going through songs on the disney wiki for my sing-along panels and uh

theres a cut song for prince charming in cinderella called ‘the face that i see in the night’

oh. oh no.

oh NO

looking at that "regeneration" pic and there's the cyber TLs in the background it looks like someone is harnessing the regen energy/forcing a regen.... Are we just having the timeless child 2.0 where the master or Daleks or someone is experimenting on her for his army ? /:

excuse me for a moment while i go on a little rant about my limbus theory under a cut (and untagged because fandom scares me) bc i went on this rant earlier to a friend i want to post it

So one of the biggest complaints I've seen people have with the Dante-is-Ayin theory is that it's "bad writing to repeat the twist from the first game" and objectively, yes, but that's not what they're doing at ALL and I've said it before and I'll say it until I'm blue in the face. It's actually giving Ayin a chance to be a character with agency, and give him closure/a real ending.

Like. Okay. In Lobcorp. he has NO actual dialogue beyond player choices sometimes - which we know doesn't count thanks to games like Persona who have similar arguments about their PCs - and we never see his face until the very last Day of the game....and it's not even really 'him' it's basically his shadow talking to him! And even the flashbacks are almost certainly narrated by that shadow rather than the X/A we're playing as. Not to mention the amnesia for the first half of the game; and even after he remembers they call him A rather than X -- and we don't even get his full name until the very last lines of the game.

And let's be real here, I think it's very telling of his lack of agency that the last lines are "Your name is Ayin. Now close your eyes and fade away."

As he disappears into the Light he just spent the entire game generating.

Left on its own, and especially with the entirety of Ruina giving Angela closure and a place to overcome her trauma and issues, it's grievously unfair.

When half the plot of the game is Ayin helping save and guide the people in hell with him into closure and moving forward-- what does he get? Someone else telling him to fade away his role is over bye.

He doesn't get to get that closure and forgiveness and chance to move on that Angela does! He spends the whole game acting on someone else's last wish, someone else's dream, trying to save the people he'd condemned to hell and make up for his actions, and then he doesn't get to be saved with them.

He has no voice, no face, barely a name. No agency -- everything he does in Lobcorp is because of Carmen's wishes. Everything we hear about him is from the perspective of other people, and incredibly biased; even the flashbacks aren't from the POV of the X/A we're playing as but the 'shadow' (mirror self? haha looks at yi sang) from Day 50.

And more than that -- we don't know Ayin outside of Carmen. We don't know anything about his life before he met her. We don't know who he is, what he likes, what he wanted, what he studied, what he did before her. Everything Ayin has been in this series so far is from the lens of someone else. (So any theory tying him to Demian - even if Demian isn't related to Enoch, which is still possible - can still apply; because we don't know him outside Carmen, there could very well be a tie from before then.)

So Dante's faceless, voiceless nature, how they're just kind of forced into the situation they're in and how they're slowly gaining their own agency and deciding on their own will what kind of person they are and what they want to do, from their own perspective, as they seek to regain their voice and face and Self...

It's perfect.

It's not "bad writing" at all. It's like that quote from George Lucas: “Again, it’s like poetry, so that they rhyme. Every stanza kind of rhymes with the last one.” It's poetry.

A mirror of the first game, not a rehash of the same twist, a continuation of the story of the one character who never got his ending, who was never allowed to be a character, a person, who was never given his own choices on his own will, who was never given the opportunity for closure and moving on everyone else got. It's Ayin's chance for an ending, a real ending, one he's allowed to make with his own hands for himself. Face the sins and all that.

[Sits back with my 90+ page evidence document and sighs.]

