#or watching things like Disney or anything along the lines of animation-

[fallen-for-the-stars]

Bro- something I will never understand is when people are like… “you’re an adult start acting like one 😒” whenever you like something (like ANYTHING- let it be cosplay, video games, anything they deem ‘kiddy’)

Like am I supposed to just be old and miserable? Wtf 😬

#kait rambles #or watching things like Disney or anything along the lines of animation- #like listen i’d watch ‘adult’ movies if sex wasn’t the main topic 24/7 but noooo people gotta have their heads up their ass and put it in #everything

[minijenn]

Jen Tortures Herself With Every Dreamworks Animated Movie Ever: Road to El Dorado

So to begin with, let me just say I fucking miss Dreamworks 2d animation. Like the way they animated and designed characters in 2d was just... wonderful and I long for them to return to it almost more than I long for Disney to go back to 2d animation. As for Road to El Dorado, its a major case for why they should. This movie is a fun, fantastic romp that is utterly enjoyable all the way through.

Staying on animation for a sec, the colors in this movie are insanely vibrant and the set designs, especially in El Dorado itself, are outstandingly gorgeous. The character designs are top notch (bless Chel oh my god fuck whoever designed her was so horny and I'm so thankful for them) and the animation is as smooth as butter. The facial expressions, much like in Prince of Egypt are so damn well done and convey exactly how the characters are feeling so perfectly.

As for the characters, the cast is great! Miguel and Tulio are a perfect dynamic duo of scheming conmen, though the difference between them are clear. Tulio is more along the lines of being selfish and greedy (and horny, incredibly horny, this whole movie is horny), but he's still so damn likable anyway. Miguel is the idealistic optimist who just wants adventure and excitement. And the way they play off each other is so fast and smooth and expertly written and acted, their bromance truly is one to behold.

Of course, that bromance is broken a bit when Chel comes into the picture. God DAMN this woman is just... (*whistles*) 2D Dreamworks women were just Built Different holy god she is beautiful. And hilarious imo she's a good source of comedy (and conflict) throughout.

The other characters are... ok. I like the chief, but the priest is just an... ok bloodthirsty unhinged villain, but nothing really special. Cortes is a nothing character, barely an antagonist force whatsoever, and outside of them... well there's not much focus anywhere else. Which is a good thing! The movie's plot is tightly focused, simple to understand and follow, and the characters motivations and development is very clear throughout.

As for said plot, I suppose there are a few problematic things about Two White Men showing up and claiming to be gods in a Native ancient civilization, but it never feels like they're exploiting the people of El Dorado for anything more than gold? Like they even stop the priest's attempts to sacrifice people in their name, so I guess that counts for something??? Really though, the main focus of the film is that dynamic between Miguel and Tulio and how two things come between them (for Miguel, its falling in love with the people and culture of El Dorado and for Tulio, its falling in love with, well, Chel). In the end though, they do come back together in a natural and believable way in the midst of a genuinely exciting climax.

The humor is also very sharp in this movie, leaning more on the adult side (like I said, this whole movie is so horny) but never in the gross or annoying way that Antz did before it. It relies more on physical comedy and witty banter, and both of them are carried strongly through the voice acting and the animation. It's no wonder why this movie produced so many famous memes imo

The music is Fantastic. It takes the Tarzan approach where most of the songs are non-diagetic (and mostly performed by Elton John), with the standout exception of Its Tough to be a God which just... completely fucking slaps. Seriously I was boppin along to it the entire time, it goes so hard ya'll.

Overall, Road to El Dorado is a simple movie with a simple plot and premise, but its carried by a really memorable main trio and a great soundtrack and top shelf animation. Give it a watch if ya haven't, its def worth it.

Overall Rating: 8/10

Verdict: Getting caught doing the Nitty Gritty with Chel

Previous Review (Prince of Egypt)

Next Review (Chicken Run)

#jen watches #dreamworks watch #road to el dorado #jen tortures herself with every dreamworks animated movie #dreamworks

[cimeret]

I seem to have a thing for tragic "old soul" characters who end up trapped on desert planets in a binary star system, who are made for infinite sadness, and who are legendary fighters but would rather not fight. Also, there should be an evil brother figure and metal limbs, please!

Anyway, this is about Trigun Stampede. I'm so hyped for the new series. Time again for Deep Space Planet Future Gun Action!

Spoilers for the new and old anime under the cut.

I went in intending to like it, and I was not disappointed! The old anime has a special place in my heart. When I first watched it, I was at a really low point in my life, and I could so relate to the struggles of the characters who find themselves in these perceived hopeless and often unfair situations, having to decide what is the morally right thing to do. The new anime can't capture that (yet?), but it's only been four episodes, Wolfwood has just joined the squad, and Knives has been very effectively established as a threat. It feels like most of the characters are now on stage and the plot can truly unfold!

Even if it doesn't become the emotional spectacle I'm hoping for, this anime is worth watching for its visuals alone. I wasn't prepared to love the CGI so much. At the latest, Hōseki no Kuni convinced me that CGI can work well in anime. How I wish Disney would take inspiration from this regarding its computer-animated movies and try to recapture the traditional 2D look this way. Especially for the action scenes, the CGI feels perfect and creates pictures that are just jaw-droppingly stunning and beautiful to look at. The moment when Wolfwood whipped out his Punisher? Perfection. (Wolfwood in general is such a mood, he just adds so much to the series)

(Just look at this gorgeous gif made by genorium)

It took me a bit to get used to the new character designs. Looking at Vash and Meryl makes me feel so old, haha! But I like them. Vash's prosthetic arm looks beautiful. At first, I wished it wasn't so obvious because I felt it would make the gun reveal more of a surprise. But I think older viewers know the arm is a gun anyway, new viewers will still be surprised by the reveal, and anything along the lines of "omg, the shock, my arm is actually a prosthetic and not flesh and blood, isn't it tragic??" feels outdated these days. Don't need it.

Once again, however, I have a problem with the directing. It's not so much the overall pacing, it's more some small details or how certain scenes are set up. A lot of it just feels cold to me, a bit detached and stiff. It's hard to describe. Shots that linger too long or not long enough to really work. Music that swells or fades in the wrong places. Sometimes the characters don't react at all or react inappropriately to things that are happening. For example, in ep. 3, Meryl's and Roberto's reactions to the destruction of the city or to Tonis' injury. It's a lot better in ep. 4, so either it's a conscious part of the style and I'm getting used to it, or it's not as noticeable in this episode. The many discussions and banter between the characters also helped create a nice flow between scenes.

This is only partly related to the new series, but I adore Vash as a character so much. All the emotion and the softness and the big, pretty eyes, but he is also badass and guns and just so physical as a hero, and then there's his wackiness that is mostly portrayed as annoying rather than cute or endearing. It's a lovely combination and never feels forced. I don't mind that he's less goofy in the new series and that he doesn't chase women; especially the latter has always bugged me in the old series, but unfortunately, it's standard for many male anime heroes. As a result, Vash seems more serious and tragic in the new anime but the new dynamic that unfolds when Wolfwood joins in ep. 4 helps make him seem less melancholy. Compared to ep. 3 with the destruction of Jeneora Rock, the last one was less dark and even had a bit of humor, which is necessary and good. I want to see Knives try and break Vash, and for that to really have an impact on the viewer, we need to see all the beautiful moments and his connection with the humans he wants to protect.

