#bc hes never seen her in one of her own

[greenlighted]

harry picks up knitting during the summer after the wars over.

he's restless and can't sit still, he feels ready to vibrate out of his skin with all the pent up energy inside of him that's got nowhere to go. it's like he's stuck in the adrenaline rush of war long after everyone else has already crashed, burned, and been reborn again.

he goes to hogwarts multiple days a week to help the rebuilding effort, spends hours working off all of the energy inside of him. but it's still not enough. as soon as he gets back to the burrow his legs are bouncing, his hands shaking, his eyes fa darting back and forth constantly.

molly finally takes pity on him and starts letting him help around the house again after shooing away his offers one too many times.

he already knows how to cook, how to clean, from life with the dursleys. they're things he actively enjoys too, both in spite of and because of life with dursleys as well. he already knows how to do these things, but molly teaches him how to do it all the wizarding way. she teaches him to make different sorts of breads, even helps him make his own sourdough starter. she teaches him how to make all sorts of dishes, desserts, drinks. she teaches him cleaning charms and cooking charms. she even shows him laundry spells, he vows to show her and mr weasley a muggle washer and dryer.

but what he likes the most that she shows him, is how to knit.

he had already known the basics, as he'd tried to learn with hermione when she had started to make her house elf hats. he'd never stuck with it, and quickly gave up. but he'd been patient this time and let molly teach him to make hats, scarves, socks, sweaters.

he keeps the hobby once he goes back to hogwarts for their eighth year too. he can often be seen sitting in the eighth year common room surrounded with yarn. sometimes hermione will join him. it's fun, he thinks, having such an innocent, unhurried hobby.

he completes his first sweater for christmas.

its deep red, with dark green trim, and a large dark green 'M' in the middle of it.

[jq37]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[crimeronan]

I'm wildly curious, which if any of the big TOH twists did you see coming? Philip, Lilith as the one who cursed Eda, King's memories being fake, the Titan-Trappers being cosplayers, that sort of thing… (and of course the big one re: Hunter & Grimwalkers.)

i saw lilith cursing eda 100%. i knew that philip was going to end up Relevant to the main plot in some way, but i didn't clock exactly How until elsewhere and elsewhen. i guessed that belos might be human based on his cut ears in eclipse lake.... i didn't put together or understand the grimwalker thing (or the philip-and-his-brother thing) until rafi explained it to me after we watched hollow mind, EVEN THOUGH my brother had been texting me telling me to "pay attention" to the clues at the beginning of eclipse lake and at other points in the series. absolutely didn't even QUESTION that tarrlok was king's dad (or at least related to him).

there WERE a lot of other things i predicted.... except they were all related to characterization, not plot. i'd written fanfic scenes with luz calling hunter family and promising to protect him LOOOONG before TTT or any TTT previews came out. i predicted that luz and hunter were going to switch archetypes & that luz was going to have negative character development between s2 and TTT. i clocked REALLY early that amity's parents were abusive and that she missed willow & didn't actually have ill will toward her. i remember thinking "oh, i'd love to see willow fall apart, but i know she's the Support Friend so they won't actually go there" and then they went there.

when it comes to characterization, character arcs, and relationship dynamics, i'm Really Good at guessing where things are going. just based on the clues we've seen in the canon.

when it comes to plot elements based on similarly obvious clues?? Hopeless. Absolutely Hopeless.

[paintingformike]

mlvns will accuse bylers of only seeing mike as an accessory to will but if you ask them what they think mike’s arc is outside of his romantic relationship it’s crickets...

[hella1975]

going crazy about an oc again. like it's my fault

[mad-hunts]

so... i've been thinking about auriel again because i actually did have an account for her once upon a time (just on another platform) + all i can remember is doing this roleplay on there with barton immediately asking the person whom told him they saw her was whether she was okay because she had went missing with no trace for years after all. and additionally, this was also while shedding tears like there was NO tomorrow, which is 😭 like he isn't a good person, y'all, but he does have his moments where it actually seems like he genuinely cares about people

[badgirlcoven-official]

Shoutout to me and the one other person who actually adores Willow's breakdown in ftf but isn't a huntlow fan

[nexus-nebulae]

another childhood bucket list item obtained: i finally have a snuggie

[halojalex]

Lisa is a Zionist

ok source?

[imaginarypasta]

i’ve been trying to get through hoh for literally like a week now but it’s so hard bc the way my fave nico is treated is absolutely ABYSMAL and i know it only gets worse

[meatriarch]

nosy makes me so upset sometimes bc it really is a collection of moments very early on post-basementbrawl where maria & lee are used against one another in varying ways and oftentimes, lee's safety is strung over the top of maria's head just out of reach but shes so desperate to keep him alive that in spite of any of her attempts to jump up and grab it for the longest time, he still gets beat to shit for so much, and the handful of times that desperation fogs her judgement, and she directly does something against johnny, it really is just a moment of,

" lesson from johnny to maria, outcome imposed onto lee "

bc its established almost immediately when they reunited that johnny could use him against her, use her against him. and its a sure-fire way to ensure she doesnt go against him. bc she cant handle lee getting pummeled sometimes to the brink of death on front of her.

[dbphantom]

maybe i should have gone into practical effects instead of computer science...

[imaginarianisms]

1 day i will make a meta of sansa's dynamic with her metaphorical champions/suitors & how that correlates to the ashford theory (i.e sansa being betrothed to joffrey baratheon, then promised to willas tyrell, then being married to tyrion lannister, then being married to harry hardying then married to aegon vi targaryen & aurane velaryon but it is not this day. lmao. when i make that meta it'll be so over for y'all.

[pastelchad]

Instead of writing fic where you genderbend the ukes and make them str8 couples (😐) genderbend the entirety of sih and make the central conflict about Akihiko and fem!Ritsu's lavender marriage

[isa-ah]

i made a new sim im obsessed with yall might have to deal w fanart of her sorryyyyy

[riverofrainbows]

So i watched the Winchesters now, because of the news about the finale, and i have to say. The show is actually brilliant. Not specifically as a show on itself, it's pretty good as a show at best (the internal logic, introduction to the world and characters are lacking to wobbly, but it's definitely enjoyable), but as a processing of supernatural. It really is "Dean sending his parents to therapy to work through his Mommy and Daddy issues". It's also not as repressed as supernatural and a lot of US american tv shows in general tend to be, so that is refreshing. It's kind of earnest which is nice. Also i cannot talk about it without mentioning Carlos, i am in love with Carlos, the incredibly chill and as far as i can say positive way this bisexual male character was introduced was fantastic. And his first scene, as a bi man i had to pause to breathe, and the camera/editing definitely supported that. Like that was celebratory not mocking.