#and very against Disney princesses which she would refer to with quite a lot of mean gendered words about their stupidity and sexuality

[elodieunderglass]

Kids still go nuts for it, too!

It's funny how kids went fucking NUTS for The Lion King but Disney never stopped to consider this was in part because it was a drama played out by non-anthropomorphic wild animals. Kids cannot get enough of that Warrior Cats type of thing and yet Disney never tried to do it again unless you count "Dinosaur"

[swiftllama]

September Compliments ☀️🔍

[Compliments Masterlist]

Hey guys! Back for another month! A month of a lot of small compliments sprinkled throughout this time around, but we still got quite a few full-on great complimentary moments. One in particular was very special ��

So let's get into it...

September 2023

Thinking OUTSIDE The Box (Herd Mentality)

Right off the bat, first day of the month, we got a Games video, and this video actually started off a theme throughout this month. The boys were in quite a few videos where they were playing games this month and were either competing against or working as a team so we got a lot of them complimenting each other on a job well down, plus the bestie-ism was shining through :-

Q: 'Name a brand beginning with an A’

Anthony: "I went to clothing for some reason."

lan: "Oh then I know what you did then."

Anthony: "Do you?'

lan: "You went to clothing.”

~

Anthony: "I put American Eagle. I'm thinking mall culture."

lan: [nodding] “I was thinking- I actually thought you'd either put American Eagle or All Saints."

-

Q: 'Name an animal beginning with a P’

lan: "I'm giggling [at his answer]."

Anthony: "I think I know why you're giggling.”

~

lan: "I put p**sy!"

Anthony: "I knnnew."

-

Anthony: "Did you [lan] just win?"

lan: "Oh!'

Anthony: "That's a win!" [cheering and clapping] "Yoooo! Because the nose [lan's answer for that round] knows!'

-

Q: 'Out of all the animals in the world, which is the cutest?'

lan: "I said cat."

Anthony: "I said kitten."

[everyone debating whether it counts as the same animal]

Anthony: "Also Ian," [shows him his card] "I wrote cat and crossed it out. I almost wrote it."

-

Q: 'Who is the toughest Disney princess?'

lan: "I did, I think her name is Merida?"

Anthony: "I put the one from Brave."

lan: "Oh!"

Anthony: "Yeah!"

I actually made a post of this moment because it was so cute! How excited they were they had the same answer and also Anthony's little tap dance when he realises 😊

l also loved Angela pointing it out :-

Angela: "Wait, that was so cool that you both said that really random one."

Chanse: "That is fun. Yeah."

Anthony: "Yeah."

lan: "She's tough."

Anthony: "But isn't she- she's like an archer."

Angela: "Sure, but like nobody talks about that movie."

Jackie: "I thought of it too, but I was like 'That's too much of a deep cut.'"

What did I say about the bestie-ism shining through? 🥰

-

lan: "Hey everybody. Here's a good one, Anthony I feel like you and I are gonna be aligned on this one."

Q: 'Name a rapper'

~

lan: "I said Drake."

Anthony: "I wrote Snoop Dogg."

So obviously not the same answer but very cute how lan thought they would be on the same wavelength and he gives the reason as to why he thought that :-

lan: "So Anthony and I played a, we played a fun little game yesterday, where we went on Spotify and we were trying to guess who were the top artists, because it ranks them-"

Literally awing out loud! the fact they were just playing that game together, it wasn't for a video or anything, just something they were doing together in their free time 🥹

Bonus - HELP! I became an NPC!

So this next moment doesn't really fall under the 'compliment' umbrella, but it is something that has become a sub-genre of these posts - is the 'daddy’ thing. Yep, you guessed it folks, Anthony was at it once again. Although, like in the 'You Posted That' episode, he's switching it up and now he's referring to himself as 'daddy’ :-

Anthony: [face appearing as if through a phone screen like in the main sketch]

lan: [pretends to put his fingers up Anthony's nose and then into his mouth]

Anthony: "Ooooh, daddy like."

Why are they like this 🤦‍♀️

Also I think @lilac-hecox & @only-frann summed up a perfect description of this Compliments Series :-

Hope you guys don't mind me tagging you, but this is literally what this series is 😄

Anyways, that was just a jokey little one, but as I said, it's now a 'thing' of these posts so I couldn't not include it.

Moving on...

We Already Regret This Embarrassing Photoshoot ft. Smosh

The boys went back on Good Mythical Morning for the first time in almost 8 years, and although this time around we didn't get any frosting foot massages or Titanic re-enactments there was a few compliment-adjacent moments :-

Link: [talking about the photo they had to re-create] "And lan, I gotta give it to you, man. You remembered a lot."

Anthony: "He did! The glasses. The shirt."

-

Anthony: "I'm feeling good about that one [their photo]."

lan: "I'm feeling good."

And then we got one of their high-five/hand-grip moments that they do a lot.

-

[lan and Anthony announced as the winners]

Anthony: "Yeeeah!'

Another high-five, of course

Anthony: "Yeah! Let's go!'

They just absolutely live for congratulating each other on anything and everything now and it's very sweet. And there's more to come!

Food Battle 2011 - Flashback w/ Smosh

As they're rewatching Food Battle 2011, lan points out in one of the shots how his cross-country team photo can be seen in the background :-

Anthony: "That's you lined up with all the cross-country... pals.

Oop was that jealous!anthony shining through a little there 🫢

lan: [laughs] "Pals."

Anthony: "Backlit. Looking epic."

So again, just another small little compliment, but lan's cross-country/running is brought up again and praised/complimented by Anthony in...

HELP! I became an NPC! Watch Party

[discussing how American sports are confusing]

Anthony: "I feel like Smosh and sports just don't mix in my brain."

lan: [laughs] “What sport do you think that aligns the most with Smosh?"

They go through multiple silly suggestions between the two of them and ones they read from the chat, before lan suggests :-

lan: “I feel like, and it's probably just because I did it, but cross-country. Smosh is cross-country."

Anthony: "Just cause you're part of Smosh and you did it?"

lan: "And you just keep going, and you just keep going. Just keep running."

Anthony: "Is that how you felt doing Smosh even when I left?"

lan: “Yeah. Like just gotta keep going. Just one more mile. One more mile."

Oh lan 🥺 I just had to pause to react to that before I get to the complimentary part of this conversation, but that's so sad. But also a perfect description of what I imagine it was like for him during those times when Anthony was gone. Having to remind himself to just keep going and pushing forward regardless.

Anthony: "What was your longest run?"

lan: "I did a marathon."

Anthony: “Yeah, I remember you ran past my street and I woke up bright and early, and I was like [pretends to be half asleep and waves].”

lan: [smiling] “Yeah, yeah I did."

Anthony: "How long was that run?"

lan: "26.2 miles."

Anthony: "Daaaamm, I didn't know [the] marathon was 26.2 miles, shiiiit.”

lan: “Yeah, and I averaged a little under an 8 minute mile.”

Anthony: “That is not bad. For 20 times 26?! That's good!"

So couple things to cover here!

1. Anthony waking up early to catch lan run by his street so he could wave to him CAN YOU HEAR ME CRYING 😭 that's the cutest thing ever!

2. Anthony saying how good of a time lan got in the marathon is so sweet. I live for Anthony bigging him up 🥹

Anthony's Birthday

This next lot I'd call complimentary-by-extension. Anthony's birthday rolled around and in typical lan fashion this was the birthday tweet we got from him :-

Oh lan, wouldn't expect anything else from you 😅

Thought that was going to be it but then Mr. Padilla came through for us! And this was the particularly special moment I mentioned in the beginning of this post. He made the post linked in the main header of this section, thanking everyone for the birthday wishes and said how it had been Mykie and his anniversary the week previous and how she took him to the Grand Canyon. The post was all photos of the two of them, but in amongst it all, he included this gem :-

lan 💛

Isn't this just the softest thing.

I mean...

1. We finally get to see lan interacting with Anthony's dogs 🙌 Also the fact you can tell how comfortable they must be around him given the fact she's laying on his chest quite content which means lan is around them often enough to have that bond with them 🥹

2. The fact they spent Anthony's birthday together after so many years of birthdays unshared & it also makes Ian's tweet funnier, like him being next to Anthony, realising people are probably expecting him to publicly wish him 'happy birthday’, him writing the most basic tweet with a low-quality gif, posting it, and then going right back to hanging out with Anthony 😆

Aaaaand…...

3. Probably the softest thing about this, and where I'm going to get a bit emotional writing/thinking about it because I have a lot of feelings about it, is the fact Anthony included that photo of lan within his birthday/anniversary post. It's just so unbelievably soft. I cannot get over it. There was was no mention of lan in the caption or anywhere else, it was all photos of Anthony and Mykie, but within it, this one little candid shot of lan. It's so special. And says a lot without explicitly saying anything at all. It's just like, 'here's a post of things that matter to me.’ I like to imagine Anthony choosing the photos for that post, and even with it being a birthday/anniversary post, he still made the conscious decision to include that photo of lan. Something he didn't need to do, the photo wasn't relevant to the post, and yet, he included it anyways. He wants people to know that's how he spent his birthday, with the people he loves most - he couldn't not include that photo of lan. And I think it comes back around to the fact he's just so happy to have lan in his life again and he'll take every opportunity to say/show it. I can picture him sitting there looking at lan laying on his floor across from him, his dog on lan's chest, and his heart just feeling so full and happy at the fact he has his best friend with him again when a year ago he didn't think this would ever be a reality for him again. It's just so, so special ❤️

Finishing off Anthony's birthday was something that came a few days after :-

Anthony's response to lan's birthday tweet ☺️

What I also love about this, is the fact that lan never tagged Anthony in his tweet and given it was a few days later that Anthony responded and by that point the tweet would have been buried in his timeline, and also that Anthony barely uses Twitter. Knowing all these things it's very likely that Anthony searched for lan's account for him to see that tweet 🥰

POKEMON ROOMMATE BATTLE Watch Party

In the BTS for the POKEMON ROOMMATE BATTLE sketch lan keeps getting distracted playing Pokémon for the whole shoot, eventually getting the gameboy taken off of him by Erin 😅 In this livestream they're watching the sketch and Anthony says :-

[scene where 'lazy lan' is sitting in the beanbag playing Pokémon not wanting to move]

Anthony: “This is actually what you were like on set that day cause you were just playing Pokémon the whole day."

lan: "Oh yeah, so we rented that prop from like a prop house."

Anthony: “The gameboy."

lan: "The gameboy. And it was working - it was full battery, Pokémon Red was in it, and I booted it up and was like ‘There's no way. No. No’. and I was just straight up playing Pokémon on and it was-"

Anthony: "Was it everything you remembered?"

lan: "It was sick, dude. It was fun. I was having fun. I was getting really distracted and it was not good for the shoot. But I think I got my Charmander to like level 11 or 12."

Anthony: "Yeah, you nailed it."

Just a cute little compliment I felt should be included 🙂 But sticking with the Pokémon theme, it leads me on to the next compliment...

‘I Choose You' Smosh Hat

Anthony posted this Instagram promoting the Smosh Pokémon-style hat they released as merch, but what stood out to a lot of us is his choice of the first photo + the caption :-

THE IMPLICATIONS! Him crowning lan with the hat and him saying ‘I choose you' 🥹 It reminds me of something I covered in my first Compliments post - the section covering the Smoshcast with Anthony and Shayne saying how they came back together and "choose to be best friends again" 💛🖤

Our Actual Worst Puns (Puns of Anarchy)

Another round of games and compliment-adjacent moments :-

Ian: [handing the cards out]

Anthony: "Oh, look at you. You're providing for your family.”

Just found this moment cute, Anthony referring to them as a family 🥹

[Jackie chooses Anthony's card and he reveals it's his]

Jackie: "I take it back."

Anthony: “I'm also 'Hand Solo' though, so [the other card Jackie was going to pick]?

Arasha: "I'm so pissed [because Anthony is winning]."

Ian: "Wow. Anthony's cleaning up” [claps]

-

[Round Category: Baby Boomers]

Ian's card -' A Whole New World' changed to 'A new video of an old, white person freaking out’

Anthony: [picks Jackie's card] “That was good. Although, I will say, I know this was yours, lan [from his handwriting]. That was an adventure, man. I appreciate that."

This isn't the only time the handwriting thing is brought up in the video :-

Keith: "Dude, where's my car?' turns into, 'Dude, where's my car? Oh wait, I can't drive?’ By far the best one, lan. And I know this came from you."

Anthony: "I know it came from lan too, cause I can see the handwriting."

Why is Anthony being able recognise Ian's handwriting so cute. He just knows him so well ☺️

One other moment I loved from this video was something I already made a post about here. Of Jackie referring to them as 'best friends' and Anthony laughing the hardest at his answer firing shots at lan, again, bestie-ism shining through 😄

Joycon HIDE AND SEEK (Everybody 1, 2, Switch)

Last one of the month! This video was full of so many great moments - two lanthony piggybacks, so many bestie moments, and them just being overly cute the whole time 🥰

And also many moments of them complimenting each other on doing well in the games. So many that I decided to compile a little video. Enjoy! :-

And that was it for September!

Hope you all enjoyed and I shall see you next time ❤️

[ts-unpopular-opinions]

Side Track Opinions part 5: Roman

(I’ve been saving Roman for a while now and I am PUMPED! So here’s a late birthday present to our royal lad ❤️ It’s also super nice to save the creativitwins for last because both of their playlists reference each other quite a bit 👌)

1) A Gay Disney Prince: I mean... are any of us surprised? This song is basically Roman’s anthem, so it was bound to be on his playlist. I do find it interesting that both Roman and Remus are the only sides with songs made by Thomas on their playlists. I guess it goes to show that having a big ego runs in the creative family 😂

2) Wonderboy: Only two songs in and we already have a song about Remus, or “young Nastyman, archrival and nemesis of Wonderboy” in this case. You’ll start to get the idea from Roman’s playlist that he really misses being with his bro. This song portrays Roman as almost a perfect and untouchable force. He is seperated from all of his nasty thoughts and is the perfect embodiment of what Thomas sees creativity as (“High above the mucky-muck, castle made of clouds, There sits Wonderboy, sitting oh so proudly. Not much to say when you're high above the mucky-muck.”). I like to imagine that the singer of the song is Thomas, looking to Roman for comfort. Creativity most likely split as a way for Thomas to, not very healthily, cope with his intrusive thoughts (“Wonderboy, what is the secret of your power? Wonderboy, won't you take me far away from the mucky-muck man?”). It’s also interesting to note that at the end of the song, Roman and Remus seemingly join forces very successfully (“Well, Wonderboy and Young Nastyman joined forces; they formed a band the likes of which have never been seen”). Perhaps this is hinting at either Romans want to have his bother back, or possibly foreshadowing to their relationship dynamic in the future. I know I’d love to see Roman and Remus team up together in future episodes, maybe even against Patton and Janus in the next episode?

3) Disney Princess: This song is all about Roman dreaming about being in the lives of different disney princesses. Honestly it’s not super deep, but it does show just how much Roman loves to fantasize about escaping reality and living in his ideal dream world. He wishes his life were more interesting and exciting like what you would see in a movie. Also, Roman is SO desperate for someone to love him... poor guy (“I'd be a handsome man's wife And we'd kiss and we'd kiss And we'd kiss”).

4) Broadway, Here I Come!: (tw suicide) So this song is... interesting. It can be interpreted in two different ways: one being a song about how making it on broadway is a huge leap and very difficult, and another about a person literally jumping off of a building and commiting suicide. I always think of Logic vs Passion during this song because while Roman believes he is acchieving his dreams and is willing to take risks, Logan just believes he’s setting himself up for failure. I think Logan’s view on Thomas’ life and career choice is very hard on Roman and, by the topic of the song, affects him greatly (“The people all are pointing. I bet they'd never guess, That the saint that they're anointing Is frightened of the mess”). He doesn’t know if Thomas will succeed and that makes him doubt himself and causes his work to suffer (“The pressure it increases, The closer that I get” “And the last thing I hear. As the impact grows near, Is it a scream or a cheer?”).

5) Hallelujah: This song, like the one before it, shows a lot of Roman’s insecurities. Roman has a set plan for Thomas in life, but he constantly doubts it and himself due to the comments he gets from other sides (“Somedays I don't think my mama Thinks I'm good enough to be a superstar” “Somedays I don't think my daddy Thinks I'm good enough to be a superstar”). I don’t know specifically which sides he could be talking about in these two lines, but Logan is definately one of them. I like to think he could also be talking about Patton. I mean Roman probably worries constantly about being too much like Remus and disappointing Patton. Roman probably literally thinks that Patton doesnt think hes GOOD enough. Despite all of this self doubt, Roman still seems determined to reach his dreams and prove the others wrong (“But one day I will show him I'm a diamond in the rough, I'll be a superstar” “Yeah, there's a crown covered in glitter and gold I'm gonna wear it, whether you like it or not”).

6) Holding Out for a Hero: This song is from Thomas’ perspective! Thomas DOES see Roman as his hero despite what Janus’ not at the end of the most recent episode may have you believe. Roman acts as Thomas’ protection from all of his darker and more disturbing thoughts. Thomas uses Roman, a picture perfect image of creativity to help him escape from all the bad things in life and in his head (“Where have all the good men gone And where are all the gods? Where's the streetwise Hercules to fight the rising odds? Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed? Late at night I toss and I turn And I dream of what I need”). Thomas literally created Roman to be a perfect knight in shining armor. The singer in the song shows this by listing off everything that they believe a hero needs to be/have, Similar to what Thomas would have done in the creation of Roman.

7) If I Dare: I’m conflicted about what this song could mean. At first glance it seems to be about Roman willing to do anything in order to get more creative control over Thomas (“If I dare to risk it, then I know that I'm willing to. If I dare to want this, to want more than I have” “I am holding out for more than what I have now”). Roman really wants to be trusted more and would seemingly take huge risks in order to get that. The part that throws me off is this line: “When the room gets dark, and I am quiet. There's a voice that's soft, like someone's silhouette Saying, "Don't let me go yet"”. To me, this sounds like its about Remus. Possibly Remus begging Roman to not get rid of him and to remain as one. What confuses me is that the line felt so out of place with the rest of the songs meaning. I’m not sure what to do with that information, but if anyone has ideas, let me know.

8) Go the Distance: Roman is so patient... and so unrealistically hopeful... He continues to lay down and let the other sides get their ways because he believes that the wait will be worth it when he finally gets his say (“I'll be there someday, I can go the distance” “I know every mile would be worth my while” “And a thousand years would be worth the wait. It might take a lifetime but somehow I'll see it through”). Despite how many times hes been ignored and let down, he continues to hope that his chance may come one day. Theres also this line: “But to look beyond the glory is the hardest part. For a hero's strength is measured by his heart, oh” which makes me think big time of SvS. He gave up his glory in favor of what Patton wanted because he thinks that it was the more heroic thing to do.

9) Flamboyant: The title really says it all. Roman is extra™️ and he knows that all of the other sides think so too (“I'm a very flaming flammable guy. Some say my fire burns way too high. Some say they find me too hot to touch. But I, I think it's not enough”). I also think its important to note that this song feels a bit out if place with the canon Roman that we know. From what we’ve seen of Roman, he holds back a lot. He denies a great deal of his greed and wants in order to make the others happy and fill in his “hero” persona. This song portrays Roman as having no restraint and not wanting the others to boss him around (“Don't tell me what to do, Don't tell me what to say” “Turn down? I never do” “And no time for restraint”). I’d love to see more of this assertive side of Roman in canon, but right now you can tell that he is holding back. He wishes he didn’t have to, but he feels as though it is necessary to distance himself from Remus.

10) Jumpstarted: Let me set the scene. Thomas is just out an about enjoying his day, he holds open the starbucks door for the guy behind him and... omg... he’s hot... he’s the love of your life Thomas! Roman the proceeds to fanticize about marrying and starting a family with this one random guy that they’ve never talked to nor seen before (“The only one I want is you. I hear the bells and the ring and already, Four kids and the big ol' wedding Singing, You” “And how was I to make a long walk home. You got me feeling like I'm overdosed”). This whole song is just Roman singing about his head-over heals love for a guy in Thomas’ head while Thomas has to act normal and even warns the dude to run away while he has the chance (“Take my advice and run while you still can”). Roman’s quite a hopeless romantic.

11) Brave New Girl: Remember how I said Roman has been holding back and trying to be more polite in order to make himself less like Remus? Well this song is the opposite of that. This is what Roman wants. Roman wants to let lose and be his wildest self again (“She wants a good time” “She needs to really really find what she wants” “There's a brave new girl And she's comin' out tonight” “Who knew she could feel so alive” “Won't take a back seat”). I like to imagine this song taking place after the events of POF. I mean if the others are just going to accept that Janus is good now, then does that mean Remus is good too? If that the case, then what was the point of him and Remus splitting in the first place? This song makes me think that Roman and Remus could team up together in either the next episode, or future episodes to come. Roman is lost and doesn’t really know why he is who he is anymore, so he seeks out Remus, the only one who really understands what he’s going through (“So she met this man, He was kinda rough. He said, girl, what you lookin' for? She said, I don't know I go with the flow. He said, let's get on the floor”). The man in this song could also be Janus I suppose. He does compliment the singer and flatter her, but after the events of the last episode, I find it hard to believe that Roman would be willing to fall for Janus’ flattery again.

12) Every Boy: Roman wants to kiss every boy in the world... and it’s never enough. That is all.

13) Primadonna: What a bop! This song is honestly so good! Again with Roman’s songs making him out to be a lot greedier and wild than he actually has acted in canon (“You can count on me to misbehave”). This song is what I imagine Roman would act like if he had nothing to worry about other than being himself. Roman wants a lot of things and he wants everyone to adore him for the beautiful prince he is (“All I ever wanted was the world” “I can't help that I need it all” “When you give, I want more, more, more” “I wanna be adored” “I know I've got a big ego”).

14) King: You can already tell by the name what this song is about. I’m honestly shocked how obvious it is. At this point we don’t know who made the decision for creativity to split, but this song and a couple of others in the playlist seem to suggest that it was the Roman part of original creativity who decided to push Remus out. He felt as though it was the only way to successfully move forward (“I had to break myself to carry on”). The others sides (I’d like to imagine Patton) tried to convince Creativity to split and despite his not wanting to. His decision to split seemed like it was a very hard one to make and left a lot of pain in its wake (“They say it's easy to leave you behind. I don't want to try” “Is it worth the price?”). Original creativity felt powerful and strong when he was whole, so of course he didn’t want to split (“I was a king under your control”). The song seems to suggest that he tried to repress his ‘Remus’ thoughts in order to remain whole and not lose a part of himself, but this could only work for so long (“Don't wanna have to lose All that I've compromised to feel another high. I've got to keep it down tonight”). In the end, the Roman side of creativity finally won out and both Roman and Remus decided to let each other go (“I wanna feel like you've let me go, So let me go”).

15) Cheap Queen: This song really shows Roman’s struggle with his identity. He’s so quick to change for others in order to be accepted by them (“I can be good sometimes. I'm a cheap queen. I can be a what you like. And I can be bad sometimes. I'm a real queen. I can make grown men cry” “I'm gettin' too cocky since everyone wants me, It's harder to be myself”). This convices me that the way that he’s been acting in the last few episodes (not insulting anyone, very opposed to Janus) is soley him trying to prove that he is good and nothing like Remus. He’s been hiding his true self which we see a lot of in episodes before Remus was introduced. Roman doesn’t want to disappoint Patton in fear of Patton wanting him to split again.

16) Humility: ANOTHER song about Remus. This song is really interesting. It shows us that Roman is VERY confused about his opinion on Remus. He’s lonely and feels incomplete without Remus, He NEEDS Remus back (“I need you in the picture That's why I'm calling you” “I'm the lonely twin, the left hand” “I don't want this isolation” “See the state I'm in now?”). Right after Roman has these thoughts and feelings though, he instantly tries to block them out and retrain the idea that Remus is bad (“Reset myself and get back on track”). He wants Remus back so badly and feels some sort of remorse for kicking him out, but then he ignores those emotions and acts like he hates Remus another moment (“If I pick it up when I know that it's broken Do I put it back? Or do I head out onto the lonesome trail And let you down?”).

17) Aint Got it Like That: Roman is greedy and wants a lot of things, we’ve established this. Most of this song is about how Roman wants more than what he has now, but he still believes it will come if he just waits long enough (“'Cause I ain't really got it like that And one day Imma have it like that And I know that it can't stay this way And one day Imma finally get paid”).

18) Dreamer: I’m not sure whose perspective this song is from, but this feels like a comfort song to Roman. We know that he has a lot of insecurities and struggles to create things because he worries that his ideas won’t be good enough or will be too much like Remus’ ideas. But this song goes completely against that mindset. It’s what Roman wants to hear: “Dream little dreamer, Don't care what they say” “You can do anything” “Dream like you won't fail. Sing like no one's there. Dance like you don't care. Dream.” “Don't fear little dreamer, You'll get there one day” “And I know that it's scary, But you'll succeed” “You're exeptional, You're original” “You're magnificent, You're sensational”.

