#Disney Class System

[thelaughingmerman]

The only good part about the megachurch I went to as a kid was the gift shop had this book series about horses I got obsessed with. Also the kid church (there was an entire wing of this church the size of a normal church JuST for kid church it was bizarre) had a video game room and that's where I first played sly Cooper,

[funhouse-mirror-barbie]

I can understand why writers or executives or whoever the fuck makes decisions at Disney might want to show Nani having more independence and freedom in life given her situation but like.

They literally could have had a two minute scene of Nani going to a local college and then picking up Lilo from Hula after her classes on a rocket bike that Jumba made for her, they could have shown her getting a date night with David because now Aunt Pleakley can babysit, they could have shown her having some more time to enter surfing competitions due to having a better support system and showed her whole found family coming to cheer her on!

There’s a million different little ways they could have shown the audience that Nani had more freedoms now that she had other people in her life to help take care of Lilo and of her!!!

Hell, I thought the original did a pretty damn good job of showing that Nani was getting to live her own life WITH Lilo in it because SHE AND LILO GOT A BIGGER SUPPORT SYSTEM BY THE END OF THE ORIGINAL MOVIE!!!! WHICH WAS ONE OF THE MAJOR POINTS!!

but no oh well, Nani has to go to college to study marine biology and she can apparently only do that by leaving her home and giving up her younger sister to the state!!!

Man. I just don’t understand how you could fuck up that badly but this is also the company that made a sequel trilogy to one of the most popular media franchises of all time and didn’t think to fucking plan out the story for each movie before doing so.

[what-even-is-thiss]

I’m about to combine my religion posting with my socialist posting for a second.

I’ve never tried to hide on this blog that I’m fairly religious. My faith is a big part of my life. I’m not here to convert anybody but I’m not interested in hiding that aspect of myself either.

Anyways I’ve been thinking about what I want from my life and wealth and how that relates to Christianity and the kind of economic system I live in.

Because in many ways pure capitalism and Christianity are kind of opposed if you really think about it. Any form of hoarding wealth and Christianity are opposed to each other if you really think about it. Yet it’s also been used as a reason to hoard wealth.

Jesus often spoke against hoarding wealth. He encouraged tax collectors to only collect what was due and not skim extra off the top. He said a poor person who gives a little money has given more than a rich person who gives a lot. He said it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than enter the kingdom of heaven. And I’ve heard interpretations that that “eye of the needle” thing was actually in reference to a kind of very small door in city walls or something but point is, it’s difficult.

Then you get the invention of something like prosperity gospel. The idea that if you’re doing well it’s because you’re blessed. You get politicians working for the rich or who themselves are rich making a show of being pious while also harming the poor.

So I’ve been rattling this around in my brain. The culturally dominant religion in the western world teaches against the hoarding of wealth. Yet that same culture also puts the wealthy up on a pedestal and protects them.

I watched this video once about this guy who personally decided to donate half of his earthly wealth to charity because of his Christian faith. He wasn’t trying to tell other people they should do this. Just talking about his own spiritual journey and why he decided to do that. He sold half of his possessions, sold his house and downsized, really went through the wringer figuring out what’s really actually important to him and this guy wasn’t even particularly wealthy. He was maybe middle class. This was a huge sacrifice he made.

I’ve been tossing around in my brain how the same belief system could could create both that guy and prosperity gospel.

We get stories all the time about how the real treasure was the friends we made along the way, right? About letting go, about being happy with less, about sharing, about the dangers of greed. Sometimes we even get those stories from the organizations and people looking to hoard more and more. Disney comes to mind. The real treasure is family. And also all this money we made off of toy sales.

I feel like society is trying to push us towards a very specific definition of “success” while also wrestling with the reality that even if you aren’t Christian you live in a society with Christian ideals and one of those big Christian ideals is supposed to be charity. Not hoarding wealth at the expense of others.

Like this idea of being happy with just enough is supposed to be a message for the rich, right? Yet it seems to have been twisted around the other way. If you’re sick it’s your fault, you didn’t try hard enough, you didn’t rise and grind hard enough. Even though Jesus helped those who were suffering whether their suffering was their own fault or not, and often he rejected the notion that a person’s suffering was their own fault.

