#which can also be uncomfortable

[destinationtoast]

I just gave a talk at work that I've spent weeks preparing for (and rewriting till 2am last night based on some late-breaking news). I was nervous about it, but it went extremely well!! I got approval from all the desired Grand High Muckety-Mucks.

Afterward, I walked out of the room still deep in conversation with two of the Muckety-Mucks, and I immediately tripped over a low side table in the hallway. Laptop and bag shot out of my arms and exploded across the hall, and I did a literal faceplant. (I also came down really hard on my knee along the way to burying my nose in the industrial carpet fibers, and it hurts... @thetarttfuldickhead we are unfortunately knee twins! XD )

Literally face planting turns out to be a very effective way to halt a conversation. Just fyi. ;)

[aliosne]

Saw a post about working class butches in physical labour jobs and wanted to make my own, so: I love you butches who do childcare or early education. I love you butch nurses. I love you butch house cleaners and janitorial staff. I love you service industry butches. I love you butches who do sex work. I love you working class butches who do “feminine” jobs you are cool as hell

[theborzoiarebackintown]

SUSPICIOUS

[egophiliac]

Did. Did you see Ortho's Broomquet preview? The fact that his broomquet is mostly white like Kalim's, Rook's and Silver's and that we know by now that Idia's ideal dreamworld involved OG!Ortho being still alive and a student at Royal Sword Academy is killing me. Twst is throwing hints left and right that OG!Ortho was meant to be a light magic user heroic character just to tug further at our heartstrings with his death and IT'S WORKING. I'M IN SHAMBLES.

as much as I am rolling around on the ground waiting for more of Silver and Sebek's Excellent Adventure, I am also SO desperate to see the resolution of Idia's dreamworld and, fingers crossed, more of dream!OG!Ortho. and I don't know how it would be physically possible, but I would LOVE the Orthos to actually meet somehow! bonus points if there's some kind of very confusing confrontation!

but I do really like the three-way contrast between OG!Ortho, what Idia thinks OG!Ortho would have been like, and humanoid!Ortho. especially since Ortho's post-episode 6 arc is all about becoming independent and his own person! I want to see more of it! and I can't really put it into words very well, but, like, I would LOVE this to be the resolution where Idia finally manages to come to terms with OG!Ortho's death -- man heard "niichan" once and immediately ran down a billion flights of stairs to throw himself into Metaphorical Hell, he needs something big like this.

(if the September schedule comes out and there's still no more main story, I am going to be DESPONDENT) (I mean I will be understanding because production takes time, no one should be subjected to crunch to meet arbitrary deadlines, a good product that takes longer >>> a rushed product that is out sooner) (but I shall also be despondent)

[anotherhumaninthisworld]

Historians having takes on frev women that make me go 😐 compilation

Sexually frustrated in her marriage to a pompous civil servant much older than herself, [Madame Roland] may have found Danton’s celebrated masculinity rather uncomfortable. Danton (1978) by Norman Hampson, page 77.

The Robespierres sent their sister to Arras because that was their hometown, the family home, where they had relatives, uncles, aunts and friends, like Buissart who they didn’t cease to remain in correspondence with, even in the middle of the Terror. There, among them, Charlotte would not be alone; she would find advice, rest, the peace necessary to heal her nervousness and animosity. Away from Mme Ricard, who she hated, away from Mme Duplay, who she detested, she would enjoy auspicious calmness. It is Le Bon that the Robespierres will charge with escorting their sister to this neccessary and soothing exile. […] If there is a damning piece in Charlotte Robespierre's case, it is this one (her interrogation, held July 31 1794). She seems to be caught in the act of accusing this Maximilien whom she rehabilitates in her Memoirs. She is therefore indeed a hypocrite, unworthy of the great name she bears, and which she dishonors the very day after the holocaust of 10 Thermidor. Charlotte Robespierre et Guffroy (1910) in Annales Révolutionnaires, volume 3 (1910) page 322, and Charlotte Robespierre et ses mémoires (1909) page 93-94, both by Hector Fleishmann.

