#the world doesn't exist anymore

[rin-rin-kururin]

Touchy-feely, are we?

it's just full (looks away)

[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.

[introspectivememories]

Missing your veil inspired model Bernard au if you have any more ideas for it please share would love to hear them 🙏🏻🙏🏻

god i havent thought about this au in sooo long but i do have some hc!! (og veil!au posts here and here)

so after the Billboard Incident, tim becomes, like, obsessed, with bear and he doesn't realize it's bernard until he's on like a 2am deep dive and finds out that "bear" is just bernard's modeling name and his real name is bernard dowd

and tim's a little confused bc what the hell is bear doing modeling??? back when then were in high school, bear used to talk all the time about cooking

but also, tim's famous!!! bear's famous!!! why did he never reach out?

and then one day, tim's doing like a photoshoot to announce the new wayne collab with some up and coming modeling house and the director of the photoshoot says that he'll be working with another model

cool, whatever, at least he gets to work with a pro right? and the door opens and out comes bear with his hair artfully tousled and lips painted a pretty pink and he's wearing clothes that show off his broad shoulders and oh my god, the fucking boner is back

and as he discreetly tries to hide it, he opens his mouth to greet bear except, bear's eyes go stone cold and the grip on his coffee cup gets tighter

"what the hell is this?" bear says coldly and then he turns around to talk to his manager

"you said i wouldn't have to work with him. in fact, it was the one thing you promised me, when i signed that contract."

tim sinks back into seat stunned as bear's manager drags him off for a quick conversation. when bear comes back the shoot goes off without a hitch but bear says nothing but the bare minimum to him the whole time

tim pulls bear's manager aside to talk privately before the shoot ends

"did i do something wrong?" / "mister drake, you know i can't tell you what my client has told me in private and even if i could, i still wouldn't"

"i havent seen him since high school. i just wish i knew what he was mad about."

"mister drake, more than bernard being my most valuable client, he is also my friend. i can't and i won't tell you the reason but, you look like a good guy. and in all honesty, i think you'd be good for him. so i'll leave you with a hint: maybe it's not about what you did do, and more about what you didn't do."

"if you're his friend, why're you helping me?"

"bear's good now, he'll be great when he can move on from whatever's stopping him. i think it's you. this hurt has been festering for almost a decade and if we're being brutally honest, it's your fault. so you fix it, so that my bernard can be up there with the greats."

bear's manager turns to leave and right before he exits the door he looks back and says, "and if all else fails mister drake, just remember that apologies are usually a good place to start."

[rosstrytobe]

Ryan chose chaos again because all i can think about it's the fact that he gave his soul to Buck in his will

That's literally a love confession

And also, Eddie doesn’t trust anyone with his son (soul) than Buck

Like...

He couldn’t just say he's in love with him how normal people do

[msmargaretmurry]

feeling very sad about the kuzy news not just because i'm going to miss him in dc, and because without him we are down to four guys from the cup-winning team, team of my heart, but also because this anticlimactic sad probably-ending to his time as a capital is so illustrative of how shitty this sport can be. he may not have out here speaking articulately in english about his mental health problems, but he was not shy about them. he didn't hide that he was struggling. he has spoken openly about how hockey culture can give you such a dark and destructive mindset and how much he cares about not bringing that home to his children, how he doesn't want his children to play the game because of that. about how he purposefully tries to not take things so seriously to protect himself from that even though he knows it pisses people off. instead of sympathy or taking the opportunity for a wider conversation people mostly made coke jokes. when he first went into the players assistance program i felt so sick because i knew people were going to be awful about it and i was right.

i'm so sad but i'm glad that gmbm seems to at least kind of be working with him to find him the change of scenery he wants instead of just dumping him. i hope he gets whatever kind of second chance he wants or needs, and wherever he lands he is able to find peace and joy. i will miss you beautiful bird man <3

[jabeur]

Right, and the racism from other players is ALWAYS excused by fans. I didn't even know about that caroline photo until you brought it up, people just pretend it never happened. And Paula's photo a couple of days ago? She "apologised" and under her post there were HUNDREDS of replies from white people saying that "all was forgiven" "she didn't do anything wrong" and her acting like the victim under those replies. AND!! I was so confused this morning about WHY the crowd in Wuhan (one the most polite crowds ever) would boo Magda Linette, and look what I found on twitter https://x.com/snack_attacck/status/1843536512765288484?t=BawWaz85WH-KbgLd_8R-xA&s=19😭 like why is this shit so normalized, they bury these things so much nobody even knows about it, but god forbid a chinese woman was focused on herself during her game

of COURSE paula was acting like the victim once other white people started showering her with support and excuses for her behavior. rancid. god how hard can it be to know that we are not the ones who should accept or not her apology anyway???? are we asian? are we the ones affected by her racist behavior? no! so we need to just shut the fuck up. (i'm saying we as in me and other white people, obviously i don't know if you're white anon)

goddddd that linette thing is nasty 😭😭 i didn't know about this. bc yeah, these things are never talked about!!! usually these racist behaviors from players are brought up on twitter by someone and then if it spreads maybe people remember for 2 days and then go back to pretending nothing happened. but it's important to hold these players accountable so these shouldn't be things only discussed/shared on twitter by a few fans who care these should be widely known bc why are we letting racists get away with it so easily??

but, as you said, if a chinese woman is gasps focused on her own game as a tennis - notorious solitary sport - player.... unacceptable. bc obviously not smiling at your opponents is much worse than, say, disrespecting an entire culture or race. /s

[uncanny-tranny]

I know I've talked about this before, but as somebody with Strong features who has been mocked for it, it really infuriates me when people bully others for changing their strong features through surgery instead of criticizing beauty culture, you know, a big issue as to why people with strong or ethnic features are often bullied or even discriminated against. When you bully people for altering their appearance through surgery, you may just be victim-blaming somebody. Beauty culture is the issue, not somebody using their bodily autonomy as they see fit.

