#it just has idk so much heart. like the old og movies it's fantastical but there's so much heart | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

laurelier · 3 years ago

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HS x The Little Mermaid: Harriel? Arielrry?? Either way we're all a little bit gay aren’t we.

OR: my humble contribution to the mermaidrry spiral. Get outta here and go read @ialwaysknewyouwerepunk birth of harry mermaidy analysis if you actually want to learn something today, that shit's genius boss level connections all over the place. Keep reading this wordvom if you wanna just like. Feel a little bit weird about The Little Mermaid with me for a hot minute? Idk man I'm just spouting crap about water in my corner again that's all I do.

Anyway the thing you gotta know before you read this post is. I love the OG 2D animated Disney princess movies. I love em. I do. I really do and I really hate to admit it, it is really not easy for me to be outing myself like this right now, but I do, I love them, with my wholass heart I’m such a big fan. I think they’re beautiful in a lot a lot a lot of ways and I find them really fascinating as, like, pop culture mainstays, leave me alone, I just, The Little Mermaid. The Little Mermaid, friends. I am here today to soliloquize to you about the gospel of The Little Mermaid in the context of Harry Styles if you can spare a few moments of your time.

The Little Mermaid is one of the original princess narratives that really actually—I go hard for this take—stands up well to cultural critique. Personally I think some of the others do also, but this one? Watching this 15 or so years after I’d first seen it and then reading up on it…… spending far too much time, actually, reading up on it……… as I did a few months ago when I regressed back into my Disney princess hole, man, wow. My little brain was blown open about 150 different ways.

x, LOOK at that animation are you JOKING

How this post came about is a tale as old as time at this point: I asked the aforementioned beautiful Ella @ialwaysknewyouwerepunk about their reaction to Harry’s perfect FL trans-flag-colors outfit moment that absolutely turned me into a ball of just hnnnnngngngngnngng fetal position in the corner god that look made me so emotional and in their (fantastic as always) response, link here, they brought up those Harriel pics from SNL and also hi bb Ariel down there in the corner, and just. Their answer to that ask had a big time ripple effect and we all freaked the fuck out about mermaids and I don't know bro, just have one more tangent about The Little Mermaid and mermaiding and Harry and Harrymermaiding and water waterwaterwater. But do be sure to read Ella’s first. Also have this shitpost?

Light of my life harriel. Art by the magnificent @swimmingleo .

Under the cut: today we’re talking transformation and voicelessness and deals with the (kind of) devil, we’re talking appearances and self-knowledge and slivers of hope, we’re talking siren calls, we’re talking when you know you know, we’re sonar mapping the unexplored ocean floors of the self. Clearly there’s gonna be plenty of melodrama to go around so strap on your mermaid tails, let’s dive undaaathaaseeeeeaaa. (Again.)

“Silence itself—the things one declines to say, or is forbidden to name, the discretion that is required between different speakers—is less the absolute limit of discourse, the other side from which it is separated by a strict boundary, than an element that functions alongside the things said, with them and in relation to them.... There is not one but many silences, and they are an integral part of the strategies that underlie and permeate discourses.” - Foucault, The History of Sexuality

Nice to meet u mermaidrry

When asked in 2014 why he got his mermaid tattoo, Harry E. Styles reportedly gave a very simple reply: “I am a mermaid.” Which…... is one of my favorite things he’s ever said. Especially because Ella’s post has been circulating for a while now, I doubt I have to inform anyone reading this of how linked the symbol of the mermaid often is with experiences of gender diversity and gender queerness—the mermaid as a symbol especially important to many trans women, not least because she’s so heavily associated with transformation. Ariel herself, and Hans Christian Andersen’s original little mermaid before her, have both played a hand (fin?) in the development of this lovely, lovely, very nuanced link.

I’m not really going to get too in the weeds now, though, about the mermaid as a big time symbol of a transgender experience, because I’m here to talk about The Little Mermaid specifically, and Harry. And before I get into it: I’m hopeful that the fact that I’m seeing a whole lot of really really beautiful gender stuff here doesn’t read as me making assumptions about Harry’s motives or identity that I can’t and shouldn’t make—though that’s also certainly not meant to invalidate him or assume, either, that he couldn’t be purposely engaging with gender when he refs mermaids—I’m just. We gotta remember we don’t know, I don’t know, none of us will probably ever know what exactly he means and when he means it and how, and all I’m doing here is using H and Ariel and mermaids to explore a very queer little bubble that I find really captivating. Not speaking for, never speaking for; speaking about, seeing through, and also just. Standing in awe of. H, and all that he creates around him.

WHEw wee. All that out of the way……...

Harry and watery shit

……….let’s start by talking (yet again) about the fact that Harry is always drenched in water. Babymermaid is literally so wet all of the time. This is not a new idea, of course, he’s been waving this one in our faces for so many years now, but I want to highlight a few favorite examples that I think show especially well how closely interlinked H being wet/referencing water seems to be with self-exploration.

