#she's Silly™️ but she's also kind of terrifying

[wh0dunit]

jill saying " i don't need friends. i need fans. " talking about having to listen about everyone gush over sidney and how " you were always so fucking special! well, now i'm special. " saying " look around, we all live in public now. we're all on the internet. how do you think people become famous anymore? " it's all just so . . . punchy.

[sing-you-fools]

triplet appreciation post!

here are the triplets! (Bat, Pumpkin, and Ghost from left to right. You can kind of see the size difference between Bat and Ghost here. But only kind of. Bat is so big.)

Ghostie Ghost who Meows the Most! She's independent, playful, and brave. She spends a lot of time tripping us in the kitchen and carrying around that feather stick, which is about four feet long and she looks very silly with it. Despite her itty-bitty stature, she stands up to the Zoomcat and keeps her siblings in line.

Pumpkin Pumpkin Feisty Muffin! She's a wanted criminal.

Silly Bat the Fluffiest Cat! He's the most scared (now that he's out of their one little room) but he's still the silliest boy! He is terrified of us and runs away but when we manage to pick him up he loves snuggles more than all of our other kitties combined. Goes completely boneless, purrs SO loud, gives us very scratchy baths, and actually hugs us. He is too stupid to pull his tongue back in his mouth. (Also possibly gay idk the vet seems very surprised that he's not Bothering His Sisters™️ yet)

[frosteee-variation]

WAIT. WHO IS MISS DIRECTION

my friend you do not know the can of worms that you have opened with those five words alone

I typed up a full explanation before my tumblr crashed because there was so much I put

hang on okay

okay. okay. okay. missy. miss direction. miss interpretation. miss ellaneous. my beloved. my loathed. my cringefail girlboss miss direction.

upon the second time typing this I realize that it’d probably be much quicker for me to get past the context

OKAY TL;DR my friends and I are part of this campaign in a system called Anime Campaign which is also tied to the series Epithet Erased and we’ve been obsessing over it for about three years now even though nothing has actually started yet.

basically, some people have these things called Epithets and they’re random words tied to a person that lets them do cool stuff, yeah. like, someone in the campaign has Project as an Epithet. she can like, make film-style projections that come to life. it’s very cool!!

So Missy. Missy. Missy is my character. She originally started off as a silly evil NPC the first time we tried to start a campaign but I grew attached and started playing her as a PC in this one. Her Epithet is Concept. There’s a whole lot of complicated nuance surrounding how it actually works but bottom line is she can make things act like other things if people believe that, conceptually, the two things are one in the same. Like making plastic money act like real money, which is something she definitely does not do frequently she is a very honest person and not at all scamming people what are you talking about.

So she was silly!! She was so so silly!!! Basically played up the goon bit of “yeah boss” and all that. She was also a massive theater nerd, and made an active effort to ensure that literally nobody could forget that she was an actor and she knew several plays and shit. So when the most recent attempt at starting a campaign came around, I started thinking to myself, “hm. yeah, missy’s funny… but why is she funny?”

worst mistake of my life (/j)

So. Miss Direction (not her actual name) was an actor. Or she was learning to be an actor, at least. Absolutely loved the stage. And she was a really charming person, too!! But then for reasons I SADLY CANNOT ELABORATE ON HERE BECAUSE I KNOW THE PEOPLE WHO ARE IN THAT CAMPAIGN ARE FOLLOWING ME AND WE’RE PLANNING ON KEEPING THE MAIN BITS OF OUR BACKSTORIES SECRET she eventually booked it halfway across the country to this coastal city, Gallenset Gulf.

And she’s like “hhhhhouGHGGGGGHFUCK my life is RUINED” because of said nondescript Horrors™️ in her backstory that I cannot elaborate on and she’s kind of like. Not doing good. At all. She’s really shaken by the whole thing. Like it’s bad. She basically comes to the conclusion that she’s a horrible person for leaving and eventually gets roped into working for these small time criminals because (because of The Horrors™️) she’s technically a wanted criminal herself now.