(wearing shades in the club, yo!)

I like that they don't hold back on the weird and gory stuff. Severed limbs and spurting blood, yay! And everything about how they handled Knives so far is great! He's such a dramatic creep, I love it! Zazie, too! Their new design looks awesome and I can't wait to see more of them. The scenes in ep. 4 inside the worm were all great, the goo, the slight horror vibes, characters crawling around in dark, cramped spaces, Wolfwood eating bugs ... good stuff!

I'm slowly warming up to Roberto and his dynamic with Meryl. Although from a narrative point of view, I still don't understand why they swapped Milly for another character. What's the idea? Aside from liking Milly per se, I also found Meryl more interesting when she could play off of Milly and her contrasting sweet personality. The relationship between Meryl and Roberto feels so generic, and so far I don't think it offers much to the story. I'm also not completely on board with Meryl as a journalist. Hm. We'll have to see how things progress. In general, though, I'm quite optimistic about this series. I only hope they slow down the pace a bit in the coming episodes and leave room for some strong character moments. So far, the nostalgia factor and my fanfiction brain are helping me get over the fact that the series takes less time to develop the characters in favor of pushing the plot and creating mysteries. I still have no idea how many episodes there will be, so theoretically anything is possible.

#trigun #trigun stampede #stampede spoilers #vash the stampede #if nothing i'm just here for the pretty #and the nostalgia #just want to bawl my eyes out over these characters is that to much to ask? #love how unhinged everyone already is #wolfwood i'm counting on you #huh there's not as much trigun x star wars as i expected #feels so obvious to me #last year gave me old obi-wan and young dooku and now vash is back what's going on? #good times indeed

[actuallylorelaigilmore]

2023 Movie Journey #17: Elemental

elemental. i watched this one earlier this week with my family...and i'm finally caught up on movie reviews! which means i can now post new ones right after i see the movies. yay.

this movie's cast has some actors who i know, probably most notably a guy i enjoyed in jurassic world dominion. but much, much more importantly, the star of this movie is leah lewis, so even if i hadn't liked the movie overall i still would have had a great time watching it.

i fell immediately in love with leah lewis's portrayal of george when i started watching nancy drew this year. and i mean immediately--i was watching with somebody who loved bess the most, and i had seen so much ace on my tumblr dash that i knew i'd like him too, but george was still my favorite character by the time i finished the pilot. without even knowing how great and rewarding her season 1 arc would be, or how much depth she would eventually have beyond her introduction as 'grudge-holding black sheep nancy's boss,' i could just tell she was my type of fave.

and even after watching the whole first season of nancy drew, it wasn't until i was rewatching it to show it to @actuallylukedanes that i accidentally learned george was played by leah lewis...and that i already knew her! she was in the half of it! which i watched and reviewed in 2020, and loved so much that i've wanted to get other people to watch it ever since. i didn't connect her performances at all, but even my review back then raved about how she was what made the movie good.

so when i realized she was starring in this, i was thrilled. and what i love about her is that she's consistently the kind of actor who has a real presence: she makes her characters engaging and stands out in a big way for somebody still young (though she started acting as a kid, so i know she's not new just cuz she's newish to me). she's signed on to the matlock reboot with kathy bates and i don't expect to love that cbs show, but i am very excited to try it anyway.

as for the movie though: i couldn't help but spend the first half just hearing george, in all her lines. not in a distracting or bad way, but a nice familiar feeling. i suspect the goal with animated disney heroines is to not make them too distinctive, because there's kind of a 'friendly normal' sound to the modern ones regardless of the actress that means even when i can recognize who's speaking, they all sound a little more similar than i would ever say they do in live action work. (either that or it's just me not being able to differentiate as well in animation, which is certainly possible.)

anyway, i loved everything about her work in this; she was the reason i cried a few times. in my opinion that's always a mark of good work, making an impressive amount of connection with viewers using just your voice.

i also really liked her parents and wade, despite the movie's core conflict revolving around all of them--this movie did a good job of explaining who everybody was as things went along, in a more than superficial way, so that it was much easier to still like people when the Bad Times came because they made more sense and were more sympathetic. as family conflicts go, compared to encanto and turning red, this one was my favorite because of that. no matter how angry or disappointed her father got, or how much that affected ember, i could still sympathize with him too and believe that his love for her was more important than anything else.

now, i know this movie got mixed reviews (or possibly worse? i only saw vague headlines) but i'm not really sure why! the metaphor they used to tell the story about immigration and a diverse society was maybe more blunt than usual, but i don't think that's a bad thing. and while it did center on themes that disney movies cover a lot (family expectations, parental disappointment, feeling like a failure, being an outsider, etc)...there are reasons those themes pop up so much!

especially when pixar movies are trying to appeal to both kids and adult audiences, i think it makes total sense to keep coming back to the 'classics.' again, there were a lot of thematic similarities between encanto and turning red and this movie (despite their differences in the details) and i watched those other two--encanto more than once--but still cried just as easily when ember confessed to her dad that she was a bad daughter, and when they bowed to each other before she left. the wounds between us and our parents never really heal, i think, at least not for everybody. so this movie tugged at me by just representing those feelings well, and making me care about the characters.

and when it comes to caring about the characters, probably my favorite thing about the movie besides the cast was the way the plot genuinely surprised me. i expected a happy ending, because it's a disney movie. but based on the trailer, i didn't know what to expect between ember and wade beyond 'they meet and things happen.' and the movie does such a good job of setting up the world they live in and the rules they live by that i believed them.

so in the beginning, i figured they were going to become unexpected friends, and navigating that alone would be a challenge. in that story, presumably the happy ending would've been something like, she learns that wade is right and she doesn't have to stay with fire people and never interact with the rest of the world, and they get to have further adventures.

but then! it turns out that this movie is going for romance. weirdly, i don't expect that from disney movies--you'd think i would when they're the home of princess culture and everything, but i wasn't a 'princess meets her prince for a happy ending' kid. i grew up with disney classics but didn't imprint on any of them.

instead, i was a don bluth kid! singing music from an american tail is literally one of my earliest memories, and my animated love story growing up was anastasia. if i squint, i can kind of see overlap between that animated romcom and this one, in terms of traumatic family history and a guarded, feisty female lead who gets what she thought she wanted all along just as she's also fallen in love with someone whose difference threatens her new fulfilled goal.

i'm not saying the two movies are very alike, lol...a zombie sorcerer belongs nowhere in elemental, obviously. but they both treat their romances with less sentimental sweetness, more sparkage and sincerity. the flirting in this is cute, and i loved them more the further along we went.

but of course, there's still that pesky plot-established problem that makes them a doomed romance. so once it was clear that their dynamic was about falling in love, not just befriending the 'other'...then i honestly expected a bittersweet ending where friends is all they can be. because this is disney, not pushing daisies, and in a world where nobody seems to have invented the elemental version of saran wrap for characters to safely kiss through, what kind of future could they have?

i did not expect them to give us this story where the characters are all believable in how firmly they believe (or don't, in wade's case) that different elements can't mix, and then for the story to show us those differences being overcome. i mean, that theme isn't exactly a new one, love conquering all, but the differences were so much more concrete here--it was life or death for them! when the parental disapproval alone was almost enough to ruin their chances!

