#im missing a ton of context for tangled

[kayashe-art]

I have to disagree on this.

As songs, sure. They're both really good songs (Though "Ready as I'll ever be" feels really cluttered with the amount of characters audibly involved) and I like them about as much as each other (despite not having watched Tangled and thus missing a load of context here) and both songs bring across the motivation of their respective villains well enough (actually, on that "Ready as I'll ever be" does seem to do a little better, implying Varian is doing this due to wanting to prove his ways are the better ones and/or spite for being painted as the bad guy/revenge while "This Day Aria" paints Chrysalis as a cardcarrying villain without hinting at any further motivation than "fuck these ponys and Cadance in particular")

Specifically as villain songs though?

Varian just has to share his with too many heroic characters that don't even offer that much contrast to his single verse. The song honestly seems more about the sliding scale of confidence of the characters (again, missing a lot of context but to me it seems that Rapunzel is very sure she is going to achieve her goal that she 100% believes in, the other girl has doubts about her ability to fulfill the shoes of the wounded captain character and while Varian is bend on fulfilling his goal to the point of becoming the villain he is is very aware that it isn't a good thing to strife for and he really shouldn't) and there is far too much triumph on the heroes parts in the song. Varian's part has the exact same energy as the parts of the heroes (spoken dialog aside).

Chrysalis on the other hand shares her song with her foil. That alone elevates her song as it highlights her as being the villain by contrasting her callus demeanor towards not just "her" groom but everyone else involved in the wedding with Cadance's love and care towards Shining Armor. Cadance's only triumph (jumping/flying/gliding over a chasm) in the song leads to Chrysalis basically winning (the wedding itself starting while Cadance is still trapped in the caverns), Cadance's parts are softer in tone and language than Chrysalis bombastic boasting about her success.

Then there's the stakes established.

Just going by the lyrics, I have no fucking what Varian's trying to do beyond some vague notions of revenge.

Chrysalis's lyrics point to her being uncaring if not cruel so you can tell that at the very least she is going to abuse Shining Armor in some way so even without context you can tell that is a Bad Thing.

And again, "Ready as I'll ever be" has the same energy throughout, putting all of it's characters on somewhat equal footing.

"This Day Aria" gives Chrysalis, the villain that has pretty much won, a lot more pomp and triumph compared to Cadance's more subdued and generally desperate parts.

Finally, there's the visuals. The differing art styles obviously are factors and again, I lack a lot of context for Tangled, but ...

Varian is in some kind of cluttered lab with the only thing visibly giving him any sort of advantage being the queen being chained to the ground, him working on something big and vaguely mechanical and having some dude encased in amber(?)

The captain at worst seems to have indigestion. I genuinely can't tell what's wrong with him. I assume he got poisoned or something? That's definetely not helped by him sitting up and confidently saying "she is". Soldier girl's confident entrance and glinting sword also do little to make the troops shown in a disadvantegous position.

The only times Rapunzel's expression shifts to anything but confidently determined is when she fumbles catching the pan and when she looks back at the castle.

I don't know if the series just has an aversion to go off model or show its character unkempt but the whole thing just makes me think that Varian is lashing out for being ignored while everyone else is very sure they can make him back down/reconsider his options.

We end on everyone saying "I'm ready" with only Varian shown saying "as I'll ever be" though they are all shown to be about equally determined in their goals. I do admit that Varian gets a pretty ominious closing shot but other than that ...

Now, MLP on the other ... hoof, I suppose ...

We zoom into what is very clearly some form of palace and Chrysalis herself starts out in full wedding attire, putting on the final touches. She makes some manequins bow to her before proudly gloating about fooling everyone. The last thing we see is her actuall eyes glowing in a black void.

When we cut to Cadance she is running desperately and visibly dissheveled and framed inside a gem. Once we actually see her where she is, she dejectedly sits down as if she reached a dead end. She is then shown reflected in the faceted wall of the cavern as she laments her situation, again visibly desperate.

We cut back to Chrysalis as she struts around the room and violently kicks a table away from her. She mockingly shows off her acting skills by flirting somewhat with a manequin, dramatically hanging off of it. After ripping apart its head, she very proudly declares to not love the groom and looks straight at the camera as she declares that she still wants ownership of him.