19) Paving the Runway: This feels like a song from Roman to Thomas and gosh it just feels so loving and sweet... Roman has such big dreams for Thomas and he has so much faith in him (“Cause I know that one day you're gonna fly”). He encourages Thomas to go for his dreams and excel, something that he is hardly told himself (“Go after your dreams, Crazy as they may seem. Go chase all the stars in the sky” “You will reach higher than I ever could”). Roman does everythig he can to set Thomas up for success and to help him reach his dreams (“Darling, stand on my shoulders” “Baby, I'll be paving the runway”).

20) Go.: Again, I’m not sure who the singer of this song is, but I can tell its exactly what Roman wants/needs to hear. Roman is very clearly holding back due to his fear of becoming too much like Remus and that is making it very hard to do his job (“The fear within Has held you hostage. Break free and live. GO.”). This is a good song to be Roman’s last song because I think it helps to show us where Roman’s character is going in the future. He is going to let lose and relax eventually. Perhaps this will lead to him creating the better relationship with Remus that he’s been hoping for throughout this whole playlist. I predict that next episode, well start to see some of this newer, less refrained creativity from Roman.

(And that’s that! If you can tell that theres some tension between Roman and Remus from this playlist, just you wait for Remus’! As usual, let me know what you thought of this ❤️ Love you guys!)

[just-honey-dewd]

Angel’s comic commentary

Finally read the comic, and I've got a handful of things to say. This’ll mostly just be me listing out what this comic's canonically established alongside quite a bit of speculation. Feel free to update me on information here that's faulty. 

Obvious spoilers ahead if you haven’t read it.

1. Angel and Val's relationship

It's established that Val is his boss and asserts that dominance on Angel in a very intense and toxic way. Comparable to a drunk abusive dad using his "gentle voice" on his son before erupting into terrifying fits of rage and almost resorting physical abuse -- only holding back because he doesn't want any evidence of abuse. Or in this context, he doesn't want his cash cow to risk any pointless bruising.

”Um.... I overheard you at the studio talking about how you didn’t have anyone to handle this deal.... with.... I mean.... Just thought it was an easy gig... I knew I could take em’ out easy and even scored ya both.”                                                                                -  Angel Dust

Angel seems to take initiative when it comes to handling mobsters and essentially meddling in Val's affairs. I speculate that this could be attributed to his background as a skilled mobster, as well as a desire to prove his worth in more ways than one. Not because he wants to suck up to his boss though. Rather, it seems like underlying self-worth issues coming into play.  

Angel clearly has a lot of baggage with his past as a mobster, his rocky relationship with his family -- alongside heavily speculation of abuse from his dad and brother -- and a lack of healthy outlet. Which is why he's acting out and disobeying Val -- going out of his way to help him with jobs he's not even hired to do. Because before Cherri or the hotel, Angel went into the sex industry and "proved his worth" by being the most popular porn star in hell. But given the nature of abusive bosses, Val never treated Angel with genuine respect, only preserving him from danger which would probably feel patronizing to a person who could competently hold his own in battle. So Angel's next motive is to prove he can do more than just suck people's dicks to Val so he can earn his respect.

The relationship's basically a one-sided give and take affair. Angel gives, Val takes. All because Angel's misguided head feels he just needs to prove himself to people to earn a right.

2. Popular, but not "popular"

Angel is popular for his work, but the work itself is not generally respected in hell -- or at least in the capital. 

This is evident in the pilot, and only gets further supported with the comic, as demons out in the street don't immediately walk up to him asking to do it with him. It seems he even gets recognized but glared at by some demons. It's surprisingly similar to the way general society looks at porn stars or strippers. Katie verbally shamed Tom for knowing who AD was, the guy Angel was with early in the pilot called him a slut, same was the other guy that stole his drugs, and Angel's punishment from Val was to stand out in the city streets and "make up for the time he missed filming".

Basically, Angel is popular, but not respected as a celebrity porn star -- he honestly stands out as a misfit most would look down on. Whether it’s more because of the nature of his profession, or hell’s lack of respect for anyone without a knife to their throat, is really anyone’s guess. I personally subscribe to the notion that it’s mainly the former, followed by latter.

So overall, this: 

i)  Further connects hell's civilization with ours in the aspect of how occupations/titles define reputation, and value to society.

ii)  Confirms that Angel is famous but in not in the positively well-received sense.

iii)  Confirms that the porn industry is a big thing in hell, but majority of the population won't acknowledge it's popularity or influence if they don't have to. Likely because of the risk of their reputation rather than any ethical dilemmas.

3. Angel's Payment Policy

He tells Charlie that his time costs money, and she agrees to it. But near the end of the comic, Angel almost walks out of the conversation without money, until Charlie drops him a wad of cash. So the payment policy is kinda loose depending on if whatever the time was spent on was interesting and worth it. Charlie and Vaggie literally gave him an epiphany by telling him that they believe redemption could be a possibility and that they (Charlie) see the potential for him to change. Pretty heavy stuff, so the payment was paid by Angel's interest itself. ̶C̶h̶a̶r̶l̶i̶e̶'̶s̶ ̶u̶n̶n̶e̶c̶e̶s̶s̶a̶r̶y̶ ̶s̶t̶i̶c̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶m̶i̶s̶e̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶s̶i̶m̶p̶l̶y̶ ̶a̶n̶ ̶a̶d̶d̶e̶d̶ ̶b̶o̶n̶u̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶e̶g̶r̶i̶t̶y̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶i̶n̶c̶e̶n̶t̶i̶v̶e̶.̶

4. Charlie's character

Charlie doesn't have a filter and doesn't know how to phrase things sensitively on the spot. For someone who refers to swearing as "problematic language", she doesn't know how not to come off as rude or offensive ironically -- "Inside of Every Demon is a Rainbow" is a testament to that. 

Her conversation with Angel in the comic cements this as an intentional and integral part of her character. It's probably gonna become a reoccurring gag, source of conflict for the hotel, and/or a common source of entertainment for Alastor.

Additionally, she's a very physically affectionate person. Although already evident with multiple scenes from the pilot, the comic provides consistent show of it with the little head bump and cuddle with Vaggie, and that gentle hand on Angel's chest fluff. Fitting for the Disney Princess aspect of her personality.

5. Why did Angel agree to become a patron?

Because of his desire to prove his worth and value. He enjoyed screwing with the girls, but otherwise seemed indifferent about the redemption plan -- as anyone would. Only reason he ultimately decided to join was because Vaggie insisted on Charlie that he's not worth the effort, and he wanted to prove her wrong. It's a manipulative tactic to use someone's broken ego against them to get them to do what you want -- but in here, it was unintentional. Angel's insecurity of being seen as worthless took effect in his impulsive decision, not to mention that they made it clear as day that Charlie saw potential -- and by extension, worth -- to him. Vaggie represents the rational but blunt naysayers in his life that don't see shit in him, and Angel was determined to finally prove to them -- and himself -- that he's worth something. Worth the effort. Worth an ounce of respect. Worth helping.

And it's evident in the last 2 pages of the comic, that he's spent time reflecting on Charlie's words to him all the way home. Does he believe in her cause?  No. Is she serious? Who knows.  Does he have what it takes to be a good person? Not by a long shot!

But she saw something in him, something beyond the reputation and value predetermined for him on Earth, beyond the reputation he established in Hell even. For someone like her to exist in such a cruel and harsh reality and tell him she believes there's more to him than what he knows.... with those odds, it makes the redemption concept itself just a little less implausible. It's silly, that's for sure.

[grelleswife]

Do you think you could possibly do some Fembastian x Mey Rin headcanons for me for femslash february dear? >w< 🖤💖

I sure can! >w<

Fembastian is shorter than Mey Rin, which makes the demon rather blushy and bashful around her. Meanwhile, Mey goes absolutely bonkers over how adorable Fembassy is. She'll cup Sebastian's face in her hands and smother the petite demon with kisses, or carry her around the manor like a damsel in distress. "You're lots easier to pick up when you're small and dainty like this, yes you are!" the maid will giggle. Sebastian will squeeze Mey Rin's toned upper arm and whisper breathily, "I'm lucky indeed to be in the capable hands of such a strong woman." Dear Mey becomes quite flustered!

Mey Rin gets Sebastian a maid's uniform so that they can match on the job. Outwardly, Fembastian grumbles about the indignity of a fearsome demon like herself donning such apparel. She has routed entire armies with her wrath! She is most certainly NOT "precious," as Mey Rin claims...but the more Mey gushes over her appearance, the more Fembastian acknowledges that, deep down, she actually likes being perceived as cute. >w<

If they're completing maids' chores together, Fembastian will discretely use her magic to make things easier for Mey. On occasions when she's feeling extra, she'll do something dramatic, like summon a murder of crows to help them make the beds, Disney-style.

Mey's a little more dominant (regardless of the demon's gender, we stan bottom!Sebastian rights in this household), a turn of events which Fembastian happily accepts. Mey Rin will ease her fingers underneath the choker the demon wears and pull Fembastian closer when she really wants her to pay attention (in fact, that's one of the reasons why Fembastian wears it), or pin the demon's wrists against the mattress when Sebas is being sassy. Fembastian also likes to surprise her love with delicate and exceptionally revealing lingerie; Mey pounces on her like an owl swooping in for the kill. >:3

Mey Rin loves helping Sebas put her hair up in pigtails or braids, and buys a small collection of pretty hair ornaments for the demon to use. Fembastian will close her eyes in bliss and purr away while Mey Rin combs her raven locks.

I think I've talked about this in previous posts, but realizing that she's just as sexually and romantically attracted to the demon as she was when Sebas was in butler form helps Mey Rin come to terms with the fact that she's bi. It clears things up, yes it does! Fembastian is very proud of her mate for making new discoveries about herself. Since Bassy's pansexual, there's considerable overlap between her and Mey's experiences, and this added commonality brings them even closer together.

Fembastian is still extremely protective of Mey Rin, which creates amusing scenarios when this pint-sized woman leaps in front of the maid to defend her from would-be assailants. But once Sebas's eyes start glowing red, and pigtails and petticoats give way to eldritch shadows, the attackers stop laughing. Still, Mey Rin occasionally insists that Fembastian stand back and let her do the protecting. And the demon must concede that she likes having Mey come to her rescue once in a while. >w<

In addition to referring to Sebas as her "Kittybastian," Mey Rin also calls Fembassy "my princess," and it never gets old. No matter what form the demon presents, the maid knows how to make them feel cherished and special. <3

[calliecat93]

Callie’s Disney Princess Retrospective: The Little Mermaid

(Snow White) (Cinderella) (Sleeping Beauty)

By the time of 1989, The Walt Disney Company was in it’s Dark Age. Walt had passed, the Nine Old Men were retiring, and their films were viewed as jokes. The Dark Age tends to get what I feel is an overly harsh reputation, but that’s not what we’re here for. The cold hard truth is Disney was a shadow of its former self. Their films just weren’t getting the same praise as they once did, and now with Don Bluth gaining success, with films like An American Tale and The Land Before Time, they weren’t even the top studio anymore. Their lowest point was the colossal failure of The Black Cauldron and while films like The Great Mouse Detective earned some praise, it was just never enough. They’d start getting some steam with Who Framed Roger Rabbit? but considering that they commissioned Richard William’s studio in England over Disney’s own animation studio, it seemed that even the company itself was losing faith in their own talents.

That all changed, however, with the release of their 28th animated feature. This would be the film that changed everything. It brought Disney back into prominence after years of being laughing stocks. It would enter the animation medium into its Renaissance, a time still fondly remembered by many. And for the purposes of this series, it is the film that both resurrected and revitalized the Disney Princess franchise. All of this would be due to 1989’s The Little Mermaid.

Overview

Ariel is a mermaid, but she dreams of one day being able to be part of the human world. Always collecting whatever surface world treasures she can find, to her father’s disapproval, Ariel one day stumbles upon a ship celebrating the birthday of the handsome Prince Eric. It’s love at first sight, but as he is a human, her father King Triton reacts negatively. Hurt, Ariel goes to the sea witch Ursula, who grants her human legs at the cost of her voice. To remain human, Ariel has three days to get Eric to fall in love with her and kiss her. But Ursula has her own wicked plans for Ariel, plans that will endanger both land and sea. Will Ariel be able to get Eric to fall in love with her and become part of his world? Or will Ursula triumph?

Review

I have been waiting for this day for SO LONG. Do you want to know why I decided to do this series, to begin with? Aside from 2020 driving me to insanity? It’s because while the complaints against the Disney Princesses in general have frustrated me for as long as I can remember, there were two in particular that always made my blood boil because they made no sense. Cinderella was the first one, which I already covered. The other? Ariel. I think you all know what I’m referring to here, but let’s put a pin in it for now. We have a LOT to discuss before we get to analyzing Ariel herself. First, let's go over the film.

The film is based on the story of the same name by Hans Christian Anderson. Walt himself had actually planned it long before, but sadly was never able to make it a reality. When the directors pitched it, at first it was denied due to Disney having already releasing a mermaid film called Splash not too long ago. But it was allowed to continue to be worked on as a future project and after a great deal of tweaking, expansion, and reworking, it was approved as a feature film to come out after Oliver and Company. There were a LOT of changes from the original story. The sea witch went from neutral to the villain, characters were expanded and added, and of course the story of unrequited love that ended with the little mermaid committing suicide was thrown out all together. A lot of the story basis was still there, but Disney was taking it and making it their own arguably even moreso than with the Classic Three.

The animation is fantastic. Many of the films prior like The Rescuers and Oliver and Company, while they looked nice, had this… roughness to it. I mean they were outright recycling animation for a good while, with Robin Hood being the biggest example. But the animation here is some of the nicest, most fluid that they’ve had in quite a long time. It’s colorful, expressive, and grand in feel. This is especially true with the musical numbers. I mean Under the Sea has SO much going on, and it is a true spectacle! It’s especially prominent when Ariel is mute. Since she can’t express herself with words, the animation had to be on point so that we could still understand her thoughts and feelings. They did an amazing job. From things like her visual glee at being human when going to bed the first night, to her annoyingly blowing her bangs during the canoe ride, turning into excited glee when Eric guesses her name. It helps Ariel feel more like a three-dimensional character and illustrates everything to us that words couldn’t at that point.

The biggest animation challenge for this film would be to convincingly portray the illusion of being under water. They had to convince us that Ariel was living under the sea, and I’d say they did a pretty good job. It is no easy task and trying to describe it is… hard. But I never had any doubt that they were underwater, especially compared to the scenes that were on the surface/ just look at how Ariel's hair is constantly flowing compared to how it sits when on the surface. It’s that attention to detail that I always appreciate. The opening especially, seeing the underwater landscape thriving as we see the silhouetted merpeople until the grand reveal of King Triton’s castle. Not to mention the seashore setting of Eric’s own castle and kingdom, a perfect match for this sort of movie. As someone who loves water/seaside settings, it’s always a joy to see!

While several of these people worked on the Dark Age films, this is really the first film that allows the then-new talent of Disney to shine. The directors were John Musker and Ron Clements, who are VERY important names to the Princess line. They not only gave us Ariel but also Jasmine, Tiana, and Moana. They’ve been attached to many of Disney’s most beloved films and event cult classics like The Great Mouse Detective and Treasure Planet (both of which you should watch). You also have animators such as Glen Keane, who would go on to animate Pocahontas and Rapunzel and work on some of the future princes (The Beast and Aladdin), and Mark Henn who would animate Belle, Jasmine, Pocahontas (alongside Keane), Mulan, and Tiana. They both would be the supervising animators for Ariel, and go on to have very successful careers in future productions. 

But this film also gave us what may have been the best decision that the new management ever made. For the music, they hired lyricist Howard Ashman, who chose composer Alan Menken to collaborate with him. I cannot stress enough how important these two’s contributions were for this (and the next film we’ll be discussing) production, especially the former. Ashman became very passionate about this project and was very influential on it’s direction to the point of being credited as a producer. Menken of course would go on to have a LONG, successful career as a composer on many of the Renaissance films. Many of which we’ll be touching on in this retrospective. These guys won two Oscars for The Little Mermaid for a reason.

I haven’t talked a whole lot about the music in these films outside a little bit about the main song. That’s because while not unimportant, the music didn’t really move the story along. Like Someday My Prince Will Come/ is cute, but does it really drive anything forward? Or tell us anything about Snow White that we didn’t already know from I’m Wishing? Not really. Ashman, using his stage musical experience, wanted to use that kind of styling with The Little Mermaid. To use music to add depth to both the characters and to the story. We’re all used to most Disney films being this Broadway-esque spectacle nowadays, but this film was the first to truly do so. Considering how this formula is still being used to this day, I think it’s safe to say that it was VERY successful. Again, the music won two Oscars for a reason. Heck for a LONG time, the music was all that Disney was able to win from The Academy, so that says a LOT as to how good this was.

So now that we’ve made it here, I’m going to discuss the vocal tracks individually and give my thoughts on each of the major ones:

Fathoms Below: Might be the most underrated song of the bunch. It’s in the style of a sea-shanty discussing the legends of what is below the sea. It’s a great intro to the film, letting us know right off the bat what kind of movie we are in for. I know that it sure had me invested~

Part of Your World/Reprise: I’m gonna go more into depth on the song’s meanings when we analyze Ariel, but this song is perfect. It’s the song that tells us Ariel’s wants and dreams and Jodi Benson does such a great job putting so many different emotions into it. The animators also did a fantastic job with the expressions, fully showcasing Ariel’s longing, sadness, and desperation to be part of a world that she cannot. The reprise equally does a great job showcasing her evolving revolve, going from ‘longing’ to ‘determined’. The song is fondly remembered for a reason… and it almost didn’t make it into the film. During screen testings, Jeffrey Katzenberg (the studio head at the time) wanted the sequence cut as the kid audience was ‘bored’ and ‘restless’. The directors and Ashman HEAVILY disagreed and argued back, with Glen Keane ultimately being the one to convince Katzenberg to keep the scene. Thank God for it because this adds such a strong, emotional core to both the story and to Ariel’s character and it would have taken so much away if removed. I love it~

Under the Sea: This was the number that won the Oscar. I… find it the most overrated track tbh. Not that it’s bad, FAR from it. It’s probably the best animation-wise with how much is going on. Sebastian somehow managed to conduct… all the sea life into a mass spectacle that certainly had me convinced to living under the sea. The calypso style is very fitting and fun, and Samuel E Wright sings it with so much passion. I guess that I find it overrated because I just like other songs more, but this is still a true showstopper that’s worth revisiting.

Poor Unfortunate Souls: Aside from I think Cruella DeVille (and even then Roger’s the one singing it), I think that this is the first true villain song in a Disney film. If so, then they started on a GLORIOUS note. I love this song! It was THE perfect song for Ursula. The first half with her fake reformed villain act but with this condescending air to it (Pat Carroll’s delivery with the  ‘Pathetic’ line is perfection) was already grand, but the second half? Pat Carroll just lets loose and goes utterly insane. It is AMAZING and has so much charisma to it that you can’t help but be invested. It’s also very creepy, especially in the end with Ursula's cauldron bubbling and especially how she takes Ariel’s voice. This would inspire many great villain songs in the future and to this day remains one of the all-time greats.

Les Poissons: I never thought that seeing a chef cook would be so horrifying… the song is fine. It’s a silly sequence, albeit morbid from poor Sebastian’s perspective, and Rene Auberjonois did a fantastic job despite the song being pretty short. It’s my least favorite track, mainly because it doesn’t really add or enhance anything. But it was fun… poor Senastian though XD

Kiss the Girl: The love song of the film. I love the animation for this one. I mean what’s more romantic than taking a canoe out on the lake? That’s where I’d want my first date to end! The mood is set so well with the use of shadows and once more, Sebastian is able to conduct a spectacle effortlessly. Once more Samuel E Wright does a fabulous job singing, this time with a serenade style. Even if poor Scuttle didn’t get the appreciation that he deserved. Let the seagull sing, dang it! The only thing that ruins it is the eels capsizing the canoe, jerks! But yeah a beautiful serenade that is bound to convince anyone to… well, kiss the girl XD

And that’s not even getting into Alan Menken’s score! Alan Menken is my favorite composer of all time, so I love everything that he has ever done. I still remember the opening, hearing the instrumental of Part of Your World and immediately became invested in this film. The man is an EGOT for a reason, and this is only one of the many fantastic soundtracks that we’ll be discussing in this review. He also did some additional music for the Broadway version of the film, and there’s a whole body of demo work that he and Ashman did that you can probably find on Youtube, Spotify, or whatever music streaming service you use. Listen to Ashman’s rendition of Part of Your World, you WILL be driven to tears.

So now we get to characters… and HO BOY do we have a lot. For the sake of this review we will be going over King Triton, Sebastian, Flounder, Scuttle, Ursula, Prince Eric, and as per usual Ariel will have her own section at the end.

King Triton, while not evil, serves as an antagonist early on in the film. By all appearances, Triton is a capable ruler who wields a great deal of power due to his triton. He appears just, and for the most part he is as well as a caring father. The only problem is… well, his anger issues. Triton HATES humans and the surface world. We’re never told why aside from him calling them ‘fish-eaters’ (the DTV prequel suggests it’s due to the death of his wife, but the canonicity is debatable), but considering that his youngest daughter’s greatest passion is learning about the surface world… yeah. Needless to say, they have issues between them. But he is otherwise loving and was even excited that Ariel may have found love until he found out about their species. With how overprotective he is, that was a nice subversion despite how brief it was.

Triton often gets the ‘abusive’ label thrown against him and while I do think that that’s a little too strong, there is no denying that his hatred and anger affects Ariel emotionally. He may have seen destroying Ariel’s grotto as for her own good and is likely the culmination of however long Ariel’s been going to the surface finally boiling over. But to do this right in front of her when she is begging him to stop and outright ridiculing her for saving Eric’s life… yeah. It’s… it’s a horrifying scene that does NOT make Triton look good and is what pushes Ariel into seeing Ursula. It doesn’t matter the reason, destroying your children’s things is something that WILL scar them emotionally. To be far, the moment Ariel breaks down Triton clearly realizes that he crossed the line, but he just leaves because… yeah there was NO WAY that they were reaching a reconciliation at that moment.

Triton has a lot of issues, but the reason I don’t call him abusive and like him as a character is because after the grotto scene, he was clearly remorseful. After Ariel goes missing, he outright says ‘What have I done?” and his demeanor expresses a lot of remorse. If that wasn’t enough, I think that him both selling his soul to free Ariel AND turning her human after realizing how much she loved Eric more than showed that he has learned his lesson. Triton had to learn to allow Ariel to grow up and choose her own direction in life, even if he didn’t like said direction. It’s very relatable to how some parents struggle to let go of their children as they grow up. My only real complaint is, as I said, we don’t know why Triton hates humans so much. If we did and saw him work through it, it may have helped us understand why he was so against Ariel’s passions and not come off as needlessly cruel as he did. Nevertheless, he realized his wrongs and made it right. His hug with Ariel at the end is one that gets me every time.

The sidekicks of the film are Flounder, Scuttle, and Sebastian. IDK why they named Flounder Flounder because he isn’t… well, a flounder. He looks like some kind of tropical fish. Flounder is kind of the kid appeal character, even being voiced by a child in all incarnations except Return to the Sea since he had grown up. He is Ariel’s best friend who goes with her on her adventures, despite almost always being easily frightened. He’s well-meaning, but can cause more trouble like when he accidentally exposed Ariel’s excursion during the concert. But he’s also a sweet little guy and very loyal to Ariel. The kid outright went out of his way to somehow recover the Eric statue, which is ten times his size, and deliver it to her grotto to make her happy. That is friendship. He doesn’t really develop, but he’s a nice supporting character.

Scuttle is… well, dumb. But a fun dumb. He’s a surface creature and thus has more knowledge about surface world items than Ariel does… except he doesn’t. He’s not smart, but they manage to keep him entertaining because he’s so sure that he knows what he’s talking about. Imo, dinglehoppers are a MUCH better name for forks than forks, dang it! He tries to help, like it was his idea to try the serenade during the canoe ride… too bad that he can’t hold a note. Poor bird tried. They also DO allow him to be useful at the end, discovering that Ursula had tricked Eric and he amassed one heck of an army to humiliate her long enough for Ariel to reach the ship. It is one of the funniest AND most awesome moments in the whole film. Scuttle is just fun comedic relief who doesn’t overstay his welcome and his VA Buddy Hackett did such a great job~

But if there’s any character aside from Ariel that we remember from this film, it’s Sebastian. This Jamaican crab is the royal musical conductor and Triton’s advisor. He’s often the one who has to watch over Ariel, which clearly frustrates him on multiple occasions. Tbh, Sebastian probably has the most character development in the film. In the beginning, while understandably upset that Ariel being a no-show ruined his conducting debut (though tbf… NO ONE bothered to make sure she was in place? Really?), he’s mainly upset that /he/ looked bad. After the storm, he’s more concerned about getting into trouble with Triton than about Ariel herself. He knows how much the human world means to her, and while one can argue that Ariel /should/ be more aware of how her actions affect others, Sebastian isn’t much better. He only discourages her to save his own shell, not for her own good. Which eventually leads to him breaking and exposing what happened during the storm when he should know damn well that Triton will explode. Yeah it was because he misunderstood, but still.