Ella, once again, has a more comprehensive list of times Harry was wet in their post, and all of these are also mentioned there. This is my personal watery Harrymermaid highlight reel, though, and there are some things that come up here that are going to be relevant later, so we’re gonna rehash this for a second. K roll the tape.

First, the HS1 album photoshoot. Just….. All of it. This was one of the first big visual impressions we got of Harry as a solo artist and—water. Everywhere. The water, right, is also opaque and pink in a lot of this—so let me just take this opportunity to float the rainbow water theory again: if being in water equals being one’s full self in H world, with all the simultaneous pain and relief of that, then I wonder if rainbow or pink/contaminated water doesn't equal difficulty accessing that real, complex person, buried underneath onion layers of shame and repression and time—and, because it’s pretty too, if it’s not also a representation of the beauty of the efforts that we make to access our deepest selves despite all that might hold us back beautiful war connection opportunity here cry cry cry bc pink water is associated with waste runoff from battles and war. Pair all that with the way so many of us read the album’s content and idk man even I almost believe myself here.

These colors......... bury me in them.

Second, Fine Line era—first up is the Lights Up music video. In this one, there’s obviously the shot of him in the FL silhouette of big pants unbuttoned shirt suspenders just like. Staring into the mirror soaking wet. And the one of him looking down at us in the water with the sun coming over his shoulder.

But, real quick, I wanna talk about those red shots where he’s kind of mirrored, looking down from above at himself floating submerged. Eerie, strange, fragmented: an H in a beautiful suit suspended and frozen above a vulnerable-looking H floating in water; H staring down at this other self that appears to be him, too, but a little bit different, significantly different, staring back up at him. And a shadow between them that serves as a dividing (fine?) line: his own shadow, reflected on the water exactly halfway between them. Jesus there’s so much in this damn frame. There are a lot of Harrys here. All of them quite wet.

Earlier, H in darker clothes, floating prone and vulnerable in the water.

Then, third, a pairing I love, two of my favorite songs from Fine Line—though really I could say that about any of the songs on that album ffs—She and Adore You. In She, right, we've got the famous he takes a boat out, imagines just sailing away / away, away / without telling his mates; / he wouldn’t know what to say, right, and then in the Adore You mv, almost immediately after letting the fish swim free, the peculiar boy does………. exactly that? He takes a boat out, the sails filled by his screams of anguish from earlier at not being seen or understood by the other townspeople, which he trapped in jars (hgngng that part always makes me so soft).

I mean. This parallel lays my ass out. He said like lemme just drop these dam kids off at school right quick byeeeeeee honey have a great day and then I’m about to go solo deep sea fishing for my soul.

And at the very, very, very end of this treasure of a music video, we get the frame above, where we can see just the hint of a friendly-looking little sea creature jumping in and out of the waves. My guess? Really, who could that be but the fish—so lemme just get real Frankenstein here for a sec and suggest that the boy and the fish represent a kind of split-in-half mermaid, a whole self in parts: if the image of the half-fish half-human mermaid stands in for the unification of the self, the transformation into and the realization of the real self, well, then. This boy is setting off in search of himself in his boat, and this other part of him that, when they’re together, allows him to feel understood, feel real—this mermaidy part (literally a fish??? please???) is visible just there almost at the horizon; like, the boy is casting out onto the ocean in pursuit of self-discovery, after having set free a part of himself that needed more room to grow? Almost like he’s following that part toward himself, like it’s guiding and guarding him as he searches.

So yes @thestylinsons I think you're 100% right and Adore You is a mermaid song. Ugh I love the tiny fish. Tiny half of a mermaid half of a self fish. I love u tiny fish baby.

TLDR: Harry really is one heavy-handed mf with the symbolism.

The most beautiful singer in all the sea

What we have here, then, is H plus a hell of a lot of water and notably a maybe-mermaid half-boy-half-fish moment and selves wet and split in half all over the goddam carpet and all that comes together and we end up with a whole ocean's worth of self-exploration. And another well-known mermaid who does quite a bit of the same is sweet fiery Ariel herself—whose story, looked at a certain way, revolves almost entirely around her self-transformation.

I want to take a second and talk about the little mermaid’s voice, because it’s such an important part of her character and, well, we’re also talking about Harry Styles here, so. In the original version of The Little Mermaid as well as in the majority of subsequent adaptations, the mermaid/Ariel, of course, is in possession of the most beautiful voice anyone has ever heard, and yeah, well—hi, Harry. Yeah hey buddy we see you there. Said not to brag or anything but.

Because my brain needs very clear bullet points to keep track of things, before we go there, we have:

H identifying himself with the symbol of the mermaid in more than one way—tattoo, “I am a mermaid”, on and on—and also—

H working aquatic and/or oceanic elements all throughout his music and accompanying visuals, paired often with��

Themes of exploring/developing the self, or the self being split in half, having distinct parts even though it’s one whole; the self breaking apart or fragmenting.