i suppose you could flip my reaction to this movie and look at it the opposite way, and complain that their ability in the end to do what the story all along told us couldn't be done made it a waste of time, like the stakes were fake even if they didn't know that. maybe if you predicted the ending from the beginning, it could have felt that way.

but i didn't have expectations for the ending. so while i was really hoping ember and wade could be together, i was prepared for the alternative, a more modest 'crossing the aisles' journey of discovery for them both that opened her world and future and allowed him into her life from a safe distance going forward. instead, their whole story was wonderful and i love them and i'm so glad that they get to be the odd couple they are in a very divided world.

one last fun (if also slightly vexing) thing about this movie is that while it does end, it leaves a lot open, too. and i wanted to get to see ember start her internship; i wanted to learn about their new life and if it goes well for them once they're out in the broader world. i guess i wasn't ready to say goodbye to them, really, is all.

but that was fun at least on the level of seeing this with my family--it meant that after it ended, we were discussing what a sequel could be about, and that segued into a discussion about whether ember and wade could have kids or if they'd have to adopt--and how cool it would be if them having kids would create new elements or something. i love that idea a lot.

and i enjoyed this movie a lot. it was super pretty, i liked most of the characters, and it was unexpected romcom fun. i'm officially rooting for pixar to make more love stories now.

#2023 movie journey #elemental #actuallylukedanes #leah lewis #anastasia #an american tail #nancy drew #encanto #turning red

[peacekeeperangel]

So I Got Bored and Made a Mermaid's Tale Soundtrack

I tend to do this when I wanna chew on stories (See all my original universe ideas) So I'm going to throw out all the songs I found on Youtube that I found works really well for the story/characters. Essentially future Music Videos I play in my brain. Save this entry I'm probably going to come back and edit/add to it as my Whims suit me- also feel free to add your own Fathoms Below : Little Mermaid OST Imagined for: General Overview of the Gem Mermaids/Tearcrown

Yeah this one was just a daily life overview. I mean what would be better right? (and I'm avoiding the 2023 Little Mermaid Nuts to that I haven't entertained Disney's balloney yet and I won't start now)

Amhrán Na Farraige- Song of the Sea Imagined For: Any serious talk with Almighty Sea Again just sort of noodling I genuinely have no clue for this one but it jived with the overall sea theme I had when chosing this playlist sometime it's just feelings you know? Davy Jones- as Performed by Anna Lapwood Imagined for: Black Pearl Cookie

Okay there's no Davy Jones Locker in the Cookie run Universe so my brain automatically keyed that Black Pearl Cookie is now EarthBread's "Davy Jones" your welcome. and specifically as played here because it adds a lot of Royal gravitas having anything played on an Organ and to be honest it just sounds cool and I wanna gush. Mine Mine Mine- Pocahantas OST Imagined for: Lord Oyster Cookie & Abalone Cookie This... Mildly pisses me off because I like watching @cosmicwhoreo's Blackaviar stuff and their OC version of Abalone gave me such Judge Claude Frollo feelings. But Now after listening to this I just... Canon Abalone Cookie is Governor Radcliffe and I don't know how to feel about this alright?! Ok Carrying on Crossing The Line- Tangled the Animated Series OST Imagined for: White Pearl Cookie & Frilled Jellyfish Cookie

;w; Frilled Jellyfish just wanted her to be happy uwwweehhh TT_TT Nothing Left to Lose- Tangled the Animated Series OST Imagined for: Lord Oyster Cookie & Black Pearl Cookie Yeah everyone picks this one, but it kind of fits in this case. low hanging fruit I do admit. Tour of the Kingdom-Little Mermaid OST Imagined for: Overview of the Creme Republic

This was a bit of a surprise but I figure if Tearcrown gets an overview so does the Republic. The Curse- The Longest Johns Imagined for: A Senior Lord Oyster Cookie I actually just found this and it sounds actually really good for a Lord Oyster going back in memory and realizing everything he did to screw things up. Maybe an older wiser Lord would be cursing himself? Maybe Abalone Cookie? Hmmm Akiisu's Music Box- One Piece OST Imagined for: White Pearl Cookie&Lord Oyster Cookie/ Any Quiet Moment Along with being one of my favourite songs in the One Piece Soundtrack it felt perfect for those sweet quiet moments before everything went so horribly wrong (There's another one I want to recomend but for the life of me I can't find the title sorry) Lullaby for a Princess- Ponyphonic Imagined For: Red Coral & Black Pearl Cookie Okay before y'all scream "EW BRONY!" Calm yer collective chest parts and listen to the song. a Sister lamenting the fall of her sibling into darkness with heavy themes regarding the moon? Sound Familiar? Never Love An Anchor- The Crane Wives Imagined For: Captain Caviar/Lord Oyster& Black Pearl Cookie Okay I ended seeing a picture referencing this song- @artforinfinity you are very smart and I'm sticking the song you referenced in the playlist. It works perfectly for every relationship BPC has with a land cookie and not just for Lord Oyster.

Wading In Deeper- Katzenjammer (WARNING: Song Referencing Un-Aliving proceed at your own risk!) Imagined for: Black Pearl Cookie Frilled Jellyfish Cookie/ the Mermaid Siblings Okay I like going a bit dark. I thought though this song is perfect for all those awful things that turned White Pearl Cookie into the hot tempered sea-queen she is today.

Good Grief there's a lot of Disney in here. Eeeh nothing to worry about I'd say. I think if I add more I'll just reblog at this point

#peacemusickeeper #black pearl cookie #abalone cookie #lord oyster cookie #playlists for stories

[radarsteddybear]

Highlights (or should I say lowlights?) from the Making of Frozen II documentary on Disney+:

It is important to note that the documentary begins 11 months from the film's premiere. At this point, the movie's already been in production for like 4 years.

The female director (Jennifer Lee) looks to be inches away from a mental breakdown the entire time

Jennifer Lee is also the film's writer and at one point describes getting up at a quarter to five every day so that she can write from 5am-7am, get her daughter to school, goes to work all day, comes home, does whatever is needed at home, then writes some more. On Saturdays, she writes from 5am-1pm. I don't know anything about the process of making an animated (or non-animated, for that matter) film, but it seems absolutely unhinged to me that so much script writing is required this late in production. Especially coupled with how much of the film's plot and motivation are still unknown at this point.

Jennifer Lee was also promoted to Chief Creative Officer or something at some point in there, so she has a million and one things to do for that on top of everything for Frozen II.

So, yeah. She seems to be in a constant state of being on the verge of tears and is only holding it together through sheer willpower.

Disney seems to be trying to pass this off as joy and happiness and excitement about pieces of the film finally coming together, and Lee probably believes that's what it is, too, but I think this woman just needs some sleep.

The script finally gets locked 5 months out from the film's premiere. Which, like, I totally get having it open for edits along the way, but this was. a lot more than just edits.

It takes them ages to figure out who/what the voice calling to Elsa is and where she's following it to, which is like. the entire plot of the film. And in my opinion (and from what I remember, having only seen the film once back when it came out), as a result, this is one of the weakest plot points in the whole movie, which is really unfortunate because it has everything else it needs to hit really solidly.

