#such a pinocchio

[tablefourtyone]

I should have ranted about this much, much sooner. And I'm only doing it now bc I haven't done the new summer event yet, aaaaand because I can't stop listening to Bohemian Rhapsody 🫠

After suffering through all of his bratty betrayal diatribe, I felt such vindication when Scaramouche found out about Dottore's deception in Irminsul, and how he was the one that killed his first and only ever friend and tore his heart out literally before shoving it into Scara's hand. The emotional-psychological breakdown Puppet Boy underwent was chef's kiss, to the point that he tried to erase himself and save all the dead people in a final and desperate act of self redemption, and an attempt to escape himself.

I'm glad that his infantile impressions about betrayal were adjusted accordingly simply by letting him experience deceit and true betrayal, and at the hands of a twisted psycho no less. Not exactly the same as being left by a terminally ill child or a mom that he didn't even know all that well, is it?

The other caveat is that he still acts like a standoffish asshat (hah) wc indicates that he owns up to how much he fked up for the last 500 years over one little lie that he bought without looking into it, that he's a POS that deserves to be berated or hated, while showing compassion to those in need (Tighnari) and slapping around Hoarder baddies in his spare time without taking credit for it (more or less).

Aside from Arlecchino, he's one of the best written villains in Genshin. He's provided with a complexity unheard of in a puppet wc is the crux of his je ne sais quoi. "Orders" are ingrained in his circuitry. Combine that with an ego that wanted to be useful or obtain an ambition of his own, and you have a three dimensional character trying to be a real boy who embraces his sordid past and makes a compromise by letting his past self be part of him instead of discarding it...all while trying to obtain self-contentment and better himself in his rebirth.

That act defines him as a human being, instead of a shiftless puppet with a hollow existence.

And he could have been the latter if none of what he did, said, or cared about really mattered to him. Experiences are what give meaning to our lives as humans and defines us as humans. And he found his heart by considering his past experiences valuable.

[cafe-fotografia]

[sarakipin]

Is this truly the future you wanted? 🦋

[coulrobotomy]

Fellow Honest's "Groovy" card illustration references a few scenes from Disney's Pinocchio:

Honest John's first attempt to trick Pinocchio, where he takes Pinocchio's book and pretends to read it to impress him, ultimately to convince him not to go to school.

Honest John's second attempt to trick Pinocchio, where he dons a pair of glasses to pretend to be a doctor to "diagnose" Pinocchio.

Gideon writing down Honest John's "diagnosis" (in reality, just scribbling lines on the notepad).

This is seemingly reinterpreted in this illustration as Fellow Honest attempting to teach Gidel the alphabet, but he appears to be struggling with it himself. In the film Honest John is shown to be illiterate (he's also incapable of spelling Pinocchio's name) and this is potentially true of Fellow Honest as well, as his insecurity about never being able to attend school is an important plot point in the "Stage in Playful Land" event.

[thesnadger]

Guillermo del Toro was like "I hate it when the happy ending is the monster turning human" and by God he's right (he also hates fascism.)

[tomwaterbabies]

thats right you son of bitch idiots. swag pinocchio sweep

[paramores]

[sreppub]

storybook bats :)

robpunzel, red riding hood, timberella, the little merbat (& her prince!), duke in wonderland, and dami of beanstalk fame (he totally stole the magic beans and ran. he would never sell batcow)

(I know the different background colours are an eyesore oTL don’t worry about it)

[polarsirens]

trials

[repliiku]

something something the creation of a sense of morality that doesn't ground you but sticks to your shoulder to remind you of the things you are doing and saying so that you come up with the conclusion yourself whether good or bad.

[artist-issues]

If you haven’t seen Wish yet and you love Disney, do not go see it. I am telling you now. It is ripping out the hearts of the Disney movies you love and then waving their corpses around as if celebrating those hearts.

I’ll explain why, again: the message of Wish? Awful. Anti-Disney.

But they've been doing this for a long time. Saying one thing with their movies, and saying another with their PR and Disney Parks Soundtracks.

I'll explain.

Main Idea of Disney's Wish (and the You Are the Magic theme park song and merch): "The power to make your wishes come true is in you."

≠

Most Disney Movies' Idea on How to Have Wishes: "Do what's right, (trust a higher power) and something even more wonderful than what you wished will happen."

Don't try to argue with me about this. You have to look underneath the slogans and the sweater designs and the song titles to what the stories actually support to acknowledge this.

Because you can’t say “do what’s right” has power unless you answer the question “who gets to decide ‘what’s right?’” (Which, coincidentally, is a question Wish brings up and then doesn’t answer.)

Audiences of Disney used to accept that wishing on a star was much like prayer; there’s something you long for, and it’s out of your hands, but you wish for it and you do what you know is right in the meantime. And you’re not crushed, you’re not downhearted, because somewhere in your mind you trust that the combo of those two things—wishing on a higher power and diligence to do what’s good—will be what makes your wish come true.

Trust in a higher power—COMBINED WITH:

—diligence to do what’s good.

The Blue Fairy (higher power) gave Geppetto his wish specifically because he had demonstrated commitment to do good, whether he got what he wanted or not. The Fairy Godmother (higher power) gave Cinderella her wish specifically because she kept on being kind and good to low creatures like mice and wicked stepsisters, whether she got what she wanted or not.