Back to Cadance who is frantically running through the caverns with another pony she apparently explains her situation to. When they come across a minecart and some tracks the other pony grimaces at them but Cadance still dashes ahead, futilely trying to push it to move. The other pony helps and they rush down the tracks before they are catapulted out of the minecart at the end of the tracks. Cadance manages her single moment of triumph by preventing both of them from falling into the chasm and

We cut to the wedding. We are greeted with trumpets and everyone in attendance looking at Chrysalis. She strolls towards "her" groom whose eyes are shown eerily similar to Chrysalis' own, even his sclera being shown with an unnatural green tint to drive home the point. As Chrysalis smugly stands beside him we get a split screen, showing Cadance landing on a ledge before we see the dead end she has run into. She crumbles in despair as we are also shown Chrysalis' triumph and the vacant stare of the groom. The last thing we see is Chrysalis illuminated dramatically in front of a black void as she giggles in triumph.

Overall, Chrysalis is shown to have all the power while Varian just isn't. Honestly, the visuals of "Ready as I'll ever be" could just as easily be a montage of heroes gearing up to take on a villain (shackeled queen aside) (heck, the dude in amber could be there because Varian is trying to free him, it's genuinely just the queen) in their own ways while "This Day Aria"'s make it very clear who the villain is (despite her looking like the hero to boot!)

Villain Song Showdown Bracket D Round 4 (Semifinals)

Ready As I'll Ever Be (Tangled the Series) - Villain: Varian

This Day Aria (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic) - Villain: Queen Chrysalis

[destressjournal]

DCOM Rankings #102: Tangled: Before Ever After

Ahhhhhhh something familiar! I missed looking forward to watching a DCOM….

So I watched the entire movie pretty quickly, it was only 58 minutes (this is why the review will be shorter). And that is where I will point out the movie’s first flaw. I think this is probably the shortest DCOM ever. This is a fucking crime. Tangled is one of my favorite Disney movies from the revival era, like it’s basically in my top 3. I think it deserved a TV movie a little bit grander than what I got. If not more grander, then more story….I get it though. They were setting up for the TV series. And they had to keep some things in conflict. I just wish the dad allowed her to have those adventures, even if she’s gonna have them anyway.

There’s a bigger reason why I didn’t watch this movie or watch the series since they came out. It was because I was a little peeved that they brought back rapunzel’s hair. I feel like throughout the original Disney movie, rapunzel’s hair was her defining thing, it was her everything. People only wanted her for her hair, and because of that she became trapped in it, metaphorically and literally. When eugine cut her hair, it freed her. It allowed her to be the person she always wanted to be, and go wherever she wanted to go. I feel like giving her hair back was a step backward in her character development, because now she had the thing that trapped her again.

Now that I’ve had a few years to think about it, I realize it wasn’t necessarily the hair that trapped her, it was mother gothel and the other greedy mf’ers who just wanted her hair. And now that mother gothel is gone, even though she has the hair again, she can still redefine herself, because the thing that trapped her is still gone. There’s a new context to her old hair now, and she’s still the same person who developed throughout the original movie. Yes there are still gonna be greedy mf’ers who are gonna try to take her/her hair. But now that Rapunzel has a smarter look on life and she knows better, things will be different.

In reality, I know she only got her hair back because Disney wanted her to, and you just can’t have a repunzel with short brown hair. If they were gonna continue the story, she needed to have her hair back in some way or another (and extra bonus that her hair is now uncuttable). Even at Disney rapunzel is still defined by her hair…tsk tsk tsk! Branding. Lol.

Okay now that I got all that out of the way. What did I think of the movie itself? It was cute! I liked it! Like I said, it wasn’t as grand as I thought it would be, it felt a bit more like those direct-to-video sequels like Cinderella 2 or Pocahontas 2. Just repunzel learning how to be a princess, and figuring out that she doesn’t want to be stuck inside again. I’m happy that the movie addresses this though. Even though she is with people who love her now, she still is, in a sense, trapped, because she’s a valuable human being, even without her magic hair.

And that definitely triggered her for sure when eugine proposed. Also another slight issue is that rapunzel’s parents keep calling her a teenager and yet eugine thought it best to propose marriage to a teenager. Idk. Im glad that rapunzel declined initially, but like she also could have easily explained why. She never explained why she rejected his proposal. Which I thought was super strange. But yeah she felt trapped again and she wants to see the world. I think that works perfectly with her character.