I know the answer to this disconnect is that the rich can afford to twist the narrative in their favor. That religion is a tool that can be used for both great good and great harm.

It’s still frustrating though. That I feel like I’m socialist partially because of my faith but those same messages that inspire people who aren’t even that well off to give away half of their earthly possessions are used as an excuse by others to justify bleeding the poor dry.

It’s something I’ve been sitting with when it comes to what I want with my life. It’s a cliche I guess in some Christian circles that you shouldn’t want what society wants but I’m starting to think that’s true. At least to some extent. I think I don’t want success by society’s definition of it. God asks you to not hoard your wealth. God instructs you to make time for rest. Yet society has told you to climb that ladder of success and never rest, never sleep until you get there.

Yeah, I think I’m going to rest. I think I reject the idea that success needs to involve money. I think that hoarding wealth is bad. And you don’t need to be Christian to think those things obviously but my faith leads me at least to these conclusions. However it hasn’t lead everyone to them, clearly. It’s a contradiction of values we all have to live with for now, unfortunately. Hopefully one day we can all live out the things we preach but for now that day seems very far away.

[cozymochi]

Nyoka Information & Class

(Gonna assume that’s a typo. Meme here.)

Class: Who is your twst OC's classmate(s)? How would you describe their relationship? Did they have different classmates in previous year and did they get along?

Nyoka is a third-year student in Class D. The only other cast member who is in that class is the Malleus Draconia. Their relationship is… classmates. Will interact a bit inside the classroom due to circumstance, but not so much outside of it.

Small talk may be exchanged if Malleus or Nyoka has something to say. Nyoka would never disrespect royalty, so he treats Malleus accordingly. Malleus treats Nyoka with courtesy as well, as he’s expected to.

They will be paired up often because the rest of the class fears Malleus on principle due to his reputation and overall presence, and Nyoka can carry an unapproachable aura too despite his docile behavior. He’s not scared of Malleus per se, just reasonably cautious. He certainly wouldn’t willingly venture to Diasomnia, though. I can imagine Malleus in his weird-fae-way teasing an invite every now and then if Nyoka ever asks a question (like, say about the loud reptile who keeps escorting Malleus to class every day). It’s probably a real offer laced in mild ironic humor, but it’s hard to tell. Besides, a Savanaclaw student waltzing into Diasomnia? Absolutely not.

I’d probably describe the relationship as amicable. Not unpleasant, but neither really go out of their way to hang out. They’re both kinda stiff and dignified, but Malleus has a cheekiness that Nyoka lacks, I think. Malleus can be kind of in his own world, and Nyoka is just going through the motions. Reptile solidarity 🤝 Sort of. Not friends though. It’s not a thought that crosses their systems.

It’s hard to say if Nyoka ever shared a class with anyone else in previous years because I don’t really know how NRC is structured in that regard. It’s possible, but I can’t be sure with certainty. I won’t rule it out, so I’ll put a pin in it. Might’ve crossed paths with Rook though in previous years, for sure.

Second answer as optional read under cut. Out of universe yapping.

Inspiration: Is your twst OC inspired by any villains? Concepts? Anything Disney-related?

YES! Primarily inspired by Ushari the Egyptian Cobra, secondary villain in season 2 of “The Lion Guard.” Visually, though, I focused more on the real species and some legends attributed to it.

So artistic liberties were clearly taken. Blud looks more like an Indian cobra. BUT! I will let it slide because red/purple hues are more visually eye catching for a cartoon snake than black (and in some lightning, looks gold), so I can kinda see the thought process there. I didn’t wanna nix that red/purple entirely so I just threw Ushari’s og color scheme and pattern into Nyoka’s eyes and eye makeup. That was my compromise. My little subliminal bell to ring.

I think the closest Disney-ish related concept that I also incorporated in subtext is something I can’t articulate too well.

Maybe it’ll be brought up in some future material.