So she works for them for a while, until she gets noticed by this woman named Ritz. K. Ritz, to be exact. Terrifying woman. Has a lot of “Hell” symbolism surrounding her for obvious reasons. You know the hound thing? The hound thing I mentioned in the last post? This is where that comes in. Hounds of hell, dogs of war, however you cut it. Ritz basically looks at this pathetic woman and goes “yeah, you know that stuff you said about you being horrible? You’re right. You’re totally evil. Like, holy shit, you’re bad. I’m worse though, so why don’t you work for me and you can go be a lot more honest with yourself.” AND IT WORKS.

After that, she ends up developing this whole brand around herself and takes up the Miss Direction moniker. She does some freelance work as a henchperson for a while and plays up the “VERY EVIL” gimmick to get more business and gets fairly far because she treats it more like a show, than anything. And she’s cunning, too! Really smart!! Absolutely PERFECT hitman material!

Right now, she’s basically easing off the gas and taking a bit of a breather by the time the campaign starts. Most of her attention has gone towards her startup (HenchPeople Incorporated, or H.I.P. for short because she’s a bad guy and doesn’t listen to the rules of acronyms) and she’s absolutely horrible and I love her so so so much.

She’s a dog person. She sings while she works. She failed to intimidate a kid one time and said kid turned around with a nat 20 and completely and utterly disgraced her. She constantly changes her name. Her jacket is this weird fucking white trenchcoat with baroque trim for some reason. She has an irrational hatred of Julius Caesar (the show). I absolutely adore her

[shepfax]

time for an unhinged barbie rant lol. not really spoilers just my thoughts on the discussions surrounding it specifically on letterboxd. I love this movie and want to talk about the reactions to it.

a lot of people are genuinely acting like if you did not have a negative view of Barbie you're just as misogynistic as the right because it's "liberal feminism for dummies" or that the roles of Barbies and Kens are too cliche/unhealthy depictions of real world gender issues... guys it's a Hollywood blockbuster by one of the biggest toy companies on Earth about sentient toys on an island called Barbieland. did you expect Barbie™️ to read out Marxist feminist literature for two hours? did you expect cutting and innovative social commentary from a fucking mega corporation? personally? I think that's on you! it's borderline satire! lower your expectations for something that fell out of the capitalist machine maybe! there are phenomenal feminist films from smaller creators, if this movie really left that bad of a taste in your mouth please channel your energy into something that will bring you joy!

this is a lot of younger girls first exposure to someone influential (like Barbie, a real world famous image of an unreal woman) acknowledging the idea that a word for the nightmarish unseen cage they're in actually exists in the real world-- patriarchy. and a lot of women who have lived under patriarchy for years without consciously pursuing feminist spaces feel their struggles seen for the first time, through the lens of their childhood toy experiencing it too. it was very healing for a lot of people who have lived the terrifying and beautiful and painful and unifying experience of being a girl. so many families went to see this as a multigenerational bonding experience between daughters, moms, aunts, grandmothers, etc. hell my theater even had young boys clapping and smiling with their moms and sisters. you can't take that kind of joy from someone, they're always going to hold it somewhere even if you hold legit reasons to hate the film.

I personally don't care that it's an entry-level "patriarchy bad" popcorn flick. that is far more than we get from other big-budget movies catering to a female audience who just settle for ignoring the issue of sexism all together, or play it for laughs. it is so often in mainstream media when a woman character points out that patriarchy exists, the narrative paints her as some oversensitive SJW.

we also cannot ignore the big corporate elephant in the room. Mattel is stupidly allergic to the word "feminism" for a good reason: pretty much everything they make money from is built atop the suffering of women. they have tremendous ethical issues in their labor practices, with women in their factories living in absolute squalor. it's miserably ironic that one of the most poignant scenes in the film is where Barbie tells an elderly woman how beautiful she is, all while Mattel sells anti-wrinkle creams. after researching the company more I do not plan on buying these toys. my nieces can play with something else.

there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. there never will be. I can acknowledge that and still refuse this no-fun-allowed preachy-ass take that the movie is devoid of meaning and--more importantly--entertainment. it is fun. it is colorful and heartfelt and silly. just because you didn't have fun doesn't mean it is categorically not fun.

