#now I'm going to buy another one

[ironicallyenraptured]

"First glance"

The last Luka post got me thinking and reminded me a bit of my favorite character's backstory, I wanted to redraw his breaking point (his first time looking at darling)

Luka belongs to @rainba

The manga panel:

They'll never make me hate you, Himiko

[graciousdragon]

OH MY FUCKING GOD

I JUST WENT TO MY LOCAL HOT TOPIC THAT I'VE BEEN GOING TO FOR LIKE. 5 OR 6 YEARS NOW RIGHT??

I GOT SOME MCR STUFF BECAUSE. OF COURSE. IF YOU'VE SEEN MY RECENT POSTING HABITS YOU KNOW. THE BRAINROT IS REAL

I WAS TALKING WITH THE CASHIER ABOUT THEM BECAUSE HE WAS ALSO A FAN AND HE FUCKING SAYS "you wanna know a fun fact? this is the hot topic the lead singer used to work at! :D"

FUCKING WHAT

GERARD WAY USED TO WORK AT MY LOCAL FUCKING HOT TOPIC?!?

AND AFTER I LEFT I LOOKED IT UP TO MAKE SURE HE WASN'T FUCKING WITH ME AND YEAH. HE WAS RIGHT. WHAT THE FUCK

SORRY FOR THE ALL CAPS THIS IS LIKE. WORLD-SHATTERING INFORMATION TO ME AND HE JUST DROPPED THAT SHIT SO CASUALLY WHAT THE HELL BRO. I NEEDED TO SCREAM ABOUT THIS SOMEWHERE

[jq37]

Descendants: The Rise of Red is kind of a bizarre movie to talk about critically because, imo, it almost doesn't make sense to talk about it in the usual terms of good vs bad or enjoyable vs not enjoyable when the way more obvious tension is finished vs unfinished.

Because, more than any other movie I've ever seen, it does *not* read as a full movie. And I don't mean in a "this movie has a cliffhanger" kind of way. The Empire Strikes Back and Across the Spiderverse fit that description. They end on big dramatic cliffhangers that point to a resolution in the third installment.

But Rise of Red just sets all this stuff up and then...ends without concluding anything. It doesn't feel like the first movie in a trilogy (or duology). It feels like the first act of a two-act musical. It very specifically reminds me of the end of the first act of Into the Woods where all the main characters sing the song Ever After about how they all fixed their problems with magic and nothing bad will ever happen to them again and then the narrator ominously says "To be continued" before the curtain drops. But in Into the Woods you know there's a second act and this movie wasn't sold as the first act of a bigger story. Like sure, it has the, "You didn't think this was the end" tag at the end like all the other movies, but those movies were complete, self-contained stories even though they had sequels. This was NOT a full story. It's half of one story.

Like, if we're supposed to take this as a full story, there are so many bizarre choices:

Why did they make sure to mention that Cinderella and Charming fell in love at the ball at the top if it wasn't meant to set up Back to the Future style, "Oh no, I accidentally got my mom banned from the ball so she's not gonna fall in love with Dad and I won't be born" shenanigans?

Why did Maddox very pointedly have that bit about "you could lose your mom completely" if that was never going to come into play? Red never did anything to endanger Bridget or endanger her own birth so it doesn't make sense as a warning in that way.

Why was there all this focus on this Carrie on prom night moment for Bridget if we LITERALLY NEVER SAW CASTLECOMING? Why dance around this moment and talk about it all cloak and dagger with no specificity if they weren't building up to some big reveal that it wasn't as straightforward as it seemed? And like, they leaned in HARD with making Bridget the nicest, sweetest, cotton candy princess as a teen so I need WAY more than, "She got pranked by known bullies she's been enduring with a smile very handily up to this point" to buy that she went from that to "murderous dictator". And even if she did become murderous, I find it insanely hard to believe that she'd include her best and only friend on the list of people she wants to suffer unless there was a betrayal. I find it INSANE that there wasn't a falling out scene at any point in this movie with how thickly they were laying on the admiration and camaraderie.

(Note: And adult Cinderella def has guilty vibes re: the Queen at orientation. Which I know I'm not imagining because it's literally spelled out in the Jr Novelization!)