HAHA SEE I ACTUALLY ANSWERED ONE OF THESE THINGS. TAKE THAT ME FROM MONTHS AGO WHO ALWAYS FAILED TO.

[bethanydelleman]

Why *did* Austen have Fanny stay tied to Mansfield Park forever? It can't just be that she thought it was a plain and simple happily ever after right? Do you think she was making a point about the gentry and class system as a whole, saying you can't ever really escape it? The rot is too deep? Because if yes, then... I see people say Persuasion is slightly bittersweet because of the "tax of quick alarm," but Mansfield Park makes it a downright Disney ending in comparison.

Yeah, I have many feelings about it.

On the one hand, given Fanny's situation, her marriage to Edmund is a huge step up in the world and what she always wanted. It is a very good outcome for her.

On the other hand, she remains in a family that either abused her or allowed her abuse. She is married to a man who doesn't show a real appreciation of her goodness and intelligence (except we are told he does in the epilogue but I WANT TO SEE!). I have a hard time imagining her growing as a person like she did at Portsmouth once she's married. I guess maybe we are supposed to see that she has grown and started thinking past only Edmund's wisdom, but still.

It's possible to see the story as a restoration of the morals of Mansfield Park itself, but it's Fanny that I love and want to see happy.

[bumblesimagines]

i brought you soup.

you're special to me.

Alice Cullen

Pronouns: They/Them/Theirs, GN!Reader

You never realized how much you took breathing for granted until the only way you could get air into your lungs was by gaping like a fish out of water.

You sucked air into your mouth, nearly managing to choke on nothing, and contemplated why life was so cruel. Sure, you were more than glad to have a chance to skip work, but it was at the cost of a stuffed nose and an itchy, raw throat. 

Shaking a tissue free, you blew your nose for what felt like the fiftyth time in the span of an hour. You groaned and weakly tossed the tissue into the overflowing trash bin before tugging the mountain of blankets further over your body.

Your mother had all but shoved the spoonful of medicine down your throat the second you finished breakfast, but you barely felt its effect half an hour in. You sighed heavily. All you could do was ride the wave until the illness finished its attack on your body.

"(Y/N)!" Your mother hollered from further in the house. "I'm off to work, but your friend is here!"

Friend?

What friend?

You squinted at the clock on your nightstand and frowned. All your friends were supposed to be at work or at school, and none of your coworkers had even bothered to check in through text or call. You forced yourself to sit up, ensuring to tug one of the blankets over your shoulders, and leaned back into the headboard. Was one of them skipping work or school and using you as their excuse or alibi? You rolled your eyes. It definitely sounded like something those idiots would do.

The door to your bedroom swung open, and you blinked your watery eyes until your vision cleared. No, it wasn't one of your friends skipping their biology class or calling off work to hang out. It was none other than Alice Cullen standing beneath your doorway with a big smile plastered on her face and a container in her hands.

You stared at her, half-certain you were having some weird fever dream, but then she walked in, her footsteps so light the floorboards didn't creak beneath her weight. 

"I heard you were sick, so I brought you soup." She explained casually, as if her popping by your house was a daily occurrence, and gently set the container of soup down on your nightstand before popping off the lid. "Courtesy of Esme, of course," She laughed, an absurdly airy and pretty sound. It sounded like an inside joke you weren't fully in on. "Butternut squash soup, just for you. She hopes you enjoy it since she doesn't get to make soup very often."

Why weren't you surprised the Cullens had a perfect immune system?

Smoothing out the underside of her dress, Alice took a delicate seat on the edge of your bed and crossed one leg over the other. Everything Alice (or any of her siblings) did was effortlessly graceful, delicate, like she was meant to be some kind of disney princess that'd put Aurora or Snow White to shame.

Her big, oddly amber eyes swept over your bedroom with curiosity, her eyes wide with curiosity and lips curled upward sweetly. Meanwhile, you racked your mind for the last encounter you had with the short girl.

Senior year at Forks, just the year prior, when she proved smart enough to be in one of the advanced classes despite being a junior. The first day of school, she'd floated into the first and only class you shared with her since the Cullens moved into your town. She looked blissful, always brimming with life and constantly smiling.