However, Sebastian isn’t a bad crab. After the grotto's destruction, he immediately feels guilty and tries to apologize to Ariel, but she angrily dismisses him. He tries to convince Ariel to not go to Ursula, but as she’s still upset she bitterly brushes him off and tells him to get her father since he’s good at that. He therefore follows with only Flounder and at first, panics after Ariel is human. It’s understandable because… yeah, that’s bad. His first reaction is to get Triton to fix this, with Ariel trying to stop him. Once he sees the heartbroken look on her face, Sebastian realizes just how miserable Ariel would be back home. At this point, it's reasonable to assume that Triton will only be stricter about letting her have her ventures, and thus she’d be stuck in an unhappy life. This, along with the situation at least being partially his fault, convinces Sebastian to hold off and help Ariel win Eric over. Which he certainly tries his best. 

One of my favorite scenes is Ariel going to bed and being so excited to experience these new things as Sebastian tries to advise her on getting Eric to kiss her. But he stops when he sees that Ariel has fallen asleep with the biggest smile on her face, and he just affectionately calls her a ‘hopeless child’. The affection in his expressions and Samuel E Wright’s delivery is just so sincere and it really shows that for all his bluster, Sebastian does care for Ariel. The crab is also a seriously talented conductor. Like I said, he put together both Under the Sea AND Kiss the Girl in zero time and they’re both amazing numbers because of it. He really tries hard to help Ariel and once Ursula strikes again, he decides it’s finally been long enough and gets King Triton. Sure that doesn’t go well, but at that point it was absolutely the right call. He also helps fight off Flotsam and Jetsam, willing to put himself in harm’s way to help both Ariel and Eric. 

Sebastian became a much more understanding, more selfless crab over the course of the film, realizing that he needs to care less about saving his own skin and to understand why Ariel does what she does. It’s especially notable at the end. In the beginning, he advised Triton to keep a firm grip on Ariel when he asks if he was too harsh. At the end? He advises him that children have to be free to lead their own lives, which is what convinces Triton to grant Ariel legs. It’s a really nice character arc and this along with Sebastian’s two spectacular musical numbers leaves no question as to why he’s so beloved.

But what’s a great film without a great villain? For that we get one of the best, Ursula the Sea Witch. She is a fantastic villainess. She’s a large octopus woman who used to work in the palace, but for reasons unknown got banished. In early versions, she was going to be Triton’s sister which would have added a VERY twisted dynamic to the whole thing. Maybe that’s where they got the idea for Scar in The Lion King… anyways! Her design was based on Drag Queen Divine who was also going to be the VA for Ursula, but she sadly passed away of an enlarged heart before any recording to be done. After going through various performers, the production staff settled on actress Pat Carroll, who did a spectacular job. You can just tell that she is loving every single second of this role, and she has always happily returned whenever they need new Ursula material like in House of Mouse or in the parks. Just listen as she goes off the chain in Poor Unfortunate Souls that is some amazing acting.

Ursula is confident, manipulative, and a true actress. Her entire gimmick is manipulating vulnerable, insecure people into making deals with her. Deals that are pretty much impossible to keep and thus, she claims them as hers and adds them to her ‘garden’. She targets Ariel specifically because of her passion for the surface world and since she likely knows of Triton’s hatred for it AND of his anger problems, she’s just waiting for the day he screws up and Ariel is vulnerable. I’m gonna go MUCH more in depth with this when we get to Ariel, but this is SO important to note. Ursula struck when Ariel was hurt, emotional, and not thinking straight. It shows just how manipulative she can be. This is who she preys on. She knows how to sway them to act how she wants them to. She’s a saleswoman, and BOY does she sell it. It doesn't help that she gives Ariel very little personal space and manipulates her feelings for Eric to be further swayed. Yet Ariel is the stupid one because she was manipulated by a master manipulator… patience Callie, you’re gonna be able to let it out soon enough…

Ursula works so well as a villain because of how smart and manipulative she is. Like I said, she knows how to prey on the vulnerable and insecure. But she also knows when to get herself involved. After Ariel almost kisses Eric on the second day, Ursula disguises herself and uses Ariel’s voice to hypnotize Eric. And even though Scuttle and his undersea army humiliate her and Ariel gets her voice back, she bought just enough time for the sun to set and the spell breaks. Ursula won. She captured Ariel, forced Triton to sell himself to save his daughter, and claimed ultimate power. It was a truly methodical plan that ultimately succeeded. You gotta give her props for that.

Don’t make any mistakes though. While Ursula is intelligent and confident, she /is/ still evil. I’ve seen people say that she should have won just because they don’t like the ‘abusive tyrant’ Triton. Aside from what I already said about Triton above, Ursula is shown to be far, FAR worse. I mean… I hate to use the term, but she essentially s***-shames Ariel throughout Poor Unfortunate Souls. I mean she outright calls her a ‘little tramp’ after the canoe scene, which in this context is a G-Rated way of calling her a s***. To a sixteen year old. Yeah… plus we saw how power-mad she went once she got the triton, and it didn’t bode well for either land or sea. Triton’s temperamental, but he isn’t a tyrant. Ursula’s only redeeming trait is that she DOES care for her henchmen Flotsam and Jetsam, and their death at Ariel’s hand is what provoked her to go mad with power. This was ultimately her undoing as she was so focused on tormenting Ariel that it allowed Eric to take his ship and kill her. It’s a pretty gruesome Disney Villain Death (we outright see her SKELETON FLASHING at one point), but she brought it upon herself.

If you asked me what villain helped shape many of the ones we got during the Renaissance… I’d say Professor Ratigan from The Great Mouse Detective. But Ursula was the first Renaissance villain, and she started it off right. She’s enjoyable enough that we love it when she’s on screen, but still detestable enough that we want her to lose. Many complain about doing ‘purely evil’ villains. That villains HAVE to be sympathetic or nuanced, otherwise they are poorly written. While there’s nothing wrong with sympathetic, or even redeemable villains, having a purely evil one is also perfectly fine. Disney is the master of this. Ursula’s motivation is strictly to gain power, but it works because they give her character so much personality and charisma. Petty motivation, but excellent character writing that makes us not mind. I’d say if you want to learn how to do a Pure Evil character right, study Ursula in particular along with Jafar and Hades. They’re all great examples of how to do it right.

Finally we come to our leading man, Prince Eric. So far the Disney Princes have acted more as a necessity than anything. It’s as I said in the Sleeping Beauty Review, Florian and Charming fill out a plot point and while he was more proactive in comparison, Phillip fell into the same trap. Did Eric finally break the curse? Well… yes and no. He's a firm middle ground between ‘necessity’ and ‘actual character’. He’s allowed FAR more than any of the other princes thus far. Eric is a seasman, he loves going out on the ocean in his ships. He’s adventurous, good-looking, and an overall nice guy. We see that he isn’t really into fancy stuff, outright cringing when Grimsby unveils the statue. He also isn’t interested in Grimsby trying to set him up with various noble women. Like Jasmine and to a degree Prince Charming, he wants to find love for love, but on his own time. These are the traits that attract Ariel to him. Plus he’s also heroic, going back to a BURNING SHIP in order to save his dog Max… yeah I’d fall in love with him too.

After Ariel saves him, Eric becomes determined to find her. But he only briefly saw her face and heard her voice. Funny how NO ONE gets on Eric for this while hating on Ariel, but again we’ll get to that soon enough. When he meets Ariel he recognizes her face… but since she can’t talk, assumes that she can’t be the mystery girl. Still, being a good person, he takes her back to the palace to give her shelter. It’s not long before he becomes endeared by her though. She’s pretty, sweet, and even though she can’t talk he has a good time showing her around the kingdom. It's so clear by /Kiss the Girl/ that he has fallen for her, to the point that even Grimsby points it out to him. It gets him to give up on the mystery girl which is VERY important. It shows us that Eric didn’t fall for Ariel because she happened to be the girl he was looking for, but because of who she is as a person. It shows the audience that his feelings are genuine which makes us further root for him and Ariel… too bad that Ursula goes and ruins it.

As far as personality goes, Eric is more fun than his predecessors, but he’s still stuck with the standard prince-like personality. He’s given more lines than all of them combined and has a real charm to him. You can see why Ariel would like a guy like him. He’s kind, fun, adventurous, and even a little rebellious. He is her ideal vision of what humans are like. The end of the film lets him prove himself as well, going out to help Ariel despite the danger and of course using his own ship to kill Ursula. It does cause Ariel to be a bit of a Damsel in Distress, but she DID save him much earlier and she stops Ursula from blasting him to smithereens, so it balances out. It was enough to prove himself to Triton, at least. So Eric is a nice step up as far as princes go, but we’re not quite out of the well with them yet. But it won’t be much longer, heehee XD

There’s other supporting characters that I really don't have much to say about. Ariel’s sisters are nicely designed, but ultimately bland. I think the series and Ariel’s Beginning did more with them, but otherwise there’s not anything to discuss. Grimsby is fine enough, being the closest thing that Eric has to a parental figure (where ARE Eric’s parents in all of this anyways?) and is stuffy, but otherwise a decent guy. Chef Louie is… crazy. That’s all that I can say. This film has a lot of characters, let’s put it that way. But of course, we have one more to go over. The titular little mermaid herself. I’ve been hinting at this throughout the review, so I think you all know exactly how this will go…

Ariel Analysis

I cannot stress enough how massive a step Ariel was for the Disney Princess line. As much as I have defended the Classic Three and standby all of that, there is certainly some repetition going one with them. All three are beautiful, passive, and can’t directly do much to accomplish their dreams. And at least two of them are dreaming mainly about a man, which is NOT a bad thing, but it was certainly getting old. Feminism has also been evolving since 1959, the last time a Disney Princess film came out. A lot had changed in those thirty years. Women in media could now be more proactive, take matters into their own hands, and have their own hopes and dreams that weren’t just about love while still being allowed to find love. Simply put, as much as I love Snow White, Cinderella, and Aurora, the times had changed and it was time for Disney to get with those times. Thus we got Ariel, and she was exactly the right princess to take the line into a whole new direction.

The beginning of the film is a pretty clever way to set her up. The Classic Three are known for being angelic singers, and for good reason. It’s pretty much the first thing they do when we meet them (well, as an adult in Aurora’s case) so the concert sets this up. It’s Ariel’s ‘debut” and her sisters all have the looks and angelic voices that fit the archetypal Disney Princess. But then the shell opens up… and is empty. Then we cut to Ariel, who is about to go inside a sunken ship to look for surface world artifacts. It is an excellent subversion, setting up a Classic Princess move and flipping it on it’s head. It’s shown very quickly that Ariel is adventurous and actively seeking out her dreams despite her situation instead of trying to just make do with the way things were and hoping for the best. We also get a fun sequence of her and Flounder escaping a shark, so first time a Princess got an action scene as well.

The film very quickly establishes Ariel’s love and fascination with the surface world. Exploring sunken ships, going to Scuttle to get more information, later we see her grotto that is filled with so many items that we would consider standard, but that she considers treasures. These mean so much to her. She finds the surface world ‘wonderful’. But there are setbacks and consequences for her actions, in this case her forgetting about the concert. She didn't mean to and feels bad about it, and Flounder mentioning the reason why didn’t help. It’s clear that Ariel and Triton have been arguing about this for a long time, the latter failing to understand how much this means to Ariel and is at his wit’s end. His demands for her to stop upset her, causing her to storm out of the throne room and head for her grotto.

This leads to Part of Your World. This song/sequence is vital to understand Ariel’s character. This is the song where she expresses all her hopes and dreams. How she wants to be human. How she wants to learn more about the surface world. How she wants to experience things like walking down a street or finding out how a fire can burn. Throughout the film, we never learn how Ariel got so interested in human culture and just why she’s so passionate about it. But we really don’t need an in-depth explanation because this song conveys so much sincerity and emotion that it makes us believe in her passion. We understand how much this matters to her, and in turn it makes it matter to us. It’s why if it had gotten removed, it would have robbed Ariel of this depth and in turn, rob the film of something essential to its story. Thank God it remained intact.

This is a good time to talk about Ariel’s voice actress, Jodi Benson. Having originally been in Howard Ashman’s failed musical Smile, she was brought in originally as Ariel’s singing voice before being promoted to also doing the speaking the lines. This was not only her voice acting debut, but as far as I can tell her film debut as well. She did such a lovely job in the role. She perfectly conveys Ariel’s passion, drive, and sincerity while still coming off as a sixteen year old girl. Her singing voice has been rightfully praised, and to this day Ariel is often considered the best singer among the princesses. Benson has gone on to do other voice roles such as Barbie in the Toy Story films, Patsy and Ms. Doe in Camp Lazlo, and Aquagirl in Batman Beyond. She has continued to reprise Ariel to this day when needed and has always expressed so much love and gratitude for the film and her part in it, She’s also supported others who have done the role like Auli’i Cravallho (aka Moana) for the ABC Musical and Halle Bailey for the upcoming live-action remake. She’s a lovely woman and may she continue to do well~

Going back to the film, Ariel finds herself at a ship and this is where she sees Eric for the first time. It’s love at first sight. Of the Renaissance Era Princesses, Ariel is the one who gets the ‘love at first sight’ critique levied at her the most. Belle and Mulan of course didn’t have that issue and I usually see Jasmine and Pocahontas be given a free pass in this regard. Now of the five, The Little Mermaid IS the most blatant with the trope, but let’s look at it through Ariel’s POV. This is the first time that she’s seen so many humans up close. Eric is around her age (to my knowledge, at least. His VA was 16 at the time IIRC). It is very quickly established that Eric is jovial, uninterested in things like statues in his image, rebellious as he has rejected all the women Grimsby has arranged him with, and wants to find love for himself. He has many of the traits that Ariel herself has, being a rebellious, free-spirit teen herself. But most of all he is heroic, as demonstrated when he goes back to his burning ship to save his dog.

In other words, Eric is Ariel’s ideal vision of what people are like. She saves him from drowning, the first time that a Princess has saved her Prince, and is able to look at him more closely. She is clearly infatuated and seeing this man, this good-hearted, handsome young man who is everything that she ever dreamed of. This is what pushes her from just dreaming about being human to swearing that somehow she /will/ be human. Yes, she gets motivated by love, but the goal was there before this moment. It just became a solidified goal. One that she is going to make a reality someway, somehow. She even notes in the Part of Your World Reprise that she doesn’t know when or how, but it doesn’t matter. Compared to how fleeting her hopes were in the main song, the reprise is so much more triumphant and determined and continues to show just how important this truly is to Ariel.

Sadly however she still has one obstacle in between her and her dream; her father. The next day she is so happy and lovesick and it’s really cute, but Sebastian knows that this is going to cause major issues with her father. His big Under the Sea plea goes ignored, and Ariel is led to her grotto by Flounder, who has brought her the Eric statue. She’s so happy and acting like… well, a teenager in love. But unfortunately due to Sebastian jumping the gun, Triton finds out and he is enraged. Not only is he angry that Ariel again went to the surface, but she both saved and fell in love with a human. Thus we get the dark scene of Triton, in his rage, destroying the grotto. Every item, treasure, and relic that Ariel has gathered for who knows how long has become nothing but a pile of dust. Including the statue of the man she loves. 

Say what you want about ‘love at first sight’ or Ariel being a lovesick dummy, but this is outright traumatizing. This sixteen year old girl, a girl who aside from forgetting a few engagements has done nothing wrong, had all of her hopes and dreams shattered by her own father all because of his own blind hatred. Imagine being a teenager and your parents destroying everything you love all because they hated something that you loved. Even if Triton regretted it, it doesn’t change the pain that he inflicted upon his own daughter as she breaks down. She’s so upset that she rejects Sebastian trying to apologize and just tells him and Flounder to go away. They comply, leaving Ariel to cry in her now bare grotto… that is, until Flotsam and Jetsam appear.

So.. let’s now talk about Ariel going to Ursula and accepting the deal. First, her going in the first place. When Flotsam and Jetsam bring Ursula up, Ariel… /refuses/ to go. She is aware that Ursula is bad news. She had no intention of going to her at first and outright tells the eels to leave. What makes her agree? The two knocking the remains of the Eric statue in front of her. At this point, Ariel’s pretty much been rejected by her father and all of her treasures that kept her seabound are gone, so… what’s she got left to lose? She follows and naturally Sebastian tries to stop her, but she just angrily tells him to get her father since he’s good at that.

Ariel enters Ursula’s domain, and we come to the scene. Ursula declares to have changed, demonstrates her power, and offers Ariel the deal to become human for three days and it’ll be permanent if Eric kisses her. If Ariel fails, she not only becomes a mermaid again, but she belongs to Ursula. She also has to give up her voice as payment. Now we all know the big criticism against this, that being Ariel selling her voice and leaving behind her family and all that she ever knew and loved… for some prince that she hasn’t even really met yet, let alone spoken to. Now do I see why people dislike this? Yes. It’s a very rash, very stupid decision not just for those factors, but the fact that Ariel is essentially selling herself to the devil for this one thing. None of this is a good thing… but here is the big question, does the film do enough that this makes sense for Ariel’s character? Is this something that I can see her doing?

Yes, yes I can.

Let’s look at this piece by piece. First, Ariel is clearly uncomfortable the entire time that she is in Ursula’s lair. Ursula continuously gets into her personal space, laying on the manipulation at every step. When she lays out the deal, Ariel is at first hesitant. She herself brings up that if she takes it, she’ll likely never see her family again. She’s also hesitant when Ursula lays out the terms of payment, not just because she has no idea how she’d woo Eric without it, but just the concept of losing her voice clearly unnerves her. Look at her face when she grabs at her own throat, she is NOT okay with this. Even when Ursula begins to create the brew and poof sup the contract, Ariel isn’t excited or just jumps to it without thinking. She is VERY CLEARLY hesitant and unnerved about everything. 

So… why does she do it then? Well remember, she’s still emotional after her confrontation with her father. Her father has rejected her in her eyes and destroyed everything that she had worked for. At this point, her dreams and feelings for Eric are all that she has. She is hurt, emotional, and desperate and when we are hurt, emotional, and desperate we tend to make rash, even outright stupid decisions. Especially when we’re teenagers. Ursula waited to strike at this very moment for this exact reason; so that Ariel wouldn’t be thinking rationally.  These are the exact kind of people that Ursula preys on, and as I said above, she knows how to manipulate them to act how she wants. She gives Ariel the offer of her dreams, assures her that she can woo Eric without talking, poofs Eric’s image up at one point, and makes it clear that she’s giving her very little time to think it over. 

With absolutely nothing left to lose and it being clear that her father will never support her dreams, Ariel reluctantly signs the contract. She outright turns her head away when she signs. She KNOWS that she’s making a big choice and she isn’t 100% okay with it. She didn’t just give up her life callously for a man like some like to make out. It was a rash choice, but she had reluctance and fears about it. But it’s the only chance she’ll get to get her dream of being human and being happy, which is what ultimately drives her to make her choice. Given how she risked her life already against a shark, this is in-character for her and shows how far she’ll go for her dreams. And as we’ll see, this is going to have consequences as we near the end of the film.

So the deal is made. Ariel loses her voice and is transformed into a human. Once she makes it to shore, she gets to see her new legs, and for the first time since the confrontation, is happy. She has legs. She is human. The one thing that she had wanted for so, so long has finally come true. Naturally Sebastian wants to get Triton, but she stops him and gives him the saddest, most pleading look that I think I’ve ever seen. This is Ariel’s one and only chance to get what she dreamed of. Triton would not only stop her, but considering what happened before, who knows what else he’d do if he saw her as a human. It is 10% understandable why Ariel doesn't want him involved, especially once it would just lead her back to a life of misery. Sebastian realizes this and agrees to help her, which pretty much gets her to forgive him for what happened before.

Thus, we get to the first true meeting between Ariel and Eric. Of course, Ariel can’t explain who she is because of her voice being gone, so Eric assumes that she can’t be the same girl he saw despite her looking like her. But he sees her in the makeshift dress that Scuttle got her into and assumes that she’s shipwrecked, especially since she can’t walk well. So he takes her to the palace, and Ariel is able to get refreshed and get used to walking on legs. She is clearly delighted by everything. She is now part of the world that she longed for,, and she is loving every second of it. Sure she quickly finds out that forks aren’t combs, but hey she’s learning exactly what she wanted to learn. She is in utter bliss throughout the two days that she’s on the surface, doing thinks like learn to dance and ride a horse-drawn carriage. It’s all she ever hopes it would be.

But of course, Ariel still needs to get Eric to kiss her, or all of her dreams will end. She almost makes it with Kiss the Girl, which despite not being able to talk she made it pretty clear that she was willing and ready for Eric to kiss her. Ursula ruins that, but Ariel HAS endeared herself to Eric and he even prepares to go to her after giving up on the mystery mermaid. But of course, Ursula disguises herself as Vanessa via Ariel’s voice and hypnotizes Eric into marrying her. It’s sad because when Scuttle informs her of the proposal, Ariel is elated. She runs down the stairs, excited and gleeful… then she sees Eric and Vanessa, and you can see her heart break in two. It especially hits hard as she watches the ship take off, broken-hearted. She’s lost the man she loves, in moments she will be a mermaid again, and she will belong to Ursula fair and square. She pursued her dream, and it all seemed for naught.

But once Scuttle finds out about Ursula, Ariel quickly springs into action. With her friend's help, she reaches the ship just as Ursula’s necklace gets broken. This is a nitpick but I don’t like how Ariel ultimately wasn’t very active in helping rescuer Eric. Tbf IDK what she could have done, but I’d have liked to see her stand against Ursula before things go downhill. Otherwise it feels like this and the other events after… kind if feel handed to her by convenience and luck. But regardless she gets her voice back… but she fails to kiss Eric before the sun sets. That’s right folks, the so-called selfish, stupid deal that Ariel made? She failed to uphold it. She reverts to a Mermaid and now belongs to Ursula, and Triton can’t break it as it’s legally binding. So even if you DO think that Ariel made a bad choice, the film shows that yes, it WAS bad and she is now paying the consequences. Sure Triton sacrifices himself to take her place, but that still means that Ursula not only gets power, but her father is now a husk.

Ariel is enraged at this. Despite everything, I don’t think there’s any doubt that Ariel still loves her daddy. She was reluctant about never seeing him again before, and now seeing how her deal has lead to his fate upsets her. One big issue with Ariel is how… well, the film doesn’t make it clear that Ariel grew or learned anything. Sure there are consequences to her actions, but we don’t see her ponder over them. This is the closest we get to her showing regret as she tries to apologize to Triton and outright attacks Ursula for what she did to him. But she doesn’t express true regret for her actions. She doesn’t have a true reconciliation with her father so that the two can reach a resolution. I guess we can blame timing since we’re in the final ten or so minutes here, but it makes the end feel… convenient.

Eric saves Ariel from getting blasted by Ursula, and she manages to save him from Flotst and Jetsam. How? Bu yanking Ursula back and causing her to kill her own minions. Sure it’s not the Big Bad, but again Ariel marks a First in Disney Princess History by indirectly killing a villain. This provokes Ursula to go kaiju and essentially torment Ariel, who is unable to do anything at this point as she’s caught in a raging whirlpool. While one CAN say she’s a Damsel-in-Distress here (hence why I suggested Ariel should have gotten to do more in the wedding crash), she HAS saved Eric twice now. Plus by allowing Eric to kill Ursula, he essentially proves his worth by saving both the ocean AND the surface, and it contributes to Triton’s ultimate decision.

So yeah, Ursula dies, Triton corrects his wrongs by making Ariel human, and Ariel and Eric can live happily ever after. As I said, it /does/ kind of hurt Ariel’s character as she doesn’t really learn a lesson and it feels like she got incredibly lucky at the end. But at the same time Ariel is still a good character, and she marks a LOT of progression for the Disney Princess line. Sure she is a little selfish (though she usually means no harm), but she’s also someone who actively goes after her dreams. She doesn’t have to wait for it, nor does it center on love. Sure Eric is the catalyst, but that’s it. A catalyst. She’s allowed to rescue her prince. She’s allowed to fight against the villain. Sure she’s still emotional, falls in love, and needs her friends help. But she is also a very proactive, curious, and ambitious girl. Her dream was by far the most impossible of the Princesses thus far, but she still managed to achieve it.

Ariel is divisive, and I get why. The film DOES have some narrative problems (minor, but still) and I get why Ariel may rub some the wrong way. Me personally? I love her. She was a refreshing breath of air in the Princess line. She’s different from the Classic Three. She’s a bit more bratty and far less classy, but she also feels the most like a teenager and she follows her dreams in a very different manner. She’s still a good-hearted person, but she’s a flawed person. That’s what I love about her, she’s imperfect. Could more have been done to develop her? Maybe. But her flaws aren’t so bad that she’s a bad character or unlikeable. Her actions make sense and stay true to her character. I understand why she does what she does. I care for her because I see the sincerity in her. I relate to her longing for something that seems out of reach. And while it was nowhere near as conflicted, I know what it’s like to be in conflict with my father who loved me, but never truly understood who I was. But I loved him, he loved me, he ultimately would have let me lead the life I wanted, and in the end that’s what matters. It’s why Ariel and Triton at the wedding always makes me cry. Yeah, watching this two years after my dad passed… really hit hard.

