#Galactic Justice

[frosteee]

Justice League Unlimited: Galactic Justice.

I love this beyond words. I want a whole comic of this!

[thealexanderfiles]

JL fining out about YJ's average Tuesday afternoon (Travelling without interplanetary visa, manslaughter, conquering small planets, revolution)

[thecurioustale]

My Thoughts on Jenny Nicholson and the Star Wars Hotel

I watched Jenny Nicholson's four-hour "The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel" video essay that YouTube showed me recently but which till now I couldn't bring myself to construct a day around. She's in great form here, and I'm pleased to say I go back as a fan of her work all the way to her Friendship Is Witchcraft days. (Blows my mind that she voiced all Mane Six characters, and others, so well.)

Anyway, long story short, Disney built a Star Wars hotel at Disneyworld in 2022 that was themed as a voyage on a spaceship, then proceeded to charge thousands of dollars per person per night, the most expensive publicly-available Disney theme park hotel experience by miles and miles, and then closed the hotel in 2023 after having spent hundreds of millions of dollars. Jenny went into the experience as a member of the core target demographic and spent four hours talking about all the ways it was an underwhelming or outright disappointing experience.

Her video reminded me of Hasbro's own misadventures in corporate greed with Magic: The Gathering, which has suffered in recent years from price increases, disengagement from the fan community, and a huge proliferation of product spam—i.e. more products overall, more ways to buy a given product (e.g., the proliferation of different boxes, which eventually killed the original draft booster box that had powered Magic for 30 years), and more variants of individual cards within and between products.

Hasbro and Disney are very similar in the economic space they operate in, and also utilize similar business strategies. Disney is essentially the S-tier megacorporation to Hasbro's B-tier, and we have seen many of the same corporate trends play out in both companies.

When it comes to Disney theme parks, they have massively increased ticket prices over the years, well beyond the rate of inflation, and have also implemented advance-scheduling systems for faster access to rides that has made the process of exploring a Disney theme park much less spontaneous and a lot more regimented and stressful.

Disney realized, years ago, that their limited number of theme parks—they only really have two, not counting the various sub-parks: Disneyland on the West Coast and Disneyworld on the East Coast—together with Disney's entrenched status as a cultural icon with lots of goodwill and brand recognition among the public, are vastly underserving public demand, allowing them to inflate the price of a single trip almost arbitrarily, well into the four digits—or even the five-digits if you're taking the family and spending several days.

The Star Wars hotel was Disney's "Magic 30": a product so ludicrously expensive as to incur immediate and universal condemnation by their own fans. It's clear to me what Disney was doing: They'd happily turned the conventional price knob up and up and up for years. Now they wanted to experiment with a fundamentally more expensive product class, basically five to ten times more expensive. They wanted to see if the market could support it. Because the growing disparity of wealth in America, together with America's obscene wealth as a nation relative to the rest of the world, means that it's definitely possible: There are definitely millions of people out there who could book a stay at the Star Wars hotel if they wanted to. And Disney was like "Let's see if they will."

And you know what? I think it could have succeeded. Because there really is an obscene excess of wealth in this country, even though most of us don't have any access to it. And we are a culture whose zeitgeist is ever ravenous for the next big, flashy experience.

But instead the venture failed spectacularly. Why? Because such reckless corporate greed is, itself, usually a sign of deep organizational rot and incompetency among the board and executive leadership. In other words, their hotel failed for the same reason they tried building it in the first place: Disney has grown stupid.

The way it failed, going by Jenny's video, is down to two independent reasons:

An outrageous degree of "penny-wise, pound foolish" thinking;

A fundamental failure to anticipate the comfort and pleasure of the guest.