We also have the idea of the mermaid being linked heavily with queer/transgender experiences of self-inquiry and transformation.

With all this as context, I think it’s important to talk about the fact that one of the more polarizing things about the mermaid as a symbol has to do with that gorgeous voice she almost always has: the whole ~siren call~* deal, the whole—ohhhh help me I’m a helpless man and this mermaid’s voice is so beautiful that I’m gonna literally throw myself into the sea and drown myself for it and then I’m gonna blame her for the fact that I died because I was being a horny idiot, bad scary evil feminine mystique mermaid—the sexist deeply harmful wicked-woman-seduced-me shtick that’s been weaponized against women and femmes for as long as the idea of the mermaid—or just of the capital-W Woman, really—has been around. And though I won’t go too into it here because I don’t want to describe something that’s already so painful in too gratuitous detail, it’s been well documented that this notion has particularly and especially violent consequences for trans women specifically.

Despite these negative connotations, though, I think there’s still a lot here that’s really valuable, really beautiful, and really queer. A siren call is something that draws you in irresistibly, right, something you can’t ignore no matter how hard you try—and there’s a lot more to that than just Woman’s manipulation/destruction of Man, especially if we’re doing a queer reading. Like. If you think about things that pull you in, things you can’t turn your back on, things you encounter and have to follow, things that deeply speak to you—then, I don’t know, I’d think the mermaid’s beautiful voice or siren call would really only be frightening, would only feel dangerous enough to require demonization, were it heard with the ears of a Man (capital M, meaning The Man, repressive heteronormative antihuman patriarchy, etc) who didn't or couldn't understand it, or whose existence was at odds with it. What is said by a voice that something in you recognizes as true—and how it’s said, and what it does to you, how it pulls on you—that’s only threatening if you’ve been trying to silence the part of you that has the ability to hear and respond to that voice, or if you’re afraid to give in to what it’s asking you to do; only if you’ve been somehow convinced, for some reason (like the way that the world force-feeds us homophobia and transphobia), that the natural place to which the voice draws you is somewhere you should not go, or will harm you. I read the mermaid’s siren call as another confirmation of her queerness: this voice, this current, that slowly and with such certainty calls you toward some new way of being, surrounded in water at the bottom of the sea. When you know, you know.

I was listening to Fine Line while writing the first draft of this, after watching Harry sing it so beautifully in that beautiful pink and blue—and I had a little half-baked thought that the voice that goes ~weeeeeeeeeeeoooooooooo~ at the beginning and end of that song—I don’t know, I just was in this mermaid brainspace and I thought it sounded a little like a siren call? So you can imagine the volume of the squeeeeeeeee screech sound I made out of my stupid mouth when I saw that Ella also heard this.

Like, I don’t know. Maybe the end of Fine Line is just an ooooo and we’ve both just got mermaids on the mind, but whatever that angelic descant is meant to evoke, I do know that now I’m going to think about this anytime I hear it: an echo of H, of me, of H’s audience, being called toward ourselves. This beautiful song about being a fine line between; about things that we’ll never know, testing patience, thoughts going to devotion sunshine temptress her; about we’ll be all right, all that emotion in his voice—framed at the beginning and end by this lovely unearthly cry, I just. It sounds like a siren to me. Trying to get me to listen—to H, to myself.

Tagging @swimmingleo’s recent She/Only Angel/Great Gig in the Sky post here too, where we sorta kinda maybe have another kind of like. Siren song thing happening, but Pink Floyd universe? Some beautiful wordless singing and some screaming and more than a few allusions to death (which, in this mermaid siren song context, would be connected with queer rebirth) and transformation read alongside a couple of H’s suspiciously gender-y songs—.

And a beaaaaaauuutiful recent mermaidy moodboard by @ialwaysknewyouwerepunk apparently I’m trying for a record for how many times I can mention you in one of these longass essays

Gay silence gif

When you clicked “Keep reading” above just a few minutes ago, you did unfortunately sign up to read a post that’s half about The Little Mermaid, so amidst all this, we do have to talk about the big elephant taking a splash bath in the proverbial ocean here: in both the original and the Disney versions of TLM, the little mermaid’s claim to fame is that she willingly gives up her ability to sing, to make a siren call. And it’s because she hears a call of her own: the idea of being human, of finding love; a need to belong, to understand herself, to be with those like her. In the movie, Ariel sees Eric and she just. She knows. The fact remains, though, that in order to do what her deepest self is asking of her, Ariel has to give up her voice. I don’t think the weight of that has been lost on anyone who’s ever seen the movie.

