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naamahdarling · 5 months

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Do you have a favorite musical?

If so, what are your favorite lyrics from it, and why?

ALW's CATS.

Is it a surreal mess? Yes! But I love it before everything else.

The lyrics are silly but very clever. Most are at least partly by TS Eliot, drawn from a wonderfully nonsensical book of poems.

I think my favorite song is the Invitation to the Jellicle Ball, neck and neck with Mr Mistoffelees.

My favorite cat is Mistoffelees by a lot, followed by the Rum Tum Tugger. They are in love.

But the part that makes me feel the most in my heart is Grizabella. The only cat I relate to is Grizabella.

Memory is the big number that everyone knows and I do absolutely love it, it's one of my favorite songs and probably the best in the musical as it was before CATS 2019 introduced a new song, but I feel that out of context it simply doesn't have punch. It gets trotted out to showcase a singer's skill, as a bit of a tearjerker if you're a sentimental person. It is so much more than that.

I didn't understand Grizabella properly until I was well and truly an adult and had taken in multiple cats off the street, and lived near a colony, and watched my own cats become frail, which are all painful things in many ways; AND until I had begun to really feel the weight of my marginalization as a disabled person and an ill person, which means confronting almost daily the fact that I am unlikely to come to the sort of end I would like.

Hold on because I'm going to be unhinged about this cat for a minute.

Grizabella is an aged stray, once welcomed, now abandoned and unloved, considered ugly even by others like her (who are shown to supposedly accept differences and value, or at least respect, most everyone...but not her).

She lives in a haunted, lonely state unacknowledged by anyone except to be driven away. She can no longer care for herself, she is filthy and matted and scarred and probably in a lot of pain, she is starving, and she has nothing but her memories of better times, and every single dawn is both a gift and a miserable curse. She gets to remember. She has to remember.

If you watch, Grizabella is onstage a LOT, she's just off in the background, usually poorly lit, where she tries to mirror the dances happening on the main part of the stage, dances she knows because that was once her, there in the spotlight, shining. But now she's in too much pain to dance and her body isn't working right anymore. I have no doubt Grizabella is dying. The question is whether she will get to do that well, comforted and with dignity, or do it badly and alone.

I cannot HANDLE Grizabella.

If you have even the tiniest inkling of love for cats, if you believe every cat's life is worth something, her story should destroy you.

The legendary Jennifer Hudson's performance in the movie brought a really angry and confrontational turn to her, and it was flat out amazing. A rebuke of a performance. It really hurts to watch but it's what the role has always needed. She isn't just weak and sad, she clings to the tatters of her dignity and is angry that the others don't see her as a whole person. Just a miserable shadow to be avoided. A cautionary tale. We are never told what terrible thing she did to deserve her fall, and given that most of the Jellicles are young, I don't know that any of them really remember.

I will physically fight anyone who says she should not have been selected to ascend to a new life. She was the only choice. Even Gus. Even him. He can have his turn next year. Grizabella does not have another year in her.

And I'm going to make some folks mad but I love the 2019 movie (it's bad) and the new song, Beautiful Ghosts, is amazing, and I DO prefer Taylor Swift's version as the movie version is a little more timid (fitting the role and musical way better) but TS fucking BELTS IT and I get chills every time.

The lyrics are incredible and the song is gorgeous, gorgeous. And strung together with Grizabella's song, it finishes the musical in a way that it was a bit unfinished before. It uses an actual full song to connect Grizabella to the Ball and the Choice more directly than any choreography ever did or could:

Victoria, the White Cat and viewpoint character, still almost a kitten, has been dumped in the street and into a terrifying and beautiful new life.

After being swept up into its wonder, she sees Grizabella, utterly rejected, hissed at, made fun of, despised, and aches with the injustice of it -- Victoria was snatched right up by the other cats the instant her paws hit the ground, but nobody will take in Grizabella. Not even her own kind.

Victoria sees how strangely similar they are and feels a kinship that has no pity in it at all, but wonder and respect.

So Victoria sings this new song expressing the first admiration Grizabella has heard in god alone knows how long, reminding her she has had an amazing life worth envy and renown, and she pulls this horrible decrepit old mess of a cat into the Jellicle Ball, where she is FINALLY relieved of her pain.

Like? I'm crying right now?

It isn't a serious musical, but Grizabella's story runs through it like a cold current, something real and terrible, surrounded by absolute ridiculousness. Her numbers are deadly serious, never played for laughs. And ultimately it is her story that turns out to be the most important one, the truest one, and it is dark, and it is hopeful but only in only the most painful and grief-stricken way. She isn't brought back into a comfortable life with other cats to be happy and surrounded by love. She essentially...dies and goes to cat heaven. She embodies hope itself to the others, and her ascension represents a deeply humbling lesson in humility and grace. Her suffering and her ascent represent the possible future of every one of them, and now they have to confront that, and their treatment of her. She was rewarded, and for all their beauty and charm they were not.

Anyway I'm not normal about it.

The lyrics from Beautiful Ghosts that I love are:

Perilous night, their voices calling. A flicker of light, before the dawning. Out here the wild ones are taming the fear within me. Scared to call them my friends and be broken again. Is this hope just a mystical dream?

and

And so maybe my home Isn't what I had known, what I thought it would be. But I feel so alive With these phantoms of night, and I know that this life isn't safe but it's wild and it's free!

Like, come on. It's a lovely song and it took my breath away in the theater.

Ugh this musical touched me as a feral cat girl of 10 and it touches me again as a sad catguy in their 40s. Truly a very stupid work of weirdly meaningful art and one for the ages.

There are much better musicals, but none of them are part of me.

#cats the musical #grizabella

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timetravellingkitty · 3 months

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Mulan 2020 sucks lol

Written and edited by yours truly

So, Mulan 2020 happened. And I am disappointed. Seriously disappointed. It is utter garbage. I would genuinely prefer it if I watched Mulan II 5 times in a row, and that's saying something.

There is so much to talk about because this has so many issues. I don't think my brain can handle a movie as bad as this for some time. It is a disgrace to the original animated movie.

(Who cares about spoilers?)

And yes, I can and I will compare it to the original movie because it is a remake. It is totally valid to see where this fell flat and where the original succeeded. I'm not saying it has to be like the original cartoon, that is stupid. As I mentioned, it's to highlight the failures of this movie.

Besides, even if we forget the fact that it is a remake, this movie is still horrible.

INTRODUCTION

Mulan 1998 is a classic. It has great visuals, an awesome soundtrack, wonderful and compelling characters, a great message and a cool plot. It's just a great movie in general. It is an adaptation of The Ballad of Mulan, a Chinese legend. Both the legend and the animated movie are about a young girl named Mulan who disguises herself as a man to take her father's place in the army to fight back against an invasion.

As big of a success Mulan was, Chinese audiences thought some things were weird. For instance, having a dragon be a comic relief character, given that dragons are highly respected in Chinese culture. So of course, Disney decided to try another shot, claiming that they wanted to be more culturally sensitive, accurate and closer to the original ballad.

Mulan 2020 is a remake of the original animated movie, and was marketed to be more "accurate to Chinese culture and the Ballad". This claim is, of course, false, because they failed in that aspect. Say what you will about the cultural inaccuracies in Mulan 1998, but at least it was a great movie. Besides, Mulan 1998 didn't pride or market itself on being culturally accurate, the way Mulan 2020 did, so there's that.

CHANGES

I don't mind some changes. And honestly, if there's one thing I appreciate, it's that it isn't a carbon copy of the original (looking at you The Lion King 2019).

Li Shang's character is divided into two characters: Commander Tung and Mulan's love interest Honghui, apparently in light of the Me-Too movement. This is a dumb reason. Disney wasn't comfortable with a superior having a relationship with a subordinate? The hell? The romance between Shang and Mulan was only insinuated at the end, when Mulan wasn't even a part of the army anymore, so there's that. Also, Mulan gave her consent, so I don't know what they’re talking about.

Mushu isn't present in the movie. I can see why though. He contributed quite a bit to the soul of the animated version but a CGI dragon would be very distracting. Also, the director said that removed him to achieve a more realistic tone.

Grandma? No grandma. Mulan has a sister though, who only exists to mess stuff up.

The Huns are replaced with the Rourans and Shan Yu is replaced with Bori Khan.

Mushu is replaced with a phoenix, who acts as an emissary for the ancestors

There are no songs, except in the end credits, which isn't a bad thing. The instrumentals of the songs in the animated one play during some scenes (I'll talk about the music, don’t worry)

CHARACTERS

The characters in this movie are so boring. Our lead character Mulan lacks the charisma her animated counterpart had. She's utterly bland, uninteresting and poorly written. In the original, she knew she wasn't physically strong and that she couldn't solve her problems with her strength, so she used her intelligence and wit. She excelled by working hard and being strong willed and determined. This Mulan is a well rounded character.

Mulan in the live action is given Chi powers (Chi is a big part of Chinese medicine, in case you didn't know). Honestly, I wouldn't be as mad at Mulan being given superpowers, had they actually done this properly! Chi isn't like midichlorians, it's something that flows through everyone. Mulan is naturally born with dumb superpowers and has to hide them because as her dad says, " Chi is for warriors, not for daughters”. There is a problem:

It has been mentioned many times that Mulan needs to hide her superpowers otherwise she will be shunned and ostracised. Then why doesn't she get more repercussions everytime she uses her powers? The worst thing that happens is little Mulan getting looks of disgust when she uses them. On other occasions, when she is now a part of the army, she uses her powers in training and she doesn't get any backlash? What the hell?? Then why even bother in the first place?

The only way for this narrative to work is if Mulan got more repercussions for using her powers.

If I were to make the line "Chi is for warriors, not daughters," work, I would make it go something like this:

*At the end of the movie when Mulan comes home*

Dad: Didn't I tell you that Chi is for warriors, not daughters?

Mulan: "I am a daughter, but I'm a warrior too."

(Yes, I know this is similar to a scene in Avatar: The Last Airbender, but this would be better, tbh. Also, watch Avatar: The Last Airbender)

Let me compare the training montages from both movies.

In the animated one, there is an absolutely AWESOME montage of Mulan training side by side with her companions, slowly gaining their trust. She climbs the pillar with both medallions by using her wit, not by brute force. This Mulan worked hard. Besides, the fact that "I'll Make A Man Out Of You" plays over this is the only thing that makes it better (banger song, thank you Donny Osmond)

In the live-action, Mulan is supposed to lift up buckets and climb on top of a mountain. There are also other training scenes, but those aren't very important. In these scenes, she succeeds with the power of CHI. WHY? Mulan here just achieves her goal because she is oh so special. She didn't work to achieve her goal at all, because she is perfect. No struggling or development here at all.

Mulan in the animated version was more concerned about saving her father. Mulan in the 2020 version is a dumb patriot who can't even do patriotism right ("I know my place. It is my duty to fight for the kingdom and protect the Emperor") How very empowering.

In short, live-action Mulan can do no wrong. She has no flaws, no personality and no charm. Everything comes to her pretty easily, because MAGIC.