This movie was just more so introducing us to the characters that will be in the TV series, like Cassandra and lady Kane. So there wasn’t really a ton of action in it except for the end, just a lot of set up and internal conflicts within and between the characters. But it’s not like none of it was entertaining. I liked the humor. The characters are all great, and the new ones will just be something to get used to when I eventually watch the series. I’m gonna try to watch all the TV series based on Disney movies, I know some aren’t on Disney plus so I’m gonna have to get creative.

Clancy brown did pretty well as the king, but all I hear is long feng and mr krabs whenever I hear him talk. I’m sure his character will grow on me eventually. Basically this movie/the TV series in general gives me a different vibe that I don’t know if I 100% like. Because I know they go into detail about where rapunzel’s magic comes from. And I don’t know if I ever wanted to know that. A drop of sunlight fell to the ground and got put in a magic flower and the queen drank it and boom, baby rapunzel is magic. That was good enough for me. But we’ll see, because I heard the series was very good and I’m glad that tangled is getting some love. I’m surprised they haven’t made a frozen tv series yet. Maybe too expensive for the VA’s they got for the movies.

Ummm yeah there’s not too much else to say about this movie. I was a bit annoyed when the fight broke out in the end and the king immediately surrendered. Maybe because rapunzel was involved and he didn’t want them to hurt her. Idk. Eugine and rapunzel are still as cute as ever. Love them together! But uhhhh yeah, it’ll be a while before I get to the TV series so I may have to watch this again since this is considered the “pilot”. oh the art style! I love the 2D art style of the movie/show. It’s so unique and painterly, just like rapunzel. Her character has red lips though, which I guess makes her look a little different than her 3D counterpart, but it’s not like a big annoyance to me, just something I’ve noticed. Eugine looks pretty different too, but not worse, just different. The song “wind in my hair” was also really good!

Okay now I think I covered everything. I don’t think I’m gonna give this an A+. Just because I’m still slightly unsure about the movie/TV series in general. Maybe I’ll change my mind later on. But an A is still really good!! I hope that this new vibe grows on me and I can learn to love it. But for now, onto the next film!!

A sequel….yayyyyyy…Not sure how much I’m going to like this one, guess I’ll find out!

[luisneer]

selected tweets 2016-17

These are tweets from my first @luisneer twitter account. Recently I made a new twitter account with the same username, after having deleted my account and having been without twitter for several months. These tweets are from August 2016 to March 2017, which was most of my first year of college at Shepherd University, in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. I don't go to Shepherd anymore; I transferred to West Virginia University, in Morgantown, WV, after my second semester. My tweets from late March 2017 to [July or August] 2017, when I deleted my twitter, were not archived. 

I'm creating this blog post so the world will have access to some of my tweets from the deleted @luisneer, in case they have any merit as literature. I'm still not sure if I will continue to use twitter in 2018/the future. Usually when I use twitter I feel like I'm actually wanting to be doing something else, but I don't know what; or wanting to be using "another app" that doesn't exist. Twitter generally seems bad for me. Questions about my tweets August 2016-March 2017 can be directed at luisneer@gmail.com. Thank you

    2016

   morgantown has ~48 vape shops

 **morgantown has ~480 vape shops

 siri has werner herzog-like inflections

 considering changing outfits when i take several walks in one day (so nobody thinks im a serial killer, stalker, spy, alien)

 think i remember ~5% of things i said today

 imagined vague connection btwn 'vitamin d' and 'reptar'

 felt distinctly that i was a monkey or chimpanzee while crouching in the corner of my dorm room eating peanuts out of a jar

 just thought (as a request to my mom) 'fax me my skateboard...'

