i love how both remy and ariel go after their needs, goals and desires, in expressing their authentic selves, despite their parent’s fear, control and restriction.
as someone who has parents that are well-meaning but emotionally immature, being parentified and primed to meet and consider their emotional needs while mine were unseen and neglected, it’s really inspiring to see stories and characters like this…
remy
Remy doesn't view the world through a survivalist lens, he views the world through creation and joy, passion and expression, and he sees the world as unlimited and something to explore himself through, even though he has very real limits to his life. he’s a rat.
he perceives the reality he's in differently, where his fellow rats and family see food as fuel and literally eat anything to keep living + survive, Remy sees food as an experience — as indulgence and an art form. The scenes where Emile tastes food compared to Remy shows this clearly. Remy sees flavour profiles and creativity, viewing food as something to savour, a way to immerse himself, to feel and experience the world and to express himself, making him very different from his peers, and his family — his father and brother.
ariel
Ariel has very different priorities to that of her father and her family, we first meet her as she’s off exploring and foraging for human sunken items, instead of attending to her mermaid duties for the ‘coral moon’. one thing is clear: Ariel longs for a different life.
She wants to be a human, really really badly and she spends her days attempting to connect with the human world, and her authentic self, in any way possible - by collecting human items or by longing. There’s this longing for a life that she just feels in her heart, is hers, and she can’t really explain it or why she wants to be human, making her very different — everybody around her is wondering: why are you so obsessed with humans??
⊹˳ ⋆ 𖦹 ‧₊˚
both characters are different and alien in their worlds, they perceive life completely differently and have different values to their families of origin, they are more in touch with themselves and their needs, seeking and longing to express their authenticity and authentic identities, and are dealing with fathers that restrict and control their efforts to meet and express their authenticity, projecting their fears onto their children.
remy
even though Remy has a lot of real world limitations, where he's a rat for one, he kind of finds himself doing whatever he can in his environment to meet his creative needs, the psychological needs he has for expression, creativity and immersion — he goes into people's homes and he gets spices and stuff to cook with, using lightening to cook, which is a very funny scene 😭
he's very creative in finding solutions and ways to meet his needs and express himself, despite his very big limitation of being a rat, not having access to kitchens and also not being allowed or supported, culturally + familiarly. one of the most impactful scenes in the film for me is where his father shows him all the dead rats in the window and he still chooses himself, choosing and expressing his beliefs and values anyway
ariel
with all the control and restriction she faces in connecting to and expressing her authenticity — after breaking water and saving Eric from the shipwreck, King Triton blasts the hell out of her grotto, destroying everything she holds dear (which was literally so unfair and disgusting btw, that scene makes me so angry) — Ariel continues to find any way to connect to her authentic self and she strikes a deal with Ursula to trade her voice for legs. she wants to explore and connect to her authenticity so much that she’d literally trade her voice for it.
and that's the point with these characters and with your authentic self, if it's in your blood, it's in your blood, as long as you’re connected to and feel safe expressing your authenticity, nothing is going to stop you from doing whatever you can to do so, because it's who you are, and it’s there to be expressed.
so even though Remy and Ariel’s fathers both don’t understand and try to suppress their authenticity, with both parents projecting their fears and needs onto their children, they find ways in their immediate environments (cooking, exploring) to connect to their authenticity, and eventually, the world pretty much presents them both with opportunities to expand this further, and they take them (remy finds his way to Paris and to Gusteau’s / ariel strikes a deal with Ursula)
and of course, things are not easy, there are a lot of challenges to overcome along the way, but they push through and continuously choose themselves at each obstacle, and eventually reach ‘home’ — where they have the external “proof” of their internal connection to their authentic selves (remy with his restaurant, the ratatouille, and ariel with her relationship with eric and her humanity)
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Ooo let's share. What's one movie your parents/guardians didn't allow you to watch?
For me it was the movie, Precious. It's the one movie my mom actually forbid me from seeing, which was wild because I grew up neglected and was already watching things I had no business watching. Til this day I still haven't seen it. I did however read it's trope page and I'm good on continuing not watching it.
does anyone know how to bypass the bark app on a Google pixel? please reblog if you see this. it's not necessarily urgent, but still important. any contributions are highly appreciated!
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Just listened to a whole discussion about phone use in kids and I just need to sit, process, and vent for a second.
The speaker started with saying phones are a problem, because folks are more disconnected and looking at their phones at any given time throughout the day. I have a bone to pick with that, because, prior to smartphones, people were doing that, whether listening to their walkman, reading a book, drawing, imagining in their heads, playing with a toy they brought along, talking to someone, or playing with something they just found in their environment. People were just as distracted then, it was just less monolithically apparent, because of the wider diversity of distractions used - after all, you can listen to music, read, have a conversation, and play a game all on one singular tool now.
Then, they segued to the impact of phones on mental health. The problem is, however, the data and arguments used were data pertaining to screen time as a whole, which has been present since at least the 90s, talking about television use, later evolving to computer use; and about the mental health impacts of social media and unsupervised access to the Internet, which, again, is data and research that preceded smartphones.
Lastly, the speaker spent a significant amount of time discussing strategies of control over what their kids see, and I'm of mixed opinions about that. Yes, kids need safeguards, but if your viewpoint is coming from the avenue of control, you're already losing the battle. Instead, it should be about facilitation and supporting your kids to make wise decisions, first with safeguards, then without. Functionally these approaches often look similar, but because the motivation is different, the outcome is also often significantly different.
So, I'm not saying that you shouldn't monitor your child's smartphone use or that you shouldn't wait until they are of a developmental maturity to be able to use a phone responsibly, but what I am saying is that phrasing this conversation around restricting access to the tool (smartphones) and controlling your kids' exposures misses the actual risks and harms and creates an authoritarian relationship with your child. Instead, focus on creating alternative distractions to smartphones, incorporating phone screens into overall screen time limitations, and set up safeguards regarding what content your kids are accessing.