Li Shang's role in the live-action is divided between Commander Tung and Mulan's love interest Honghui, as mentioned before. Both of these characters are flat, dumb and boring. Tung exists to tell Mulan to cultivate her Chi and to train these idiots (and to offer his daughter’s hand in marriage to her, unaware that Mulan isn’t actually a guy, but eh). Honghui is there to be a stupid love interest, who gives us an “I am Spartacus” moment.

The witch is by far the most interesting character. She actually has more than one side to her, has SOME kind of depth and you can even feel sorry for her. She is supposed to serve as a foil to Mulan, given that both have similar powers. In case you've forgotten (which is something I wouldn't blame you for), she's an outcast who's now working with Bori Khan. Why is she an outcast? Because of her Chi. The witch has said many times that she could kill Bori Khan in a snap, then why doesn't she kill him? Because she needs acceptance? What the hell? She decides to pull out the whole "We're the same, you and I," stupidity to Mulan, and I can see that. It's just that the writers just didn't put much thought into it. “It’s too late for me” because you saw a woman leading an army of men? Also, why does she warn Mulan that Bori Khan is coming? Unless she's playing both sides, except her motivations aren't made clear enough for this to make sense. Finally, she dies for the dumbest reason. God, it just makes me so mad. She had so much potential, but no. They just had to mess her up.

Bori Khan? MORE LIKE BORING KHAN. Not much is there. His animated counterpart Shan Yu was scary and contributed to some of the darkest moments in the movie. This guy over here is just...nothing. That's all I have to say.

Mulan's sister is only there to mess up the meeting with the Matchmaker. What a stupid change. First off in the animated version, it's Mulan who messed up, because she isn't perfect. She fails at being stereotypically feminine AND masculine, but in the live-action, she literally pulls off a Spiderman cafeteria scene, and the blame is put on the sister. In the animated movie, this scene is groundwork for Mulan wanting to prove herself and going on a hero's journey, providing depth to her character, but in the live-action, she's perfect. What is the point? (I know this section was supposed to be about the sister, but eh). The sister doesn't provide anything else to the movie, so thanks! I hate it. Moral of the story: Girls can do anything boys can, as long as they have superpowers. If you are born special like Mulan, you can be respected, whereas if you are like the sister, you have no significance and in the end, you can just fit in and be irrelevant. Congratulations!

The live action group of guys Mulan met and befriended in the army lack the charm and comedic timing of their animated counterparts. That’s it. Seriously. I have nothing more to say about them, because they don't really have anything going on. I don't even know why they are included, because their contribution is nil, save for them blandly speaking lines from the animated version’s songs ("I don't care what she looks like, I care what she cooks like"), which is seriously cringe.

The dad is there to tell Mulan that Chi is for warriors. A shame, because I really liked the dad in the movie. He was a source of wisdom for Mulan, whose greatest honour was having her for a daughter. In the live-action, he just takes the sword that Mulan is given at the end of the movie. The mom is meh.

The emperor is also meh. At least he was wise and cool in the animated version, but here he just does bed sheet kung-fu.

Did I mention that the dynamics between the characters are unnatural, forced, awkward in a bad way and in no way indicates any chemistry between them? Oh yeah, I didn’t, until now. They don’t establish much when it comes to emotion.

Simply put, Khan (Mulan’s horse in the animated version) had more personality than all of these characters combined

PERFORMANCES

Liu Yifei as Mulan was a pretty terrible choice. She is just a block of wood, who has absolutely no range, and this isn't because of the writing. She is genuinely bad, and is regarded as one of China’s worst actors (I kid you not). She just can’t emote.

Jet Li as the emperor is meh. But hey, he doesn’t have much to do, so eh.

Jason Scott Lee as Bori Khan is fine. He doesn’t suck, but he lacks the command and authority of a character who is supposed to be intimidating, but I guess it has something to do with the writing of his character.

Donnie Yen is a martial art legend, but unfortunately, he doesn't have much range as an actor.

The best performance of this movie is that of Gong Li, who played the witch. Honestly, she is charismatic, charming and has an idea of what she is doing.

To save everyone’s time, simply put: most of the performances are bland and mediocre. Partly due to bad writing and partly due to most of the actors not being, well, good at acting.

CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL ACCURACY

So Disney went all “we like cultural and historical accuracy”, which is nice. For example, the Huns are replaced by the Rourans, a real tribe in China around the time Mulan was supposed to be alive. They also removed the hair cutting scene, because as iconic and awesome as it is, it doesn’t make sense. Chinese men wore their hair long too. You know what? I like these kinds of changes. I appreciate accuracy. If only Disney didn’t pride themselves on their accuracy when they got almost everything else wrong (They somehow got Mulan's house wrong lol). I don't know jackshit about Chinese culture so just go watch that Xiran Jay Zhao video it's very swag

THE BALLAD OF MULAN

In a surprising turn of events, this isn't accurate to the Ballad, like they had marketed it to be (I know, I’m shocked too). In a reference to the Ballad, Mulan is riding a horse and she sees two rabbits running side by side. She goes home and tells her family that she saw 2 rabbits, and she thinks that one was male and the other female, but she wasn't sure. This just misses the entire point of the Ballad.

Long story short, Mulan in the Ballad is actually a seamstress. She joined the army in her father's place. She defeats the barbarians and goes on a ten year long campaign with her friends, after which they meet the Son of Heaven (a sacred imperial title of a Chinese emperor). He offers her a high ranking position, which she refuses, because she just wants to go home. She returns home and her family welcomes her. Sometime later, her friends come to visit her, and they find out that she is actually a woman. The friends are shocked because she has been in the army for 12 years and in those 12 years, they didn't even realise that she was a woman.

Mulan then replies:

The male hare's feet hop and skip

The female hare's are muddled and fuddled

But when two hares are running side by side

How can you tell the male from the female?

Which is where the poem ends.

So, Mulan just going on, judging those rabbits like that makes absolutely no sense. The Ballad is about how no matter how different men and women look, when they live and fight amongst each other, who gives a damn about the differences? You know what would have made sense though? If Mulan got off her horse, went close to the rabbits, examined them, and then made the conclusion that one is male and the other is female. This would actually be sticking to the message of the Ballad. Also, why do they make it ambiguous as to whether she accepts the high ranking position? I assume for a sequel (yes, God save my soul). Here we can see another example of its impeccable accuracy to the Ballad.

THIS ISN'T EMOTIONAL AT ALL

Everything that made the original film good has been stripped away. Every moment that is meant to be emotional is very dull. For example, the scene where Mulan makes the decision to take her father's place in the army is supposed to be a very powerful scene. Mulan is risking it all just so her dad can be safe. She might be killed if discovered, and her family would be dishonoured.

When Mulan comes back from the Matchmaker, she has a moment of reflection while singing "Reflection". This is the beginning of her personal journey, discovering who she is. In this, after Mulan comes back from the Matchmaker, she doesn't have a moment of reflection. The army immediately shows up. Am I really supposed to believe that Mulan feels bad about this? That Mulan is really struggling?

When Mulan’s friends are singing, it suddenly shifts to the striking scene of the burnt village. This, in my opinion, is the best use of tonal whiplash. From this point on, things are getting serious, and the emotional weight of this tragedy is felt. In this, they just randomly show up at the village. There is no seriousness (stop trying to tell me this movie is adult, mature and serious, it just looks like that on the surface).

Their attempts at being emotional are poor and unconvincing, and ultimately, the end product is an emotionless, soulless, depthless entity.

THE MUSIC

The director mentioned in an interview that she didn’t add songs into the movie because it is “unrealistic to break into song when you're in war”, and I don't think I’ve heard anything more false (apart from the concept of a flat Earth). Even I, who isn't going into war anytime soon, know this is false. They instead inserted instrumentals from the original film. Except, it's very weirdly placed. The instrumental for Reflection is placed when Mulan is fighting the Rourans after she reveals herself to be a woman. Like, there isn't any context. In the end credits, they had the original song "Loyal, Brave and True" sung by Christina Aguilera, which was nice. I don't really have much to say in regards to the music. The music is overall forgettable.

THE ACTION

The action may seem weird, but this kind of martial arts is a part of the Wuxia genre, which is what they were going for. Well, they failed. The choreography is bad, the CGI is bad, EVERYTHING is bad. Honestly, if you want a good Wuxia movie, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon exists. The action is here stupid and stiff.

OTHER DUMB STUFF

Why does Mulan take her armour off before going into battle? That is just stupid. Can't you just take the bindings off? Also, WHY OPEN YOUR HAIR-

Mulan really likes kicking spears (and pointy stuff in general). Seriously. It’s weird.

The CGI is okay I guess, I don't know. The phoenix in some scenes looks pink to me. There are some pretty visuals though.

It is very obvious that there is a green screen used in the scene where Mulan and her friends find the burnt village. And it looks bad. Pretty ugly. It looks bad. The green screen looks bad.

The war strategy is just weird. I can't really say anything about it in text form because how am i supposed to describe it, help- (she literally teleported behind the bad guys in the avalanche scene-).

I like how the animated film, which had a dragon as a comic relief and other silly stuff, is more mature than this.

For what joy does Mulan get another sword from the army? Also, shame the dad is all “oh look at the values written on the sword, they are honourable” even though in the original the greatest honour was having her for a daughter.

How was Mulan even able to tell the gender of the rabbits?

Why not just try to send a warning to the Emperor that the Rourans are coming to get him?

Why does Commander Tung let Mulan lead them-

I AM SO DONE

Well, I think I have said everything I wanted to about this movie. I know I havent talked about its controversies but honestly, I am done. I am so done with this. This document took 5-6 months of my life. I am kind of proud of this, and there isn't much I have done to be proud of. I did procrastinate on this a bit, and I had stuff going on, but finally, I am done. In the future, if I remember something, I'll add it here, but I think that is unlikely. I never want to watch or even go near Mulan 2020 again. It's horrible, and there is barely anything redeemable. I hate it here. It’s been reported that a sequel is in development. If it’s true, of course I’ll watch it, how else am I supposed to validate my self hate? I am also, of course, the resident “friend who suffers for everyone else’s entertainment”. If you want a live action remake of Mulan, Mulan: Rise of a Warrior exists. Go watch it, it’s free on YouTube with subtitles. I really liked it.

If you’ve somehow made it this far, thanks for reading. I congratulate you for putting up with whatever this is. I would also like to take a moment to congratulate myself for actually committing to this. It was painful yet fun to complain about this to the best of my ability. If anyone wants to add anything to this, feel free to do so. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m out. I have lost my faith in humanity, and I have other things to complain about.

#this was written 3 years ago. are you proud of me yet #i should mention. the animated mulan is one of my favourite movies ever so 😙#rava is an artist

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i-drop-level-one-loot · 6 months

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You watch slasher movies? I haven't done so in years (much to my disappointment), got any recommendations, classics, popular, underrated, anything really?

I knew I hadn't watched them in a long time, but it wasn't till I had to try and write something based on classic slashers, that I realized how long its been since I consumed that kind of content.