I don’t know. Just—that oh my god moment A has when she sees E on the boat? It’s always felt to me (and to many others) like it holds a lot more significance than just, like, silly teenage Ariel falling in love at first sight. Obviously A is romantically interested in E, but there’s also so much identification in the moment when she first sees him, like—wow wow wow he’s so beautiful I want to be like that, I am that, that’s me. I’m not just fascinated with humans from afar anymore; seeing this actual specific human and how beautiful he is has made me realize that I need to be a human myself. I favor reading this moment as much more about Ariel’s self-discovery (read: gender) than a romantic desire for Eric. And this is reflected in the original fable as well, almost even more: the little mermaid there spends a lot of time thinking about how, if she becomes a human, she will have a chance to gain an immortal soul. Her decision to become human no matter the danger or the cost is about her own self, and the way she wants to exist in the world.

And—*overshare sirens*—this feeling of Ariel’s here, this oh shit, that should be me— to be just entirely too frank with you all, I like to imagine it’s not dissimilar to the way I personally feel when I look at Harry wearing clothes I wish I could wear in a way I wish I could wear them. The way he appears in his own self being the way I’d live in mine, if I could choose. Which sometimes I feel is me projecting to uncomfortable heights but—it’s just. It’s so powerful to see someone who, for you, for so many reasons, embodies a possibility you didn’t know existed before, a choice you didn’t know you could make.

The little mermaid is often decried as a regressive antifeminist figure for the fact that (as she reaches for what’s usually read as love/infatuation but what can be seen as something more like authenticity) she gives up her voice, of all things, to be with the prince/Eric—the main way that she is able to express herself and make herself known. But, god, if you look at it through a transgender lens, having her do that is brilliant. It’s less Ariel not valuing herself or her ability to speak and more—the little mermaid going into her transformation fully understanding that she might not be understood by the society she’s trying so hard to enter, that she needs to enter because she belongs there, it’s who she is; it’s more Ariel identifying with Eric and knowing she should be with him, knowing she should be embraced and accepted by humans, but also knowing this will be extremely difficult, because human society is cruel and transphobic, to the point that entrance into it requires the literal loss of her voice; it’s that the price she will be made to pay for what she is doing is heartrendingly, unfairly high, but her need to be true to herself is even higher. Seen this way, the problem—or the tragedy—lies less with Ariel’s choice to give up her ability to speak, and more with the fact that the humans can’t hear her.

Here’s where I start to be one of those people who says that Disney is, like, really deep actually

It’s not difficult at all to link all that to the silencing and closeting of queer people, the way the world limits and shames queer expression. Which, then, creates the necessity of hiding. Queercoding. Talking by not talking. Saying by not saying. Admission of queerness becomes a matter of omission and demonstration; queer silence begins to say a whole hell of a lot.

And you know who actually knows a shitload about this—about how to navigate an uncomprehending prejudiced world, in queer silence—in the movie version? Ursula. Ursula, the outcast sister of king big man of the entire ocean Triton, who, sure, she’s the villain, she steals Ariel’s voice and almost kills her yes ok but also—Ursula is the one who teaches Ariel how to perform her (human) gender, right before her transformation. She prepares her. She tells Ariel that, you know what, actually, speaking isn’t all that important, being seen as desirable to your ~princey poo is really all about body language, signaling. It’s all in how you perform your femininity. Give ‘em what they want, girl. Gender is performance. Thank you Ursula slash Judith Butler slash Divine, legendary drag queen Divine, on whom Ursula’s character was based, yes I shit myself when I learned that one. And—performance: god what a loaded and multifaceted term that would appear to be for someone like Harry.

Just, like. This animated octopus lady is so damn powerful to me bitch. If you look at Ursula’s character in a certain light, she’s literally—literally she is telling Ariel: you can’t use the voice that allows you to communicate with heteronormative society to become known. It won’t work. You won’t be able to prove yourself to them on their terms. But there’s a different way—many, as a matter of fact, and finding them where they are, outside the bounds of how you’ve been told you have to exist all your life, is literally life-and-death for you.

In a way, she’s saying something that sounds a little like: despite the silence that the world demands of queer people, despite the violence of that, there are ways to be known. There are ways to become known to one another, and to ourselves—and they are a matter of our survival.

POV you came here for Harry content and you’re getting a weirdly in depth emotional rant about The Little Mermaid

Second to last thing on TLM, swear. The ending. I’m gonna stick with the movie here, because the ending of the fairytale version is much darker, and less relevant, I think, to anything I can in good conscience compare to what I can see of mermaidrry’s experience.

