I Refuse To Believe That I’m The Only One On This Site Who Projects Onto Rapunzel (tangled 2010).

okay so i just finished helluva boss (but not the shorts which i don’t think i’ll watch)…

and i enjoyed it for the most part. it’s a fun little show and i think that’s how people ought to treat it. i’ve a few thoughts below the cut. i’ve read a lot of glazing and a lot of hate and tbh i think i’m somewhere in the middle which seems like a rare thing in this fandom lmao

my favorite characters were fizz and moxxie & millie (tho the camp episode was so boring oh my goddd) and also ozzie however his design drives me up a wall why does he look like that. however his VA is sooo good

why do they say fuck so much

it feels like a show made for edgy high schoolers idk like it’s fun but it’s 90% sex jokes, ‘witty’ one-liners, and ship content

they interact with issues shallowly—like classism in hell and possibly racism (? if imps are a separate race ? idk)—and tbh i think they should stick to shallow examinations. social commentary is not their strong suit. things won’t hold together if they try to go deeper with this; it’s not a serious show and it should not be taking itself seriously. it works best when it’s interpersonal

i have a big issue w how viv/the writers/character designers portray fat ppl. i rly didn’t get the fat jokes about moxxie in that one ep like was it supposed to be a running gag? the character designs make everyone thin as a toothpick except for mammon who also happens to be the one sin they portray as being the worst and most disgusting. even bee who literally *is* gluttony is disgusted by mammon in that one scene where he’s chowing down in the courtroom. like what sense does that make.

which gets me to my real question that consistently bugged me throughout the whole series: what is the standard of morals in hell? the sins are personifications of their domains, so why are most of them decent folks? does this imply that people are sent to hell based on very conservative christian views—like is that the moral standard in this universe (i haven’t seen hh if this is explained)? like there genuinely weren’t a lot of indications for me for why a sin was a sin. ozzie emphasized lust being consensual; bee was concerned for blitz overindulging; but then verosika and her friends sexually assault moxxie and it’s implicitly brushed off as funny and not a big deal because oh well it is hell after all. idk it just felt inconsistent to me and i’m not sure why everyone and everything was so sanitized if this is supposed to be a terrible place

i liked the backstory episodes those were fun

i feel like they babygirlified stolas by making stella so unlikeable. it feels like the show runners were begging for us to sympathize with him when i thought he was a plenty decent character on his own and they could have made him much more morally complex by letting stella be an actual character. i was hoping there would be a little more ambiguity to it (rather than ‘yay stolas is finally divorcing that bitch’) because i genuinely was a little confused by why octavia was so mad at him at the end of s2 when the show covers his bases—she saw that stella wasn’t letting him call? idk i feel like the conflict should’ve come around the stars episode not the end one it just didn’t make sense to me. her struggle with the divorce made sense in s1 but by s2 they’d made stella such the clear-cut villain that it seemed like she never had a happy family to mourn the loss of. it felt forced that they transferred the conflict she seemed to be set up for having with her mother to stolas just to give him something to be upset about.

i’m not a big fan of stolitz im gonna be honest. idk why they like each other. they went from stolas essentially being a funny thirsty character to making their relationship the main plot line. it felt forced on blitz’s end especially like he went from not caring about him to ‘no actually he’s just too insecure to admit his feelings’ to madly in love?? within the space of a few episodes? there was also the problematic classist overtones as well but i think giving them an overtly toxic situationship would’ve been better and more fitting to the fact that they’re in hell than airbrushing things away so they can be an uwu yaoi pairing.

i enjoyed some of the songs especiallyyy the asmodeus one is s1 that was groovy as hell

i love fizz and ozzie they’re really cute :)

some of the designs got on my nerves (like ozzie and striker etc) but some of them were pretty cool (like fizz and stolas!)

in closing, i think the show is fine and a pretty fun watch it just shouldn’t take itself too seriously because then it breaks down.

i read the conclave book in less than a day and watched the conclave movie twice and i feel like i can say edward berger definitely read the book and thought "you know what the problem here is. not enough benitez as a jesus allegory content"

just a few changes to showcase this:

1. In the book Benitez is constantly portrayed being welcomed by Filipinos, Africans and other nations due to his reputation. Multiple times the book has shown Benitez being dragged into groups and numerous nationals listening intently to what he has to say, which is why he rose so slowly but prominently.