My only plan so far is that I need to watch The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Alright, Pandora, it depends on your tastes, and what you look for in a "slasher" ❤️

As you may remember, I fucking love the OG the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and when I got pretty bad last month emotionally I watched it on repeat for two weeks straight. However, if you go in for a regular slasher film you will be disappointed. The first movie is incredible, focusing on amazing shots and atmosphere for nearly the entire first half. It's less of a slasher as we would come to know the genre, and more of an artistic film centered around the horrors of humanity. The series is a wonderful mess of multiple timelines and little continuity, but the sequels better fit the slasher archetype. The best sequel (imo) is the one directly after the first, and it's a black comedy slasher, focusing more on the kills.

Now, slashers ❤️

If you're a nerd and want to experience the slasher history, then before Halloween (which still holds up) there was Black Christmas, and before that the Town that Dreaded Sundown.

The Town that Dreaded Sundown is based off a true serial killer, and unlike TCM which is loosely inspired by Ed Gein, a lot of the kills (except the trombone scene) are based on actual murders, with his mask accurate to the only real world survivor's testimony of her assault. It's very slow pace, and with how desensitized we are as a society you might find it boring, but if you ever get a phonecall from Ghostface, then you have to know the Town that Dreaded Sundown. Fun fact, his mask also inspired Jason's mask from Friday the 13th part 2!

Black Christmas is awesome! I'd recommend it more than Sundown, because of pacing, characters, acting, and overall atmosphere. I love my second wave feminism horror (Stepford Wives (mwah)), and it did a lot better with it's feminist themes than the loose remake from 2019 that tried to be intentionally feminist (ignore the 2006 remake entirely, so bad, so lame, so gross). It did the first person perspective of the killer nearly four years before Halloween's iconic opening. It introduced the idea of the final girl, but she wouldn't become a sexually repressed younger woman until Halloween solidified the trope. It has some great kills that still hold up, and Billy is iconic. I really feel the only reason why he isn't more well known in non-horror spaces is because he doesn't have a mask or outfit that can be replicated and sold in Spirit.

After that we have our most well known slashers, and they're popular for good reason ❤️

A Nightmare on Elm St, Friday the 13th, and Halloween spawned sequels that spiraled off into varying degrees of madness, but still have fun moments.

After the success of Friday the 13th (and the realization of the franchise-ability of slashers) there were a lot of slashers that tried to capture the money magic of the first few success stories. Not all of them were great, but a few notable slashers imo are My Bloody Valentine and the Dentist.

Although Candyman is often lumped in with slashers, like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the first movie is more than a traditional slasher. I recommend the first one as a beautiful love story about the horrors of American racism. It's score is still incredible, the behind the scenes are so interesting, and Tony Todd is absolutely beautiful. Such an amazing actor. (Not so) Fun fact: Tony Todd said in the behind the scenes that there originally was a romantic scene where Helen proclaimed her love for Candyman, but they were forced to cut it, because "they were okay with a tall, black man covered in bees.. but, mm, when it came to a kiss, or something like that, it was a little bit too risque..." ( :/ )

(Please please please watch Candyman)

Then the best, or worst (depending on your views), thing happened to the genre; Scream.

One of the best slashers there is, it isn't the first self referential, meta horror (see Wes Craven's New Nightmare), but it did change the slasher genre for a very long time. It was a revival for the genre, since it was declining in popularity by the early 90s. However, post Scream horror was very meta. See Chucky's personality changing from the occasional funny quip, to Bride of Chucky levels of silly (still love him tho). Of the terrible horror trying to copy Scream, I'd recommend Urban Legend over I Know What You Did Last Summer. It was a shame, just how silly a lot of scary movies got back then, trying to be as smart and self aware as Scream was.

But my favorite (outside of Scream) meta horror slasher film is Behind the Mask: the Rise of Leslie Vernon ❤️ took meta to a whole new level, mockumentary style, a camera crew follows a wannabe slasher killer explaining how to be a slasher icon.

I've watched too many slashers to remember all of them right now, but if you want really meta black comedies, Tucker and Dale vs Evil isn't a slasher but a loving joke on the genre, and the Final Girls made me laugh and cry like a little bitch.

A lot of slashers since the late 90s have drifted closer to the black comedy sub genre. Killers that kill for the sake of killing are often B-rated blood fests, that can be great for mindless fun but not so great for box office gains, especially in our current horror renaissance. Slashers don't fit in to the current horror culture. Serial killers aren't scary for desensitized audiences, and the mindless gore expectations set by older slasher films have created a pretty specific genre setup and pay off (dumb people who only exist to die get brutally murdered). It either has to be B-rated mindless fun (Laid to Rest 1 and 2 had terrible camera work and directing, making even incredible actors like Lena Headey feel lackluster, but the practical effects are so impressive I'd recommend it just for the blood and guts (and bewbs)), or comedic (the Hatchet series has great cameos, genuine laughs, and more impressive practical effects, but with good cinematography and directing (still bewbs)). Slashers that don't lean in to how ridiculous the concept of slashers are and try to take themselves seriously often end up falling short, either creating boring killers with no personality or trying to force a plot into a generic slasher shaped hole.

This does include most remakes of slasher movies, as a lot of slashers were remade in the early 2000's with less interesting characters to be killed off by the slashers. The remake of Candyman was an exception, because even though it wasn't as good as the original, it did go back to it's non slasher roots, learning from the mistake that was the third Candyman.

TLDR:

Non slashers that are considered slashers because of the slasher sequels/iconic murderers:

the Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Candyman

Child's Play

Best Precursor to the genre:

Black Christmas

Popular Classics:

Halloween

Friday the 13th

a Nightmare on Elm St

Pre 90's Slashers that I recommend:

The Dentist

Sleepaway Camp (it's divided on whether it's problematic or interesting representation)

Alice, Sweet Alice

My Bloody Valentine

Post 90's meta commentary/black comedy:

Scream

Behind the Mask: the Rise of Leslie Vernon

Hatchet

The Final Girls

Tucker and Dale vs Evil

There are obviously a lot more, but these are a few off the top of my head ❤️

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papercupids · 1 year

Text

people we meet on vacation - jeong yunho

pairing -> jeong yunho x gender neutral!reader. (they/them used)

summary -> after bumping into what you call, the love of your life at a vaction once, you found that there was no way to find out more about him. 4 years later, when you've lost all hope, you finally find him and he's your boyfriend's bestfriend.

genre -> slice of life kinda (?), strangers to lovers.

warnings -> a bunch of curses, a tattoo, mingi is a real dick (sorry, had to be <3), it goes back and forth between the past and present a lot but its all labelled that's all though.

word count -> 4255 words.

a/n -> this fic isn't in anyway related or inspired by the book of the same name by emily henry, it's just that the title of the book went along with the fic's themes so i rolled with it :) a tiny, tiny part of it has been inspired by the first half of the bollywood movie, tamasha. and and, lastly, all the translations were taken from google translate so if you find any mistakes you know who to blame. ok bye, enjoy.

PRESENT, SEOUL, 2023.

“Are you ready, babe?”

Mingi calls out from the living room, tying up the laces to his boots. You took one last glance at yourself in the mirror and then called out in agreement.

“Let’s go,”

when you're in the car with him, you look out of the window, watching the daylight completely drown out slowly. and then you look at your boyfriend, who is focused on driving. you're both going to his friend's birthday dinner and since it’s only been about 2 months of you both dating, it is one of the first time you're meeting his friends, having heard a lot of great things about them already.

he notices you looking at him and gives you a smile before giving his full attention to the road again.

mingi isn’t a bad person, you know that. but for some reason, there has been no one who'd been able to catch your attention fully or make you stay for even a month. the 2 month mark with mingi was a huge thing for you.

But then you visibly wince when you remind yourself about the texts.

Never could you ever imagine that your tendency to never commit to anyone would bite you back in this form.

When you finally feel secure enough with someone, you find out that they’ve been cheating on you.

Mingi wasn’t a bad person, you convince yourself. It was just your karma.

when you reach the parking lot of the restaurant, mingi tells you to wait, he unbuckles his seatbelt and then gets out of his seat and slams the door shut and runs to get yours.

when you give him your hand, he kisses it gently, whispering a little into your ear.

"my angel looks so pretty tonight,"

and he holds out his arm for you to clasp yours into.

"ever the gentleman," you kiss his cheek.

as you enter through the glass doors of the hotel, you spot a lot of people, a bunch of foreigners going about, someone trying to check in, and people like yourself, here just for dinner.

"excuse me, what way is the banquet?" mingi asks on the front desk.

"oh, are you mr. kim's guests?"

"yes, yes,"

"straight from here, last room on the right,"

"okay, thank you,"

"___, can you go ahead? i need to take this call, i'll be there in 5,"

"let me wait for you?"

"oh, just introduce yourself, i really gotta take this,"

you were a little irritated (understatement) but decided to go ahead anyway, what’s the worst that could happen anyway?

and as you step inside the white tiled room with a huge chandelier in the middle, and golden lit lights, you think you might be dreaming.

no, not because of the ambience. but because of the person sitting there, looking up at you, as surprised as you were.

PAST, CURÇAO ISLANDS, SUMMER, 2019.

"who? what? why?"

"well, i don't know, i didn’t he would show up here when i told him we were coming here,"

"oh god,"

to say you were exhausted would be an understatement. your friend, jae-i and her "situationship" with the university playboy, kim sungwon was famous and you hoped that you could try to get her away from him during this vacation but turns out, old habits die hard. she claims she only told him that she was going for a vacation and apparently, he was here and "begging for forgiveness," because he deeply thought about how wrong his actions were.

"you know what, do whatever you want to, because to hell with our vacation, and don't you dare come to me when he breaks your heart again,"

you slam the door and get out. you weren’t that harsh and you did feel like you went overboard but she needed it. you would come back later anyway.

The bar was a couple blocks away from the cottage that you’d rented and it was right on the beach, a bunch of wooden chairs and tables and people enjoying their exotic coloured drinks, each one of them speaking in different languages.

Speaking of languages, you weren’t quite sure of dutch. You knew the typical “hallo (hello),” and “ik ben nieuw hier (i’m new here),” but the basics was where it ended.

“Um, hi,”

“waar kan ik je mee helpen (how can i help you)?”

“English?”

He made a disappointed face. “No english, de werknemer die Engels kent, heeft pauze (the employee who knows English is on break),”

With a mental facepalm, you realize you’d even left your phone and wallet back where jae-i was, and you had no intention of facing her, especially if there was a possibility that the asshole would be there, and there was no point in trying to order without money anyway.

“Nevermind, Bedankt (thank you),” he snickers at your accent but nods anyway.

“Oh no, no, let me get that for you,” a tall man, absolutely gorgeous, with the looks of someone who could easily pass off as a well known celebrity appears beside you.

“What do you want?”

“Its fine, i was just leaving,”

“Relax, i’m not a creep, just trying to help, you can pay me back later,”

“Oh, well, okay,”

A few minutes later, you and the handsome stranger were both seated on the wooden stools, he was taking in the sun without a lot of struggle since he brought sunglasses, meanwhile you, well, let’s just say it was a bad day for you.

a little away from the arrangement of chairs there was a live band, some music playing as a couple danced, and then later the others joined as the tune got more upbeat.

