#i adore the writing of these films

[ariaste]

Me: [sees everyone talking about how Assad Zaman was "literally" coming up with RPF about himself and Eric Bogosian in an interview]

Me: ah, fandom's doing its little "interpret an innocent comment in Some Kind Of Way" thing again, let's go find the video and do our own critical thinking about what was actually said here--

Assad: What would happen if I said-- [words that cannot be interpreted as anything but RPF fanfic]

Me:

Me: ok fandom gets a pass on this one actually

[kenobihater]

of all the star wars movies, which of them do y'all 1) enjoy the most 2) consider the best quality and 3) think you've rewatched the most. add your answers in the reblogs or replies, i'm genuinely curious how much of an overlap there is within everyone's three answers. mine don't overlap at all! they're revenge of the sith, empire strikes back, and the force awakens :^)

[queenofthed]

I love how different the adaptations from Anne Rice's IWTV are. On one hand the movie shows such a different perspective of the books, on the other the amc show is completely different, truer to the books but still so adapted.

Just shows how the author owns very little of their creations and how beautiful it can be to let fans create different versions of your world.

[elysianmuses]

“…Are you, are you, comin’ to the tree? / Where a dead man called out, for his love to flee, / Strange things did happen here, no stranger would it be / If we met at midnight in the hanging tree…”

[fragmentedblade]

Boothill's presentation being entirely on the twitter post makes me think he will be irrelevant in the story in the long(ish) run, and that the game itself won't dwell on him almost at all

[merakiui]

Thanks to the shrimp anon— Makes me even think, if Vamp Yan!Azul would be very flirtatious and clingy to his darling or just stern cold looking guy but would gladly hold his darling 😭

I feel like vampire Azul’s version of flirting is watching you from afar and hoping you’ll notice him so he can try to give you a sweet smile (truly the most unspoken rizz). He seems frigid and abrupt and even cruel at times, but he is secretly very clingy and caring. <3 once he's gotten on friendlier terms with you, he might become more confident and that smirk-grin he's had stowed away for centuries will slowly emerge as he begins to feel more like himself.

You may not see him often, but he is always there. And sometimes you might wake at midnight to hear melancholic melodies trickling through dark, desolate halls, with a certain lonesome vampire sitting at a grand piano cloaked in moonlight. 

[uncanny-tranny]

Could you describe your gender using words that are not typically used to describe one's gender?

The wave of exhilaration I got when I finally thought of a story I want to write after being burnt out for over five years, or maybe novels from the romantic movement or the decadent movement, for the latter it would primarily be the manner in which people spoke with each other in The Picture of Dorian Gray

[mariemarieohcontrary]

James: Is my play good?

Emma thinking of how messy and all over the place the play was plus the switching speech patterns.

Smiles through grit teeth

Emma: It's amazing babe!

[big-urchin-energy]

steddie miracle on 34th street au, do you see the vision

[biitchcakes]

thinking about Him a lot tonight

[storywriter12]

OK so yesterday I rewatched city of angels and I have to say I love angel nic cage he is so cute in this film I love him!

[femmesandhoney]

one reason i cant watch the teen wolf movie is that liams new gf hikari looks exactly like a child because the actress IS A FUCKING CHILD compared to dylan and it creeps me out so much like whoever thought that was appropriate 😵‍💫

[durrandons]

both baldur's gate 3 and one piece feel like there was so much love and so much passion put into, in this essay i will

[iridescentis]

one of my favourite things about reading any kind of fic is leaving long comments afterwards

maybe it's just the english language nerd in me that loves analysing writing styles and being descriptive, but it so much fun going through what i just read and explaining all the little parts i loved, whether that is specific scenes, the general way something was written, the themes etc. i just adore analysing all the things i love about how a fic is written it makes me so happy

[lily-blue-blue-lily]

this is niche but the scene in barbie with the photoshop was truly the most specifically relatable to me scene i have ever watched

[jacquelinemerritt]

The Prince of Egypt vs. The Disney Renaissance

Originally posted September 13th, 2014

The Prince of Egypt is a criminally underrated film. It performed decently at the box office, but Mulan still beat it out by $20 million. It was only nominated for Best Musical or Comedy Score, and Best Original Song. I consider this just as phenomenally idiotic a decision as the Academy’s decision in that same year to award Shakespeare in Love with Best Picture instead of Saving Private Ryan. Oh, and The Prince of Egypt didn’t even win best original music. Shakespeare in Love won that one too.