The point is, I cared about Ariel. I related to Ariel. I did when I was a child, and I still do as an adult. Anyone who loves something or someone despite everyone around you not understanding or being against it I think can relate to Ariel and her position. Plus again, she set forward a new direction for the Disney Princesses. It’s a precedent that stands strong to this day. I’ve done my best to shed light onto Ariel, but it won’t convince everyone. If you hate her, fine. I can’t change your mind and tour free to make all the arguments you want. But I’m allowed to stand by my argument, and I am. Ariel is one of my favorites. She inspires kids to follow their curiosity and their ambitions. It teachers parents to accept their children and who/what they love, and to let them go forward in their lives. One can even argue that her film teaches kids to be careful when emotional to avoid the mistakes that she made, but still achieve a happy ending as well. Either way, I think that the hate against this little mermaid is far too harsh and it ALWAYS centers on the deal without taking anything else into account. It’s time we change that.

Final Thoughts

I love this film. The animation is lovely, the music fantastic, and despite a few issues here and there the story is sound. I don’t remember when I first saw it (it came out four years before I was born so not then), but I’ve loved it since that first time. I’m pretty sure I love the ocean and mermaids in general because of this film. Sure it diverts a good deal from the original Hans Christian Anderson story, but honestly? As someone who found that story unnecessarily cruel? I will take this version any day (no offense to those who like the original story, this is just me talking). It is a masterpiece that changed the game for Disney, for animation, and for the Disney Princesses. Ariel was very much a huge inspiration for many of her successors, and I am grateful for all that this little mermaid did.

Upon its release, Disney was FINALLY able to step into the light after spending over 20 years stuck in the dark. The film was a monumental success. The biggest success that Feature Animation had had since Walt’s days. They also finally beat Don Bluth, winning in the box office over All Dogs Go to Heaven, and returned to the top of the animation world. The Disney Renaissance had officially begun, and it wasn’t even close to slowing down. Just two years later, another Disney Princess film would be released. One that would achieve greatness, but also face great tragedy. So come and be our guest as when we return, we discuss a tale as old as time with 1991’s Beauty and the Beast.

Image Sources: Disney Wiki, Animation Screencaps Other Sources: The Making of The Little Mermaid: Treasures Untold

[ninjakitty15]

Chapter 10: Tricks Are For Gods (Loki x OFC Pairing)

"That right there is why guns are a dumb idea against zombies," I pointed out as we all watched one of the zombie movies Tony bought just to debunk for future reference. "Their eyes are shit but they hear just fine and if you want them to stop coming you need a firearm that causes maximum damage."

"But do they run that fast?" asked Clint on the couch adjecent from Loki and me.

"I mean if you really want them to but its like having explosive shits with them, the faster they run the more they fall apart."

A collective groan of disgust came from the other Avengers.

"Ask stupid questions, expect stupid answers. They're rotting corpses, c'mon people."

"IZombie's got a point," Tony agreed. "How was the outside world by the way?"

"I was very disappointed to find out people still royally suck and creeps still roam free unchecked and uncharged for their crimes, what the hell are you lot doing that this is still happening?"

"Dealing with bigger threats with bigger weapons obviously," Tony remarked. "Should I look on the video feed for what you were up to?"

"Nothing illegal, just fought fire with fire and creeped out the creeps of the streets."

"She's very good at it too," added Loki.

Of course that didn't stop Tony from snooping and of course he found footage of me scaring them off. "What did you say to that last guy that made him turn into an angry tomato?"

"Told him his dead mom and wife are ashamed of his existence, which isn't a lie at all, he's kind of a monster."

"What did he say to start this?"

"Told me pretty girls like me should smile more. Maybe I should sharpen my teeth."

"Please don't," Loki spoke up.

"Why not? All the better to eat you with, my dear."

"Can you not ruin my childhood stories please?" moaned Clint.

"Listen, most of them are from horror stories anyway just dumbed down for your innocent ears and eyes."

"Ring around the rosie, for starters. Grimm's fairy tales were all dark, some of the disney movies definitely," Tony agreed.

"Sleeping Beauty was raped in her sleep by the king she later married," I added on. "And girls still wanna be the next disney princess, hard pass there."

"I beg your pardon, what kind of people are you reading these kinds of tales to your children?" Loki demanded.

"Hey don't look at me, I don't even have children, I'm just a fan of horror stories and those popped up."

"What would you read to them if you did though?" asked Nat.

"Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, all three of them, don't look at me like that, I raise the dead for a living, my kids need to have nerves of steel just to live with me."

Loki studied me curiously, probably wondering how good or bad a mother I would be if that was possible or maybe what kind of family he envisioned us having if again possible. I turned to catch his eyes with my own and arched an eyebrow.

"Something you wanna share with the class?" I challenged.

"Just pondering a what if future," was his simple response.

"Don't strain yourself." A couch pillow was his response to my quip that had everyone kind of staring in shock at his childish but very amusing reaction. "That's real cute but unfortunately for you I'm gonna have to kill you now, eat feathers you glorified smurf!"

"This better not lead to what it usually leads to when one of you pounces on the other, what if Peter walks in? His innocent eyes!" cried Tony.

"He's a teenager, he's probably seen better porn than us at some point on the interwebs," I stated while beating an amused god with a throw pillow.

"Better porn? Is there such a thing?" asked Steve.

"Rule 34 hun, if it exists there's a porn for it, if it doesn't then there will be." And with that I continued to beat my lover with a pillow to the head.

"Free porn aside, I'm actually kinda curious who would win in a fight now, you or Loki," Clint mused.

We both stopped pummeling each other and looked at him then each other curiously. "With or without magic?" Loki asked.

"Without, just close range hand to hand or with blades if you must," Nat added.

My gaze went to her with an arched eyebrow. "Ya'll thinking about this?" A collective nod from the rest of the group was my answer before I returned my gaze to Loki. "What's your vote on this?"

"I'm all for it if you are."

You would think he'd go for the knives or rather the sticks that substituted knives but nope, ever the man of mischief, he chose the bo staff.  Thor would later tell me its because while he favors knives as they're easy to hide and stash away, Loki had much better luck with staves. I found out quite quickly how right that was. While I was no Michelle Yeoh, I did take martial arts even before I became a leader of undead battles as children are merciless and if they decide you're a freak they make you a target. Just outside the training area of the compound stood the not busy Avengers and not surprisingly Tony was already placing bets on who would win, hell I knew who would win, the one that's probably been training and fighting for half a millennia at least. But as a wise cigar smoking Goth dad once said, just because it's a bad idea doesn't mean it won't be a good time. I chose a different kind of bo staff, if the weapon worked for the Buddhist monks, it would work for me, right? Loki was very much like a cat or maybe he just was with me, stalking his prey, pacing, biding his time, calculating his moves whereas after being obsessed with old timey wushu movies at one point, I opted for a simple nonthreatening stance resembling Wong Fei-Hung, a ruse as I couldn't fight off 10 men or so with a bo staff like the legend did but no one had to know that. One foot forward, one perpendicular in a short fighting stance, staff held behind me with one hand, the shaft pressed against the arm, the other arm stretched out in front of me beckoning him forward. Most people would think twirling it a bit is the typical first move but that's more to show off or intimidate the opponent and I'm not the show off type, especially if I'm not the best at what I'm showing off. Loki moved first though, lunging and thrusting one end of his staff at my head, I easily side stepped it, , my head tilting away but my eyes never leaving his. I figure if I couldn't wear him out despite him being ancient compared to me, and I couldn't outright beat him in strength, I could probably just frustrate the hell out of him by never letting him land a hit. Getting under people's skin was my specialty after all. So that's what it was like for the beginning, letting him attack first and either simply dodging his staff or blocking it with my own staff.

"This is boring, make a move, Aang!" called Tony from the sidelines.

"Hey, he was the best Avatar in the series, and he kicked ass!" I called back.

"Then why don't you?"

"Patience is a virtue, old Stark!"

"You say old like you're not sleeping with the oldest person in the building!"

I snorted and blocked Loki's staff once more. "You're only as old as you act, grandpa." I watched Loki carefully, waiting for the opportune moment when he thought he could let his guard down believing I wasn't gonna go batshit crazy on him.

He sped up his attacks, probably thinking I'd step into action if I was being rushed but I still kept my leisure defense up, he tried a few more changing tactics to try to get me to strike back first before I saw the sign I was waiting for the whole time and forced myself to keep the poker face I wore, resisting the urge to smirk wickedly as he seemed to relax and go back to simply trying to hit me anyway he thought was an opening. I blocked his staff once more as he went for my stomach then quick as a whip swung mine to strike his knee, stomach, and head and he went down. The utter look of shock on his face was more than enough to make me break my expression into one of pure wickedness, a canary eating grin cracking through. The game had begun. He quickly got back to his feet and lunged at me again with his staff, no longer holding back as he whipped the ends at me one after another, the only sounds now were that of wood hitting wood and the shuffling of our feet as we went at each other. Several times he left himself wide open when he was swinging his staff behind and around him to hit me from another side which was amusing because although kinda cool looking and showy, he was totally exposed and I took full advantage of that hitting him in the stomach and causing him to drop his staff mid-swing though he was quick enough to catch one end and come down at me with the other. I raised my staff to block it and shifted my upper strength to hold him off while pulling apart my staff which was actually a two piece one almost seamlessly held together and struck him in the ribs with the other piece. He glared at me, the god of tricks being tricked in a fight by some dead chick he only met recently.

"Clever girl," he growled at me.

I grinned wider. "Give up, or are you thirsty for more?"

"Very well, you asked for it."

Somehow it didn't click in my head that being a god and all, he not only had enhanced strength but apparently speed too as me verbally challenging him and getting extra sneaky had me suddenly and swiftly struck several times in the stomach and side, my feet swept out from under me, and I was on back with one end of a bo staff pointed at my head.

"Isn't this a familiar position?" he purred above me, his eyes glittering.

I held back a retort in order to roll over to avoid his staff and then lock my legs on either side of one of his then roll again, knocking him to the ground as well and making him drop his staff again. I wasted no time in getting on top of him and still holding onto my two pieces of my staff the entire time, i crossed them against his throat. "Prefer this position myself."

"I'll have to remember that later." He raised his arms to his head while still on the ground in what I thought was him surrendering but quicker than a cheetah, snatched back his bo staff and swung, knocking me off him and making me drop both pieces he was just as quick to kick away from me before pinning me to the floor, a knee against each of my arms and the shaft of his staff against my throat. "The things I could do to you in this position."

"Pretty sure you've already done them and I recall you not wanting others to see us doing them."

He smirked but made no move whatsoever from where he knelt on top of me. "Don't act like you're not thinking what I'm thinking."

"Oh that's no secret here but I'd prefer it in the bedroom where there's soundproof walls and there's other options to keep me in place the whole time."

Both his eyebrows shot up at what was implied there. "I can arrange that. For now though, I'm not moving till you say the words."

I rolled my eyes but sighed in defeat. "I yield."

"Good girl." He got off me and offered me his hand to help me up which I took easily and was yanked up and flush against him, a hungry, hot kiss stolen from me. "We should do this again sometime," he breathed in my ear.

"We'll see." I nipped his earlobe teasingly before shoving him away and walking out of the training arena.

"Does everything have to be sexual between you two?" asked Tony.

"Listen, if you were cut off from all forms of pleasure for as long as I have and suddenly are given the ultimate form of it after, you'd take it with a smile too, as many times as you can."

"I'm the ultimate form, am I?" teased Loki behind me.

"Don't let that get to your head or your excessively ornate helmet won't fit on you anymore," I retorted. "And it really brings the whole outfit together."

"I was under the impression you liked me more without an outfit."

I shrugged innocently. "A woman can change her mind."

"Am I going to have to separate you two or something?" Tony interrupted.

"I mean you could just let me go home..."

"Tempting but till our mutual enemies are out of the equation, I don't see that happening."

"Well then, I'll have to refer you to the three T's."

"The three T's?"

"Tough titties, Tony." I grabbed Loki's hand and poof we were gone.

[rabbitsparklez]

“I love you, more than you will ever know”

Alright, I’ve said this before as a reply to something I reblogged a little big ago, but I’m putting in a separate post and adding to it. (I’m not counting this as plagiarism because it’s my own post lol)

Apparently to some people, in Tangled: the Series it almost kind of seems that Rapunzel doesn’t show as much love towards Eugene as she did in the movie, but that doesn’t mean she loves him less than she did in the movie. They’re just used to each other and more casual with each other. Okay, she isn’t as much of a dramatic romantic as she was, but the movie is where we got the most dramatic parts of their relationship so far: The realization that they loved one another, and the trauma of Eugene’s death. It was in those scenes where Rapunzel shows her strongest affection towards him. Now, it’s not like she’s going to spend every second of every day focusing on him, (heck it isn’t even healthy to be that obsessed with someone). If you are referring to the fact that she sometimes pays more attention to other characters like her parents or Cassandra, I understand why you wouldn’t like that, but still, I strongly believe that she loves him more than she loves anyone and I’ll explain why.

After seeing the movie, where Rapunzel and Eugene are the two protagonists and almost have equal importance to the plot, you would expect that they would do everything together, fight side-to-side always, and be extremely close in every episode, but that isn’t exactly the case. Rapunzel is the main character in the series and Eugene isn’t given as much credit as he is in the movie. Does that bother me? Yes, sometimes it kind of does. I would LOVE it if the show gave Eugene a lot more importance considering his critical role in the movie, but in terms of romance, Disney Channel has its limits. I still would like to see more interaction with Eugene as a character, but that doesn’t mean that Rapunzel loves him less than she did. Some fans are upset that Rapunzel and Eugene don’t seem to have as strong of a connection as they did, but I know that that’s not the case. Again, the writers can’t make it too romantic because of their limits, but that does absolutely not mean that their bond is weakening. Rapunzel, who has a lot of other things to worry about in her life, doesn’t quite show him as much importance as he shows her. I sometimes do really miss the extreme love and passion she showed him in the movie, but I know that with all of the surroundings in her life - Parents, leadership, betrayal, responsibilities, trauma, etc - that she has to balance herself among all of those things. Rapunzel has a lot more to think about in her life than Eugene does in his. Rapunzel is pretty much the core of Eugene’s life, but he is more like one of the many different important things in her life (I emphasize the important though). 

But by a lot of things, I believe that she loves him more than she loves anyone. She knows that he is basically the foundation to her independence and freedom, and that she wouldn’t have anything if it wasn’t for him. A few people seem to think that Rapunzel is pushing Eugene aside to please Cassandra, but  even so, there is no way on earth that she is doing that because Cass means more to her, because in terms of honesty, Eugene means a lot more to Rapunzel than any of her other friends. He is pretty much shown as her favorite person, even though he isn’t always the center of attention. He is the first one who she runs to when she needs a hug, the first one whom she decides needs a birthday party, and the first one who she talks to about when she thinks there’s something wrong (such as when she thinks Shorty is suspicious in “Mirror Mirror”) . She relies on him to sit in her windowsill with her to talk about things with and bring her cupcakes, because she understands that he will do anything in her favor. She knows that he will be patient with her and do all in her favor to make her life as manageable as possible, because he promised her that he would be patient with her in TBEA. Not only that, but she knows that he has faith in her. He openly expressed that he had faith in her in “Lost and Found”, and afterwards throughout the show, he very clearly does. Rapunzel had spent her entire life as a dependent person, who never had a chance to show herself as strong, and someone who believes in her to an enormous extent showed up and brought out the best of her.

Also, if she ever “set him aside”, especially for reasons related to people like Cassandra, I am pretty sure that it was because she knows that Eugene already accepts her for who she is. The fact that Rapunzel often gave into what Cassandra said does absolutely not mean that she is more important to her than Eugene is; quite the opposite, actually. If you grew up with little siblings like I did, you may have noticed that your mom was a lot less strict and directed a lot of things towards the little kids. She didn’t do that because the little kids were more important to her, but because they weren’t mature enough to understand that the world didn’t revolve around them. The older kids didn’t get everything they wanted because they were mature enough to accept what mom said. Alright, that is a little bit of a weird comparison, but it makes sense. Eugene is like the “older kid”, who knows and understands that not everything in Rapunzel’s life is about him. Cassandra, on the other hand, is like the “little kid”, who needs to learn that Rapunzel can’t make everything about her, just because she’s her friend. Eugene, being the most patient person in Rapunzel’s life, never ever pulled her leg to get her pay more attention to him, and Rapunzel realizes this. She knew that if she listened to Eugene, she would have made Cassandra angry and there would be a bunch of drama, but she trusted Eugene to be patient enough for her to deal with Cassandra. Now we’re seeing that Rapunzel isn’t putting up with anyone telling her what to and what not to do, and that is one of the causes of Cassandra’s friendship to slide downhill, which basically shows that Cassandra can’t accept Rapunzel’s independence. Eugene is the opposite. Eugene and Cassandra were Rapunzel’s two close friends in Season 1, but I have noticed that they show the opposite effects towards Rapunzel. While Cassandra constantly brought up Rapunzel’s defects, like her bad decisions and her naivete, Eugene always brought up her good traits, and sees her as an independent, responsible woman. Cassandra ultimately was the one who turned against Rapunzel, while Eugene is the one who will continue to stand by her forever. To summarize this, the fact that Rapunzel did not center all of her attention to Eugene is the result of her trusting in his patience. I am not at all saying that giving someone attention is bad, but in the cases I’m referring to, where the princess is everyone’s center of attention, Eugene is showing respect by giving her the space she needs, and doesn’t want her to have another thing to worry about - that’s the last thing Rapunzel needs. Rapunzel shows by her understanding of Eugene’s good qualities of patience and respect that she loves him a lot. (Again, this is not hating on Cass as an individual character)

Even though they’re not engaged yet, I’m positive that Rapunzel and Eugene both know inside of their minds that they will get married some day, but just don’t admit it. They have so much devotion, trust, respect, and love for each other that there’s no way that they will not be there for each other in the future. In TBEA, Eugene, as I said, promised that he will be patient with every step Rapunzel takes. In BTCW, and on multiple other instances, Rapunzel emphasized that Eugene positively will be in her future no matter what. They often discuss things that highly express “later in our lives together”, such as wedding ceremony decorations in BTCW, and having kids in “You’re Kidding Me”. At the end of “There’s Something About Hookfoot” Rapunzel pretty much labeled Eugene as “that special person”. Both of them know that they will never, ever decide that they don’t work out; they know that they are constant partners and will always be.

That was a long essay, but I’m just here to say that Rapunzel basically shows in multiple ways that she loves Eugene more than anyone, even if you can’t see it right away.

[tsutsukkomi]

HEXL /『ヒール』theory post

( trigger warning for mentions of transphobia, intrusive thoughts, and bullying! )

so here is my interpretation / theory post on what i think Loin’s song HEXL could mean, based mostly on visuals. i would just like to point that i myself am ftm, so this is a bit more of a personal interpretation based on the mv, though i will include very roughly translated lyrics if it adds onto what i'm trying to say.

this is my very first vocaloid theory post! i love loin and this song really hit home for me, so i wanted to write about it. plus lots of visuals because nekozemon’s art for the mv is gorgeous!

to summarize; i believe this song is about an ftm trans boy who was bullied for being trans, and was called a monster for it. at the end of the video, he accepts who he is and, if he truly is a monster, he decides to embrace it.

before i start, here are some things i was able to gather from @loin and @nekozemon’s (the artist’s) twitter. loin (@L0_1N)’s tag line for the song on their twitter describes hexl as “a story of a way of life that is not the leading role” (or at least, that’s what my translation said). nekozemon describes how, when they were younger, they would be forced into the team that would lose rock-paper-scissors in class, and mentioned how they wanted to make use of that experience / feeling in an mv. these are just rough translations though, so take that with a grain of salt!

trans terminology to know: ftm (female to male), afab (assigned female at birth), amab (assigned male at birth), agab (assigned gender at birth)

to me personally, the protagonist in this mv (uniform aside) doesn't look as masculine as, say, the "prince" character (who, for convenience sake, i'll just call prince). if you look at the protagonist at 0:09 and at 0:30 his hair appears to be a little longer and more unkempt than prince's is. this stood out to me and reminded me of when i first cut my hair short, and how messy and unkempt it was, and even though it was short it was still difficult for me to present as entirely masculine, and since this character is wearing a school uniform i’d assume this was their first time cutting their own hair / they’re inexperienced with it.

also, if you squint, the protagonist has pink lips, whereas prince doesn't, and the protagonist also has quite noticeable eyelashes. this character design reminds me a lot of an ftm person who is still slowly transitioning, and despite him wearing the male uniform, his facial features / hair still give away that he is afab.

if you look at prince, he doesn't have pink lips or eyelashes like that at all.

i would also like to point out prince's use of the line "化け物じみてる図体でさぁ……。" which roughly translates to "it's a monster-like figure..." this stuck out to me because trans people are often seen as "freaks" or "monsters", basically they're seen as different but for a bad reason. i know i experience a lot of similar discrimination in school due to my gender identity, and was called a freak for it as well.

additionally, the word "urameshi ya" is tossed in there, which roughly translates into "envy". the protagonist envies prince for being amab, for having it easy since he’s cis, and for not knowing what it feels like to get bullied the way our protagonist is.

at 0:31, in his bag, you can see the heels and the monster mask for the first time, and i believe they’re obscured in his bag (and even blurred before coming into focus) because, at this point and time, he doesn’t want neither the mask nor the heels to be seen, and he tries to hide them, as if to symbolize the protagonist wishing he wasn’t trans, wishing he wasn’t himself. i’ll get back to those.

at 0:39 the protagonist imagines his bully in the prince attire. i’ll get back to this as well since it comes up much more evidently again later on, but this was the first instance of it happening.

at 0:25, the protagonist is sitting beside this piece of gymnastics equipment that i can’t remember the name of. often p.e. classes require a change of clothes, and girls and boys tend to have different phys ed uniforms. protagonist sitting beside this piece of equipment and playing his game could symbolize him choosing not to participate in p.e. so as to not feel his dysphoria when he has to wear the phys ed uniform.

i can then see the protagonist playing his video game as symbolism for trying to immerse himself in a different world. this is something i also would do; i would play games or watch anime as a way to escape, and would try to superimpose myself onto the identity of, say, a male protagonist character, as a form of coping with my identity.

however, because of the constant bullying he received from prince, instead of seeing himself as the male video game character, he instead sees himself as the monster (remember that prince referred to him as a monster as well when he bullied the protagonist).

our protagonist chooses to see his bully as the prince character because the prince who bullies him irl is amab, and to him that is a sort of "royalty" or “luxury” the protagonist never got to have. after all, no one would bully a prince, right?

he's seen as inherently good solely for sticking to his assigned gender at birth. our protagonist, however, was seen as a monster for choosing to go against his birth gender and being ftm. the protagonist lets the monster kill his video game avatar because he sees it as himself (the monster) being able to stand up to his bully (the prince), if that makes sense.

also to note, a high heeled shoe can be seen in his eye at 0:53, possibly symbolizing that he’s still having trouble accepting his identity, and feels he is still too feminine for people to see him as a guy.

however, after the monster kills his avatar, the screen says "game over" (1:06). this could be symbolism for how, even if he stands up to the people bullying him for his gender, he won't win because he'll never be amab like them.

the protagonist thinks to himself, "時に、悪は愛より美しいぜ", roughly translated to "sometimes, evil is more beautiful than love". he thinks of himself as "evil" because he is the monster, but believes that just because he's "evil" doesn't mean he's ugly...?

i feel the "love" part could be in reference to how, at the end of the mv, when the prince kisses the princess, it is shown as "beautiful" for being not just a heterosexual relationship, but a heterosexual relationship between two cis people. however, those cis people (or at least, the prince bully), aren't beautiful for the way they discriminate against and treat the protagonist.

at 1:08, prince hands the protagonist a monster mask. we know at the end of the video that prince was the protagonist in what appeared to be a school play (which may have been another reason for the protagonist associating him with the character in his game), so prince holding this mask out to our protagonist is almost like him taunting the protagonist more with how much of a "freak" he really is. it's sort of like prince is firmly implying that he's a monster, so this mask would suit him.

the protagonist gazes down at the mask (1:14) and i didn't quite know what to make of this. it's like he's looking at it, searching for an answer, trying to figure out what he should do. the lyrics after this, from what i translated, said something of "the tragedy of my sentence"; this could be interpreted as the protagonist seeing his afab body as being a prison, and it is tragic because he can never escape it. he cannot change the fact that he is afab, and that makes him feel imprisoned. 

i feel like the other, smaller monsters (as well as the big one to a certain extent) could also symbolize his "inner demons", as in the thoughts things such as being trans, not presenting masculine enough, being called a monster etc., that he faces every day; his intrusive thoughts. this could be a symptom of the dysphoria he experiences. i don't have anything for the lyrics here agsdhgjksfg

this is where the chorus comes again, and i would like to point out the usage of the name "cinderella" in this chorus. in cinderalla's fairy tale (the disney version, at least) when she wears her glass slippers, she transforms into a beautiful princess. these glass slippers are often depicted as being heels, which are a type of shoe seen as inherently feminine. however the lyrics here say "we're not cinderella".

i don't know who the "we" is referring to outside of the protagonist (maybe the other monsters that show up?), but in the first chorus the line is "there are shoes that only we can wear", and in the second chorus it says "there are wounds that only we can understand". the shoes lyric could be in reference to how some clothes are stereotypically seen as being inherently masculine or feminine (such as the heels being an inherently feminine thing to wear). the verse about wounds, however, could symbolize the discrimination that lgbt+ people (specifically trans people, in this case) experience every day, and how cishet people could never understand something like that.