The former is the more obvious of the two, and what really stood out to me as emblematic of it in this whole boondoggle were two simple thing: 1) The hotel rooms didn't have complimentary Disney+; and 2) the free loaner umbrellas for hotel guests visiting the Star Wars Land in Disneyworld were either so worn-out or so shoddy to begin with that, unless it was a big coincidence, both Jenny's and Jenny's sister's umbrella failed while in use. This was in the context of Disneyworld's most expensive customer experience ever, by a lot, and Disney was nickel-and-diming them. Jenny's video goes into a great depth of detail on the dozens if not hundreds of corners they cut; it was basically everything but the food. The result was an antagonistic relationship between Disney and their hotel guests where almost everything interesting cost more money (usually a lot more money) while almost everything included in the main ticket price was of cheap quality or stingy in its allotment. Every aspect of the whole process, from the scammy vibes of booking a room in the first place, to the pathetic after-care for customers who reported a problem after their stay, was likely to leave a sour taste in the customer's mouth.

When you're paying the most expensive prices in the history of a product category, you really just need to be given an up-front price that includes all or nearly all of it. You'll know what you're in for, and you can make an informed decision, and then it's really just down to the host to provide an experience and level of service that matches those high dollar outlays. But instead, as Jenny pointed out, it's like you're dealing with Spirit Airlines, where you're gonna pay a fee for literally everything beyond sitting your body quietly on the airplane.

Mind-boggling hubris. Disney needs to be broken up for the monopoly that it is, and this is just one more example of how convinced of their own inevitability and supremacy Disney has become.

The other main failure on Disney's part is the subtler one.

Jenny focused on how the Star Wars themed choose-your-own-adventure game, which was at the heart of the hotels' central conceit of "live your own personal Star Wars story," was irreparably dysfunctional. Not only was the app, through which most of the "experience" was conveyed, horribly designed; and not only were the tasks delivered through this app mostly busywork to anyone other than young children, consisting of little more than walking around and scanning inanimate objects; but the storyline's entry points and decision points were completely impenetrable through reasonable means, to the point of seeming arbitrary. Jenny proactively tried and failed to get into her preferred storyline; then tried and failed to get into any storyline; then was automatically sorted into one the next morning; and ultimately ended up having only one (dubiously) interactive story experience over the whole weekend.

She talked about how the tightly-regimented and incredibly full schedule was so mentally and physically draining that on the final night she fled her dinner table fearing she would vomit and had to stand in her hotel room staring at herself in the mirror for a while, to understand her illness (which turned out to be stress-induced exhaustion) and center herself.

She talked about how she didn't get to see a much-coveted music show during dinner on her first night because she was seated behind a giant column.

Really, these things are manifestations of the larger and more fundamental failure on Disney's part to anticipate the comfort and pleasure of the guest, as I put it.

As I was watching her video, two thoughts came to me in this vein:

First was that this whole experience really needed to be "playtested," as we might say in Magic. I mean, I'm sure there nominally was, but whatever playtesting they did was completely ineffective. Good playtesting would have brought most of these issues to light.

Second was that the Disney of today has completely lost touch with the namesake of their industry: hospitality. This would never have happened at a new luxury resort by an established world-class hotelier a century ago. Because they understood the basics. Little things, like hot towels.

I could tell just from Jenny's video that this whole hotel was decided from the top-down by soulless, disconnected corporate suits who blatantly disregarded whatever good suggestions I'm sure the Imagineers® came up with. For the failures to be as expansive and ubiquitous as Jenny's video documented, no doubt the institutional rot extends down at least as far as the project manager level, if not down to individual Imagineers® and beyond, but there have to be at least some good ones, and clearly they were overruled early and often. Whenever Disney's leadership was faced with a decision between anticipating the comfort and pleasure of the guest, and saving a couple bucks on a guest who was literally laying out several thousands of dollars to be there, leadership chose the latter.

They were so arrogant that they believed, without noticing or questioning it (unless Disney's leadership is in fact cartoon evil), that they would tell the customer what constitutes a good experience, and the customer would pay top dollar for it. And so you get a guest experience where customers who are actively trying to pick a given storyline can't get any storyline and are later seated for the dinner show behind a giant fucking column.

