#that is a very gross interpretation of the movie and her character

[idiosyncraticrednebula]

People who side with Triton and criticize Ariel for rebelling against him miss the whole point of the story. I don't know what it is about Ariel in particular that many people online look for every reason to hate on her and justify everything that happened to her.

[discoursecatharsis]

I've noticed this pattern with antis in fandom where, in their attempt to distance themselves from anything and everything "problematic" in their fandoms, they refuse to acknowledge when they DO enjoy something problematic. Therefore, they don't recognize the problematic elements of the ship, character, media, etc. They'll also heavily downplay or deny any problematic. aspects of their favorite fandom thing.

I just saw an example of this and it is blowing my mind right now and I need to share this with y'all.

It involves the comments on this video.

Some context for Princess and the Frog: the blonde girl is Charlotte, also called Lottie. She's the main character Tiana's best friend. Charlotte's goal was always to marry a prince, and she almost marries (who she believes to be) Prince Naveen, but once she sees that Naveen and Tiana are in love, she tries to help them turn back human so they can be together.

At the end of the movie, Tiana and Naveen get married, and this scene plays after. Charlotte dances with Naveen's kid brother, and says "I've waited this long" in response to him saying that he's 6 and a half years old.

Now Charlotte's line here, if you look at the context clues of her story line, implies that she's saying "I've waited this long for a prince to marry, so I can wait longer for Naveen's younger brother to grow up." It's just a joke. Albeit, a joke that many will find to be very uncomfortable and inappropriate, but a joke nonetheless. I highly doubt Charlotte is actually going to "wait for" this child to grow up to marry him. She's making a joke at her expense, about her desperation of her dream to marry a prince.

BUT FOR SOME REASON.... many of the comments are like "she means that she's been waiting to DANCE with a prince."

I'm completely and utterly serious y'all. Here are some of the comments along those lines, with thousands of thumbs up each.

If you've seen this movie, you'll realize that these comments make absolutely no sense for more than one reason.

1) Charlotte danced with Prince Naveen (or at least with the villain disguised as him) earlier in the movie. She danced with a prince already. Why would that still be her dream if she already accomplished that?

2) Lottie speaks multiple times (during her childhood and in present day as a young adult) about her dream of "marrying a prince." Not dancing with a prince. Not meeting one. No, she wants to MARRY A PRINCE AND BE A PRINCESS.

This video has some clips of her saying this, at the time stamps 0:20, 2:52, 4:08, and 5:21.

Charlotte does give up her dream of marrying Naveen specifically for Tiana, because she see that he makes Tiana happy. But with how she jumps in like a wide receiver to catch the bouquet at Naveen and Tiana's wedding, it's clear she still has her dream of marrying *A* prince, just not Naveen.

But back to the comments on that video.

The comments seem to be downplaying the actual implication of her line. It's almost like they're desperately trying to ignore what she actually meant and make it more wholesome because they don't want to admit that their favorite movie has an uncomfy and inappropriate joke.

It's disturbing that this is yet another example where people in fandom (who are fantis or have been influenced by that fanti mindset) are downplaying a scene (or a ship, trope, etc) that is ACTUALLY problematic because they personally like the movie or the character and they don't want to admit that it has some issues. Instead of just admitting "yeah that scene/line was kinda fucked up and gross," they are jumping through HOOPS to make it seem more innocent than it was. And this is completely blowing my mind and is honestly concerning.

If you want to personally interpret it in a different way, in a way to make it more palatable to you, be my guest. That's what fandom and fanon is all about and I do that a lot too. But to see so many people outright deny the actual implications of this line is... bizarre af. It's one thing to be like "hmm yeah I don't like that, so I'm going to personally interpret this ship/trope/scene differently so it's more comfortable to me." It's another thing entirely to be in complete denial and ignore the actual context of the character and their story.

Also, so many of the other comments on the video aren't even commenting on the actual scene or on what Charlotte said. They're just generic comments on how much they love Charlotte as a character or how they miss this 2D animation. It's like they're trying reallyyyyyy hard to ignore the joke that's being made.

On the grander scheme, this is concerning because these people are refusing to acknowledge something that's inappropriate at best and predatory at worse (an adult "waiting" for a child to grow up) because they don't want to be caught enjoying/supporting something "bad."

All their talk about normalizing and normalization, but they're the ones kinda normalizing bad things by downplaying them or being in denial of it when it's in THEIR favorite media. And that is very concerning and a big issue.

[potions-of-dark-devotion]

Gotta Get This off my Chest

Severus Snape & HBO Series

Alright first off, I know you are generally expecting well thought out essays from me but here I’m going to Ramble Freeform. You’ve been warned.

I don’t know how I feel at all about another actor attempting to play Severus Snape. JK Rowling is the main producer and honestly this worries me a lot considering the amount of hatred she has for LGBTQ people and the amount of hatred Severus has gotten in the last years. This space is bad sometimes but generally we have a fantastic community of people in this snapedom who love the character as he is written positives and negatives. I for one liked Snape from the first book I read and the first movie I watched.

I’ll be the first to admit that my image of him is very much wrapped up in Alan Rickman, and tho I greatly respect other peoples images of snape and I love the fan art they make, the thing that made Alan such an amazing character actor for the part was the unabashed love he had for the character. Look at any interview of him about Severus and you will see that he went to bat for him at every turn. What if we we are given someone who sees Snape through the eyes of the marauders fandom? What if they erase all of Snapes goodness or heaven forbid write extra scenes of cruelty to Lily that didn’t exist, or have him creep over her, or physically attack her, or characterize him as the aggressor with James when we all know it was the other way around? These kinds of fears keep me from being excited about the new series and instead leave me anxious.

For one thing, I wish they had focused more on a different period of wizard history, or a different part of the 1st wizarding war or even marauders/young Severus era, because there is so much to explore. I would have liked to explore story lines that really could use more fleshing out, and if JK Rowling is going to be a part of this she could have easily written new passages or short stories to suit this new narrative. I also worry about the fact that yet again because she is a producer there will certainly be no LGBTQ characters in the narrative and that’s a waste to me. We already have a fantastic interpretation of the books, and if they are doing a redo why not cast people of color or trans or any LGBT characters in the mix? It will be the same story just perhaps fleshed out more? I’m not sure what this series will bring to the table that the movies did not unless they radically change some things.

Yet, with this interpretation we may see many thing in the series that we don’t see in the books. Severus has two big scenes at the end of POA and GOF that were totally left out of the movies, and if this was left in and the “prank” was explored more in depth we could get to see an even more complex narrative than Alan was allowed to portray in the movies (largely due to directorial choices).

Severus as we all know is a complex character that can be different or difficult to understand without a trauma informed lense and the last thing I want is for them to shove him into a gross stereotype, or give him attributes that don’t exist in the books in order to cater to certain fandoms. I’m genuinely worried about the prospect of this. I also don’t want our fandom safe spaces that we’ve spent years curating to be over run with Snape hate again just because of the series. I could be being pessimistic. It’s just been on my mind lately.

No hard feelings it’s just…Severus Snape is my comfort character and I don’t want the idea of it ruined by people who don’t really understand him or who wouldn’t bat for him the way Alan did. Please understand me. Does anyone else have mixed feelings this way?

