#... as much as you think they do. They still save the more extreme ones for moments of extreme emotion...

[yesbothways]

I do not actually know how to handle how brilliant Arcane is. I had thought so much about how hard it would be to write a sex scene for Vi and Caitlyn that would fit with the excellence of the rest of the show. And the main question on my mind was like, where do you make it happen? The when was obvious to me, like right before the final battle, when everything is so heightened. But where was not. You cannot just use Caitlyn's mansion, because it means the wrong thing. This isn't a rags-to-riches for Vi where a girl who is essentially Piltover royalty falls in love with her. No. We aren't doing that. This is a ship where the extreme class difference doesn't mean anything except constant pressure to be enemies - means being caught in a cycle of violence and retribution. In this world, theirs is what a deviant and by default doomed love looks like. The class divide between topside and the undercity is the primary, structural inequality. And for them to essentially use repetition and parallel to stage that scene where Vi focuses on her one core loyalty and breaks the law to save her sister, then Jinx hits Vi in the wound and leaves her locked in the cell alone, and Vi has essentially an emotional crash over the cycle of failure and tragedy she's locked in... only to find that Caitlyn came down to get Vi and let her out of prison again. The way that communicated a crazy level of true love: I have so much recognition that I know what you're going to do when things get real and choices dire. And I love you, not in spite of this, but for this. And I am on your side no matter what is happening around us. Louder than loss or hate or revenge or duty or society. And then they just have sex right there and turn that prison cell into something completely else, unlocked and unprecedented. Nothing could be more of a clear poetic expression that their love wins in this against countless odds. Like if we weren't getting what their relationship was, if we were doubting it, if we were still thinking this story would be a tragedy piled on top of endless lesbian love stories used as the vehicle for tragedy, they just fucking said what their story was so hard it hit like a shift to another world. Punctuated by the final note of the last scene. And I genuinely fucking love them for this.

[lunaforyou]

Primes Reborn AU spoilers below the cut, if you want to wait until the fanfic is done don't read.

WARNINGS miscarriage scare, violence, a little angst for the soul.

(everything turns out okay don't worry)

Sooooo, after kid number three, Optimus is already getting used to this. Hey, why fight the Matrix when he can work with it?

Besides, it's vindicative to be able to un-do most of Sentinel's damage, after giving the miners cogs that is. His frag up doesn't have to haunt their entire species forever.

Nevermind that the Matrix takes bits and pieces out of him in lieu of transfluid, since, well, the sparklings have to come from somewhere.

If undoing the damage Sentinel did entails energon, sweat and tears every time, so be it.

So he decides to find a spot he feels safe in and build a nest!

His unfortunate ass only feels safe in the cave of the primes though.

No biggie! He just has to make a comfortable spot.

In a cave full of corpses.

Great.

By the time he is finally done he is so wiped out that he falls asleep in the nest immediately.

And then he wakes up to the sound of a fusion canon. Being aimed at his face.

Oh right, Megatron.

So they start to fight, Optimus is always trying to diffuse it and keep his shit together, like, invading a nest is extremely distressing for the carrier. It's not like Megatron knows he is invading a nest, because even he wouldn't go that low goddamnit.

And then Megatron taunts him with something along the lines of;

"Look at yourself, Prime. You have gone soft with time, literally." (I'm still working on what he says, don't be too rude)

And Optimus, the fool that he is, looks down at himself. He really shouldn't have done that because that gives Megatron an opening to hit him.

In the gut.

He immediately falls to the floor in pain. And Megatron goes "I won't have mercy on you because you feel a little pain, Prime"

He can't even finish the sentence though, Optimus interjects with "She isn't moving"

It takes a second for Megatron to realize what he means.

He immediately scrambles to help, however he can. He lifts Optimus up and places him in the nest, and really he can't do much but it's better than doing nothing!

The blow triggered the emergence, and little Solus is born unconscious. This time, the other primes' spirits are mysteriously absent.

When he has her in his arms, Megatron shakes her up a little bit, to see if she wakes up. To which Optimus tells him that it's useless, her body is weak without a sire bond, and that she'll die.

And without thinking, this other fool just.

Opens his spark chamber.

You see, to form a sire bond, the spark of the carrier acts as a bridge between the sparkling and the sire's spark.

Want to guess where this is going?

.

.

.

.

.

That's right! Megatron and Optimus spark bond to save little Solus, you get nothing for guessing correctly <3

They coax her spark chamber open and the three of them bond. After the bond takes, Solus starts crying, and thank Primus she is crying, Megatron doesn't think he could have lived with the guilt if his little one died because of him.