The others whispered about her, muttered how 'weird' she was in comparison to her quiet brother, Edward, and her aloof sister, Rosalie. If she heard the murmurs, she hardly showed it, and instead plopped down at your table with a friendly smile and a chirped greeting.

You barely interacted with her, though. At minimum, you spoke two words to her each day, almost always a hello and a goodbye. The only time you had fallen into conversation with her had been to complete a project, something quick and easy, but required listening to someone else's opinion.

She was warm and bubbly, but occasionally spaced out as if her mind grew occupied with something else that left her trailing off before she snapped back to reality. She was a little odd, sure, but harmless and much more approachable than the rest of her siblings.

You wouldn't describe her as your 'friend', really, but you couldn't blame her if she considered you her friend, given how the rest of the school population, apart from Bella Swan, treated her and her family. 

"Uh," You cleared your throat, bringing her attention back onto you. "Thanks."

"Of course." She nodded rapidly, strands of her wild, spiky, black hair shaking with her movements. Her head lolled to the side, and her peach-tinted lips puckered out pitifully. "Oh, you poor thing. You look really bad. Are you sure you don't want to check in with the hospital? Carlisle would be more than happy to help."

You shook your head and eyed the appetizing-looking soap. You were sure it smelled just as good as it looked, but your nose refused to clear long enough to catch a whiff. "It's just a cold." 

Alice hummed. "Do you want me to feed you?"

"Wha-" You startled, blinking at her rapidly as you wriggled your arms free from the blankets. "N-No, it's fine, I can- I can do it myself-"

"It's no problem!" Alice hopped up onto her feet, the big smile returning to her face. "I wanna do this for you. You're special to me, you know? Nobody is as nice to me as you were." 

That sounded incredibly depressing. You tried not to wince. "But..." You swallowed, as best as you could when your throat was hurting like hell, and gave a defeated sigh. "Alright." 

Alice's smile turned into a satisfied grin. "Great! Let me get a spoon and I'll be right back."

[witchofthesouls]

I think too much about the crossover between worker!sparkling!au and the Donor Clause Au.

Two particular scenes:

One, Tarn wants to have a hand in his newly acquired sparkling's education, so he decided to cover literature, music, and etiquette as he wanted to create the relationship he had when he went to Senator Shockwave's school.

He failed to account for several things: your stubbornness and his blindness to your... unique circumstances. Tarn had to watch you struggle to get into a chair meant for someone significantly taller than your sparkling height as he forgot to get a chair for minis and cassettes. He's kicking himself for his lack of consideration as he watches you claw your way up the table for better leverage to shimmy into the empty seat.

Then he had to add Neocybex classes as he didn't realize that you couldn't read his prepared materials. Apparently, you've picked up Vos' Primal Vernacular and Camien standard rather than the basic glyphs system used on Cybertron.

Two, remember that post about culture clash between what's considered filthy, explicit music between humans and Cybertronians? Well, you have films burned on an old cellphone that Tesarus was able to port it all into a datapad for your own usage. Since you're surrounded by kids that are the equivalent of toddlers and under, you decided to put on a Disney marathon because surely Tarn could appreciate the bops?

It's the opposite. You thought the guy was appalled by the expressions on anthromorphic cars, but it's really the music that is considered raw horny by Cybertronian standards.

Tarn is scandalized. He's going through the stages of grief over terrible explicitness of "Real Gone" and "Life is a Highway," and how the sparklings were exposed to it. Nurse is laughing so hard that she's on the floor with tears streaming out of her optics, especially since Vos unironically picked up Lighting McQueen's 'Ka-chow!' catchphrase.

[harzilla]

*slaps hand on table*

Tell me about your Yuusona. Your twst protag. I love seeing people's ideas and concepts. Are they just you? That's awesome! Are they twisted from a Disney character? Sweet! Are they your way to work through your trauma? More power to you!

One of my favorites is @ilmacore 's Maria. Blessed adorable abuelita Yuu.

I have four currently rolling around in my head. Each one is based on a type of genre.