Elisabeth, as she was popularly called, was barely past her twelfth birthday, younger even by three years than Barere’s own mother when she was given in marriage. On the following day the guests assembled again in the little church of Saint-Martin at midnight to attend the wedding ceremony of the handsome charmer and the bewildered child. Dressed in white, clasping in her arms a yellow, satin-clad  doll that Bertrand had given her — so runs the tradition — she marched timidly to the altar, looking more like a maiden making her first communion than a woman celebrating a binding sacrament. Perhaps the  doll, if doll there was, filled her eye, but certainly she could not fail to note how handsome her husband was. Bertrand Barere; a reluctant terrorist (1962) by Leo Gershoy, page 32.

The young nun who bore the name of Hébert did not hide her fate. She did not wish to prolong a life stifled from her childhood in the cloister, branded in the world by the name she bore, fighting between horror and love for the memory of her husband, unhappy everywhere. Histoire des Girondins (1848) by Alphonse de Lamartine, volume 8, page 60.

Lucile in prison showed more calmness than Camille. Before the tribunal, she seemed to possess neither fear nor hope, she denied having taken an active role in the prison conspiracy. What did it matter to her the answer they were trying to extract from her? They said they wanted her guilty? Very well! She would be condemned and join Camille. This was what she said again when she was told that she would suffer the same fate as her husband: ”Oh, what joy, in a few hours I’m going to see Camille again!” Camille et Lucile Desmoulins: un couple dans la tourmente (1986) by Jean Paul Bertaud, page 293.

What did it matter to Lucile whether she was accused or defended? She had no longer any pretext for living in this world. She was one of those heroines of conjugal love who are more wife than mother. Besides, Horace lived, and Camille was dead. It was of the absent only that she thought. As for the child, would not Madame Duplessis act a mother's part to him? The grandmother would watch over the orphan. If Lucile had lived, she could have done nothing but weep over the cradle, thinking of Camille. Camille Desmoulins and his wife; passages from the history of the Dantonists founded upon new and hitherto unpublished documents (1876) by Jules Claretie.

Having been widowed at the age of 23 [sic] years, Élisabeth Duplay remarried a few years later to the adjutant general Le Bas, brother of her first husband, and kept the name which was her glory. She lived with dignity, and all those who have known her, still beautiful under her crown of white hair, have testified to the greatness of her sentiments and austerity of her character. She died at an old age, always loyal to the memory of the great dead she had loved and whose memory she, all the way to her final day, didn’t cease to honor and cherish. As for the lady of Thermidor, Thérézia Cabarrus, ex-marquise of Fontenay, citoyenne Tallien, then princess of Chimay, one knows the story of her three marriages, without counting the interludes. She had, as one knows, three husbands living at the same time. Now compare these two existances, these two women, and tell me which one merits more the respect and the sympathy of good men. Histoire de Robespierre et du coup d’état du 9 thermidor (1865) by Louis Ernest Hamel, volume 3, page 402.

Fel free to comment which one was your favorite! 😀

[extravagav]

Yk I never did truly recover from the sick fic chapter

[jerreeeeeee]

i don’t know if i’m ever gonna write the fic but i’ve been thinking abt like. the eternal stockade. the implications. lup, a lich who was trapped in a dark featureless cell for a decade completely isolated with nothing to keep her sanity but her own mind. she has to put people in the eternal stockade. how many liches does she see herself in. how many liches started out just like her. how many liches are truly too far gone. and the only liches we ever see other than her and barry are edward and lydia. they’re certainly evil, but mad? they seem pretty sane. they’re not, like, tattered echoes of souls, they’re definitely still people. even as much of a grudge as lup surely has against them, wouldn’t they remind her incredibly strongly of herself? do they deserve to be trapped just like she was? for eternity? isn’t eternity what turned john to existential despair in the first place?

[hydrachea]

It's my headcanon as well as @followerofmercy's that the state of Blade's hands makes it difficult to type and text. And so, I present to you, Silver Wolf's solution: pre-written short messages.

[oh-no-bummer]

OBSESSED with the weird dynamic between Ayden and Emhira. The dawnfather and the Matron of ravens, "you cannot heal everything" Vs the constant attempt to do so. The dawnfather says I love you all, clarifying this sentiment in such a moment of division and LOOKS at her last, separating her from the all? Or making sure she knows she is included? And what is reeling me is that a very long time from now, when the gods will have returned to the eternal beings they are, they will each choose a twin as their champion. Does the dawnfather choose Vex as a response to the matron choosing Vax, is it just that they cannot help but being parallels, life and death always circling each other. Now that I think about it , Whitestone is obviously a big worshipper of Pelor with the suntree being a symbol of him and life itself and the de rolos if I remember correctly also worshipped the matron. It's just so interesting to see all these connections that have always existed but have not yet existed.