And then Optimus takes her in his arms and Megatron's world expands by five.

They look so, so beautiful. And suddenly everything that's right in the world is in that cave, in the nest that his love made.

Because yes, that's his love now (never stopped being his love) and that's his sparkling. And Primus damn it he is not going to let go of them.

And then he looks at little Solus, and cries a little and says something along the lines of "She's perfect"

And then Optimus hits him with the "You say that because you haven't seen the other three"

Megatron cries a little more.

And the name of the AU is STILL Primes Reborn. :)

[moghedien]

this isn’t meant to be judgement on what other people choose or their opinions and there are reasons why there is no actual ideal solution, but if I’m playing the game in which I want every character to get what I feel is the best outcome for them personally, Shadowheart is always ending the game with her parents alive

There are a couple of reasons for this. I’ve done both endings with the Selûnite path for her, and I literally just let her pick what she wanted the first time (which ended in her parents dead) and seeing both, I do think she’s happier with her parents alive in general. I think, as with other characters (specifically Lae’zel comes to mind in her romance) you have to kinda challenge them on what their first immediate response is when giving them an option in order to get to what actually makes them happiest and what they’re afraid to admit

But if we’re not even taking like the arbitrary measure of happiness into account, I do think that thematically, keeping her parents alive is the only real option if you don’t want Shar to win.

The options here are either let her parents die and Shadowheart is free of the pain in her wound, or save her parents and Shadowheart spends the rest of her life with the threat of the wound hurting her at any moment. Basically no parents and no pain or parent and chronic pain for the rest of her life.

Harsh options either way, and especially when you phrase it as “chronic pain forever” being the thematically correct path, but look at it from the angle of rejecting Shar and what those options really signify form a Sharran angle.

If her parents die, she has no pain, which is good, but she also has no parents. She has no way of learning about her past other than random scraps she might find or maybe eventually remember somehow. She also has no attachment to her Sharran cloister anymore and no attachment to any Selûnite community either. She’s void of everything, including the physical pain. Now there’s obviously like emotional turmoil she’s feeling, and you do get a scene where she expresses that, but it’s from her loss. She only has loss now. The Lady of Loss gave up her physical hold on Shadowheart and in doing so, made Shadowheart embrace loss. Shar might not win completely, but she doesn’t really care about her individual followers and communities as much as they want her to. This is still a win for Shar because she still got Shadowheart to make Sharran choices in the end and embrace losing everything: the pain, her parents, her community, her past.

Hell, the desire to free oneself from pain entirely is a very Sharran pursuit. It’s why we see people turn to Shar. Ketheric turned to Shar as a way to get Isobel back and free himself from grief. One of the people that can lead you to the Sharran cloister is a man who remembers nothing about himself except that the House of Grief helped him because he was very sad and now he isn’t. Nevermind the fact that he doesn’t even know where he lives now or that Ketheric didn’t get what he wanted, it’s the motivation of freeing oneself from some kind of pain that drives people to Shar.

That is why Shadowheart received the injury in the first place.

I jokingly call it a shock collar sometimes, but that is basically what it literally is. You can get Shadowheart’s dad to reveal more about it if you control her and go talk to him in camp. The wound is because Shadowheart was constantly misbehaving and her parents weren’t converting, and they needed something to keep her in line and also motivate her parents. Shadowheart’s pain was supposed be negative reinforcement for her not to act on her kinder inclinations and for her parents to finally fall in line and reject Selûne so that they would stop seeing Shadowheart in pain. The desire for no more pain was supposed to drive Shadowheart and her family closer to Shar.

And all of this on top of the fact that Shadowheart’s memory was wiped repeatedly to an extreme degree, even by standards of the evil memory wiping cult. She was supposed to be a blank slate that only desired to feel nothing by the end. The perfect Sharran.

So if she keeps her family alive, what does she get? A life time of guaranteed pain from Shar, but also her family. Guilt over learning all she’s done to her parents over the 40 years they were held captive, but also answers about her life before Shar and kinder memories with them after Shar. She doesn’t get to not know all that she’s done and all that’s been taken from her, and she’s forced to feel all the negative emotions that come with that, but she gets comfort and positive feelings too.

The moment I keep going back to is the scene you get after she saves her parents where she’s clearly distressed. You get a similar version of this if her parents are dead, but if her parents are alive, they show up at the end of the scene when she’s crying because of the guilt she’s feeling toward all that happened to them. The specific moment in that which I obsess over a bit is when Shadowheart apologizes to them and says that they shouldn’t have to see her like this (because they just walked in on her crying). And it’s her mom’s response to that which makes me a little insane

It’s the emphasis on feeling that really gets me, and I think is the most important part here.