The first is chubby!Yuu, the shoujo/magical girl type. My darling lil chubby gal who is another member of the sunshine team. The best damn support these boys will have. Her nickname from Floyd would be capybara(I originally had it as manatee but capybara fits her more because she's genuinely nice and tries to get along with everybody). I see her wearing a lot of cottage core, florals, etc... soft feminine clothing. Her ending would have her finding a way back home but being able to travel back and forth between Twst and her home world. You can guess which boy(or boys) might have a crush on her based on these pics.

The next one I call punk!Yuu. The one who fits the shonen archetype. Had a shitty life growing up and was a homeless teen. They ended up in Twst after dying from being hit by a car. Most likely to throw hands for pissing them off. Floyd calls them pistol shrimp. Climbed on and smashed the head of an overblot. Threw Jade at Floyd during book 2's investigation. Protective of those they care about. Lots of piercing and punk style clothing. My favorite ship with them is actually Riddle. Very opposites attract situation. But they have a lot in common(Yuu's father was a worse version of Riddle's mother) Yuu teaches Riddle to live life more freely, and Riddle teaches them to be less rebellious. This Yuu stays in Twst when they find out the truth of how they got there because they're genuinely happier then they ever were back home.

The third Yuu is adopted!Yuu. The one from my previous musings. A Yuu that fits the reincarnated! Archetype. This Yuu originally died in the bad ending timeline where Yuu overblots and becomes a calamity class monster who destroys the world. They were given a second chance at life when they finally died in the first timeline. They reincarnated as an infant and was adopted by Crowley. This Yuu is fairly mellow, when asked why they did something the answer is just they felt like it, but is also good at pulling at Crowley's strings to get what they want. They have a preference for loose, casual clothing. Preferring to wear things like oversized t-shirts and hoodies. Their ending is they almost repeat the calamity when their past life memories begin to overtake their current life after all the overblots including Grim's. But the difference is the previous life Yuu has nobody, but this Yuu has their friends, Grim, and Crowley to save them.

The fourth Yuu I call Author!Yuu. They're pretty much a Yuu who gained so much magical power they became the equivalent of a god. Because they were the first anomaly, they don't age at all and have lived thousands of years accumulating magic and knowledge, even out living Malleus. Their life is lonely and they actually don't want to see another person end up like them. Their magic allows them to manipulate the timelines within a certain limitation. They can't rewrite timelines completely, but they figure out a loophole by finding the alternate versions of themselves they think will give the best outcome for the "story" of the world. This Yuu is the one who figured out the precognitive dreams system to help each Yuu out. This version of Yuu exists in a world where ALL the stories of Twst are true. Fanfics, fanart, game, manga, novel, etc... every story is its own world and this Yuu records every one of them within their great library. Every book in the library of their soul is a story somebody has written about the world of Twst.

So, tell me more about your Yuus.

[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.

[sosuigeneris]

Socialite series: Manufacturing your Personality

So you want to get into high society. I can give you a guideline as to how you can do that. 

I was born in high society, in India. I know how these systems work. Even across cultures, they’re quite similar. I know some German, Asian, American high society people. Certain things are very similar across continents. 

You can permanently secure your position by two ways: marriage, or by becoming somebody. 

In Indian high society, there’s two kinds of people: those who have lineage, and those who are rich. 

Those who have lineage are those (mostly bankrupt) Maharajas, artists, singers, musicians, poets for generations - it’s an art form or royalty handed down to their children. They have ✨culture, a legacy✨ that can only be obtained by birth. They want to mingle with the business rich so that they get access to the opportunities they need for their livelihoods. 

The business rich can be new or old money. It doesn’t matter. Their businesses are family businesses. They have money, but may lack class. Don’t be mistaken that only new money can be “tacky” - I know plenty of influential, old money families who are equally classless and tacky. 

They want to mingle with the lineage crowd because they need that ✨culture✨ to be seen as someone. They want to be associated with them, to improve their reputations. By connecting to the artistic and musical world, it shows that they have class and persona. 

Both groups, as you see, need each other. You may ask - can’t there be families where there’s both?

Yes there can. But that is not common. 