5 months from the premiere, they keep talking about how everyone's putting in 14 hour days 6 days a week, and they keep referring to it as overtime, but I have no idea whether or not the animators and visual effects artists and everyone else working on the film actually get paid overtime? I sure hope so (which leads to another question: is the money actually worth it?), but in this economy, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't.

At one point, one of the supervising animators talks about how he spends the whole day split between meetings and supporting the animators so he has to come back to work after putting his kids to bed to actually get his own animating done. He describes this as a "treat" because he enjoys animating so much.

Disney (and other studios, I'm sure) needs to get their act together re: division of labor and organizing everyone's time, wow.

The visual effects artist who did Elsa's dress transformations in both Frozen I and II: "In Frozen I, I had a year. But this, it's been...four days." (Note: It does end up being more than 4 days, but, uh...not by much.)

I seriously think the movie, especially the story, would have been better if everyone could have taken like. a month off from work

The film's editor talsk about working 14-15 hour days, getting up at 3am so he can get to work by 3:30, use the on-site gym for half an hour, then start editing by 4am. Whoever's in charge of setting all these timelines and whatnot is in desperate need of taking a course in proper time management because this is unhinged.

I wonder if all the Frozen II statues/decor Disney put up around the animation studio towards the end of production come out of the film's budget.

It's fun to get to watch the actors record their lines and songs, though.

As was watching the animator who did part of Kristoff's song with all the reindeer put videos of her own face in the scene to figure out how she was going to animate them all.

#original post #/ #// #/// #//// #///// #Frozen II #Frozen 2 #Into the Unknown: The Making of Frozen II #Disney #I am exhausted on behalf of all the people making this film #Teddy Bear musings

[quasiimodo]

sorry for the random unprompted ask, you don't have to answer if you don't want to, but i was wondering what's your favorite thing about hunchback of notre dame? it's not one of my top movies, although i do like it a lot--but my favorite thing about it is probably just what a beautiful song "god help the outcasts" is. it's so unique and unlike anything else disney has made, and esmeralda is such a wonderful character who i find really inspiring.

sorry to you for taking one million years to reply to this!! i'm always up to talk (even if i can be slow as molasses when replying) so never apologizing for hopping into my inbox with unprompted asks, anonymous or not!

there's so many things that i love about hunchback, and i think one of the most important things is just the time that i discovered it. i watched it infrequently as a child (i probably watched the sequel more often than the original because the sequel wasn't "scary") and didn't remember much of it. i found the vhs in our basement when i was 12 and, having just come home from a friend's house where we'd watched mulan and feeling in the disney spirit, decided to pop it into our vcr. and i think 12 is just such an impressionable age that the things we like back then just sort of stick with us?? and this movie blew my little 12 year old mind. especially because i'd grown up particularly sheltered from media and hadn't seen anything rated higher than pg before, and what do you mean this is rated g what do you mean disney got away with this.

ANYWAYS i feel like that's not much of a real answer haha. but when it boils down to it, this movie still blows my little 26 year old mind. like you said, it's unlike anything disney has made, before or since. the animation is incredible, and the soundtrack is PEAK. every single song is so so so good. the voice cast is phenomenal, and includes two of my favourite disney voice performances of all time (tom hulce and tony jay). the themes they cover are incredible. AND SOMEHOW IT GOT A G RATING.

i also think a real testament to how great this film is is that i've grown with it over the years. originally i was blown away by frollo and hellfire, and considered him to be my favourite (not in a weird way because i still hate that man) character. then, when i was a little older, i was drawn to esmeralda and just how strong of a female character she is. and then in my early twenties i really connected with quasi, and he's my current favourite (both from the movie and from disney media overall). along those lines, out there is now my favourite song from the movie, and i think it's an absolute masterpiece. i love that tom hulce isn't quite as polished a singer compared to others from the era like jodi benson and paige o'hara, because i feel like it really just brings that much more life to the song!! i can't even listen to the musical version of that one because it never sounds right in my head. tom hulce IS quasimodo. (i'm still amazed they got him back for once upon a studio)

i feel like this was a big wall of text of me managing to say absolutely nothing, but i could talk about this movie for hours. it's so so so very special to me, and i think it's a masterpiece. even if it might not be objectively one (the gargoyle song SLAPS and i don't care what everyone else says) i still think it is objectively one of disney's best movies and i will die on that hill.

thank you for the ask, and thank you for your patience!

#anonymous #answer #hond

[otnesse]

I'll respect anyone who defends Ariel as a character, especially her classic rendition of her, regardless of specific viewpoints or orientations. She's an iconic character, a character who for better or worse did nevertheless save Disney from certain bankruptcy/corporate mergers. And she definitely was very well-rounded and more than earned her place as a popular character for a variety of reasons, controversial or otherwise. I'll also add that Ariel, even if she did help form the Renaissance Princess line and had some traits there, was ultimately closer overall to the Classic line in that she was actually willing to marry a guy and overall was adhering to traditional femininity ultimately, even if a bit unorthodox due to her more eccentric nature.

However, one thing I am definitely not fond of regarding any comments about Ariel (and I'm specifically referring to comments meant to praise or defend Ariel. Obviously any comments that try to diss, belittle, or demonize Ariel using inaccurate and unflattering terms like "boy-crazy" or "spoiled" I'm not going to tolerate. If you must criticize a character, at least make sure your criticisms actually match UP with the character as presented in the source material. That's my motto. If you criticize her as naive, a bit too head-strong, reckless, or anything like that, I'd at least respect that you're criticizing her for flaws she DID possess in the actual film and expanded universe, even if I disagree with the disliking of her.) is claiming that Ariel was a gay allegory. Yes, I know Howard Ashman was gay and played a major influence on her development. But Glen Keane also played as much of a role in her character development as well (not just contributing to her physical design, he also wrote much of the template for what her overall character is like, including rather underappreciated aspects like how, despite not getting along with her father, she ultimately did care for his well-being), and he's firmly straight, and in fact he partly modeled Ariel's iconic design after his wife. And quite frankly, since the whole point of an allegory is to convey a message in an indirect manner while otherwise-and this is the biggest point to be made in the definition-getting the intended message across (case in point, Animal Farm was meant to be an allegorical condemnation of Stalinism due to the events of World War II pretty much making any direct criticism of the Soviet system intenable due their technically being allies in our fight against the Axis Powers. A mistake if you ask me, but I digress...), having a character explicitly fall in love with someone of the opposite sex regardless of differing species or races or ethnicites or what have you is an extremely poor way to do a gay metaphor if you ask me (since the entire POINT of homosexuality is that you're attracted to the same sex. When you have a character who clearly falls for someone of the opposite sex to try and convey gay stuff, you pretty much missed the point of allegory and metaphor.).