Because Shadowheart was apologizing specifically for them seeing her feeling. She was in this moment apologizing for them having to see her crying and in a very vulnerable emotional state over her own personal struggles and the immense amount of guilt she feels over seeing the extent of what was done to her parents, some of which she did. She’s not supposed to feel anything about that, as a Sharran. She’s not supposed to feel at all as a Sharran, good or bad.

But it’s her very visibly feeling something that her mom points out wanting to see. it’s the one word she puts emphasis on, because that alone is proof that Shar doesn’t have a hold on her. If she’s feeling something, even if it’s bad, then Shar isn’t winning and isn’t controlling her. Shar literally had to resort to trying to coax her into wanting nothing more than to be free of feeling in order to get her to behave, after all.

If Shadowheart accepts that she’ll have pain for the rest of her life in order to save her family, Shar doesn’t get anything but the shock collar she already had. And the point of the shock collar was to eventually never use it. Hurting Shadowheart wasn’t what Shar wanted. Shar wanted to eventually stop hurting Shadowheart because that meant she was a good perfect little Selûnite-turned-Sharran who had been properly corrupted. Pain wasn’t the point and was supposed to have an ending if Shar got what she wanted.

So when Shadowheart rejects the loss of the pain, that’s about as close as she can get to telling Shar to go fuck herself. Her plans didn’t work, not even a little. Shadowheart isn’t wiping her slate clean (again) and rejecting feeling things just because they’re painful. She’s reconnecting with the past that they spent 40 years trying to erase and she’s doing it even though it’ll be hurt.

Basically by keeping her parents alive, she’s doing every single thing Shar has spent four decades trying to stop her from doing and giving Shar absolutely nothing in return. Shar gets nothing besides the ability to hurt Shadowheart, which isn’t even something she wanted in the first place.

And proof of this is shown in the epilogue, where if you romance Shadowheart and kept her parents alive, you both point out what Shar hasn’t been triggering the wound much lately. She triggers it a lot and randomly in the end of the game, and it’s clear she’s pissed off, but by the time six months have passed, it’s apparently barely happening. Because pain wasn’t the point and it wasn’t what Shar wanted. The pain was Shar throwing a tantrum because she didn’t get what she wanted. Shadowheart calls it petty in the game and that’s literally what it is. Just pettiness from a god. And it’ll probably happen to some extent for the rest of Shadowheart’s life, yes, but it’s clear that Shar is bored and realizes it’s not going to work. She might try some other ways to get at Shadowheart eventually, but in making that choice, Shadowheart denied her any ounce of power that Shar actually cares about. Even if the pain is there, the fact that it’s there is proof that Shar failed.

[oswhys]

So, when I played Lucanis’s questline for the first time, I genuinely thought that Illario was going to turn out to also be possessed. I like to try to come up with theories if there's some kind of mystery involved. Obviously, Illario is suspicious from the get-go but if you want to give him the benefit of the doubt you can, after all, grief really does make people act strangely, but not usually immediately after the death. But when he shows up after the defeat of Zara and kills her just as she says “Amatus” upon seeing him there's no doubt he was in cahoots with her. But then something interesting happens, he uses blood magic, some enchanted pin. He still keeps up the act of innocence though. We get further confirmation during the questioning of Zara’s corpse that the two were extremely close, at least from her perspective. But then we get a strange little tidbit from the memories of Lucanis later in his quest line when you're with spite. Lucanis has a memory or maybe it's some warped memory of Zara talking about the cultivation of an Envy demon. 

Zara’s project was to cultivate and bind different types of demons more easily through new techniques. Zara was talented enough to be able to put a demon inside of a non-mage subject, something that shouldn't be possible in the first place, or at least unheard of. She also wanted to cultivate certain types of demons, ones that are more rare and possibly harder to bind. We see the results of most of her test subjects, either walking corpses or bound demons. Let's say she agrees to take Lucanis to be a test subject, thinking the whole thing would just kill him and the terms of her deal with Illario would be met. Let's say shes surprised Lucanis is even able to merge with spite, let alone survive well afterward. Now let's say this gets her thinking, can she replicate this? Can she put demons and spirits into non-mages? Was this a freak accident?