 looked at toilet in bathroom stall with expression of 'utter terror' for what felt like ~15 seconds while it flushed

 listening to bright eyes with headphones at house show

 feel that the toothpaste i use is advancing decay of my teeth

 feel 100% certain that i could train myself to use telepathy to operate my phone during classes

 enjoying the sensation of my right leg 'falling asleep' during psychology class (left foot is also 'asleep')

 felt 'sociopathic' after eye contact w library worker who watched me pick up & pocket a pair of apple headphones someone had left on a chair

 left stolen apple headphones on gray bench across the street from my dorm

 repeatedly placed/removed sunglasses while walking in hallway

 strong desire to remove all positive patterns from my life and perpetuate/embrace all negative ones

 feel that my laptop 'knows' which parts of its screen im looking at

 in winchester, VA

 thought of my own music as having 'no compelling audible elements'

 thought of myself as being legally named 'the fuck up', then couldnt remember my actual name

 successfully, i feel, duplicated 'sociopath facial expression' during eye contact with arch-nemesis in stairwell

 ive taken 13800mg ibuprofen since i got to college

 feel compelled to ask my 9 yr old brother for advice re 'college-level' personal issues

 feel smart after sitting on couch in painting studio + reading art magazines for 2 hours

 persistent notion that 100% of students at my college personally hate me

 psychology professor muttered something like 'scary snake... endocrine system...'

 feeling heavily drugged/sedated in psych class

 psych professor seems obsessed with/terrified by snakes

 imagined kanye smoking crystal meth and tweeting something like 'please help me... cant feel mouth... need help'

 saw a moth at open mic, thought about god

 experiencing difficulty trying to smile

 enjoying using numerous cliches ('the case is closed', 'taking a step back', 'harsh realities') in an essay

 intrigued by conversation i had 9 hrs ago w/ 2 boys who countered my tone (calm, eloquent) exactly by being loud and rude in a friendly way

 felt simultaneously really cute and really lonely while giggling with my mouth closed in french class

 imagined kanye inventing the word 'compactualize' and using it in a sentence during a televised interview

 enjoyed 8-sentence john updike bio in norton lit anthology

 perceived person standing outside bathroom stall occupied by me could 'sense', via something like echolocation, that i was/am depressed

 spoke to french professor in what felt like a distinct persona/alternate luis neer called 'marge simpson voice' luis neer

 feel confidently that the public debut of 'marge simpson voice' luis neer was a success

 feel that 'marge simpson voice' luis neer is the culmination of an unconscious process that initiated in my mind maybe 3-5 years ago

 i want to identify/analyze additional alternate luis neers

 i dont like videos

 i came to college and got weirder, better at writing, more arrogant, more defeated, more sensible

 simultaneously feel that i should run 3 miles and that, at this moment, i would be incapable of running any distance

 feel urged to draw new attention to my 'marge simpson voice' tweets

 huge power outage at shepherd lol

 realized theres no such thing as a 'nation'

 remembered ive blown off obligations to several people, not just one person, so my irresponsibility doesnt 'have a focus', felt comforted

 feel that my follower count is 'crystallized' / will never increase or decrease ever again

 struggled to convert 'stick-and-poke' to past tense during conversation in line at sheetz

 feel it would be pleasurable to take a donut + bottle of coca-cola from this sheetz via armed robbery

 crossed busy road, felt really surprised i didnt get hit by a car, also i wasnt wearing glasses, was walking to sheetz, bought an icee

 laughed alone in my dorm thinking that i should print out a picture of barack obama to put on my wall

 drank from separate glasses containing soymilk, coffee, iced coffee, apple juice, cranberry juice, water, sprite for dinner/breakfas

 just thought 'from adorno to zizek' sans context while shitting

 opened gmail, emailed my father, closed gmail, opened gmail again, viewed email to my father, forwarded it to myself

 'camcorder' would be a good band name

 i thought arnold palmer had already died

 willem dafoe doesnt make me uncomfortable

 i want to stop being mean

 i hate bfs but i want to be someones bf

 wishing i was in a car with friends and no cellular service

 tangled up in myself and others

 twin peaks is depicted as a small town but its population is greater than that of every city in west virginia including the state capital

 eating shark

 thought of my own intelligence as 'frightening'

 thought while walking to class that ginger ale should be made public domain

 had the stitches on my chin removed today, touched the scar tissue for the first time

 i miss being in therapy

 i love carpet

 i love carpet !!