Before the time travel element of the movie started, I thought they were going for something like they go to the past and realize that Bridget was bullied not by the VKs but by the spoiled royals, and Ella ends up joining in the bullying once she gets with Charming, betraying Bridget and justifying her whole "Love Ain't It" philosophy. Or Ella ditching her at the last minute to be with Charming meaning she has to deal with the monster prank alone and it was the being alone rather than the prank itself that hurt her (though that is NOT a good enough reason to go all off with their heads on your subjects). The fact that, as far as we know right now, it literally was just a relatively mild and reversible prank that caused all of this is just, such flat storytelling, you know?

But! All of this makes way more sense if this is meant to be the first act of a single contained story. And I don't wanna be all "Pepe Silvia, secret good 4th episode of Sherlock" about this but I did see this picture:

Which seems to indicate that this was written as a Part One. Which, if so, idk why they wouldn't advertise it that way but whatever. The point is, if that's the case then it means that we're potentially in bad pacing territory rather than straight up bad storytelling territory. Because this isn't a bad place to be halfway through your story:

The heroes, warned that time travel is dangerous, have gone back in time to change the heart of a brutal tyrant before she can stage a coup. They seemingly succeed in their mission and when they come home, everything is great! But then, the side effects of time travel start to catch up with them. Chloe realizes that, in breaking the vase, she prevented her mother from going to the ball and falling in love with her dad (who was conspicuously absent from the final scene btw) which means she's starting to be forgotten and erased from the timeline. And Red realizes that though this new version of her mom is as sweet and kind as the teen she once met, she's a complete stranger to her (fulfilling the Hatter's warning that she could lose her mom completely). So they have to go back in time once more to make sure the Ella and Charming fall in love again, perhaps at the cost of whatever bad thing that happened to Bridget happening again and bringing back the original version of her future self. But, now with more context of how her mom became that way, Red can now talk to her mother and persuade her to give people another chance.

Boom, that gives us time to go back and hit everything we haven't yet hit. We can pay off the time travel tropes that were set up but not explored. We can go to Castlecoming which feels so obviously set up to be the centerpiece of this story (like, come on, Back to the Future literally does the school dance thing. This is Time Travel Storytelling 101). We can actually get info about what the prank was and why it affected Bridget so completely.

(Note: This is a side thing but it really strikes me as so crazy that Bridget would so SUCH a big 180 here. Like, I know the Queen of Hearts is a silly, goofy, campy villain, but she straight up murders people and there's no way to get around that if we're taking her out of the surreal story she comes from and putting her in a (comparatively) grounded story. If I wasn't doing a betrayal plot, I would make the twist that the spell that turned Bridget into a "monster" didn't just have a physical effect, it had a mental effect and it magically twisted her personality to be the way it is now. So they broke the physical half of the curse, but neglected the other half and it's been festering the whole time, turning her as evil as she was sweet. Because like, a simple physical transformation isn't that big of a deal to have such heavy security--Bridget made cupcakes with a transformative effect and that was totally fine. I'm not saying that that's what's gonna be the case. I just think it would be an explanation that makes sense for why she changed so crazy much that makes more sense than a simple prank or even a betrayal. Her mom wasn't even evil! How did she go from zero to murder without even an evil mom to push her onto the path? But I'm super digressing right now.)

(Note #2: OK, one last thing. The trap on the book presumably would have hit the VK's and trapped them in Merlin's office regardless of what Chloe and Red did, right? That's like, net zero influence on the timeline. I genuinely can't tell if that's a straight up plot hole or set up to be like, "Oh no. Actually when she said that she was turned into a monster in front of everyone it was meant in a less literal way." Like she was just made to look bad and that was the real thing that pushed her over the edge. Like idk. It really feels like the only thing they really did that would change the timeline was get Ella banned from the dance and presumably out of the way where she couldn't hurt Bridget. OK NOW I'm done.)

Anyway, my point is that this is not how I would have structured my movie and I think this was a super weird way to go into the second era of Descendants movies, but they can still tell a complete story if that's their plan. I'm genuinely really curious to see if this pans out to be a fairly competently told story that just happens to be split over two movies or a complete fumbling of the narrative bag because it could really be either at this point and it's fascinating to me.