As you sipped on the oddly coloured drink you’d seen a lot of people drinking, he turns to you, “so what’s your story?”

“Ah, well, i came here with my friend thinking it would be a little time before she could be away from her shitty ex, but guess what? He’s here,”

“Interesting story, i mean, sucks for you, but, it’s a nice plot,”

“Is that so? What’s yours?”

“Not much of a story, my one of my friends is getting married in september and the other is going to take over as ceo of his father’s company after this summer so we all decided on this trip as something of a milestone,”

“It would get harder to meet after this so,”

“Oh got it, got it,”

"wait, we never exchanged names,"

“I’m yunho,”

“I’m ____,”

he gets up, "in my opinion, You know, what you should do? Enjoy your trip, not everybody has a chance to take a trip like this and you really can’t let your friend ruin it for you,”

You think it up. “Ofcourse,”

He asks for your hand as he puts down his own glass.

You’re almost about to slip your hands into his but then you hesitate, “but wait, don’t you have your own group of friends to worry about?”

“I think seven adult men can enjoy life without me. Besides, it’s not everyday I bump into someone like you or presented with an opportunity like this one.” he winks.

Far away, the sun shows signs of weakening and giving into the sea, the music that’s steadily shifting to more mellow tunes and the noise of the sea gulls.

Yunho takes your hand and guides you to the open space, a couple of people are dancing but the attention from the crowd focuses on you both as you laugh at yunho’s actions. He attempts to spin you and the crowd cheers at that, the beats become more and more danceable.

His hands are on your waist, and his eyes, those eyes. They stare right into yours as you dance. Even though you shrug it off with your laughs, you can feel the spark. And then he’s close, way too close to be with a stranger that you just met, and instead of facing him, you just lean your head onto his chest and close your eyes.

“Kiss already,” someone from the band shouts.

And then you look up at him, “what do we do?”

“Only if you want to,”

His words repeat in front of you again, “...it’s not everyday i bump into someone like you or presented an opportunity like this one,”

You close your eyes and reach up to him, it honestly catches yunho by surprise but it’s over almost as suddenly as it is initiated. A peck. But it was more romantic than any kiss he’s shared with anyone.

PRESENT, SEOUL, SUMMER, 2023.

"hey, you came with mingi right? oh my god, you’re gorgeous, how did he even score you? i'm wooyoung, by the way,"

"i'm _____," you blush, this man certainly knew how to make a fist impression.

"Where's mingi? is it his manners to leave his date alone?"

to which you let out a chuckle, "he got a really important call, he'll be here in a bit though,"

"let me keep you company then, and fulfill mingi's duty of introducing you to the others."

a few people are gathered on the far end of the table opposite from you and a few are sitting on the table already engrossed in a conversation except one of them who looks at you, eyes fixated.

“That is our friend yunho, san and his mate, milo.”

Yunho. Him. fate. There were so many things going in your mind right now, all of the memories, him paying for your drink, spending the entire day with him, forgetting that a thing like a mobile even existed, it was so funny that you both met again. There were almost zero chances, after you came back from your trip, you searched every nook and cranny of social media from whatever information you had of him, scanned every public setting, just in hopes that somehow, just somehow you bump into him again. And unfortunately, this is how you meet.

“Hey,” he extends his hand. Does he remember all of that? Given it was not more than even a day spent together, but it impacted you, did it impact him?

There was like an unspoken agreement to not mention that you’d met before, because you’d not seen a lot of his friends on the trip neither had they seen you nor had yunho ever seen jae-i, all because of that stupid agreement.

You try searching for recognition in his eyes, but mingi comes before you can try communicating with him even a little.

“Mingi! Dude, why’d you leave your date alone? Thank god i was around to help,”

Mingi looks at you, “so you’ve already met them, i see,” and takes your hand into his, and never have you ever wanted to pull your hand back from someone this badly, because you look at the subtle way yunho’s eyes flit to the clasped hands and he backs away.

“Hongjoong,”

The said person is too deep in conversation with someone yunho has never seen but has deduced that they’re most probably business partners.

He calls out to his friend again. And hongjoong looks at him, he mutters a “please,” and then steps away.

He’s careful not to be in the earshot of the group that wooyoung, mingi, you and san have created, they’re very curious to know you, someone mingi had been talking about for months, labelling his new date as his best ever.

“Oh, mingi’s here,” hongjoong notices as he steps to the side yunho is, “wait, yunho, i’ve seen-”

“Shhh, shut up, shut up, this is exactly why i brought you here, keep your mouth shut, mingi’s date, the one he’s been bragging about, is the person i fell in love with in the summer of 2019,” he releases his hand that he had been holding over hongjoong’s mouth.

he touches his elbow slightly, to remind his friend.

And the older guy doesn’t say anything.

“It’s just you who knows, so please, don’t tell anybody, and don’t let anybody know that you know them,”

“It’s just unbelievable,”

And hongjoong watches as they both look at you, he looks at the way yunho watches you. “I remember you being all miserable because you couldn’t find them,”

“Yes, it’s unbelievable but also unfortunate, i’d rather have they not met me at all than this,”

Hongjoong wishes he could have done something, but he doesn’t even know what to do. He wishes he could have taken his friend’s pain because it’s so cruel but he tries to cheer the other up instead, leads him to the dinner table and carefully diverts the conversation to anything but you and mingi.

PAST, SUMMER, 2019.

"and i'm supposed to believe that?"

"i swear, i've never done it,"

"you've never ever fallen in love?" the stranger you met at the beach is clearly in disbelief over the fact that you've never been in love. it's after dinner that you're again here at the beach, walking on the shoreline.

"i don't think it's consciously my choice, it's just something that happens, i become obsessed with a person, i think that its love but then it wears down as fast as it comes."

"uh huh, okay, so you won't fall in love with me?"

you look up at him, his face lit up by the different shades of colours, the streetlight on your left, the headlights of the cars speeding past, and the lightings that are decorated on stalls at some stalls. he looks absolutely gorgeous but more than that, there's something in his eyes, that makes you feel like you actually could. you could actually dream about a forever, and this time maybe even fulfill it. was that possible?

but the realization that you're probably never going to meet again sets in and he looks away too, thinking the same thing maybe.

"nevermind, i'm sorry,"

"wait, yunho,"

he'a already a few steps ahead of you when you stop him, he looks back at you with a questioning look as you point to at something.

"a tattoo?"

you nod.

"you want to get a tattoo with me?"

"there should be at least a little something that i can recognise you by if we ever cross paths again,"

he looks at you in awe as you walk over there, determined to get a tattoo, with or without him.

as he follows you, he knows something very clearly, he'll do whatever you want. even if he doesn't know you, he knows that he's had a feeling of love. not entirely falling but a fleeting kind of. He doesn’t pay much attention and without giving it much thought, follows you.

"hey, yunho,"

he turns back, spotting hongjoong at a little distance from where he was standing, his friend walks closer to him and he has a bag full of beer bottles, clearly leaving to refill the party with their friends.

"we've been looking all over for you, buddy,"

"uh, i've.. found a friend,"

"where?" he points to the tattoo shop where you're talking to the guy, and swiping through designs.

"that's great, dude, about time you find someone,"

“Yeah, and i hope y’all don’t mind it,”

He tsks in reply, “they’re all shitfaced, they probably won’t last for more than an hour or so, and that’s when i can finally drink,” he points to the beer bottles.

"hey," you call out from your place, and interested to know the stranger standing beside your new friend, you walk up to them.

"you're?"

"i'm hongjoong,"

“Nice to meet you, hongjoong,” you give him a smile.

"you're getting a tattoo?" he asks.

"if yunho agrees,"

"yunho, hmmm, you should go ahead, do it,"

"oh, wait, hongjoong is a great artist, he can draw something for us," yunho suggests.

"well, if you want me to,"

and about an hour later, there’s half a butterfly on the area above the elbow on your right arm and the same location on his left arm.

"well, that was painful," you say, gripping your covered arm.

"you think?"

"but well, now i have something to remember you by so i'm not complaining," he adds.

which makes the both of you go silent again.

you want to ask him his number, but something stops you. Looking back you’re not so sure of what held you back but you wished, wished so bad that you’d taken some number, some contact anything. Heck, even an email address would have sufficed.

But thinking that you can probably search him up on instagram or snapchat or something, you don’t bother about it.

"let's meet here tomorrow? you're here right?"

you ask him, curious to know if he's into hanging out for another day.

"ofcourse, i'm craving some pancakes for breakfast,"

"we got it! let's have pancakes tomorrow,"

PRESENT. SEOUL. 2023

"hey, i'm hongjoong,"

"oh, hongjoong,"

the man visibly pales over your mention of his name but you can't resist it, all of it is coming back to you in such a full swing and you can't even do anything about it, you should have just stayed home.

and then the tattoo, your bare arm left it being exposed, nobody would know its meaning but it just felt like an open wound right now and you wish you had some extra sleeves so you could just cover them up.

yunho is ignoring you, and as you are, too. but it keeps on poking you with a stick, the memory of all of it, and you shake your head, it was just a day, you cannot let it have so much effect over you. and it just killed you that you couldn't just drop mingi's hand and tell him that this was the man, this was the guy you had fallen in love with, for the first time and intensely and in the period of not even a day.

throughout the dinner, his friends keep trying to make you comfortable and so does mingi but every time he talks to you and you're forced to look away from yunho, it practically rips your heart apart and then the thought of going home and then again being apart from him. it just seemed like a nightmare.

hongjoong looked awkward as he tried his best to not let anything slip out of his mouth, he looked like a bad liar. and as you sit there on the dining table you realize that the guy who was getting married after the summer was hongjoong, and it was almost his 4 year anniversary soon. and the guy who was taking over a company was the obnoxious but sweet, wooyoung.

But yunho seemed different with them. When he was with you, that day, it felt like he would just about do anything without any remorse at all. And today, the tie around his neck felt too tight.

"excuse me, i need to go to the washroom," you needed some air.

"should i come?" mingi offers.

"i'll come too, i need to get some air, i'll help you find the way?"

the dining table doesn’t notice the way the air shifts around you both and mingi nods and carries on with his previous conversation with san but you walk up to the door with yunho walking behind you and keep walking until you've reached the far end of the corridor, where he pulls your hand to stop and then looks around and opens a door.

"that's a janitor's closet-"

"shhh," he quiets you down, there’s nobody who would hear you, but its just that he wants to look at you, quietly. think about that day again and again.

you look into his eyes again, the door has slits so the lobby lights spill into the room and parts of his are visible, including his eyes. the eyes you fell in love with, is that even possible, to fall in love with someone's eyes, or to fall in love with someone you just met for a day?

"why did you leave suddenly?"

"i-"

he places a finger on your lips, leaning towards you in the small, dark room filled with brooms and the smell of room freshners.

and his voice comes out as a whisper.

"i searched the entire island, all hotels, all the resorts, the airbnbs. there was not a single corner i hadn’t looked for you that day, where were you?"