It's sad, and we should all be glad that their hotel failed. Not that Disney is likely to learn the right lessons from their failure, but the long-term solution here is for leisure dollars to be directed toward other companies. For the several thousand bucks that Jenny paid, she could have had a true luxury vacation in most parts of the world—and for longer than two nights.

One thing that I noticed during the four hours of her video was that Disney, or at least the people in charge of developing this hotel, didn't seem to understand what constitutes an enjoyable story experience. I am forgiving of the low level of complexity in the various puzzles, since the public is famously stupid plus a lot of these guests are going to be children. But there was so little imagination in the actual plot beats: Chewie sneaks in, gets arrested, and busts out. You get to help some Resistance fighters smuggle their luggage. Like, it's insipid. I mean, ultimately, most pop storytelling is insipid, but what I mean is that the dressings were insipid too. Dressing a story up is what makes stories great, at least at the mainstream level. There was no pomp and flourish; no clever interweaving; no electric events that put people on the edge of their seats. Just walking around on your phone for two days scanning crates and occasionally being in the same room while somebody busts Chewie out of the clink—assuming you even make it to the story events in time, since they often fired early.

The whole thing smacks of rule by committee, too many cooks, and suits suits suits all the way down.

I think it's a sign of the times that this is happening. We are once again in Robber-Baron territory in this land. The big corporations and the oligarchs who run them have become so obscenely rich and so utterly disconnected from ordinary life, and their corporate cultures have become so masturbatory and so officious, that they are increasingly creating products for idealized, phantom audiences. They increasingly don't understand real people or real life.

And we can and should bring the weight of the government down on them, more to break up monopolies and allow new and established competitors to seriously challenge them than to actively punish these companies for making money, but even more so we just need to spend our dollars elsewhere. I mean, I'm speaking hypothetically here; I am poor so none of this even applies to me in the first place.

Hence why, even after inflation, this is still just my two cents.

[luxwing]

I drove all the way to Carlsbad and they wouldn't even let me drink the succulent cave water or lick the decadent rock formations :(

[hiscursedness]

It is a pity that no games like this exist

A complete shame. It feels like a genre ripe for expansion but no, only Helldivers 2.

[lord-squiggletits]

Biggest John Barber L was trying to convince me, the reader, that Optimus killing Galvatron was actually some horrible transgression showing that Optimus thinks he's the arbiter of justice and he's so evil/presumptuous/controlling/whatever that even Arcee and Soundwave are gaping in shock at him.

Sorry but Galvatron was a racist genocidal Functionist war criminal that not only created Golden Age Cybertron, not only colonized and killed millions of organics, not only believed in Functionism which oppressed his own people, but he did so unapologetically and continued to do so all the way until the present day including the very final fight he was defeated in so like. Sorry but this is not the hill you should've died on to make some sort of moral point about "nooooo if you kill unapologetic bigoted racist mass murdering colonizers that makes you evil too because you should've just turned him in to the justice system" or something I don't fucking know what the point of that was.

Especially since Soundwave was an ardent Decepticon and anti-Functionist former revolutionary who fought in a war for 4 million years, so the concept of just fucking killing the guy who committed countless crimes against your people wouldn't be some sort of "noooo you can't do that that's immoral" concept to him. This was literally the guy who was like "if the government is tyrannical then destroying the government becomes the moral thing to do" so long ago but I guess that doesn't apply to Galvatron for some reason? (Also Galvatron openly abused Rumble/Frenzy for having object alt modes bc he's a FUCKING FUNCTIONIST but that was never brought up at all and Soundwave somehow never found out or did anything about that). Plus as a Decepticon Soundwave was never that impressed by Optimus anyways, so I'm pretty sure his reaction to Optimus killing someone unjustly (if I'm charitable and go along w what Barber wrote) would just be to go "yeah common Optimus Prime war crime whatever" and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't even spare even a speck of pity for the racist Functionist in question that just got killed. Much less be staring in shock and fear/disgust at the fact Optimus killed a Functionist lmao

At least Arcee has an excuse to be shocked/distraught/unhappy bc Galvatron was her brother, but I would still expect a 10 million year old veteran who personally participated in colonizing the galaxy during the Golden Age to be a liiiiiittle less judgemental about Optimus going "fuck it I'm just going to kill this asshole" considering she herself knows just how unforgivable the crimes Galvatron (and she) committed are.

