Star (taylor's version)

Like idk bout yall but that rubs me the wrong way like this is a serious situation where people are dying in genocides and you're making jokes about it, spreading misinformation, and targeting the wrong people?

If you get mentioned under ANY blog that says they're Tumblr staff. DON'T FALL FOR IT!!!!!!

From there it's not actually difficult to get the other soldiers onboard with covering up the fact that poor Ping took one for the team and got afflicted by the vagina curse, especially since it would have been all of them if they hadn't gotten the warning ahead of time. So they agree to help him cover it up, because obviously the army's not going to understand.

Mulan: Uh, what boobs? Huh? Where did these come from?

Mushu: *facepalms and thinks quickly* (speaks from the shadows) I AM THE SPIRIT OF THE LAKE! BEWARE MY CURSED WATERS FOR THEY WILL TURN MEN INTO WOMEN!

Mulan: Look-

Ling, Yao, and Chien Po: WE CAN EXPLAIN!!

[One convoluted, chaotic explanation later]

Shang: ...is this why you've all been insisting we don't camp anywhere that doesn't have a lake.

Shang: and then none of you actually swim in it.

Shang: and you all keep jumping at shadows.

Shang: wait a second Ping did this happen before or after you became insanely good at fighting?

Shang: did you get better at fighting after you became a woman.

Shang: are women better at fighting than us.

Mulan: ....uh. well. maybe? no one's ever tried to find out.

Yao: [thinking very fast] y'know Captain it's just so hard to find recruits these days.

Chien Po: Real shortage of men.

Ling: Lots of women, though.

Mulan: [catching on] Without marriage prospects.

Shang: You're right, men. The spirits must have done this in order to show us that we should be recruiting women as fighters.

Mushu [from the shadows, seeing an opportunity to do the funniest thing]: EXACTLY, LI SHANG. I HAVE TRANSFORMED PING INTO A WOMAN BECAUSE YOU HAVE TOO LONG OVERLOOKED THE TRUE WAY TO WIN THE WAR.

Mulan [seeing an opportunity to get all the stories straight]: O Great Spirit, is it reversible?

Mushu: WHY WOULD YOU WISH TO REJECT MY GIFT? I HAVE SEEN YOUR HEART, CHILD, AND HAVE ALREADY ALTERED THE MEMORIES OF EVERYONE WHO KNEW YOU BEFORE YOU LEFT FOR THE ARMY. YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN THEIR DAUGHTER.

Li Shang: Welp, the spirits have spoken. Ping - wait is your name still Ping if you're a woman now?

Mulan: Uh. Actually, I was thinking of renaming myself. How do you feel about Mulan?

BONUS:

Mulan [climbing out of the eleventh lake the men have arranged for her to swim in]: Yeah no, it didn't work. Still got boobs. [tries to appear dejected].

Chien Po: If it makes you feel better, they're very nice boobs.

a dick

he/him pronouns

XY chromosomes

things you DO need to be a man

the swiftness of a coursing river

the force of a great typhoon

the strength of a raging fire

the mysteriousness of the dark side of the moon

^this post was brought to you by LGBT^

Let's

Get down to

Business

Like. The first twenty minutes leading up to her acceptance to Harvard are packed with establishing character pieces highlighting her intelligence.

We open on her savagely tearing apart a sales worker that was trying to trick her into an upsell. And once they start talking about her academics?

I mean. Yeah.

She's been maintaining a 4.0 GPA and manages to study hard enough to get a 179 (out of 180) on her LSAT while also managing the responsibilities of being sorority president? Yeah. Yeah, that's really fucking impressive. Elle Woods is a goddamn mega-genius.

It's just that her mega-genius is presented comically because of how hyperfeminine and Rich White Girl she is. She's coded bimbo to disguise how mega-smart she actually is. Which is. Y'know.

Kind of.

What the entire movie is about. The preconceptions and harsh judgment of women who are considered too girly. Elle doesn't have to change herself and become smart in order to succeed. Elle's fine, actually; If you thought she wasn't, you're just wrong.

She's not a static character; She does have her own growing and developing to do. It just. Isn't related to her intelligence and capacity for understanding even the complex subject of case law. She was already brilliant from the word go.

When she gets into Harvard, despite her comically unconventional admissions essay, it's treated as a relatively ordinary admission. It's not like they're running some kind of special program or something for less qualified candidates that she only finds out about halfway through the film and then has to resolve to prove that she can do it anyway.

(In fact, that's how Warner got in. The big reveal is that he's an unqualified dipshit whose family bribed his way in.)

There's not, like... one guy who's willing to take a risky chance on her and everyone else is just like, "Okay, but she's worthless and when this blows up in your face, it'll be your career on the line." There's a little bit of discussion and then a rubber stamping.

Elle gets into Harvard because... the board looks over her credentials and goes, "Yeah. That is a Harvard-worthy admission. Stamp it." And that's it.

She gets in because she's smart and she puts in the work. That's it. That is all there is to the secret of Elle Woods's success. She's smart. She puts in the work. She succeeds.