Plus, it also ends up excluding and even unnecessarily othering quite a few people who are themselves straight, and more specifically straight men, yet have completely high regard for the character for a variety of reasons. Like me for example. I've been very fond of Ariel since I was a boy, and if I viewed Ariel as a metaphor for anything it's the challenges with being on the autism spectrum, including being othered and looked down upon while barely even being given an actual chance to prove yourself, especially when I was language delayed. And I might as well add, I'm straight, and in fact, I actually DREW Ariel naked in my early teens partly because of attraction to her, among other things like how they generally had mermaids not wearing tops at all. And she's far from the only character I drew naked either, nor even the first (I think I started drawing nude girls as early as second grade after watching H2-Uh-Oh, an episode of Robocop Alpha Commando. You'll remember the episode as having Elsa Lustig, a woman who turned into water and spent nearly the entire episode naked as a result). And to this day, I'm still attracted to females. In fact, part of the reason why The Little Mermaid was such a huge success story was because it was marketed towards literally everyone, boy or girl, and it had a lot of aspects people could like about the movie (I for one actually viewed it as one heck of a good action-adventure flick, even with the romance angle, even a bit of a shonen anime if you want.). So trying to claim Ariel as a gay metaphor and exclusively that is just going to drive a lot of fans away due to feeling very excluded (and heterosexuals are pretty much a constant and permanent majority. They'd have to be just to ensure the human species continues to exist as gays/lesbians can't breed. That's simply a fact in life and biology, after all.). It actually disrespects a large part of the audience who DID like Ariel without having any care one way or another about gay stuff. Heck, among eccentrics such as myself (having aspergers/autism), it also comes across as insulting to us when listing her as a gay metaphor since it disingenuously implies just because we have eccentricities we must automatically be gay even if we are straight (that's also another reason I intensely disliked Alex Danvers from Supergirl being made gay and ESPECIALLY why she deduced she might have been that due to "being bad with dates", or a similar rationale with Dr. Okun from Independence Day, more specifically its sequel Resurgence which retconned him as being gay, with it not helping that he admitted in the first movie to not being given much of a chance to be sociable to outsiders until the aliens attacked.).

Ironically, if any Disney Princess character came close to an actual gay metaphor (a bit of a contradiction in terms if you ask me since when you can't even convey the actual point indirectly, it simply isn't a metaphor), it was Belle from Beauty and the Beast. Especially when her overall character arc gave the impression that she wasn't even into guys at all (her song had her hating on how she had to enter marriage at all, with Gaston or anyone else, especially when she gave no interest in any of the men in the village at all, at least none that were single.), and even when she did grow to like Beast, you got the impression she merely viewed him as a friend rather than actually falling in love with him (heck, if it weren't for the "I Love You" scene at the end, you could easily say she probably didn't have that kind of love for him at all). And that's not even getting into the comic stories for New Adventures of Beauty and the Beast where she expressed disdain for having even a minute's interaction with the boys in the village even when her father (probably the only real exception to her inherent dislike of men in that story) told her to play with them. However, just to be clear, I said "came close to", not "IS", as she still ultimately went for Beast/Adam in the end, so she's ultimately straight even there (and even the comics did have her, in a slight foreshadowing of who she ended up with, admitting she might go for a guy, a prince even, so long as he was kind and not boorish and unintelligent), even if she nearly got Beast killed to get out of a jam.

#ariel #the little mermaid #Pro-Ariel

[noxthesleepymoodyoverthinker]

Disney Princesses Are Not Passive

Can I just ask where this whole narrative about Disney princesses teaching little girls to wait for a man to save her -- to only focus on finding a prince -- came from?

Because I honestly haven't seen any female say that that's what growing up with Disney had taught her. That Disney might have given her unrealistic expectations about the concept of "true love", yes.

That Disney had made her only goal in life finding a prince, no.

Now, allow me to go into a rant about my own experiences with growing up with Disney princesses:

One, I actually come from a culture that idolizes marriage and thinks any unmarried and/or childless person must be the most miserable and pitiable person on earth. I was also surrounded by family members who thought along those lines.

But not once did I get that vibe from watching Disney movies with princesses.

Rather, I was and still am a person who is least interested in marriage or dating. But I adored the Disney Princess stories! And I never thought their love stories made up most of their tales or was disempowering. Instead, it was more like the coupley-romance bit of it took about the least amount of screen time possible.

Cinderella? Three-fourths of the movie is about her life, the animal friends she has, and just letting us get to know her and her life with her step-family.

She just wanted to go to a ball, take a break and do something fun. And the Fairy Godmother helped her with that when her step-family sabotaged her.

The Prince wasn't even a thought until she found out the next day that it was the Prince she had danced with and that he was actually looking for her because he was in love with her. Yes, she had liked him too. But she hadn't thought her feelings were returned until that moment. Which, what, took up the last quarter of the movie?

Instead of thinking that was all the story of Cinderella was, it rather felt like the deserved good thing that should happen to her after all she had been through; that she might finally find love and happiness and escape; that her optimism, despite her life, was finally being rewarded.

Now Snow White met her prince right at the beginning of the story, yes. But, he shows up only then and towards the very end of the movie -- like the last 5 minutes.

(I mean, these are all the scenes he appears in.)

If anything, Snow White shared the most screen time with her animal friends and the dwarfs.

And the only time she mentions the Prince is when the dwarfs ask her for a happy love story.

The rest of the story is mainly her just trying to survive and making the best of whatever she can find and whatever skills she has. (Frankly, we know more about the dwarfs than the Prince, tbh.)

Then she has a good cry when she's reached her limit.

And moves on.

She even convinces the dwarfs to let her stay by telling them she can "clean and sew and mend and cook". And that's the main part of the story.

So when she finally meets her Prince again and "lives happily ever after", we're mostly just really glad for her. And why shouldn't she have her fairytale romance after being relegated to a maid at her own palace most of her life and then almost being killed twice?

Ariel in The Little Mermaid too: I thought she was amazing as a kid. I mean, she explored dangerous shipwrecks that others avoided, was incredibly brave and a risk-taker, followed her interests (humans) with a blazing passion, and out-swam sharks.

If anything, the only thing that surprised me was her bad decision to follow Flotsam and Jetsam to Ursula, and then sign a contract with her. And that was mostly because I was in the unique position of watching the movie for the first time after I had seen the animated series about her life under the sea. I had already seen that Ariel knew exactly how conniving and dangerous the sea-witch was. So her making a deal with her was very strange for me. (Then again, she was 16 and very hurt and angry. And like I said earlier, she was an explorer and risk-taker at heart, so it works in that context. But when I had watched it at 12 or 13, and being the opposite of Ariel in spontaneity and risk-taking, I couldn't understand why she would do that.)

Her saving Eric was not the least bit of a surprise. It was a surprise that she would take Ursula's deal to make him kiss her in 3 days or she turns into a sea-slug. But her taking the option to switch her tail for legs so that she can finally go up on land? That wasn't a surprise at all. One of the first episodes of Ariel's animated series ("Wish Upon A Starfish") showed her travelling through treacherous places to reach a wishing starfish to ask for legs instead of her fins. So her taking that opportunity to finally go up on land? Right in line with what she's always wanted.

Going thru Ursula for it? And accepting Eric kissing her in 3 days as what will seal her contract so she can keep her legs and never return? That was weird for me. (As an adult and someone who's worked with a lot of kids and teenagers, tho, that impulsivity checks out. Especially after her father literally went on a rampage and destroyed years' worth of her careful collection.)

(Gotta say, in this scene, Triton was horrifyingly violent. None of the episodes of the animated series prepared me for this scene. Triton really lost it here, so I can't blame Ariel for reacting just as extremely in her own way in response. Kinda like: You destroyed years' worth of painfully collected and preserved pieces of a world you knew I have always wanted to know about. Fine. If you won't let me keep mere pieces of that world here, then I'll just go live there instead.)