[chaifootsteps]

i think the thing that makes toon-beetlebabes the optimal version of beetlebabes, particularly in comparison to the musical version of the ship, is that lydia is actually... nice.

musical lydia is funny in her meanness, but she is still mean. movie lydia is a lonely teenager masquerading (at least, thats how i interpreted it) as someone angstier and more uncaring than she really is.

cartoon lydia is cheerful and kind and intelligent, who at least tries politeness first before she decides if someone deserves it or not. cartoon lydia is unflappable in the face of beetlejuices gross and creepy habits — in fact, thats WHY she likes him so much. she's such a genuine person that her spooky interests dont come off as an aesthetic mask to bolster her attitude.

(now that i think about it, astrid from the film makes me think of almost a perfect mix of musical and toon lydia — she's surly and dismissive, and has an interest in protecting the environment).

of course, beetlejuice himself is half of this dynamic, and again i think the reason the cartoon version of this duo works so well is that lydia is the only person beetlejuice would go out of his way to do something nice for. i don't think he even considered the idea of being lonely before he met lydia, and then after becoming her friend he got to experience a range of emotions he didn't seem to comprehend or have access to before — he just likes her that much! he didn't give two shits about anyone before he met her.

musicaljuice kiiinda taps into that, but that version of beetlejuice was sad regardless of whether or not he knew lydia — he was just lonely and kind of pathetic and would try his "i'm your new best friend" shpeal on anyone who seemed remotely interested in letting him stick around (tbh a lot of his actions in the bulk of the show dont seem to match his dismissively murderous monologue in "the whole being dead thing" right at the beginning).

cartoon beetlejuice and lydia are such fully realized characters outside of their dynamic that it makes their scenes where they ARE together even better.

sorry if i said anything (read: everything) you've already said before but just... ahhh i LOVE toonbabes so much. it was the first proper ship i ever had, and it still remains extremely dear to me.

Agreed, 1000%. Toon Lydia is so beautifully confident in who she is and what she likes. She's kind and polite to just about everyone she meets, but she loves spooky things and bugs and, to the endless confusion of the people around her, Beetlejuice himself. And Beetlejuice loves that about her.

Quite literally the only thing toon Beetlebabes has working against it is the question of their ages, which everyone's got their own way of either approaching or headcanoning around...if it weren't for that, if Lydia were just stated to be 18 from the get-go, they'd be the Gomez and Morticia of '90s cartoons. They're two people who love everything about each other, support each other endlessly, build off one another to become better people, and spend every day together happy that they met. They were very special to me as a kid, and they always will be.

[madam-o]

Re the weird divide in the Beetlejuice fandom, which I really don't get

Fandom is so strange. Just liking Beetlejuice himself as a character has invited all manner of unusual kinks and personal interests into the fandom, and hey, the more the merrier. Beetlefans and netherlings are an assembly of interesting weirdos, so like, you do you. And obviously, this means that you should try not to judge or make assumptions about others based on your own feelings about their interests. Riiiight?

So, Beetlebabes as a ship has been around since the beginning of the fandom, and it certainly seems likely not to be going anywhere with the sequel. Now, my own personal stance on the pairing lies straight in the middle. I think Lydia and Beej have a beautiful friendship in the animated series and musical. They're such a great comedic duo and there's something very pure and sweet about this girl and her bug-man. Their relationship in the musical IS colored by the fact that they're both using and tricking each other a lot of the time, but they seem to have a mutual respect on this point and don't let it ruin their friendship, well until the topic of moms comes up, anyway.

In the movie, it's more complicated. BJ is motivated primarily by his desire to be free and couldn't care less about Lydia's problems. He also gets just a tad creepy with Lydia, though he's not over the top about it. He claims that he thinks that she "really understands me", which is a frickin weird thing to say about a kid who you talked to for like five minutes. But the pervy implications are kept to a minimum so as not to drive the movie into darker territory. His motivations are still kept as primarily a green card thing, although the viewer is still pretty grossed out by the forced, child-bride marriage.

Re BJ, I don't see him as a human or someone who really follows human rules. He's a supernatural creature who has a vague, outsider's understanding of what being human means. Even interpreting him as a ghost and not a demon, he's too different from a human to remember what being one is like. In the musical and cartoon, he relates to Lydia from a child's pov, but tries to behave like an adult with the Maitlands. He's neither, though. He's an unliving, essentially immortal Thing. And while Lydia clearly has a lot of affection for "her monster", she's not exactly into this gross, stinky, creepy old guy. As for BJ, he's very attached to Lydia, perhaps unhealthily so, but he's not being a sexual predator with her.

However, as a Beetlefan, I've seen that it's pretty natural to pair the two up romantically. I certainly shipped them as a kid. And yeah, it's kind of a weird ship, but Beetlejuice as a concept is just weird, period. Weirdness and age gaps are hardly anything new or unique in any part of the internet. Teen fans ship characters their own age with much older characters all the time, and it's not usually frowned upon. But in the Beetlejuice fandom, there appears to be a lot of ship-shaming and accusations of p3d0ph1lia when it comes to this teen/ancient monster pairing, which I'm guessing is a lot more of an internet drama thing than about the actual pairing itself.

Now to be clear, I don't ship teen Lydia with anyone, but I also acknowledge that she's not gonna stay a kid and that things could change between them.

Personally I like the idea of Lydia and BJ being reunited after spending several years apart and things being super weird and tense based on their history. I've become primarily a fan of the relationship dynamic they have in the musical, so I see them as being distrustful of each other and competitive about getting one over the other. But they still gel in a unique way, and they can't help but enjoy their messed-up frenemy thing. And I think the awkwardness of the teen bride thing should be leaned into rather than forgotten or brushed away.

Lydia (to BJ): You really fucked me up, you know. I was just a sad kid who you manipulated. You fuckin creep.

BJ (to Lydia): Yeah but at least I didn't literally STAB YOU THROUGH THE HEART, so...point to me, there.

This type of prickly, antagonistic relationship is like catnip to me, honestly. So it's pretty disappointing and sad that all this fandom drama crap can and probably will affect my ability to share and enjoy beetlebabes content because "beetlebabes dni" appears on so many profiles and posts. It's the kinda thing that makes fandom culture such a double-edged freaking sword. Why can't people ever just let people enjoy the thing they like and try to be respectful of each other, ya know?

[cellarspider]

12/30 Things come to a head

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⛬

We return to that shambling mass of a film, Prometheus.

Content warnings for body horror, contagion-y stuff, something that could loosely be described as medical horror, It’s Been 0 Days Since Our Last Incident, and me, going on a ramble about movie gore to distract myself from The Madness.

There's a lady in this scene who's had a number of speaking lines so far–the maybe-chemist. She has a name, but it doesn’t matter.

But I'm going to call her Doctor Frankenstein.

They have just got the helmet off the head, revealing that it’s truly, unmistakably humanoid. They have noted that there are “new cells” on the head. In the business, we call that “decomposition”, but Doctor Frankenstein is not concerned with this. In fact, she immediately proposes a new plan.

Doctor Frankenstein has had the brilliant idea to plug a big cable into the head like it’s a guitar amp, and zap it with electricity to wake it up.

Yes. This is what the movie goes with.

You know, Alien included a similarly shambolic first examination of an alien subject, but it was performed because said alien was attached to a man’s face, and all they had to try and fix that was the contents of a cargo ship’s medbay, with the only qualified personnel being the corporate android who had been ordered to consider the crew expendable. The crew of the Prometheus has no such excuse.

Well, except for David, he has precisely the same excuse, but he’s not trying to poke wires in anybody’s ears.