ten films i love, tagged by @javert

Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack (1988) Utterly obvious to die girlies auf tumblr but don’t worry, it’s the only franchise gatekeepy one. God tier animation, OST that gives me heart palpitations, plot symbolically rich in a way that draws me back. Absurdly ambitious and largely pulls it off. Insane. Phantom of the Paradise (1974) I’m a sucker for leitmotifs being re-contextualized and this movie is exactly that. I think a lotta people are put off by musicals because they expect Glee shit, so a horror rock opera that plays w genres is a style that slaps. In fact, it’s style over substance to the point that while the character Beef was made with homophobic intent(?), he makes for killer camp. So influential it buried its own grave deeper, but when my drag career continues proper I WILL have it step out of RHPS’s shadow. Magnetic Rose (1995) This one’s arguably cheating, it’s a short film within a theatrical omnibus and the only one of the trio I rewatch, lol. Better experienced than described, but iirc it’s the first screenplay credit of Satoshi Kon and his style benefits the conceit greatly. The space physics are top tier too. Bound (1996) Genre fiction that fucks. Akira (1988) After watching this for the first time, I wore a rip of it on a USB necklace for like a good month, lol. If you’ve seen so many homages and #aesthetic gifs that its memetically weakened, the manga will be a better vehicle for experiencing the actual plot and themes. (Kaneda isn’t a cool protag! He’s not even in it for a full volume!) But I fortunately got to go into it w next to no preconceptions. Tampopo (1985) One of those art-house pics that’s fun to general audiences. I wouldn’t watch it with young kids or new friends tho given the prawn scene, lmao. The Terminal (2004) Not a masterpiece by anyone’s standards, but it was my fav for years as a child and I’ve been told “thats so you” or “that explains so much” lmao. I still do love seeing how peoples values and coping mechanisms materially shape their world, so, fair! As an adult, i think Tucci’s character holds up the best, his tone is comedically sound while being realistically mundane for an american authoritarian, lol. Funeral Parade of Roses (1969) A breath of fresh air in style and substance. It’s like a vaccine against MCU sludge. God I need to watch more new wave. The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) Again, former obsessions here, not necessarily top quality. The first vignette is the only one that sticks with me, but boy does it! Gold standard for any fanfiction or diagetic media criticism. Mikey and Nicky (1976) Ough. Love me a good tragedy. This one manages to hit so hard it even overcomes Peter Falk being styled (‘styled’) like Columbo—italian accent and all— while playing a jewish gangster lol.) You know that post about how the more serious and well made a story is, the more likely its fandom makes unhinged memes? That’s me every time I make a “full of milk” joke abt this movie or realize it’s fundamentally changed my experience of taking antacids.

Anyways please note that i’ve structured this list so that the first and last entries form a niche parallel. That is to say, a personal fav scene in both Mikey & Nicky and CCA is where the lead guys fistfight and tumble onto the ground in a blur of violence-as-latent-homoeroticism. (George lucas voice): it’s like poetry, it rhymes.

I'm too shy to tag others but mutuals I Am Pressuring U lovingly. U don’t have to write as much as i did tho lol.

crowley as the fallen archangel raphael (insp)

not only should john have become a demon he should have become a prince of hell and should have been the villain of season 15 <3 

“Parasite” Review: Class Warfare through Master Class Film-Making

Directed by Bong Joon-ho

Starring: Choi Woo-shik, Song Kang-ho, Park-So-dam, Cho Yeo-jeong, Chang Hyae-jin

 Given director Bong Joon-ho’s relative success over the last 10-plus years it’s pretty astounding it’s taken me this long to finally see one of his movies and well “Parasite” is a hell of a first impression.

Though I can’t speak on the quality of his dystopian sci-fi hit “Snowpiercer” or, more surprisingly as a monster movie fan, his giant tadpole thriller “The Host,” “Parasite” is a powerful look at class warfare and social and economic inequality that translates well beyond Korean society.

But more than it’s social messaging “Parasite” is a supremely well-directed film; a dark comedy with a distinct rhythm that will have you humming along all the way to its shocking finish.

“Parasite” tells the story of Kim Ki-woo and his poor family living in the slums. They make ends meet by assembling pizza boxes for a living and taking odd jobs when necessary. One day, chance arrives in the form of Ki-woo’s friend Min-hyuk who is tutoring a rich family’s daughter in English. Min-hyuk asks him to take his place while he studies abroad, forging papers to appear as an authentic English tutor. When Ki-woo begins to see how easy it is to fool the rich family into giving him a job he begins to scheming to have the rest of his family join him to milk the rich household as much as they can.

Watching “Parasite” may be akin to viewing a beautiful yet haunting painting. Each scene feels exquisitely framed and there’s a visual voyeurism to each scene that’s creepy, like that of a horror film. You almost wonder if the rich Park family house were going to have real ghosts at some point but instead the terror is much more contextual.

(Being wealthy is hard, man...)

Each scene has a distinct rhythm with well thought out setups and payoffs revolving around the Kim family’s planning and later on the chaos that ensues when it all goes to hell. The film keeps the viewer hooked to its brisk pace from start to finish with effective editing, cinematography, and a dark sense of humor.

The movie will have you laughing about as often as it’ll have you gasping by its end and though its story is self-contained in its setting it nonetheless it executes it all with big ideas and wit that will keep you glued throughout its two-hour runtime.

(I’ll let smarter writers than myself break this down more in depth. WARNING SPOILERS.)

It’s Bong’s superb cast that truly gels all these unique stylings together to create an effective story of class strife.

Song Kang-ho is dark-humored and aloof as the Kim family patriarch counter to the Park’s Lee Sun-kyun who plays a distant father who looks stay above the riff-raff of those below him. Park So-dam who plays Ki-jeong (aka Jessica) is dry and deadpanned in her delivery almost like a Korean Aubrey Plaza and steals each scene she’s in. Cho Yeo-jeong is great as the well-meaning matriarch of the Park family who nags and pesters her children and gets easily hoodwinked by the Kim family con.