"i had to leave, jae-i's family found out that she'd been with that jerk and they called us home immediately, and i tried finding you but i had to leave on the first flight that morning and i'm just so, so, so, sorry,"

he puts away his finger and sighs, "it's fine,"

"fate is such a bitch though,"

"you think?" you snicker.

"what do we do now?" he asks. a deafening silence follows.

"i'm going to leave,"

"again?"

you don't pay much attention to his comment.

"i'm going to get out of mingi's life because i obviously can't live with him knowing that i'm in love with one of his friends,"

"and what about us?"

you place a hand on his chest.

"there was no us, yunho, how can you even be with me like this? all we'll end up being is each other's worst secrets, i don't think i'd want that, i don’t think you would want that either."

he nods.

"you fell in love with me?"

"yes,"

his tears glisten with the light.

"i fell in love with you too, and that morning i was going to properly introduce myself, take you out on a proper date, tell you that my drunk self was just beyond crazy for the shit he'd pulled the day before. but i guess fate had other plans,"

A FEW WEEKS LATER, PRESENT, 2023.

a few weeks later, when he gets a text from mingi in the groupchat, yunho feels a stake through his heart even though it was his friend who just got dumped.

he's brushing his teeth, while he goes through the texts for the entire day. mingi writes, it's been days but i've been kinda busy so i just thought i'd let you all know.

and then a notification for a private group chat, something the others had a knack for doing when they wanted to spill some gossip on the recent event in the main group chat, this particular one was revived from last year's surprise party for mingi's birthday. so the gossip was about mingi.

it was san, "you know he deserved it, milo told me he saw him with some other girl in a hotel one day,"

Hongjoong : “really? He’s such a fool for doing that to y/n, they definitely deserve better,”

Now, that felt like a very personal jab.

The others express their opinion too, with wooyoung saying he kinda predicted it with the way mingi left you alone that day at hongjoong’s party and yeosang and some others concluding with “what can we do? It’s his life, hopefully, y/n is not hurt a lot,”

he facepalmed. why? why were the fates so fucked? was it possible any of his friends would have your number? would it be weird if he asked for the number of one of friends' ex lovers? god, the amount of bad luck he always seemed to have was astronomical.

Hongjoong called him right after the texts ended.

“You, my friend, have the worst luck in the entire world,”

“Shut up, don’t rub it in,”

he lays down on his bed, tired from the day. It was only 7 pm but he felt like it would be better if he just slept.

“We should have lunch tomorrow, by the way, my treat,”

“We’re not having a pity party for me, joong.”

Just then the doorbell rings. “Wait, hold on, i have a visitor,”

He puts the phone on the shoe rack and walks over to open the door. when he opens, he sees the white bag before he can figure out its you. because you've shielded your face with it.

“Oh shit, shit, shit,”

when you move it out and finally take a look at yunho's face, he takes a minute to register it's you.

and he grabs you into a hug as soon as he realizes. guess his luck isn’t that bad even.

Hongjoong, still on the call and listening over, is concerned for yunho. “Hello? Yunho? Who is that? Yunho??? Answer me? Is someone stabbing you?”

after he realizes he's almost blocking your windpipe and realizes it's rude to just cry in the looby of your apartment complex, he invites you in and properly takes a minute for his emotions to settle down.

Meanwhile, hongjoong has ended the call and resorted to calling again, so yunho can pay attention to his phone.

“Hello?”

“Oh my god, you’re alive,”

“I’m alright.”

And you walk over, looking at the caller ID, decide to introduce yourself, “hey, hongjoong, remember me? You drew my tattoo for me?”

“Yunho, what the fuck, man?”

“Don’t blame him, he didn’t know i was coming. And i stole his address from mingi, at least he was of some use,”

“Woah,” the older man is clearly surprised but then cuts the call after telling you both to not lose this chance and that he will talk to yunho tomorrow.

“So,” yunho says, you’re both in the kitchen, your white bag placed on the counter. “What is this?”

“We never got to have those pancakes,”

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generouskittentidalwave · 4 days

Text

Watching the She-ra reboot after 5-6 years

Hey remember that show in 2018 that came out on Netflix during Tumblr's Twitter era and stirred up enough toxicity to turn you into Dave the Skeleton in the highschool science classroom?

Well BUCKLE IN for a RIDE cause I recently watched that show for the first time after avoiding it for YEARS, after seeing the fans and the haters be so devoted to either the fans praising it like a godsent deity or haters devoting their whole life to finding something wrong with every aspect of the show that it makes you wonder if they realized that they've become the Catra that they sought to destroy, I decided to avoid even touching the show and went about my life in other fandoms.

Well years have passed and like a Hallmark movie time abruptly went on and the drama soon faded, the tides have settled, the war has ended, and neither side remains the same. The fans have grown up, matured and enjoy the show as it is and the haters have lost all that sweet sustenance back in 2019 and have went the ways of the DoDo. With everything finally settled, I joined in on the rush of new fans recently that started rewatching the series and wanted to display my thoughts as well as a first time watcher ^^

I went in well aware of all the criticisms in mind, and having seen the original She-ra, and I just gotta say that my worrisome thoughts on watching it was completely washed away from the start of the show. I was worried of Adora being that one marysue character that is from the bad guys side but is actually a good a guy with the personality of white bread and with flaws of just being "a little bit QuiRkY" but she completely shooed away those fears. She is a well balanced character with a unique and well done backstory, her character breaking away from the steriotypical chosen ones and her having flaws that don't take away her being a good person but instead have their own charm and relatability that makes her very fun and down to earth. She is so golden retriever coded and I love it. What I like most though is that she wasn't "random main character comes in to lead everyone to victory out of nowhere" , instead of making her the unsaid leader, they made her the main character who is the muscle of the group and part of the heart and has to learn overtime and understand their ways instead of making her the leader. It makes way for her to pave and earn her way as being the main character instead of it being given by default by making her the leader and I love that break away. And that break away also helps to counter the fears I heard about the white savior trope by making Adora the way she was and making Glimmer and Glimmer's mom the queen the actual leaders of the rebellion that they helped start.

Love the best friends squad, I love Glimmer's growth and her bond with Adora, I like how she went downhill and built herself back up again as a person as it was very realistic with her being so young and having to replace her mom as queen. Bow is my spirit animal, period, but I really want to know more about his huge family. I imagine that because they are all historians they must go to the academy or similar academies that Bow was meant to go to and I can see why they wouldn't question him not being there as 12 siblings is A LOT to keep track of. Swiftwind is great but he shall always be known as Horsie and the queen's sacrifice hurts everytime I see it, I love how she owned up to her own flaws. Shadowweaver messed up being a mother figure 3 times, she needs parenting classes fr, 'nough said. I love all the princesses but Mermista is my personal favorite. Also why is aunt cast named Castaspella, I can't even say it without dying of laughter 💀🖐️

Now I know some of you are sitting at your computer with 5 monsters in hand and sweat anxiously dripping from your forehead as you dramatically hover over the keys just WAITING to write a five page essay response if I even dare to utter the name Catra and her relationship with Adora. So, I'ma give you my opinion.

Honestly, their romance was the end goal since the beginning and the story made that clear and honestly I like Catra's growth as a character from her knowing she has anger issues and actively working on it to better herself, helping to save others and helping to save Adora in the end. Her realizing that pushing others away to protect herself only harms her and everyone around her in the end and her realistically taking it slow and steady to better herself as a person for herself and for Adora is something a really like. Yes their relationship was hella toxic, especially in the middle (but I do like how Adora recognized that and punched Catra when they were in the portal). The build up was great, the middle ground of her doubling down was great, and I think her growth at the end was great and that the two are happy and not in a toxic relationship with eachother anymore at the end. I think what truly makes it odd is although the redemption was great the time constraints made it so they couldn't flesh it out to help answer and address the past actions that were caused by her, they did so great with her slowly becoming better and better, and so it wouldn't have come off as bad as it did if they had just a bit more time to address everything with that instead of being forced to dive right into it which definitely left a- well- less than good impression to it's audience. But they tried their best with what they could do and honestly for a show as surprisingly dark as this I'm just glad they aren't in a toxic relationship anymore and are happy in the end and that Catra got redeemed. It definitely wasn't trying to romanize abuse, however it came off as such due to constraints and them rushing the ending which gave plenty of ammo to people who already hated the show to have a reason to hate it more. In my opinion if you don't like it that's valid, if you do like it that's valid, me personally I'm not a romance person so I couldn't care enough either way.

Now to address some things I know some people are waiting for, but in speed run fashion. Mara's She-ra design was the fault of the designers not agreeing on what they wanted her to look like, I was expecting her to have brown flowing hair not blonde, I get the stripping of individuality message they tried to go with, it just needed better designers and better execution but that's as deep as it goes. It's not that they are racist, they are more along the lines of "you need a more organized team cause her design changes every five seconds like wtf" kind of situation. I'm glad they didn't automatically forgive Hordak or accept him but I'm glad he was changed enough to not be a killer that's mass murdering people anymore and as long no one is dying by his hands anymore and people don't automatically forgive him then that's fine by me, whatever keeps others from dying a horrible unnecessary death.

Overall, in conclusion, love the show, great depth, great characters, love the humor and amazing magical girl transformations, awesome rep, stronk princess punching things, would most definitely recommend, especially now with all the wave of chaos it's initial release sucked in now evaporated. (Seriously there are full tags and blogs deticated to hating a show about glowing princesses fighting aliens, it's okay to not like a show but come on people there is more to life than that 💀) Enjoy it, have fun, and I hope you have a great day/night! ^^

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a-humble-bagel · 1 year

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i could be wrong, but i’m pretty sure that “Wednesday” is the first form of The Addams Family that isn’t satire (I haven’t seen the 2019 and 2021 movies and idk if I ever will).

This just leads to some interesting new perspectives because now a lot of people are trying to rationalize/moralize some of Wednesday’s actions which is interesting because no one’s ever had to do that before.

I think the lack of satire also makes some of the Addams’ actions in the show a little confusing, like how they seem to love all things dark and murderous but then when Gomez gets accused of murder they act as though it’s a terrible thing (I know this can be rationalized by saying that they were scared of the consequences he’d face, but honestly it would’ve been nice if it didn’t have to be rationalized in the first place).

The thing with satire is that their actions never had to be rationalized because it was funny. Sure, it was dark humour, but you could tell that it was a joke. It was obvious that the point of those dark jokes was to entertain, and those weren’t the morals the story was preaching. Take this scene in “The Addams Family Values” for example where Wednesday sets Amanda on fire:

It’s obvious that the movie isn’t telling you “set the people who bully you on fire”, because it’s obviously satire. To find the actual message, you have to look deeper into the dark campiness to find the heart of what the story is about. Satires are exaggerations of real life problems, and The Addams Family looks at the flaws within the “ideal American family”. This scene is telling the audience to stand up to bullies, that adults can be blind and part of the problem, not to bully outcasts/people who seem weird, that history is often sanitized, and that colonialism is bad. It’s also a badass moment that feels great because Wednesday and the other “weird” kids are finally getting revenge on a bunch of rude and horrible people.