I know I’m speculating a lot here but hang with me. Now I don't know if her scheme is to take advantage of Illarios jealousy and use it to create an envy demon, something rare and hard to bind, but it would naturally be attracted to that much envy in a person. Or maybe it's presented as an opportunity later down the line, that Illario could become an abomination and gain as much power as one, being able to tap into magic even if not in full control would still give him an edge. I don't know, I just think there was a bit more to the story that we don't know about, aside from what we’ve seen in some of the concept art. Which shows something akin to Illario being manipulated by either Zara or some kind of desire demon or??? Just someone in a pool of blood, with horns? But pieces of these ideas got left behind in the game. Fragments of something larger and it drives me up the wall. 

There's an obvious romantic connection between Illario and Zara that is never elaborated upon in conversation, It is a deeply interesting tidbit of information and nothing is done with it. Then there's Zara’s line in Lucanis’ memories of her saying that the conditions of cultivating an envy demon must be perfect (the line that sent me through this spiral). And then there is Lucanis’ log book. His 5th one if you don't save Treviso shares a reading list of books and he writes some notes with his thoughts about each. He says that Spite “trusts nothing to do with envy demons” which to be fair to spite, is reasonable they're… creepy, and envy as an emotion is a huge liar sometimes. 

There's just something there. Obviously, the story got cut up and changed with time but there was a time when I started to think that the reason Illario is so suspicious is that he's a red herring, or he's a patsy, or not in control of himself or being manipulated or SOMETHING. But no he's just… kinda stupid. He locked up his grandmother and kept her alive? IS HE STUPID?

Anyway, I just like the idea of some grander conspiracy or grander narrative and that maybe Illario wasn't all to blame for everything or that he was, and he was actually even more villainous. Being controlled by his own jealousy to the point of madness blah blah blah you see why I’m thinking about this so much now yeah?

[ekaeb]

My theory so far on what's going on with the Bright Queen re: Essek.

The gist of it: It's canon that Essek isn't being actively pursued by the Dynasty. His name is on a list somewhere and he had to flee his position in Eiselcross 7 years ago, so he is a person of interest, but we don't know what all the Bright Queen knows. She could know everything down to what socks Essek wore during his beacon heist and how long he and Caleb's last make out sesh was, or she could want him arrested on suspicion of telling Ludinus den Thelyss' recipe for frost worm stew. I think it's somewhere in between, possibly with some religiousness sprinkled in. Either way, if he is on her mind, Armageddon isn't really the time or place to arrest someone. Especially not an extremely powerful someone you'd want in the vicinity if the fight came to you.

The longer version:

I think that the Bright Queen, at a minimum, knows where Essek lives and who with. To me, it makes sense that she's had eyes on the Mighty Nein, especially Caleb due to him being an outsider with a non-insignificant knowledge of dunamancy, regardless of their association with Essek. We don't know why exactly Essek had to flee, or what information the Dynasty has on him. He's said that he might be able to get in contact with other Dunamancers if they can look past his past transgressions. That could be referring to him stealing the beacons, working with the assembly, and/or something else we don't know about. What I'm thinking is based on the assumption that at a minimum Essek is suspected to have been working with the assembly. I feel like if they thought/knew he stole the beacons, they would be actively looking for him.

I don't think the Bright Queen has Essek on her mind, at least not right now. She has a whole country to worry about on a day to day basis, and the potential end of Exandria as it is now to focus on. Essek is a loose thread on a large quilt. Essek is very important to the audience because we care about him. We know he's significant to the story. We know he stole the beacons and why. We know he worked directly with Ludinus and Trent. We have information that the Bright Queen most likely doesn't, so it makes it feel like he should be a much bigger blip on her radar than he probably is.

Now, I do think she knows where he is and is aware of his Seth persona. He lives with Caleb and works with Beau, so it wouldn't make sense to me if she wasn't(20 bucks says she has at least one Lens member posing as their neighbor.). There are a lot of possible reasons for why she hasn't had him captured yet. It could be that he just isn't her problem anymore. It's been over 7 years, what's done is done, and he doesn't seem to be actively making things worse for the Dynasty. He's still an Arrest on Sight if he's caught in the Dynasty, but he isn't an issue right now.

Another reason could be that he changed a lot since then. The Mighty Nein seem like genuinely good people who overall want to do good in the world in the most chaotic way possible, and the Bright Queen seems to admire that. Essek started coming out of his shell once they came into the picture, and by the end of the campaign had helped save the world simply because he cares for the people who were doing it to get their friend back. This is another instance of not knowing what the Bright Queen knows, but if she is keeping tabs on things, then she would know to an extent how dramatically Essek's changed from the egotistical, selfish, self centered prodigy that she knew him as. Back when campaign 2 ended and Matt gave more info on the Luxon, a lot of people were talking about how similar Essek's story is to it. Essek refused fundamental aspects of the culture he was born in, which led to a long period of loneliness and searching. He found something he loved (Dunamancy) and dedicated his whole being to it to the point that it eventually tore his life apart, but in doing so he found a new light. He found the Mighty Nein, who helped him put the pieces back together again, but better. Matt said Essek started to question who he was once he started to love the Mighty Nein. He asked himself, "Who am I?" and the Mighty Nein answered back, "Essek, our friend."

