Werewolf Youtubers Be Like “lycan Subscribe” But Fungus/alga Symbiote Youtubers Be Like “lichen

BEHOLD

The thing I was thinking the most while watching Conclave was actually a classmate I had in uni who is a nun. She talked about the role of women on the church and how there should be a woman pope. And like, years ago she was given a scholarship to study philosophy in Rome, except she couldn't. Because the nuns had to perform all the domestic labor for the priests and the workload was too big, add to that stuff like how no one could leave the dinner table before the archbishop and he liked to talk so sometimes he would make everyone stay until late at night and ofc the nuns had to clean up after that, or when the priests wanted to give the nuns an easy day they would decide they would have a picnic, but the nuns still had to prepare their picnic. My friend just couldn't find the time to study, so she dropped her scholarship and came back to Mexico.

And Conclave does such a good job of making this work visible, even when if only Sister Agnes speaks, there is always shots of nuns working. For everything the priests do, it's always shown how the nuns make it possible. Benítez standing out early on for being the one person to thank them. The film ending on a seemingly unrelated shot of nuns walking.

It's a very poignant statement given how reproductive labor is often invisibilized.

Thinking about Lilo & Stitch makes me really appreciate certain things about the original + the series. Almost every single named [human] character in the movie isn’t white: the only exception being Mertle, y’know, the bratty little girl we’re not supposed to like.

Besides all of the racial representation, Lilo herself is very much a neurodivergent icon, and her portrayal as the protagonist is amazing considering how characters like her are typically either sidelined or depicted in ways to make them less sympathetic/human (modern media does at least a slightly better job at adressing that kind of thing tho).

So all of that is great, but to anyone that hasn’t seen Lilo & Stitch: The Series, it also does some extremely refreshing stuff.

Pleakley gets tons of validation to dress in drag, everyone always referring to Pleakley as “she” when dressed up as “aunt Pleakley.” There’s even an episode that tackles Pleakley dealing with the pressures of his family that wants him to marry a girl and settle down to have a “normal life.” After the episode's shenanigans, there's a realistic depiction of the misunderstanding of a heteronormative/traditional parent with their non-traditional child: Pleakley's mom says that she just wants her children to be happy, but when Pleakley says that he is happy, she thinks he's only trying to console her as she insists, "How can you be happy? You aren't even married." But Pleakley finally gets it through to his mom when he says, "I don't want to be married, mother! I'm happy just as I am."

After getting to meet all of Pleakley's ohana throughout the episode and hearing from Pleakley himself -after all of the previous misunderstandings- that he really, truly, is happy, she's finally starting to understand.

Even though his mom comments as they leave that she wants him to “try wearing men’s clothes more often,” she still does walk away accepting that she simply doesn’t understand her son's way of thinking. It’ll definitely be hard for her since she’s so much more “traditional,” but she’s finally coming to grips with the fact that her son is who he is, and likes being that way, so she’ll love him regardless. She's trying her best.

The portrayal of people with physical disabilities is also great. It’s not because there’s one recurring character with some condition, but almost because there are non-recurring characters. It isn’t in every episode, but here’s an example: they want to show someone at the park playing fetch with their dog for just one shot. They could very easily have it be any a random person, but they decided to make it a lady in a wheelchair. There's another episode where Nani's friends from highschool show up and one has forearm crutches, but not just because she had some recent accident. No one in the episode questions her condition or feels the need to point it out, the only comment on it being that the friend will use the crutches to lightly bonk the others' arms, and Nani jokes, "You are still deadly with that thing."

The fact that they include characters with disabilities when they "don't have to" makes it that much more normal. These people aren't some special case or the main highlight of the episode, they're just another person. They're normal.

There's so much that all of the original Lilo & Stitch media did right, but now the name will forever be tainted with the association of the remake, which I'm sure will have absolutely none of the tasteful writing and ideas of anything prior to it.

"sex scenes have no narrative purpose" is such a funny take on so many levels. people will really believe that the whole human experience is valuable to portray artistically except sex, which of course has never held emotional weight or significance for anybody

the people who go "we shouldn't be so open about nudity because it could trigger someone's dysphoria" are like two steps max removed from "fat people being fat in public could trigger someone with an ed". like peoples' bodies are not the problem here, trying to restrict someone else's body because of how you personally feel is indistinguishable from conservative praxis. i'm sorry if that sounds harsh but there is basically no interpretation of "we need to control the bodies of [demographic]" that does not fall down the slippery slope of fascism.

i think it's really funny when formally fat people go "body positivity is a scam because when i was fat i was miserable and i hated myself but now that i'm skinny i feel alot happier" and it's like well that's because society treats fat people like subhuman dogshit for daring to breathe in public and treats skinniness as the pinicle of human excellence, so i think that's the reason you aren't as depressed maybe.

Oh boys get ready

A little something made by me in honor of this momentous occasion

I just think it would be extremely funny if the irelands got back together and wales and scotland passed independence referendums under Charles bc it'd be like waiting until your mom died to come out