i also believe that “cinderella” could symbolize the transformation he goes through, aka his transition from being female to male. cinderella's transformation into a princess gave her a sort of confidence, so she could go to the ball and dance with the prince. here the protagonist claims he’s “not cinderella”, because while he does transform, he doesn’t transform into something that society typically deems “beautiful,” however, he transforms into what makes him feel confident, despite society seeing him as “evil” or as a “monster”.

also to note, at 1:58 there’s a monster in his eye instead of the high heel shoe. this could symbolize him slowly starting to accept himself, and i will explain why him “seeing himself as a monster” could also symbolize him accepting his identity in a bit.

the "let's crush them! it's not right!" line could be seen as the protagonist's intrusive thoughts again. when he sees the monster beating up the prince character, he probably thinks that he could do the same to his bully. however, the line after, "there is a way of salvation that isn't a mistake", are probably what he thinks to counteract those negative intrusive thoughts. the protagonist, not letting his intrusive thoughts get to him, thinks, 'there must be a way to solve my problem without getting physical'.

also, 1:43 is the protagonist literally seeing his bully as the prince character in his game. this makes it quite evident that he sees the monster in his game as himself. and every time the protagonist comes close to pushing the button to fight back, he instead chooses to let the monster win. this could be seen as him mentally standing up to his bully, or as him letting his "inner demons", his intrusive thoughts, win.

people with dysphoria tend to suffer from these intrusive thoughts a lot, which is why i feel it is such a major part of this song. at the beginning, the bullying the protagonist receives from prince probably only increase his already bad intrusive thoughts, making him feel like he'll always be a monster, and that he'll never be a boy, or that nobody will ever see him as a boy.

i'm not quite sure what to make of 2:08 to 2:27. it could be seen as the protagonist trying to fight his intrusive thoughts, hence why all the monsters disappear, but he always looks so... expressionless, sad even. perhaps it could be because he's used to being bullied and treated like a monster like this, but when he says "we're not cinderella", it could be him finally emphasizing and slowly accepting who he is. like he's not letting his monsters get to him anymore. 

there's also those hands on a clock, which probably symbolize the clock striking midnight in the cinderella fairy tale, which causes cinderella to turn back into her regular, old self. however the hands move past midnight when they're hovering over the protagonist's face, which could symbolize that he's not going to stop being who he is.

when he puts on the heels, (3:36), he also puts on the monster mask. he “stays transformed”, he remains a boy, because that’s who he is.

the final chorus, i believe, is the protagonist coming to terms with and accepting who he is. he finally pushes that button and conquers the monster in his game, symbolizing that he's letting that part of himself die. he's letting the part of himself that constantly doubted his gender die, and he's accepting who he is. 

after he looks down at those heels (3:06-3:08), he looks back up, as if he has some sort of newfound resolve. he's probably looking ahead to the play that's happening at 3:34 (it’s very subtle, but his eyes go wide when he looks up to the play at first). nekozemon also does something really neat here, making it look like the protagonist is finally stepping out of the shadows when he lifts his head, which could symbolize a multitude of things... specifically that he’s not going to keep his identity hidden anymore, no longer in the shadows.

the monster dies, but he has a smile on his face at 3:24, whereas when he was struggling earlier he looked angry. but once the protagonist walked past him (probably headed towards the stage), he smiles, because the protagonist has finally found the confidence to be himself. he explodes into confetti--something that usually appears at celebrations like birthdays. this could be a symbol of the protagonist finally celebrating his newfound self-confidence.

at 3:35, we see the prince looking shocked as the protagonist steps onto the stage. not only is he wearing the heels that (probably) once taunted him in the past, but he's got the mask that the bully handed to him before over his head to. 

before pulling it down over his face, at 3:37 the protagonist smiles for the first time in the whole song. he was emotionless this whole time, but after finally accepting who he is, he smiles. if the bully wants him to be a monster, then the protagonist decides, he'll be his monster.

the title also changes from "heel" to "heal". the heels are obviously a reference to the shoes, but they could also literally mean "heel" as in to control or discipline, like when someone tells a dog to heel. when the bully turned into the prince at 1:43 and held his sword out, it looked as though the prince (the bully) is telling the monster (the protagonist) to heel. but at the end, when the protagonist accepts who he is, he's decided to heal. he's healing from what his bully did to him, he's healing from his intrusive thoughts, from his dysphoria, he's healing and accepting himself.

and that was my interpretation! if you read all that then thank you, i know it's really long but this song really hit home for me and reminded me of when i was younger and experiencing major dysphoria before i started to accept myself. if you have any other interpretation of the song (especially the lyrics, because i can't speak japanese and google translated most of this HJFHGJKSFG) i would love to hear them!!!

[that-shamrock-vibe]

Disney+ What To Watch: My Top 10 Favourite Disney Live-Action Remakes

#8. Lady and the Tramp

This remake was definitely a benefit to getting Disney+, as this was one of the exclusive original movies available at launch with the streaming service.

The streaming service also allowed me to re-watch the original animated movie before seeing this remake so I could refresh my memory. My thoughts on the original are now what they were when I first saw it years ago which are...it was alright, not one of Disney’s best but definitely not one of the worst, somewhere in the midriff.

The live-action remake was a surprisingly good watch considering my laissez-faire opinions on the original because I was expecting to feel the same as I did because the trailer made it seem like they were effectively just hitting the plot-points of the movie but in a live-action setting.

Fortunately though, the live-action Lady and the Tramp had something of an advantage in the live-action field, unlike say The Lion King or Christopher Robin because it is simply a movie about humans and dogs without any anthropomorphic or fantastical elements.

Obviously there was some CGI at play here in order to make the dogs talk and I’m guessing movie how they were supposed to, but they were never distracting to the point where I could tell I was watching fake dogs in a real-life setting.

It’s interesting that the location of the movie seemed to change from the animated New Haven to the live-action New Orleans. especially considering both settings seem to suit the story well but in this version, like The Princess and the Frog, the jazz-originated setting of New Orleans is really played up in the music and scenery of the movie.

Especially considering we never really explored the town properly in the original movie save for Tramp’s introduction scene and the “Belle Notte” scene, having more world building when it comes to stores and the people inhabiting the city.

Also, something that the original would not do given the main issue of Disney’s Golden Age, I really enjoyed the exploration of two main mix-raced couples. Not only with Lady and the Tramp in terms of dog breeds, but also both actors voicing them and portraying Jim Dear and Darling as both women were African-American.

Tessa Thompson as Lady was very good, I think she brought a lot of character, sass and humour to the character and definitely proved that Lady could hold her own against Tramp...but there inlies the slight problem I had. Lady by definition is supposed to be a product of the upper class whereas Tramp is supposed to be a product of the lower class. Yet here, not only does Lady come across as being as common as Tramp is, but also it is revealed that Tramp was formerly a house dog but was abandoned and therefore hardened to the “sheltered life”.

I will say, Tramp I was originally slightly creeped out by because of the animation on him when he talks, but Justin Theroux does play Tramp as that cynical and hardened persona quite well...to the point where he is openly prepared to abandon puppies who have also been abandoned because he feels it’s just the natural order of things...those puppies were very cute.

But also, I feel making Tramp so cynical takes away from the likeability he had in the original movie being so nurturing to Lady when she had that muzzle on her, but then you could also argue that their interactions in this movie is more realistic and at least Lady held her own against him.

I am also glad that Jock and Trusty both got more development here, while I did miss the inclusion of Trusty losing his tracking ability due to his age, the addition of Jock firstly being a female voiced brilliantly by Ashley Jensen but also being the subject of her owner’s constant hobbies and ending with finding comfort in being naked.

The main biggest change though was Aunt Sarah and her cats. Firstly, Yvette Nicole Brown was fantastic in the role and I liked the reversal of making her Darling’s aunt this time rather than Jim Dear’s, but the change in her cats from Si & Am to the two Rex Cats was both a necessary alteration but added to the new jazzy tone of the movie. I don’t think it was necessary to make them both boys but they served their purpose.

As for the Pound Dogs, I didn’t think much of them in the original movie save for Peg and to be honest that remains the case here, Janelle Monáe is a great addition to this movie and suits the role of Peg, as the only other female dog in this movie (aside from the gender-bent Jock) rather well.

Meanwhile the movie’s endgame villain of The Rat was surprisingly outshone here by the Dogcatcher...I never understood why the Rat was such a major threat but I did enjoy how he was in it from the start of the movie as a pest not just for the dogs but also the humans and with Aunt Sarah being found out early on in this version of the movie it makes sense The Dogcatcher is in fact the main antagonist.

“Belle Note” and “He’s a Tramp” being the main two songs of the movie are both respectfully done, as I said I enjoyed the change-up to “He’s a Tramp” with Janelle Monáe adding another layer to the song and “Belle Notte” wasn’t as good as powerful as the original version but still enjoyable.

The conclusion of the movie also felt very natural as well, with the evil Dogcatcher being thwarted not just by the dogs but also Jim Dear and Darling, I really enjoyed how the two humans were included in this movie not just being Lady’s owners and Darling giving birth but also being more fully-rounded and realising Tramp isn’t such a scoundrel and deciding to save him from the Dog Pound by adopting him.

While we didn’t get to see Lady and Tramp’s litter in this movie, we did see Jock taking in the two abandoned puppies from the start of the movie, even though they refer to her as their aunt rather than adoptive mother.

Overall this was a very enjoyable movie and a surprisingly good remake. I don’t know whether or not I enjoyed it more than the original but, as I have said before, I am a sucker for dog movies and seeing the puppies in this movie were very cute so I was happy.

So what do you guys think? Post your comments and check out more Disney+ What to Watch Top 10s as well as more Top 10 Lists and other posts.

[quarterfromcanon]

27-29 for the get to know my favorites game

Hello, lovely! Thank you for these. :) Trios turned out to be a surprising challenge (I apparently have more favorite groups of four than three), but I’m pretty happy with the ones I remembered after giving it some thought. The final picks are under the cut! <3

Top 5 BROTPs

1. Paula Proctor & Rebecca Bunch (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) - Naturally, this was the immediate choice that sprang to mind. It’s the first relationship on the show I really fell in love with, and it’s the one friendship in the series that consistently tugs on my heartstrings. It’s flawed, complicated, and messy but the genuine connection underneath it all is strong enough that I’m hopeful they can work through their problems. I would’ve preferred to see more emphasis on that effort in the fourth season (and a lot more work on Rebecca’s friendships with Heather and Valencia as well), but I want to believe things improved between them after the finale. 

2. Steve Harrington & Robin Buckley (Stranger Things) - The general public opinion of Steve Harrington has been on such a journey since Season 1, bringing him now to a status of common fan favorite. As such, I think a delicate balance needed to be struck in finding a suitable match to team up with him on adventures. This person needed to:

A) Have good chemistry in their interactions with Steve

B) Bring a new dynamic to the table that he didn’t already have with an existing connection 

and most importantly 

C) Be a unique and engaging character that the audience would care about individually, so they didn’t get lost in simply being an offshoot of Steve’s story. They couldn’t be relegated to perpetual sidekick with little else to define them.

As far as I’m concerned, Robin Buckley fits the bill on every account. She’s artistic, resilient, loyal, and - especially endearing to me - a movie buff. She has a quick wit, a sharp mind, and a big heart. Being friends with Robin helps Steve take the specter of his high school self less seriously so he can put it behind him, and she helps him more fully embrace the person he’s becoming in the wake of that lost status. Having Steve for a friend helps Robin resolve some lingering emotional scars from school as well. It gives her an opportunity to share her authentic self with a peer and - to her relief and ours - find acceptance after revealing a pretty important secret. I can’t wait to watch the two of them be adorably nerdy and goofy bros at Family Video in Season 4, presumably with some daring fights against dark forces when they’re off the clock. Does saying I hope Kali comes to Hawkins somehow and bonds with one or both of them mean I can speak that into existence? I’m doing that now. It’s worth a try. If it happens in some capacity when the time comes, know that I will throw a One Blogger Party of epic proportions. 

3. Wynonna Earp & Nicole Haught (Wynonna Earp) - I had to use this specific screencap because it perfectly encapsulates the chaotic energy that makes me loves these two together so much. Their separate approaches to their shared work environment are at pretty much polar opposite ends of the spectrum, but they make a pretty solid team when they play to each other’s strengths and communicate. They also both love Waverly most of all, so it feels like they were bound to work out their differences eventually since neither would want to make her feel torn between her sister and her girlfriend. The hijinks they get up to in each other’s company are just top shelf. I look forward to at least a little bit of fun like that from every season. If I wind up having a lasting partner later on down the road, it’d be cool if their personality balanced well with my sister’s on this level. I’d also be really happy if I ultimately gelled with her person in a way that sounded unlikely at first but worked. Fingers crossed for both outcomes, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

4. Emily Thorne [Amanda Clarke] & Nolan Ross (Revenge) - I have two things to quickly clarify for those who are unfamiliar with this show.

#1 She has two listed names because she was born Amanda Clarke but goes by Emily Thorne for most of the series to hide her true identity. 

#2 Despite the impression this picture may give, Nolan is not marrying Emily; he is simply walking her down the aisle. 

These two are there for each other through so much - the looming threat of discovery, jail time, capture, near death experiences, heartbreak, the passing of loved ones, etc. - and they make it to the other side with a deep bond the likes of which they’ll never experience with another person. It is at times heavily one-sided because of how much drama Emily deliberately dives into, but it’s something that she tries to make up for during her more self-aware and less self-involved times. There’s genuine love and mutual respect there by the finale and it’s really gratifying to witness the journey they’ve taken together. 

[~Slightly spoiler-y closing statement after these brackets~] I was pretty sure I knew where the show was going with romantic ships by the end. I knew for certain it wasn’t my personal OTP for her because they’d already killed that person off quite some time ago. There was a part of me that could’ve found some contentment in leaving the story with these two as a couple. After all, one of my favorite ship dynamics is Reluctant Acquaintances to Best Friends to Lovers, but it was not to be. That being said, the platonic friendship they shared was a big part of the heart of the show and I cherish it for that. Nolan was a rare exception for Emily, a genuine bond formed in the years when she was tried to operate like her heart was made of stone. I also think working with Emily gave Nolan a sense of purpose and let him flourish in his area of expertise. I’m not sure how either of them would feel about the musical reference but, to slightly paraphrase from Wicked: because they knew each other, they have been changed for good.

5. Penelope Stamp & Bang Bang (The Brothers Bloom) - I have seen Rachel Weisz and Rinko Kikuchi in more roles since this movie than I had prior to watching it for the first time so, if anything, my fangirling over this friendship has gotten worse rather than more manageable. x) This post classified the film under the subgenre whimsical noir. It turns out that’s a style I instantly adore every time I stumble upon it. One of the titular brothers, Stephen, lives so deeply immersed in the variations of the world he writes for their heists that even those closest to him are essentially characters he can interact with on a daily basis. His feelings for them as people can get very muddled with his feelings for them as interesting OCs to move through narratives. A big trouble with this is that his living archetypes can often get reduced to clichés. He’s not always mindful of their nuances or allowing for the full range of their autonomy. Penelope is selected by Stephen to serve as the “manic pixie dream girl” who will be his brother Bloom’s forever love and Bang Bang is essentially presented as a “dragon lady” stereotype. I haven’t done a rewatch in years so I may be giving the movie too much credit here, but I remember this choice feeling at least semi-deliberate. It could be interpreted as a way to illustrate how Stephen warps real life to fit his vision. At least, I can definitely remember scenes that felt like they debunked the one-note assessments of these two. What I genuinely love, though, are the little moments when Penelope and Bang Bang are able to just spend time together with little to no interference from Stephen or Bloom. They share their hobbies and teach each other new skills. It feels like they truly perceive one another as whole human beings on a level that neither guy is capable of doing since they’re both so immersed in the drama of the plot. When the women are with each other, they get to be more than an extension of the men who maneuver them; they get to be themselves. Penelope is the only one Bang Bang clearly wants to maintain contact with once the heist is finished. I think that says a lot. Honestly, this is another BROTP that could slide to OTP. If someone wrote fic of them completely severing ties with the brothers and going off on their own - romantically or platonically - I wouldn’t be upset at all. 

Top 5 Trios

1. Luke, Leia, & Han (Star Wars Episodes IV - VI) - Oh dear, I’m overwhelmed just looking at a picture of them together. Star Wars has been a part of my life since childhood. Getting to watch the original trilogy felt like a rite of passage (when I was really little, Mom used to find things for us to do outside the room while Dad watched because she was afraid some of it might scare me). Princess Leia resounded with me on a level that almost no other fictional royalty has ever quite matched. Han’s wardrobe is still some serious #aestheticgoals and I would 100% wear replicas of his jackets and vests if I had them. I also remember thinking that Luke’s new look in Return of the Jedi was SO COOL with the all-black wardrobe and green lightsaber. Wow, imagine that, an edgy costume change that shared vibes with the common Disney villain color palette called to me as a baby fan of antagonists and antiheroes! Who ever could have foreseen that sudden spike in appreciation? :P Anyway, one of my lingering sorrows about the more recent trilogy is that we never got to see all three of them as aged adults in each other’s company. I still wanted our new cast to get their time to shine, of course, but I do lament the absence of at least one little trio reunion.

2. Luna, Neville, & Ginny (Harry Potter series) - The Silver Trio, pictured here with the first set of three that comes to mind when thinking about the books and movies. I do still love Harry, Ron, and Hermione, but I’ve found a growing appreciation for this other team-up over the years. They’ve been through a lot too, even if they are not always present where the main action is. Bullying, loss of parents, manipulation of the mind and body, abuse at the hands of authority figures - they’re all left with internal (and probably external) scars to bear. There’s also something to be said for how strong they all were in the school year set during Deathly Hallows, when the Golden Trio wasn’t around to inspire and unite those who wanted to stand up to ever-increasing tyranny. It can be easy, unfortunately, for them to get written off based on the oversimplified stereotypes that have gotten associated with them. People remember Luna as being weird and spacey, Neville as awkward and hapless, and Ginny as bland and lovestruck. They’re all far more nuanced than that, and they accomplish great things while fighting for and beside their friends. I’m planning on doing a re-read of the books at some point, and I really look forward to revisiting these brave kids.

3. Irma, Marion, & Miranda (Picnic at Hanging Rock) - Ah, yes, my very recently discovered darlings. I have many thoughts about them all. I’ll try to keep this as condensed as I can while still making sense. Some spoilers will follow, although those won’t answer every question the story poses. There are audience members who ship the above characters as a throuple, which I totally get, but for me it’s like soulmates of a different kind. These three have met at a point in their lives when they all burn with compatible intensity. They long for the same dream version of youth, for a way to begin life free from the confines of a world that won’t accept all their hearts contain. While the people that surround them may not be willing to bend the rules, nature itself appears to show them mercy. How often do we see a story of girls who just... love other women so much that a sacred location goes, “Y’know what? I’m gonna help you escape your restrictive society. Permanently.” This miniseries definitely depicts the setting as being involved in messing with the investigation, as a mystical place that befuddles unwanted intruders. I love the way these three fortify each other in times of pain and fear, and there’s something deeply moving about how standing side-by-side helps them defy the odds.

4. Sarah, Alison, & Cosima (Orphan Black) - Okay so, technically, when I picture our core team in this show, the net is a little wider. My mind tends to also include Felix, Mrs. S., Kira, Helena, Donnie, Delphine, and Scott. However, I think you could kinda argue that those characters have a stronger connection to one of the above three than they do to the other two. Thus, this ends up being the central triangle. They’re all such solid performances and the fact they’re all played by the same person is incredibly impressive (not to mention the, like, twelve other clones Tatiana brings to life throughout the series). Watching them go from tense strangers to sestras was wonderful. I’m glad they had each other through the increasingly complicated web of lies and schemes they had to unravel and survive. 

5. Galavant, Sid, & Isabella (Galavant) - Remember how James Marsden was in Enchanted? If you dialed down the deliberately cartoonish quality of that performance and allowed for more not-so-G-rated humor, I feel like you’d have a general sense of what Galavant is like as a character. Sid is his squire and Isabella is a princess whose mission happens to combine with Galavant’s, albeit fueled by different driving motivations. They find themselves involved in a lot of shenanigans because of Galavant - even in his own universe, he’s into the whole dashing knight thing more than is strictly necessary - but they make a fun little team to follow through the world of this musical television series. I’ve gotten fuzzy on the details since I watched it air live four years ago, but I remember the series being enough of a summer feel-good time that I’d be game to revisit the show again someday.

Top 5 Family Relationships

1. Stevie Budd & The Roses (Schitt’s Creek) - The whole fish-out-of-water setup for this series was already pretty fun in and of itself, especially given how outlandish their lifestyles evidently were before the show begins. The thing that makes it special, though, is how the absence of all their expensive distractions finally helps them prioritize being a family. The Roses do a lot of work to reconcile who they were with who they find themselves becoming in the present. It’s sweet to see them collectively conclude that growing closer to each other is one of the few things they do not regret in the slightest. They also silently agree to adopt Stevie along the way and, boy, does that give me a lot of Big Feelings, particularly in the later seasons.

2. River Song & The Ponds (Doctor Who) - I think it’s been like seven years or so, give or take, since I watched Doctor Who with any regularity. These three have resurfaced in my mind many times since then. They all love with such fierce and unwavering devotion, spanning lifetimes. It’s fascinating - and often heartbreaking - to learn about the things they’ve experienced and endured. Oh gosh, and once the show reveals how River’s story overlaps with theirs, and you pay attention to how she looks at them, IT HURTS but it’s so engaging to watch. The emotions are all flooding back just remembering them now. Argh, what great characters... </3

3. The Tico Sisters (Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi) - Rose appears in two installments of the third trilogy, but this is the episode that has both Tico daughters. We never get to see them interact onscreen in the film, but I still feel the bond between these sisters so intensely. I found out later that Kelly was present for the filming of Paige’s death scene (which happens so early in the movie that it doesn’t feel like a big spoiler - please forgive me if it is). I’m glad that was something they decided to do behind-the-scenes, because it definitely informs Rose’s grief. She’s sitting in the dark, picturing her big sister’s final moments with such horribly vivid detail that it feels like she was there, and yet she can’t do anything to change how it ends. The shape of the sisters’ necklaces immediately establishes that they were a unit even when acting independently, that they felt like two halves of a whole - all they had left of their family. Now there is only one, and that fact is a weight around Rose’s neck both figuratively and literally. It serves as a visual reminder of how she carries Paige’s absence always, trying to discover and embrace who she is on her own while still honoring the memory of a relative she loved so deeply. I think she reaches the end of Episode VIII feeling like she’s someone of whom her sister would be quite proud. I’m very proud of her, too. 

4. The Tyler Siblings (Wonderfalls) - Jaye is comically different than the rest of her family, and the show establishes that right out the gate when we learn that she’s the only one whose name doesn’t rhyme with the rest (left to right, the others are Karen, Sharon, Darrin, and Aaron, respectively). Her relationships with her parents could certainly lead me off on some analytical tangents but, predictably, it’s the sibling stuff that interests me more. I think it could be said that all three do more living inside their heads than they do out in the world, and that they’ve all grown up to be borderline loners (Ironically Jaye, who is considered the most troubled, is the only one I remember being shown to have formed and maintained a friendship). Aaron’s a very philosophical and analytical person, so you get the sense he talks to himself more than to others, although he still manages to resurface from those deep contemplations so he can goad and tease his sisters from time to time. Sharon is high-strung, competitive, and brings that “disaster lesbian” energy to basically every social interaction she has. Jaye’s standoffishness seems to stem from both the difficulty of fitting in with people and the fear that connections will fall apart once they manage to form at all. They’re all just messes trying to make the best out of the situations they face, and I appreciate that. I also enjoy how prominently the Jaye and Sharon sister bond features throughout the show’s only season. It starts out on pretty rocky ground, but they grow a lot in regard to how willing they are to communicate and express their love for one another. 

5. The Brothers Proctor (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) - The family dynamics in their house are in need of some serious work, without a doubt. I’m just really touched by how close these two have become without Paula’s notice. It’s possible they always were, in that we-fight-but-we-care way that siblings can often be, but the supportive side of that really moves to the forefront as they get older in the series and it warms my heart. There’s such a glaring difference between The Household As Paula Views It and Things That Are Happening While She’s Not Paying Attention. I can’t help using fic as a way to explore that. I happily find excuses for her sons to make pop-in appearances, just to check up on them. I'm so pleased that, as of Season 4, they seem to have become fairly well-adjusted in spite of everything. Oh, and I am still not over the revelation that they attend renaissance festivals together, in character, for fun. What precious cuties who would no doubt dislike me referring to them as such! Paula, please give them an extra hug from me! 