Doctor Frankenstein calls for enough amperage to run three electric kettles (cite 3), then all the way up to two Titan RTX graphics cards before the head starts to get what appears to be a massive migraine. 

I know this expression well, migraines can feel very much like someone is subjecting me to unnatural horrors.

This is getting a little extreme, though. Yes, when the head starts pulsing, they realize they may have made a mistake. 

I’d say this was inexplicable behavior on their part, unbelievably hasty and foolish–and I will say it, actually, it deserves to be said. But in context, this is the team that did so little prep for entering the alien structure that they didn’t notice the giant fuckoff skull carved into the outside of it.

Knowing how much Shaw and Holloway read into the intentions of the Engineers from the depictions they found on Earth, they probably would’ve interpreted this as a good sign, somehow.

Anyway, they put a sneezeguard down over the head before it explodes.

Good job everyone. This is like what would’ve happened if Napoleon’s savants took one look at the Rosetta Stone and decided “maybe we should try hitting it with hammers. Surely that’ll make the knowledge fall out.”

From a horror perspective, this scene only works in two contexts: First, gross-out. Generally found in schlock, exploitation, and outsider art flicks, the tone of gross-out content can be highly variable, but there are two general trends I'd mention, which are of relevance to this movie.

First, gross-out tends to exist in that weird alternate space where lots of comedy movies do: characters will behave in unreasonable ways for no apparent reason. Within the film, this is treated as the universal norm, besides maybe a straight man character who highlights the absurdity. Gross-out is often like that, but pushes different boundaries of acceptable behavior than a traditional comedy.

This is, bafflingly, what Prometheus increasingly feels like. It feels like it's transitioning into gross-out schlock, and yet it never goes all the way.

Second: the audience for gross-out is largely self-selecting. If you're watching John Waters' Pink Flamingos, you expect things to get messy. You are looking forward to things getting messy. A head exploding is perfectly par for the course in gross-out horror. One might even be disappointed if there wasn't an exploding head.

But again, this movie was not marketed on gross-out. It was marketed as a tense, Alien-esque horror movie. If you followed that premise like I did, you're not in the theater to view a debauched spectacle, you're there for the movie to put a well-paced squeeze on the characters and your nerves, where half the horror comes from having the room to really think about how frightening the core concepts of the series are.

Does Alien involve some shocking gore? Sure does! But in Alien, Kane's fate is not there to make you laugh and exclaim "ewww!" at how far the film's gone, the film tries to make you very aware of how horrifying his demise is.

So, there's an alternate way this scene works, if you're coming in from that perspective. I don't think the movie intended this as much as the gross-out, but it's what I drew from it at the time: the scene works if you decide not to focus your sympathies on the human characters at all, or even David, and think about it from the perspective of the head. 

It’s patently impossible that what they did actually “woke up” the brain inside that skull. But if we sink to the movie’s level and entertain the idea for a moment, what in the hell have they just done to this Engineer? The last thing the head would’ve remembered was running, falling, decapitation, and then this. They just tortured this poor bastard for no adequately explained reason. There’s none! “I think we can trick the nervous system into thinking it's still alive” is the entirety of the explanation. It makes about as much sense and seems as thoughtlessly violent as anything in Mad God (2021, content warning for body horror). 

I already spent all my anger about desecrating bodies in the name of shambolic pseudoscience, I have no more rage to give for now. And similarly in the theater, I hit my limit. I’d already hit a different limit back when they landed the Prometheus on top of some archaeology, but now I’d fully given up on this movie being what I’d hoped it would be. 

The maddening thing that keeps me obsessed with it is that it keeps throwing random scraps of that hypothetical movie into the mix anyway, bouncing me like a yo-yo between scenes. 

But for right now, the yo-yo is still on the descent. Having exploded the first sample of alien biology ever touched by science, they apparently stuck some of it in a generic, science-y DNA machine. What does the DNA machine tell them? 

“DNA match”. 

The movie does not actually explain what this means. It thinks it does, but in a very vague and handwave-y way that ends up being even more hilarious than if they’d just been out-and-out wrong. Because this is what I do for a living, I want to science at this for a bit. 

But I’ve written enough about it for an entire post on its own, so that will wait until next time.

⛬ 

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⛬ 

Citations for alt-text rambles, as well as some text-text rambles:

1. https://www.behance.net/gallery/78297841/Semiotic-Standard (contains a high-quality download for the symbols, should ye wish them for yourselves)

2. https://www.sculpturedepot.net/clay-wax-tools/product.asp?Steel_Tools 

3. Doctor Frankenstein calls for 30 amps first, then 40, then 50 in the space of several seconds. According to wikipedia, an electric kettle is about 16.6A, and a 288W high-performance graphics card would require 24A. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(current) That graphics card isn’t mentioned by name, but it matches up with the wattage reported by Tom’s Hardware for a Titan RTX (cite 4). Running with two of these things, you might be able to run 4k Ultra settings on some games without tanking your framerate. They could’ve been playing video games and seen way more exploding heads.

4. https://www.tomshardware.com/features/graphics-card-power-consumption-tested 

5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_(film)#Design

6. https://www.reddit.com/r/MovieDetails/comments/f4rf63/for_the_chestburster_scene_in_alien_1979_the/

7. https://i.pinimg.com/736x/8e/2f/9b/8e2f9b0716746aac7ce5b2f369bf4082--aliens--scene.jpg

8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karyotype#Human_karyogram 

9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centromere 

10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centromere#Telocentric 

11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_banding 

12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proteinogenic_amino_acid 

13. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hula_language

[stellaluna33]

How about that time when ASP bragged that Rory only had her first time when she was 19/20 or something, wasn’t it weird that she was so proud of that, especially when she “made” her have such a lousy first time, married man and all?

Why was Rory being a virgin until “late” that groundbreaking for ASP, I wonder?

If I’m not mistaken she was shading other teen shows that had their protagonists/leading ladies having their first times earlier, and idk once again it just looks like she digs shaming girls for having sex.

Personally, I used to love that Rory was still a virgin until college bc I could relate to her even more because of that, haha, I just got kinda disappointed that Amy seemed to see it as some sort of quality?

Sorry, English is not my first language so idk if I’m expressing myself very well, but yeah I’m curious to o know more opinions about this.

The way I understand it, Amy was under a lot of pressure from the network to make Rory "sexier." But why should a teenage girl character HAVE TO have sex to be a worthwhile or relatable character? She shouldn't! But that kind of mindset was what ASP was pushing back against, and maybe it's an unpopular opinion, but I actually really appreciated that. What you have to understand is that when I grew up watching teen media from the 80s and 90s (and going into the early 2000s), there was persistent messaging that still being a "virgin" by the time you graduated from highschool was kind of embarrassing. Losing your virginity was widely viewed as some sort of necessary "milestone" instead of a very personal and optional choice. (Especially for boys, but there was a lot of that for girls in TV and movies also) It wasn't until right around the turn of the millennium that I remember starting to see movies/shows that QUESTIONED that idea, that started asking well, WHY, though? When there started occasionally being characters who expressed that they shouldn't HAVE to have sex just to fit in. That it should be a PERSONAL choice. And like, I'm not a historical scholar- I haven't done a STUDY of whether this is accurate or not, but this is what it FELT LIKE to me as a teenager. And it FELT LIKE Rory was a really refreshing character for nerdy girls like me and my friends- that it was OKAY if you hadn't had sex yet. It was OKAY for a teenage girl to be focused more on academic or career aspirations rather than "losing her V-card," or that maybe she just doesn't feel ready yet, and it doesn't make her a "loser" or a "prude!" Like, that felt like SUCH a rare thing! ASP wanted to write a character like that, partly because it hadn't been done much, and she got a lot of pushback from the Network about it (which is kind of gross?). And I just... don't think that necessarily means that she was "slut shaming" anyone else.

