sorry y'all. my Descendants brainrot is back.

so. despite my best efforts my Descendants brainrot has returned. i sincerely apologize for the person i will become. if you don’t want me interacting with your stuff just block me, i promise i won’t be offended. i know i can be incredibly annoying about this stuff.

anyways! here are my main Descendants takes:

Mal is a horrible person and one of the most terribly written protagonists i’ve ever seen.

Ben deserved better. Evie deserved better. Audrey deserved better. Uma deserved better. Carlos and Jay deserved better. Pretty much every character except Mal deserved better.

Even if I did like Mal, I’d still want to see other characters given more screen time.

The premise of Descendants is very fucked up and one of my favorite parts about interacting with the fandom is exploring the ways in which the world of Descendants is inherently traumatizing.

I am a multishipper. Honestly the only ships I hate are the ones with Mal in them because I don’t want her toxic ass near any of my babies.

I didn’t watch Descendants 4 and I don’t intend to any time soon, so I don’t feel that I’m in a position to speak on it. However, in terms of fandom discourse around it, here are my thoughts: Respect queer headcanons just as you would any other, even if you don’t agree with them. Glasshearts is cute. Leave the actresses alone. Brandy and Paolo ATE. I would die for them. From what little we’ve seen of Red, she’s already a better protagonist than Mal ever was.

Please learn to separate actors from their characters.

Mal is the one with the most luggage- though it's still not a lot of stuff, she has two bags, and is the only one to hand one of those bags to the driver. Carlos obviously didn't have time to do that, Evie keeps her bag with her, and Jay didn't seem to bring any bag. Did she know she was supposed to hang her bag to the driver? If so, how?

One of the things I really like about Descendants is the little acts of care we see between the characters- Evie seems actually excited to get out of there as soon as possible, but as soon as she hears Cruella shouting at him, she holds the car door open for Carlos and looks back to check on him. She makes sure he gets in the car first (that white blur in the fourth photo is Carlos' hair lol) and then gets in after him as quick as possible- doing all she can to make sure his mom doesn't get to him.

Oh jeez I forgot Cruella actually chased after him.

(I'm just going to cry about him again don't mind me.)

He had to throw whatever he could into a trash bag- look how little he actually managed to grab.

I think this line speaks for itself.

(And just to be clear, EQ was the one who said this, not Evie.)

So this is insane, Jay.

And almost immediately they show us other buildings on the Isle made of stone lmfao 😭

However, aside from the arch above the bridge, what we see look like rudimentary structures (the warehouse to the left), not the kind of ostentatious detailing you would see in a Disney castle. So perhaps it wasn't access to building materials that hindered Maleficent, but access to stonemasons or anyone who could achieve the kind of architecture she wanted.

Funnily enough, the castle that inspired King Stefan's castle in Sleeping Beauty, Neuschwanstein Castle, was renovated to represent Romanesque architecture instead of the late gothic (when it was actually built) in the late 1800s. It's thought of as a typical medieval castle, but many of its authentic historical elements have been altered in an attempt to recreate/embody aspects of Romanesque architecture. (More info here if anyone's interested: https://www.neuschwanstein.de/englisch/idea/histor.htm)

Interesting wording to use here- considering Maleficent's plan is to take over and probably subjugate the entire kingdom of Auradon and everyone in it.

This set design has always been hilarious to me- it's laughably bad. Obviously, it's the result of access to filming locations and production costs, but I suspended my disbelief for a minute and found an interesting in-universe explanation for why Maleficent's castle might look this way. What if there's no stone they can built with on the Isle? And I doubt they would have the resources or infrastructure to actually construct buildings from that stone even if they had it. So, this janky little wall is Maleficent's solution to being unable to have a "real" castle.

Of course, this raises the question of what building materials they do use on the Isle. A lot of buildings appear to be made of wood- feasibly an easier material for the average Isle resident to carry and assemble, but what about obtaining it? We know that fauna on the Isle is limited at best, but maybe it wasn't always like that. I know I wouldn't put it past some of these villains to log the whole Island to the point of near complete deforestation. (However, it's almost impossible to say what the climate of the Isle or Auradon are actually like, considering how many separate countries, each with distinct geographical characteristics, Auradon is made up of.) Or maybe Auradon provided the Isle with some building materials.