#but I could give it another shot?

[ampresandian]

I haven't read HoO so idk I could be wrong/maybe they talk about it in the series but let me just lay out for you what I know: 1) there's a Roman demigod camp called Camp Jupiter 2) It's run like the Roman military 3) there's also a city/complex for adults/families within/attached to it(?)

Anyway the point is that I think it's super interesting that the Roman counterpart to Camp Half Blood (named after the kids it supports/shelters/teaches) is named Camp Jupiter? Like first of all I feel like "camp" in a military setting makes me feel like it's transitory but they've clearly made something pretty permanent so why go with "camp" instead of say "fort" or "base"? And the fact that it's named after the King of the Gods sounds to me like it's indicative of their values; where the Greek camp (lol) values the heroes they're training, the Roman camp appears (again, without reading) to value the gods over the participants of their programming/organization?

[tswwwit]

I know Octobill is super careful to not bite Dipper, but does it ever actually happen sometime in the future? I could imagine the 10 minutes of panic before they realize Dipper kinda built up an immunity lol

Honestly? At some point Octobill is going to intentionally bite his new mate. The only one freaking the fuck out will be Dipper. (Until he realizes)

[binah-beloved]

i have now gotten past the unmasked rabbit man and the big wolf with the help of a friend. i hope everything in this manor except Nelly burns to the ground.

[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.

[florallylly]

back to stobin thoughts like why are they so wise for each other in fics sometimes. like 9/10 times they're giving each other good advice. in reality i feel like it's more of a hit or miss (mostly miss) 3/10 times they give each other good advice. i think they'd typically hype each other up for the worst possible choices (dump them/quit your job/confront that coworker), but rarely actually follow through. like they're complaining. they're brainstorming. but anything concrete? absolutely not.

[allmyandroids]

Raymond Reddington

In Season 4 Episode 2 - Mato

[sskk-manifesto]

Next time we should just skip over ep 3 and do a chapters 84-87 reread

[streets-in-paradise]

Hi! I saw the ask about the matchups and was wondering if they would be open in general or just for the previous asker. Totally cool if they're not, just wanted to check beforehand!

(Also, wanted to let you know that your blog has officially changed my mind about Troy!! I had only watched it once before when I was a kid and very obnoxious and hadn't revised my thoughts since then. Then I started reading through your blog, went back to watch the movie again and now I'm obsessed!!!!)

Hi anon!!

Send yours in, no problem :) All i would need is a description of yourself and the gender preference for the character you would want to be matched with.

( omg really? Did i accomplish that??? It's fantastic!!! The movie is often judged with disproportional harshness and one of my missions in this blog is showing all that is good about it to compensate for the overwhelming negative talk it has literally anywhere else. If this small Troy 2004 safe sanctuary for enjoyment contributed to change your mind and give the movie another shot, I am more than happy about that. And to know you became obsessed after your last rewatch?? An even bigger joy!!! Welcome, anon!! Bless you, get cozy near the campfire as i cook some troy fics for us 💕)

[awakefor48hours]

"Mspec gays and weirdos with neopronouns are the reason why no one's taking us seriously and they're erasing real queer identities."

Trump and Musk are some of the most powerful white supremacist on the planet that want to get rid of anyone who isn't an abled bodied cishet white person but go off about how that chronically online stranger is actually making equality harder. I would love to hear more about how the average queerphobic person simply doesn't take us seriously just because of lesboys and nothing else.

[rolandkaros]

WTA 9 - 12 AS LYRICS FROM SONGS I HAVE SAVED [1 - 4] [5 - 8] [INSP]

MARIA SAKKARI [GRE] -> GAVE YOU EVERYTHING [THE INTERRUPTERS] JEĻENA OSTAPENKO [LAT] -> SO WHAT [P!NK] KAROLÍNA MUCHOVÁ [CZE] -> A BEGINNING SONG [THE DECEMBERISTS] DARIA KASATKINA [RUS] -> LIGHT MY LOVE [GRETA VAN FLEET]

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2023. THE MEMORY POLICE by Yoko Ogawa.

[thegremlinofransei]

Has everyone lost their goddamn minds

[cyarskj1899]

[latestdreamgirl]

actually im a huge fan of most the covers for this series... like . tbh id buy that 5th issue purely for the cover

[age-of-moonknight]

“A Systemic Approach (Part One),” Avengers Unlimited (Vol. 1/2022), Infinity Comic, #63.

Writer: Mat Groom; Penciler and Inker: Caio Majado; Colorist: Pete Pantazis; Letterer: Joe Sabino

[onlygenxhere]

tricky treat! 🍬

Another juke snip from It's the End of the World as we Know it (formally Vampire!Juke)

He grinned at her and she frowned leaning toward him. “You’re hurt.” Luke frowned back, he didn’t feel very hurt, just bruised and sore. “Take this off,” She started to tug at his jacket and he obliged quickly starting worry because she was. His jacket was nothing special, he had a dozen of them because they were constantly getting ripped and torn but he’d worn his tac vest tonight thank goodness, like he should every night and didn’t. There were two long scratches along his left bicep that were oozing a little blood but they weren’t especially deep. “I’m ok, Julie.” He took her hands gently where they’d been running all over his torso worriedly. “It’s just a couple scratches.” She looked up at him and frowned then back down at the two parallel lines on his arm. “I smelled blood and thought…” She shook her head and took a step back pulling her hands out of his. “Smelled like more I guess,” she said dropping her eyes.

Trick or Treat Halloween in April