This combined with the religious and cultural beliefs of the Dynasty make me hope that the parallels wouldn't be lost on her. Essek is carving his own path, but needed a healthier and more accepting environment to do so. By the law, he should be prosecuted for his crimes. He should be arrested, put on trial, and punished accordingly. From an individual perspective, he's grown so much since he was Shadowhand Essek Thelyss, that I'd hope she'd think it was worth seeing where he goes.

Either way, I don't think expending the resources to capture him right now would be logical. It's all hands on deck, so expending the time, resources, and potentially soldiers to arrest a highly powerful mage and send him back to the Dynasty for legal proceedings isn't really possible with the current situation.

[katboykirby]

Okay 🤷

I'm coming from the standpoint of someone who has both worked in the mobile game industry on the writing/game development side of things, and also as someone who personally knows and regularly speaks to staff at Solmare. All I'm doing is offering the perspective that comes with having that experience.

You personally seeing lots of posts about a particular topic, because it's a popular point of discussion in your circle, does not mean that the topic is popular or widely discussed outside of your circle. I'm not saying that no one is having these discussions, but I absolutely promise you that it's not as many people as you seem to think. And like, that's fine? Not sure why that's even an issue or anything, but okay?

Again, "this is badly written" is completely subjective. Your personal opinion on a piece of media is obviously fine, but it's not in any way universal or objective. To be honest, it's kind of a weird choice to even bring up because (in addition to it's subjectivity) it's simply not all that related to the original point that was being discussed? This specific post is about people being upset over optional monetization in the game, not about story quality. That's absolutely a conversation that can happen, but it's not the point of THIS post?

I don't know where I've been defending Solmare? In my original post I literally outlined multiple points of feedback and criticism, and examples of what I think they could have done differently and what they can still stand to improve. I also link directly to the contact page for their Support Team specifically so people can easily send their own feedback.

Ultimately, my main point was this: the new feature isn't perfect and Solmare could have done several things differently that would have improved the rollout and made people happier. BUT, it's also not the atrocious garbage fire that people are treating it as. There's harassment and abuse being sent to the official OM accounts, multiple people are saying that "everyone should boycott Solmare" and just overreacting in general. Which is a lot of drama over what is, essentially, a pretty standard and inoffensive item bundle being added to the shop.

The new feature is very normal for live service mobage (especially gacha) and "optional paid bonus content" is EXTREMELY common in this genre of games. In-app purchases for goodies and extra fluff exist in basically every gacha game ever, and OM isn't doing anything different. Obviously it's totally okay to not like it! And if you don't like it, you can just totally ignore it. It doesn't impact the game either way.

You're paying $30 and getting a long Devilgram story, a character phone call, exclusive premium artwork, and a stack of 300 DP on top. That's all. It's not mandatory, it doesn't lock any actual game progression or Main Story behind a paywall. It's just a totally optional goodie bag in the shop that you can completely ignore if you don't want to buy it. It's more than fair to criticise the pricing scheme, but some players are acting like the gave devs personally hacked into their bank accounts and stole their life savings.

Anyway, I'm probably not gonna keep replying like this because this post has gotten ridiculously long, lol. You're more than welcome to DM me if you wanna keep discussing stuff, but I might just disable reblogs because I wasn't expecting this post to get so much attention.

Going to play Devil's Advocate (ha) here for a moment, as someone who has experience working in the industry & game development:

Remember, every single time that any new feature is added to the game (even if that new feature is "just a new artwork and phone call") it means that Solmare is -

Paying artists for the new artwork

Paying writers for the new scripts

Paying the voice actors to record the new voice lines

Paying the game devs, coders, debuggers, etc, to actually implement the new feature into the game without breaking anything

Paying for QA

Paying the translators for all the different language versions (Obey Me is currently available in 4 different languages)

Paying the localisers for all different language versions

Etc, etc

This is all on top of the monthly costs of keeping a live service mobage like OM running smoothly. Anything that isn't paid for by the players is being operated at a loss. This isn't a flaw with OM itself, this is a fact that exists on an industry-wide level.

Secondly, while any concerns about the price are entirely valid, I think that a lot of people are glossing over an important point - Solmare is not charging you $30 for a Date Ticket. Solmare is charging $30 for a BUNDLE, which includes the Date Ticket as well as 300 DP. So this is similar to all the other sales bundles that have been rolled out in the past.

