You're Quinner
S... summary plurk. for Tag
You're Quinner
https://images.plurk.com/5tEkf67IkYW2FqYmSvj0fP.png Tag is a 2015 japanese action horror movie directed by Sion Sono, who is clearly a kind of guy
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It opens on a class of high school girls coming back from a school trip in two buses
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they are filled with youth and energy and friendship
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https://images.plurk.com/10N6v9azXQVzWBlehowrzU.png among them is Mitsuko, the protagonist
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She's shy and nice and likes to write poetry
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One of her friends lightly teases her about writing poems on a school trip and tries to grab her poem book to see what she's writing
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in the process, her pen is knocked to the floor of the bus
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so Mitsuko crouches down to pick up the pen, and the bus is cut in half longways, decapitating the driver and bisecting every other passenger
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both entire buses of people die instantly
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Mitsuko, covered in blood and traumatized, deduces that something invisible in the wind cut them
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she flees, and comes across some other girls on the side of the road
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grabs one of them, the other three are bisected by the wind
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some cyclists go by and are all bisected
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Mitsuko somehow runs and escapes, the wind no longer following her
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finds a pile of bisected girls in a river
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washes her face, trades uniforms with one of the corpses so that she's no longer covered in blood, and stumbles back towards civilization
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where everyone's going to school! it's a normal day at the all-girls high school
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she staggers in a daze, seeming to not remember anything that's going on
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but is reunited with her friend group, who do remember her, and try to remind her of their respective deals
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https://images.plurk.com/IHp9bQFCPNqbueBxWCQI.png there's Aki, who's gay
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https://images.plurk.com/IHp9bQFCPNqbueBxWCQI.png Taeko, who's confused but a real good sport
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that was the same image fuck
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https://images.plurk.com/7LOxEWrhPUUSJCfGT92eg5.png Taeko
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https://images.plurk.com/2bf2WSORL7CoqJLGUS84aJ.png and Sur, called that because she's Surreal but she's really mostly just punk
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Mitsuko relates the events of the bus massacre as a bad dream she had
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The four of them skip school to go be young by the lake
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while there, Sur starts talking about fate and parallel universes, because this movie is a visual novel
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her thesis is that events seem to be set in stone, but you can change fate by doing something impulsive and unexpected, which is why she's so weird all the time
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friendships are strengthened, they have a pillow fight
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there was a pillow fight on the bus, too. it's a recurring image
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pillows and feathers flying everywhere
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anyway they go back to class
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Aki shows Mitsuko to her seat, then sits down, everyone filled with friendship and teenage spirit
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then the teacher pulls out a minigun and mows down everyone in the room
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Mitsuko and her surviving friends all try to escape the school, while the faculty have all pulled out heavy weapons to try and slaughter all the students for no reason
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everyone but Mitsuko dies
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as she and 3-4 strangers are all running from the rockets and grenades, Mitsuko stumbles
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and the other girls are all bisected by the wind
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that's right. death wind is back again
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Mitsuko runs and runs and runs and finds another crowd
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and goes to the police
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she can't explain her situation to the lady police officer she runs into
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but after a bit of confusion, police lady goes
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"Wait, I remember you"
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"Keiko! Why are you dressed like a high schooler"
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"It's me! Tomoko"
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Mitsuko is confused
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she looks at her reflection in a mirror
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https://images.plurk.com/4158DlM10l4PYMZmmvZ3GL.png she's Keiko now
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just, a totally different person
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Tomoko's old friend Keiko, age 25, about to get married
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the crowd of excited women drag her into the wedding venue to get made up and changed
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where she encounters the maid of honor:
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https://images.plurk.com/2mo8Rc3tnNArdIvI4SPbcz.png Aki
Princess Emily
hm, what the fuck,
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after some initial feigned confusion, Aki pulls Keiko close and says
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"I know. We'll talk later."
