#anyways these are my grievances

[catinfroghat]

I think the biggest grievance I have with severance season 2 was they still gave reghabi absolutely nothing and I think this goes along with the no black writers criticism quite well because you have this morally grey genius neurosurgeon who is also an older black woman so of course she literally just turns up to help the protagonist out of nowhere acts mysterious and then disappears again. We know nothing about why she turned against Lumon how she developed the reintegration technique how she managed to get in touch with Petey/convince him to reintegrate. It's a mystery show and we don't need all the answers straight away but even just some interiority for her would have been nice what are her beliefs is she feeling anything after the murder she committed how about after accidentally killing a patient does she have a family where has she been living all this time if she's on the run what's her history with Cobel just a crumb please

[corviiids]

grappling hook related posts

[see-arcane]

Tiana Should Have Been Odette

In which I continue to be bitter as hell that Disney's 2D animation and its Classic Princess machine closed out on The Princess and the Frog rather than shooting for a cinematic last hurrah in the vein of Cinderella or Beauty and the Beast to give us a Louisiana rendition of Swan Lake with a barely tweaked Tiana design and more cool character possibilities.

Case in point, another doll character design you dropped the ball on, Mickey:

Could have given Facilier (Rothbart) a hot goth flapper daughter. But no.

AND MORE DOLLS CHARACTERS:

Cygnets! You would have had a whole flock of cygnets!

Jazz and classical score fusions!

Full Fantasia majesty going on in the style and sound and story!

But no!

I feel in my bones that the Rodent will get around to Swan Lake eventually. But damn it, I would have loved Disney's old 2D crew making something special before they closed the doors, especially with the backdrop of the bayou and its sundry swans. Hand-painted scenery, the 1920s music and dance scene spliced into the ballet, a built-in reason to have more prominent girls in the cast with showy transformations back and forth between the winged silhouettes, the intrigue of the false beloved role swapping from Naveen (Siegfried) to Tiana (Odette) and Odile, a climax of birds in flight and magic fights by the water...

Sigh.

BONUS: Design comparison

2020:

2025:

If you let unreasonable bitterness over a children's movie come to a simmer, your art improves. How about that.

Ko-Fi is here if you're interested in some art of your own, with or without griping about princesses

[macdenlover]

we don’t acknowledge enough how dee used to be a pageant winner when she was a kid and how much damage it did to her. she worked her ass off and got recognition for being pretty and talented at a young age and it was the only source of self esteem she could garner in a family that constantly berated and talked down to her. she sought after that external approval because it was the only way she could prove everyone around her wrong. her dream of being a performer didn’t come from a self-aggrandizing delusion— she genuinely showed a lot of potential when she was younger. but she went through an unflattering puberty and her spinal condition got worse and that natural talent she had as a kid plateaued way too early. the “former gifted kid” dilemma. she slowly lost the thing that promised her that she was good, but she was so desperate to keep holding onto it that she tried anyway. again and again and again no matter how much people made fun of her because it was always about proving them wrong. but after a while she couldn’t jump anymore without anticipating the way it feels when she hits the ground face first. self-sabotage became her way out, choosing to rather live in the fantasy of her own unrealized potential and blaming those around her for her lack of success, than having tried and crashed again. she’d rather buy lottery tickets over and over and never scratch off the numbers than to see that she lost. that self-sabotaging behavior bled into other aspects of her life too, from friendships to relationships to therapy. her own short lived success is what made her grow into embodying the cycle of failure.

[in-the-airducts]

POV ur ambulon

For @lemonomelette's DTIYS! A lot of work but very fun.

[huggywuggysuppy]

Gem’s 2v1 beef in WL was a love letter to Pearl. hey you hurt me and I’m not going to ignore that, i want a proper ending, villains deserve catharsis too. everyone else forgives, moves on, shoves it down, but not us. we fight and bleed when we’re wronged, and when we’re wrong we breathe and we bond again. do it properly, you’ve done nothing wrong, he can handle owning up to that, he’s got a support system urging you to kill so try killing but do it for you. don’t worry about your team, they’re strong, and when you die I’ll be there, we can have fun again. my poor red pearl.

[dustykneed]

--Really, Doctor?

[alaskan-wallflower]

You were talking about fandom things you hate, and it made me think of one.

When Pony and Johnny sort of run away after Darry slaps Pony, and Pony's crying and saying "Darry hit me!", people like to paint Johnny in the light of anger, in a sort of "Well geez Pony, I get hit every day of my life and I don't sob about it! You should be thankful your brother even worries about you!" way. And I can see why people would think that's what he is thinking, but I have to disagree.

I think Johnny is thinking the exact opposite. He understands Pony isn't ever hit at home and that getting hit for the first time is extremely terrifying. He knows he's got it worse than Pony overall, but seeing Pony so distressed that somebody he looks up to and thinks highly of just hit him absolutely breaks his heart.

It's just annoying when people say Johnny has to deal with Pony's whinny ass when first of all, lets be honest, how would you react if somebody you never thought would hit you...hit you, and second, Johnny has the biggest heart and, like I said, is so sad to see his bsf sobbing about something he knows too well. Even if it isn't as bad as Johnny's, he still understands the pain and would never, ever, hang his abuse over Pony's.

