Skies Reflected

Not all those who wander are lost

[despazito]

I could function in a society that had an actual nightlife that isn't synonymous with just clubbing. Where are the night markets what if I want to go to the library at midnight

[sasukeless]

i hate when theres a post where i agree w almost everything then theres a sentence i absolutely despise sneaked in the middle of it like. fuck you now i cant reblog any of that 😑

[poetry-siir]

[ousia-poetica]

[pawthko]

I know why I am here. Its something only I can do.

[lauraannegilman]

TV Executives: “if the strike goes in, you won’t get new episodes of your favorite shows! You won’t get new movies you were looking forward to! Isn’t that terrible, what the writers are doing to you?”

Me: Bitch, that might have been an effective threat in 2007, but we have since survived a Covid shutdown and discovered ways to amuse ourselves while we waited, we can outwait this shit, too. I got a pile of shows saved I haven’t even watched yet, and a Mt. TBR waiting for me.

Compensate (and respect) your writers for their work, assholes.

[aspiringwarriorlibrarian]

It's just hilarious that they're trying to pull this whole "but your favorite shows!" nonsense.

Oh, you mean the shows you cancel after the third season no matter how good they're doing to avoid paying writers residuals? The shows that get produced and then never aired because you found a nice tax writeoff? The shows whose writing suffers because the writers' room got six weeks to write before getting booted and making the showrunner adapt all their scripts? The shows you straight up pulled from your streaming service to scam their crews out of rewatch money?

I will happily sacrifice my shows for the writers that gave them to me, no questions needed, but if anyone tries to say that the blatantly terrible way streaming treats its writers is somehow beneficial to shows, remind them of Infinity Train and Batgirl. That's the ideal they're pushing towards if someone doesn't say no, and we should be thankful that the writers are doing that for us.

[bikuwana-still-on-discord-deact]

girls when the media they're obsessed with is never going to be as good as they wish it could be

[lordofseagulls]

girls when the media they're obsessed with is never going to be as good as they wish it could be

[asteroidtroglodyte]

What the heck, I’ll give it a shot.

How bad could it be?

[asteroidtroglodyte]

[asteroidtroglodyte]

Guys I’m not ok

[ecrivainsolitaire]

Do tell

[asteroidtroglodyte]

Oh jeez where to begin

Ok, First of all, Dorothy Gale is played by a young Fairuza Balk.

These pictures do not do justice to the raw Traumatized Child energy she brings to this role.

A bit of plot: Dorothy Gale won’t sleep. She’s always talking about Emerald Cities and Talking Scarecrows and Ruby Slippers. At her wit’s end, Aunt Em decides to commit her to the sanitarium for electroshock therapy.

Disney made this.

It is strongly implied that her journey back to Oz is a hallucination caused by the electroshock treatment. Herr Doktor flips the switch, lightning flashes, and the supernatural part of the movie begins.

[asteroidtroglodyte]

Ok. So. Dorothy gets to Oz by almost drowning in a flash flood. She rides to safety in a produce crate with one of her family chickens.

This is where one of the core Uncanny elements of the film first appears; this movie does not share continuity with the 1939 Judy Garland film.

It is a much more faithful adaptation of L.F. Baum’s Books, but despite being a sequel both objectively and canonically, it really just pretends the ‘39 film doesn’t exist.

They land in a desert that turns people to stone called the Deadly Desert. They get food from a Lunch Pail Tree. The chicken can talk. The Scarecrow is King of Oz, allegedly.

But, like,

Here’s her house from the first movie.

The one that landed on a witch? Right smack dab in the middle of a whole dang Munchkin Village?

There was literally a whole song and dance!

Where did the Munchkins go, you might ask?

Well, while Dorothy was away,

There was an Apocalypse.

OZ HAS FALLEN

And this is where we meet the nightmarish Eldritch spawn of Roller Disco and David Bowie:

The Wheelers

[asteroidtroglodyte]

Alright. The fucking Wheelers.

I don’t-

What is-

What these pictures don’t convey is that, as they move, they make the exact same sound the gurneys in the sanitariums make. The Wheelers are played by the same actors who play the orderlies. Oz is the sanitarium.

[asteroidtroglodyte]

Now, let’s discuss Jack Skellington Pumpkinhead

This is one of the Good Guys

He’s just a guy. Like, really, very much, Just A Guy of a character. His entire personality, such as it is, is comprised of

His quest to find his Mom (we’ll get back to that) and

Commenting on his lifelessness. For example, when faced with death, he comments calmly that he won’t miss eating or sleeping, since he does neither.

His mom ends up being this girl:

We’ll get to her.

[asteroidtroglodyte]

I had this fever-dream memory of the Army of Oz in the Hall of Ornaments from when I was a kid as well and I gotta say it’s kinda nice to finally put that memory in some kind of context. A horrible, terrible, awful context, but a context nonetheless.

[asteroidtroglodyte]

One and the same, friend.

[asteroidtroglodyte]

I LIVE TO PLEASE

Ahem. Sorry. Anyway.

So. I mentioned an Apocalypse.

Behold! The citizenry of Oz!

They have been turned to stone by the evil Nome King! Why, you ask?

For stealing his Emeralds, of course!

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I forgot to introduce The Army of Oz, affectionately referred to as Tik-Tok!

This guy

That’s… apparently the whole army?

He’s spring-wound. Has 3 winding keys: one for moving, one for talking, and one for thinking. At one point his thinking gears wind down while his action and talking gears are still tight and he creates a lot of trouble. He has a… spin attack…

I really don’t know what to make of him to be honest.

