Not me scrolling through the Conclave tag only to see no one talk about the deliberate positioning and framing of the women in this movie.
Pulling up this movie I completely expected to only encounter Sister Agnes as the one woman we see in the trailer, the conclave a space that has been kept from the female members of the church. Now, color me surprised when I started the movie and most of the establishing shots we got were focused on all the women working in the Vatican.
And it is such a deliberate choice, it does the film a disservice not to talk about it.
Because while Cardinal Lawrence is having his fifteenth breakdown during sequestering and Bellini finds the ambitious asshole within himself, Ray does all the leg work, and Bel---- we see the women work.
We see the kitchens, we see them cook, we see them stand aside. Most of the time when the Cardinals are conspiring it is the women who interrupt because they are busy working, walking, running errands.
And there is power in that.
I think it is very deliberate how often (and with such lingering gaze) the camera shows us the lives of the other half - partially to connect to the wider themes of the movie, on how Bellini asks for women to get more power but never thanks them, and how Benitez stumps them all by thanking the women preparing their meals when asked to say the prayer (considering his own probably tumultuous relationship to gender within the church).
But it also stands in direct opposition to a long tradition in story telling: servants don't exist. How often the heroes of a regency romance are "alone" because the two hand maidens and three maids don't really count.
Conclave doesn't do that.
It doesn't let us look away.
Between all the petty drama, the politics, and the real life consequences of the conclave, we never stop looking at the people doing all the work.
Yes, we follow the ups and downs of Lawrence and Co, but in doing so the movie reminds us again and again of the women working the kitchen.
And that was just such a powerful artistic choice in a movie about a famously misogynistic church... I loved it. And I had to talk about it.
While having to go into hiding, after having come back to life the first time, Yuji probably cooked apology meals for Gojo.
As he’s had to fetch for himself, since his grandpa was old and sick, Yuji probably learned to cook his own meals. His love language, besides being overly affectionate and attentive, was probably to cook meals for his loved ones.
I can see Yuji bringing homemade meals to his grandpa during the first few months. And I’m sure that he tried to apologize to Gojo for having to be the one taking care of him by cooking him meals too with whatever he had on hand.
Whenever he was running low on ingredients, if Gojo didn’t catch him trying to sneak out to the market, he would probably ask his sensei for some supplies that he was needing, despite how much he hated having to make his sensei run out for errands over and over again.
Yuji definitely cooked for him to the best of his abilities, and Gojo adored his meals every time.
Mk1 incorrect quotes pt.4:
Geras to everyone: "Your fates aren't set in stone."
Also Geras: "Except you, Rain."
Rain: "WTF?!"
Whats a “blorbo”? Asking as a non-English speaker user.
a/n: I’ve decided that, instead of simply putting my thoughts and headcanons and ideas as simple and quick drafts, to just instead start actually writing it all.
summary: Kuai Liang’s (Sub-Zero) last thoughts about Hanzo during the timeline resetting.
warnings: hurt/no comfort (?), canon character death, probably not properly tagged, angst. not necessarily written as couple, could be considered as platonic and viceversa.
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
It was all happening so fast. The world, disappearing around them. The trees, the sky, everything, all turning into nothing in mere seconds. Had Kronika won? For the Elder Gods, he begged not.
Maybe Liu Kang had won? Maybe he was now restarting everything with the Hourglass. Restart everything. All back to zero. Would he remember his life? Would he remember his family? His parents, his brothers, his friends and the people important for him. Would Kuai Liang be able to remember any of them? Probably not. But if he didn’t remember anything or anyone, what about…
Hanzo.
It felt weird. Knowing he would probably not remember him. That didn’t seemed all that fair, did it? After all their years of rivalry, of hatred. It took them more than 10 years to finally feel comfortable by each other’s side, to be able for Hanzo to let go of his rage. To manage it in a healthier way. And now, all of that effort would end up in the trash. Like garbage. It suddenly all felt useless. All that effort spent in helping each other and themselves, it would now all be thrown away.
And it made him feel indignation. On Hanzo’s behalf. On Bi-Han’s behalf.
This just wasn’t fair. Why couldn’t they all just have normal, peaceful lives? When had it all went to shit? Kuai Liang felt like a petulant child throwing a tantrum because he didn’t got the toy he wanted. But it still didn’t felt fair. Why couldn’t they just have peaceful, calm lives?
Bi-Han didn’t deserve to get blamed and murdered for crimes he didn’t commit. Hanzo didn’t deserve to have his family murdered, get tricked by that sorcerer and have his rage be misguided for years. Didn’t they deserve a happy ending too? When did things get so complicated?
‘I wonder what you would think, Hanzo. Would you be angry too, if you were still here?’
Maybe, in this new timeline, things will be better. Maybe Bi-Han won’t suffer for something he didn’t do. Maybe Smoke won’t die this time. Maybe Hanzo…
Or maybe they wouldn’t even know each other this time. Or maybe this whole train of thoughts was useless after all.
Frog and cranberries it must be fall.
EPIC: The musical is such a great source of media. The characters are fucking well written, it’s such a genius and creative adaptation. The designs that every artist makes are chef kisses. And the music itself feels like it’s being sung to me by a chorus of angels right from my ears to my heart.
That’s it. That’s all that I wanted to talk about. EPIC is amazing.
Happy New Year.
Imma start doing incorrect quotes with MK11 and MK1 characters
Everyone: “How are you our creator?”
Liu Kang: Hands over a disc of MK11 and a PS4 “Johnny, you play. Everyone else, observe.”
rainy day
Tiktok has pissed me off,
MK is not a minor.
If your only legitimate argument about plumsynoodles or Peachynoodles is the power dynamic than I’m sorry to say then any fucking ship with Sun Wukong needs to be highly criticised because he is an over thousand year old God who heaven itself fears as equals. Anything with that monkey is a complete power imbalance.
Macaque and Sun themselves would have an unhealthy power dynamic as a ship because there’s cannon evidence that Monkey King has both physically and mentally dominated and beaten Macaque, if not to death then severely enough to cause flash backs and hallucinations in combat. Monkey King by your logic should have no healthy happy ship because he fundamentally outpowers anyone especially mortal in every fucking sense of the word.
Macaque literally worked with the being who caused the most harming fear in SWK and your gonna act like their just happily gonna cuddle after they’ve screamed each other to sleep?
The imbalance of power between Sun Wukong and any character is literally what separates him from everyone else, and it’s MK’s ignoring and uncaring of that power that’s allowed him to talk to and reach both SWK and Macaque on emotional levels
The power dynamic is a weak defence when everyone fucking recognises it and makes it a factor in a lot of relational focus I’ve seen from MK x SWK content
“Sure all the subtext and cannon evidence leads me to understand mk isn’t a minor but I’m gonna ignore that to push my opinion” If your going to pick and chose what to ignore so can everyone else
Why has nobody talked about the fact that he made sure the tournament would be death-free? Liu Kang literally grabbed what robbed him and his friends of a chance for a better life, and remade it.
Why has nobody talked about it yet?