Do you know why that combo (higher power + diligence to do good) is impactful? Timeless? Important?

Because it’s selfless. You want something, but you’re not going to sacrifice doing the right thing to get it. You’re not going to focus so hard on making what you want a reality, on your own, that you miss out on things that could be more important than what you want. And, you’re not so self-focused as to believe that if you don’t do it, it won’t get done.

Jeez, that’s the whole point of The Princess and the Frog!

Tiana wishes to have her own restaurant, and she believes that only her own hard work will grant that wish. She misunderstands her dad’s advice before he dies. She isn’t willing to trust a higher power combined with her own diligence to do good—she only trusts her own ability.

It’s not until she realizes that Ray, the character of faith, was right all along that she learns—what she wished for was too self-focused. It wasn’t complete without love. Something bigger than herself. And getting that was never going to happen just based on her own hard work.

But you know what? It was never going to happen just by a “higher-power” flavored shortcut, either. Because Facilier offers her her wish if she’ll just trust him, no hard work needed. But what does she say?

Trust in a higher power + diligence to do what’s right = selflessness, and getting more than you could have ever wished for. And if your wish is selfish, doing those two things will change your wish into something selfless.

More examples? Get ‘em while they’re hot, in case Wish made you forget, just like the current #NotMyDisney executives have forgotten, what real Disney wishes are for.

Belle wishes to have adventures in the great wide somewhere--but when she's imprisoned and that chance is taken from her it's not reversed because she worked hard to make her wish come true. It's granted because she gave up her wish for her father: she just did the right thing, regardless of her wish. And in the end, she does get what she wished for, which is adventure in an enchanted castle...and much more, because she gets true love, a throne, and a castle full of friends.

How about the One Who Started It All? The one Wish is failing to pay genuine tribute to?

Snow White wishes for someone to love her, and he does--but when they're separated, she does not exercise power to make The Prince come back to her. Instead, she loves who she can where she’s at—the Dwarfs. In the meantime, she has faith that he will keep his promise, and that pure trust in a higher power outside of her control is a big contributing factor to why the Dwarfs come to love her, and learn from her...and in the end, even more than she could've wished happens. He does take her to his castle, but she also has seven new friends who also love her, and the Queen is dead. And she didn’t need to use “the power in her” to work harder and get it done. She just needed to not focus so much on herself at all.

How about a male main character? One who’s wish starts out selfish, but after learning to wish on a higher power and be diligent to do the right thing, gets more than he could wish for?

Aladdin wishes to be somebody different (somebody he believes Jasmine could love, somebody who lives in a palace and is respected and “never has any troubles at all.”)—but doing everything in his own power for that wish proves that it was selfish all along; so he switches to doing the right thing, regardless of if his wish comes true, and he gets even more than he could’ve wished. He gets real love with Jasmine, he gets his friend Genie, and he gets to be free from feeling “trapped” because he doesn’t have to hide who he is anymore.

Or Simba?

Simba wishes to get to do whatever he wants as King—but when Mufasa dies and he’s convinced it’s his fault, it isn’t for that wish that he goes back to Pride Rock to confront his past and his Uncle. It’s because he had an encounter with a higher power—his father—that helped him to realize his wish was selfish all along. He gives up the selfish wish, and he goes back to take his place as king, not so he can do whatever he wants, but so that he can take self-sacrificial responsibility that comes with ruling. And because he just does the right thing, finally, he gets more than what he wished for.

How about something more recent? Zootopia.

Judy wishes to make the world a better place by proving she can be what she wants to be and catching bad guys—but when she tries to make her wish happen on her own, in her own abilities, she fails and is forced to realize that she should’ve been looking for help by understanding “bad guys,” like Nick. It’s only after she humbled herself, admits she’s wrong, and changes her wish from “proving I can be what I want and catching bad guys” to “proving that understanding each other makes the world a better place” (much less self-focused) that her wish comes true—and so much more. She does make the world a better place, and she does get to catch bad guys, but she also gets to befriend one who was a good guy all along, and become all-around more effective at her dream job.

This is how Disney always has been. Because it’s at the heart of good storytelling, and even life (not to get too dramatic.)

The power is not in you. Because it’s not about you. Self-sacrifice, faith, and doing the next right thing regardless of if you get your heart’s fondest desire is what makes more than just your wishes come true. And there has to be belief in a higher power to make that message powerful.

But Wish?

Not only is it bad at showing instead of telling. Not only is it lazy and soulless.

But it’s characters rip the Star out of the sky and say “don’t wish on this. Wish on yourself, to get what you wish for. You don’t need a higher power. You don’t even need to sacrifice to do what’s good—whatever you do is good, because you are the one doing it.”

That is wrong. That is not true, and it is not powerful. There’s no sacrifice in focusing on or placing your trust totally in yourself, and it undoes every good thing Disney has done up until now.

And it undoes it on the 100th anniversary, and it flaunts Easter eggs of the very things it’s undoing.

[skysiren41]

Everyone to Disney rn:

[honeybard]

if there's one thing about Lou Wilson it's that he goes above and beyond when given the option to sabotage himself and his party

[finitevariety]

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio: Handcarved Cinema (2022)

[shweshisketch]

May you please draw Xion dressed like Pinocchio?

Sure 🥺

[skipppppy]

This recent trend in media I love is starting to become uncanny