you can hate it for being just as shallow as some of us expected. you can hate it simply because it's Mattel pretending to be feminist while being a very unfeminist company and essentially mimicking more successful feminist works to save face. you can love it for being more adult than some of us expected with unique perspectives on the world from both real and unreal characters. you can love it for bringing you closer to your feminine family or your feminine self in a gentle moment of healing. what you can't do is act like there is 1 (one) way to watch a fucking big-budget mainstream film from WB and Mattel that automatically makes you better than everyone you disagree with who didn't watch the movie right or whatver. for Christs sake stop acting like your opinion of the pink toy movie is this most ascended and untouchable thing. you are not a better person for consuming media a specific way and you have got to stop thinking that you are.

[mistwraiths]

4 stars

For some reason, I thought I wasn't going to enjoy this book. I think it didn't sound like something I was going to particularly like but I was going to give it a Try™️. I'm really glad I did because overall, I really enjoyed this.

I found the Italian inspired island a nice setting and while this at surface level is about fighting and surviving an apocalypse every few decades (??? Unclear), this mainly a grumpy bodyguard romance with everything else sprinkled in. The writing was easy to read and descriptive, but like in other reviews, I have a lot more questions and concerns about the world and religion and how the power works than what the book gives me.

Alessa's position of being the Chosen One and being bad at it isn't entirely unique to the YA format, but I liked how she accidentally killed three people and how terrified everyone became of her. The lack of faith in her BECAUSE of her recent accidents made sense and didn't feel derived from something silly. The fact that her title means "Window" and people call her that is kind of funny. I know it's said that her power amplifies a partner's magic, but I'm confused a bit of how she's able to manipulate and USE their magic too. Magnify and actually take someone else's power and use it seems like two different powers to me. Also she seems to know instinctually how to use it magic that isn't hers. But none of that is explained.

I did like Alessa. She wants to do good and tries, despite failing, and I commend her. She actively goes out of her way to get someone to protect her and learn exactly what this Padre Ivini is saying about her when no one will. I did enjoy the slow development of Dante's and Alessa's relationship. Dante good too. Too many times authors use grumpy instead of asshole or mean, but Dante wasn't ever rude or mean and even when he decided to leave or not want something or somehow hurt Alessa's feelings without intentionally being cruel, he apologized. I actually didn't guess his reveal but I figured he was Something like a Fonte.

Most of my issues has to do with the pacing, the way things worked in the world, and a bit of the predictability. Also, after 210 pages, this book kind of loses quality a tad.

Nothing really happens in this book until nearly 400 pages when the battle actually starts. Until then its solidly a romance while sort of preparing for the end of the world. The fact that people are trying to kill her, the lack of her power working, Ivini, and all that is just still happening and mainly background noise. So, this book, while enjoyable and readable, is pretty slow.

Why not train EVERY Fonte for battle? Why are they starting to train two weeks before? You know the apocalypse is coming when a Finiestra is picked, why not train immediately then? If your Goddess is all about connection and working together, isolating your savior doesn't really make any sense. I get maybe killing your Finestra when you have time to spare but A WEEK OR TWO BEFORE DOOMSDAY??? Where is the logic??? Just LEAVE for protection. Also why when these fools barely train are they using the last day of training to play on a beach??? And if your savior didn't show up why on earth would you wait until the end to show up??? I know the wind died but that was like a few days before. You had years. I would have been sweating when an island's finestra showed up and mine did not. Some things just don't make much sense.

The twin betrayal had me so mad. And he had the audacity being like "I told Ivini on Dante so we're even" 💀 SIR YOU LITERALLY TRIED TO KILL YOUR SISTER AND THEN TRIED TO CONVINCE HER TO DO IT HERSELF. And the narrative tries to make it all better. No. Absolutely not.

I did guess the end about the connection. It wasn't particularly hard. I did really like the part where HUGE SPOILER BEWARE Dante dies. I think having him dead and her searching for the source of life or whatever would have made an EPIC end but of course he had to come back to life. But they still are going to search for it.

Overall, it was really enjoyable and I think I would read the sequel when it comes out!