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Wedding Stuff continues
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until Aki manages to get everyone to leave them alone for a minute
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and explains that Mitsuko is now also Keiko
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Keiko is here to get married, but "don't panic"
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She'll tell her the whole story later, when they aren't watching
lily!
did you do it, quinn. did you finally find the denpa that didn't get weird and uncomfortable about sex and virginity
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m... kind of
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we'll get to that
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anyway Keiko and Aki get ready for the wedding
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the bridesmaids storm back in, all excited and peppy
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and Aki goes "Keiko watch carefully"
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and starts just obliterating them with her bare hands
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snapping necks, crushing heads
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kills the whole wedding party
Princess Emily
nani the fuck
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mostly by herself but gets keiko to help her with the last killing blow
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hands keiko a broken wine bottle to use as her weapon for the wedding ceremony
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she'll get in touch later
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smash cut to the wedding
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https://images.plurk.com/6JVqt4GCH7eHNOxiFJZNsy.png
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a hundred or so girls all cheering her on and throwing flowers
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interestingly there has not yet been a single male character on screen at any point
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even random crowd shots are all women
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waiting for her at the front of the church is a coffin
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as she walks the aisle, the wedding guests start to get more unhinged
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the organist just bashing random notes as the girls in the audience start stripping into their underwear and hurling obscenities
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the organist reveals her groop, a monster man with a decomposing pig head for a head
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groom*
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he's in the coffin
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everyone tries to push her forwards to kiss the groom
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Keiko snaps and starts just stabbing people
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starting with pig man
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as Keiko returns, trying to get her out of there
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https://images.plurk.com/1eqQo4EZsQuedww5DwARq7.png two evil dominatrixes block their way
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and they have a 2v2 kung fu battle
lily!
you were right, this movie was clearly made by some kind of guy
EsperBot
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they flee the venue
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Keiko senses someone following them, and Aki splits off to distract it
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Keiko runs, and runs, and runs
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and is intercepted and flagged down by
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https://images.plurk.com/3J6gwSbVxWnva9ZTXqAqom.png her friends who are with her at the Big Race
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https://images.plurk.com/6lKajafcB1abnZr9yqLZtv.png Keiko is Izumi now
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they arrive at the starting line of the Big Race
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and all set off, to win with the power of friendship
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as she runs and her new friends remind her of their long shared athletic track and field backstory
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she starts to remember it herself
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until she sees, among the other runners
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Aki, Taeko, and Sur
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Aki: "Izumi you gotta get out of here. Jump that fence and see if you can lose them"
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The people at the back of the race are getting murdered
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by Pig man and the Dominatrixes
Where Is Harkan
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Izumi flees the race, ending up in a cave full of spooky ghost girls
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their leader tells her that she has to die so that all of them can live
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but before ghost girl can murder izumi, Aki puts her in a chokehold and kicks her ass
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and explains what's going on
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well first
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she tells Izumi to say "I'm Mitsuko" over and over
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and she does, louder and louder, until she turns back into the original Mitsuko
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then she explains that
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the world they're in is fictional
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and someone watching them will never let the nightmare end
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they'll keep being chased and killed over and over forever
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and the only way to change fate is to do something unexpected, that Mitsuko would never do
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so, Aki holds out her arms, which have a pair of weird wires sticking out of them
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and tells Mitsuko she has to pull them and tear her apart
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eventually, Mitsuko screams and pulls and pulls and pulls on the wires
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https://images.plurk.com/b27exW2mIzuqFD3OTQRnG.png revealing a portal
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which takes her to... somewhere
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a restaurant kitchen, which is very busy
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starting from here, men exist in the movie
Love Snake Kaja
Would be quite something if the movie ended there
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she sees a poster for the movie, Tag
Love Snake Kaja
Like, the moment she enters the portal
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but it doesn't say it's a movie
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https://images.plurk.com/1FCcAAXB3MbwVYLi0EXALu.png
lily!
wh
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a man comes for her
lily!