The ending of TLM…… has always felt so unsatisfying to me. And really, I think that’s the point. That article linked above (worth a read, go do that if you haven’t already) points out that Ariel and Eric, power couple, are the ones who team up to kill Ursula (in a very phallic and dramatic way, mind, they spear her with a ship) and set Triton back on his throne as the ruler of the sea—effectively, reinstating the heteropatriarchy that Ursula destabilized by helping Ariel fulfill her desire to transcend her mermaidness and become human. Heteronormative patriarchal norm-setter lookin ass manlymanman King Triton then finally signs off on Ariel’s marriage to Eric, and it’s supposed to be happy because Ariel’s got her voice back and she’s got her man and she thinks she’s got everything she wants and there’s a rainbow even and it looks great—but the thing is, Ariel’s marrying a figurehead of patriarchal male power herself. Eric’s actually the one who drives the bow of the ship into Ursula and takes her out, Ariel’s in more of a supporting role—so he kills Ariel’s mentor, in a way, her predecessor, the one who literally taught her about the concept of gendered performance; Ariel helps him do it; and then Ariel marries him. And Ariel’s father, who originally forbid her from having anything to do with humans at all, co-signs on it—is like, yeah, great, go ahead and be human and marry this prince who murdered my sister/rival and gave me back full control of the ocean, that’s fine by me sure. Ariel’s rebellion and transformation, in short, is given a stamp of approval by mainstream human AND mermaid society both, and that’s— actually maybe kind of a sinister thing, here.

Look at Triton, man. Look at him right front and center there, his approval highlighted so we absolutely can’t miss it.

To me, just. This whole thing: it’s a deviation from repressive heteropatriarchal rules—a defiance of them, really—being softened enough that the heteropatriarchy can swallow it. It’s the connections between H’s work and queerness being wrapped up in narrative after narrative after narrative so that his image will still appeal to as many people as possible, and make as much money as possible, no matter how many rainbow flags he waves. (I’m hearing put a price on emotion; man I can hate you sometimes; I don’t want to sleep in the dirt.) It’s the way society bends and gives and accedes to certain parts of queer expression so that it can learn how to suppress it better next time, take advantage of it better next time, even more surreptitiously and cleverly; it’s homophobia and transphobia behind a mask of acceptance, or of enthusiasm, even. It’s the way the world uses one single breath to both praise and condemn Harry for being, by all appearances, more expressive of more parts of himself. How they love it when he’s camp, yet hate the daring and, frankly, subversive idea of living by a kindness that is both a) deeper than the prevailing norms of homophobic society can tolerate and b) very queer that’s so present in his music, so just there, if you’re listening for it, open to hearing it. The world a lost sailor, in a way: drawn in by H’s voice, and villainizing him for how he sings, what he sings; where his voice calls to.

Princes and glittery dresses and meeting yourself

I want to end by returning to an idea I think I mentioned first in the section on Harry and water—the unification of the self, the mermaid image being made of two distinct elements (fish, human) that come together to form a more cohesive whole, an entirely new being.

This, of course, tracks when we think about Ariel: as a human, Ariel’s entire body— in a queer reading, her gender— fits her better. We see that visually in the sparkly dress that Ella pointed out—and in the fact that with Eric, she’s feels she belongs: I’m about to do that dumb thing I do again where I read a couple as actually a representation of one person’s self and say that we’re seeing two parts of Ariel’s self being united in this sweet moment at the end when she emerges from the sea and Eric finally recognizes her.

If we’re reading Eric and Ariel as halves of one whole mermaid here, then it’s insane to me that for the longest in the movie, Eric doesn’t recognize Ariel as the mysterious woman who saved him—who he’s in love with and has been searching for, even as Ariel herself tries so hard to show him that it’s her you dumb bitch it’s heerrrrr—and literally the only reason that he doesn’t GET it is because he can’t hear Ariel speak, he doesn’t have the tools to know her. He doesn’t know who or where this lifesaving ethereal voice he’s dreaming about is, even though she’s right in front of him, because he doesn’t have the capacity to understand her presence or who she is or what she means to him, and my brain is just going sounds like She, sounds like She bitch that’s She—like god this mf is really searching for Ariel The. Whole. Time. And longing so badly to hear her voice, and she’s right there in his face, and he can’t see it because he doesn’t know how to know her, she doesn’t speak in a way he’s used to hearing, sounds like She bitch I don’t know who she is bit ch and also....... two halves in two bodies, two entities representing a whole self....... hello Adore You fish boy mermaid music video. Hello selves in two parts coming together and then splitting apart and then coming together again. Hello meeting new parts of yourself and finally, finally understanding them and falling in love with them, following them out to sea, following them out of the sea.

And this is also so interesting to me because like I mentioned earlier—that’s Eric that Ariel’s with there, that’s Prince Eric™, Ursula-killer Eric. He does symbolize, I think, when paired with little mermaid herself, a truer expression of Ariel’s queer identity. But he also, like I said, axed the mentor who taught Ariel that gender is a performance in the first place, which. Problematic. And: for him to see her...... she had to talk. His way.