Now compare that to the scene in “Wednesday” where Wednesday tortures Tyler. True, the scenes take place in very different contexts. Tyler is someone who has physically hurt people, including Wednesday’s friend, so it’s more personal. In this scene, it isn’t just justice she’s after, it’s cold-hearted vengeance (that may be mixed with some feelings of being hurt).. With Amanda, it’s more lighthearted as Amanda never killed anyone. Nevertheless, in both scenes, Wednesday gets violent revenge on someone who’s wronged her, but the message in the TV show is that torture is bad. The Nightshades turn their backs on Wednesday, and she faces consequences for her actions. And that brings me to my next point: consequences.

In “Wednesday”, The Addams family has to face actual legal consequences. In the 90s movies, they only had to face social consequences. Even though they did all those horrifying terrible things, the only repercussions they got were disdain and annoyance from the other characters, which isn’t much of a repercussion. Even in “The Addams Family” when Tully throws them out of their house, the police are never involved, and the thought of the Addams’ going to jail doesn’t even cross the audience’s mind. This is partly what allows them to wholeheartedly engage in macabre and murderous things: the narrative doesn’t punish them for it, and they never face serious consequences.

After all, if the Addams’ in the 90s movies faced serious consequences, the narrative wouldn’t go anywhere. If the storyline allowed the Addams’ to be arrested, then the judge at the start likely would’ve called the police when Gomez kept hitting golf balls through his window. Gomez would’ve been arrested, and the story couldn’t progress. As a satire, the 90s movies require there to be a lack of police in order to convey the messages of the films. That way, the Addams’ can do all of their usual spooky and dangerous things, which convey the deeper lessons of the story. However, “Wednesday” took away the satire and added in the police.

From the start, the Addams’ are treated as not “ordinary” people, but they no longer exist outside of the law. This is shown in the very first episode, when Wednesday puts the piranhas in the pool. Morticia later mentions that “the boy’s father wanted to press attempted murder charges”. That is a huge difference from the 90s movies. If this was a scene in one of the 90s movies, Wednesday likely would’ve still been expelled, but it would’ve been something she was smugly satisfied about, and there would be no the threat of legal actions.

In other words, the previous versions of The Addams Family were all treated as satire characters, which allowed them to get away with things that they wouldn’t be able to do in the real world (playing with death/dangerous activities/torture) without the narrative punishing them for it, and without them facing real consequences. Satires require exaggeration, so extremes had to be allowed. However, “Wednesday” treated The Addams’ as regular characters, and had them face consequences like being arrested and jail. This makes it feel like they’re all bark and no bite: it seems like they talk about death and violence but deep down, they abhor it.

This is what made Gomez’s arrest seem somewhat contradictory. The Addams talk so much about how they love death, so why did Wednesday and Morticia have to go to such lengths to prove that he didn’t kill anyone? And Wednesday’s comment at the end of the episode about how she knows Gomez couldn’t really kill anyone just reinforces the idea that the Addams’ are all bark and no bite.

Besides, whether or not the Addams’ themselves actually disapproved of Gomez murdering someone, the narrative disapproved of it. The story punishes Gomez for potentially being a murderer, just like it punishes Wednesday for torturing Tyler. Since the Addams’ aren’t satire characters in this interpretation, it can’t allow them to go to the same extremes as satire characters, it has to punish them, otherwise it would convey the message “torture and murder are good”.

This isn’t a criticization of how the show interpreted the Addams’, it’s just a neat thing I started thinking about and then decided to write out.

tldr: The Addams’ aren’t satire in “Wednesday”, so while they still have the same values/talk the same way as their 90s movie counterparts, the narrative has to have them face serious consequences so it doesn’t convey the wrong message.

#wednesday netflix #the addams family #the addams family values #wednesday addams #wenclair #wednesday x enid #gomez addams #morticia addams #tyler galpin #sheriff galpin

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producedbyhan · 7 months

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"Want so BAD" - Lee Know, HAN (A messy essay)

I'll start off by saying I'm hesitant to post this. I don't really condone RPF and/or shipping of real people in most cases. However, I will be discussing why I believe there is some chance that Minho and Jisung are trying to tell us something with this song, and the possibility that "I love their friendship" reactions to the song are not necessarily what they wanted.

First off, some background for those that don't know. LGBT+ Koreans in the entertainment industry (especially idols) cannot come out, unless they want to risk losing their career. There are only a handful of people who have come out, and they have been either removed from their company, fired, or blacklisted by the media (i.e, they cannot appear on TV, radio, etc). There was one instance of a boy group which had 2 members being open about the fact that they were dating for several years, yet when one of the members had to re-debut in a different group, his company insisted they were “just close colleagues.” There is another instance of a soloist who had to fund their own debut through part-time jobs, as no labels would sign them due to being open about their sexuality.

Discrimination is also a serious issue - in the Anti-discrimination Act (2007) by The National Human Rights Commission of South Korea, the section prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation was withdrawn, and there are no federal laws against LGBT discrimination. In March 2015, the Ministry of Education banned the teaching of homosexuality or any other non-straight sexual orientation in sex education classes. Pride parades in Seoul are minimal and irregular, and face threats and violence from several different protest groups. On the 2019 Franklin & Marshall Global Barometer of Gay Rights, developed nations averaged a grade of B. South Korea, however, was one of only three countries to earn an "F," [1] and countries that receive an F are "persecuting" their LGBTQ+ communities. Men also have to face the additional issue when it comes to forced enlistment, where same-sex sexual activity in the military is illegal, sexual minorities can be marked as having a “mental handicap” or “personality disorder,” and hazing is widespread.

Now, onto the song - released on October 14th, aka. national "I love you" day. Not everything I mention will have a reference link, but I'll try to include an example here and there.

I'm not going to chart their entire history because we would be here all day, but some of the things they've shared are: Jisung's story about how they first met [2], and how they've always bonded over being movie partners [3] and their shared fear of heights (and amusement park "dates"). While they've always been close (can-kiss-each-other-on-the-neck-and-flirt-constantly-like-a-couple-close) the teasing from the other members has really ramped over 2023, with nearly every other member telling them to marry. They themselves have also been calling each other their s/o several times while on tour [4] and in a rachalog. Jisung also did a freestyle rap about love on tour that included "Should we go to the Han River today?" something Minho asks him to get him out of the dorm. In some parts of this song they sound like they're directly singing to each other, for example "For me, it's always you" being echoed back to the other.

Jisung said he was looking up flower language. The official birth month flower for October (When Minho's birthday falls) is the cosmos flower. [5]

Call and response from Han to something Minho said in their 2022 Two Kids Room.

Parallels to Jisung's song "Volcano", released just before Valentine's Day earlier this year.

I'll embrace the wounds you shed To me, you're already a sin I can't refuse because you're sweeter than evil

I can't live without you you're the only one, even if I die Even if I'm reborn over and over again, it's only you I want to give only to you my heart is burning When I'm thinking of you, my mind is Like a volcano

If it wasn't about each other, I have to wonder why they would make the cover art a collage of them together (none of these being pics we've seen before), some at the Han River, with the song lyrics decorating them. Other SKZ-RECORDS, be it solo or duets have a photo/image taken specifically for them... Even the title of the song itself reminds me of the beginning of the year when Minho commented "I want?? someone like you" on Jisung's IG post.

And finally, Minho and Jisung had both been quiet about this song both before, and after it dropped (something that never happens with SKZ-RECORDS - Jisung in particular is very talkative about them and usually spoils it in advance, does a Q&A, or goes live) until he broke the silence with this and everything it might imply.

To conclude. I think there's some chance that putting out this song to the public is the closest they can get to confirming there's something between them without irreparably hurting their future. While it's technically possible that this could all be a series of coincidences, I do feel that they knew exactly how this could be perceived by longterm/serious fans - if you know you know.

#minsung #han #lee know #stray kids #skz #want so bad #minho #jisung #was also going to mention how jisung to date has never put anything gendered in his writing and case 143's well. existence.#but I think we all know that anyway #this post is a bit disorganised might adjust it later

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cor-ardens-archive · 8 months

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Hi! I have recently taken an interest in media depicting incestuos relationships between brothers and since it’s very hard to find any media with that theme (being a major one) compared to sister/brother incest for example, I wonder if you may know of any suggestions?

I used to keep and have since lost an ever-growing list of everything I read and watched that had incest as an important and/or overt theme. Which I would need because my memory is bad, but I'll try do my best here.

I can't think of many books -- the ones you probably already know: Querelle by Jean Genet, The Carnivorous Lamb by Augustín Gómez-Arcos, Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson (not a huge part of the plot but very important to the main character), Tell Me How Long The Train's Been Gone by James Baldwin (also not a huge part of the plot, but it's overt), Twins by Bari Wood, L'armee du Salut by Abdellah Taïa (kind of really touched me how open he talks about it). And it's been a while, but I distinctly remember some implications in A Song of Ice and Fire that Euron had sexually abused Aeron.

As you see, there really aren't many books that I know of. I think I had a few others in my original list that I hadn't gotten around to reading yet or that I might have forgotten. But there really isn't that much out there, as it's a much more taboo topic than brother/sister incest. I do think there's a number of published erotica, but nothing that's ever appealed to me (I do accept recs, however, if you think something is good).

Films (some only have strong subtext): Querelle, Dead Ringers, A Zed and Two Noughts (kinda?), A Intrusa dir. Carlos Hugo Christensen, From Beginning to End (bad), Saint-Narcisse, Salvation Army 2013, Brotherly 2008 (bad but sad). Have not seen: Brothers of the Head, Jay 2019, Godless 2015.

Also, anyone remember that one terrible short movie about the two brothers who fell in love and society just couldn't accept it and they cried so much about it? It was very bad, and starred an actor that's actually in a lot of TV I think. Also that one film about 2 brothers who are like pop stars? And they fall in love too. I don't know, it was also bad. I think one of them was named Max.

Music: THIS IS WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE WHEN MY BROTHER CALLS MEEEEE

Edit: forgot to include The Winter Prince by Elizabeth Wein

#and supernatural

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vioartemis · 1 year

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We all go a little mad sometimes

(Amber Freeman x fem! Carpenter! Loomis! reader)

Summary: Being Billy Loomis' daughter and having the opportunity to continue your father's legacy with your girlfriend is enough to make you happy, until you realize that means your sister will probably hate you a/n: There's no logic at some point don't question it please TvT and don't get me wrong, I really like Sam, but I had to be mean to her in this ;-; Request is here :)) Warnings: blood, injuries, death, slight angst (?) (English isn't my first language, I'm sorry if there are mistakes or if something doesn't make sense TvT)

•°¯`•• 3 years before Ghostface appears again (2019) ••´¯°•

Tonight was a date night at your girlfriend's house. She wanted to watch Stab again. Not that you didn't like the movie, but you wouldn't mind watching something else for once.

There was something that upset you for a week or so, and this movie only made things worse. You knew Amber was a huge fan of the Stab movies, and you couldn't help but think it had an influence on your relationship.

"Baby? Everything's okay?"

You looked up at your girlfriend.

"Yeah I was just... thinking"

You gave her a reassuring smile. You weren't sure she was all convinced, but she didn't investigate more and went back to watching the movie, playing with your hair softly.

