#we will read about Wild Things and getting eaten by lions for saying i don't care

[lovesodeepandwideandwell]

If I ever am blessed to have children they will read NO picture books that use therapy language and gentle concepts to introduce "kindness" or "sharing." Only elaborate mildly traumatizing adventure stories. And Frances the Badger (who teaches fear and discomfort and dealing with things, the opposite of gentle concepts)

[erikahenningsen]

Thoughts on the movie? Spoilers welcome lol

MEAN GIRLS (2024) SPOILERS BELOW

Overall I really liked it! I had very low expectations, especially considering the track list showing that a lot of songs had been cut. That actually turned out not to be true, as there were some songs in the movie that weren't on the track list (Cautionary Tale, Someone Gets Hurt (Reprise), I See Stars). I expected a lot to be changed, but it actually followed the show fairly closely with some changes (they don't go to the mall, for example). A lot of the lines from the original movie and the Broadway show were kept but there's a lot of new stuff too that really made me laugh. Damian has some good one-liners.

Generally I liked the musical numbers, although I found Angourie kind of lacking when it came to performing during songs, although that's not entirely her fault. They changed Stupid With Love to be slowed way down and just like generally low-key and lines like "I am filled with calculust" just don't hit the same when you're singing it softly with no expression on your face lol. I've never been a big fan of Stop but I do wish Jaquel had had some song of his own. He just has Cady's part in Apex Predator now. The new opening song for Cady (What Ifs) was... fine, but I've never been super in love with Wildlife or It Roars so whatever. It seems like the writers never really could settle on what they wanted for that song since it had a lot of changes for the tour as well. They did totally remove Cady's dad's existence with no explanation which was kind of funny. (My new headcanon is that he was eaten by a lion.)

Definitely cannot go without mentioning that Janis is canonically gay and takes a girl to spring fling, and even Damian has a date he dances with! Regina does also tell Cady she likes her although I think they were going for platonic (could go either way). Cady had the exact same reaction to seeing Regina for the first time as Aaron, which was very funny to me. Obviously I didn't expect them to make everyone explicitly gay so I appreciate the little things they did add. (We know the truth.) I was worried they would completely remove the storyline about Janis's sexuality since the trailer showed the burn book saying "pyro freak," but it's still there. They also made Norbury and Duvall a canon couple which was cute.

I think they did go a little too hard on the gen Z culture aspect; I found some of the language was little cringy at times and felt like a cariacture, but I'm also not a teenager, so maybe it is authentic ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (any teens reading this please report back to me).

In summary I had a really good time and I have some minor gripes but the bar was really on the ground for me and I'm excited to go back! I'm bringing a coworker this week who didn't know me during MG on Broadway and has never seen or listened to this musical so that should be wild.

[hex-the-witch]

I don't usually post things myself on here I just repost things that I find funny or important but I wanted to hop on a soapbox for a few minutes and possibly delete it in a few days. I absolutely cannot stand when people say that having an outside cat is horrible and abusive and neglectful towards the cat or cats. While I understand a lot of the talking points that they have they don't take into consideration other reasons besides just being fucking lazy that cat owners might not be able to house their cats. So I want to counter some of the common points that I see. Number one outside cats are bad for the ecosystem because they will hunt native animals. Some cats became outside cats and don't actually fucking know how to hunt some cats are declawed and can't hunt and some cats would have fucking been there anyway. Number two your cat will be hit by a car if they're an outside cat. This one is more personal to me - I live in a more rural area than a lot of people realize, there's a lot of deer around here so even though the official speed limit is between 25 and 30 throughout my entire town which technically my neighborhood is a full ass town most people don't drive more than 10mph so cats aren't getting fucking hit by cars unless people are being assholes which is a totally different problem. That problem leads into number three - your cats will be poisoned, I am not poisoning my cats and my cats are not eating naturally occurring poison so if they're being poisoned a neighbor is doing it which while is a problem I have to deal with is not a problem I can directly solve. They will still be poisoning you know small rodents or large insects that make their way into my house that my cats would then eat I know because it's fucking happened. That person got reported and they don't live here anymore. Number five your cats will get bit by a snake or eaten by a coyote or killed by a mountain lion or eaten by wild dogs. This one fucks me up the most because I have had cats be bitten by snakes they were all fine because we treated them we took them to vets because we see our cats every fucking day and we're able to do that because they don't live in our house which sounds really counterproductive it's not and if you stay till the last point I'll tell you why.

A big part of point number five that people like to make is that your cat will get killed or severely injured by wild or neighborhood dogs, a lot of people don't tell you what to do when it is your dog who starts attacking your inside cat. When it is a moment of instinct turned into violence and you have to deal with the repercussions of that and you know that your cat can live outside by themselves and your dog cannot because unlike your cat who never learned how to hunt your dog was abused before coming to you and had to hunt to survive and occasionally still gets out and kills small rodents and other wild animals that live near you and she's getting better at it but you still can't trust her to live with one and what do you do in that situation when you only live near kill shelters and no one else is willing to take it two cats one of which was incorrectly marked as feral when they were still an inside cat.

Thank you to anyone who reads through this full list and even stops to think for a moment about this. I'm sorry if this is a little rambly I'm doing voice to text and I couldn't stop crying. If someone has a legit solution to my cats being genuinely safer outside than inside I would love to hear it but I want people to stop saying that I don't love my cats because they're outside cats I love them on them every morning and every evening before I see my dogs or my family we buy them special food we take them to the vet we take in strays we get them fixed as soon as we can get them into crate to take them to the vet. We give them flea collars we give them heartworm medicine we do everything we can to give them good lives as outdoor cats. We even have an old dog house that's been outfitted with insulation and a self-warming heating pad as well as an electric heating pad for when it gets cold. I just want people to stop telling me that I 'obviously' don't love my cats because they're outside cats I'm doing the best I can.

For anyone who wants to push back on the fact that it has to be my cats who live outside rather than my dogs -my dog is a fence jumper my backyard fence is over 6 ft tall and she can still jump it there's plenty of room inside of it it wouldn't be abuse if she could live in it it's about a third of an acre but she'll escape and she'll kill other people's outdoor animals and I'm selfish and I don't want her to be put down. I know that this post is really long and rambly so anyone who made it this far thank you you get a virtual hug and virtual cookies