How I see this: there’s something life-giving and beautiful in the love between Ariel’s two parts of herself—her gendered energies, if you’ll allow me the binaristic thinking for a moment—despite the fact that both (the Ariel half, the Eric half) are entirely surrounded in and partially shaped by patriarchy. Ursula saying things like what she says to Ariel about performance and gender threatens the norms underlying Eric’s power, so she has to die; and Ariel helps Eric kill her—in pursuit of her full self, sure, but she still does. We can’t gloss over that. E and A love one another, and they belong together, and now that they are together Ariel is closer to a fuller, queerer way of being—and so much about them will always exist in the context of antiqueer patriarchy. All of that can be true at the same time. There can be a true and solid core to self-love and self-expression, and there can also be a lot of contextual difficulties and paradoxes to navigate when it comes to actually living out these elusive things. One of the reasons I love Harry’s music so so so so much is that it so often feels to me like it’s so frank about this sentiment—though, again, what I see in H’s music is more a reflection of me than it is of him, because he’s the only one who will ever have the authority to say what’s really there.

Importantly, I don’t at all mean to say that trying to locate a relationship to the body or to gender that does feel like it fits is a futile thing, or isn’t possible or real or worth it—it absolutely is. It’s just, so often, so difficult. And complicated: I find that along my own strange little way, parts of me have tried to silence other parts of myself that shouldn’t be silenced; parts of myself haven’t recognized me; parts of myself, most frighteningly, have even asked me to profoundly transform. It is, I imagine—I’ve said this before, but: a little like learning to live underwater might be? A little like becoming a mermaid without drowning—holding out long enough to see all the beauty around you when you finally take your first breath of water.

I don’t know. I’m just grateful, as always, to ever-thoughtful, mermaid-dress-wearing Harry—for the depth of his art, for the depth of his patience, for his oceanic fearlessness.

Far out in the sea the water is as blue as the petals of the loveliest of cornflowers and as clear as the clearest glass, but it is very deep, deeper than any anchor-cable can reach, and many church towers would have to be placed on top of each other to stretch from the sea-bed to the surface.

Down there the sea-folk live.

-Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid

#rambles #mermaidrry #this is so much #this is so long #not a one of you asked for this #but #you are all my captive audience and you have to put up with this shit from me now #we're gonna #tw homophobia #tw transphobia #this one just to be safe here

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chopper-witch · 6 years ago

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SPOILER REVIEW, ALL SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT

Okay spoiler review:

I. Fucking. Loved. It.

I will address the complaints of certain things as they come up.

Things I think could have been improved:

Including the scene that was the mid-credits of CM. A lot of people didn’t go to see it so their context was off when she saved Tony and Nebula.

Almost no one knew who Harley was, now that he was all grown up, during Tony’s funeral. Most people just said “who the hell is that?”. Give him a crushed Dora watch that he is holding/looking at and everyone will know.

The gay character was Joe Russo sitting in Steve’s support group. STFU that isn’t even a side character.

I wish one more OG6 Avenger had died. I figured one of each pair would (and I was right for 2) but I didn’t think four would survive. Idk if I’d choose Thor or Professor Hulk but one of them.

That’s it.

Okay, now to things I fucking loved:

That cold opening. Clint having a good time and then his whole family just…. goes. Then when they reverse the snap his phone ringing and it being his wife was an amazing way to finish the arc. My lord.

Karen Gillan deserves an Oscar for her acting. Holy shit. Confused killer robot playing games with Tony and then making sure he is okay and then also having to re-play evil Nebula from before. God, amazing.

The Nebula plot was one of the best parts of the movie. It shows how even if you make time travel easy and clean there is also a possibility of something going wrong. The fact that her past consciousness blended with her current when she went back in time was an amazing detail/idea that could only work with her. It was just so fucking fabulous.

Them going and killing Thanos literally 10 minutes in.

Natasha running point on all the Avengers stuff - keeping tabs on Rocket, Rhodey, Carol and others as they try to at least help based on what’s going on.

Oh my god, Tony losing it at all the Avengers. Amazing 10/10. “You promised!” “Liar!”. Ripping our the arc reactor and just shoving it into Steve’s hands. Fantastic. Tony deserved that moment.

The rat, the true hero

Scott/Cassie reunion after Scott finding his own name on the list of the Vanished. He was so relieved, his daughter was so relieved. Movie deities have blessed us.

Scott (while distracted by a sandwich), explaining time travel was hilarious and fantastic. He admits he doesn’t know enough.

I liked what they did with Thor. He lost absolutely everything… his entire family, all of his friends, at least 3/4 of his people. To have be a drunk who gave up and is now fat was fantastic. If anyone felt like they failed, it truly was him. He spent two years just looking for stones while the rest fought in a parking lot.

Morgan Stark!!! I better see more of her in future movies, oh my god. Adorable. Smart. Sassy. I love you 3000.

When Tony looked at that photo of Peter, I knew that was what changed his mind. Cause he knows he needs to try.

When Tony nearly falls backwards in shock at the time travel simulation working I nearly shrieked. And then of course Morgan was there. “Shit!” “No, no. (something I forget) shit.” “Shit.” “No, that’s (Pepper’s?) word.”

Pepper letting him know that its alright if he goes and tries to help. That she understands that he won’t rest if he doesn’t.