[imjustavenuxwithaboomerang]

idk if anyone's said this already but my brain just registered that lela and tanner (and everyone else from wet side story) are in fact not real, they're just fictional characters in the teen beach universe

which means that they have actors that are in the real world and that mack and brady befriended fake people

[1tbls]

feeling this way about hdb rn:

[cappurrccino]

i was gonna say "i shouldn't have to go to work when my brain feels like a depression slushie" and then i was like "wait but then i'd basically never ever go to work" and i'm actually doubling down on the first part now bc my god how am i supposed to heal my brain from burning out 5 years ago if i can never get an actual break

[dandyshucks]

blinks tiredly. i decide "hm maybe i should try to expand my circle and step outside of it a little, lets go look at the main community tags" and im just greeted with a bunch of edgelords who think saying "fiction doesn't affect reality, don't like don't read" is peak activism and "fighting censorship". head in my hands. this is partially why i do not ever go into the community tags, my nervous system cannot handle blocking fifty weirdos every single day just so i can have a normal experience in the community tags hfdsjkl

[owlbelly]

spectacularly bad idea today to try to finally go through / organize / "deal with" the crate in my closet where i've stored everything related to the ~10 years of my life i spent as a teacher

i only managed about 1/3 of it. turns out the process goes like this: in order to answer the question "do i want to keep this [art/letter/photo/journal] for sentimental or posterity reasons" i have to put one of my feet into a hole labeled THE PAST, & to answer the question "should i keep this [lesson plan/handout/resource] in case i want to use it again" i have to put the other foot into another hole called THE FUTURE

& both of these holes are bottomless pits of trauma, disability & COVID grief

[omnic]

i mentioned at work (i'm fairly open about being trans to co-workers) about some like. discrimination i received for being trans (the conversation topic was regarding veins of like. biphobia, homophobia, transphobia, etc. while we were a bit slow in customers) and one of the girls looked at us weirdly and then asked me specifically later like. why did they (the people who behaved hatefully towards me) act like that? and i was like because i'm trans. and she looked confused and eventually kinda scoffed in a derogatory way and said "it's 2024 where are you going to get comments like that?" 💀💀💀 girl doesn't think queerphobia exists anymore because there's rainbow flags around

[poisonousquinzel]

sorry but if you actually think Cancel Culture ™ is a thing then you're kinda a dumb fuck. Cancel culture isn't real, holding people accountable for their actions is a thing, but this whole narrative around Canceling that's evolved over the past few years isn't real. It's never been an actual thing. Its just a fear mongering tactic to further vilify the groups who were being harmed in the first place and victimize the person who did something wrong.

Your fav being called out for playing an antisemitic video game that directly gives profits to a hugely influential TERF, who's said openly she sees getting profits / royalty cheques from her franchise as endorsements for her bigotry, is not "cancel culture". It's called the consequences for your actions.

You have every right to do and play whatever the fuck you want, but that goes both ways. If you go out of your way to build up and financially support these people who're openly advocating to take away trans people's rights, then you get to deal with people not trusting you because of it. You get to deal with trans and Jewish folks not feeling safe around you, not wanting to be around you or not wanting to talk to you. Because you have shown that you care more about nostalgia and temporary personal emotional gratification over the wellbeing and safety of those communities in the real world.

People have explained why supporting HL is wrong, people have explained why it's harmful, people have explained in detail the issues with this situation. You. Just. Don't. Care. You don't listen, or read, because in the end, you can't be bothered enough to put in the effort of having 1 moment of critical thinking.

It's not that folks don't have arguments or evidence, it's that it clearly does not matter to you. It's that the value of an antisemitic game full of one horrific thing after another is worth more to you than the real, living breathing people who are going to be, and have been, affected by this.

You come across as a bad person. Not because some person on Twitter determined you must be, but because your actions speak far louder. And they're screaming red flags.

I'm not going to argue with you over your own bad decisions and life choices. You've made your bed and are mad that people are telling you to lie in it.

[batcavescolony]

I'm back talking about Harry Potter and Snape's worst memory because while I hate the author y'all bug me.

Snape worst memory isn't James bulling him or string him up in front of the school, (that was bad I'm not saying it wasn't) it was Lily ending her friendship with him because he called her a Mudblood. With evidence.

To prove my point we have to go read the Deathly Hallows when Snape gave Harry his memories! We get to see the scene again but this time the thing that sticks out the most is Snape calling Lily a Mudblood. Now if that's not enough proof the next memory goes like this.

*Outside Gryffindor Tower*

Snape: I'm sorry

Lily: I'm not interested

S: I'm sorry!

L: save your breath... I only came out here because Mary told me you were threatening to sleep here.

S: I was. I would have done. I never ment to call you a Mudblood it just-

L: Slipped out? It's too late. I've made excuses for you for years. None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. You and your precious little Death Eater friends- you see, you don't even deny it! You don't even deny that's what you're all aiming to be! You can't wait to join You-Know-Who, can you? I can't pretend anymore. You've chosen your way, I've chosen mine.

S: No-listen, I didn't mean-

L:-to call me a Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?

*Lily leaves. Memory ends*

The next memory is Snape becoming a turn coat for Dumbledore so he could keep Lily safe because Voldemort wouldn't spare her.

Snape has had worse experiences then a teenage James Potter being a bully (even if it was shitty). so we look at the rest of the memory and lo and behold what do we see? The actual worst moment of Snape life, the moment he lost Lily forever.

[cluster-b-culture-is]

I feel like the entire population has MPD

???