And the price is consistent with the standard price for DP in Akuzon. It has always been about $30 for 300 DP, so the price has not actually changed or been increased. This is an optional, $30 bundle for 300 DP that essentially includes the Date Ticket as a bonus for free.

You're totally justified if you don't want to spend $30 on this. I'm definitely not arguing that. While I think that this feature isn't as bad as some people are saying (I never would have expected any new features to be totally free) I do think that Solmare could have rolled this out in a better way than they did.

I think that most, if not all, of the complaints would disappear if they simply offered different bundles for different price tiers. This is something they've already done in the past, even! Just give people alternatives, like...

$1.39 for the Date Ticket by itself

$10 for 100 DP + Date Ticket

$20 for 200 DP + Date Ticket

$30 for 300 DP + Date Ticket

And so on. I think this probably would have alleviated many people's concerns, and would have made the new feature more accessible for more players.

Now, I don't think that harassing the official Twitter account is the way to go about communicating your thoughts. There's a difference between genuine constructive criticism/feedback given in good faith, and needlessly rude hate comments. "Fuck you, hope your game goes broke" doesn't help anybody, and will only make Solmare less likely to listen to the EN fandom. They've dealt with a lot of harassment from Western fans before, including death threats, and you aren't communicating anything useful or constructive by sending hate to the EN social media account.

Solmare has a Support team that you can email, if you have feedback and you actually want to reach the JP game devs. If you want to let them know that you want other/more affordable options for the new Date Ticket feature, this is the best way to do that. Just remember to be civil, since harassment and hate mail are extremely likely to simply be thrown out before it reaches the hands of anyone in charge.

[bunnyboy-juice]

spent the first hour and change at work deleting some old files and am having a grand ol time laughing at myself for not realizing i was a lesbian sooner

[moe-broey]

HEARTBREAKING

Worst Dad You Know Has an Extremely Endearing (Now) Reoccurring Character Trait

For further context: this whole FB involved Sharena and Henriette seeking out lockpickers in the Order of Heroes to open this VERY SECURELY locked box from Gustav's room that took Tina's special staff to finally crack open (or rather -- "steal" the contents out of. No one could actually break the lock!)

And the first instance of this!

It makes me wonder if he saved anything related to Sharena..........

[kerorowhump]

[laurelwinchester]

one of my many many many arr*w related grievances is that people in the fandom (including in the laurel lance sub fandom) are very hesitant or even outright refuse to admit that quentin lance was an extremely emotionally abusive father. i still don't understand why that is.

[seastarlily]

“The SpongeBob team is putting in all these crazy faces just to try and make new memes, and that clearly hasn’t worked! There hasn’t been any memes of note since ‘Little Yellow Book’!”

SpongeBob after “Little Yellow Book”:

[jvzebel-x]

🦋

[onenotsubtle]

emotional about my favorite book on this Midnight On Monday

[masterhallmark]

Rant incoming

I feel like the problem with a lot of Disney's live action remakes (and arguably Wish) is they're trying to appeal to a crowd that no longer exists, namely the people who used to claim that the Disney Princesses were sexist.

All the interviews tend to include, "Well she's not chasing a MAN anymore" which...almost no one sees the princesses like that, anymore. Virtually NO ONE still believes the princesses are man-chasing sexist caricatures of women.

Cinderella is now hailed as an abuse victim who stayed strong long enough to get help to get out of her situation. Anyone who says she should have saved herself is basically regarded as a victim blamer. And it's very clear in the film she wasn't looking to marry the prince, she just wanted a night off. She was the only one who wasn't in line to meet him. She didn't find out she met the prince until he went looking for her!

Snow White is now hailed for her negotiation skills, ability to calm down after extreme stress (she had a moment of panic and had to cry for a bit, but who wouldn't after finding out The Queen hired someone to kill you?), and ability to take charge of a house of adult men. And again, she was an abuse victim, this time trying to escape ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS. While she dreamed of her prince, it was secondary to her main goal of SURVIVAL. There are also entire video essays about how Snow White gave hope to people during The Great Depression.

Everyone acknowledges that Ariel wanted to be human BEFORE meeting Eric. We all know she was a nerd hyperfixating on humans, and also standing up to her prejudiced father.

We understand Sleeping Beauty wasn't the main character, the Three Good Fairies were, AND PHILLIP WOULD NEVER HAVE BEATEN MALEFICENT WITHOUT THEM! He literally depended on them! WOMEN SAVED THE DAY! But even then, is it really such a sin for a girl to fantasize about romance and fall for someone with corny pickup lines?