So the ending of that movie was the absolute best!

Her father gives her legs, allowing her to live on land. And she does not have to choose never returning to the sea again and never seeing her friends and family again to get it!

But again, Eric and her finally getting together just feels well-earned. Not like the main/only plot.

And even if it was, so what? Why does romance in a story with a female protagonist mean that romance is the only thing viewers can see?

It doesn't.

(I could go on with more princess tales, but I think this post is long enough already. Might make a part 2 one day tho.)

Anyway, yeah: Disney princesses don't encourage girls to be passive or only focus on romance.

#disnerd #disney movies #disney #disney animation #disney princess #movie analysis #2d animation #animation #disney animated films #disney's cinderella #disney's snow white #disney's the little mermaid #cinderella #snow white #ariel #king triton #disney prinesses #disney queens #I spent a lot of time thinking about this #Disney princesses are not passive #Disney princesses are not poor role-models #i love disney #disney animated movies #disney art #disney films #disney classics #character analysis #media analysis #media and entertainment

[pashminalamb]

Hi belle!! I just logged in on tumblr and I saw u were doing a match up event! I’m sorry also that I haven’t been interacting these days :< but anyways may I have a sfw match up?

I really like playing games, on my phone, ipad or switch. I love reading mangas (currently reading mha, jjk, csm, bllk) and watching anime (currently watching one piece, classroom of the elite, tokyo rev, and bllk), when I wanna past the time, my fave anime right now is One Piece and my fave manga is bllk. I love collecting things, mangas, figurines just anything. I love having some plushies on my bed its a sense of comfort. I love sunsets than sunrise. I love listening to music too when I do my assignments, I would honestly listen to anything. My favorite animals are penguin, foxes, polar bear, dogs and cats oh! But I also love baby animals too, they are so cute😭. I HATE HATE HATE SPIDERS!!! I don’t really have a lot of dislikes but on a person I hate toxic people.

I would describe myself as a kind person, a shy person, just overall introverted (my mbti is INTJ). My friends would describe me as a shy girl but I get along really well when I make friends. They say I am so kind. When we share problems one friend said that I am always willing to listen. I remember the little details about then. And that I would never judge a person quirks.

I don’t really read books but if I were to read I would wanna read some mystery, thrilling, action. Any book but not romance hehe.

My insecurities are just about my physical form because I’m a chubby person.

And that’s all! I hope this is enough hehe. Luv u belle🫶🏻

-💙

Oh belle! And to add on the match up I sent I also love watching disney movies!

I match you with - Hiori Yo! vibes i get from this relationship - very wholesome and kinda dreamy. Hiori is very polite and not toxic at all. He is a good bf tbh cause he has a balance of everything. He likes taking hot baths, gaming and even reading. He's shy about his Kansai dialect, tried to cover it up once and got caught when he accidentally let a line sleep when you gave him a steamed bun. he hasn't tried to hide it since but uses tokyo dialect/ standard japanese when he is in formal occasions so that people can understand him.

"Are ya doin anythin this weekend?" Hiori asked, towel resting on his head fingers digging into it, wiping away the dampness of his hair.

“Nah” you answered, hands placed on the switch as you continued to play your game.

“We’re goin to my ma’s place.” he said with a smile, the words making you drop the switch on the bed. You could insecurity seeping into your bones; making you curl into the blanket.

“What if she doesn’t like me?” You muttered. Sitting on the bed, Hiori cooed at you.

“She’s gonna love ya. Y’ take careova lazy son.” He said with a chuckle.

“Help pick something to wear?”

“Yeah I gotcha.”

#belle.☏ #.lost sheep : 💙 anon

[storm-dragoness]

I'm so fucking mad at like HBO and all these fucking people who remove content from the internet so that the only way to have it is to pirate it

I Hate Subscription based services, and I hate that the model is increasingly moving away from ever actually having a hard copy of a thing, because ultimately these corporations don't want you to ever own ANYTHING because if you own it, if you have it, it's in your pocket, it's on your bookshelf, they don't control it, and they want. Total control over, well. Everything, as near as I can tell, but mostly like. The product they are in the market of.

like look art is super extremely important and i think that that was an idea that was super reinforced for a lot of people over the last 2-3 years especially at the beginning and height of the pandemic in 2020-2021, like. We all were locked in our home with nothing to do, and we were slowly losing our minds and the saving grace that a lot of people found was in art. For some people, a lot of people, that meant like ACTUALLY MAKING THINGS like, baking, making bread and stuff, painting, writing, cartooning, etc. (for those people who weren't forced to be on the front line as "essential workers" with their whole life hanging in the nerve wracking balance because they were poor and expendable, although i think some/many of them found solace in art when they went home as well)

But for even more people, even if the solace wasn't found in MAKING art, it's certainly found in, for lack of a better word, consuming art. and like! that's what all this shit is! cartoons! Video games! Movies! Tv shows! Hell, even netflix original series! like. Fuck, a lot of the time, arguably all of the time, they're produced by these shitty megacorporations, yeah, and i don't support that. I loved gravity falls, but man, fuck the disney channel right? but like they're NOT actually produced by megacorporations! they're produced by people! artists! even if you don't like the media that is produced even if you don't like the ART that is produced, you should at least respect and understand that there are real people who put their heart and soul, blood sweat and tears into that shit! Into the Act of CREATION which is far nobler and far more important than anything that happens in the office buildings at Fucking HBO or whatever. like. God DAMN the fact that Dana Terrace can't watch Owl House without pirating it? that's fucked up. the fact that a megacorporation who produces and contributes nothing has somehow managed to gain the power and ability to wipe years of a person's life, work, and soul off the face of the earth is fucked up i hate it it makes me want to scream murder and set things on fire. Like. okay yeah pirating things is an option, and yeah, I'm SO thankful that piracy is still an option, and frankly, I think it's so incredibly important, but i think whats more important is pirating these things and burning them onto physical copies so that HBO can't just. Scrub them from existence like! fine! stop production but like the power to erase the Backlog? imagine if someone broke into your house and stole all of your Sailor Moon VHS tapes, because they don't want them in circulation anymore! imagine if someone stole EVERYONE's Sailor Moon VHS tapes! there would be riots! people have! the RIGHT to this stuff! the right to enrich their souls with art and media, for creators to create and share their product with people. With their Children! the next generation! and the fact that we've progressed to a society where some bitter lemon souled individual whose only thought, only care, only desire in life is to make money, and possibly to hurt as many people as possible along the way up that golden stepladder can simply STEAL everyones Copies of Sailor Moon (analogically speaking) is a fucking nightmare! HBO should be burned at the stake! they've apparently RUINED people's careers, because being able to point to your name on the credits of a show, was an important part of their animation portfolio! imagine if the industry you worked in suddenly said "oh by the way you have no access to fully 3/4ths of your resume, so good luck ever getting a job that isn't with us who has it already" It's it's preposterous. It's terrible it's actively evil Streaming came in as an option for people to have access to MORE things, and it has suddenly become a nightmare land, where people are paying constantly, with money and with blood, and they have no control over what they have access to, they can never again share the pieces of Art that they loved. Rant not over necessarily but like im gonna start tailspinning soon. so. im done

#HBO #Cartoon Network #Infinity Train #Mao Mao #owl house #Disney #Bullshit #I'm gonna fuckin scream

[candaceaprillee]

Hello, sorry if you've answered this question before but what book would you recommend for beginner learning to draw?

