#i liked her actually

[moreespressoformydepresso]

What infuriates you most about descendants? From books and movies?

Mal.

More specifically her botched character from descendants 2 onwards and the way it affects the outcome of the story. She started out as a really good character and then the writing ruined her.

Okay so how to explain this in a reasonable word count? My biggest issue with Mal is that she seems to backslide on character development constantly. It’s not a one off, and Dove Cameron’s acting and singing cannot save Mal from the fact that two whole movie plots were caused by her doing something that makes no sense from any angle. To be clear: I like Mal… in D1. The first movie, while suffering from the same general weirdness as all Disney channel movies, is pretty good and Mal has a well-written arc. Its only problem is time constraint, but I can live with it being a little rushed and surface level because it’s Disney and it’s just one movie. It will forever grind my gears that Mal makes the emotional “we be good now” speech when she was literally the only one actively still trying to follow the plan, but again it’s Disney and she’s the main character. My only real critique is that Jay, Evie, and Carlos should have been the one giving the “we don’t want to be evil” speech rather than have Mal list out why her friends don’t want to be evil when they clearly already know (as shown in the montage during If Only’s reprise). But whatever, girl who’s never known anything other than how to be evil learns how to be good and find herself thanks to the love of her life. Compelling nature vs nurture story.

Then Descendants 2 rolls around, and the issues start popping up. Audrey doesn’t exist in the movie, which sucks because I feel like this movie should have at least acknowledged the consequences of Mal’s previous evil behavior (and also I like Audrey), but I can live with that. What I cannot live with is Mal being a horrible (girl)friend and making boneheaded decisions despite supposedly being a better person than she was before. I like the concept of someone breaking under the stress of adapting to an environment that is the complete opposite of what she’d known before, especially with the added pressure of being on the road of becoming the queen of Auradon, but as you may have guessed I find the execution severely lacking. My main gripe is that Mal’s reaction is stupid and goes against what the first movie told us. When you break, you cannot be expected to make great decisions, but Mal went through the trouble of enchanting her scooter to get through the barrier (which makes me ask all kinds of questions about the questionable security of the barrier, but whatever) and then actually went there, and chose to stay there even when her friends came to get her, practicality abandoning all of them even after she had time to calm down and think things through. That’s no longer just the stress. Mal was a better friend when they were all villains who don’t do love than she was when she’d supposedly turned good.

Supposedly, she’s learning to be a good person. But she lies about using magic and then abandons everyone without a word after a freakout where Ben’s clearly not even mad about the magic. She could have left a damn note, said goodbye, explained herself, but no. And that’s me going along with the whole leaving thing at all, but honestly even that’s a massive overreaction. Her issue is the pressure that comes with being the king’s girlfriend, that’s got nothing to do with being good, so why didn’t she just break up with Ben? It would’ve honestly been nicer than not breaking up with him and leaving for the isle forever without telling him where she’s going. This, of course, gets Ben kidnapped by pirates. Mal wants to help save him after making a dumbass bet (which was all kinds of stupid) that forced her to give the pirates Fairy Godmother’s want (idk how it would work inside the barrier that blocks magic but sure) but she still plans on staying on the isle. Okay fine, if that’s where she’s happy, but could she maybe talk to her friends and boyfriend about this at least once?!?! Then of course she goes back to Auradon anyways.

In case you haven’t noticed, everything Mal does in D2 is selfish. Not once does she consider anybody else’s feelings. Only a glimpse in Space Between but that’s a single song and all it comes down to is “we’ll still be together” which, to me, hangs a lampshade on the fact that Mal can leave with her scooter whenever she wants and all the kids stuck on the isle can’t. Nobody considers them, except for the antagonists of the movie. Not once does Mal, who is supposed to have grown from being evil, consider anybody else’s feelings in her decision making. Even accepting she’s going back to her evil upbringing, which could be interpreted as a way to show how abuse victims will often chose what’s familiar over what’s actually good for them, there should be something there to show us she isn’t actually the rotten being she pretends to be. You know, since the whole point of the first movie is that she’s not a bad person but pretending to be because that’s what she’s been taught is who she must be? It invalidates the whole first movie. But it gets even worse, because now we finally get to Descendants 3.