[thatonecrookedsmile]

Recovered photo of Joey Drew. Taken December 31, 1944, during a New Year's Eve party at the Arch residence, photographed by George Parker. Photo depicts Mr. Drew shaking hands with an unknown man in a hat. Attempts to identify the man and his whereabouts have been unsuccessful. -The ArchGate Preservation Society.

-Record-

-----

Alternatively: 'Unknown' - Return to the Studio AU.

Even though he was the one who personally invited every guest at the party, when Joey later asked him who the "strange man" was, Nathan had no idea who he was referring to, even with Drew's specifics.

After several years have passed, looking back at the photo, Nathan still has no idea who this man is or how he got into the party.

Joey described the encounter as something that "started out pleasantly, and ended on a very uncomfortable note."

[rawliverandgoronspice]

Hello!! I'm back for: more whining about TotK Quest Design Philosophy

I can't reblog a really great post I just saw for some reason (tumblrrrr *shakes my fist*), but hmmmm yeah not only do I completely agree, but I think I might expand on why I feel so much annoyance towards TotK's quest design philosophy at some point, because it does extend past the fundamentally broken setup of trying to punch a pseudo-mystery game on top of BotW's bones, where the core objective was always explicit and centered and stapled the entire world together; or the convoluted and inefficient way it tells its story through the Tears, the somehow single linear exploration-driven quest in the entire game.

Basically: I'm talking about the pointless back-and-forths. There were a lot of them, a lot that acted against the open world philosophy, and almost none of them ever recontextualized the environment through neither gameplay abilities nor worldbuilding nor character work.

I'll take two examples: the initial run to Hyrule Castle (before you get your paraglider), and then the billion back-and-forths in the Zora questline.

I think?? the goal of that initial quest to Hyrule Castle is to familiarize you with the landmark, introduce the notion that weapons rot, tell you about the gloom pits, and also tell you that Zelda sightings are a thing? But to force any of these ideas on you before giving you a paraglider is, in my opinion, pretty unnecessary. I think the reason it happens in that order is to prevent Link from simply pummeling down to the gloom pit under Hyrule Castle and fight Ganondorf immediately while still introducing ideas surrounding the location; but genuinely, the Zelda sighting makes the next events even more confusing? Why wouldn't you focus all your priorities in reaching the castle if you just saw her there? Why lose time investigating anything else? Genuinely: what is stopping you from getting your paraglider and immediately getting yourself back there, plunging into the depths to try and get to the literal bottom of this? (beyond player literacy assuming this is where the final boss would be, and so not to immediately spoil yourself --which, in an open world game, you should never be able to spoil yourself by engaging with the mechanics normally, and if you can that's a genuine failure of design)

I think, personally, that you should not have been pointed to go there at all. That anything it brings to the table, you could have learned more organically by investigating yourself, or by exploring in that direction on your own accord --or, maybe you think Zelda is up there in the castle, and then the region objectives become explicitely about helping you reaching that castle (maybe by building up troops to help you in a big assault, or through the Sages granting you abilities to move past level-design oriented hurdles in your way, etc). Either way: no need to actually make you walk the distance and back, because the tediousness doesn't teach you anything you haven't already learned about traversal in the (extremely long, btw, needlessly so I would say) tutorial area.

But to take another example, I'll nitpick at a very specific moment in the Zora Questline, that is honestly full of these back-and-forth paddings that recontextualize absolutely nothing and teach you nothing you didn't already know. The most egregious example, in my opinion, is the moment where you are trying to find the king, and you have to learn by listening in to the zora children who do not let you listening in.

So okay. I think Zelda is great when it does whimsy, and children doing children things guiding you is a staple of the series, and a great one at that. But here? It does not work for me on any level. Any tension that could arise from the situation flattens because nobody seems to care enough about their king disappearing in the middle of a major ecological crisis, except for children who are conveniently dumb enough not to graps the severity of the situation, but not stressed out enough that it could be construed as a way for them to cope about it and make anything feel more serious or pressing. It feels like a completely arbitrary blocker that isn't informed by the state of the world, doesn't do anything interesting gameplay-wise with this idea, doesn't build up the mood, and genuinely feels like busywork for its own sake.