But the failings of the Academy in the 1990s are a subject for another day. Instead of talking about that, I’m going to talk about how The Prince of Egypt is a better film than any of the films released by Disney during the Renaissance. To do that, I will go through each film released and analyze their strengths, weaknesses, and why they ultimately fail compared to The Prince of Egypt. I’m going to start with the film I feel is the strongest film of the Renaissance (The Lion King) and work my way down from there (ending with Hercules and Beauty and the Beast). So, let’s get down to business.

The Lion King

And now it’s time to cause some controversy. First off, The Lion King was the best film Disney released during the Renaissance. While I understand that that is not a particularly controversial opinion, I do understand that some people view Aladdin as a superior film, and I understand and respect your opinion. It doesn’t matter though, because The Prince of Egypt is better than The Lion King in most every way. So, let’s divide this argument up into the four parts of a film that determine its greatness: Characters and Characterization, Theme, Cinematography (or in this case, animation), and Music.

Characters and Characterization

Simba and Moses are both well characterized, and provide interesting looks at surprisingly similar situations. Both run away from home after their father dies, or finding out their father is evil, respectively. They both abandon all responsibility for their people, and after a supernatural experience, they both return to set their oppressed people free. Both are well acted too; Val Kilmer sells Moses as the trickster younger brother perfectly, while Matthew Broderick delivers a perfect rendering of Simba as a king who comes back to reclaim responsibility for his people. So the protagonists are just about even here.

Where The Prince of Egypt succeeds over The Lion King is in its characterization of both antagonists. Scar is a worthy villain, to be sure, and Jeremy Irons delivers a phenomenal performance as well, but Scar is ultimately a much simpler villain than Seti and Rameses. Scar’s crimes are wanting a throne he has no right to take, killing his own brother for that throne, and traumatizing Simba (and, by him, the audience) by falsely blaming him for his father’s death. None of these acts are anything less than evil, to be sure, but they are a kind of evil that stems from simply being an egotistical power hungry maniac.

Seti and Rameses, on the other hand, have completely different motivations. Seti, who is played by the wonderful Patrick Stewart, is a man motivated by a desire to build and maintain a great dynasty. To that end, he is perfectly willing to enslave an entire race of people and use them as the workforce for building the monuments he wishes to be remembered by. But the reason he is willing to do this is not because he is evil. No, Seti is willing to enslave the Israelites because he doesn’t believe them to be people.

As wrong as Seti’s beliefs about the Israelites are, it clearly comes from the fact that his entire kingdom has been built on the back of slave labor since before he came into power. His culture’s acceptance of slavery is given as his reason for enslaving the Israelites, and yet it is not used as an excuse in any way. In fact, his apathy toward slaves and slavery is the indirect cause of Moses leaving Egypt, since it spurs him to kill a man who was abusing a slave, and flee the country afterwards. Seti is a great, complex and multilayered villain, and he isn’t even given over to any of the villainous tropes you’d expect from the antagonist from an animated film. And guess what. He’s only present in the first act!

The second and third acts shift the duties of antagonist over to Rameses, Moses’ brother and Seti’s son. Rameses’ motivations are every bit as complex as Seti’s. After the fantastic chariot race scene, Rameses and Moses are both being lectured by Seti for their shenanigans, and Seti utters a line that perfectly defines Rameses motivation for the rest of the film: “One weak link can break the chain of a mighty dynasty.” Rameses does everything that he does because above all else, he does not want to be remembered as the Pharoah who killed his dynasty.

And Rameses isn’t demonized either. When he holds firm to his decision to not free the Israelites, having already had all but the final plague sent on him, there is a scene where we get to see Rameses and Moses talk fondly about their childhood. He is making an incredibly evil decision, and just generally being a jackass, but he is still the brother that Moses loves and grew up with, and the film makes sure to remind us of that fact. Then he loses his firstborn son, and this happens:

Yeah, that’s right, you just witnessed the most human moment an antagonist has ever been given in a (Western) animated film. You can maybe argue that Scar had “complex motivations” because he brought the hyenas into the Pride Lands, but the problem with that is that it’s nothing more than a headcanon. This moment, where Rameses concedes that he has fully lost his fight against Moses and Jehovah, is more real, more tragic, and more moving than any of the cliched villainous cheese that we are given by Scar. And I fucking love Scar as a villain, but in comparison to Rameses, he just doesn’t stand up. So thanks to its respectful and complex treatment of its antagonists, The Prince of Egypt beats The Lion King in characters and characterization.