I confess to being surprised when I started seeing people on here saying that Gilmore Girls had a "negative" view of sex. (This got long, sorry!)

Like, Lorelai has an active sex life with a variety of different partners over the course of the series, and that seems to be portrayed as normal and morally neutral. Sookie has an active and healthy sex life. When Rory is sleeping with Logan in college, the narrative seems to paint Richard and Emily (and the unfortunate Reverend they brought in) as ridiculous and controlling for objecting. Paris and Doyle have an active and enthusiastic sex life, and the narrative doesn't seem to judge them for it... I do admit that there does seem to be a pattern of unfortunate "first times" for the younger characters, but I wonder if that's more about Amy's addiction to "drama" than her views on sex. About Paris specifically, I always interpreted her paranoia about being "punished" for having sex as being commentary about how SOCIETY judges girls for having sex (because Reality for girls was a lot different from the pop culture fantasy norms). Gilmore Girls just wasn't interested in portraying some kind of "ideal world." They were just "putting these guys in Situations." And I mean... it's a show largely about generational trauma stemming from a teenage pregnancy! The characters are going to have some complicated and probably even unhealthy feelings about sex! And can I be honest for a minute? Much like attitudes towards our bodies, I'm honestly a proponent of what I'm going to call "sex neutrality." Because, yeah, sex is supposed to be fun and feel good and even be beautiful... And ideally it is! But sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's bad or painful or awkward or emotionally messy or damaging or degrading. Are we supposed to pretend that doesn't happen? Because it does. Are TV characters just not supposed to acknowledge that side of it? I don't know. I don't think Gilmore Girls is a perfect show. I don't agree with everything ASP thinks or everything the characters do. But I do think sometimes viewers want to see some kind of "message" where there just isn't one. Anyway, this is just my opinion, and I may be wrong about one or several things! 😆

[lunanoc]

this is probably definitely an unpopular and potentially controversial opinion, but i saw a take recently on npss and the female characters of dmbj that to be fair pops up often that i feel it’s a pretty prevalent one, so i just. decided to give my two cents on it that once again no one asked for

more under the cut because this got a little long

just to be clear, this a topic that has quite a bit of nuance and multiple layers to it, and perception entirely depends on both personal interpretation and your medium of choice. i’m also not saying that npss is some pioneer in terms of writing female characters because he’s not. but i also feel that saying he’s a blatant misogynist and that he can’t write female characters properly at all is a gross exaggeration and doing the ladies of dmbj a disservice

i’m also going to be talking about the books specifically here, since the books and the dramas/movies treat female characters differently not only because of plotline reasons, but because of the differences in the nature of their narratives. the dramas have quite a bit more of the accusations people tend to like throwing at dmbj like reducing female characters to flat, one-dimensional archetypes or fridging the dramas do have su nan though, but contrary to what a large part of the fandom seems to push forward, the dramas don’t and can’t represent dmbj in its entirety, and if you’re going to try and do that, you can’t leave out the books and vice-versa, but seeing how different both versions of the story can get at times i just tend to separate them entirely

as it stands, the only female characters who die in the books zhang haixing not counting because we technically don’t know what happens to her are a ning and yuncai, and i guess you can add huo xiangu to that, but she's part of the lao jiumen and chen pi ah si dies similarly so not sure that counts here really. and while you can argue for a ning at least that her death for narrative purposes was fridging, npss also used panzi’s death later on for similar narrative purposes, so at least in that respect he doesn’t discriminate

don’t get me wrong, the books aren’t perfect either, and you do get misogynistic comments from the male characters from time to time that make me squint, which is why i’m not trying to pretend dmbj is peak feminism, but they’re also not egregious or frequent enough comments, and in my opinion the main difference with the dramas is that the male gaze in the books is at least somewhat more justified, because where the dramas are necessarily presented from a third person pov, the books are wu xie’s first person pov for the most part. dmbj is essentially written as and treated as wu xie’s memoirs, and so everything and everyone is seen and filtered through the lense of his perception. and wu xie is a man, so that comes with its own set of ramifications. and even then ironically, wu xie is far from the only or the worst culprit when it comes to casual misogyny. pangzi has his fair share of takes, as do a number of other characters

but for all that the female characters are sometimes placed into archetype boxes by virtue of not only the narrative being from wu xie’s pov, but also the fact that the tomb robbing business is shown to be a male dominated one, and also just because npss himself is a man, that doesn’t mean those female characters aren’t complex and fleshed out characters in their own right to the same extent as their male counterparts of similar narrative relevance

i’m thinking of huo xiuxiu for example, who’s arguably the most prominent and recurring female character in dmbj, who from the get-go is very quickly made out to be not a pretty girl (or rather not just a pretty girl) but quick-witted the likes of which wu xie resonates with as a kindred spirit and draws a number of parallels with himself because he finds they share similar ways of thinking and problem solving. she’s capable, skilled, and sees herself as an equal to the iron triangle and the men around her, and yet none of this detracts from either her femininity or her vulnerability as the youngest lao jiumen member, and later as the one left behind to pick up the broken pieces of her own family. she’s a leader in her own right, and she gains support from xiao hua and wu xie in the years leading up to sand sea just as much as she lends them her support in later canon. all of this without ever being presented as a potential love interest and reduced to only that wu xie’s lack of interest in women in a practical sense as romantic/sexual partners is a topic for another post but it’s also a thing that contributes to not relegating most of the female characters to just that too

i’m not about to say npss is being particularly progressive, but it’s also interesting and nice to note that even in recent canon, just like the iron triangle and xiao hua, huo xiuxiu is well into her 30s and unmarried without it ever either being mentioned really or being an issue, which considering the cultural significance of marriage in china, even more so seeing as xiuxiu is the heiress and head to a powerful family, it’s worth noting she’s not treated any differently from the male characters who make the same equally culturally problematic choices. she’s too busy going with the iron triangle, xiao hua, and hei xiazi down into dangerous tombs (which is why she’s often featured in official merch as a main cast member alongside the iron triangle and heihua)

i’m not going to get into the nitty-gritty about every single female character otherwise this would get way too long but i could, but even someone like liang wan, who is absolutely portrayed as vain and sometimes unrealistically obsessed with her appearance and chasing after men, i personally find still has more depth given to her in the book in some respects, because as zhang rishan isn’t in sand sea the book, she has no romance plotline, and so not only does she get pov chapters, she gets pov chapters that flesh out her involvement with wu xie’s plan and the wangs by extension, and her goals, though never followed through on because npss didn’t tie up that loose end, i find are far more driven by something deeply personal. zhang haixing in tibetan sea flower is arrogant and condescending, manipulative as much as she is competent, and while pangzi especially responds to her behavior with borderline misogynistic provocations, it’s very clear that her character isn’t so much the fruit of putting her in the femme fatale archetype box as it is a consequence of her being a zhang. because both zhang haike and zhang hailou (aka ‘little brother zhang’) who are both men, are very much also like this. special mention also to the girls from the side novel a thousand faces because yes npss wrote a book that’s entirely about two women who may or may not be girlfriends