I'm sorry its so long 😭 I did a terrible job at explaining that, I'm not surprised if you don't understand what I'm trying to get at. Your post just made my rant suddenly explode out of me lol.

-🥀

no worries!! rant all you’d like, this is a safe space for rants <3

but YOURE SO RIGHT UGH. people forget that ponyboy is FOURTEEN years old like no shit he’s gonna be whiny 😭 he’s not even “whiny” but there’s no better word for it—but it’s like every fourteen year old ever is going to have grievances with the world. even if he wasn’t fourteen like…he’s still a grieving child. he’s going to be upset about some things, and his older brother smacking him so hard that it sends him stumbling to the ground is rightfully one of those things. i can kind of see why people assume johnny’s angry with pony, just as i’ve kinda headcanoned steve to be a little uppity towards pony because to steve, pony doesn’t realize how good he’s got it compared to the rest of them, (not about the abuse btw, just in general y’know?) but realistically johnny’s much more empathetic. he’s not angry in the way steve is and he recognizes that ponyboy has never been hit before. i don’t think johnnys the kind of guy to be all “well too bad so sad, the world ain’t gonna treat ya nice sometimes so suck it up”. it’s just so out of character for johnny specifically. can i see that angry dynamic being there between pony and another character (again, not about the hitting, but about how pony has people who care for him at home in the way almost nobody else in the gang does)? yes. can i see that being the case with johnny? no.

the one thing i will say about that is johnny does say he “wishes someone would holler at him the way darry does to pony”. i don’t really think there’s any deeper meaning to that, but i also wouldn’t put it past johnny to want to ground pony a bit and bring him back to the reality that yeah, things are rough all over but it’s okay to be upset about it. does that make sense?

anyway, correct as always, preach your truth.

[vice-like]

i'm probably wrong abt this but the impression i get from this interaction is that hexorcists have at least one feeling that is mutual: they do not want to be alone together more than strictly necessary

[spotaus]

Quick doodle of ec-4o!Dust wearing this fun hat w/ bunny ears I got my hands on the other day!

[kangals]

since i forget it's not common knowledge for non-Dog™ people, brief overview of the collie thing and why i was losing my shit:

idk every country, but at least for the American Kennel Club (AKC) and Canadian Kennel Club (CKC), "Collie" refers to a specific breed of dog, most iconic as the breed of "Lassie":

these three dogs are all collies. collies come in two varieties, "rough" (longhair, more common), and "smooth" (shorthair, less common). both rough and smooth collies are considered the same breed, judged to the same standards, and can be born in the same litter, similar to how a black lab and a yellow lab are both labradors. it is equally correct to refer to them as a "rough/smooth collie" or as simply a "collie," as that is their official breed name in the US/Canada. while they used to be extremely popular in the mid-20th century, collies sit at #39 on the AKC breed popularity lists nowadays, making them solidly "somewhat uncommon."

a border collie is a separate and distinct breed of dog. while they share a common ancestor with the collie and are also herding dogs, their appearance, temperament, and herding style are all distinctly different. they can come in many colors, but are most commonly black and white with medium-to-long hair:

while a border collie is a type of collie-dog, in the US they are generally referred to as "borders" or "BCs" rather than just "collies," as "collie" is already the name of a different breed. BCs are more popular than collies nowadays, so most laypeople are more familiar with them than with rough or smooth collies. but given that "collie" already refers to a different breed, in the US/Canada it's not technically correct to also refer to a border collie as simply "collie" (or call them a collie, who cares, i'm not a fucking cop).

however, this gets further muddled depending on which country you're in - for example in the UK and many european countries, there is no breed that's simply called "collie" - Rough Collies and Smooth Collies are two separate breeds, in addition to Border Collies, which are significantly more popular. in the UK, "collie" isn't the name of any specific breed, but most people will use it as shorthand for their BCs. "collie" in the UK and "collie" in the US often mean two different dogs.

and then you also have the bearded collie, again a distinct breed, but much more difficult to mix up due to A) their rarity and B) the fact that they look like walking muppets:

and honorable mention to the shetland sheepdog or "sheltie," which while related to the collie is, again, a separate breed, and most notably is significantly smaller than a collie. if you see a dog that looks like Lassie But Small, it's probably a sheltie.

IN CONCLUSION:

several different recognized breeds of collie-type dogs

only one breed is officially named "Collie" and that's the rough/smooth varieties in the US and Canada (aka "Lassie dog")

ergo, there is only one breed of dog that "collie" actually refers to (in North America at least)

however due to the differences in names between countries and the overall higher popularity of border collies, they and other breeds are sometimes also referred to as "collies"

i own a rough collie and she is very pretty and therefore superior and if you call any other type of dog a collie except for the rough/smooth type you're Wrong.

thank u for coming to my TED talk.