Let’s say you take the route of dating someone who is of high society, and are hoping to convert that into marriage. I’ll be very honest with you - you have to seriously stand out for Asian and Middle Eastern high society families to accept you if you lack both lineage and money. 

You need to have a strong educational background - you need to go to a great college or masters, or whatever - otherwise this is really not going to happen. This is requirement number 1. If you don’t have this, don’t even bother reading the rest. 

And in Asian and ME families, remember one thing. Marriages are between families, NOT individuals. You have to impress the family, the family’s friends, their maids and barbers and god knows who else. 

And here are Cherry’s insider tips, just for you, to fit right in. If you fit in comfortably, it makes your life and everyone else’s life easier. 

Extrovert tendencies 

don’t be intimidated by people, don’t be shy or awkward 

It’s better to mix in being a combination of “social + slightly bored” like “it’s nice to meet you, but I wouldn’t die to be here.” 

Be open without jumping around like a Disney kid. Being “overexcited” or jumpy, smiling and laughing at just about everything comes across as weird in some cultures, IF that’s not how you genuinely are. That might work in the US, but not everywhere else. 

If I had to very simply define an extrovert - approach new people with ease, learn the art of small talk and be a good listener. 

Confident 

have a sense of self: career, hobbies, likes or dislikes, experiences

Be a multi faceted person. Do things that YOU like. If you like reading Japanese literature and collecting quartz, great! That’s your thing! 

Good communication skills

articulate, small talk abilities, good listener, curious, engaging

be able to tell little stories about yourself without giving everything away 

Well dressed 

do an image consultation for your colours, understand your body shape type and find a style that works for you

Create a capsule wardrobe that is timeless 

Remember - modesty is ALWAYS the best idea for any event. 

Posture - stand up straight, be able to walk in heels, sit without slouching

if you don’t know how to walk in heels, learn to. Practice it. 

Sit up straight, do some yoga or something for good posture 

Maintenance- good skin, hair, fit body, skin, nails, teeth; good hygiene; smell good 

hygiene comes first. Shower regularly, wash your hair as often as needed. 

Put on perfume. 

Find a make up style that works for you. Again, this takes practice. It took me years to figure out what kind of eyeliner works on my eyes and that bronzer doesn’t suit me at all. Crazy make up, unnatural hair colours, visible tattoos or piercings will not sit well in these societies. 

Etiquette 

dining etiquette- learn how to eat properly. This is not just for white culture but for other cultures as well. Understand broadly how popular cultures etiquettes work - Japanese eating etiquettes, European fork and knife etiquette, Korean drinking etiquette, Indian and Middle Eastern etiquette, etc. 

giving appropriate gifts to the host - bottle of wine or flowers 

Learn thank you etiquette- shoot a text message to the host thanking them for the event 

Intelligence

Show that you have some sort of a personality. 

Stay updated with current affairs

know your line of work and the relevant people (top companies, CEOs, etc), trends happening in your industry 

Be open to learning new things  

Put together

have a routine, show some form of discipline. 

This can be done by committing to something long term, such as healthy habits - exercise, reading, waking up early. 

Keep a watch on what you say 

people, especially women, who come across as bratty are seen as a big no no and can come across as exhausting and blood sucking. Zip it. 

Don’t talk about your failures, vulnerabilities, mistakes or mishaps. That’s confidential. 

Don’t complain or be snotty or a potty mouth. 

Do not put other people down in front of people who are not your absolute close friends. 

Poise (this is for your mental health and wellbeing)

Don’t be over eager. Being overly friendly can be seen as submissiveness. 

You’re overly friendly with someone because you want to be accepted by them. Acceptance only happens when you’re familiar with one another. When you become too familiar, it becomes a breeding ground for disrespect. Boundaries get crossed easily. 

Body language

practice practice and practice. 

Video yourself and have a fake conversation with someone. Or maybe FaceTime a friend and record yourself and see how you react to things. 

I used to watch those “try not to laugh/ get angry/ cry” videos to maintain a strong facial expression at all times. Not everyone deserves to see you vulnerable. 