i could also talk about chen wenjin whose entire story runs very much parallel to wu sanxing’s and they both end up with similar endgame situations and are both tragic characters but this post is already long enough. there are more minor female characters who get their share of both “screentime��� and development on par with their male counterparts, and for the sake of argument, some of these female characters have as much presence and/or depth given to them as a character like liu sang, who while being a fandom darling, is also very much a minor character. so what i’m saying is that while yes most of the characters in dmbj are men, and the main cast even more so (excluding xiuxiu), at equal level of importance, there’s about as much depth to a character like liu sang as there is to a character like liang wan, or a ning, and so at some point it begs the question of how much of the fandom’s perception of depth in minor female characters is colored by personal preferences rather than objective fact. are there female characters who are basically reduced to being a romantic interest and serve no real purpose other than to be the source of a man’s pain? yes looking at yuncai whose death is both sudden (while it does have some minor foreshadowing) and happens so far towards the end of the book that it almost seems pointless, and in the end only serves as the catalyst for pangzi’s own suffering and justifies his almost ten-year on-and-off retreat to banai

because again, npss isn’t out here making dmbj a feminist manifesto, and there’s room for criticism and pointing out a number of things if you wanted to. but he also doesn’t write bad female characters. they’re as much people as the men are for better or worse, and saying npss can’t write women properly is doing them a disservice. not to mention the fact the dmbj never leans into romance and that actually almost every single ‘canon’ romance is doomed in some capacity means women are rarely relegated to solely being potential love interests, which in a narrative dominated by the male gaze is actually nice?

[f0point5]

what do you think about the whole blake lively and justin baldoni situation ?

Disclaimer - I haven’t read the court docs in full.

But like…I think they’re both probably just kind of assholes.

His vibe has always been off for me. I just don’t trust his whole “I’m a feminist” thing, he gives “nice guy”. The kind of guy who will tell you something really gross and intimate about the girl he slept with over the weekend and when you’re like why are you being a creep he’ll be like “sex isn’t a bad thing, don’t be a slut shaming prude”. So I can easily buy what she said about him. I’m not going to speculate on precisely what happened and how it can/should be interpreted but look, a lot of things that one puts up with for someone you’re trying to work with or even someone you kind of like, can look really sinister in the cold light of day or in the context of an already strained acquaintance, right? It’s up to everyone to read the room and frankly maybe realise who you’re working with and take a little extra care where it might be needed, especially when you’re responsible not just for your acting part but for the production at large.

But, I think Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds are just high key high school popular kids. I totally believe that she demanded creative control of the movie and that when things weren’t going her way she brought in her husband who is the “heavy hitter” in Hollywood to fight her corner. And I do think Ryan Reynolds can probably be a condescending and controlling douche bag. But to be fair, when you’re feeling small and insecure and not listened to or uncomfortable, isn’t your husband the person you call? And wouldn’t a husband rain hell on whoever made his wife feel that way? Professional? Absolutely not. Kind of predictable when you see the people involved? Yeah kinda.

I think they’re two people who shouldn’t have worked together. And honestly it’s clear they had very different ideas about what this movie should be and what the project was. I really think Justin thought it was his vehicle to become a serious proposition by exploiting the themes of the book, and Blake thought it was her opportunity to play an iconic character and make it her own like she’d previously done with Gossip Girl. And Justin realised his project wasn’t going to end up looking that serious with Blake’s funny outfits and the rewrites and her wanting control over the edit, and Blake realised that a movie about DV isn’t going to become a summer classic if it’s all done and gloom (hence her “grab your girls and your florals”). And in the end, they both disagreed with who was driving the train.

It’s a PR nightmare for both of them, and neither may ever get a real job again but Blake doesn’t need one. Justin on the other hand…

[lesbianmarrow]

Hi! I saw on an ask you sent someone that you're currently reading Fraction's run on IIM, and enjoying the treatment of female characters. Thought you should probably know (as in, a trigger warning) that, during the 'World's Most Wanted' arc, Pepper and Tony have sex in a very dubcon (at best) way. It's probably not meant to be read as such, but it's hard not to. Tony barely remembers who he is and Pepper explicitly mentions enjoying how vulnerable he was. They then use this as a basis for a love triangle between Pepper, Tony, and Maria Hill. It's a gross situation and everyone felt wildly out of character, it became pretty infamous in Iron Man circles (even movie ones, as people used it to bash Pepper). I'm actually quite surprised it's apparently not well known thought other parts of the fandom, sorry to be the bearer of bad news. :/

oh i actually just read that storyline today! though i appreciate the warning. i actually didn't interpret it as a situation where tony was unable to give consent, although i can see how one might read it that way. to me it just seemed like pepper and tony both feeling very stressed and hopeless and taking comfort in each other while they can. i didn't get the sense that pepper had violated tony in any way, and i don't think fraction intends for it to read as such. i'm actually a bit wary of the idea that tony's memory loss here means that he is unable to consent - it seems potentially ableist to me. like, if an adult has brain damage and memory issues, does that necessarily mean they can't consent to sex? ever? that doesn't seem right to me. tony in this moment seems aware enough of his identity and his relationship to pepper that i feel okay about him and pepper choosing to have sex here.

your love triangle comment is also interesting to me because that's definitely not how i would have phrased the situation between tony & pepper & maria, although it is technically accurate (though i should note i only read up to issue 19 and may or may not read further). i think fraction does a great job making maria and pepper feel like their own characters with hopes and fears and internal conflicts completely separate from tony. it never feels like theyre just there to be his love interests. and the focus is never on "oooh which one of them will tony choose? which one of them will he sleep with?" it's much more that they are the two women tony trusts and respects most, and yes he has an attraction with both of them, but that's extremely off to the side and not the point right now, they have a billion other things to worry about that are more urgent. like, the extent to which those romantic relationships are not the point right now kind of is the point. maria does say rude and disrespectful things to pepper but i didnt find that to be out of character or misogynistic writing, i think it's just that she was having a really really bad day and she felt embarrassed to have to be rescued by pepper. i'm generally not a fan of "male character has 2 women who are in love with him at the same time! and they don't get along!" stories but i think fraction cares enough about the interiority of these women that it works, at least for me.

i havent read much iron man so i can't say if tony or pepper are out of character but i definitely thought maria was in character. up until this point she's largely been written by bendis and i thought fraction got into her head in a really excellent way that made her into a more fully realized character. i loved all the stuff with her and black widow. and i guess i just have a weakness for a female character who is so loyal and determined to accomplish her mission but she is just having the worst time and getting her ass kicked physically and emotionally. and i should add, what i read of pepper in this series made me really like her as well! i'd potentially be interested in reading more comics she plays a significant role in. she's wonderful.

anyway lol i hope you dont mind the long response, i just thought you brought up some intriguing points and i appreciated the opportunity to lay down some thoughts on these comics that i read today!

[elvisqueso]

I appreciate you for being one of the few people I sadly see online that talk fondly of Pocahontas (1995). Why do you think folks cannot seem to separate fiction and reality when it comes to this film? There is so much love towards films like Anastasia (1997) for example, and as much flack Pearl Harbor (2001) and Marie Antoinette (2006) received back in the day, nobody seems to dunk on it the way they do with Pocahontas. Do you think only a group of people can have the rightful opinion about the film as opposed to other works of historical fiction? Pocahontas and John Smith are not the only people in history to have been romanticised in works of art over a span of centuries so I would like to know what you think, have a good day!