[grigori77]

2019 in Movies - My Top 30 Fave Movies (Part 2)

20.  FROZEN 2 – so, another year, then, and once again Disney doesn’t QUITE manage to net the animated feature top spot on my list, but it’s not for lack of trying – this long-awaited sequel to the studio’s runaway hit musical fantasy adventure is just what we’ve come to love from the House of Mouse, but more importantly it’s a most worthy sequel, easily on a par with the much beloved origin.  Not much of a surprise given the welcome return of all the key people, from directors Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee (who also once again wrote the screenplay) to composer Christophe Beck and songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, as well as all the key players in the cast.  It’s business as usual in the kingdom of Arendelle, where all is seemingly peaceful and tranquil, but Queen Elsa (Idina Menzel) is restless, haunted by a distant voice that only she can hear, calling to her from a mysterious past she just can’t place … and then she accidentally awakens the four elemental spirits, sending her homeland into mystical turmoil, prompting her to embark on a desperate search for answers with her sister Princess Anna (Kristen Bell), ice harvester Kristoff (Jonathan Groff), his faithful reindeer companion Sven, and, of course, living snowman Olaf (Josh Gad). Their quest leads them into the Enchanted Forest of Northuldra, a neighbouring kingdom, ruled by simple, elemental magic, that has remained cut off from Arendelle for decades, where they discover dark, hidden truths about their own family’s past and must make peace with the spirits if they’re to save their home and their people.  So, typical Disney family fantasy fare, then, right? Well, Frozen 2 certainly dots all the Is and crosses all the Ts, but, like the original, this is no jaded blockbuster money spinner, packed with the same kind of resonant power, skilful inventiveness and pure, show-stopping WOW-factor as its predecessor, but more importantly this is a sequel that effectively carves out a fresh identity for itself, brilliantly taking the world and characters in interesting new directions to create something fresh, rewarding and worthwhile on its own merit.  The returning cast are all as strong as ever, Menzel and Bell in particular ably powering the story, while it’s nice to see both Groff and Gad getting something new to do with their own characters too, even nabbing their own major musical numbers; there’s also a welcome slew of fresh new faces to this world, particular Sterling K. Brown (This is Us, Black Panther, The Predator) as lost Anrendelle soldier Mattias and former Brat Pack star Martha Plimpton as Yelena, leader of the lost tribe of Northuldra. Once again this is Disney escapism at its very best, a heart-warming, soul-nourishing powerhouse of winning humour, emotional power and child-like wonder, but like the first film the biggest selling point is, of course, that KILLER soundtrack, with every song here a total hit, not one dud among them, and there are even ear-worms here to put Let It Go to shame – Into the Unknown was touted as the major hit, and it is impressive, but I was particularly affected by Groff’s unashamedly full-bore rendition of Lost in the Woods, a bona fide classic rock power ballad crafted in the fashion of REO Speedwagon, while the undeniable highlight for me is the unstoppable Show Yourself, with Menzel once again proving that her incredible voice is a natural force all in itself.  Altogether, then, this is an absolute feast for the eyes, the ears AND the soul, every inch the winner that its predecessor was and also EASILY one of Disney’s premier animated features for the decade.  So it’s quite the runner-up, then …

19.  ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD – since his explosion onto the scene twenty-seven years ago with his runaway smash debut Reservoir Dogs, Quentin Tarantino has become one of the most important filmmakers of his generation, a true master of the cinematic art form who consistently delivers moving picture masterpieces that thrill, entertain, challenge and amuse audiences worldwide … at least those who can stomach his love of unswerving violence, naughty talk and morally bankrupt antiheroes and despicably brutal villains who are often little more than a shade different from one another.  Time has moved on, though, and while he’s undoubtedly been one of the biggest influences on the way cinema has changed over the past quarter century, there are times now that it’s starting to feel like the scene is moving on in favour of younger, fresher blood with their own ideas.   I think Tarantino can sense this himself, because he recently made a powerful statement – after he’s made his tenth film, he plans to retire.  Given that OUATIH is his NINTH film, that deadline is already looming, and we unashamed FANS of his films are understandably aghast over this turn of events.  Thankfully he remains as uncompromisingly awesome a writer-director as ever, delivering another gold standard five-star flick which is also most definitely his most PERSONAL work to date, quite simply down to the fact that it’s a film ABOUT film.  Sure, it has a plot (of sorts, anyway), revolving around the slow decline of the career of former TV star Rick Dalton (Leonardo Dicaprio), who languishes in increasing anonymity in Hollywood circa 1969 as his former western hero image is being slowly eroded by an increasingly hacky workload guest-starring on various syndicated shows as a succession of punching-bag heavies for the hero to wale on, while his only real friend is his one-time stunt double, Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), a former WW2 hero with a decidedly tarnished reputation of his own; meanwhile new neighbours have moved in next door to further distract him – hot-as-shit young director Roman Polanski (Rafal Zawierucha), riding high on the success of Rosemary’s Baby, and his new wife Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie).  Certainly this all drives the film, along with real-life events involving one of the darkest crimes in modern American history, but a lot of the time the plot is largely coincidental – Quentin uses it as a springboard to wax lyrical about his very favourite subject and pay loving (if sometimes irreverently satirical) tribute to the very business he’s been indulging in with such great success since 1992.  Sure, it’s also about “Helter Skelter” and the long shadow cast by Charles Manson and his band of murderous misfits, but this is largely incidental, as we’re treated to long, entertaining interludes as we follow Rick on a shoot as the bad guy in the pilot for the Lancer TV series, visit the notorious Spahn Ranch with Cliff as he’s unwittingly drawn into the lion’s den of the deadly Manson Family, join Robbie’s Tate as she watches “herself” in The Wrecking Crew, and enjoy a brilliant montage in which we follow Rick’s adventures in Spaghetti westerns (and Eurospy cinema) after he’s offered a chance to change his flagging fortunes, before the film finally builds to a seemingly inevitable, fateful conclusion that Tarantino then, in sneakily OTT Inglourious Basterds style, mischievously turns on its head with a devilish game of “What If”.  The results are a thoroughly engrossing and endlessly entertaining romp through the seedier side of Hollywood and a brilliant warts-and-all examination of the craft’s inner workings that, interestingly, reveals as much about the Business today as it does about how it was way back in the Golden Age the film portrays, all while delivering bucket-loads of QT’s trademark cool, swagger, idiosyncratic genius and to-die-for dialogue and character-work, and, of course, a typically exceptional all-star cast firing on all cylinders. Dicaprio and Pitt are both spectacular (Brad is endearingly taciturn, playing it wonderfully close to the vest throughout, while Leo is simply ON FIRE, delivering a mercurial performance EASILY on a par with his work on Shutter Island and The Wolf of Wall Street – could this be good enough to snag him a second Oscar?), while Robbie consistently endears us to Tate as she EFFORTLESSLY brings the fallen star back to life, and there’s an incredible string of amazing supporting turns from established talent and up-and-comers alike, from Kurt Russell, Al Pacino and a very spiky Bruce Dern to Mike Moh (in a FLAWLESS take on Bruce Lee), Margaret Qualley, Austin Butler and in particular Julia Butters as precocious child star Trudi Fraser.  Packed with winning references, homages, pastiches and ingenious little in-jokes, handled with UTMOST respect for the true life subjects at all times and shot all the way through with his characteristic flair and quirky, deliciously dark sense of humour, this is cinema very much of the Old School, and EVERY INCH a Tarantino flick.  With only one more film to go the implied end of his career seems much too close, but if he delivers one more like this he’ll leave behind a legacy that ANY filmmaker would be proud of.

18.  CRAWL – summer 2019’s runner-up horror offering marks a rousing return to form for a genre talent who’s FINALLY delivered on the impressive promise of his early work – Alexandre Aja made a startling debut with Switchblade Romance, which led to his big break helming the cracking remake of slasher stalwart The Hills Have Eyes, but then he went SPECTACULARLY off the rails when he made the truly abysmal Piranha 3D, which I wholeheartedly regard as one of THE VERY WORST FILMS EVER MADE IN ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY. He took a big step back in the right direction with the admittedly flawed but ultimately enjoyable and evocative Horns (based on the novel by Stephen King’s son Joe Hill), but it’s with this stripped back, super-tight man-against-nature survival horror that the Aja of old has TRULY returned to us. IN SPADES.  Seriously, I personally think this is his best film to date – there’s no fat on it at all, going from a simple set-up STRAIGHT into a precision-crafted exercise in sustained tension that relentlessly grips right up to the end credits.  The film is largely just a two-hander – Maze Runner star Kaya Scodelario plays Haley Keller, a Florida college student and star swimmer who ventures into the heart of a Category 5 hurricane to make sure her estranged father, Dave (Saving Private Ryan’s Barry Pepper), is okay after he drops off the grid. Finding their old family home in a state of disrepair and slowly flooding, she does a last minute check of the crawl-space underneath, only to discover her father badly wounded and a couple of hungry alligators stalking the dark, cramped, claustrophobic confines. With the flood waters rising and communications cut off, Haley and Dave must use every reserve of strength, ingenuity and survival instinct to keep each other alive in the face of increasingly daunting odds … even with a premise this simple, there was plenty of potential for this to become an overblown, clunky mess in the wrong hands (a la Snakes On a Plane), so it’s a genuinely great thing that Aja really is back at the height of his powers, milking every fraught and suspenseful set-piece to its last drop of exquisite piano-wire tension and putting his actors through hell without a reprieve in sight.  Thankfully it’s not JUST about scares and atmosphere – there’s a genuinely strong family drama at the heart of the story that helps us invest in these two, Scodelario delivering a phenomenally complex performance as she peels back Haley’s layers, from stubborn pedant, through vulnerable child of divorce, to ironclad born survivor, while reconnecting with her emotionally raw, repentantly open father, played with genuine naked intensity in a career best turn from Pepper. Their chemistry is INCREDIBLY strong, making every scene a joy even as it works your nerves and tugs on your heartstrings, and as a result you DESPERATELY want to see them make it out in one piece.  Not that Aja makes it easy for them – the gators are an impressively palpable threat, proper scary beasties even if they are largely (admittedly impressively executed) digital effects, while the storm is almost a third character in itself, becoming as much of an elemental nemesis as its scaly co-stars.  Blessedly brief (just 87 minutes!) and with every second wrung out for maximum impact, this is survival horror at its most brutally, simplistically effective, a deliciously vicious, primal chill-ride that thoroughly rewards from start to finish.  Welcome back, Mr Aja.  We’ve missed you.

17.  SHAZAM! – there were actually THREE movies featuring Captain Marvel out in 2019, but this offering from the hit-and-miss DCEU cinematic franchise is a very different beast from his MCU-based namesake, and besides, THIS Cap long ago ditched said monicker for the far more catchy (albeit rather more oddball) title that graces Warner Bros’ last step back on the right track for their superhero Universe following the equally enjoyable Aquaman and franchise high-point Wonder Woman.  Although he’s never actually referred to in the film by this name, Shazam (Chuck’s Eugene Levy) is the magically-powered alternate persona bestowed upon wayward fifteen year-old foster kid Billy Batson (Andi Mack’s Asher Angel) by an ancient wizard (Djimon Hounsou) seeking one pure soul to battle Dr. Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong), a morally corrupt physicist who turns into a monstrous supervillain after becoming the vessel for the spiritual essences of the Seven Deadly Sins (yup, that thoroughly batshit setup is just the tip of the iceberg of bonkersness on offer in this movie).  Yes, this IS set in the DC Extended Universe, Shazam sharing his world with Superman, Batman, the Flash et al, and there are numerous references (both overt and sly) to this fact throughout (especially in the cheeky animated closing title sequence), but it’s never laboured, and the film largely exists in its own comfortably enclosed narrative bubble, allowing us to focus on Billy, his alter ego and in particular his clunky (but oh so much fun) bonding experiences with his new foster family, headed by former foster kid couple Victor and Rosa Vazquez (The Walking Dead’s Cooper Andrews and Marta Milans) – the most enjoyably portions of the film, however, are when Billy explores the mechanics and limits of his newfound superpowers with his new foster brother Freddy Freeman (It Chapter 1’s Jack Dylan Glazer), a consistently hilarious riot of bad behaviour, wanton (often accidental) destruction and perfectly-observed character development, the blissful culmination of a gleefully anarchic sense of humour that, until recently, has been rather lacking in the DCEU but which is writ large in bright, wacky primary colours right through this film. Sure, there are darker moments, particularly when Sivana sets loose his fantastic icky brood of semi-corporeal monsters, and these scenes are handled with seasoned skill by director David F. Sandberg, who cut his teeth on ingenious little horror gem Lights Out (following up with Annabelle: Creation, but we don’t have to dwell on that), but for the most part the film is played for laughs, thrills and pure, unadulterated FUN, almost never taking itself too seriously, essentially intended to do for the DCEU what Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man did for the MCU, and a huge part of its resounding success must of course be attributed to the universally willing cast. Eugene Levy’s so ridiculously pumped-up he almost looks like a special effect all on his own, but he’s lost none of his razor-sharp comic ability, perfectly encapsulating a teenage boy in a grown man’s body, while his chemistry with genuine little comedic dynamo Glazer is simply exquisite, a flawless balance shared with Angel, who similarly excels at the humour but also delivers quality goods in some far more serious moments too, while the rest of Billy’s newfound family are all brilliant, particularly ridiculously adorable newcomer Faithe Herman as precocious little motor-mouth Darla; Djimon Hounsou, meanwhile, adds significant class and gravitas to what could have been a cartoonish Gandalf spoof, and Mark Strong, as usual, gives great bad guy as Sivana, providing just the right amount of malevolent swagger and self-important smirk to proceedings without ever losing sight of the deeper darkness within.  All round, this is EXACTLY the kind of expertly crafted superhero package we’ve come to appreciate in the genre, another definite shot in the arm for the DCEU that holds great hope for the future of the franchise, and some of the biggest fun I had at the cinema this past year.  Granted, it’s still not a patch on the MCU, but the quality gap finally seems to be closing …

16.  ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL – y’know, there was a time when James Cameron was quite a prolific director, who could be counted upon to provide THE big event pic of the blockbuster season. These days, we’re lucky to hear from him once a decade, and now we don’t even seem to be getting that – the dream project Cameron’s been trying to make since the end of the 90s, a big live action adaptation of one of my favourite mangas of all time, Gunnm (or Battle Angel Alita to use its more well-known sobriquet) by Yukito Kishiro, has FINALLY arrived, but it isn’t the big man behind the camera here since he’s still messing around with his intended FIVE MOVIE Avatar arc.  That said, he made a damn good choice of proxy to bring his vision to fruition – Robert Rodriguez is, of course, a fellow master of action cinema, albeit one with a much more quirky style, and this adap is child’s play to him, the creator of the El Mariachi trilogy and co-director of Frank Miller’s Sin City effortlessly capturing the dark, edgy life-and-death danger and brutal wonder of Kishiro’s world in moving pictures.  300 years after the Earth was decimated in a massive war with URM (the United Republics of Mars) known as “the Fall”, only one bastion of civilization remains – Iron City, a sprawling, makeshift community of scavengers that lies in the shadow of the floating city of Zalem, home of Earth’s remaining aristocracy.  Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) runs a clinic in Iron City customising and repairing the bodies of its cyborg citizens, from the mercenary “hunter killers” to the fast-living players of Motorball (a kind of supercharged mixture of Rollerball and Death Race), one day discovering the wrecked remains of a female ‘borg in the junkyard of scrap accumulated beneath Zalem.  Finding her human brain is still alive, he gives her a new chassis and christens her Alita, raising her as best he can as she attempts to piece together her mysterious, missing past, only for them both to discover that the truth of her origins has the potential to tear their fragile little world apart forever. The Maze Runner trilogy’s Rosa Salazar is the heart and soul of the film as Alita (originally Gally in the comics), perfectly bringing her (literal) wide-eyed innocence and irrepressible spirit to life, as well as proving every inch the diminutive badass fans have been expecting – while her overly anime-styled look might have seemed a potentially jarring distraction in the trailers, Salazar’s mocap performance is SO strong you’ve forgotten all about it within the first five minutes, convinced she’s a real, flesh-and-metal character – and she’s well supported by an exceptional ensemble cast both new and well-established.  Waltz is the most kind and sympathetic he’s been since Django Unchained, instilling Ido with a worldly warmth and gentility that makes him a perfect mentor/father-figure, while Spooksville star Keean Johnson makes a VERY impressive big screen breakthrough as Hugo, the streetwise young dreamer with a dark secret that Alita falls for in a big way, Jennifer Connelly is icily classy as Ido’s ex-wife Chiren, Mahershala Ali is enjoyably suave and mysterious as the film’s nominal villain, Vector, an influential but seriously shady local entrepreneur with a major hidden agenda, and a selection of actors shine through the CGI in various strong mocap performances, such as Deadpool’s Ed Skrein, Derek Mears, From Dusk Til Dawn’s Eiza Gonzalez and a thoroughly unrecognisable but typically awesome Jackie Earle Haley.  As you’d expect from Rodriguez, the film delivers BIG TIME on the action front, unleashing a series of spectacular set-pieces that peak with Alita’s pulse-pounding Motorball debut, but there’s a pleasingly robust story under all the thrills and wow-factor, riffing on BIG THEMES and providing plenty of emotional power, especially in the heartbreaking character-driven climax – Cameron, meanwhile, has clearly maintained strict control over the project throughout, his eye and voice writ large across every scene as we’re thrust headfirst into a fully-immersive post-apocalyptic, rusty cyberpunk world as thoroughly fleshed-out as Avatar’s Pandora, but most importantly he’s still done exactly what he set out to do, paying the utmost respect to a cracking character as he brings her to vital, vivid life on the big screen.  Don’t believe the detractors – this is a MAGNIFICENT piece of work that deserves all the recognition it can muster, perfectly set up for a sequel that I fear we may never get to see.  Oh well, at least it’s renewed my flagging hopes for a return to Pandora …

15.  AD ASTRA – last century, making a space exploration movie after 2001: A Space Odyssey was a pretty tall order. THIS century, looks like it’s trying to follow Chris Nolan’s Interstellar – love it or hate it, you can’t deny that particular epic space opera for the IMAX crowd is a REALLY tough act to follow.  At first glance, then, writer-director James Gray (The Yards, We Own the Night) is an interesting choice to try, at least until you consider his last feature – he may be best known for understated, gritty little crime thrillers, but I was most impressed by 2016’s ambitious period biopic The Lost City of Z, which focused on the groundbreaking career of pioneering explorer Percy Fawcett, and couldn’t have been MORE about the indomitable spirit of discovery if it tried.  His latest shares much of the same DNA, albeit presented in a VERY different package, as we’re introduced to a more expansive Solar System of the near future, in which humanity has begun to colonize our neighbouring worlds and is now pushing its reach beyond our own star’s light in order to discover what truly lies beyond the void of OUTER space.  Brad Pitt stars as Major Roy McBride, a career astronaut whose whole life has been defined by growing up in the shadow of his father, H. Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones), a true pioneer who led an unprecedented expedition to the orbit of our furthest neighbour, Neptune, in order to search for signs of intelligent life beyond our solar system, only for the whole mission to go quiet for the past sixteen years.  Then a mysterious, interplanetary power surge throws the Earth into chaos, and Roy must travel farther than he’s ever gone before in order to discover the truth behind the source of the pulse – his father’s own ill-fated Lima Project … this is a very different beast from Interstellar, a much more introspective, stately affair, revelling in its glacial pacing and emphasis on character motivation over plot, but it’s no less impressive from a visual, visceral standpoint – Gray and cinematographer Hoyt van Hoytema (who, interestingly, ALSO shot Interstellar, along with Nolan’s Dunkirk and his upcoming feature Tenet) certainly make space look truly EPIC, crafting astonishing visuals that deserve to be seen on the big screen (or at the very least on the best quality HDTV you can find).  There’s also no denying the quality of the writing, Gray weaving an intricate story that reveals far greater depth and complexity than can be seen at first glance, while Roy’s palpable “thought-process” voiceover puts us right into the head of the character as we follow him across the endless void on a fateful journey into a cosmic Heart of Darkness.  There is, indeed, a strong sense of Apocalypse Now to proceedings, with the younger McBride definitely following a similar path to Martin Sheen’s ill-fated captain as he travels “up-river” to find his Colonel Kurtz-esque father, and the performances certainly match the heft of the material – there’s an impressive collection of talent on offer in a series of top-quality supporting turns, Jones being just the icing on the cake in the company of Donald Sutherland, Liv Tyler, John Ortiz and Preacher’s Ruth Negga, but the undeniable driving force of the film is Pitt, his cool, laconic control hiding uncharted depths of emotional turmoil as he’s forced to call every choice into question.  It’s EASILY one of the finest performances of his career to date, just one of the MANY great selling points in a film that definitely deserves to be remembered as one of the all-time sci-fi greats of the decade. An absolute masterpiece, then, but does it stand tall in comparison to Interstellar?  I should say so …

14.  BRIGHTBURN – torpedoing Crawl right out of the water in the summer, this refreshing, revisionist superhero movie takes one of the most classic mythologies in the genre and turns it on its head in true horror style.  The basic premise is an absolute blinder – what if, when he crashed in small-town America as a baby, Superman had turned out to be a bad seed?  Unsurprising, then, that it came from James Gunn, who here produces a screenplay by his brother and cousin Brian and Mark Gunn (best known for penning the likes of Journey 2: the Mysterious Island, but nobody’s perfect) and the directorial big break of his old mate David Yarovesky (whose only previous feature is obscure sci-fi horror The Hive) – Gunn is, of course, an old pro at taking classic comic book tropes and creating something completely new with them, having previously done so with HUGE success on cult indie black comedy Super and, in particular, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy movies, and his fingerprints are ALL OVER this one too.  The Hunger Games’ Elizabeth Banks (who starred in Gunn’s own directorial debut Slither) and David Denman (The Office) are Tori and Kyle Breyer, a farming couple living in Brightburn, Kansas, who are trying for a baby when a mysterious pod falls from the sky onto their land, containing an infant boy.  As you’d expect, they adopt him, determined to keep his origin a secret, and for the first twelve years of his life all seems perfectly fine – Brandon’s growing up into an intelligent, artistic child who loves his family. Then his powers manifest and he starts to change – not just physically (he’s impervious to harm, incredibly strong, has laser eyes and the ability to disrupt electronic devices … oh, and he can fly, too), but also in personality, as he becomes cold, distant, even cruel as he begins to demonstrate some seriously sociopathic tendencies.  As his parents begin to fear what he’s becoming, things begin to spiral out of control and people start to disappear or turn up brutally murdered, and it becomes clear that Brandon might actually be something out of a nightmare … needless to say this is superhero cinema as full-on horror, Brandon’s proclivities leading to some proper nasty moments once he really starts to cut loose, and there’s no mistaking this future super for one of the good guys – he pulverises bones, shatters faces and melts skulls with nary a twitch, just the tiniest hint of a smile.  It’s an astonishing performance from newcomer Jackson A. Dunn, who perfectly captures the nuanced subtleties as Brandon goes from happy child to lethal psychopath, clearly demonstrating that he’s gonna be an incredible talent in future; the two grown leads, meanwhile, are both excellent, Denman growing increasingly haunted and exasperated as he tries to prove his own son is a wrong ‘un, while Banks has rarely been better, perfectly embodying a mother desperately wanting to belief the best of her son no matter how compelling the evidence becomes, and there’s quality support from Breaking Bad’s Matt Jones and Search Party’s Meredith Hagner as Brandon’s aunt and uncle, Noah and Meredith, and Becky Wahlstrom as the mother of one of his school-friends, who seems to see him for what he really is right from the start.  Dark, suspenseful and genuinely nasty, this is definitely not your typical superhero movie, often playing like Kick-Ass’ deeply twisted cousin, and there are times when it displays some of the same edgy, black-hearted sense of humour, too.  In other words, it’s all very James Gunn. It’s one sweet piece of work, everyone involved showing real skill and devotion, and Yarovesky in particular proves he’ll definitely be one-to-watch in the future.  There are already plans for a potential sequel, and given where this particular little superhero universe seems to be heading I think it could be something pretty special, so fair to say I can’t wait.