Social media 

Take. Shit. Down. 

Go private if you don’t make money of social media. You’re perceived as more mysterious if you’re a private account. 

Remember, even if you’re private, it doesn’t mean that your pictures aren’t being shared. Someone’s taken a screenshot at some point for SURE or shown your account to someone else. Don’t give anyone anything to talk about. 

Don’t upload every second of every day. 

Don’t upload anything questionable- your break ups, your new boyfriend, girls nights, clubbing, your latest shopping spree etc etc. Keep things halal. Think of it this way - if your boss were to see those photos, how would you feel?

Overexposing yourself on social media comes across as desperate for attention. Limit that.

Cherry 🍒

[thydungeongal]

Counterpoint: ai looks like shit. It's being used to push misinformation en masse. Most websites are trying so hard to push ai that they have deliberately hamstrung their filtering systems to prevent people from blocking it. Is it unreasonable to not want ai slop polluting everything?

Also, so you don't put words in my mouth, copyright isn't the solution. Disney is the bigger problem and the court case is a sham. But Disney being bad doesn't make ai good.

Do you think the issue here may not be the technology itself and the system this technology exists in? The way I see it, generative AI as it's currently being pushed into the tech sphere is a solution looking for a problem and absolutely a case of a tech bubble, but that has absolutely zero bearing on whether we should class the training of generative AI as "stealing," which was the topic of discussion. Actually, this ask doesn't have anything to do with that. What the fuck are you on?

[forestgromlin]

intro post!!

special interest: hermitcraft + life series current hyperfixation: hungry hermits!! (tango’s game in hc10)

more info below the cut!

Basic Stuff

call me: bee (like this lil guy -> 🐝)

minor (nothing weird please)

pronouns: she/her mainly, they/them is good too

sexuality: aegorose

art is under #bee doodles blog where i reblog stuff: @forestgromlinreblogs

Other Stuff

(may have been a hyperfixation in the past or is a general thing that just hangs around)

singing (i’m a soprano, and am in choir and musical theater, my range is around A3-G5 on a good day)

piano (i just started learning again, i used to take lessons when i was in like. 3rd grade?? maybe??? idk)

fanfic (i only read it, i don’t write it)

i like coming up with ideas for books and editing, but not writing the actual story lmao

i think programming/coding is very cool, i have done some very very beginner stuff before (if anyone has heard of perchance.org, i made a warrior cats things that has like 10k views or smt at this point 😭 it’s really bad, the code is so messy)

i would like to possibly go into game development in the future bc it combines a lot of stuff that is very interesting to me, but i currently don’t even have a computer i could use, so uh.. yeah

hermitcraft

life series

language/languages (grammar, linguistics, etymology, learning new languages, etc.)

art (i draw on procreate)

marauders (harry potter)

harry potter (i do NOT support JKR)

kotlc

the owl house (this my FAVORITE SHOW i love it SO MUCH ASGDHFHFJFHFUUFGUUVHFJF)

she-ra and the princesses of power

bluey

pjo, hoo, toa, mcga, etc.

good omens (i’ve read the book and watched the show, but i’m specifically referring to the show)

hamilton

newsies (the musical. specifically the pro-shot on disney+. also my mucial theater class performed newsies and i got to play davey so that was awesome)

lotr

rings of power (i’ve only watched season 1)

six: the musical

i used to play violin for like 2 years

music:

maisie peters

noah kahan

chappell roan

laufey

conan gray

boygenius

phoebe bridgers

clairo (specifically the album Charm)

plus many more!

im one of the people that saw tumblr stuff on pinterest before joining tumblr

im very friendly online and would be happy to chat!! feel free to tag me in whatever

tag system

#bee’s thoughts - random original stuff, ramblings, thoughts, questions, etc

#bee doodles - sometimes i get the motivation to art, you can find it all under this tag :D

#bee watches stuff - i’m making my way through a giant list of hermitcraft and life series series, updates will be under this tag :]

#bee’s song of the day - i’m gonna try to do a song of the day everyday!! feel free to remind me if i haven’t posted one lol (i almost never do)

#bee does texting - screenshots of texts i or my friends sent

#bee’s ultimate quiz - i made a really hard quiz about myself and had y’all take it to see how much you know about me :] maybe someday i’ll hold it again for new moots or make a new one? lmk if you’re interested (if so, google forms or kahoot or both?)

tags for moots

(so if you want to see all of my interactions with a certain person, just filter by their tag!)