In the movie, Benitez is almost always alone--the scene where Lawrence finds him looking at the late popes turtles alone was originally Benitez talking to a group but deciding to leave to speak to Lomelli instead. The movie frames Benitez in the same quiet but thoughtful work as it does the nuns and all the important female figures in the Church--watching, listening, saying nothing until the spirit moves him to speak the truth. The book shows Benitez still being involved in the politics of the Conclave, dragged around his social groups, whether he wants to be or not; the movie expressly separates Benitez entirely from the politics, placing him in a kind of objective, angelic watcher position.

2. Jacopo Lomelli's name is changed to Thomas Lawrence. The book is likely referring to Jacopo as Jacob, the man who wrestled God, but in the movie he is clearly focused on being Doubting Thomas, the man who interrogates and sees proof of Jesus's resurrection from an abdomen wound. Guess who Lawrence was interrogating about the treatment of an abdomen wound in the movie

3. Speaking of the treatment, the movie changed Benitez's condition from having a fused labia to having ovaries, and also changed the way he found out from a car bomb explosion injury to an appendectomy. Again. This is probably an allusion to Doubting Thomas checking out Jesus's wound. But the fact that even this major detail was changed to fit the "Benitez as a Jesus allegory" narrative is hilarious to me

4. This is my biggest, funniest observation of the Conclave Book vs Movie Benitez. Book Benitez is determined to make Lomelli win. He gets up and speaks after the discovery of the terrorist attack to expressly say that the conclave has already had a majority vote (Lomelli) and that all the 24 people who voted for Benitez should vote for Lomelli instead to strengthen the church. He doesn't outwardly express any disdain for the conclave, just that he wishes they could work together to strengthen the Church. Movie Benitez is VASTLY different because he just straight up says sth along the lines of "all of you are petty and weird and know nothing about the conflict youre getting into and i cannot wait to go back to kabul and do some actual good for this world instead of being stuck here with all of you. " its just such a holy takedown of the church that clearly separates Benitez not as a member of any faction but as a voice of God

I love both the movie and the film for completely different reasons and I think everybody who reads or watches one should check out the other just to get a complete picture of both visions

Bless you

i think i’d rather be taken out back and shot like a lame horse than call myself “neurospicy”

so i’ve only watched sn 1 and a bit of sn 2 of the boys, but i’m really digging hughie’s pseudo coming-of-age arc, which contributes to the oedipal themes of the show as a whole. in season 1 one of hughie’s minor journeys as a character was self-actualizing into someone his father was no longer babying. he lived with his dad & robin was going to be the one who forced him to gain independence from his father by having him move in with her. then she died, and he spent the rest of the season getting mixed up with the wrong ppl but trying to become his own person. in season 2, the father from which he is trying to grow beyond and metaphorically “kill” is butcher (who quite literally refers to himself as daddy (😩) in the first ep) by asserting himself as a new sort of leader of the boys and by doing things on his own.

the other side of this oedipal coin is homelander, obviously, with his lust for a mother figure (stillwell in s1) and hatred for his father figure (vogelbaum). this doesn’t need much explanation. in the second season he is also in a fight to assert himself independently from his paternal company.

overall, this points to a consciousness of the characters’ stunted growths and their inability to self-actualize without an element of conflict. this is a commentary on human nature but moreover our current culture of toxic masculinity. i hope they carry these themes forward in some shape or form, whether that’s a continuance of the cycle or a subversion of it, with ryan and homelander + butcher!

☀️

I know your lionhead bigwig art was like 2 fucking years ago atp but it's not actually all that far fetched for him to have some lionhead in him

The rabbits don't seem too ridiculously picky on who joins a warren and European rabbits (which is most definitely the species of the rabbits in watership down is) and domestic rabbits can reproduce unlike American cottontails and domestic rabbits

oh that’s fascinating, I didn’t know that! Lionhead Bigwig ftw

mickey 17 was so good robert pattinson loves to play a wet little freak and do a silly voice and god bless him for it

jidat lawrence

“There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand.”

I've had this vision in my mind for ages so I finally decided to take a stab at drawing a cover for one of my favourite novels⚡