salty-medley

[salty-medley]

"They're so full of themselves, who do they think they are? Rock stars? They think they can come here and impress us with their special effects? Those winx aren't that extraordinary. They're just a bunch of lucky girls and spoiled princesses."

After seeing the EP1 S4 of Winx Club, and even if I don't approve her methods, I have to agree with Clarice: the winx really sound pretentious. And they definitely are lucky as their enchantix depended on mysterious enemies who suddenly appeared while for few years nobody has to face these dangers who gave them the opportunity to achieve enchantix. Were they courageous? Yes. Were they lucky? Yes. Stella is freaking spoiled too.

What is their "winxology" class? Except showing off their powers to beginners and saying some general stuff anybody can guess by themselves? Oh yeah, another demonstration of their powers but in an obstacles track. Uh... I don't pay to see 6 accidental heroes showing off, I pay to receive serious classes by experimented professors. We don't know how much Alfea costs as Miss Bloom never has to pay - of course!- but it looks like an expensive private school seeing the appartments they have. Imagine paying that just to see Layla dancing on the professor desk like a tiktoker or Flora ruining your new flower hair pin...

I love the season 4 because it's a step in their lives, they leave Alfea and the school system to became independant, they still work for the magic dimension while being adults, even if here again they have lot of luck, who has a parent who gives you enough money for that seriously? But the point was here, they had to find a job, to work for it while searching and helping. And that was great.

I like to think of the first episode as a way to humble them and to make them realise that their all life won't be Alfea years. The only thing I regret is that in season 5 they didn't take separated paths and places to live like normal adults.

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Toxic stans will be toxic stans, I'm afraid you can't do anything about that.

But that's all the point. Old SSO was full of interesting references, little mysteries to discover, the story was nice compared to a lot of horses games, the characters and their designs were on the same page because it was actually something not only made for money. SSO now is a horse collecting game with a very subtle simp side and a tiny bit of story because they can't decently exploit only the rest. It was predictable when they started to change the game, they wanted something able to attract a large and more ready to pay for everything fandom. You're asking them for logic and consistency when they just try to follow all the trends they can to milk bored players, they don't want players who question things, only the ones who pay. There's nothing more behind, nothing to expect anymore with them.

[salty-medley]

But that's all the point. Old SSO was full of interesting references, little mysteries to discover, the story was nice compared to a lot of horses games, the characters and their designs were on the same page because it was actually something not only made for money. SSO now is a horse collecting game with a very subtle simp side and a tiny bit of story because they can't decently exploit only the rest. It was predictable when they started to change the game, they wanted something able to attract a large and more ready to pay for everything fandom. You're asking them for logic and consistency when they just try to follow all the trends they can to milk bored players, they don't want players who question things, only the ones who pay. There's nothing more behind, nothing to expect anymore with them.

IDK, maybe it's just me (and take this with a grain of salt, bc I've been playing SSO since 2017 and only recently started engaging in the fandom after lurking for years), but I do not recall the thirst for Sabine and people shipping their characters with her being anywhere near as prevalent when she still looked like this:

Were there Dark Core and Dark Rider fans before then? Absolutely.

But SSE was definitely not pushing Sabine in their marketing when she still looked like that, let alone making official posts about how hot she is to pander to her fanbase.

Furthermore, a quick search on AO3 filtering for fics written from 2012 - 2021 (excluding crossovers & only searching for complete works) prior to Sabine's character model update (in 2022) only results in 3 fanfics. Excluding crossovers and filtering for all works brings that number up to 5 works.

Which means that the 33 complete fics written featuring her [using the same "exclude crossovers" + "complete works only" parameters when searching] (5 of which are not tagged as Sabine/Reader or Sabine/Original Female Character fics) were all written from 2022 to present post-Sabine model revamp. And the majority of those are Explicit rated Sabine/Reader or Sabine/OFC fics. I'm sure that if one were to include crossovers and WIPs there would be a lot more results.