13.  STAR WARS EPISODE IX: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER – wow, this one’s proven particularly divisive, hasn’t it? And I thought The Last Jedi caused a stir … say what you will about Rian Johnson’s previous entry in the juggernaut science fiction saga, while it certainly riled up the hardcore fanbase it was at least well-received by the critics, not to mention myself, who found it refreshing and absolutely ingenious after the crowd-pleasing simplicity of JJ Abrams’ admittedly still thoroughly brilliant The Force Awakens.  After such radical experimentation, Abrams’ return to the director’s chair can’t help feeling a bit like desperate backpedalling in order to sooth a whole lot of seriously ruffled feathers, and I’ll admit that, on initial viewing, I couldn’t help feeling just a touch cheated given what might have been if similarly offbeat, experimentally-minded filmmaker Colin Trevorrow (Safety Not Guaranteed, Jurassic World) had stayed on board to helm the picture.  Then I got home, thought about it for a bit and it started to grow on me, before a second viewing helped me to reconcile all everything that bugged me first time around, seemingly the same things that have, perversely, ruffled so many more feathers THIS TIME.  This doesn’t feel like a retcon job, no matter what some might think – new developments in the story that might feel like whitewash actually do make sense once you think about them, and the major twists actually work when viewed within the larger, overarching storyline.  Not that I’m willing to go into any kind of detail here, mind you – this is a spoiler-free zone, thank you very much.  Suffice to say, the honour of the saga has in no way been besmirched by Abrams and his co-writer Chris Terrio (sure, he worked on Batman V Superman and Justice League, but he also wrote Argo), the final film ultimately standing up very well indeed alongside its trilogy contemporaries, and still MILES ABOVE anything we got in George Lucas’ decidedly second-rate prequels.  The dangling plot strands from The Last Jedi certainly get tied up with great satisfaction, particularly the decidedly loaded drama of new Jedi Rey (Daisy Ridley) and troubled First Order Supreme Leader Kylo Ren/Ben Solo (Adam Driver), while the seemingly controversial choice of reintroducing Ian McDiarmid’s fantastically monstrous Emperor Palpatine as the ultimate big bad ultimately works out spectacularly well, a far cry from any perceived botched fan-service.  Everyone involved was clearly working at the height of their powers – Ridley and Driver are EXCEPTIONAL, both up-and-coming young leads truly growing into the their roles, while co-stars John Boyega and Oscar Isaac land a pleasingly meaty chunk of the story to finally get to really explore that fantastic chemistry they teased on The Last Jedi, and Carrie Fisher gets a truly MAGNIFICENT send off in the role that defined her as the incomparable General Leia Organa (one which it’s still heartbreaking she never quite got to complete); other old faces, meanwhile, return in fun ways, from Anthony Daniels’ C-3PO FINALLY getting to play a PROPER role in the action again to a brilliant supporting flourish from the mighty Billy Dee Williams as the Galaxy-Far-Far-Away’s own King of Cool, Lando Calrissian, while there’s a wealth of strong new faces here too, such as Lady Macbeth’s Naomie Ackie as rookie rebel Jannah, Richard E. Grant as suitably slimy former-Imperial First Order bigshot Allegiant General Pryde, The Americans’ Keri Russell as tough smuggler Zorii Bliss and Lord of the Rings star Dominic Monaghan as Resistance tech Beaumont Kin.  As fans have come to expect, Abrams certainly doesn’t skim on the spectacle, delivering bombastic thrill-ride set-pieces that yet again set the benchmark for the year’s action stakes (particularly in the blistering mid-picture showdown between Rey and Kylo among the wave-lashed remains of Return of the Jedi’s blasted Death Star) and awe-inspiring visuals that truly boggle the mind with their sheer beauty and complexity, but he also injects plenty of the raw emotion, inspired character work, knowing humour and pure, unadulterated geeky FUN he’s so well known for.  In conclusion, then, this is MILES AWAY from the clunky, compromised mess it’s been labelled as in some quarters, ultimately still very much in keeping with the high standards set by its trilogy predecessors and EVERY INCH a proper, full-blooded Star Wars movie.  Ultimately, Rogue One remains THE BEST of the big screen run since Lucas’ Original Trilogy, but this one still emerges as a Force to be reckoned with …

12.  JOKER – no-one was more wary than me when it was first announced that DC and Warner Bros. were going to make a standalone, live-action movie centred entirely around Batman’s ultimate nemesis, the Joker, especially with it coming hot on the heels of Jared Leto’s thoroughly polarizing portrayal in Suicide Squad.  More so once it was made clear that this WOULD NOT be part of the studio’s overarching DC Extended Universe cinematic franchise, which was FINALLY starting to find its feet – then what’s the point? I found myself asking.  I should have just sat back and gone with it, especially since the finished product would have made me eat a big slice of humble pie had I not already been won over once the trailers started making the rounds.  This is something new, different and completely original in the DC cinematic pantheon, even if it does draw major inspiration from Alan Moore’s game-changing DC comics mini-series The Killing Joke – a complete standalone origin story for one of our most enduring villains, re-imagined as a blistering, bruising psychological thriller examining what can happen to a man when he’s pushed far beyond the brink by terrible circumstance, societal neglect and crippling mental illness. Joaquin Phoenix delivers the performance of his career as Arthur Fleck, a down-at-heel clown-for-hire struggling to launch a career as a stand-up-comic (badly hampered by the fact that he’s just not funny) while suffering from an acute dissociative condition and terrible attacks of pathological laughter at moments of heightened stress – the actor lost 52 pounds of weight to become a horrifically emaciated scarecrow painfully reminiscent of Christian Bale’s similar preparation for his acclaimed turn in The Machinist, and frequently contorts himself into seemingly impossible positions that prominently accentuate the fact.  Fleck is a truly pathetic creature, thoroughly put-upon by a pitiless society that couldn’t care less about him, driven by inner demons and increasingly compelling dark thoughts to act out in increasingly desperate, destructive ways that ultimately lead him to cross lines he just can’t come back from, and Phoenix gives his all in every scene, utterly mesmerising even when his character commits some truly heinous acts.  Certainly he dominates the film, but then there are plenty of winning supporting turns from a universally excellent cast to bolster him along, from Zazie Beetz as an impoverished young mother Arthur bonds with and Frances Conroy (Six Feet Under, American Horror Story) as Arthur’s decidedly fragile mother Penny to Brett Cullen (The Thorn Birds, Lost) as a surprisingly unsympathetic Thomas Wayne (the philanthropic father of future Batman Bruce Wayne), while Robert De Niro himself casts a very long shadow indeed as Murray Franklin, a successful comedian and talk show host that Arthur idolizes, a character intentionally referential to his role in The King of Comedy.  Indeed, Martin Scorsese’s influence is writ large throughout the entire film, reinforced by the choice to set the film in a 1981-set Gotham City which feels very much like the crumbling New York of Mean Streets or Taxi Driver.  This is a dark, edgy, grim and unflinchingly BRUTAL film, frequently difficult to watch as Arthur is driven further into a blazing psychological hell by his increasingly stricken life, but addictively, devastatingly compelling all the same, impossible to turn away from even in the truly DEVASTATING final act.  Initially director Todd Phillips seemed like a decidedly odd choice for the project, hailing as he does from a predominantly comedy-based filmmaking background (most notably Due Date and The Hangover trilogy), but he’s actually a perfect fit here, finding a strangely twisted beauty in many of his compositions and a kind of almost uplifting transcendence in his subject’s darkest moments, while his screenwriting collaboration with Scott Silver (8 Mile, The Fighter) means that the script is as rich as it can be, almost overflowing with brilliant ideas and rife with biting social commentary which is even more relevant today than in the period in which it’s set.  Intense, gripping, powerful and utterly devastating, this truly is one of the best films of 2019.  If this was a purely critical Top 30 this would have placed in the Top 5, guaranteed …

11.  FAST & FURIOUS PRESENTS HOBBS & SHAW – summer 2019’s most OTT movie was some of THE MOST FUN I had at the cinema all year, a genuinely batshit crazy, pure bonkers rollercoaster ride of a film I just couldn’t get enough of, the perfect sum of all its baffling parts.  The Fast & Furious franchise has always revelled in its extremes, subtle as a brick and very much playing to the blockbuster, popcorn movie crowd right from the start, but it wasn’t until Fate of the Furious (yup, the ridiculous title says it all) that it really started to play to the inherent ridiculousness of its overall setup, paving the way for this first crack at a new spin-off series sans-Vin Diesel.  Needless to say this one fully embraces the ludicrousness, with director David Leitch the perfect choice to shepherd it into the future, having previously mastered OTT action through John Wick and Atomic Blonde before helming manic screwball comedy Deadpool 2, which certainly is the strongest comparison point here – Hobbs & Shaw is every bit as loud, violent, chaotic and thoroughly irreverent, definitely playing up the inherent comic potential at the core of the material as he cranks up the humour.  Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham take centre stage as, respectively, DSS agent Luke Hobbs and former SAS black operative Deckard Shaw, the ultimate action movie odd couple once again forced to work together to foil the bad guy and save the world from a potentially cataclysmic disaster.  Specifically Brixton Lore (Idris Elba), a self-proclaimed “black superman” enhanced with cybernetic implants and genetic manipulation to turn him into the ultimate warrior, who plans to use a lethal designer supervirus to eradicate half of humanity (as supervillains tend to do), but there’s one small flaw in his plan – the virus has been stolen by Hattie Shaw (Mission: Impossible – Fallout’s Vanessa Kirby), a rogue MI6 agent who also happens to be Deckard’s sister.  Got all that?  Yup, the movie really is as mad as it sounds, but that’s part of the charm – there’s an enormous amount of fun to be had in just giving in and going along with the madness as Hobbs and the two Shaws bounce from one overblown, ludicrously destructive set-piece to the next, kicking plenty of arse along the way when they’re not jumping out of tall buildings or driving fast cars at ludicrous speeds in heavy traffic, and when they’re not doing that they’re bickering with enthusiasm, each exchange crackling with exquisite hate-hate chemistry and liberally laced with hilarious dialogue delivered with gleeful, fervent venom (turns out there’s few things so enjoyable as watching Johnson and Statham verbally rip each other a new one), and the two action cinema heavyweights have never been better than they are here, each bringing the very best performances of their respective careers out of each other as they vacillate, while Kirby holds her own with consummate skill that goes to show she’s got a bright future of her own.  As for Idris Elba, the one-time potential future Bond deserves to be remembered as one of the all-time great screen villains ever, investing Brixton with the perfect combination of arrogant swagger and lethal menace to steal every scene he’s in while simultaneously proving he can be just as big a badass in the action stakes; Leitch also scatters a selection of familiar faces from his previous movies throughout a solid supporting cast which also includes the likes of Fear the Walking Dead’s Cliff Curtis, From Dusk Till Dawn’s Eiza Gonzalez and Helen Mirren (who returns as Deckard and Hattie’s mum Queenie Shaw), while there’s more than one genuinely brilliant surprise cameo to enjoy. As we’ve come to expect, the action sequences are MASSIVE, powered by nitrous oxide and high octane as property is demolished and vehicles are driven with reckless abandon when our protagonists aren’t engaged in bruising, bone-crunching fights choreographed with all the flawless skill you’d expect from a director who used to be a professional stuntman, but this time round the biggest fun comes from the downtime, as the aforementioned banter becomes king.  It’s an interesting makeover for the franchise, going from heavyweight action stalwart to comedy gold, and it’s a direction I hope they’ll maintain for the inevitable follow-up – barring Fast Five, this is THE BEST Fast & Furious to date, and a strong indicator of how it should go to keep conquering multiplexes in future.  Sign me up for more, please.

[violet-bookmark]

Princess of Dorsa, by Elizabeth Andrews, Ch. 3 & 4

Tasia could have had him put to death with a few words if she'd wanted to, and surely he knew it. He had to be wondering if she still would. But she didn't plan on doing that. Just as she'd learned that it was useful to have some allies at the Sunfall Gate, she might eventually find a use for a city guardsman who owed her a favour, too.

Since when being sexually assaulted by someone means that they owe you a favour? That would imply that the sexual assault itself was a "favour", a good thing. It is not as if she gave him some bread from her basket, he commited a crime against her. The fact that she equates that to "owing her a favour" is disgusting and makes light of the whole situation. He acted like somebody that had done it before, and I have no problem imagining a character like him doing it again, seeing as he got away with doing it to the princess herself.

That "Servant of the Empire before servant of my desire" thing surely lasted long. Where is your duty to the female population of the Empire, Tasia? For being a "servant of the Empire" you surely don't think about your people's safety at all.

They reach the Emperor's office and we get a description of the Emperor. He does not ressemble Tasia at all and it makes me call their blood line into question. Tasia looks like her incredibly beautiful, conveniently dead mother and nothing like her father, who is of course tall, fierce-looking and intimidating. I have the feeling I have read this exact lines a thousand times before. "My mum was the beauty and my father was the beast, and I look like my mum" is really, really trite. The father could be handsome as well (and to have a charismatic personality, or some personality that wasn't of the "cold-hearted ogre" variety), the mother could be the fierce and intimidating one or maybe they both could be normal looking. But god forbid that we have a princess that is anything but gorgeous and hot in a dainty way, and whose mother is alive.

In this scene Cole of Easthook gets introduced. He's a guard and one of her father's advisors, and will probably be important. He is always described as sneaky and cat-like so I guess he is up to no good.

The wannabe rapist guard and Tasia explain the situation to the Emperor. Tasia omits the fact that she was visiting a man at night, which her father says out loud for her instead. Real classy. I am sure that mocking her for this in front of several guards, one of them a city guard, won't damage her reputation at all, especially in this medieval (?) and mysoginistic society. It also makes his character look like a petty asshole, but I digress.

"I don't need your false promises," said the Emperor. "But tonight is the end of your foolishness, even if I have to lock you in your quarters each night and hang any guard who lets you out."

Dude, I am pretty sure you used the word "again" when you talked about how Tasia was visiting Markas. The book mentions at various points that everyone who lives in the palace and their mother know that Tasia has several male lovers that she visits frequently and has been doing so for months, if not years. Hell, several characters mention it explicitly on their dialogue. You have known for a long time and you haven't done jack, so excuse me if I think this is bullshit. You have not even bothered enough to change the guard's shifts, which would be a way better solution that killing capable men at your service.

After they arrange for a questioning of the assassin, every guard except Cole leaves and the Emperor starts to berate Tasia again for not being a proper princess and almost leaving him without a blood heir. Tasia reminds him that he has another daughter, to which the Emperor replies:

"Adela is a twelve year old who prefers ponies and pageantries to politics."

1) She is a child, you leave her alone. 2) pageantries ARE related to politics, unless you're thinking about beauty pageants, which it is what the author seems to be referring to. I am not an english native, but 5 minutes of research have shown me that pageantries used to mean ceremonies, some of which had political meaning (inauguration ceremonies and the like). Also, ponies and pageantries seem like very... Modern definitions of a little girl's "feminine" interests. This author seems to have taken Disney films as an accurate portrayal of medieval femininity, as the protagonist's mother was always singing with birds in the morning while they followed her across the garden. It is very cheesy.

Her father proceeds to throw verbal abuse at Tasia and to call her stupid with very long sentences. After that he proceeds to call his dead 13 year-old dead son "weak" and incapable, which makes me agree with Tasia: he doesn't care about his children at all.

"You think you know so much," the Emperor said. "But your actions reveal that you are hardly more than a child. A foolish child, at that, who nearly got herself killed tonight. For nothing."

Well, that's true.

"If two city guardsmen know that the Princess was found leaving the Ambassador's Quarter before dawn, it won't be long before word spreads and people begin to talk. I cannot wait any longer, Tasia. It's time you accept a husband."

You sure helped, saying out loud that your daughter was visiting a man at night in front of several guards. Also, this is a moot point, since we know that she won't have to be forced to take a husband for plot reasons. It creates no tension whatsoever and it doesn't tell us anything about the characters that we didn't know. The Emperor and Cole talk about getting a bodyguard for Tasia, which they should have a long time ago. Tasia says that it would be improper for a man to be with her at every hour (just give her a woman guard). After some back and forth, there is a scene between Tasia and her father that is supposed to be heartwarming, and it kind of is but I'm not entirely convinced, mostly because there are limits to how big of an asshole you can be to someone while still caring for them. Her father tells her that he felt the same at her age, that he didn't like to be the heir, but Tasia reminds him that their situations are different since she will never be able to rule in her own right; she will always have to depend on her husband's approval, and the Emperor reminds her that some women have been named Empresses in the past. That bit was pretty nice until:

Tasia scoffed. "One Empress who was named her father's heir. in the thousand-year history of the house of Dorsa."

This and other dialogue imply that the Empire has been standing for those thousand years. This is possible, but makes me curious about how did they resist for so long when they seem to have been in the verge of destruction for a while.

Father and daughter say goodnight to each other and we go to chapter 4.

I wish we got more descriptions of the scenery, because the author gives us no clue about how everything looks. The descriptions are scarce and bland; they don't leave any particular impression on me.

Mylla is introduced; she's a noble of a minor house and Tasia's handmaid. She's younger than her and quite loyal, as she waits for her and has been worrying about her wellbeing all night. They are lovers, and even though Tasia knows that she should not tell her certain things, she can't have secrets with her. They make out and have some sweet moments, like this one:

Tasia closed her eyes, letting the darkness become complete, disappearing for a sweet moment into a world where there was no Empire, no Markas, no assassin, no Cole, no Father, no Mack or Dawkin or Grizzle. Disappearing into the world which contained only her - her and Mylla.

The world where she wanted to live forever.

Awww. I still don't like Tasia but this was cute.

Mylla also berates Tasia; she doesn't like that she chose to stay the night with Markas instead of with her and asks her why she did it, and then we get this:

Because you would choose Markas over me, if given the chance, Tasia thought bitterly.

Well, I'm not shipping this. It does make Tasia more interesting, however. So far I took everything she did at face value, and didn't think that she could have hidden intentions when she was sleeping with Markas, apart from being obviously attracted to him. The fact that she slept with him to keep him focused on her and not Mylla gives her actions more nuance and show us that she can be good at manipulating situations (even when it is sad to have to manipulate a situation like that).

Tasia worries that maybe, the only reason that Mylla sleeps with her is because she's the princess, instead of because she is attracted to her. Tasia seems to be in love with Mylla, but to be honest, I don't get the feeling that the other girl is that special from the way she talks about her. With Markas, you understood how she felt without Tasia having to state it directly: she found him boring but still slept with him because she liked his abs, and that was all there was to it. Mylla just feels like an extra who the princess happens to be in love with. I don't like to be told about things, I want the characters to make me feel things. I want to feel how Tasia is pinning after this woman, how her heart beats when she hears her laugh, how she has to bottle up her bitterness every time they talk about their male lovers. While her infatuation with Mylla is a useful tool to explore her bisexuality and attraction to women, Mylla herself is just another minor character at the moment, and gets treated as such. She does not even feel like a character as much as she feels like a set of stereotypes - the vapid, gossipy handmaid who only worries about her love life.

Mylla has a present for the princess: a leather strap-on. She puts it on the princess and they have sex. If it sounds abrupt, it is because it is. The sex scene is very quick and not particularly well or badly written. It's okay. Kind of glorified the strap-on a lot, which was unrelatable to me, but at least the author didn't try to make some weird point about their sex being "more real" that way, or about some weird penis envy. Some "lesbian" books (especially the ones written by non-lesbians) do this and it is weird. Mylla teases Tasia because she had good strap game, and suggest that it is thanks to all the “practice” she’s had on the receiving end.

"Tasia laid on her back, said nothing. Like her, Mylla had already enjoyed her share of male lovers. If anything, Mylla's promiscuity was exactly why Tasia had so many men herself. It seemed so easy for Mylla to be callous, casual about what transpired between them alone in Tasia's bedchamber. It seemed so easy for Mylla to make Tasia one of many. So Tasia would be callous, too. She would make Mylla one of many, too. If it was only a game to the handmaid, then it would be nothing more than a game to the Princess."

This is a very toxic and sad mentality, and I feel bad for Tasia. I hope she moves past this and finds a healthier romance in this book. Then she starts to think about how Mylla will leave her one day, once she finds a wealthy suitor, and how it will be the end of their romance (if Mylla ever loved her to begin with). She has an angsty moment of remembering how horrible her night has been before she and Mylla had sex, but it is so quick and written in such a distant way that fails to make the reader feel anything. I suppose that the author wanted us to feel bad for Tasia, but I don’t know because her descriptions of the night sound very emotionless. She is like “x and y happened, and I feel bad because of it” but again, if she didn’t tell me that she feels bad about it, I would have no idea.

"Whatever you wish, my Princess," she said.

What I wish... Tasia thought. I wish for an Empire in which I could make you my wife, in which our daughters could be our heirs, in which belonging to a royal house wasn't their prison sentence. What I wish is..."

Weird how you’re so forward thinking and yet you don’t mind the fact that wannabe rapist is still part of the guard, that same guard that supposedly has to protect your people.

[cutiepiepotatoes]

Freya’s herbs

Ivarxreader

Disclaim: I don’t own any character. I placed a few references to other shows in it haha and it’s been a while since I wrote anything so I kinda got carried away (1900 words), also English isn’t my main language so please excuse me for possible grammar errors. Enjoy anyway and feedbacks are always welcomed!

Part 2

@feistybaby

Summary: Reader and Ivar are married, don’t know each other well, don’t want to know each other,  the seer gives them some herbs to eat

After three weeks being here, you had already enough of it. All the dirty smells, the cold, the odd looks the people keep giving you, the Ragnarsons’ smirks and of course Ivar’s behavior. That was the worse: acting like a child, yet being cruel and scary, ignoring you during the day, staring at you during all the feast in the great hall at night. The slaves were scared of him and keep you company, following his orders, but they were also scared of you, knowing your reputation.

Being the daughter of a great warrior, who became king of a foreign kingdom, you knew how to fight, how to kill and how to read. Speaking different languages helped you during raids, but it was also your worst flaw at one precise moment, at least it seems like that to you: when in England serving in your father’s army, you all met The Great Army, and decided to join forces to win. What was unexpected was that the Christian surrendered and during the negotiations for their lives, you stood out by understanding perfectly and answering them as if you were one of them. Surprised, Ivar decided you might be useful for other raids and asked your hand to your father, who eagerly accepted seeing you were far from finding a better suitor, being always in raid. Plus, he knew you didn’t want to get married, you wanted to remain a free shieldmaiden.

Now, you were treated like a princess who doesn’t know anything. Mostly because it apparently amused your dear husband. Walking around, you saw Ivar at the docks and immediately started to glare at him from afar. Which he reciprocated instantly. You looked like two idiots, glaring at each other, strangling the other in your head, at five feet apart. You approached, smiling at his brothers, and giving him your best fake smile: 

“Hello.”

“You piss me off so much!”

“Ivar, I literally just said hello.”

“And yet here I am, boiling with rage!” he growled at you, making you laughed at how ridiculous he was.

You were about to respond when the seer came, “May I speak with you, my King?”

“Well of course, mostly because it would to give me an opportunity to get away from this demon.” Your husband spitted at you, and you laughed even harder, making him even more pissed.

“Now the Gods want you and your wife to come”

“What?” you both said, suddenly completely serious with a dangerous voice. Ubbe just rolled his eyes, while Hvitserk slowly tried to leave, your tones reminding everyone how deadly you could both be if annoyed. The seer, who must have predicted your reactions, only walked back to his house knowing you would follow, which you did while growling and muttering protestations but refusing to go against the Gods’ desire. You didn’t wait for Ivar to take his crutches, you were even walking faster to get away from him a little. “Look like you want to murder everyone, shoulders down and chin up” used to say your mother for how to walk, and that is exactly what you were doing, on your own, alone, not next to Ivar. However, when you entered the seer’s house, something hit you: loneliness. You always walked alone, except on the battlefield, but even now you were walking alone on purpose to avoid your supposed husband. This statement saddened you, until you heard the oh-so-nice voice of Ivar:

“You’re in the way, woman.”

Except this time, instead of answering him with a witty comment, you just looked at him behind your shoulder and moved out the way. Your move made Ivar frowned and wondered what has gotten into you, and he realized he was almost, emphasis on almost, waiting your sarcasm. However, he showed nothing and kept walking.

“Sit down here please, and next to each other” the seer requested. You did as you were told, both still a bit weird from what just happened. “The Gods gave me a mission, and to pursue it I need both of you to eat these herbs tonight before sleep. You will have a dream which should help the Gods, mostly Freya, guide your couple through the journey of life. Do you know why the Gods decided to interfere?”

“Good question, wrong people, seer” you quickly answered. This made Ivar smiled a little, you were returning to your old self and it was somehow reassuring, yet he didn’t know why.

“You two have some things in common…”

“Breathing.” You said, but not as disgusted as you would have say it before. Ivar rolled his eyes but nodded, agreeing with you for once and noticing your change of tone.

“Yesterday, my royal couple, you had a fight.”

“So what? We fight all the time!”

“And that is what annoys the Gods, my King. They have plans for you two that aren’t realized because of your constant fighting. Yesterday I heard your fight and you said, I quote : “Ivar I swear I will squeeze your kneecaps if you keep glaring at me!” “then I will invert your rib cage Y/N!”. That was only two sentences of the long fight you had.”

You and Ivar looked at each other, slowly understanding how horrible you were to the other, but too proud to even think about changing. For once, the looks you had weren’t full of anger, they were almost respecful.

“Let the Gods guide you, let Freya do her magic on you this night.”

“Well, we won’t go against the Gods so give us the Freya’s herbs, seer.”

The rest of day was odd after your visit with the seer, Ivar was quiet, not yelling at his brothers or his men, he was just…quiet, going through his plans and ideas in pure silence. Ubbe was getting very worried, Hvitserk tried to act as normal as possible near him, until you entered the great hall, and oddly sat next to Ivar by choice. This made everyone ill at ease and even scared for some, as it was so unnatural. You were both silent, not going at each other throats but not talking nicely either, not talking at all actually.

The evening flew quickly, because no one stayed long after eating. The atmosphere was too heavy and they didn’t know why. You looked at Ivar, who only nodded before going to the bedroom. Once under the furs, you took the herbs and put some in Ivar’s hand.

“So are you ready, wife?” his question surprised you, he never called you wife before. But now wasn’t the time to think about it.

“Yes, on three. One, two…and three” and you both ate the herbs. Waiting for something to happen, none of you moved, but after some time you got really tired and fell asleep without even remembering it.

You woke up, and headed straight down the stairs in the kitchen. Ivar was here, making eggs. You bend down to kiss him lovingly.

“Good morning darling, did you sleep well? We have a long day ahead of us.”

“Yes honey, what about you? You moved quite a lot in your sleep this night you know. Is everything alright?”

“I did? Well yeah I don’t remember having a nightmare or else. I didn’t hurt your legs, did I Ivar?”

“No don’t worry. Go wake up the little monster, I’ll finish making breakfast for my girls” said Ivar, smiling while gently pushing your butt towards the exit from his wheelchair.

You entered the room, and approached the bed slowly, before gently stroking the little girl’s hair, kissing her head and whispering sweet words to wake her up nicely.

