#and become successful even

[funishment-time]

as i've gotten older i've prized sincerity in fandom/content spaces more. i find it harder and harder to watch, for instance, Let's Players who are clearly trying to find reasons to shit on a game and pretend like they're not invested. i used to think it was funny in a schadenfreude kind of way, and now it's just kind of sad, especially if those content makers are Middle Aged. if you're like 40 and making videos where it's apparent you're hiding your excitement over FNAF Lore and using slurs to refer to anyone who does dare to get excited, that's, i think, way "cringier" than just being 40 and openly into FNAF. why do we police ourselves like this

[lokh]

fake dating au where shuro ends up pretending to go out with laios in order to secure his inheritance.... but is it really what he wants? a journey of romance and self discovery that ill never ever write

[nokkiart]

As a long time httyd fan who has been heavily involved in the fandom since the first movie and who has spent years working in the animation industry, I’d like to share my thoughts on the new httyd movie. Keep in mind, this is just my personal opinion and it's completely fine if you disagree with me. I just want to say a little something about all this that really bothers me.

The core reason that Dreamworks and Universal made this film is that it’s a quick and easy cash grab for them. Thats it. They don’t care about telling a good story or making a “better” version of the original movie for fans or even having an accurate portrayal of the characters/story. It’s purely about money. They know that fans of the original film will go see this movie, whether it’s good or bad. And those guaranteed ticket sales are all that matter to the studios. And with Universal, it has the added bonus of being a cheap promotional and merchandising opportunity for the new HTTYD land in Orlando that opens around the same time that the film is premiering in theaters.

And to help the studios make even more money out of this, they are using non-unionized VFX companies around the world to make this film, so that they can get cheaper labor and push the artists to do more that would be against American union standards. The same thing has probably happened with the costuming and fabrication for the filming, hence why the costumes look un-weathered and the sets look cheap. They don’t want to pay for the extra time and effort that it would take to make the practical bits of the production look good.

On top of all this, Dreamworks has already announced that they’re shutting down all their in-house animation projects in favor of using AI and outsourcing projects to cheaper international non-union studios.

With all this in mind, I just can’t support this film and I will not be seeing it in theaters. And I hope that others will do the same.

The only way to stop all these horrible “live action” remakes (which are actually just realistically animated remakes) is to not buy tickets to see them. Money is all that matters to these studios, and if they don’t make any money off of it, then they will stop and try something different. Maybe they'll even go back to focusing on original stories!

That’s the power that we hold as audiences. Our wallets help drive the decisions that the executives make. So support unique storytelling and gorgeous cinematography in movies. Support indie films. Support animators as they're fighting for fair pay and better contracts. But don't support a mediocre shot-for-shot remake riding on the coattails of an already successful film.

And I just want to wrap all this up by saying I have absolutely no hate towards anyone that has worked on the new film. Toothless looks incredible and I know the artists and creatives involved in this project did the best they could with what they were given.

But I also know that those same artists have so many more brilliant ideas that they would’ve loved to be given the creative freedom to do. I just wish hollywood would be willing to take a chance and let them do it.

[the-clock-of-the-time-dragon]

It will forever be hilarious to me that Disney wanted so fucking bad to make a Wicked movie — but couldn't get the rights from Universal — that they literally spent billions upon billions of dollars making SEVEN different films (and a whole season of television; not even including their sequels and spinoffs) more than one of which they even got Idina and Kristen to be in based on the stripped-down premise of "what if the Stock Female Antagonist™ was secretly the Misunderstood Angsty Girlboss Heroine™ all along?" (because Disney execs don't actually care about Wicked, they just saw Green, said "hey! if we can't get the real thing, why not use Our Own (and/or Public Domain) characters?" and simply followed the Marketing Department Road all the way to the bank).

Less funny is the fact they were so successful at it — regardless of the merits (or lack thereof) of any of those projects — that it ended up getting the production of the actual Wicked movie delayed by more than a decade (because it would ironically have looked like a copycat and probably faded into the background if it had come out back when Disney was pumping out knockoffs every fucking year).

[vaperarmand]

FREAKING AWESOME BEST GUY EVER I LOVE YOU.

[hyacinthsdiamonds]

Imagine having the fastest car on the grid, but Max Verstappen lives so rent free in your head that you try to copy him instead of doing literally anything original... Mclaren, you'll never be him, no matter how many times you claim the orange army as your own!

[skz-miroh]

love how the “if buddie turns canon” has now turned into “when buddie becomes canon”

[dykedvonte]

It’s crazy how expendable all the crew members were to the Pony Express.

A 30% chance that your shipment would be lost. Cargo and crew are inseparable if we are to believe the shitty layout of the Tulpar. People use it because it’s cheap. The labor is cheap. The lives are cheap.

They are all relatively easy to forget about. It’s implied Anya and Curly don’t have many friends or much family to be concerned about them back home. She mentions nothing and no one to fall back on and he feels like wasted his life with the company. Jimmy probably only has Curly, otherwise people wouldn’t care or ask. Of course Daisuke and Swansea have family’s but Swansea thinks poorly of his and Daisuke’s poorly of him. All people in the companies eyes that wouldn’t stir up too much trouble if they became part of the 30%.