This is especially tragic when the inherent concept of "the zora king has been wounded by what most zoras would believe to be Zelda and is hiding from his own people so the two factions do not go to war over it" has such tension and interest and spark that the game absolutely refuse to explore --instead having you collect carved stones who do not tell you anything new, splatter water in a floating island, thrud through mud who feel more like an inconvenience than a threat or, hey, listen to children playing about their missing king less than a couple of years after being freed from Calamity Ganon's menace. It feels like level designers/system designers having vague technical systems that are hard-coded in the game now, and we need to put them to use even if it's not that interesting, not that fun or not that compelling. It's the sort of attitude that a lot of western RPGs get eviscerated for; but here, for some reason, it's just a case of "gameplay before story", instead of, quite simply, a case of poorly thought-out gameplay.

Not every quest in the game is like this! I think the tone worked much better in the sidequests overall, that are self-contained and disconnected from the extremely messy main storyline, and so can tell a compelling little tale from start to finish without the budget to make you waddle in a puddle of nothing for hours at a time. It's the only place where you actually get character arcs that are allowed to feel anything that isn't a variation on "very determined" or "curious about the zonai/ruins", and where you get to feel life as it tries to blossom back into a new tomorrow for Hyrule.

But if I'm this harsh about the main storyline, it really is because I find it hard to accept that we do not criticize a structure that is at times so half-assed that you can almost taste employees' burnout seeping through the cracks --the lack of thematic ambition and self-reflection and ingeniosity outside of system design and, arguably at times, level design-- simply because it's Hyrule and we're happy to be there.

There's something in the industry that is called the "wow effect", which is their way to say "cool" without saying "cool". It's basically the money shots, but for games: it's what makes you go "ohhhh" when you play. And it's great! The ascension to the top of the Ark was one of them --breathtaking, just an absolute high point of systems working together to weave an epic tale. You plummeting from the skies to the absolute depths of hell is another one; most of the dungeons rely on that factor to keep your attention; the entire Zelda is a dragon storyline is nothing but "wow effect" (and yeah, the moment where you do remove the Master Sword did give me shivers, I'll admit to this willingly) and so is Ganondorf's presence and presentation in the game --he's here to be cool, non-specifically mean, hateable in a non-threatening way and to give us a good sexy time, do not think about it too hard. What bothers me is that TotK's world has basically nothing to offer but "wow effect"; that if you bother to dig at anything it presents you for more than a second, everything crumbles into incoherence --not only in story, but in mood, in themes, in identity. This is a wonderfully fun game with absolutely nothing to say, relying on the cultural osmosis and aura of excellency surrounding Zelda to pass itself off as meatier than it really is. This is what I say when I criticize it as self-referential to a fault; half of the story makes no sense if this is your first Zelda game, and what little of that world there is tends to be deeply unconcerned and uncurious about itself.

And no, Breath of the Wild wasn't like this. Breath of the Wild was deeply curious about itself; the entire game was built off curiosity and discovery, experimentation and challenge (and I say this while fully admitting I had more fun with the loop of TotK, which I found more forgiving overall). The traversal in Tears of the Kingdom is centered around: how do I skip those large expanses of land in the most efficient and fun way possible. How do I automate these fights. How do I find resources to automate both traversal and fights better. It's a game that asks questions (who are the zonais, who is Rauru and what is his deal, what is the Imprisoning War about, where is Zelda), and then kind of doesn't really care about the answers (yeah the zonais are like... guys, they did a cool kingdom, Rauru used to run it, the Imprisoning War is literally whatever all you have to care about is who to feel sad for and who to kill about it and you don't get a choice and certainly cannot feel any ambiguous feelings about any of that, and Zelda is a dragon but we will never expand on how it felt for her to make such a drastic and violent choice and also nobody cares that's a plot point you could *remove* from the game without changing the golden path at all).