“Hi momma” she said in her little raspy voice. “Hi babe, sleep well?” “Yes but I’m hungry mom”. You chuckled, took her in your arms to go downstairs.

During breakfast, you look at Ivar with a knowing look, smirks forming on both of your faces.

“So sweetheart, your mom and I have a surprise for you: we’re going to spend the day at Disney today!”

“Really?!! YEAHHHHH” she ran into your arms yelling happily. “With the twins too?”

“No honey, the twins will spend the day at grandma Aslaug’s house. It’s only you and us today love. Sounds great?”

“Sounds awesome mom! Can I wear my princess dress?”

“Sure, go get ready princess!”

While she ran as fast as her little feet could take her, Ivar looked at her smiling, showing his white teeth. He was so peaceful, so calm, genuinely smiling, his eyes closed a little from how big his smile was. He was just so beautiful when he showed how happy he was. You didn’t even notice you were starring at him until he looked at you quizzingly, amused.

“What is it? Do I have pancake on my face?”

“No, no. You’re just…perfect for me. I love you, Ivar”

Ivar grabbed your face and crashed his lips on yours, looking at you with so much love in the eyes you thought you really saw hearts in it. “I love you too Y/N.”

Gasping, panting, sweating, Ivar grabbed your arm as you sat up, both of you trying to calm down and ease your breath. You looked back at Ivar, he seemed as confused as you, even more maybe.

“What was that?! Where is the Disney?”

You gasped, a dark look sitting on your face and you slowly answered him in a low, deep voice:

“Ivar, husband, is that really the only thing you remember from that freaking dream?! Are you serious?! We had three kids, our daughter was marvelous, you mother was alive, we were in love and you asked about this Disney? Really?!” This silent him, your angry look probably helped too.

“I… our daughter was indeed marvelous.”

Your heart was aching, you missed her so much, you wanted to hold her again, to kiss her head again. But it was only a dream, you didn’t even recognize anything of the décor around you. Your daughter, this girl, didn’t exist for real.

“Yes, she was, but… she wasn’t real, Ivar. We don’t have a daughter, we don’t have twins, and…we aren’t in love with each other.” A few tears were rolling down your cheeks, and you saw Ivar trying to prevent his from falling too.

“This dream, the love in it just felt so good, so real. I want that, Y/N. And…I want it with you. I know we aren’t getting along well for now, but with time and efforts, we will and maybe we will even… fall in love, and-and have children.” Seeing you were too shocked to answer yet, your jaw hanging a bit and your eyes wide open, he continued “I think if the Gods wanted us to see this maybe it’s because it’s what we should have…a family, with…love. What do you think, wife?”

“I-I…I think you’re right. Let’s try. Let’s become friends first and we will see. Deal, warrior?”

Grabbing the hand you extended towards him, Ivar pulled you back under the furs, close to him, a small but hopeful smile on both of your lips.

“Deal, shieldmaiden.”

[incorrectmlpquotes]

My Thoughts on Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks

Or: Are we sure this didn’t come out in 2004 rather than 2014? Because the “battle of the bands”  story line feels super dated for some reason. I feel like almost every early 2000s cartoon had some sort of music contest episode, and I never liked them. I blame American Idol for making those popular.

Some History:

I’m under the impression that everything in this movie I dislike is a completely subjective thing that wouldn’t bother someone else. I know that, from a movie standpoint, this is much better than the first, but I just don’t like it as much. Everything that warrants complaint comes from a personal hangup that I have (such as: my lack of any musical ability causes me to not care at all whether their band is successful), so if you disagree, I completely understand. These are all my opinions, and I’m aware that this is probably the best of the four movies. (As stated on a previous post, I haven’t watched any of the shorts from 2017 or 2018 as of this entry)  

There were a series of promotional shorts released before the movie debuted that explains how the members of the Main 5 came to play their instruments in Rainbow Dash’s band, and some other random stuff. Here’s the link to the playlist on youtube. Here’s a quick rundown of what I think:

Music to My Ears : meh

Guitar Centered : funny, but kind of mean spirited

Hamstocalypse Now : Hilarious.

Pinkie on the One : exactly what you’d expect it to be

Player Piano: a masterpiece

A Case for the Bass: Applejack is one word, why would she have AJ embroidered on the strap? I know people call her that but those aren’t her initials

Life is a Runway: There’s a reason they didn’t let Rarity write the songs

Shake Your Tale: Bad.

This was a pretty clever way to establish some musical background within the group without taking up time in the movie. It also is some sneaky foreshadowing with Trixie, which I appreciate.

In the actual movie: My nitpicks are going to be less Why is no one in class? Why is doesn’t anyone have homework? Because I realize this is a movie and depicting high school as it actually is would be boring to watch. Besides, there are plenty of other things to complain about.

We open on a scene of this film’s villains. And yes I am going to refer to them as villains instead of antagonists because 1) they are actually a threat and we see them doing bad things, and 2) other people will serve as antagonists. A villain is different from an antagonist, even though the terms are often used interchangeably. 

The Dazzlings are so cool, they make a cameo four years later. Either this is some really deep foreshadowing, or by season seven the writers were so desperate for an ongoing arc, they looked to other properties. But we now know that the guardians banished them over 1,000 years ago. So they really are ancient magic. And now they have to go to high school. Talk about eternal torment… 

Way to take all the credit, Starswirl

We are shown how they are a sort of siren, who feed off of people’s negativity and discord and use their beautiful enchanted voices to cause mayhem. Kind of like a mix between Ursula the sea witch and Spectra from Danny Phantom. Oh my gosh, this is the second one of these reviews that I’ve brought up Danny Phantom. Maybe this is why Butch thinks he’s so popular.

The Dazzlings, we can infer, have been exiled to the EQG-verse from Equestria. So apparently this universe is like the pony version of colonial Australia, where they send all their criminals and miscreants. A solid plan that couldn’t have any negative repercussions. The sirens see a beam of light that must be the one from the last movie. This is good news for them, but bad news for me because now I have no idea how much time has passed the two films. Has it been a couple days? Weeks? Moons? This will make a difference in regards to why people still don’t trust Sunset. But why waste time setting up the story when we can get right into the remix title card?

At this point, I can only assume that principal Celestia threatened to expel students if they told the news or the FBI about the magical winged demon that attacked the school, because no one seems too concerned about that incident.

But they have plenty of time to hurt my baby’s feelings

I’m going to be honest, when I first watched EQG I thought that Sunset was faking her remorseful act after being defeated. As cool as that would have been, she makes a much better reformed bad guy than an antagonist, because she really wasn’t in the last movie that much.

List of “evil” things Sunset Shimmer has done: send fraudulent text messages and emails that honestly could have been pretty easily disproved, made fun of Fluttershy, made fun of the steamers in the gym, somehow divided the school into cliques, ran a mostly unsuccessful smear campaign against Twilight’s bid for dance princess, threatened to destroy the portal to Equestria, transformed into a demon to hypnotize the students, and she dissed the Apple cider. 

Ok, that last one is pretty evil. But what really makes this and all subsequent movies great is that we get to see her learn and grow and change from the experience into a real friend.

I am glad to see that the Main 5 have forgiven her, but no one is quite ready to absolve her of guilt. Like, I might not think she did all that much bad junk, but the students of Canterlot High seem to think she was one tier below Mussolini  in terms of maniacal dictators, so I don’t blame them for being cautious. It takes a lot to earn back trust.

Back in Equestria proper, the Mane six plus Spike are sitting around waiting for the plot to affect them. They kindly provide some exposition and once again setup the fact that only Twilight can go through the portal, because the others can’t interact with themselves. So we think. I will be bringing this up when we get to The Friendship Games.

Back through the portal, Twilight  gets looped into the fact that Sunset has changed her ways. It’s fair to be a little apprehensive to trust someone who, the last time you saw them, was an actual literal demon. (Don’t worry though, Twi, you’ve still got two more unicorns to reform. It’s kind of your thing.)

Don’t reject her love Twilight, it’s all I have to live for

And now it’s time to discuss the small blue elephant in the room. I feel like I really need to explain why I dislike the addition of Flash to any of the plots. He’s kind of a waste of a potential. You want to add a male character: fine. But make them an actual real fleshed-out character. The show has proven that they can do it and do it well. Sunburst and Thorax are great characters who feel like a good addition to the story. And we got a real sense of who they were in one or two twenty minute episodes. I have no clue what this guy’s purpose is except to be a love interest, and this is not the show to do that with. With very few exceptions, the main characters of MLP have not sought out romantic partners, Twilight included. Why would she choose to do so now? I mean, I get why he’s into Twilight: she’s taken the form of a cute teenage girl. But he’s a species that doesn’t even exist in Equestria. She just fell through a portal and instantly got the hots for some weird otherworldly creature…

Wait a minute. Wait just a minute. Perhaps this isn’t compulsory heterosexuality. Perhaps Twilight Sparkle is just a Monster Lover™. I can respect that.

Moving on.

It was so very smart of the writers to have the Dazzlings brainwash the principals in order to get away with this scheme. That makes so much more sense and covers any plot holes that could arise (such as, someone claiming to be a new student despite having no transcript, no grades, and no knowledge of how to hold a pen).

Does time work differently between these two universes? Has it been months in Equestria but only a week in this world? (It really threw me off that the first four season of MLP took place over one year, and these movies don’t help that). And the sad thing is, this could be easily hand-waved away by a single throw away line, but it isn’t.

The Dazzlings are already better villains than Sunset, even from a character standpoint. We know their powers, we know their motivation, and we know they are capable of bringing about an actually believable rift between friends.

Then the best song, best montage, and possibly best scene in any of these films happen: the Dazzling come into the lunchroom and hypnotize everyone. This song is beautiful and eerie and exactly what you would expect a magic spell to sound like. I also enjoy the visual representation of the bands competing (and not just because I didn’t want to hear any of them perform) that we’ll see later. To give credit where credit is due, this movies has some great visual sequences.

Give ‘em the o’l razzle dazzle

At first I thought it was unrealistic that this many kids had bands, but I realized it was probably an effect of the spell. But I might not be the best judge: I think I know maybe three people, plus myself, who don’t play an instrument. I’ll just assume that the Disney channel exists in this universe, and all these children just really want to be famous.

It’s worth sitting through this movie just to see everyone’s pajamas. That’s not weird, right? No really, the scene of them all having a big slumber party is everything I ever wanted from this series. They managed to capture everyone’s personality from an article of clothing. Now THAT’s good character design.

I get the distinct impression that the writers of this don’t like Rainbow Dash.

Oh good, references to technology that couldn’t possibly date this movie in the slightest. Wait… this is Pinkie’s house. Aren’t the Pies supposed to be like Amish or resembling Amish-type folk? What is the human equivalent of rock farmers? Not actual farmers because those exist in the pony-verse. This really confuses me, but Maude’s cameo is fantastic.

The scene with Twilight and Sunset is one of those really well-done moments that reminds me why I love the show so much. It feels really genuine, and supports my argument that it was worth having Sunset as a crappy villain just to reform her.

Ah yes, the sweet, lingering glances that totally platonic female friends share with each other late at night. I know them well.

Our girl Twily seems to be having trouble writing a spell that can double as a catchy pop song (She’s no Lana Del Rey), so they go with an old set list. How long has this band been operational? Weren’t they in a huge feud for several years?

Mac is a close second for best cameo

So we get to watch the band audition, and it goes about as well an actual high school talent show. The CMC are in the outfits from Showstoppers (which is hilarious) and Snips and Snails rap (which is disturbing). In order to keep my goblin brain from exploding while trying to figure out the ages of everyone, I’m just going to assume that this is a combination Middle School and High School. So, if Sunset won fall dance princess four years in a row, she would be in the tenth grade now, so they would be about 15-16. The Equestria Girls Holiday Comic shows Rarity driving a car, so that could be a possibility.

A. Daft. Punk. Reference. Wow. Just wow. (Note: this was more shocking before season five, when there was a character that was basically Lady Gaga. And by basically, I mean very obviously Lady Gaga. Remember when the pop culture references in this show were subtle?)

Dash’s song is quite possibly the most cringeworthy thing I have ever heard. The only defense is it does sound like something a high schooler would write.

On that note, why is Rainbow Dash the lead singer of the group? I mean, I know why, but WHY? (and yes, I am aware that her voice actress is a singer. But Ashleigh Ball uses her normal voice when she performs. Think back to all the songs RD has sung in the previous four seasons before this aired. There are not a lot of solos or high notes. When she sings as Applejack, it is beautiful, but Dash’s voice is grating sometimes)

Really? A battle of the bands is the greatest thing you’ve done at the school? That whole “stopping an actual demon with magic” was just a regular Friday for you? I’ll chalk that up to the brainwashing, otherwise I might go full on rage and throw my laptop out a window.

I guess our merry band of protagonists weren’t paying attention to big cafeteria scene, because they just now figured something suspicious is going on.

Still haven’t fixed the lights in that dim corner of lockers. Fortunately, there are many dramatic confrontations to be had.

I think we’re supposed to see Rarity’s obsession with the outfits as a ridiculous thing, but I think it’s important to distinguish this universe from the one with the professional seamstress who has unicorn magic at her disposal. This is a teenager who has school, extracurriculars, and parents to contend with. If I went through the trouble to hand-make seven costumes for my friends, then found out no one would wear them, I’d be pretty ticked off as well.

Now this is how you montage. We get to play a fun game of “guess which characters are in which band,” and seeing their “humanized” designs. Lotta bootcut pants in this show.

I’m just going to leave this here...

This is some actually effective villainy. The whole school has turned against each other. Maybe they need to learn about the magic of friendship. Unfortunately, the gang is too busy squabbling over band stuff, and Twilight is too distracted to give an overly emotional speech.

No one in the rule book does it say magically turning into a pony is grounds for disqualification...I would assume.

If we’re being honest here, the Dazzlings are better performers than the Rainbooms.

And we’ve come to the crux of things. The scene where they’re locked under the stage is the perfect example of my biggest issue with this movie. I do not like to see Mane 6 fight. I don’t like Trade Ya, I don’t like Putting Your Hoof Down, and I despise Look Before You Sleep. Seeing this otherwise close group of friends constantly have petty arguments, even if it’s for completely valid plot reasons, make me want to turn the movie off. This isn’t a criticism of the screenwriting, it is just a reason why I personally dislike Rainbow Rocks more than the other films.

Of course, they make up because this is about the magic of friendship and what not, but notice how no one actually apologizes for their behavior. No, “I’m sorry that I minimized your contribution to the group or made fun of something you were passionate about.” I realize they were under the influence of magic, but they also knew that! They knew the Dazzlings had the power to turn people against each other! An apology is just a preamble to fundamental behavior change, and if they don’t realize why they were being bad friends, how can they learn from anything?

And the real kicker is, they knew what the Dazzlings were capable of. Twilight read a book about them immediately before going through the portal. It’s not they they just learned that they spread chaos. Why are we fighting? Gee, I don’t know.

DJ-ex-machina. I’m ok with this.

To the movie’s credit, the finale really has one of the best song of the movie. And by that, I of course mean Trixie’s song. Trixie is the most fun addition to the cast. She makes for a fun antagonist, on her own and as a Pawn to the Dazzlings.

Fight scene! Fight scene! We’re gonna have a fight scene!

Now that they’ve put their petty squabbles behind them, it’s time for a big music battle. The Dazzlings pony up harness the energy of the audience to project their Equestrian selves to...I don’t know. Take over the world or something.

This isn’t even their final form

Oh. This design looked better in book form

Sunset is Magic. That’s the show.

So the stones auto-tuned them, and that made everyone mindlessly antagonistic. I’m sure there’s some clever commentary there.

T’was the magic of friendship that killed the beast.

No, you don’t get to just rejoin the plot

Thank you, Trixie.

The real story here is how Principal Celestia will pay off the press.

Thus Twilight goes back to the land of horses, Starlight has been truly forgiven, and my Netflix suggestions will never been the same again.

I want to give a big shout out to the person who put all the captions on the image gallery for this movie’s wikia page. They are funnier than I could ever hope to be.

Some general thoughts:

The scene of Twilight awkwardly yelling “Friendship is magic!” to a room of confused teenagers is the cringiest thing I’ve ever seen, but it got a good laugh out of me. Look at the Dazzlings faces in this scene. “Ok, we legitimately didn’t see that coming.”

One of the reasons that I am so drawn to the show is that they are able to create conflict and drama without being mean-spirited. I have to deal with that kind of nonsense so much in my daily life, I just don’t want to subject myself to eighty minutes of it. But i get it: from a narrative standpoint, this is the most cohesive. There’s some good set up and pay off, and an actually intimidating villain who is actually present in the plot.

I love Trixie so much, I should be dead. She really is the star of the show. I forgot how little we saw of her before season six.

The stinger, oh the stinger. Forget what I said about the pajama party; it was worth sitting through this for the promise of an interesting sequel.

We’ll get to you soon, you marvelous lesbian disaster.

Starlight’s redemption is the best part of this franchise, and it’s worth all the nonsense to hear Rebecca Shoichet’s angelic voice.

From a purely film standpoint, this is probably the best one of the bunch. It has a clear structure, everyone’s motivations check out, there’s an actual climax that feels earned. I just don’t enjoy it. There are worse ways to spend eighty minutes 3.7/5

The worst thing to come from this, however, is the terrifying merchandise:

What Fresh Hell is This?

[kurenafujio]

An Example of why I don’t debate much in my comment sections on YT/Tumblr/FB/ETC. (It’s Endless) | TLDR at the End

@omg-whydidimakethisaccount

"You do know that racist people did the same thing for Black Panther right? “Innocent people are getting called racist for no reason because they didn’t like the movie!” For a while people believed it, including me. Then as time passes a lot of people started realizing that people were claiming this happened.....but no one actually sees it. And while I’m sure a few people have, the fact of the matter is that racists spread the rhetoric for a reason"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhKFv92JGqM

All throughout the comment section you see people saying “I’m black and I don’t want Ariel to change.” And black people are complaining all over the internet about it being racial pandering. Which-it-is. You just aren’t looking for it. Have you never heard of the phrase that the dumbest people are the loudest? Of course you’ll run across racists. They’re the loudest of them all. But they’re not the only ones who are upset and it isn’t “just a few.” That’s just your confirmation bias. “For a while people believed it, including me.” You think that you woke up to some new epiphany but you’re just viewing everything in extremes.

"It’s quite similar to conservatives labeling everything “sjw”. In hopes to make people’s points valid, we label them as names such as sjws or snowflakes."

You’re using the same tactics by labeling everyone racist who disagrees. Just because racist people have an issue with something doesn’t mean that everyone who has an issue with it are racists. How tf can you be mad that people exploit the phrase “sjw” when you are exploiting the word racists for the SAME REASON.

"And that’s what people did for Black Panther. The racists were very vague on what their comments were but they spread this agenda that people are being called racist left and right. That people are hunting down poor souls stating an opinion and harassing them. This of course wasn’t the case, but the power of the internet sure made it seem so. But like I said, smart people started noticing that this was not the case."

This isn’t the same as Black Panther. He is a real superhero who was originally black and his movie was very cultural. So it brought up controversy and there was a lot of racism involved. However, Ariel is a Disney character who already has a character design that people love and have been drawing for decades. Black people (yes BLACK PEOPLE) have made themselves clear. They want new original characters to represent them. Not to have their skin tone slapped on a white character for pandering and re-branding purposes only.

"And this is the case for pretty much any movie that causes stir due to race such as this. Now I’ve been on a lot of social media platforms. Reddit, tumblr, YouTube comments, twitter, etc etc. I barely see people refer a person that doesn’t like the casting a racist......w/o reason. Racists spread the lies for Black Panther because they knew they would be called out for their racists comments so they hoped that referring people who called them out as “sjws” would somehow stray away from that fact"

“w/o reason” is vague. I’m not going to take your word for it that their reasons are good because you’re the same person who said that only a few people are black and or genuinely just don’t want her character to change which is clearly false. Which I have already explained. And again with the Black Panther. Just because you didn’t see those comments for what they were during THAT particular movie, doesn’t mean that every movie that has a black character will only get criticism from racists. You have no sense nuance.

"And sadly that is going on with Halle Bailey. My friends were accused of being “sjws” for simply calling out a racist who didn’t like Black Ariel. Like I said my black friends also don’t like her but they aren’t being racist they just don’t like the actress. However when they called out an actual racist that reposted a “sea monkey” post in response to Halle’s castings they were harassed for calling a person racist over a “joke”

Your situation with your friends is just confirmation bias. That doesn’t speak for all situations. Hence me linking you the video that I sent you. Also the seamonkey thing is clearly a racist joke but that has nothing to do with my original point. You literally just said you know people who genuinely don’t want her to be black and are black themselves. But instead of being nuanced and thinking, “Oh, some people are racists and some just don’t want her to change” you take away from it, “most are racists and very few don’t want her to change.” It’s ridiculous. You’re not being objective. And why does someone have to be black to not want her to change without being racist? That’s a bigoted way of thinking within itself. 'If you’re white and you don’t like her, you’re probably racist.' No.

"Some people didn’t even know what was happening. They just saw “innocent person gets harassed because they stated an opinion” and started harassing my friends too. And like that, the Black Panther fiasco cycles it’s way back to the internet"

This isn’t the same as the Black Panther incident.

“I get it. You are a proud person. You want everyone to have a chance to state their opinion. Sad thing is, that’s not the problem here. There’s a bunch of actual racists convincing people that they should be upset over this when in reality it’s a damn movie. And sadly people fall for it. I used to be one of these people. When Scarlet Johansson plays Asian characters I followed the crowd saying “she’s a good actress, the character is an android anyways, who cares!?!?” 

No? You clearly didn’t even watch my video. I stated several times then and now that I KNOW that SOME people are racist who feel that way. However, you have NO RIGHT to label EVERYONE “most likely racist” for not wanting Ariel to be black. That is a hive minded way of thinking, you can’t compare this to Black Panther because the complaints are completely different, and the point that I originally made in my video is that people are not nuanced. You are thinking in black and white. Just because I am willing to acknowledge that a LOT of people just genuinely don’t want her to change and aren’t racist doesn’t mean that I am saying that NO ONE or MANY PEOPLE aren’t racist who feel that way. I’m saying its a mixed bag of opinions and not to lump every stranger who complains about it into one big group. How the hell can you complain about people labeling everyone sjws for a conservative agenda but at the same time you are labeling everyone who isn’t black, who doesn’t like this casting choice “most likely racist.” It’s not objective at all and you aren’t any smarter from the Black Panther incident by doing this. You don’t even realize that your mistake in both of these cases is that you looked at the responses in black or white. Either ALL/MOST complaints are racist or ALL/MOST complaints are not. That is a horrible way to discern the truth of any situation. And that mentality is exactly what I was ranting about in my video.

"But then to see the same people who I’ve sided with on the Ghost of the Shell debate all of a sudden throw a fit when a Black person is casted as Ariel? I realized there is something wrong. I didn’t accuse them of being racist. Because then I would’ve been racist. So I asked myself, why are people so weird about this sort of stuff? It’s cause our society was racist from the start. We value white skills, and we can make them take over any minority movie."

“The same people.” Who are these people? Again you are lumping everyone together. It’s so ridiculous.

"But when a minority takes a traditionally “white” role even though it’s not exclusive, all hell breaks lose. I don’t find all NotMyAriel logic racist.....but a lot of them come from racist rhetorics. When you go down to their core, they are very simple in logic. And the reason they are simple is because the racists spurred out the nonsense first. People just don’t realize it"

Not only is your own logic very simple minded but you aren’t even familiar with the term “Racebending Redheads” Which has been a trend lately. For some reason redheads are just raceless as characters and can just be swapped out with a black person. They keep doing it in movies and redheads are also complaining about this more and more. There are a lot of redheads who have an issue with Ariel’s new casting choice and rightfully so.

“ I mean do you know how many “What if we made Pocahontas white” I’ve seen? Or “What about Danish culture and redhead representation?!?:” all of which Danish people and redheads don’t give a damn. But that’s why these arguments are so....silly"

Lol but redheads do give a damn. Racebending Redheads is a thing. And yeah the Danish argument may be silly but you are literally cherry picking! What the hell? Did I ever bring up Danish culture in my video? Nope. Why not address the argument that people would rather see Princess Tiana as a Jamaican Actress than a light skinned African American who is from the same culture. Why? Because her character is dark skinned. So yeah this isn’t a cultural issue which is even more of a reason why you can’t compare it to Black Panther lol.

"Anyways, sorry for commenting so much. You seem like a well rounded individual and it’s always sad to see intelligent people fall into the same trap I fell into. Basically just really dig deep into these conversations"

TL;DR

You’re so condescending though. Insinuating that “smart people” are the ones who are “seeing through all of these lies.” I don’t agree with you so by your statement I am “not smart” until I do. In other words, you’re apologizing for the wrong thing. Like I said, you’re cherry picking what to argue against and then when its something you can’t argue against you just say crap like, “I used to feel the same way. Smart people are seeing through it. Did you know x y z that is completely unrelated to any of the good points that you made? Oh and I personally experienced a b c which is also unrelated to your 20 minute video.” Those aren’t counterarguments or realizations. It’s just bs and you aren’t listening to anything that disagrees with you whereas I am reading all of this junk and responding to what YOU SAID and countering it. Not replying with a bunch of unrelated strawmans and whataboutism.