 just thought about my own tweets and lol'd

 mood lately very fragile

 this is what i get for staying up til 5 am

 all night i've felt a wave of dread swelling up, now it's really hitting me

 sound of laughter in public still frightening + unnerving

 my instinct for when to unfriend people on facebook has adapted so that i unfriend people over statuses that make me feel no emotions at all

 fuck, im feeling so much terror

 gucci mane was born 3 days before conor oberst

 the other day i mentioned that i was a poet and this vape guy interrupted me to say "and you didnt know it" and i went fucking nuclear

 interacted with mailman who was picking up mail as i was trying to mail chapbooks, he didnt notice at first that i was talking to him

 what if old people have secrets

 my dad is making me root for a football team but im in pain emotionally

 i feel guilty in general

 thought of my poem "portrait of a nation without any people" as the "lead single" for my full length; it appeared in potluck 14 months ago

 im close friends with satan rn

 feel like travis scott never intended for people to spell his name with a $

 from now on every time i get honey on something ill list the thing in this thread

 finger

 desk

 coffee cup exterior

 pajama pants

 knee

 carpet

 chin

 phone

 shirt

 shoe

 thought that my elderly geography prof. moves by "shuffling"

 feeling shorter, broader

 the only part of the new bright eyes box set i want is the booklet

 is there a booklet? i know there are nvr b4 sn photos

 the song "lime tree" came to conor oberst in a dream

 i like citing things in MLA

 i write essays by pretending im werner herzog

 doesnt seem to be getting later

 lit professor gave my project (sequence of 6 sonnets) a C, i wish she would have gotten me expelled, shelley + ginsberg both were expelled

 heard someone in another room ask "where's wal-mart?" as if wal-mart were a person whose location could change

 i think i just swallowed a filling while eating popcorn, i am very scared, please help

 crazy how things get worse

 there are people on my floor having tons of fun and im upset

 bit my mattress while sitting in the chair next to my bed

 weird that chance the rapper only has 2.4 million followers when he's sort of one of the most famous artists in the world rn

 also weird that donald trump has made 34,000 tweets, seems like an incredibly large number

 the strangeness of yesterday was, for me, augmented by people on the internet talking about a tv show that ive never seen or heard about

 the sunlight is obscene

 im so upset about the sun being so bright im afraid to go outside

 im glad im the only poet who likes trailer park boys

 i slept in a blanket fort under my bed and havent left it all day

 yr = your ur = you're

 my favorite things are pdfs

 now that ive adapted my living space to allow me to never leave my blanket fort i feel like my roommate, omar, exists in a parallel universe

 i hear him but i never see him

 i love latte art, i drink many lattes

 thought that twitter "isn't worth it" in an upset tone while drinking mtn dew

 felt pleasant considering uniqueness of all parent-offspring relationships

 went through my closet + made sure all shirts and jackets were zipped/buttoned

 my blanket is generating flashes of light from static electricity

 record store guy became visibly sick of me several months ago; feel a little guilty every time i enter his store to spend money

 i prefer EPs

 felt "out of control" walking downhill listening to dead kennedys with headphones

 writing an essay is difficult because idk how much relevant information other people have already considered / moved on from

 have been wanting to write at least one poem inside my blanket fort but i don't think it's going to happen, i don't know why

 the internet isn't big enough

 usually when i think "i dont understand the uproar about [event]" i realize there is no "uproar"

 "uproar" is media's way of manipulating the public spotlight and distracting people from important tasks

 feeling helpless + melancholy after dying 15 times and killing 2 stormtroopers in star wars battlefront

 the only way to attain conor oberst-level emo hair is to lay in bed and sob for hours

 i'm sad

 my mom was confused when i told her my first book comes out today

 was luis neer in odd future

 thought "sometimes i just want to end it and start all over" in an exasperated tone re my goodreads account

 becoming increasingly convinced it would be best for me personally to take myself extremely seriously/never joke about myself

 thinking that my tweets would seem terrible if i were a senator/governor/other politician

 imagined doomsday device for future @starwars movies: the "death train," a normal train that exists in space and destroys planets

 how does anyone do it

 in science fiction movies, spacecraft usually look like shopping malls

 everyone in the world is high except me

 feel like i want to have poems published immediately

 having delusions of grandeur

 im sitting on my record player

 my most-used word in 2016 was "bleak"

 prepared and ate garbanzo beans w a lot of rosemart at 2:00 AM

 my brother has a friend over and is being mean to the friend

 all i want for christmas is to never cheer up, ever

 watching eyes wide shut and hugging duckuc

 my nose feels like it's going to bleed

 im sad because every bf looks like me

 getting better at eating ice cream by punching it with my tongue

 the internet is too freaky...