I really liked how they did the time travel stuff. It was careful and still a mess. (I’ll get to the Loki part last)

Cap V Cap, hilarious and AMAZING

Rocket and Thor sneaking past Loki while he sits in his cell. Genius. Thor knows that if Loki finds out future Thor is there, Loki is going to gladly time travel whether they like it or not.

Thor being unable to do the mission correctly because he sees his mother. That conversation with his mother where she knew it was future him. “I was raised by witches” (this will tie in to my Loki thing later)

Peter Quill getting knocked out.

Clint and Natasha. We all knew only one of them was getting out of there. Them actually fighting over who should go was amazing. I know there are complaints about how Natasha deserved better and hm, they killed the only OG female avenger. No, it was amazing. Natasha, for the first time her life, truly knew what she wanted. She was grateful for Clint til the very end. (This also ties to her dream, but I’ll explain all the AOU dreams at the end)

Loki just yeeting himself the fuck out of there when Ant-Man gave past stark a heart attack was hilarious, in-character for 2012 Loki, and VERY IMPORTANT.

Going back in time even further and Tony talking to his father, Steve seeing Peggy. It was a great section. I loved it. Tony getting closure, Steve realizing what he wants when all of this is over.

All of them losing their collective shit in different ways over Natasha death; Clint telling Thor off about how it can’t be undone, so stop being an asshole. Amazing.

Arguing over the gauntlet. Drunk Thor trying to say he can use it. Hulk using it. Thor yelling to take it off, Steve asking if Hulk is okay (this is very similar to the CA:TFA moment where Steve is getting beefed up). Amazing.

From here on, everything was fantastic, every bit. The compound being destroyed, the heroes trying to stop Thanos and all that; Steve using Thor’s hammer after his shield is half broken (and he saves Thor by using the hammer);

“Hey cap, can you hear me?” While Cap is staring down Thanos. “Uh…” “Cap, it’s me Sam. On your left” AND THEN THE PORTALS OPEN AND HOLY FUCKING SHIT. FIRST THREE ARE OKOYE, SHURI AND T’CHALLA. People were screeching in my theater, shouting “Wakanda forever”.

All those portals opening up was so hot. And then when Dr Strange opened one up and the Guardians came out that was cool and all, but Spiderman made everyone yell and holler and hoot.

VALKYRIE ON A PEGASUS HOT DAMN

Hot gauntlet instead of hot potato.

RESCUE!!! Pepper in armor, lord almighty. Amazing.

Danvers destroying all of his ships. 10/10. Like she didn’t show up and save the day, she came to help. Cap - “Danvers, we need an assist down here” once she finishes destroying the ships.

Peter getting hella beat up was reasonable. CM coming over him and he says “Oh, Im Peter Parker” “Hi, Peter Parker, you got something for me?” He hands her the gauntlet. And then asks how she is going to get through all of that. “She has help” - Okoye. All the female Avengers surround him to protect my smol child and then charge at Thanos’ army. Please love oh love, that was fantastic.

“I don’t even know you” “You will”. I swooned. Amazing, amazing, amazing. Go Scarlet Witch

When they are going at Thanos and trying to get the gauntlet off, wow. That scene was crazy good. The main 3 trying, Carol trying (and then again and when Thanos headbutts her she doesn’t move, amazing).

Tony switching the stones without Thanos noticing.

“I am inevitable” says Thanos. He snaps. It fails; he can’t create a new universe where no one remembers what they lost, only what they gained.

Tony, holds up his version of the gauntlet, “And I… am…. Iron Man.” Snap. Whole theater erupted.

All Thanos’ stuff is gone, as is he. I would have preferred Nebula to cut his head off during one of her two opportunities, but I was satisfied with this.

Rhodey finding Tony and just smiling at him. People complained that Rhodey should of said something, but Rhodey is his best friend, the person who is still alive he’s known the longest. Rhodey understands. Rhodey knows he is dying and knows no words are going to help it or stop it. He’s an Air Force colonel for crying out loud, he gets death. So he just stays there for him.

Peter begging Tony to get up and telling him “We won, we won Mr. Stark” was so heartbreaking. I loved it, but it hurt.

Pepper telling him “It’s alright, you can rest now”. That shit HURTED. Great completion of the “but will you be able to rest?”

Tony’s funeral was possibly the best scene to show just how much he meant to everyone. “Proof that Tony Stark has a heart” laying on a bed of flowers, floating in the lake in the backyard of where he and Pepper and Morgan have been living.

Wanda and Clint moment - “I just wish there was a way I could tell her we won.” “She knows, they both do” I loved it so so much.

Morgan asking for a cheeseburger and Happy getting all teary eyed about how her father loved cheeseburgers “I’m going to buy you all the cheeseburgers you want”, bruh, I was in tears.

Tony Stark’s voice over while everything else is happening - people going back to their lives: T’Challa, Shuri and Ramonda looking over Wakanda; Cassie cuddling Scott while Hope is there too; Peter and Ned seeing each other at school; Clint going home; all these different little moments while he talks, only for it to end as a video recording he made before he left to fix everything. “I love you 3000” is what he ends it with.