So yes, there is a significant jump in the amount of fanworks centered around Sabine after her 2022 revamp compared to the amount of fics featuring her when she still had her Starshine Legacy model.

For the record: I'm not saying fans can't be horny for her, because fandom doing fandom shit in fandom spaces is one thing.

But it's entirely another for the company itself to be pulling this and feeding into Sabine's fanbase in a way that SSE simply does not with any other character in the game. Not even Ydris. And focusing on Sabine to the exclusion of the other Dark Riders or even the Soul Riders. SSE itself will make social media posts (Twitter, Instagram, usw.) on how hot Sabine (an older teenage girl / adult woman) is, when the primary demographic for Star Stable Online is 6 - 14- year-old girls.

And from my perspective, it's solely because Sabine's character was revamped to look "hot" and ambiguously brown. Plus adult players attracted to women going "muscle mommy, step on me". (When this is not a dating sim game and SSO doesn't even have a dating mechanic. I digress.)

That being said, interesting that between the Dark Riders and the Soul Riders, SSE has revamped all but maybe one of the Dark Riders to have darker skin and more masculine-looking clothing + gender-neutral names (i.e. Sabine and Jessica/Jay's redesigns) when they are the villains. Yet the Soul Riders only have Linda (Pakistani) and maybe the player character... and all the NPC Soul Riders are still given the same clothing types as any other female character in the game. Add in that with additional lore in the comics and novels with the Dark Riders not being human but still playing into negative stereotypes in their design choices about people of color...

That is Not Great.

[salty-medley]

I understand your point but you're still on "their core" and what it would be right for them to do, while for them the most important is to do what will bring more money for less efforts and costs. Their "core" is lost since a long time already.

They advertise their games to a younger audience because it's an important part of the fanbase, but they aren't blind, they know that a a huge part of their fanbase are adults and older teenagers who have more money to spend and can do it without parents, are mostly chronically online and most of the time driven to some specific type of characters. Sabine worked so well because she was made for them, just like Ydris was made for another part of them ( Ydris = copy of Sebastian Michaelis from Black Butler, it was also during the time BB was popular, that's not a coincidence. Sabine is a mix between the type of women lot of tumblr addicts are in love with, the typical nicer villain who's more an antagonist and the typical girl crush concept in Kpop.).

The soul riders in some way were also part of that scheme but as they are the main characters, they were limited in a certain way, they had to remain more "acceptable" for kids, so no overly muscled, not too much, just a bit quirky and dynamic. They had to remain juvenile even if they are over 16yo to keep attracting younger players. Just like some characters such as Josh, Rowan, James or the painter in Aideen Plaza with his parrot - I forgot his name sorry-. It's the concept of eye candy for youngers.

Also Sabine extreme fangirls claim to want a redemption arc but they wouldn't be attracted by a nice Sabine. Let's be honest, all they want is to be able to make screenshots with that character, they don't care about a story.

It's the reason why SSO still feels so amateur despite being on the market for more than 10 years, nobody care about anything, it's a freaking mess, and it's made like a bad fanfiction.

IDK, maybe it's just me (and take this with a grain of salt, bc I've been playing SSO since 2017 and only recently started engaging in the fandom after lurking for years), but I do not recall the thirst for Sabine and people shipping their characters with her being anywhere near as prevalent when she still looked like this:

Were there Dark Core and Dark Rider fans before then? Absolutely.

But SSE was definitely not pushing Sabine in their marketing when she still looked like that, let alone making official posts about how hot she is to pander to her fanbase.

Furthermore, a quick search on AO3 filtering for fics written from 2012 - 2021 (excluding crossovers & only searching for complete works) prior to Sabine's character model update (in 2022) only results in 3 fanfics. Excluding crossovers and filtering for all works brings that number up to 5 works.

Which means that the 33 complete fics written featuring her [using the same "exclude crossovers" + "complete works only" parameters when searching] (5 of which are not tagged as Sabine/Reader or Sabine/Original Female Character fics) were all written from 2022 to present post-Sabine model revamp. And the majority of those are Explicit rated Sabine/Reader or Sabine/OFC fics. I'm sure that if one were to include crossovers and WIPs there would be a lot more results.