[icewindandboringhorror]

finally finished all of one character's entire quests/optional dialogue/questions/etc.... 100,000 words... .... aughhh

[lavellane]

brought a new pc with 2 terabytes of storage and the power of a small space station last night <3 for solas <3

[gideonisms]

incredibly autism take on food. love it. i am also a sensory seeking food autistic. today for dinner i requested something “garlicky and flavorful” ended up with noodles and dumplings

soups can so be flavorful but a lot of the time they’re just not like that out in the world and it’s soooo disappointing. shockingly easy to make though (onions n garlic, veg, crap ton of spices bloomed in the oil, good broth, blend, SALT)

See I would never trash talk a dumpling but once again I think they are vehicles for other flavors. In MY opinion although soups are easy to make most of them just taste like Onions and Chicken Broth to me and I'm like where is the spice where is the intrigue where is the zest for life

[zombiepatch]

watching vids of people showing their commonplace journals / general journals and suddenly being hit with an intense wave of sadness because my life feels so dull and pathetic 😭 it's not even over anything major either it's just like... "i threw in some pics i took w/ my friend on this page" and i go... fuuuuck

[zombeesknees]

had to drop $812 at Midas today for all new tires/a realignment, and then i got home to find wimsey bleeding like a stuck pig from a giant gash across the underside of his neck (not sure if one of the other cats literally went for the throat, or if he just clawed all the fur and skin off), and then i had to work an extra two hours to make up for the Midas jaunt, so today has just been A Day.

picture of the recuperating, grompy patient:

[justalittlebluetiefling]

The big problem with getting my bookshelves up and my books on it is that I am remembering that I used to dream of owning all of the Wheel of Time books in hardcover.

[tittyinfinity]

when you're disabled, being financially abused by your parents never ends

[yellowmagicalgirl]

Hello, fellow D&D players of tumblr! Do you have an Eberron campaign coming up, and the official subraces just aren't cutting it? Do you look at ordinary planetouched, and wish that they had more of a connection to their mundane, non-human parent? Or have you looked at planetouched and wished they had more of a connection to Eberron's planes? Consider using one of the 31 subraces in this book! These have been created for aasimar, dwarves, elves, gith, genasi, gnomes, halflings, and tieflings.

If you're looking for more character inspiration, consider checking out one of the premade Eberron characters I have created - all are 100% RAW as per Rising from the Last War and the 2014 Player's Handbook.

[raifuujin]

Secret archives arrived. Which I won't be scanning for another day or so because it happened to get delivered on my b-day, but I have seen some people really interested in seeing it, so. Soon.

Who knows about the other handful of books that need to be added. I have them, but some digital versions have been shared for some that might be better to link than my physical ones, and motivation can be hard when I have to provide it. Also I got a used copy of Animal Crossing Switch months ago and keeping up with that mostly-daily has taken a solid chunk of attention in my off time. And then there's this 1000 piece Pokemon Ditto puzzle--

[definitionsfading]

nothing like dropping a hot $300 on six months worth of contact lenses on a tuesday morning 💀 did I get any sort of rush or gratification from this purchase? absolutely not. will I be able to see without my glasses giving me a tension headache? I guess vision has a few perks but not many

[guinevereslancelot]

just wrapped the first christmas present of the year ❤️

[thunderboltfire]

I've tried to run BG2 again (I need to finish my modded playthrough) and my laptop is in such a bad state it prectically lags BG2. BG2, which could be run on a determined microwave, on a laptop that has 8GB of RAM! It is heavily used and it has a lot of apps, but I've uninstalled everything I didn't use and cleaned the registry awhile ago. I suspected the antivirus, but the system manager shows it actually doesn't consume a lot of resources. It's not the disk space, since it's got plenty. It turns out it uses 100% of its disk all the time, and the main culprits seems to be.... *drum roll* system and Windows telemetry service! I now have to spend the evening elbows deep in frankly confusing system settings to find a way to turn the telemetry service off, and it may or may not improve the situation.

Once I finish this playthough, I'm definitely switching the laptop to Unix.

[morningmask27]

I'm going to be bitching about Star for a while now. I'll tag them all with #asc spoilers, but really what the fuck was this book?