It makes it so much sadder because that ladder they were climbing was so small and shitty. There were rungs, ranks, but even the highest was barely off the ground. Jimmy wanted to reach the top of something that was brutally cut off and knocked everyone else off just to not see it.

[riverin-stories]

i'm back from hiatus here 1 million years later to say: that okami sequel announcement had me in shambles

[cursed-onepiss]

the way my ass was not prepared for shanks rolling up to marineford, immediately intimidating every still-conscious major player on the battlefield including gd sengoku…

and then whipping around like a soap opera protagonist the second he realized buggy was there

*:･✧BUGGY?✧･:*

i don’t have to ship them when shanks does it for me

[jesuistrestriste]

SAGE SAGE SAGE SAGE

ARE YOU SEEING THIS

he is EMPLOYED

WHHHHAAAAAATTT ! ! ? ! ? i’m gonna frow up

i was driving all day today w my friend + just got back from a concert abt three hours ago and i missed this???

:( i’m so incredibly happy for him :(( he’s gonna do so well ! YAY MIKE !

[myimaginationplain]

do you ever think about how Ohkubo extremely casually dropped the fact that Spirit & Kami were teen parents & then proceeded to never expound upon that fact or bring it up ever again despite it explaining a whole lot about them & Maka

[starrysharks]

i want to delete my twitter account so fucking bad

[thelostgirl21]

Okay but...

Jaskier always wore blue-green doublets (various shades of teal, olive...) in Season 1, except for one episode...

That episode. The one where Geralt told him that if life could give him one blessing, it would be to take him off his hands!

On that episode he was wearing a bright red doublet over a blue-green shirt.

And, ever since, he's been wearing his red/burgundy coat, and has totally abandonned those blue-green color tones.

Besides red, he's been sticking to whites and browns and more earthly tones (his vests are also a mix of red and gold).

Red is the color of Radovid's Kingdom (note: the chaotic part of me almost wishes Redania's color was blue, just to mess with people's expectations!), often combined with white, gold, brown and black.

The wardrobe of nobles and people at court is dominated by those colors.

In terms of 100% accidental foreshadowing, I just think it's interesting that Jaskier was already on his way to adopting the colors of Radovid's own world when Geralt essentially "cast him off" from his.

(And that the very first time Geralt and Jaskier met, Jaskier's doublet had slits with just a tiny bit of red and gold seeping through.)

I'm starting to think that it might have been a good thing that Jaskier was only wearing a pair of pants and a shirt that first time he and Radovid met.

As revealing as that outfit was, Jaskier standing there in all of his bardic glorly with his long red leather coat, flashing hints of gold at Radovid, just might have clearly signaled to him that he'd just found himself a suitable mate!

Don't know if that was the intent or not, but Jaskier's outfit on the show also offers a nice nod to him actually being Redanian nobility (viscount), but with a much less formal vibe...

He basically looks like a Redanian noble that escaped into the wild and went feral!

Yup! Jaskier is now dressed like a feral Redanian viscount that keeps "wailing" (Joey's words, not mine!) outside to attract mates, stealing scraps of food from everyone he comes across, sneaking into people's homes to go sniff around your perfectly domesticated Redanian prince...

Next thing you know, your domesticated Redanian prince is stealing food from your plate, hissing and giving you attitude, then he suddenly runs away from his prince-sitters to disappear into a forest in the hopes of finding the feral Redanian viscount.

He finally manages to locate him when he hears the distant and familiar sound of him "wailing" a feral Cintran princess to sleep, makes noise to attract him outside, starts "wailing" back, and winds up mating with him in the back of a woodshed!

And the moment your domesticated Redanian prince is eventually found and brought back home - all dirty and stinky, no less - the first thing he stubbornly wants to do is run off into the wild again to go chase after that pesky feral Redanian viscount to go help him reunite with the rest of his feral pack, and hopefully be allowed to join it so they can mate more often!

[local-maenad]

Ok out of the past couple of months of watching Fantasy High Freshmen Year. NO ONE told me just how messy Raugh and Gorgug are???

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

Obviously the structure of an episodic series often requires characters to go from 'complete strangers' to 'close friends/family' in an unusually short amount of time. I get it.

Writers need a 'new guy' in the group to ask questions about the setting that the audience can't, but still (especially in comedy shows) want the fun dynamics that come from all the main cast knowing each other super well. It's one of those functional tropes like L-Shaped Blankets where you're required to suspend your sense of disbelief.

Having said that, I love when writers choose to take this trope and retroactively justify it by later on revealing that the Seemingly Normal Everyman Character is actually as unhinged as the rest of the group— it's just that their weirdness manifests specifically as an ability to form found family dynamics with literally any group they join, almost immediately after joining.

Like, you assumed that they just fit in so well because your group has a special vibe, but then you accidentally left them in the supermarket for like five minutes and by the time you realised and went back they were already Blood Brothers with the cashier.

Characters who are like friendly dogs in that you can put them essentially anywhere, with anyone, and they will just be like “welp! Guess this is my New Family now” and just go along with it.