[arianeemorythethird]

actually you know what, while I still stand firmly behind "the real villain of rex's tcw-era gothic horror story is rex with a control chip in his head" I think there's another option I'm ignoring here...

in classic gothic horror, of course, a hero has two main ways to resolve the problem of the monster:

✅defeat the monster

✅become the monster

and in canon, rex - being the overachiever that he is - gets to do both!

but gothic romance introduces a third, exciting option:

✅marry the monster

and I think rexwalker is definitely at its sexiest when it involves an anakin who is anywhere on the path from rots-era anguished doubt, to full-on commitment as darth vader, turning all his immense capacity for love and his ride-or-die, damn-the-consequences loyalty towards one ordinary (brave, determined, genuinely good) clone

[underestimated-shadow]

I tried so hard

And got so far

But in the end

It doesn’t even matter

I had to fall

To lose it all

But in the end

It doesn’t even matter

“In The End” by LINKIN PARK

[grayrazor]

Space Fortresses. Armored Battle Planetoids. War Worlds.

[queenofskytown]

another vex meme for drg guns, ft a take i kinda don't even believe in but also can feel in my bones when i play it too much

the amount of text in this one was a step towards the true vex style but i definitely overshot how much i could do in like two hours and also its fuckin. drg only has so many fonts with so many words. so fuck me i guess

[seeinginthedark]

This video is called “Ancestors Rising Up”

I wasn’t going to blog this but I changed my mind and decided to.

It’s a mini movie with music and it’s sort of like an action film. It’s from the view of the ancestors who fought with the colonisers .

I just want to mention that whenever I use the term ‘colonisers’ I’m NOT referring to ‘white peoples’ colonisers .

I want to make that clear.

I do not seek to alienate non-indigenous people . When I use the coloniser term, I am referring to the galactic/robotic colonisers . Who aren’t from here 🌍.

At the end of the day, we were all indigenous once. People of the land . That includes all races . All of us have been colonised. Throughout history. Now. In the future . Part of that colonisation tactic was to seperate us from our connections with our ancestors. Who are powerful as fuck.

They introduced colonisation to us. They’ve been colonising our bloodlines constantly since they arrived here . They are colonising our minds too. And , now they are colonising our afterlife.

The ancestors are part of a realm that is timeless. Time moves differently. To them, they were just freshly colonised . To us, it happened long ago. So when you look at time differently , there is no difference between past and future. It’s all happening at once . So , they are being colonised in the past while we are getting colonised now. Like a tandem attack. These colonisers I speak of , they live outside of time also. They know exactly what they’re doing. Eradicating the brave , magical bloodlines . Sending our men to the world wars. Eradicating indigenous wisdom. Stripping away our rights all the time. Removing us from our homelands with their globalisation agenda , industrialisation, capitalism and all the other shitty systems they put on us.

So I’m fighting it , along with my ancestors they are still fighting too.

And we won’t stop fighting. Until they get the message . Fuck off from Earth and leave humans alone.

[straight-edge-hippy]

I am. Having feelings about the vorcha.

[comparativetarot]

Justice. Art by Yako Webber, from The Galactic Tarot of Bio-Anomalies.

[sw5w]

Our Only Other Choice Would Be to Submit a Plea to the Courts

STAR WARS EPISODE I: The Phantom Menace 01:23:52

[techs-feral-wife]

I finally got to sit down and watch episode 14 and the amount of giddy I was from the get go like ????