[asteroidtroglodyte]

Ok so like fully half of what makes The Wheelers so unsettling is the audio so I found a clip:

Hospital gurney noises and echoing, mocking laughter. The way it’s cut doesn’t help. Nor does the… craft store kitsch of the Wheeler outfits. I genuinely have no idea what they were going for. David Bowie vibes, a little bit, but not in a good way.

[scots-dragon]

Oh this film. This isn’t even the end of it.

[korrasera]

This is one of the few films that tried for, and managed to succeed for the most part, at capturing the same sort of dark magic of films like Labyrinth, the Dark Crystal, or the Secret of NIMH. That time when some creators were willing to tell stories to children that reflected the darkness that we already saw in the world.

It’s got some problems, but Return to Oz is honestly great. I also never felt like it was patronizing me when I watched it as child, which seemed like an awfully hard ask for most movies.

[actualhumancryptid]

Yeah this is absolutely of its era, when it comes to terrifying 80’s children’s films.

I used get dad to rent this film for us when I was 8 or so. Mostly because I knew it was the only film my tough little sister was visibly scared of. Children are brutal.

This breakdown doesn’t even touch on Mombi, who scared the living daylights out of me. She is played by the same actress who plays the nurse at the sanatorium. And she is the reason the citizens of Oz up there are missing their heads. She keeps the still living heads locked in glass cabinets in her palace and swaps them out for her own head depending on her mood.

There is a later scene where all the heads are screaming as Dorothy makes a run for it. Mombi’s original head bellowing ‘Dorothy Gale!’ It is genuinely disturbing. I love this film so much.

[all-things-fandomstuck]

I’ve never heard of this movie before, and all I can think now is

WHAT THE FUCK

[dimondlite]

It has been such a long time snice I saw this. I remember reading the books and being terrified of it. Because this is part of more than one book.

[aniseandspearmint]

I love this movie! WAY better than the first OZ movie, I wanted a Lunch Pail tree SO BAD as a kid.

Karliene wrote a great song about it too!

[vrumblr]

Scissor Sisters also used it as inspo!

I love this movie so much. It’s weird as hell, but also really charming. Plus the visuals can’t be beat.

[squeeful]

oh i loved this movie as a kid!

[catchymemes]

[chibird]

Giving up on something that’s not right for you anymore can be healthy and positive. While it’s important not to give up on what matters, we’re totally allowed to let go of things that don’t. 🙏💛

Chibird store | Positive pin club | Instagram

[brilliantlyhorrid]

[knitmeapony]

This is still one of the best executed jokes I’ve ever seen

[mac-the-knife]

you ever have a piece of bread that’s so good you understand the plot of les miserables?

[thesweetpianowritingdownmylife]

opposite energy from tasting turkish delights for the first time and wondering wtf was edmund on

[libraryoftheancients]

Edmund was on WWII sugar rationing.

[diver-up]

u all ever lose the ability to socialize in the middle of a convo like.... ok i’m done now there’s no more words in here brain shutting off

[lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers]

I think we need to address the fact that we have built a society where families can’t survive without both parents working full time outside of the home.

If the cost of living wasn’t so damn high, parents would be able to look after their own children.

We need rent caps, a living wage, an acknowledgement that bringing up children is real work and has value to society, to work far less hours in a week…

There is no reason your average family should struggle to make ends meet in the way that so many do. 

Capitalism benefits from people being poor and exhausted, but it isn’t necessary.

[michaelgovehateblog]

I would like to wish everyone an uneventful new year

[primarybufferpanel]

May we live in very uninteresting times

[anotherwellkeptsecret]

Make bored great again

[petals42]

people who comment on fics just to say that they are re-reading and still cried/felt emotions/loved it are the greatest people on earth and should be given a thousand dollars. 

[discofriend]

Harry Potter AU in which Fred and George are in different houses and they steal and wear each others ties whilst doing stupid things in hope of the others house losing points

[thatwriterchickyouknow]

Finally a Fred and George AU that doesn’t make me want to set myself on fire.

[lytefoot]

AU where Fred and George are in different houses and they get their hands on house ties from the other two houses as well. By the end of their first year nobody knows which house either of them is in and just take points off a random house whenever they see a redhead getting up to something.

The confusion runs so deep by the time Ron starts that Snape once takes points off Slytherin for Ron fighting with Malfoy.

[chippish]

There’s a few months in Fred and George’s second year when they successfully convince most of the school that they’re actually quadruplets, one in each house.

[roseverdict]

“George! Why are you wearing a Slytherin tie?”

“What? No, I’m Edward. Y'know, Slytherin’s resident Weasley?”

“Wh…huh???”

“Next you’ll be telling me you don’t know Hubert!”

“?????”

[doctorgeekery]

After this confusing quadruple mess, a conspiracy theory emerges that Fred and George are actually just one person, and there were never any Weasley Twins. To add fuel to this theory, Fred and George make a point to never be seen together (publicly).

When asked about this theory, Fred/George subtly insinuates that he used Polyjuice Potion so that there could be multiple versions of himself at once. This goes around the Hogwarts Rumor Mill like fire. The Weasley family says nothing to dispute it, not even Percy.

[hippocrates460]

Percy makes polyjuice successfully for the first time in his fifth year, when he finally has sufficient motivation. Fred, George, Edward and Hubert walk into the great hall one morning, identical but for their school ties, and the chaos is so great that nobody realizes Percy and Ron are missing.

[sitp-recs]

This post contains the same chaotic energy the twins display and I’m here for it