how much of the movie's runtime are we through at this point,
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she recognizes him but can't remember his name
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there's about 15 minutes left
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he takes her to a building
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https://images.plurk.com/44mQSsKMc0hCqTSYiVme67.png
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walls lined with different AUs of Mitsuko
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at the end of it, she finds an old man on a chair in front of a TV, holding an arcade stick
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https://images.plurk.com/otO7cAsq1V8rRMIqJgeai.png playing a game
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the old man is an older version of the man who took her here
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he explains that Mitsuko died a long time ago
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in the spring of 2034
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but he got a hold of DNA samples of her and her friends
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and here, in the future, the DNA of the dead can be used for the entertainment of the living
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Mitsuko is, essentially, a living video game character
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then the younger, hot guy returns. it's the game version of the old man
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he strips down to his underwear and lies on a bed, gesturing for her to lie next to him
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the old man's last unfulfilled wish from 150 years ago
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to fuck Mitsuko
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Mitsuko, at the last moment, remembers Sur's words from earlier in the movie
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that the only way to change your destiny is to do something totally unexpected
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so she grabs the old man's walking stick and stabs herself through the chest with it
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disrupting the game's hold on her fate
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it goes back to the start of each scenario, and Mitsuko/Keiko/Izumi dies in each one before the mass deaths can start
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then Mitsuko wakes up alone in an endless snowy field
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says "I'm finally free"
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and walks off screen left
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the camera does not follow her
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fade from snow to white, credits
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I do not understand this gonzo-ass movie why's it called Tag
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but it happens so much
lily!
holy shit
lily!
i do not think i would like this movie
lily!
but i'm glad that it exists
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probably not
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it's also honestly uncomfortably horny about the teenagers throughout
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but like, it's a schlocky B action horror movie, that's expected with the vibe i guess
Dragomorph
from the ending it sounds like it's trying to implicate its audience in the perpetuation of the discomforting excesses as well
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kinda got those vibes yeah
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we're the ones making it happen
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honestly I agree with kaja that it might be a stronger movie if it ended with the portal
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because it makes that read stronger
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as long as she's in the movie, the audience is here to watch her get subjected to over the top atrocities
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so the only way out is to leave the movie
lily!
SAME TBH
✶ 最愛のFATAL
oh this is DENPA denpa, huh
Dragomorph
on the other hand including the notion that the perpetuation is connected to a male gaze and desire to fuck a never-ending protagonist has its own aspect to it
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yeah
Dragomorph
and up to that point she'd mostly been passively doing as others said
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that's probably why there's no men in the movie until she escapes the game
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because the game world exists for male consumption
Dragomorph
so the act of self-negation in that sense is much more of an act of personal agency.
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also an excellent read
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by destroying herself she removes the man's access to her as a tool of his own gratification
Dragomorph
Yep
Dragomorph
leaving in itself wouldn't have been sufficient because she didn't fully understand the depths of her situation and how she and her friends were being abused
Dragomorph
and in that sense the audience wouldn't either. it'd be a way out for them too the movie isn't interested in providing.
lily!
see the thing is i broadly agree with that read, but imo making it About The Male Gaze does ring a little hollow when the movie is also being relentlessly horny about teenagers on its own
Dragomorph
She has to actively destroy to exploitative trash you just watched before she is free
lily!
like even if it's doing that to make a point, the production of the movie itself is still exploiting those teenagers despite the fictional framing involved
lily!
it kinda kneecaps itself on its premise because to deliver it with maximum effectiveness it needs to replicate in-fiction an actual real world phenomenon which is still uncomfortable
Dragomorph
and that's why the camera stops following only after the entire movie has been derailed
Dragomorph
That's honestly the problem with stories like these, of course. How do you condemn something that the movie has been simultaneously courting? How do you make it clearer you're condemning it without freeing the audience from its culpability by making them recognize it's uncomfortable?
Dragomorph
hi i used to read a lot of film crit
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it's a paradox that can be engaged with
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the movie isn't perfect but what is
bluecanary
its called tag because that guy's her mun and keeps apping her to shitty murdergames
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thought from shower
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while the in-game world is all women
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I'm pretty sure the out-game world is also all men
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