[asofterepilogue]

I deeply love the epic musical but I have one big and unfortunately pretty central issue with it, and it's that it often seems to conflate kindness and stupidity.

odysseus' mistake wasn't sparing ("sparing") polyphemus, it was going into a cave full of food when he knew something was off about it from the beginning, and then giving the cyclops his real name when he had already won. it wouldn't have mattered that polyphemus was still alive if odysseus had just stuck to his brilliant original plan. polyphemus had to live long enough to move away from the exit that he was blocking, and going back to kill him once he was awake would have been incredibly dangerous, and hard to justify when he'd already so easily killed 7 (14?) men. mercy didn't have all that much to do with it, even though odysseus, athena, poseidon, the crew - the narrative itself at times - all later insist that's what doomed odysseus.

still, the lesson odysseus somehow learns from that is that he needs to be ruthless (which he already clearly is! he might hate it, he might wish he didn't have to be, but he is, at the end of the day, ruthless enough to murder a baby). but when it actually comes down to a choice between mercy and ruthlessness (and not just... a test of whether he can keep his mouth shut), mercy does a lot more for him than ruthlessness.

he's at his most callous in scylla's lair, and how does that work out? he makes the crossing, sure, but his crew attacks him, knocks him out, and takes the opportunity to do the most insanely idiotic thing they possibly could have, which ultimately sends them to their death, and odysseus to 7 years of suffering.

in contrast, odysseus gets help from circe. he chooses to go back for his men, he chooses not to lead with violence, he chooses to appeal to her mercy, and she ultimately chooses to be merciful herself. that's the only time odysseus and his crew aren't worse off having stopped somewhere. and it's not because odysseus was ruthless, it's not because he put his emotions aside, it's not even because he tricked anyone into anything - it's because he was unselfish and honest (but not completely stupid! he didn't provoke her, he used the moly well, etc.), and was met with kindness.

the implicit false equivalence between kindness and stupidity is even more jarring once you get to the wisdom saga, because athena is learning the exact opposite lesson. she's much kinder to telemachus even though he never seems as promising a "warrior of the mind", she sounds downright nostalgic telling him about odysseus, she admits she hasn't been sleeping well since she and odysseus fought.

she chooses to help odysseus not because she can use him for her own glory, but because he's her friend after all, and he's suffering.

and she doesn't win the god games by being ruthless (as in, cruel to her opponents) but by being smart. you could argue she's manipulating them, but I think she's just trying to find what would sway them, and she's not dishonest or mean about any of it. she can be smart without necessarily being ruthless!

there are still two sagas left, so maybe odysseus won't finish the story thinking he has to be the monster every time everywhere if he wants to win (though considering the snippets and tracklist... yeah I'm gonna doubt that). either way, I know I'll love it. I just don't love the casual way wit and callousness get conflated throughout what we've seen of the musical so far.

[citizenmoe]

i don’t always agree with how the dc animated movie universe runs things but the unbridled joy that battle of the super sons provides to my cold dead heart makes me forgive all grievances

[1000dactyls]

So I wanna know, you'd true and honest thoughts on THW I think I remember you saying you didn't want to talk about it? I'm so sorry for this ask, but I'm curious because so much of the fandom doesn't like it, and while I agree everyone sees to have different reasons

there is quite a bit i dont like about thw, but the two most primary reasons are a) the artistic direction and b) the narrative's betrayal of the core themes set up by the first movie

a lot has already been said about the artificial smoothness of httyd3's rendering -- the textural smoothness of the dragons and skin, for one -- but it's the botox injection valka and the other ladies seemed to receive that irritates me the most. coming off the heels of two other movies less hesitant to show signs of aging as a natural process, the flattening of their wrinkles and fat feels shallow to me.

IMHO, the unnatural smoothness of movie mimics the hollow feel the third movie's narrative has, lacking the history and depth of the events the characters have lived through and the impact that history has on the characters' physical appearance. the movie instead has a dreamy, hazy quality to it. which would be fine in most movies, but not for a franchise dedicated to the physicality of the characters (which was the whole point of the first movie, that hiccup (and toothless) was visually distinct from the rest of the cast)

so not only is thw ugly to look at compared to the other two movies, it's also a narrative shitshow pitted against the other two movies. like, setting aside the objective masterpiece that the first movie is, how does httyd2 end with "come hell or high water i will always jump after you when you fall" to httyd3's "nah man let's let you go". how did we get here???? by completely assassinating everyone's character

and it's just extremely frustrating because httyd1 was about overcoming differences; that message was the flesh and blood of the series, the franchise's beating heart. httyd1 navigates complicated generational trauma to cease endless bloodshed. httyd3... puts off that conflict into some however many centuries into the future. and then the last 5 minutes of the movie even don't get the departure RIGHT hello???

the only good thing about thw is that john powell got to flex his muscles and compose "once there were dragons" and bring me to tears in 5 minutes and 46 seconds

[virginreprise]

idk if i'm gonna be able to live through this damn hbo show.

[balkanradfem]

Wah, no, the Another Anonnie is not mad at you! Never! How can I be mad at such a precious person! I understand that you are being kind and it's hard to argue for me too. Please dont' be stressed about what I wrote! I just... get very into that politics and arguying myself especially if I see someone else being angry and that gives me a distress.

I am unsure if you are making fun of me due to how this message reads.... if so, okay, I guess I deserved that.