You didn't say anything for an hour, before let it out without any warning.

"You're not dating me just because I'm Billy's daughter right?"

She seemed surprised by your question. You sat up, now facing her.

"What? Of course not! Why would you think that?"

"I don't know... it's just... you're so pretty and fun and smart and amazing and everyone likes you and you could pull every fucking person on earth but you're dating me... I don't understand how someone like you can be interested in someone like me"

She seemed even more shocked than before.

"Baby..." she took your hands "I don't care who your father is, I didn't even know when we started dating. I fell in love with a beautiful girl, the most beautiful girl I've ever met. You're so kind, generous, talented, and you don't even see it. But I do. I love you for who you are, and you're an amazing person"

With that, she placed a gentle kiss on your lips. You were relieved.

•°¯`•• 2022 ••´¯°•

This part of the plan was the one you hated the most, even though you didn't have to do much. Amber and Richie were taking care of everything, you just had to pretend you were with Amber all night long while she was attacking Tara. Your sister.

You loved Tara almost as much as you loved Amber. But you had to make Sam come back to Woodsboro in some way, and one of her sisters getting hurt was the best thing you came up with.

When Amber came back that night, the first thing you asked was if Tara was okay. Stupid question knowing your girlfriend stabbed her 6 times.

"She's alive, don't worry"

Killing her wasn't part of the plan, you made it very clear. You sighed in relief.

"And you? Are hurt?" you asked

"I'm fine, just got kicked in the head, nothing bad"

She smiled at you and wrapped her arms around your waist, pulling you closer to her.

"Everything's going to be okay baby, soon we'll leave Woodsboro and start a new life together..."

She kissed you lazily, her eyes fluttering shut as she fell asleep.

"Welcome to act 3"

This sentence marked the begging of the last part of your plan. After Amber shot Liv, you faked running away like the others, only to lock yourself in a broom closet and put on a Ghostface costume.

You had to bring Gale inside of the house while Amber and Richie took care of Sam and Sidney.

"Oh so there's two of you. Again."

You turn on your voice changer.

"Three actually. We had to bring something new to the franchise. This time you're not surviving the massacre Gale, the fans don't like heroes that always make it."

You grabbed her arm and pulled her up.

"Let's go. You wouldn't want to miss the big finale would you?"

"You know, that's usually when they take off their mask and show who they are while explaining their plan"

"Guess I'm different then"

You pushed her toward the house. Everyone should be in the kitchen by now.

As you entered the hall, you made eye contact with your girlfriend, giving her the signal.

"Speaking of surprises... We have one for you" she smirked at Sidney and Sam

You pushed Gale inside the room for Richie to grab her arm, before stepping in too, turning your voice changer off.

"There's three of you...? But Y/n and Tara are going to call the police and send you all to jail you sick fucks! If you think they're going let you get away with that you've gone mad! " Sam spat

"We all go a little mad sometimes" you said, taking the mask off, revealing yourself

The expression on your sister's face almost made you pity her. Almost.

"How did I do?" you asked your girlfriend, a smile on your face

"Nailed it baby"

She walked up to you and kissed you tenderly.

"Y/n...?"

You turned around to face your older sister.

"You didn't think you could disappear for 5 whole years and come back as if nothing happened, did you?"

"I already told you I left because-"

"Because you're Billy Loomis' daughter and you wanted to protect us. I remember that. But guess what? I'm his daughter too! You didn't go that far in mom's diaries huh?"

"You've become exactly what I wanted to protect you from..."

"Sam Sam Sam... This has nothing to do with our dad. All of this is because of you. Because you left us alone with mom. She spent her time drinking to the point she passed out on the couch - when she was at home, which didn't happen that often. You left us alone. Do you have any idea how broken Tara was after you left? How broken I was? You were our model!"

You started to tear up. You had that on your heart for so many years, it felt good to let go.

Your girlfriend rubbed your arm, a worried expression on her face.

"You okay baby...?"

"Yeah, I'm... fine"

Richie and Amber explained their motive to the girls, before he sent her find Tara.

"She's not here!"

"What do you mean she's not here? She's can't have gone far!"

"I can't find her!"

Suddenly, you heard her scream. You got up immediately.

"You handle handle them?"

He gave you a "who do you think I am?" look. You didn't waste more time and ran to where you thought Amber was.

You found her on the floor, Tara on top of her, hitting her with her crutch. You grabbed her by the waist and pinned her to the floor, gently.

"Y/n...? You-"

Her eyes widen at the sight of the black robe you were wearing. She started to struggle against you.

"Tara- stop- please-"

You tried to keep her still. But to do so, you had you push on her abdomen. She hissed in pain. You didn't like hurting her. You felt really bad, and she should've see it in your eyes, because she stopped moving.

Amber went back into the kitchen, and you could hear her scream again. You gave a hesitant look to your sister, not sure she wouldn't move if you let go of her.

"Please don't do anything stupid... I don't want you to get hurt..."

You got up quickly and ran to the kitchen, where Gale and Sidney were fighting Amber. You stabbed Gale before she could see you and pushed her away from Amber. Her head hit the counter, and she fell on the floor.

You didn't have time to check if she was dead or not, due to your head being hit by a pan, hard. You fell on the floor and passed out almost immediately.

When you woke up, you found yourself in the back sit of Amber's car. You were alive, with a big headache, and next to you...

"Tara...?"

Her eyes were red. She cried.

"Baby? How do you feel?"

You turned to Amber, driving.

"Yeah... and you?"

"Couldn't be better! We made it baby!"

She had a wild smile on her face.

"And you...?" you asked your sister

"I lost a sister... and my friends..." she had tears in her eyes

You took her hand in yours.

"I'm... sorry... you think you can forgive me...?"

"... You're all I have left... and I love you... but... that might be hard..."

You were praying she would forgive you one day, and were decided do to all you could to make sure she would be happy in your new life.

#scream #scream 5 #amber freeman #amber freeman x reader #amber freeman x fem reader

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valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn · 4 months

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I was already scared about the next Captain America movie, but now realizing that Sam hasn't even been mentioned in like 4 years when HE IS CAPTAIN AMERICA,, now I'm terrified. I don't want them to destroy another of my favorite characters, we suffered enough with Loki Wanda and Stephen's bastardization. Sam is such a good man and deserves so much more

also kinda out of topic, did they seriously made Carter say that shit about little girls in Russia?? When Natasha exists???? It's way too specific, like a jab at Natasha for ??? some fucking reason I guess

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but unfortunately, yes, they said this in the episode:

Why? No fucking reason, that's why.

She has no story and no arc of her own, so the writers need to claim everybody loves her and admires her in order to convince the audience to fall for her. You know, like Sylvie in the Loki series. These writers don't care about these women, they do the bare minimum and then count on the fans to shout "misogyny!" at those of us who complain about their terrible work with them.

It's a vicious cycle but some fans think kissing the ass of every female character = feminism, when in truth what they're doing is kissing the ass of the same writers who can't be arsed to write those women well. They're not kissing the ass of a fictional woman who doesn't exist, they're looking at those writers and telling them "you don't care about female characters and we love you for it" and calling that feminism. It's bonkers.

Other female characters in Marvel deserve this much attention if not more. Why not give it to them? Hell, I'm pretty sure we would all love to see Layla again, for instance. What about Sharon? Or Maria Hill. I wouldn't mind a What If with Carol or Valkyrie or more Wanda...

I'm definitely worried about Sam too, especially when it's Spellman (same guy as TFATWS) the one writing him. He was never given too much focus but at least the movies gave us enough that we could see he's a good man. The problem is I don't know if we're going to get something akin to TWS (so, the focus on Sam and some supporting characters showing up occasionally) or another CW (a team-up movie where the title character is sidelined.).

Sam was given the shield in 2019. It's 2024 already. And no cameos, no mention of him, nothing. When Steve was part of the franchise non-stop for a decade.

#anti peggy carter

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clairehadenough · 6 months

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A conversation between a certain blogs and TMZ.

TB: You know Alba said antisemitism things on set of WN her co-star said so.

TMZ - that’s good. Whats the co-stars name?

TB:no idea

TMZ: right so how do you know? Is there evidence, a copy of a conversation, text, tweet, video?

TB: No it’s rumors

TMZ: so hearsay

TB: I guess but she’s a N**I and her grandparents fled to Brazil right after the war

TMZ: And the evidence? Has it been researched and confirmed?

TB: well no but she body shames people

TMZ: Good where is the evidence of that

TB: Her friend Justin’s IG and Tweets from 8yrs ago. And another trans gender friend KiKo made N**i comments from years ago. And Alba likes weird posts.

TMZ: yes disgusting comments from KiKo I agree. Did Alba know her then?

TB: No but they are friends now.

TMZ: Do you have any evidence of anything she has done directly?

TB: Yes these IG posts of cultural misappropriation and her soft porn movies. Also she made a white supremacy sign.

TMZ: You mean the international sign language signal for Ok each thousands use everyday. Which ordinarily people use as well so that can be argued that what she was using.

So we have some cultural misappropriation and soft porn films which she hasn’t done since 2019. That’s a start.

Anything else?

TB; She deleted stuff off her IG the bad things.

TMZ: Do you screenshots of them?

TB: Well no

TMZ: So how do you know they were bad or incriminating?

TB: 🤷🏻‍♀️

TMZ: Anything else

TB: Yes a fake marriage.

TMZ: But Chris confirmed he was married?

TB: But you haven’t produced the certificate and there are no wedding photos and Chris is been drugged to comply and wear a fake wedding ring. It’s all a coincidence that a wedding planner, photographer, his friends, RDJ, Renner,Scarlet,Hemsworth were in MA that weekend. Also that his family and friends and hers were in PT along with the wedding planner and photographer.

TMZ: Renner and Hemsworth told fans they were there for Chris’s wedding.

TB: They were lying. And DHS are looking into their fake marriage and her immigration status.

TMZ: Has she actually said anything.

TB: No but she a yacht girl and slept with her director, producer, anyone to get a part. And she’s into sugar daddies. Her friends followed a sugar daddy account.

TMZ: Again hearsay barring the sugar daddy account follow.

TB: Her FB is followed by dirty creepy man and she posts sexy pics on it for them to like.

TMZ: Proof it’s hers? Do her family and friends follow her.

TB: No and no. But we have sources like people who live in Concord, in LA, talk round the water cooler and a BUA is coming JJ is sitting on it waiting to release it.

It’s all CAA and Megan’s fault. They are drugging Chris and he has clout chaser friends and everyone he and she know breadcrumb the fandom and he sends out messages in his interviews.

TMZ: Ah weren’t some blogs involved in scammer money out of Chris’s fans.

TB: Yes but that was Candy’s fault

TMZ: 👌 don’t call us we’ll call you🤦🏻‍♀️

🫠

The thing is that’s exactly how I think it would go if they ever called them😂😂

#Delulus #tmz #chris evans #alba baptista #delulu

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waitmyturtles · 10 months

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Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: 3 Will Be Free and the Power of Jojo Edition

[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. Today, I’ll cover 3 Will Be Free, a show that is actually NOT a BL, but BL-adjacent by way of its inclusionary queer content, as written and directed by GMMTV’s Jojo Tichakorn.]