We all understand Jasmine just wanted someone to treat her LIKE A PERSON. She rejected every Prince before Aladdin because they treated her like a prize. So why did they need her to want to be Sultan? How did that make her more feminist when she already wanted to be treated like an equal and have a say in her future? Is it only empowering if you want a career in politics?

We admire that Belle, despite living in a judgemental village, was kind to everyone (even though she found the village life dull), and her story teaches girls that the guy everyone else loves isn't always a good guy. What's sexist about teaching girls about red flags? And she didn't start being nice to The Beast until he started treating her with respect and kindness.

Do I really NEED to defend Mulan or Tiana? I think they speak for themselves.

Rapunzel was yet another abuse victim who just needed a little help to get out of her bad situation. In this case, she also needed to learn that she was an abuse victim, and that what Mother Gothel did WASN'T normal, much like many victims of gaslighting.

And don't get me started on the non-princess animals.

Perdita had a healthy relationship with Pongo to the point she was open to express her pregnancy fears to him, and was ready to TEAR APART Cruella's goons for daring to touch her puppies as well as adopting the other puppies. Like, she was so ferocious the goons mistook her for a hyena! She's basically that "I AM THAT GIRL'S MOTHER!" scene from SpyXFamily if Yor were a dog. She and her husband were a TEAM.....but they made a Cruella live action to turn her into a girlboss?! The literal animal abuser!? THAT'S the woman you wanted to put on a pedestal when Perdita was RIGHT THERE!?

Duchess kept her kittens calm after they had been catnapped and was classy as heck. Nice to everyone regardless of social class during a time period where that was uncommon.

Lady stood up to Tramp when she believed he had abandoned her and didn't really care about her. She found out he was a heartbreaker and was like, "Nuh uh. No. You are not doing that to me! You put me through enough."

Miss Bianca from The Rescuers was IN CHARGE the whole movie, and was willing to risk life and limb to save an innocent child. THAT TINY MOUSE TOOK ON ALLIGATORS! And she picked Bernard to accompany her because he was the only one who wasn't ogling her. And then in the sequel SHE DID IT ALL AGAIN! I wish I were as brave as her.

Like, the public haven't accused these ladies of being sexist caricatures since 2014 (Actresses and actors don't count, they're out of touch like the rest of Hollywood) yet Disney is operating under the assumption that the public still thinks that way, hence all the "sHe'S nOt AfTeR a MaN iN ThIs VeRsIOn" talk.

The live action remakes are trying to attract an audience that doesn't really exist much, anymore, and back when it did exist, was comprised mainly of people who didn't actually watch the films. The Disney princesses are no longer seen as sexist, and feminine qualities are no longer seen as weak or undesirable.

[salemlunaa]

☀︎ YOU’RE NOT BEING PRODUCTIVE, YOU’RE LAZY AND AFRAID ☀︎

And this will cost you a lot of time that could be spent with your desires…

You have all the information, why aren’t you applying. You tell me you have been in this community for 6 months, a year, 2 years+, but how many of those days you’ve spent in this community have you actually applied, how many of those nights did you actually apply and don’t just fall asleep after 5 seconds.

And i know why you’re lazy, it’s because you’re scared, you’re scared of inducing process, whether it be success or failure. You make yourself busy with scripts and subliminals, “i’ll script this really cool thing first”, “i’ll scroll a little on tumblr first” “lemme just look at the success story hashtag before i do it, it really motivates me” You try and distract your self, you delude yourself into thinking you’re being productive but really you don’t want to, if you wanted to you wouldn’t be here and I will ALWAYS stand by that. You put it off until the last minute and then when it “doesn’t work” you run back to tumblr acting like you actually did anything.

a really good analogy from @archsariel333 - “you buy the pens, the notebook, you plan for the book you’re going to write but, you never write it”

“let me just add this one thing to the plan”, “let me look at inspo for book covers and art styles for illustration”, “let me go to my book writers group on tumblr and see if they have anymore advice for me even tho i know how to write a fucking book”

I know it’s comforting and validating to be in the “waiting period”, the period of anticipation. You want to go shopping for a vacation, pack your suitcase, look at reviews on social media, plan the pics you’re going to take, but getting on the actual plane can be scary, you ask yourself “what if they deny my boarding pass”, “what if i fail to make it on time”, “what if im not eligible to fly for whatever reason”, you don’t want to leave your comforting circumstances and even the trip itself scares you just a little, so you cope by buying all the vacation outfits in the world, saving inspo pics into a pinterest board, looking at vlogs of other people going to that place. You can’t bring yourself to get on the fucking plane.