The absolute lowest of lows Mal’s character sees in the trilogy of movies, D3 made me hate her to the core of my very being. Not only does she have the same issue as she did in D2 where all her decisions are driven by selfishness with a callous lack of care for literally anybody else, she now lacks even the paperthin excuse of pressure getting to her. Stress and being overwhelmed can make people do stupid things, which is why I gave Mal leeway and didn’t hate her necessarily. I just didn’t really like her anymore. D3 took that leeway together with any and all character development Mal had over the previous two movies, rolled it up into a ball, and threw it out of a skyscraper’s highest window to splatter it onto the pavement below. One villain (who is her dad) almost gets through the barrier and her immediate reaction is to screw over every single innocent child on the isle and lock the barrier forever?!?! What the fuck is wrong with this chick?! I meant what I said in my post about the descendants boys, Ben should’ve told her that if she thinks the risk of one villain getting out is more important than the lives of thousands of abused children, then by her logic they should throw the kids they’ve already brought over back on there too. After all, there’s a risk they may still want to be villains given Mal’s little freakout in D2, tHe RiSk’S jUsT tOo HiGh! Those villains were dealt with by like- three heroes each. You mean to tell me all of them combined cannot handle that? Bring some guards with you next trip and don’t drag your feet when you close the barrier behind you next time, problem fucking solved! Or don’t tell anyone when you’re gonna go get the kids??? No one followed the core four out, and despite this oh so massive risk Mal’s so worried about she sure as fuck wasn’t worried about opening the barrier to go get Hades’ amber! Then Gil and Harry came out and guess what? They helped the main crew because all they wanted was to get off the isle. Mal didn’t just not oppose this cruel, extreme idea… she came up with it. Supposedly she’s a better person now, but her first reaction to her perfect life being slightly threatened with the possibility of issues (not even ruin, just issues), was to disregard every single child who’s just like her (if not better, because their parents weren’t the literal mistress of evil) and damn them to a life in hell on earth, an existence of nothing but crime and poverty and starvation and abuse! How can she be anything but selfish and mean and cruel with a thought process like that?! Her literal reason is that she wanted to protect her and her friends’s new life! So apparently in her mind, now that she has everyone she cares about off the isle, it’s not worth caring about the isle anymore. She has who she wants off, and fuck everybody else. Then she lies to everybody about it being her idea because she needs Uma and her crew to defeat Audrey, meaning she knows full well that what she’s doing is horribly shitty.

That’s what truly gets me, actually. If she genuinely believed this was the right thing to do, if she truly, 100% believed that there was no better solution and this is what had to be done… why did she lie? Why didn’t she explain herself with good arguments? Well… because there aren’t any. This was the worst possible solution, and she knows that, but it’s the best way to ensure her happily ever after isn’t threatened so who gives a shit? (Everybody else, but clearly Mal doesn’t care about that). She lies so she can use Uma, Harry, and Gil. She lies so her friends won’t get mad at her for her horrible behavior. She lies, because it suits her. Because it gives her the happy ending she wants, and that’s all she cares about. Then when this fails, she decides to go the other extreme route of breaking the fucking barrier so she can be queen of both Auradon and the Isle. That’s her literal reason. She says it herself. Even when she makes a “good” decision, it’s just to serve her. To give her more power. I know the message it’s supposed to send is that bullshit about evil not being inherent but fuck that. I don’t believe it, and I really wish we got to see the moment right after the credits where the villains do what they promised they would: take over Auradon and destroy everything, because some of them were on there for a very good reason. The whole point of the two previous movies was that we shouldn’t judge or condemn people based on what their parents did, but on what they do themselves. I have no idea how that means not judging the parents for their own actions either, and frankly it’s so stupid and shortsighted I’ll leave it there. There’s a reason I completely ignore the ending of descendants 3.

Anyways, what I’m saying is that after the first movie Mal’s character just kept getting worse and worse and I cannot stand her anymore. She’s selfish and mean and doesn’t give a shit about anyone but herself, and the narrative tries desperately to convince us she’s a good person deep down but with everything she’s done I just can’t buy it anymore even though I want to. They began well, with a good story about recovering from trauma, and somehow it ended up with them making trauma survivors look even worse than popular media usually does and I hate it. They tried to write a complex villain protagonist who learned to become a better person and escaped from the family cycle that’s implied to exist in Evil Like Me, which is good, but then they fucked it up. Badly. And I cannot stand Mal’s character with how she’s written, nor can I stomach the massive gap between who Mal is and who the narrative incessantly insists she is.

As you can tell I have many feelings on this, and I have a lot more to say but I’ve tried to not make this too long. I hope you enjoyed reading my rant because it was very cathartic to write :).