Like I mentioned last week, this review of 3 Will Be Free is slightly out of chronological order with my thoughts on Dew the Movie. But no worries! I needed some time to gather my thoughts on 3 Will Be Free for so many GOOD reasons.

This is the only Jojo Tichakorn show on the OGMMTVC list, as almost all of the rest of the list (except for Dew, Love Sick, and the Kiss Me Again and Puppy Honey cuts) are BLs or BL-adjacent. But I was super happy to get Jojo on the list, because 3 Will Be Free, as so many of you know, was a groundbreaking experiment in decidedly queer content airing on GMMTV.

The dear friends @lurkingshan and @wen-kexing-apologist were my buddies during my 3WBF watch, and the guiding rule that I realized in watching this show was: this show wasn’t CENTERED on queerness, as so many BLs are. This show was INCLUSIONARY of queerness, in an INCREDIBLY real way. Like, in a way that reflects my own life, among my queer friends and chosen family, in my very liberal part of America.

Really quickly, before I dive into the show, I want to take a moment to actually compare this perspective to what I saw in Dew the Movie, which I’m still taken and shaken by. What a different experience of a presentation of queer-focused content. @absolutebl Sensei, in a question I posed to them before watching Dew, remarked that Dew fell into one of a number of categories of a kind of queer content that would be allowed to be produced as a movie -- that queer content in a movie, arguably, NEEDS to have a tragic ending, say, or punch-down humor.

One of the lenses in which I’ve been watching shows on the OGMMTVC watchlist has been to keep an eye out for BL tropes -- their births, their presence, their development. We’re still in 2019 with 3WBF, but we know that come 2021, when Bad Buddy comes out, that P’Aof Noppharnach will produce a show with a BL infrastructure, while turning many common BL tropes around on their heads (I’m always referring to @miscellar’s FABULOUS post on this). But, still, by and large, many BLs produced during that time have core elements of BL infrastructure -- I refer often to Love By Chance as being the first referential BL on my list that really concentrates these tropes holistically into an almost-entirely successful show.

So when I say that 3WBF was REFRESHING to watch, as a crime drama that INCLUDED queerness as a fabric of the life that the show was depicting -- I see how Jojo, in this instance, could not be bothered by BL tropes or a necessary checklist of any kind related to queer media, and instead created a different fabric of a fictional life that hewed far more to reality (except for all the mafia stuff, but whatever). While the plot of 3WBF was wild and slightly wacky, the layers of ACCEPTANCE and ACKNOWLEDGEMENT about how queerness is ACTUALLY PRESENT in almost all aspects of our daily lives was just -- it was INCREDIBLY refreshing to watch. And for a cipher like Jojo to present that to us, unabashed, that we as a global population HAVE queerness around us, in the beautiful people we know and love in our lives -- fuck yeah. This show did not shy away from that.

As always, there were a number of themes that I think the show held that I’ll try to get to:

1) How our societies can’t deal with complicated people, 2) How society doesn’t always accept behavioral change, and 3) How chosen family can change our lives for the better.

Besides the inclusionary-not-centering perspective of queerness in the show, I loved that Jojo actually centered very complicated people as his main characters in Shin, Neo, Miw, and Mae (Ter was a bit more linear, on the edge of getting complicated, but his tragic end still struck hard).

Getting ahead of myself to point #2 -- as I wrote in my review of Theory of Love, society and the general population doesn’t always take kindly to big behavioral change among individuals. We like labels, we like judging people. We like keeping people in boxes to control them. I think about the ways in which, for example, families often can’t accept that children are growing up and becoming adults, changing into different people and personas. If you know someone very well, you want to box them in -- oftentimes for the purpose of trying to control their behavior.

I posit that society also doesn’t accept complicated, multifaceted people for the same reason. Neo is an out, bisexual man, a prostitute, and an alleged criminal. Miw is a hostess, a sometime-prostitute, and also an alleged criminal. Mae is in the midst of her gender transition journey. Society has its claws out for people like that, ready to judge Neo and Miw and Mae for existing on the borderline of acceptability of culture. (And as I very often write about, most recently for Dew -- having these individual characteristics will very often go against the grain of Asian collectivist societies.)

What I really appreciated about the structure of 3WBF is that Jojo initially created a world, vis à vis Thana, in which individualism could NOT exist. Thana needed TOTAL loyalty and complicity for him and his business to function on a minute-to-minute basis. Any aberration to that might cost him his life or the life of his son, Shin. Thana had his wife killed. He killed others at the drop of a pin. In the end, he was on the edge of killing his own son, and the people who provided unconditional love in his son’s life.

We know that Jojo VERY often includes this kind of macro-commentary in his works, most recently in Dirty Laundry -- the macro commentary about the often-problematic forces that control society above the heads of those trying to survive, including politicians, police, and leaders in criminal activity, all categories of power that more often than not are speaking to each other.

Thana was taken down by the people on the outskirts of society, of “normal” life. His son, Shin, was the bridge between those two worlds.

I think Neo was probably centered at the start of the show to be the main character, but to me, Shin (acted INSANELY OUTSTANDINGLY by Tay Tawan, MY GOD, TAY! WHAT A TOUR DE FORCE) was the ultimate center of this show. For me, the show held Shin’s process of growth so beautifully, it gives me the shivers.

Shin was one smart motherfucker, despite seeming melancholy and indecisive on his surface. In fact -- he held all of that as a character. He was INCREDIBLY complicated and multifaceted.

He had the opportunity and the resources to make huge changes in his life, including money. He loved Neo -- and he loved Miw, and was maybe confused by that, but ultimately accepted it. He leveraged his strengths and opportunities to change to save his friends. He hated his father, but didn’t want his father dead. He wanted to pursue art, but landed in mafia work.

He, more than ANYONE, toed, stepped, and played on the line of the complicated gray area of existence in order to survive -- to survive NOT JUST FOR HIMSELF, but his chosen family around him. He stepped into that gray area to find love. He found the courage to ASK and get clarity around love from the people he loved in Neo and Miw.

And -- to me, MOST BRILLIANTLY: he actually took his dad’s advice. He never played the victim. He was so often close to being one -- especially in the forest -- but there was clearly a steely side of him that helped him keep his spine straight, and helped him to survive, vis à vis himself and the friends that ultimately became his family.

And this is where this show ultimately really guts me. Shin chose his chosen family over his blood family -- the blood family in his father that held Shin back from the kind of change that would help Shin ultimately survive in the world. Shin represented a transcendence, a breaking-free from the powers that hold our societies back from progressive change, a very CLEAR message from Jojo that individual change CAN BE good for all of us at a macro level. Acceptance will not derail society. Acceptance will ENHANCE society.

Shin gained that strength through his chosen family. Chosen family allows us to transcend who we once were, to be who we really are. Chosen family allows us as individuals TO change, while our blood family so very often needs us to NOT change, so that they can continue to behaviorally control us.

That’s why Neo and Miw are so important to Shin. That’s why Phon and Ter are so important to Mae. That’s why seeing Ter’s transformation vis à vis Mae was so important. (God, between Wad in SOTUS and Mae in 3WBF, Gunsmile has not caught a break in these GMMTV shows!)

Shin keeping Neo and Miw in his life meant that while he had to stay in his life of the family business, that his chosen family would allow him to BE HIMSELF ... while Shin’s own father demanded the erasure of all of the qualities that made Shin, Shin.

These are huge messages. These very well may be messages that a BL infrastructure couldn’t necessarily hold -- again, because a BL centers queerness and romance. 3WBF, leveraging queerness as inclusionary, allowed for a crime story to hold SO many of these pieces and commentaries, bringing them together as an uplifting and holistic story that those who are down and out are only there because others put them there. Those who are excluded from mainstream society are so very often the ones that push us forward into better progressive change.

Jojo didn’t fuck around with this -- and, DAMN, neither did Tay Tawan. WOW. I mean, all of them -- Joss, Mild, Jennie, Gunsmile. Total A-game performances. But Tay blew me away. You’d think that that hot-ass dude would only play jock roles, and I totally had him as Pete from Dark Blue Kiss in my head the first couple of episodes. But, HELL no. Tay totally rose to the occasion. What a performance. (Let me PLEASE pray that he can rise to the occasion again in Cherry Magic. Don’t let my darling Kurosawa down, Tay!)

I am SO glad that @wen-kexing-apologist and @lurkingshan convinced me to put 3WBF on the OGMMTVC list (THANK YOU FRIENDS, MY GAWD!). As BL-adjacent -- the show spoke to an inclusionary queer perspective that I am HELLA impressed that GMMTV embraced. I know I’m up for a stumble with 2gether as my next actual GMMTV offering on the list. But I think 3WBF certainly allowed for the door to crack open on GMMTV’s ultimate apology tour starting in the 2020s, after 2gether airs.

[HELL YEAH. 3 Will Be Free was so excellent. And I am having a SURPRISINGLY great time getting through Until We Meet Again. I’m really not a fan of long series runs, but I’m giving UWMA a long leash, because, well, Fluke, Ohm (the other Ohm, now I have TWO Ohms, so many Ohms), Kao, and SOOOO much Thai food. And Earth Cooheart is a TOTAL wonder. Oh my god, I love him way more in UWMA than his role in LBC.

I might be a touch delayed in finishing UWMA because of the Independence Day holiday here in the States, but -- hopefully not, and I hope to have my UWMA review up next week. Cross ya fingas for me. Here’s the status of the list. I’m getting mentally prepared for 2gether, oh boy. As ever, if you have any feedback, I’ll take it!

1) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 2) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 3) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 4) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 5) Together With Me (2017) (review here) 6) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 7) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 8) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 9) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 10) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 11) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here) 12) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (I’m watching this out of order just to get familiar with OffGun before Theory of Love -- will likely not review) 13) Theory of Love (2019) (review here) 14) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (not a BL or an official part of the OGMMTVC watchlist, but an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content in non-BLs) 15) Dew the Movie (2019) (review here) 16) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (watching) 17) 2gether (2020) 18) Still 2gether (2020) 19) I Told Sunset About You (2020) 20) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) 21) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (not a true BL, but a MaxTul queer/gay romance set within a genre-based show that likely influenced Not Me and KinnPorsche) 22) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 23) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS 24) Lovely Writer (2021) 25) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) 26) I Promised You the Moon (2021) 27) Not Me (2021-2022) 28) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 29) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch 30) Secret Crush On You (2022) [watching for Cheewin’s trajectory of studying queer joy from Make It Right (high school), to SCOY (college), to Bed Friend (working adults)] 31) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here) 32) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist 33) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 34) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL) 35) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 36) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 37) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) (Cheewin’s latest show, depicting a queer joy journey among working adults)]

#3 will be free #3wbf #3 will be free meta #tay tawan #joss wayar #mild lapassalan #neo x miw x shin #jojo tichakorn #turtles catches up with old gmmtv #turtles catches up with thai BLs #turtles catches up with the essential BLs #the old gmmtv challenge #ogmmtvc

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