Choi Woo-shik’s Kim Kee-woo (aka Kevin) is the beating heart of the film though representing the story’s complex, nuanced sense of morality. Kee-woo’s outlook on the world and society around him fluctuates with new information as his con eventually unravels and Choi gives the character a very human touch that goes beyond simply portraying him as an aggrieved poor person. Rather Choi shows the complex realities faced by people who eventually do wrong to horrible things to survive.

Movies of this ilk though tend to paint the two sides of social and economic inequality in binary terms. The rich are dastardly, unloving, mustache twirlers and the poor are kind-hearted, selfless, salt of the earth types. Like these characters the real world is a lot more nuanced and “Parasite” sets out to make this pretty clear with its theme immediately.

(You hear that, James??)

The rich Park family, though they don’t think highly of those quite literally below them, they are still a loving bunch who looking out for the best interests of their children while the Kim’s are con artists who are fine with manipulating them to gain a few extra dollars in their miserable lives. But Bong doesn’t want the viewer to think too much of their personalities; he wants viewers to see the forest not the trees.

People resort to desperate sometimes criminal measures when living in extreme poverty. We all need to survive somehow and when things are truly terrible we do all that is necessary to keep our heads above water. The Kims, though manipulative for sure, are not malicious; they’re desperate which is consistently apparent each time the film reverts back to their slum apartment located in the back alleys where drunks routinely piss themselves in front of their window. The movie doesn’t set out to condone the actions of the Kims but rather show us what happens in a society that neglects its worst off.

We’re all taught at a young age that becoming rich and/or famous is an attainable goal but with the world consistently resetting the starting line further and further back, “keeping up with the Jones” becomes a more and more unattainable goal. Short of a revolution, not much is going to change without systemic change up top and the film’s conclusion makes it hauntingly clear.

Those at the top want us fighting amongst ourselves for scraps because it takes the attention off the fact they are hoarding everything else. If we don’t stand together in class solidarity then we will continue to destroy each other instead of the system that vastly favors the wealthy.

(*Coughs*)

“Parasite” is a supremely well designed and thoughtful film that tackles class solidarity, poverty, and strife in a creative way that has you laughing at its often dry and dark sense of humor while transfixed by its narrative and poignant theme.

Whether you’ve seen Bong’s other films or not, “Parasite” firmly establishes this director as one to watch going into the new decade and beyond as his craftsmanship, attention to detail, and enthralling sense of storytelling is clearly among the best.

May we all be able to see the world through the same nuanced and complex lens as Bong as well going into 2020 and beyond.

 VERDICT:

5 out of 5

*In George Lucas voice* It’s like poetry. It rhymes.

gene dumping his arrangements on betty and then betty much much later dumping her own arrangements on sally..... (george lucas voice) its like poetry it rhymes

Anyways wouldn’t it have been great if Rey faced Kylo and was like, “I am a Jedi, like my father before me.” Revealing that she’s Luke’s daughter.

fuck it rewrite of dabb-era even though i havent finished it yet

s12: this entire season should have been about the BMOL and questioning the concept of monsters. Now that there wasn’t an apocalypse/threat of imminent death hanging over tfw the focus should have been on the characters. sam and dean would have to rethink their ideas of personhood as they realise their friends (cas, garth, crowley etc) are all  being hunted by the BMOL. mary still goes off with the BMOL and dean still has mommy issues (this is very important) but she is also conflicted because her boys are not only hunters but are also close friends with the things she grew up believing had to be killed. we get some mention of lucifer but he’s offscreen rebuilding his strength. 

s13: apocalypse world is gone and instead this season is about lucifer and jack. we spend more time trying to track down lucifer and it happens on screen, same with kelly. jack is born in the mid-season finale, cas still dies and we get a widower arc, cas is rescued and dean faces the cycle of abuse and confides in mary that he doesnt want to be to jack what j*hn was to him. sam steps up as leader of men of letters/hunters. asmodeus is introduced and its sort of an enemy of my enemy deal but we are given hints that theres something worse happening behind the scenes and after lucifer is killed its revealed gabriel is still alive and being held captive etc 

s14: asmodeus is main villain this time and he’s allowed be super threatening, we get a heist type rescue of gabriel and he’s given an actual arc about stepping up to lead heaven. i havent seen s14 yet so idk what really happens i guess the empty deal is made because i feel thats important. sam gets his psychic powers back and becomes a witch and gets pegged by rowena while dean openly pines after cas this is very important to the plot

s15: the same but this time it sticks the landing. michael and adam are actually properly addressed this time instead of being introduced and written off for no reason, billie isnt made the villain at the last second she stay a neutral party, maybe helping when she thinks chuck is upsetting the balance of things. cas summons the empty to kill chuck idk yet but i think that would be cool to see cas’ love (the one thing chuck couldnt control) be the thing that defeats him. then dean rescues cas in a parallel of lazarus rising, reciprocates cas’ love and scene.