Thor handing over Asgard to Valkyrie while he goes with the Guardians. I loved it. He acknowledge he wasn’t fit to be king but could still do good.

Steve returning all the stones. When he and Bucky said goodbye (“It’s only five seconds”) they both knew what he was about to do. “Don’t do anything stupid til I get back.” Bucky smiles, “How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you.”

Sam and Professor Hulk freaking out that he isn’t back, only for Bucky to point out Steve sitting on a bench near where they are. He’s old now. He hands the shield off to Sam. I loved it. There is no way Bucky and Steve didn’t have a conversation about Steve staying in the past and who he would pass the mantel on to. (this also means Bucky probably told Steve’s ass that trying to save him/prevent HYDRA would have created a disastrous effect. “I’ll be alright, punk” or something like that).

Seeing Steve with Peggy made me really, really happy. I understand the complaints but it was a beautiful moment and such an amazing way to end the movie. If you watched Agent Carter you know she struggled getting over Steve. While she did eventually, she never stopped thinking about him. I mean, in the 70s, his photo was still on her desk!

Things I forgot to add originally:

“So you can get another haircut?” (or something like that); AKA Rocket making fun of Carol’s lesbian cut.

Professor Hulk. Hilarious, amazing, and a great idea.

“That’s America’s Ass” oh my god, Tony Steve and Scott. Best comedy trio.

Extended NY 2012 scenes... including Loki pretending to be Steve, amazing

the Budapest reference while Nat and Clint were flying off to Vormir. I loved it.

Thor suddenly in his old costume with braids in his beard and hair when they go to beat up Thanos when he attacks the compound. Crowd went crazy.

EVEN MORE I forgot:

The OG shot from the OG Avengers in NY. Hot hot hot. The crowd was losing it. I was losing it.

“Hail Hydra” cap you sneaky bastard.

Scott’s storage unit is labeled 616. MCU really loves hiding 616 in plain sight.

—

Okay, now for the AoU dreams.

They all came true.

Thor: “See where your power leads us Odinson” and Heimdall talks about how they are going to be lead to Hel. More than half of Asgard was destroyed by Hela.

Steve: The movie ends with him dancing with Peggy.

Natasha: hers was more of a flashback, but still came true. “I have no place in this world”. Her dream sequence showed the horrors she endured and how she tried to seem weak so she wouldn’t have to do certain things. It shows how she has always felt like she has no home, it showed faceless children with no identity. Her dying was her finding her place in the world.

Tony: Everyone is dead except him. “And the worst part is you weren’t”. He reversed his dream. It came true (it wasn’t the OG6 who died) but then he spun it around.

—

other time travel stuff:

At one point there are two Steve’s since he decided to go back. At first I was like, thats gonna create some problems but the more I think the more I realize it doesn’t. Peggy is smart, genius and an amazing agent and could have easily found a way to ‘hide’ Captain America.

Also, most things stopped functioning after the decimation. A lot of schools were shut down most likely. So Ned and Peter to see each other again at school was reasonable.

Loki:

I LOVE WHAT THEY DID WITH LOKI. In the movie it shows at least two iterations of him alive: 2012 Loki who gets the fuck out of there; 2013 Loki stuck in prison. Both are alive by the end of the movie (2013 didn’t disappear even though 2012 noped out of there). Even though Steve put the stones back to make the timelines clean again, they show that even though one version of Loki left New York, he still ended up in Asgard’s prison. So one is out there with the Space Stone, and one is posing as Odin. Then, when time catches up, it’s unlikely Ragnarok Loki will just die spontaneously. Regardless, there are at least two Lokis still existing within the current timeline. He’s smarter than letting himself get stuck once he escapes, but he still gets locked up.

If there are two versions of Steve living for a time, why not two or more Lokis?

This brings me back to Frigga. She knew it was definitely Thor from the future almost immediately. Loki is much like his mother and knows that time travel is possible and that people have crossed timelines. There is no reason for him to not be out there in the universe, several different versions of him working at once. And there is no reason for him to not know that.

“The sun will shine on us again”, something tells me Loki knew some version of himself would survive. Whether it be 2012, 2013, or even now 2018, he knew he was going to make it… or he already knew he had.

I don’t know what is going to happen. I’m sure the Russos wrote the Loki getting out of there thing as a joke/plot inconvenience but Feige is smarter than that. He knows what that opened up, and honestly, that might be why the Loki show isn’t going to come out for a while. Imagine having a great idea only for the most recent movie to come along and have multiple Loki’s still alive.

Even better, I hope he has a small scene in the next Guardians movie. Thor could try to sway them towards looking for his brother and maybe they do - but it’s NY Loki.

#liz spoils endgame #liz talks endgame #endgame spoilers #eg spoilers #avengers endgame #avengers endgame spoilers #endgame #avengers

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