Themes

The Prince of Egypt and The Lion King both share themes common to the Hero’s Journey. They both have a strong theme of taking responsibility, and of bringing people out of darkness, as well as themes of the importance of leadership and believing in one’s self.

The overarching theme of The Lion King is quite to The Prince of Egypt’s as well. The Lion King is ultimately about Simba taking on the responsibility that was placed on him at birth, and learning to accept his unavoidable destiny as the King of Pride Rock. This theme is also complimented incredibly by the inclusion of Timon and Pumbaa, who both try to get Simba to ignore his destiny and live a life of peace, solitude, and “no worries.” When Simba and Nala meet again however, he is thrown out of his unworried state and forced to confront both Rafiki and his father, who urge him to “Remember who you are.” Simba then returns to Pride Rock, confronts Scar, and proves himself to not only being the rightful king now, but having always been the rightful king of Pride Rock.

The Prince of Egypt’s overarching theme is also ultimately about Moses accepting the responsibility thrust on him at his birth. However, unlike Simba, Moses’ time away from Egypt is not seen as wasted time. God makes it clear to Moses that his fleeing Egypt was just as much a part of His plan as Moses being found by the Pharoah’s wife. On the other hand, Simba living with Timon and Pumbaa is treated as a mistake by both Mufasa and Rafiki, and it is made fairly clear that he never should have left Pride Rock. You can even gather this by comparing the songs for these two sections. “Hakuna Matata” is a song about wasting time and having fun, whereas “Through Heaven’s Eyes” is a song about accepting your place in the world by looking at your life through the lens of a higher power. Essentially, in The Prince of Egypt, God and his plan are both in complete control at all times, whereas in The Lion King, people have the freedom to go off the track of their destiny, but inevitably they will end up where they’re supposed to.

The idea put forth by The Prince of Egypt is simply a better idea, especially in storytelling. Themes of destiny only really ever work when they incorporate personal choices into destiny itself. Where The Prince of Egypt goes out of its way to make it clear that even Moses’ weakest moments were still part of his destiny, The Lion King makes it clear that Simba’s attempt to avoid destiny was futile, and ultimately wrong, and what that ultimately means is that the film goes out of its way to waste our time with Simba’s experience outside of the Pride Lands. Now, don’t get me wrong, Simba grows during this time, and ultimately becomes the type of person he would need to be in order to return, but the film still makes it clear that not only was Simba’s time with Timon and Pumbaa a waste for him, but for us as well. And that sucks, because I really like Timon and Pumbaa.

Animation

Point made? Point made.

And to any of you naysayers out there who want to bring up the fact that this animation was only possible because The Prince of Egypt incorporated CGI in with traditional animation, whereas most of the Disney Renaissance films (including The Lion King) relied solely on traditional animation, I ask you, how the hell does that change anything? It’s not like Disney refused to use CGI to enhance later projects (like Tarzan and Treasure Planet), and honestly, it doesn’t change the fact that The Prince of Egypt has the best animation of any Western animated film.

Music

You’re gonna have a really hard time convincing me that Circle of Life is better than that opening.

Or that Hakuna Matata is better than Through Heaven’s Eyes.

Or that Be Prepared is better than Playing With the Big Boys.

Or that any song from The Lion King is better in any way than When You Believe. This is admittedly the most subjective category, but I do believe that the music in The Prince of Egypt is much stronger than the music in The Lion King. If you disagree, that’s fine, but I’m still marking it as a win for The Prince of Egypt in this category.

The Verdict

The Prince of Egypt won in each category. So, it has to win, right?

Of course it does. And you should watch it, in case you haven’t already. It’s a great film that really exemplifies Western animation at its best, and even if you disagree with me about it being superior to The Lion King, it is a phenomenal film that will forever remain one of my favorite movies of all time.

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