[starrysharks]

ghanaian miku

[cowboysmp3]

there’s something sooo sickening about how dunmeshis whole energy is like sometimes something terrible and awful happens to you and it changes you forever and nothing can make you the person you were before but there’s still love and there’s still sharing a meal together and there’s still living

[frankierotwinkdeath]

Y’all want Taylor Swift to be gay so bad but you won’t even write femslash about her

[cronchy-baguette]

double posting this comic bc tbh it deserves its own post.... thinking about how elphie was definitely crying after she runs off to hide somewhere following popular... what do the two of them think about afterwards....

[bacchuschucklefuck]

couldnt draw my thang for mid-autumn so treated myself to a calne redesign instead

[chloesimaginationthings]

The day FNAF Charlie Emily was shut out..

[makenna-made-this]

Okkkkkk so where is Chicken Miku?

Anon the way i dropped everything when i saw this

HATSUNE BEAK-U

(based on the Onagadori chicken breed)

[ruushes]

companions re-classed pt 1 - karlach 🔥❤️‍🔥💪

[inkskinned]

okay is she being actually immature or is it just a woman over 30 expressing a human experience you find to be immature.

like yeah. at certain ages... let shit go. im not defending the real immature shit. im not defending the karen you're picturing. i worked in retail i hate those people too. (once somebody got mad at me because she didn't like how our winter window decor was a snowman smoking a pipe. i wish i was joking).

but men at 57 will write books about how 17 year old girls are soooo sexy. they will invent worlds where women have to be naked for "armor reasons." they will write songs that treat women as objects. people rush to defend them. meanwhile a woman at 35 will be like "heartbreak is hard, actually" or "i feel betrayed by a friend" or "i am struggling with something emotionally." immediately people will say stuff like this woman is 35 by the way. by the way this woman is SO OLD to be experiencing this. BY THE WAY.

im 31, almost 32. the other day a poet was blasted online because at her "big age", she had written a poem about feeling unloved. top comment was "this woman is 29 by the way." this woman is too old to still be useful, by the way. she has to behave better . maybe if she was a good wife and mother she could stop existing loudly, and the story could continue on without her. this woman has served her purpose, by the way. she's so cringe, by the way. at 29 - so old! - she still hasn't figured out that her existence should be one of shame.

[andstuffsketches]

um, can you play a song with a beat?

[eydilily]

would you bite the hand that feeds you?

[aridatinas-art]

something something ... Stanford "Why didn't Rudolf just kill the other reindeer?" Pines and Fiddleford "I create death-mechas when my feelings get hurt" McGucket

[ok-pop-1]

i dont wanna be a magical girl...

fanart for @kianamaiart! background image credit here

[bean-spring]

Hot take and not to be a killjoy or the shipping police but people treating Viktor or Jinx's aroace headcanons as if they were canon is not the revolutionary take people think it is.

Headcanons are always all right but we have to acknowledge that they are somehow damaging when they apply to stereotypes. It might not be the case for everyone but most of the time people unconsciously assume that disability/mental illness=asexuality. These headcanons erase the freedom of attraction from people who are already seen as unable to have sexual/romantic experiences/desires, when it's completely untrue and harmful.

You can headcanon Viktor and Jinx as aroace, but I have seen people changing their minds once Viktor is no longer disabled (s2 with all of his other forms) and Jinx is no longer as mentally ill (alternate universe Powder). And it speaks wonders of how people see these characters.

"I never thought about Jinx being able to feel romantic/sexual attraction until s2!" To believe she's actually only capable of that when she's not "damaged" is incredibly disturbing. Especially since Jinx has always had a bit of a flirty personality too.

"I've always seen Viktor as asexual, I don't know why!" That's fine. You can headcanon him as ace. But I believe there is a reason behind it, most of the time, if for some inexplicable reason the "vibes" of the disabled character are making you think he's ace.

I say all of this being aroaspec myself, by the way. Headcanon all you want but going to people's posts commenting how "it's weird for you that they have romantic/sexual plots when they're clearly aroace" is not a win at all. It's a headcanon, after all, and it should be treated as such, and that's fine. But it also is damaging to spread stereotypes like these.

Of course the disabled character is asexual. Of course the mentally ill character is aromantic. It's not as revolutionary as you might think, tbh.

Fandom is not activism and it's all right to have any headcanons you want BUT some of them are filled with damaging stuff and perhaps we should look into ourselves more before treating these assumptions as something canon.

[sulfurzee]

Isha if she got to grow up?