Oh gosh, don't know if I'm the right person to ask, but thanks for reaching out!

I don't think I particularly remember learning techniques from a book but I definitely developed my style from observing and mimicking cartoons, comics, and other people's art styles and discarding what didn't work and retaining whatever I liked. (I was a Danny Phantom and Naruto kid. XD) Don't be afraid to look up a ton of reference and work off of another picture! I remember redrawing a lot of panels that I liked from manga pages because they also had a lot of motion in them and I liked the over-the-top emotions they conveyed.

Anything where I could see sketches and an art process was really invaluable too, so I would buy sketchbook art books to look at. It might also help if there are any artists that you like that livestream as well, so you can see how they get from point A to point B and even draw along.

It's also good to combine that observation with a good grasp of anatomy and perspective, to gain confidence with your lines and understand why a pec is shaped the way it is or why an artist shorthands something a certain way. :b So life and figure drawing, or just people watching at a park or on the train. It also helps offset copying/drawing static poses if you're doing life drawing at the same time.

Hope that helped (?) 😅 - sorry that I couldn't point to more specific books. But I don't think it's bad to copy from artists you like/respect 'cause that's what we all do!

Edit: I will say, animation books/frames, like Disney's Drawn to Life, are really interesting to at least look at, 'cause it helps you think of things as 3-D shapes and how they interact with other objects and even gravity.

#art #ask

[casualmovies]

Encanto

I grew up on Disney. The first movie I ever saw in theaters was The Little Mermaid. In the 4th grade I sat at my VCR playing and pausing The Lion King to transcribe every word of dialogue despite having the movie basically memorized. I've continued to watch Disney well into adulthood. So it broke my heart when I finally saw Encanto.

The animation is absolutely stunning. The music is great. The cast is phenomenal. The character design is delightful. The writing.......was disappointing.

The first thing I found strange was the names of the the main character and her two sisters. Mirabel, Isabel, and Luisa. One of them is supposed to be notably different than the other two. They could have swapped Mirabel and Luisa's names and it would have made a lot more sense.

There was a whole lot of telling and not a lot of showing. Disney movies usually have very tightly crafted plots because they have the resources to properly develop them. The plot of Encanto felt more like what a webcomic would produce. That isn't shade to webcomics, they just have a tendency towards less polish due to a lack of editorial assistance.

For example, the tensions between the sisters isn't really shown all that much. In fact, during the song introducing the family, it seems the issue stems from Mirabel resenting Isabel rather than the other way around. We don't know Luisa is having any problems until Delores says she heard Luisa's eye twitching. In fact neither Luisa or Isabel shows an ounce of doubt in themselves until Mirabel confronts them.

Everything I read about this movie touted Mirabel's intelligence as her "secret gift". But her confrontations with her sisters have nothing to do with any observations of her own, but rather things other people told her. Then she just pressures and badgers them until they crack. Which goes in direct contrast with the theme the movie tries to present later, that she loves her family and will do anything to protect it.

Then there's the issue around Bruno. It almost feels like they came up with the song first and found a plot reason to include it. Up until Mirabel has to go into Bruno's room, there's almost no hint about him. And until the actual song about him, there isn't even a hint about people resenting Bruno. But then there's the reason they resented him.

As presented, his gift is at the very least a conscious activation type of deal. The implication was that people were coming to him and asking for him to look into their future, yet they act like he was a madman running around and telling them ominous thing, behaving as if Bruno were making those things happen. It would be one thing if people talked about him before the song or something, but all of the fear mongering about him comes out then and not a moment sooner." He sees your dreams, and he feasts on your screams!" Really? Those were Camilo's lines. If he was old enough to have a solid memory of what Bruno looked like, he'd know that wasn't true.

They make Bruno leaving out to be this epic thing. But we never see it. Knowing nothing about what went down, the implication with the shattered vision glass thing was that it was some big blow up. That something major happened and the family had to force him out for everyone's safety or something. But no, he just "disappeared" one day. And they show later that he'll just casually cast aside and break the vision glass like it's no big deal.

But then there's the gigantic plot hole of Delores knowing he never actually left. She's eager to tell everyone about Maribel going into Bruno's room, but never once uttered that she knew all along that Bruno was still in the house?! The "We don't talk about Bruno" rule feels about as effective at keeping Delores from talking as Mirabel was at hiding the vision glass from her father.

Then there's the glaring fact that everyone treats Mirabel as being lesser than everyone else for not having a gift, while Alma herself never actually got one, yet she got her own door and everything. And the fact that Mirabel has to stay in the nursery because she didn't get a gift. It would have been just as impactful if the door just stopped glowing and turned into a normal door and behind the door was just a plain bedroom instead of a magical space. Like there could have been scenes of younger Mirabel trying to make her room feel magical with trying to decorate it or something. But nope. To the baby room with you, even when you're a grown adult!

Then there's the candle. Shouldn't the ever burning candle started to melt when the magic started to fade? It could have become a ticking clock, marking how little time they had left to figure it out. But instead it goes from just fine to the wax being almost completely gone in an instant. And yeah, yeah, magical candle and all that. But it lacks an impact when there was no sign before that other than a flicker or two. The house cracking isn't the candle dwindling. Hell, it could have been something like Mirabel saw it half melted suddenly then it was back to normal when the cracks faded.

Even Mirabel finally snapping at Alma didn't feel fully earned. Yes, Alma treated Mirabel like trash. But the other reasons just aren't there. Alma didn't come across as pushing Luisa to always be stronger or Isabel to be more perfect. In fact, it seemed like she was proud of her two granddaughters who had gifts. They never expressed wanting anything different and happily went along with their roles. It would have been vastly different if there was even a hint that Alma was pressuring them into these things. When things change, she's not disappointed in the one who did something different, she just blames Mirabel. Especially with the Isabel situation, it makes sense that someone would assume Mirabel did something instead of assuming Isabel, who'd always rubbed it in everyone's face how perfect she was, had suddenly decided to not be perfect.

Hell, the whole "I never wanted to marry him, I was doing it for the family" thing comes out left field. There's zero sign of there being anything wrong with the guy, or his family, or of Isabel wanting literally anything else. In fact, he's so great that Delores had been pining for him. So why didn't Isabel want to marry him? Zero reason given. And zero hint about her feelings before she suddenly blurts it out.

Overall it just feels like the had plot points they wanted to hit but just hastily strung them together with no thought to building those moments properly. Which is so disappointing given how gorgeous the movie is.

#encanto #movie review #casual movie review #Youtube

[allisonreader]

I watch the live action Little Mermaid… I have thoughts.