So yes, there is a significant jump in the amount of fanworks centered around Sabine after her 2022 revamp compared to the amount of fics featuring her when she still had her Starshine Legacy model.

For the record: I'm not saying fans can't be horny for her, because fandom doing fandom shit in fandom spaces is one thing.

But it's entirely another for the company itself to be pulling this and feeding into Sabine's fanbase in a way that SSE simply does not with any other character in the game. Not even Ydris. And focusing on Sabine to the exclusion of the other Dark Riders or even the Soul Riders. SSE itself will make social media posts (Twitter, Instagram, usw.) on how hot Sabine (an older teenage girl / adult woman) is, when the primary demographic for Star Stable Online is 6 - 14- year-old girls.

And from my perspective, it's solely because Sabine's character was revamped to look "hot" and ambiguously brown. Plus adult players attracted to women going "muscle mommy, step on me". (When this is not a dating sim game and SSO doesn't even have a dating mechanic. I digress.)

That being said, interesting that between the Dark Riders and the Soul Riders, SSE has revamped all but maybe one of the Dark Riders to have darker skin and more masculine-looking clothing + gender-neutral names (i.e. Sabine and Jessica/Jay's redesigns) when they are the villains. Yet the Soul Riders only have Linda (Pakistani) and maybe the player character... and all the NPC Soul Riders are still given the same clothing types as any other female character in the game. Add in that with additional lore in the comics and novels with the Dark Riders not being human but still playing into negative stereotypes in their design choices about people of color...

That is Not Great.

[salty-medley]

IDK, maybe it's just me (and take this with a grain of salt, bc I've been playing SSO since 2017 and only recently started engaging in the fandom after lurking for years), but I do not recall the thirst for Sabine and people shipping their characters with her being anywhere near as prevalent when she still looked like this:

Were there Dark Core and Dark Rider fans before then? Absolutely.

But SSE was definitely not pushing Sabine in their marketing when she still looked like that, let alone making official posts about how hot she is to pander to her fanbase.

Furthermore, a quick search on AO3 filtering for fics written from 2012 - 2021 (excluding crossovers & only searching for complete works) prior to Sabine's character model update (in 2022) only results in 3 fanfics. Excluding crossovers and filtering for all works brings that number up to 5 works.

Which means that the 33 complete fics written featuring her [using the same "exclude crossovers" + "complete works only" parameters when searching] (5 of which are not tagged as Sabine/Reader or Sabine/Original Female Character fics) were all written from 2022 to present post-Sabine model revamp. And the majority of those are Explicit rated Sabine/Reader or Sabine/OFC fics. I'm sure that if one were to include crossovers and WIPs there would be a lot more results.

So yes, there is a significant jump in the amount of fanworks centered around Sabine after her 2022 revamp compared to the amount of fics featuring her when she still had her Starshine Legacy model.

For the record: I'm not saying fans can't be horny for her, because fandom doing fandom shit in fandom spaces is one thing.

But it's entirely another for the company itself to be pulling this and feeding into Sabine's fanbase in a way that SSE simply does not with any other character in the game. Not even Ydris. And focusing on Sabine to the exclusion of the other Dark Riders or even the Soul Riders. SSE itself will make social media posts (Twitter, Instagram, usw.) on how hot Sabine (an older teenage girl / adult woman) is, when the primary demographic for Star Stable Online is 6 - 14- year-old girls.

And from my perspective, it's solely because Sabine's character was revamped to look "hot" and ambiguously brown. Plus adult players attracted to women going "muscle mommy, step on me". (When this is not a dating sim game and SSO doesn't even have a dating mechanic. I digress.)

That being said, interesting that between the Dark Riders and the Soul Riders, SSE has revamped all but maybe one of the Dark Riders to have darker skin and more masculine-looking clothing + gender-neutral names (i.e. Sabine and Jessica/Jay's redesigns) when they are the villains. Yet the Soul Riders only have Linda (Pakistani) and maybe the player character... and all the NPC Soul Riders are still given the same clothing types as any other female character in the game. Add in that with additional lore in the comics and novels with the Dark Riders not being human but still playing into negative stereotypes in their design choices about people of color...