Hi, anon! It certainly is a lonely position to have in online spaces, and I'm glad there's some people who see my stuff and appreciate it. <3

This has always been a very hairy question when it comes to Pocahontas. On the one had, you want to have respect for Native voices when they say the film is damaging or hurtful. On the other hand...I've yet to see much in the way of actually explaining why that is.

From what I've gleaned, there's a few valid criticisms one could make about representation in the film. It edged towards a "noble/magical savage" trope in some instances, and one could argue that Kocoum - a Native man - was 'fridged for the plot. Once could also argue (although I will disagree) that the Powhatan are not shown to be vindicated enough in their position against the English invaders. That Pocahontas's stand on the clifftop somehow took the rug out from under the Powhatan's position as the good-guys of the film. Some people have argued that Pocahontas is also sexualized which...I don't really see, personally. But idk maybe I'm missing something there. I suppose they mean to criticize her character design specifically.

All-in-all, these are generally decent, relevant criticisms that deserve conversation. It's important to talk about how media portrays Native Americans and how narratives can be interpreted in different, more-or-less negative ways.

The criticisms I also see that I don't find very compelling, however, tend to be centered solely around the depictions of racism in the film (they somehow take this as the film itself being racist) and on the fact that this film is attached to the folklore around Pocahontas at all.

I've seen complaints online from some Native Americans that they - on the whole - are rather sick of having to talk about Pocahontas. It's like the go-to for non-Natives' somewhat ignorant questions. It's the comparison many Native girls grow up with hearing from their non-Native peers. In short, there's some very personal annoyances among the online Native community over just the topic of Pocahontas in general.

This is understandable and valid. Everyone has at least one case where something that happens in real life spoils the enjoyment of a piece of art. But is it truly fair to hold this against a movie on the whole? I don't personally believe so.

As for the outrage over the reality of Pocahontas's/Matoaka's life: this is also rife with misinformation, ignorance, and outright contrarianism. The fact is we know very, very little about the real Pocahontas, and what we do know is often extrapolated to absurd degrees in online spaces. There is a tendency for people to latch on to only the most horrific, traumatic narratives about Pocahontas they can find—almost to a fetishistic degree—in order to...what? Feel satisfaction in the supposed knowledge that a real human woman suffered the worst horrors their imaginations could come up with? A supposition that isn't even supported by historical evidence, whether written record or oral tradition? I've seen some scholars make gross conjecture about Pocahontas's life in their writings, which is then twisted and taken as pure and solid fact by people online who can't recognize the difference between evidence and theory and, oh, is that terribly disheartening.

But one could say similar things about, yes, films like Anastasia and any number of other films based on real life events and the mythology that evolves from them. So why Pocahontas? Really and truly, why this film above all others? @artist-issues wrote an excellent post about what problems people have with the film not satisfying their idea of what they think the representation should have been. It's not unlike the tone-deaf literary criticism that "these characters aren't acting perfectly logically and rationally at all times, therefore the characterization is bad. How dare this film portray complex, entirely human characters!"

But I'm going to go further into the real world and say something that some people are probably going to have a reaction to: I genuinely think a big issue people have with the film is that it portrays an interracial relationship. Worse yet: an interracial relationship between a woman of color and a white man.

Now why this? The short answer: racism and misogyny. The long answer? Women are yet seen as things to be conquered, and men as the ones who conquer. It doesn't matter that, in the film, Pocahontas is the one takes the lead in the relationship. It doesn't matter that, in the film, John Smith was willing to submit and die for her. It doesn't matter that, in the film, the two sides were of equal but opposing standing (two houses both alike in dignity, if you will). It doesn't matter that they genuinely love each other. What matters to many (I'd argue most) fervent critics is the color of their skin and their gender.

In the eyes of the fervent critic, a woman of color has been conquered by a white man and they won't see it as anything different. There's still a real, real problem with common sentiments leaning towards anti-miscegenation. At the time this film was made, interracial marriage had only been legal across the States for less than thirty years. That was less than sixty years ago today.

I'm going to make some comparisons for a second: there were two major Hollywood epics that were set during white-Native conflicts made a few years prior to Pocahontas. These were Dances With Wolves and The Last of the Mohicans. Oscar-winning films. Lauded and praised films. These films were violent, grand in scope, and attempted to portray the integration of a single white man into a Native society. Interesting detail to note: each man conveniently found a white woman to be his romantic counterpart.

Even in these films, which sought to build a bridge between sympathetic whites and Native Americans, they would not portray an interracial relationship. That Pocahontas did (and portrayed them as deeply in love) was an amazingly ballsy thing to do in 1995. (It should be noted that previous portrayals of the Pocahontas and John Smith romantic narrative involved the casting of a white woman in the role of Pocahontas. Again, avoiding the presence of an interracial match on screen).

I've seen enough responses to similar racial dynamics in other fandoms to know this is not isolated or unique: racial misogyny is alive and well. And many people don't recognize that they have internalized it and are reacting negatively to these relationships because of it.

The film never treats Pocahontas as anything other than an entirely self-possessed, driven, and passionate person. John Smith is never portrayed as being dominant or unwilling to bend. The core problem some people have, in my view, is that she is Native and he is white and they kiss twice on screen.

Thank you so much for the question, anon! I hope I was able to answer everything.

[moefling]

ok i’m gonna talk about the RWRB Movie...

SPOILER: i’m gonna be negative and i’m not planning on watching the movie (i guess that means ppl are gonna block me??? idk why ppl are just mass blocking because of this but whatever) (edit: per a suggestion I swapped the tag on this post so it isn't tagged under "rwrb movie")

so i’m gonna start by saying that i’ve watched the trailer a few times and honestly i love the vibes, it makes me smile ever time.

-the kiss is great

-the butt slap is everything

-Henry’s facial expressions *chefs kiss*

-the visible chain around Alex neck. yes

i’m also gonna say that its great that people ARE going to see the movie, we need more queer movies and the only way for that to happen is if ppl watch the ones that are being made now.

so the bad.

honestly i could deal with a lot of the little things.  like they make my eye twitch a little but i do actually understand that you can’t 100% remake a book into a movie.

 BUT

it’s June that i can’t forgive.

if i’m wrong and she is in the movie than amazing and i redact everything but it doesn’t seem to be that way.

removing June makes me SO angry.  its like removing Alice from Twilight or Sam from Lord of the Rings.  if Main Characters are just the romantic leads (Alex and Henry) than June defiantly falls into secondary tier - all the Super Six kinda do (Bea would be the most removable for me but is is also necessary for Henry’s development as much as June is for Alex.

June balances Alex out.  the book even specifically states WHY all of the White House Trio are needed (page 28: “Alex pushes them. June steadies them. Nora keeps them honest.”) She keeps him sane and she put her life on hold to watch out for Alex, and Alex knows this!

the idea of Alex being an only child is terrifying.  he is already kinda selfish (i say that lovingly) and “a little shit” without growing up with an older sibling to shut him up he would be a monster (and Nora doesn’t count because first they don’t actually meet until Ellen is running with Mike as VP and second Nora’s personality is to “go with the flow” to really steady Alex)

June also has some important moments that happen in the book! like it doesn’t really work to have Nora be fake dating Henry for the like 2 days that that happens and no June means no Magazine moment (i know that isn’t really directly in the book but its a fav for everyone).  no June also really changes the tone of the Lake House....