 i think 2017 will be a year of realizing things

 im watching the angry birds movie

 the angry birds movie is so shitty... why was it made...

 ive never had a new years kiss

   2017

   im weird

 eating medicinal ice cream

 im not going to do any drugs in 2017

 made a medicinal phone call

 i want to drink some blood

 i dreamed that roger ebert wrote a negative review of life after ppl and called it "liner notes"

 years dont kill people

 feel inexplicably/explicably really scared about the future of my poetry career

 i've felt stoned since i was a baby

 downloading google earth

 made eye contact in starbucks with possible luis neer incarnation from ~50 years in future; bon jovi "dead or alive" played through speakers

 realised that at some point in the future i will become extremely interested in watching football

 i recommend reading poems extremely slowly while touching the text with your middle finger/index finger

 experiencing cognitive dissonance

 used phonetic clues to correctly predict meaning of & use the word "tandem" while discoursing with myself internally

 i miss steel pedal guitar sounds on conor oberst songs

 my previous incarnation "college luis neer" has evolved to become "high school luis neer-like luis neer in college setting"

 thought "man, i got to stop caring what people think about me" in an emphatic tone that seemed confusing/interesting

 mediocore

 beyonce is cool i think

 i want to re-read "v for vendetta" and to not tweet about it

 remembered that i own a pinata

 i will be at awp

 how could i make twitter a better place

 i saw 4 people wearing yeezys in dc this weekend

 feeling increasingly self-conscious about how much i use the phrase "in the world" or refer to "the world" in poems

 felt robot-like while attaching detachable headphones cord to my headphones while wearing the headphones

 watching shepherd univ lacrosse team practice from "safety of" student center

 i invented releasing two chapbooks in one day

 im dumber than me

 reasoned mentally that im more likely to produce accurate drawings of myself because "i basically look like a bird, so i just draw a bird"

 i want to have a "fake tweet" (e.g. a simple phrase) to tweet repeatedly every time i feel urged to tweet an uninformed/unimportant opinion

 my fake tweet for the foreseeable future will be "i dropped my textbook in the stairwell". when i tweet this it means i have an opinion

 i dropped my textbook in the stairwell

 does anyone remember the chapter of "the hobbit" where bilbo avoids starvation by ingesting peanut butter, honey, cherry nyquil, and water

 sensed that all my college friends just simultaneously shifted from having vague/non-serious negative feelings about me to hating me

 resulting from continuous building of irrepressible/inevitable conjecture in the friends' conscious thoughts

 eating chicken and squash

 i click on 100% of poetry links tweeted by poets i follow

 when i was writing Waves i was obsessed with waves (e.g. energy waves, frequencies) and used the word "waves" at least ~10 times every day

 i dropped my textbook in the stairwell

 white nike swooshes on shoes of boy in library look vibrant/magical

 terrified of being cool

 walked to library really slowly while listening to noise music through big headphones

 i was really, really yung when i started publishing and i'm still really yung

 2 chainz always looks like he's walking in an airport

 i have 5 twitters

 i didnt know what bill paxton looked like, i was thinking RIP gene hackman

 why doesnt anyone blog about me

 thesis statements arent real

 thinking about my book

 i deleted both my tumblrs by accident

 sad about my tumblr

 my name is all over the internet

 im a lizard

 someday there'll be no more ppl

 a lot of conor oberst song titles have parentheses

 feeling sad about the actions of my clone, who passed away

 idk how to use venmo or what it is

 present-day tumblr is like the end of the never ending story where atreyu is talking with the rock biter and the nothing is swirling around

 when someone, anyone, is upset with me im afraid im going to be assassinated

 the views-era apple music ads that depict drake working hard in the studio have really affected and inspired me

 on tumblr i have 4 followers

 almost all of my tweets seem unimportant

 feel that if someone told me that one of my tweets made them upset i would just apologize and delete it

 ground control to commander venus

 i like my new tumblr

 i would be wearing a cardigan rn but i dont have one

 feel that i will continue to generate bright eyes-related content throughout my life

 is everything ok

 i look like michael moore