask

[magicalshopping]

♡ Lesbian Pride Bookshelf Charm by Scrambled Pegs ♡

[jq37]

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.

[leonardcohenofficial]

johnny marr creating a little echoed variation on the main riff from "this charming man" as a fill in "i want the one i can't have" is everything to me

[immediatebreakfast]

"Because your peasant is at heart a coward and a fool! Those flames only appear on one night; and on that night no man of this land will, if he can help it, stir without his doors. And, dear sir, even if he did he would not know what to do. Why, even the peasant that you tell me of who marked the place of the flame would not know where to look in daylight even for his own work. Even you would not, I dare be sworn, be able to find these places again?"

When Jonathan and Dracula were having the conversation about the strange phenomenons that happened during the travel, the Count answered. This whole response feels... Aggresive.

The way Dracula describes the people that he has been terrorizing for centuries as cowards, and fools. Even if said people have been succesful in protecting themselves, and their families with their methods. It feels like the Count is letting some anger go in the conversation, like he is telling Jonathan how those peasants are just delaying the inevitable.

But this paragraph has a purpose for the Count. Dracula asked Jonathan to his face if he knew, or remembered well enough of the travel path that they took in May 5 to escape when things get worse.

And Jonathan didn't notice! Because, thanks to Dracula's whole speech before the question, our good friend thinks of this question as part of the conversation about the myth of the blue flames, and not the Count practically asking him if he has means to escape.

It's so insidious, yet so perfectly timed that it's a good example of how the Count can gain Jonathan's trust so quickly, he presents himself as the perfect host, and the perfect companion for Jonathan who is so new in these lands.

[multifandumbmeg]

The concept of Fringe is truly so unhinged. What was the pitch for this show?

"An FBI Agent with psychic powers and a boatload of childhood trauma, a completely senile old mad scientists who experimented on her, and the scientists con-man son (from a parallel universe) walk into a Harvard lab. They're detectives now. "

"there's a lot of drugs, don't forget the drugs. And interdimensional travel. And a dystopian future. Also everyone's sad"

"Oh yeah and JJ Abrams is here."

"Oh yeah don't forget JJ"

[damsxlette]

my favorite girl♡

ft. Eddie and a little Rosie <3 @xoxoalette

[etrosgate]

the second readthrough of world trigger is where it really kicks in

[n00bcat1234]

I might be back you guys :}

HMSW trombone design

[sunnnfish]

Hello kagihira nation. Have you ever wanted this thing

[ID: a cropped picture of Kagiura Akira from chapter 5 of Hirano to Kagiura; he’s laying on his bed with his phone, with his weird dog keychain on it, on his chest. Red handwriting saying “This Thing” is written on top, with red arrows and a circle around the dog keychain. /End ID]

GOOD NEWS!!

[ID: a picture of a real version of Kagiura’s dog keychain attached to a black phone case on top on a multicolored background. /End ID]

Would you, yes you, want to buy him for like $20 at most. Most likely like $15 but idk how much shipping really is. I’m trying to figure it out. If anyone has any tips please let me know. So interest check for now!!! Also US only because international is a bit too complicated for me right now BUT if there’s enough international friends I WILL figure it out eventually.

Also! It’s 1.5 inches big and I’ve been test wearing it on my phone for the last couple weeks and he’s held up! Durable guy.

[shima-draws]

Sorry I haven’t been posting as much art lately, I’ve been pretty dedicated to working on my shop merch :’D But I’m totally down to do another art challenge!! If you guys wanna vote 👀