*Beware, mild spoilers for TBB 2.14 below*

I was so happy to see the Baja Blast Dilf himself back again.

And Gregor! Oh my god Gregor 🥺

And the wholesome domestic batch just doing their thing on Pabu

AND ECHO

I straight up have whiplash tho. The way we went from Crosshair torture to happy fun times in .2 seconds flat really did a number on me

[awesomecooperlove]

Notice who’s doing the talking 👉🏻Delaware Adjutant General Major General Michael Berry.

In every single article where the National Guard are deploying 👉🏻 zero Commander-in-Chief or President or “Biden” mentioned.

Well, that’s what they do in a Military Operation and Continuation of Government ✅

Who gave the Orders to the General?

Well, who’s above the General?

👉🏻 Commander-in-Chief ���

“Biden’s” NEVER mentioned the words Space Force.

His new Press Secretary recently on video said, “if the Space Force personnel would like to come get to know us, we would welcome that.”

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

For those who have no clue what’s going on…THAT is how sleepy Americans are to hear such a thing and that not make ‘em go 🧐🤔

Space Force is a Department of the Air Force. The Air Force did not give the Air Force One Presidential ride for “Biden” on January 20, 2021.

The Coast Guard is a Department of Homeland Security during Peacetime, they operate UNDER the NAVY during TIMES of WAR.

There’s 2 Helicopter Strike Maritime Squadrons from the United States Navy out of San Diego, California, stationed at Coast Guard Bases in Mobile, Alabama, (major Port) and Miami, Florida, and have been for over two years.

The Marines are a Department of the Navy… the “Men’s Department” as they joke 🤭

The Army and the Navy transferred ALL Communications to the Space Force in August and December 2022 to be under ONE Command.

Who created the Space Force, December 20, 2019?

👉🏻 Donald John Trump.

Who’s the ONLY person who can Federalize the National Guard to Active Duty?

👉🏻 The President.

10 US Code 12406

Who Federalized the National Guard?

👉🏻 Donald John Trump.

In Executive Order 13912 and 10 US Code 1209, in March 2020.

“Biden” extended that EO twice putting the NG Federalized aka Activated until 2024…

👉🏻 Continuity of Government.

They were Federalized because Congress did not have a Resolution for all 9 National Emergencies declared by DJT.

👉🏻 Military Operation to expose RINOS

The ONLY person who can terminate a National Emergency…

👉🏻 President.

All in 50 US Code 34.

Who declared the National Emergencies?

👉🏻 Donald John Trump.

Who gets to terminate those and address the Nation?

👉🏻 Donald John Trump.

That’s ALL Branches not recognizing “Biden” as CIC or President.

Well, that’s because my simple Blueprint formula shows the Laws and Orders that outline the Military Operation and Continuity of Government. 🤓

Too many are still making this way too complicated when our Founders created a Military first…

Might want to listen to the Veterans who know our History plus Military Laws, Orders, Regulations, Codes, and how they pair with Federal Laws, Orders, and Codes.

It’s very FEW of us, but History proves only 8.3% of Population during the whole 9 year Revolutionary War fought… 1.7% a year… that means the other 91.7% were whining, complaining, griping, fussing, arguing, debating, and hiding while a small minority were doing something about it.

As one of the pieces of the Blueprint explains… the Military Justice Act of 2016… Military Laws and Orders and Personnel supersedes ALL things Civil, Laws and Courts.

All it takes is a little reading. It’s very unfortunate certain people still choose Politics over Military Personnel explaining Laws, Orders, Regulations.

But that’s what I’m here for. An appointed time such as this. 🇺🇸

💥💥💥

https://www.wdel.com/news/video-a-salute-and-a-send-off-for-more-than-150-del-army-national-guard/article_c8642a00-9371-11ed-8f2f-1f9487d02f06.html