That is Not Great.

[salty-medley]

Since writing nonsense about SSO and sharing it with people improves my life by 2%, I'm doing it. It still turned out to be much longer than I wanted, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I decided to do some tasks on my side account from the free star rider and... it felt like 7 years ago. These are the quests before rescuing Lisa, in the stone circle. Old models, old soundtrack, old everything. I really hope they won't change it, PLEASE. Almost a year ago (I think) they changed these starting quest, and during the summer they changed the rewards for Moorland quests (e.g. This Bobcat sweater, Condrad jacket, etc.). I don't know about the dialogues, but I hope they didn't change them. Why fix something that isn't broken? New models to "modernize" the game? Ok, but why change the content of the task, cut out some things or write them again? When you do quests, it is clear which are new and which are old. The old quests took 2 weeks to complete, you had to drive around the entire map, and at the end you got 100 shillings and some gift with weak stats. New tasks last 5 minutes, they only consist of you clicking on the dialogue and at the end you get a super cool gift, 2000 exp and 500 shillings.

It had such a dark and mysterious atmosphere, these old quests from the old team were just... I feel such strange sadness, longing, emptiness and other emotions that I don't even know how to describe? I miss something I barely knew.

I keep thinking about how sso could have developed if the old team had handled it, what the plot would have been like, what the 4th Dark Rider would have looked like, etc. (I don't sleep at night because of it). Now the SSE team has financial problems, and I have great hopes that they will try to do something about it and get back on track. Well, because greedy people never think long-term, sooner or later the fountain will dry up (in fact, it is already drying up to some extent).

My (corny) conclusion? Replacing old models with newer ones so that the game doesn't look outdated is fine, but when they are completely different from the original and when they want to change everything and write from scratch, it makes my blood boil. Dear SSE, if you are bored, update the outdated codes and bugs that have been in the game for several years instead of changing the game's plot by 90°.

[salty-medley]

Alia, fairy of the plastic basket full of stationery

Reblog this with

(Name) fairy of the (object to your right)

Here's mine: Knight! Fairy of the Pacific punch monster!

[salty-medley]

It's like they didn't even try or were just making fun of the fairies, like ''They're too dumb to recognize us even with these shitty disguises ''

Now that I'm thinking about it, the Trix's disguises in season 2 weren't even that good. Especially Darcy, cause like she still has the same vibes, tinted glasses, and eyes.

Stormy, I would walk past and not recognize.

Icy, I would recognize her just based on that smug expression.

[salty-medley]

Wake up my cat. Now she is having difficulty caring for my cat. I need your donation to provide them with food and safety 😭🐈💗the link in bio Your $20 donation will make a big difference

‼️Donate via PayPal

https://chuffed.org/project/115418-help-our-life

‼️Donate via credit card https://gofund.me/a08653d7

I can't really afford spending but at least I can share, hope it'll help

[salty-medley]

Happy Vigil !

[salty-medley]

We never saw the Wannabe heroes in their regular / casual apperances so I'll do that for them. The movie is based on an alternative 60s era with a temperate climate so I picked a more sporty look from that era for her. They don't give their real ages and the wiki pages don't quote their sources sadly, so I HC her around 25 / 28 yo, probably a university student, maybe in a scientific field. I'd see her being nerdy, shy and clumsy, probably a bit insecure as she looks a bit less "feminine" and as she has to hide her powers although meeting the other wannabe and the old supers gave her some confidence boost.

[salty-medley]

October 1999. 'Swing back-to-school in style!'

[salty-medley]

T.S. Eliot, from Poems & Plays: 1909-1950; "Murder in the Cathedral"

[salty-medley]

"Why did Toph come to save Su but not Lin?"

We can solve this mystery ✨️together✨️

[salty-medley]

My Incredibles 2 favorites <3