I'm so aggravated by the argument "in Zelda, it's gameplay before story" because gameplay is story. That's the literal point of my work as a narrative designer: trying to breach the impossibly large gap between what the game designers want to do, and what the writers are thinking the game will be about (it's never the same game). And in TotK, the game systems are all about automation and fusion. It's about practicality and efficiency. It's also about disconnecting stuff from their original purpose as you optimize yourself out of danger, fear, or curiosity --except for the way you can become even more efficient. And sure, BotW was about this too; but you were rewarded because you had explored the world in the first place, experimented enough, put yourself in danger, went to find out the story of who you used to be and why you should care about Hyrule. I'm not here to argue BotW was a well-written game; I think it was pretty tropey at large to be honest, safe for a couple of moments of brilliance, but it had a coherent design vision that rewarded your curiosity while never getting in the way of the clarity of your objective. There is a convolutedness to TotK that, to me, reveals some extremely deep-seated issues with the direction the series is heading towards; one that, at its core, cares more about looking the part of a Zelda game than having any deeper conversation about what a Zelda game should be.

[creativity-deficient]

“South Park is a satirical show that goes after everybody and at the end of the day is meant to make you laugh and not be taken seriously” and “south park jokes about sensitive topics that hit close to home for a lot of people and it’s absolutely valid to feel uncomfortable by some of it” are statements that should be able to co-exist tbh

[faislittlewhiteraven]

Fais fanfic rambles: Introduction to my 'Selkies by Starlight' ISaT AU

Note: Not to be confused with @looped-140-and-counting / Soren_793's wonderful Selkie AU oneshot series 'The Northern Islanders are Selkies' which was hugely inspiring for this if potentially VERY different in vibe (we got very into talking about cloaks! XD)

Basic premise/summary:

In an alternate version of the precanon adventure, the party lead by Mirabelle to stop the King freezing Vaugarde in time, recruit Siffrin as per usual.

Thing is, Siffrin is a Selkie.

A very skittish selkie without a cloak of their own, who openly wears the cloak of another, and due to Reasons is under the impression that the party know all both of those things and the Implications about them, and for whatever reason have decided to welcome him into their group anyway.

Which er, he's completely wrong about as the party know absolutely nothing.

Mira and Isa like most Vaugardian humans think 'shifters' are just fairytales, Odile knows shapeshifters are real but is only really familiar with how foxes like her father work, and Bonnie is actually able to sense some pretty major things but is a preteen dealing with a lot and hasn't even joined the party yet, so this pretty major misunderstanding is sustained for quite a while...

Cue the AUs' main focus being on the resulting party dynamic shifts as more and more canon divergence due to Sif's 'selkie stuff' (both cute and serious) comes into play, the party slowly realising something is up, and all of it hitting an eruption point right around the time of the 4th Orb/the loss of Siffrin's eye...

Some key world building notes: (Note: very summarised from my docs. I have like 20k+ words on this stuff XD)

The Island - Probably the most drastically different thing from canon here, the Island was not forgotten or erased here. Rather it is hidden away and permanently shrouded in Wish Craft generated fog from 'those without cloaks'. Side note: Sif is still unable to return home and continues to have some very plot critical memory problems but those are due to unrelated issues, which means yay I get to have Sif talk 'home culture' with the others in this =D Also idk why the King is freezing Vaugarde still. I've got a few ideas I'm not sure about and he's not in focus enough for it to even matter really, but random suggestions -especially those with possible selkie motivations- would be very much appreciated.

Selkie powers in my setting - Went into something of a deep dive regarding selkie folklore for this and did you know they have an absolute ton of seer/oracle based stuff going on?

From selkie being summoned by their human lovers shedding seven tears into the ocean, to a selkie man telling a former lover that he and their child will die at the hands by her genuinely good and loving future husband, to a selkie woman forseeing her fisherman husband about to die out in a storm just in time for her to swim over there and rescue him, etc.

So... Yeah. This AU has a lot of plot relevant sensory/seer stuff going on as well as the standard seal shapeshifter stuff (Islander selkie traditionally believe it to be the Universe talking with them, in the same way Wish Craft is talking to the Universe), and going off all the stuff I read decided it'd be most fitting if the general rule for how it all works is: - Selkie always passively have a bit of it going on (aka Sif's canon 'you sense someone nearby' stuff) which like most things can be enhanced with Craft use a bit. - Near perfect understanding of all 'connected' bodies of water (aka they know EXACTLY where the tasty fish are/will be and can probably get a general sense of location for most people on a boat) - Potentially get strong 'visions of the future' and/or instincts on what they need to do to avert an outcome when it comes to loved ones being in danger/distress.

They also maybe get to pull very fast, high power Wish Craft 'curses'/miracles' at idk, the cost of something major like their cloak or lives (mostly based off of the The Legend of Kópakonan where the whole island of Kalsoy was cursed with death by a selkie in retaliation for her husband and children being murdered) but not super attached to this idea past it being in 'seal shifter' stories in-setting.