ANWAY, moving away from June here is some other things that i don’t like (because its my rant and i want to, feel free to change my mind)

- the height difference (i did love the lifts comment in the trailer but idk if they’ll be able to keep that up in a way that makes since - that means that if they are every barefoot Alex would have to be shorter *cough* like swimming)

-the actor for Alex is to old.  i know ppl are really split about this but the actor feels put together and like an adult to me (vs. book Alex feels very young - or he honestly acts his age of 21/22).  i think the polo match scene says a lot for me in the postures of the 2 actors, Henry is ok (tho honestly i think he wouldn’t have the loose posture once he rejoined ppl but its cute so pass) but Alex is to stiff, he should be almost bouncing as he walks.

-WFT is Ellen’s accent in the trailer???

-i heard a rumor that Raf and Liam are merged and redone.  Gross and big no.

-King instead of Queen.  i understand why this was done but the tone changes a lot in my head of abusive Grandpa vs. Grandma

-Zahra.  don’t like, the vibe is off with the actress... can’t explain why except the smile in the photos and the bow in the trailer

 -i feel like some of the scenes feel still (this is 100% my opinion and i could be reading this VERY wrong so ignore this if you interpret it differently)

i really wanted to like the movie but realistically i probably wouldn’t watch the movie anyway because i have issues with that so..... i guess it doesn’t matter.

i hope ppl who watch it enjoy it and please separate tags of movie vs book, thanks

[artist-issues]

Hi! I just started following your blog yesterday and have read a good portion of your Disney meta, and I have to say that you are 100% on point with all of it, specially when you are comparing and contrasting the original classic animated films and their live-action remakes. I can't stand those soulless, stiff cash-grabs and how they stain the legacy, message and characters of the original movies and get the point of the movies and characters's personalities and motivations so awfully wrong, it actually infuriates me in a way. People will say that we are way too attached to these movies and that we need to let the newer generations enjoy these new version, but why would you want to introduce the newer generation to a remake of a far superior movie that gets its message across much better and doesn't shoehorn agendas down people's throats? Most of the remakes have done a disservice to the original animated classics and have no grasp of what made them timeless and magical, but the key is in heart, which is what the remakes, for the most part, severely lack. I won't underappreciate all of the people that have worked hard in these movies and I do believe they want to make the best product they can get out, but the problem mainly lies on the people who are part of the story team and the executives at The Walt Disney Company. You made an good point about how the newer Disney Princesses, specifically the ones depicted in the remakes, are more about independence and freedom than love and sacrifice. Like, okay, independence and freedom have been part of their stories to an extent, but it was never the main aspect of it. The essence of Disney Princesses is their heart and soul, how they are willing to see the good in others, how they will sacrifice for those they love, how they will help those in need, how they inspire change in others. That is what a Disney Princess is at her core to me: Love. It's never been about how independent, tough and fierce they can be, even though that can be a part of their character, ofc, but it isn't the main selling point of them for me and many others who truly love and understand these characters. That's the reason, imo, they have always been the pillar and heart of Disney. They represent the ideal of femininity, love, compassion, hope, faith and selflessness; sure, they aren't "perfect", but they are still examples of what we could and should be. That's why it's annoying when people criticize and attack them. They aren't ditzy, useless and weak hot prizes for a prince; that's such a gross interpretation of them that's far from true; their external beauty accentuates their internal beauty. That's the whole point. The princes fight for them because of their love, their nurture, their kindness, their selflessness, etc., not simply because they are pretty or whatever. I know this has gotten too long, but given that you are used to writing long passionate posts on these topics just like me, I don't think my "mini-meta-rant" will bother you too much hahaha. Keep up doing your own thing <3

Thank you! This is very kind! I like a lot of your blog’s content, too!

Yeah, I work with kids, and one of them was telling me that her favorite movie is Live Action Aladdin. And I was floored. Then she said “and it’s so much better than the original!” And then I was mad.

Because what Disney is doing is changing the values that the stories and characters were invented to represent. So now I’ve got a kid who prefers the version of Jasmine who isn’t all about faith—she’s all about empowerment. So. Not only is she learning a completely different (and worse) life lesson from a character who used to teach a great lesson, but her tastes are getting developed toward cinematic junk food.

What Disney is doing is pasting over their old characters’ values. And they’re getting the newer generations used to a low standard for storytelling. Those are two major, culture-shaping parts of a kid’s development—what they value, and what they have a taste for. It’s just all-around bad, and everyone is right to be up in arms about it, including you!

Anyway, thank you very much for your kind words!

[eradicatetehnormal]

My Zoomer Ass Watched Pink Flamingos For the First Time

So, I think? I enjoyed that. My taste in media is what most would consider garbage, but relatively safe garbage. Stuff that's garbage in the sense that it's poorly written or executed, not in the sense that it's genuinely filthy. I mean, 90% of my blog is dedicated to a video game series with anime and Disney characters, so yeah, I was really out of my element here.

So first off, I really like the way the movie characterizes Divine in the beginning. The standout scene for me was her putting raw meat between her legs. I didn't get it at first, but I read an interpretation of that scene where the writer said that Divine is meant to be, well, filthy. She shits on femininity and leaks nasty body fluids. She would always prefer to have flesh touching her, even if it's raw meat. That's genius characterization, imo.

The central plot of the movie is very entertaining, as well. I love the concept of two rivals duking it out to see who's the worst. We get some great moments out of it like Divine receiving a box of shit or her and her crew killing and eating those officers.

The main reason this movie has been on my mind is because a Youtube channel I'm starting to fancy, Anthony Gramuglia, recently made a video about how we need more bad queer representation, a sentiment I agree with. I'll always have more of an interest queer content that isn't about two, skinny, white boys from upper-middle-class neighborhoods talking about the pressures of being in the closet *bleh!* I'm just sick of seeing that shit hyped up.

But it was interesting. This film was one of the main examples of how unsanitized and offensive queer media used to be. That it wasn't as concerned with making queer people look good. Don't get me wrong, the character of Divine is anything but inoffensive, at the same time though, I feel like this movie makes her out to be the lesser of two evils. I mean, yeah Divine is gross, blowing her son, shitting in public, and cannibalizing people? That's pretty nasty, but she never reaches the heights of people who run a sex trafficking ring and flash themselves in public consistently ('cause I mean like, you gotta clean up the police bodies somehow, you can't have that stinking up your property. Also, that was arguably self-defense, the people at the party weren't really doing anything wrong.). She even does something somewhat heroic by letting the two women locked in the couple's basement free and get revenge on their rapist. I thought she was going to kill the two afterward.

Maybe that's the point, though. That there's a difference between being filthy and being evil. Also, Divine's revenge was just way better. Burning down a trailer and your ops aren't even inside? Cowardly.

This was an interesting watch. I can't go into detail about how much of a landmark this was on queer cinema and cinema in general. I just know that it was. On a scale of personal enjoyment, I'd give this a 7/10. And yeah, kill everyone now, condone first-degree murder, advocate cannibalism, eat shit. My final message. Goodbye.

[numericalbridge]

TOH rewatch semi-liveblog. Season 1 part 1a

episodes 1-3

Episode 1

- I didn't remember this, but pretty much the first thing Camila says is that she supports Luz's creativity, yet the fandom ignored it and demonized her with no restrain. And at the end of the episode when Luz places a photo of her with Camila - it is clear she loves her mom so much, and the photo is of them hugging openly - compared to the Blight's portrait for example - the show would've shown the true dynamic through the photo if that was necessary. And yet the fandom wanted Luz to abandon her mother, her father's grave and their culture to live with the 'more accepting' white 'mom' (which is, you know, actual colonial propaganda). I wasn't even in the fandom before season 2b, but the behavior around Camila was so gross even i knew about it.