You need to apply, and properly, 2024 is almost over, the amount of weeks we have left isn’t even in the double digits anymore, I don’t want you to make it to the end of this DECADE still keeping the tumblr “foryou” page company, watching people coming and going feeling paralysed as people who came here later than you pass you by. I know the feeling sucks but whose fault is that?

I want you to scrap the amount you’ve been here. Since you’re the operant power right? I don’t care how many weeks, months, years you’ve been here, scrap it, you’re going to start afresh and you’re going to actually apply, when you have the time, you’re not going to go back to your notes app, notion or pinterest to script some more, you’re going to apply.

A lot of you have the knowledge that majority of the world doesn’t and time on your hands, do you know how powerful and extremely fortunate you are, to have time AND knowledge? i don’t think alot of you understand how much of a privilege that is you are unstoppable yet you stop yourself out of fear that you will “fail” to tap into the void and let yourself down. You are so privileged to know what you know and to have the time to apply it, so do it, your not gonna scroll on tiktok for a few more minutes or shove a million subliminals down your throat to “prep yourself” you’re just going to take a breath and do it. Induce pure consciousness, and if you fall asleep scrap that assumption and do it again.

Look at your life right now, do you honestly like it, do you like envying others for having what you can have at the snap of your fingers. Do you like the life you are living?

I want you to tell yourself that you will not be the reason for your own demise. you will NOT be the reason that it’s 2026,27,28 and so on and you don’t have what you want.

please just go and apply, i don’t even know you guys and it hurts watching you kill time when you could’ve had everything a day ago, an hour ago heck even 5 minutes ago.

apply apply apply, don’t let this feeling be the reason you “fail” 💋🍑

[i-like-media]

I was wondering when they were going to play with the fact the Doctor is black now. 13 being faced with how people think of women was one of my favourite things in her era, so I was curious how they were going to treat his skin colour this season, if at all.

And honestly, Dot And Bubble exceeded all my expectations on the matter!

What a lot of episodes about racism and bigotry do is coddle the viewer. They make clear early on "this is an episode about RACISM and why it's WRONG!" As if you've never heard of the concept before and don't know it's bad. The episode will often portray racism in an extreme sense and show the viewer the main characters are above that.

What Dot And Bubble did, for the entire episode, was letting the viewer figure it out on their own. There was no coddling, only racism as it silently existed. A perfectly pastel and white community with not a single person of colour and the only visible outlier being a goth white kid. And in this world, the first thing the character we follow did, was to block a black guy with a face of disgust.

The title screen rolls and you're left to rationalise it. Surely it was because he was not in her contact list/saying all kinds of mind blowing stuff... Right? Except when Ruby enters her feed and talks about it, she actually replies back... With an eye roll, but she replies... and keeps talking... and listening.

The episode continues, still not a single POC besides the Doctor. They reveal this is an exclusive place for rich people, and eventually the character in question even admits she thought the Doctor was a different person because "I thought you looked the same".

What this episode also does well, is portraying a character we wish to see change and find a better life behind that change. We see Lindy struggle to navigate the world without her bubble, calling herself stupid, and we genuinely hope she DOES learn to be better, even as you slowly pick up on what's been going on sofar. You are left to hope she'll thank him and realise the error of her ways, and maybe find a new drive to think for herself.

And then she doesn't.

She stays in her bubble, doubling down on how she feels about the Doctor, how they're excited to be like their settler ancestors, and finally CLEARLY revealing to the viewers what's been off this whole time... and the scene asks: did YOU notice the signs? Did you see what went wrong along the way, or did you only notice just now when it's explicitly shown to you? And why do you think that is?

It challenges the perspective of the viewer and tells you to reflect on why you didn't see it coming, and that is so so powerful.

The Doctor's reaction to this scene..... 👌👌👌👌

His mouth is ajar, stunned beyond belief that after all he's done and all he can offer, the offer to literally save their lives, he is reduced to someone who's nothing more than the hue of his skin. He yells at them, telling them he doesn't care what they think of him because he's still the same doctor he's always been, and to still get rejected with a dirty look... Which hits extra hard when you remember how much the Doctor loves being himself. He LOVES being the Doctor again! And he walks with such a pep in his step, celebrating his existence and sharing it with all he meets... and then he tries to save some rich white kids from certain death.

His performance in that moment was literally phenomenal. It's a narrative that's so powerful and so creative in its execution, my jaw was still on the floor throughout the credits.

This episode is definitely up there as one of my favourites sofar