My two favourite moments in the movie were the one extremely short moment where Ariel helped Max into the lifeboat and then where she and Eric were studying the maps. (Which I mean Ariel was having Erik tell her everything about what’s on the maps.) I do think that both of them had wonderful chemistry, but my issue was that I couldn’t stop comparing the movie to the animated one. If I could have turned off that side of my brain, I probably would have enjoyed it more. I was happy to see that at least the CGI was a little bit better than it looked in the trailer. There are definitely things that could have been done differently. I missed the theatrics of Poor Unfortunate Souls in the animated version. Though on the same note, I did enjoy the lagoon scene, even if I currently prefer the original Kiss the Girl better. I do wish that they had went a little bit more along the lines of how the did Cinderella in 2015, where you could see the clear homage to the animated version, while very much being its own version of the story. (I also felt like most of the characters just kind of felt flat in comparison to Ariel and Eric.) I think that it’s going to be a long time before I try rewatch it. If I even do. It’s just made me want to watch the animated version again. I don’t know if it would have been better or worse, probably worse, because I had reread The Hunger Games right before I went and saw the first movie and was super nit picky and unhappy about how they handled it, but then enjoyed the movie more the second time I saw it. For the movie being longer than the animated version, most of the characters feel less developed.

I couldn’t help thinking while watching it how I would have done things differently, but didn’t have anything particularly in mind how I would make it different or change things. Well, that’s not fully true. I did think that I would probably touch a little about why Triton is so against humans. And maybe pull in some of the lore from the original story a bit more again, though still keeping the Disney ending and such. (The sisters were more useless in the live action than the animated.) So I think that’s something that I would change. Also, I kind of wish they had incorporated like traditional sea shanties on board. The soundtrack didn’t need to follow the original so closely. I enjoyed the live action Aladdin more, but then I’m not quite as attached to that movie

Have Ariel and sisters getting ready together earlier in the day from when they’re to gather later.

Have actual sea shanties being sung aboard Eric's ship.

#this is where I'm leaving this even though it's not necessarily completely finished in thought #calling it midnight musings though it’s not midnight #midnight musing

[rose-tinted-nostalgia]

I can’t do online dating, man. It’s terrifying. I’ll either get murdered or catfished or worse, rejected, and I just can’t do it. I’m a walking catfish because everyone sees these cute selfies, and these fun facts, like this girl likes anime and 2000’s pop punk, how fun, and then they meet me, and I’m a fucking wreck and how do you tell someone that? Like yeah I’ll fuck you into tomorrow and cuddle you while we watch anime, and I’ll sing along in the car to my high school playlist, and it’s all fun in games, but I actively dream about dying, and I’ll never ever clean up after myself. last night I dreamed of eyeballs sprouting from my skin like some sort of boil, one brown eye spinning beneath a translucent patch on my thigh, and another protruding from my forearm, festering and infected before it finally fell out, leaving an empty socket pooling with blood. I dreamed of curses and ancient magic and murderers and parasites. I dreamed of my nephew lying in a pool of his own blood, wrists and throat slit in some sort of saw-like game for survival, the woman who orchestrated it feigning guilt as she pointed a finger at the person she forced into doing it, me hyperventilating, wondering how this all went wrong. this morning I forced myself to forget several others, dreams I couldn’t stomach remembering, and tomorrow I’ll repeat the same ritual over and over again, trying not to dwell on the memories, trying not to solidify them into existence, and always I’ll succeed at some and fail at others, and I’ll lie awake remembering blood and spinning eyes until I dream of them again. the nightmares aren’t new. they come and they go, but they never truly leave, and I’m not sure they ever will, and how do you tell someone that? Where do I put in my dating profile that my nightmares could fill a horror anthology, that I’m scared they mean there’s something wrong, that I don’t understand what my mind could be trying to heal by forcing me to bear witness to ugly things night after night. I have nothing to offer someone, and that’s not me being depressed or doubting my self worth, because I know some people will find me funny or attractive or charming, and some people would take me, baggage and all, but I have nothing to offer. I hate to cook and clean, and I shut down in a mess, and I have to pay my family to help me get things in order, and my anxiety keeps me awake at night, and I’m a hypochondriac, and I’m scared of the dark and demons, and I argue everything, and I’m easily overstimulated, and I get cranky when I don’t have control, and my head is full of nightmares and intrusive thoughts, and I’m always obsessed with something new that I’ll never stick to, and i ghost (almost) everyone if I forget to respond for even a day, and I can’t stop quitting jobs the moment I feel even a little less happier than usual, and I take Disney trips and eat out every time I’m feeling sad so I’ll never save a thing, and I don’t go to the gym, and I don’t dress up, and I was awful to every person who every meant something to me, and I don’t even have friends. I’m not just not good at anything. A guy on bumble asked me what I was good at, and I didn’t know what to say. I’m good at my job. How fucking embarrassing. It’s the only thing I’ve stuck with and invested in. I’m good at my job. At arguing. At self diagnosing. And planning Disney trips. At reading people and sensing lies and reading between the lines. At mirroring people. At surviving chaos. I’m not good at anything useful or pretty or kind. I used to be kind. And brave. And so many things, and I’m not. So how can I make you happy? How can I be your sunshine? How can I bring peace and value to your life? I can’t. I don’t have money or talent or looks or anything. I’m indecisive, and I take the path. of least resistance. and I don’t know how to get back the things I lost - my passion and creativity, my bravery, my willingness to stand up for anyone, my unwavering kindness and trust. I used to watch the eclipse on the beach, and I took everyone I met to climb a fucking tree, and I danced in the

rain, and I think I used to be someone worth knowing. but I’m not, and I can’t go on and app and pretend like I am. I’m touch starved, and I crave affection and sex and witty banter, and I’m selfish for wanting from someone what I probable can’t give back. And I’d try. God, I’d fucking try. I’d loved to be so good for someone, but I’m scared to hurt someone good again. And I’m scared to hug someone with sticky, tar-like fingers who won’t let me go, to face-check a relationship because anything seems better then what I had. Either way it feels like I’ll trick someone or I’ll get tricked, and I’m just not here for either.

Dating apps just aren’t for me, I guess. I hate them. But I wish I didn’t.

#ignore me #I’m over here deleting dating apps while day dreaming about being held #and fucked but #in a world full of serial killers how the fuck can I let a stranger tie me up and have their way with me #I cannot #people can’t be trusted #I can’t be trusted #I’ll hurt you probably #but I’d love you if you let me #for better or worse #and I guess that’s the problem

[spoontoof]

So, today I was trying to flesh out a new feature screenplay I’ve been making. I wasn’t writing in it, just trying to work out some cool concepts. I don’t wanna say alot about it now, since it might become a real thing, but I will say that it’s a stop-motion animated surrealist avant-grade action film that takes place in an otherworldly landscape. It’s coming along very nicely, and I hope this isn’t just some “14 year old making a screenplay that he’ll hate when he becomes a professional artist.” In other news, I was watching the new Disenchanted film with my Mom and Sister, and after watching the animated opening scene, my Mom says to me, “that’s the type of stuff you should make.” I chuckled, and said “Yea, that’ll look cool,” knowing that I’ll probably never make anything Disney. The type of stuff I wanna make is more in line with the works of Don Hertzfeldt, Bill Plympton, Jan Svânkmajer, the Brothers Quay, Sr Pelo, Chuck Jones, Henry Selick, Richard Williams and Max G. I do look up to people like Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, and I do love people like Milt Kahl. The closest thing to Disney that I heavily study not for fun, but for genuine inspiration, are Warner Bros. Cartoons, Fleischer Studios, and generally any animation from the 1920s-Early 1940s. Anyways, that’s all I wanted to say, expect more stuff like this, and I’ll see all of y’all another day. Bro out.