Other non humans in setting and regional differences in shifters - Pretty much only selkie and selkie issues are in focus here, but just as a general thing, all non humans in setting are shapeshifters and originated from human ancestors who went crazy with the the Body Craft and/or used Wish Craft in some way.

Ka Bue in particular has a ton of them since yokai, with their origins being various sects/clans back in the warring eras going so nuts with trying to weaponize Body Craft (super soldiers, enhanced life spans, infiltration, exploiting attraction to furries, etc), that after some particularly high profile incidents (for an idea plz see: Kiyohime, Tamamo no Mae, Kachi-kachi Yama) and 'Body Craft misuse leading to shut down of the brain/vital organs' being the most common cause of death for 10+ years once peace time was established, eventually Ka Bue's authorities set their foot down and banned Body Craft altogether.

Currently the shifter population in Ka Bue is around 30% of the population, shifters are required to have ID regarding their forms (or potential forms if they're merely 'half'), and it's considered distasteful for a shifter to be in non human form outside of private settings/necessity and even ruder to ask a shifter about their non human forms if they haven't brought the topic up yet first (kinda like seeing/asking about someone's underwear or something XD).

In contrast the Vaugarde, Mwudu and Porteria region is extremely shifter sparce, with most of its original shifter population being the result of various Universe worshipping peoples (mostly small groups, like greek mystery cults) deciding to use a big Wish Craft ritual as some sort of religious rite and becoming shifters as a side effect of their primary Wish (usually stuff like 'we wish for us and our descendants to be one with You and the sea/air' or 'may we Change with the phases of the holy moon' etc) which granted them some pretty neat skills but also tended to come with some 'potentially nasty' drawbacks attached (see: selkie and swan maidens with their cloaks, werewolves Changing in both body and mind etc) Which er, lead to some issues born of lack of knowledge about this stuff, later some very nasty anti shifter sentiment in the region, and then around... IDK 200 to 300 years ago or so ended up exploding into violence and other very nasty things, with most shifters able to do so fleeing the region, and those that couldn't either enduring horrible conditions until they could escape/died or went deep into hiding, with the Island's Country being founded by the two later groups who used Wish Craft to hide their new home, erase awareness of their existence from their enemies (a short term, fully intentionally 'forgetting' blast centered specifically around shifters), and developed a LOT of culture and traditions regarding when, who and what can be told to 'outsiders' about themselves, Wish Craft, etc in order to keep their people safe.

There are shifters living in present in Vaugarde of course (anti shifter sentiment died back a LOT after most people stopped thinking they were real, and most modern day Change Believers are more likely to view these 'totally fictional/allegorical' beings as children/messengers of the Change God rather than 'evil demons who stole power by tearing apart the Change God's cloak for themselves and thus have to be hunted down and made to repent' propaganda take that was everywhere back then) but numbers actually living outside the Island as opposed to merely visiting remain low, since either the shifters know their history and stick firmly to their 'stay secret' traditions or quickly pick up on how oddly unknown shifters are around these parts and decide to err on the side of caution... Also 'trust worthy' humans who do learn about them (usually northern coastal folk, gee wonder why) tend to help cover them up so... Yeah =D

---

And... Yeah!

This is hella long as is, so will stop here and ramble about the actual 'how this all affects our beloved Sif and Co plot and culture wise' stuff that is the actual meat of the AU in another post later, but hope this made for an interesting/idea provoking read, know that I have no issue with anyone using any of this for their own works (just please, don't use the 'Selkies under starlight' same story name unless it's actually a fanfic/fanart of my 'hopefully soon has a chapter/one shot up' fic/Ao3 series of the same name so people don't get confused), and I would love to chatter with you about any thoughts/questions you might have so...

Wishing you a good day =D

(sighes in relief finally getting this post finished after literal months. Pheeeeww~)

[moeblob]

Right and his work menaces (Brent and Karen).

I don't remember last I mentioned it but apart from crude nicknames to people (except Chris), he also just puts them in his phone really weird (except Chris, who is literally in his phone as Chris). And I bring this up because in Right's phone, Karen is saved as "Lawful Obligation".

[shima-draws]

Anyway speaking of poly trios. Have any of you considered Lawlusan because MANNNN.

[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.