- I would say the extra quick pacing of the first 2 episodes and meta humor 101 are much more tolerable when you are prepared for them. When i tried watching it the very first time i couldn't get past the first 10 minutes, then i tried again later, and it still felt like the first episode was way too fast, even compared to something like the Infinity Train which had 11 minutes episodes. But this time it didn't seem that bad. Luz's speech to the Conformatorium prisoners was maybe the only thing that felt too quick.

- Some humor is actually funny and some is very much dark humor 101 aimed at tweens that is probably hilarious and novel for the target audience, but seems like it was done 100 times before for anyone older. That's not a criticism, it is what it is. (when the show attempts humor aimed at older internet-based fandom, especially later on, that's what i find much more cringe-inducing tbh).

- Really like Eda's voice acting, and voice acting and music in general. Love most of the designs for non-humanoid demons. Pity that we don't see that much of them later.

- Oh, but all the things Eda does that would've made fandom hate Darius if he did the same. From pocking Hooty in the eye to joking about Warden Wrath tormenting 'some tiny creature', to only promising to bring Luz - who doesn't understand this world and doesn't know about the tyrany of the Emperor - home if Luz helps infiltrate the prison, to calling an 8 year her roomate, to not thinking about whether Luz would be able to do magic before promising to teach her... but i bet no one crawls into the notes of any random art of Eda with King to whine how "she should've been nicer from the start".

- What's with this thing:

it looks like the owl version of that cat-with-human-face gag from what we do in the shadows movie.

Episode 2

- I don't have a problem with it, considering the target audience is younger than the characters, but the kids (except King) really act younger than their ages.

- But i do have a problem when the fandom interprets it as Luz being 'less smart' than other characters and painting her as over the top reckless especially in the takes that aim to be more realistic than the show's stylized storytelling, when she is actually smart. Even in this episode Luz quickly starts to wonder whether it was the right choice to follow the quest, and only the confirmation of the magic makes her fully engage (and prior to it Eda and King just laughing at her like that surely is something that would've made any teenager more reckless)

- Puppets... kinda curious whether it was always meant to be a parallel to the finale, or the dream sequence in the final episode was added and connected to this episode after the shortening. Or maybe there would've been actual fighting with the puppets with full season 3? Who knows /desperatly hopes there was no puppets at all before the shortening.

- They've really fully intentionally murdered (and ate) the villain, lol

Episode 3

- This was actually the first episode i really liked when i first watched the series.

- Willow is so good! From the first scene they show how angry she is without painting that anger in a negative light. Could've been one of the best chracters in the show if they didn't mess up the pacing of her arc.

- King is so mouthy towards Eda sometimes. Yes, i find it funny that King and Eda are often mean towards each other - and sometimes, i admit, it crosses the line where i wish the writing was different - but supposedly the kids watching this can stomach it and understand their relationship, yet 20+ years old fandom adults can't deal with anything but the most obvious therapy talk when it comes to the precious woobie they twist Hunter into being [and by that i don't mean some awkward characterization but turning him into the same woobie type every fandom makes out of fan favorite white characters that very specifically relays on erasing or demonizing other characters, most often character of color or turning them, as others have called it, into comfort machines]

- I love that Eda is allowed to be mad at the school and how she was treated. There could've been a pretty interesting connection with Willow in this regard too, but alas.

- Luz is a fake weird animal-loving girl for not being interested in the dead slug /j

- Forgot that abominations can talk... kinda...

- Yeah, i think Amity is way too mean towards Willow in the first scene - making the abomination draw on her forehead - considering what actually happens with Amity's and Willow's arcs later, and where the focus of their relationship gets shifted. If they wanted Amity be this mean, it should've been either some unusual circumstances (like, after Willow gets the good grade over her) or there should have been more exploration about it later with more focus on Willow and with different things focused on in Amity's arc. If not, they should've toned it down to be more in line with how it is written later on.

- And Luz and Willow's chemistry is so, so great! It's such a shame how quickly it was abandoned😞

- I feel bad for the slug... interesting how all the more obvious one-off 'villains' in the first season are less humanoid demons or creatures.

- And yes, i really believe the old hexsquad as a friend group was something only added later, otherwise Eda never reacting to Gus (or even the Blight kids later on, but especially Gus considering how he gets less focus from early on) is surely a choice.

----

I bitched a lot in this post, but i actually like the first 3 episodes, and the first 2 i definitely like better on the rewatch.

[unohanabbygirl]

We already know that there are documentaries, movies and series about dragon dancing, my question is, do you have an opinion about it? ???? No a that exist, but that some think that the actors in charge of interpreting them do not do them justice either in beauty or charisma and there are those who are like aegon, delighted that a young Leonardo DiCaprio interprets him. Is there shipp of them here? I can imagine aegon annoying jace with the fics they write about them, jace outraged because they pair him with aegon when he clearly had a relationship with cregan (since cregan didn't reincarnate, in this life if he can give aegon a chance) the whole family confused because the Lucemond is the 2 most popular shipp, jace outraged again because they pair Aemond with Luke, aegon insisting that Aemond should read a very good fic of the lucemond he found, the reason why Aemond doesn't read fics is because most of them are more tragic than the real story and for misfortune there is already his life, that doesn't stop him from occasionally going on Pinterest to see the fanarts they make of Luke and him (they don't look like them, but they make him smile) they Adults not understanding why people would be interested in his love life and why they match people who died decades ago.

In FMN canon media about the dance, Daenerys conquest, and really anything pertaining to Dorne are extremely popular. Some of the highest grossing movies are dramatizations of the secret romances and rivalries.

“The green queen” is a hbo show I mention briefly in Alicent’s separate story. I imagine that either Eva green or Carla Gugino played her which Alicent feels honored about despite not liking the inaccurate portrayal of her character.

Rhaenyra feels a way that every actress that’s played her has always been skinny. Not that she doesn’t think they slayed because she absolutely does, but she doesn’t agree with how her being plus sized has never been portrayed in popular media. However, there are plus sized cosplayers/theater girls who do a great job and Nyra always likes their posts and leaves nice comments telling them how amazing they look.

While I haven’t taken into account that fanfic is being actively made it is very much a possibility since there are many ships the general population gush over. For example, most people agree that Harwin was the boys father and more than a few short films have been made about their hidden love affair. All which Harwin had watched and cried to. (They always cast hot actors to play him which is a bonus)

There’s a viral tweet every once so often along the lines of. “So we all agree that Cregan Stark was bending Jacaerys over like a pretzel, right?” And it gets 100k likes.

It’s funny imagining Aegon reading Lucemond fanfic though. He’s just scrolling through his phone laughing and when Jace asks whats so funny he bursts out saying he’s reading a fanfic called GYBTM and Aemond is apparently this big dick dom into bondage and fucking in public.

Proceed to Aemond with his mouth wide open like ‘what?’

Jace : Who tf would write that? Luke is a pure angel?!?

Aemond : That’s Absolutely ridiculous and perverted.

Hel : it’s actually a compelling story. Very well written. I’ll send you the link.

Aegon : I wish I could tell the readers to stop thirsting over you though. You’re basically a wide eyed virgin, I doubt you could ever be that good in bed.

Aemond : 😐

Que to Aemond like 8 hours later crying into his sheets at night while reading AWHI.

Rhaenyra nearly has an aneurysm when Hel tells her there are a few fanfics centered around her marrying Otto.