(lmk if you dont wanna be here, or if you’re my moot but you’re not on here! i’m really bad at staying on top of stuff like this lmao, trust me, i encourage you to tell me)

#my beau-dee-ful wife <3 - @twinklefwinkle <- at the top bc she is my fiancée <333 i love her sm (her name is dee she is amazing)

the rest are in alphabetical order by tag! #andie! - @ladyloss-blog

#bug!! - @musical-dash-trash

#cal - @stuck-in-a-forest

#duck! - @duckieselz

#erin! - @kitab00m101

#freya - @freyapoststhings

#indi - @indecisiveness-incarnate

#jas! - @yams-and-toast

#laceyy - @theodditylacey

#lee! - @whimsical-laboratory-tragedy

#lucy! - @chickencentaur

#micky - @n0b0dyukn0w

#nyx - @nyxs-blank-canvas

#patch! - @toooster

#quinn! - @quintessent1ally1

#rin! - @rins-batcave

#rye bread!! - @kutie106

#sara - @snipemeout

#sam! - @imwaitingin-the-sky

#spinny bois / #stiles / #isaac / #spinny bois anon - @spinny-bois

#toast! - @ghost-y-toast-y

#vie! - @thelovelyvie

also @ all of my moots, i love y’all!!

[mask131]

Let's take a look at the ninth art...

Given Asterix and Obelix has been getting popular again, I thought I'd do something I wanted to quickly write down for a long time - some posts to introduce those unfamiliar with to the world of... BD!

"BD"? Bande-dessinée. The French word we use for what Americans call "comic books" or "comics" or "graphic novels". Technically speaking, BD can cover the entirety of European comics production, but traditionally people refer to the "Franco-Belgian BD", "la BD franco-belge", as the heart of the European production was formed out of the industrial duo of France and Belgium.

Now, why would you or I use this obscure non-English term "BD" or "bande-dessinée"? Why not just say "European comics" or "French comic book"? Well... Why do you use "manga" and not "Japanese comic"? That's the same thing. Bande-dessinée works a lot like the American comics yes, and in fact, when I took a class at university about the history of BD, the teacher kept referring the theories of Will Eisner and Scott McCloud - BD, like comic books, are two manifestations of the "sequential art" as a whole... However, BD has a very different publishing process, a different historical evolution, a different social reception and cultural context than comics, and so it earns the right to have a specific denomination to separate it from American comics, the same way Japanese mangas are called "mangas". In fact, manga, comics and BD form the holy trinity of the sequential art, the three main manifestations of this specific medium - on one side Batman, Calvin and Hobbes, the Marvel comics ; on the other One Piece or Akira, and in the middle Tintin and Asterix and others...

BD received various other names, from the derogatory to the glorifying.

A derogatory name? "Petits mickeys" (small mickeys), alternatively spelled "petits miquets" (small miquets, a francization of the term apparently from Pascal Oury). This term, from the 60s and 70s, was used to refer to BDs under the angle of low-quality, of "popular", "low" works. "To draw little mickeys, to read little mickeys, to make little mickeys". The term was also used, in a lovingly ironic way, out of self-mockery, by various BD creators such as Goscinny or Gotlib (today you can hear people say this term is tied to the Pilote and Fluide Glacial generations, 60s-80s). Some wonder if it isn't Sempé who made the term "mainstream", through humoristic drawings he made showing how people asked him if he was the one draing "little mickeys". Of course, this is an obvious reference to Mickey, the character from Disney, but it isn't just some sort of "Americanization" thing... The reason Mickey became associated with BD was due to "Le Journal de Mickey" (a famous French comic-magazine), which has been in France one of the historical outlets for introducing and developing the BD in France. But as a result, it led to the perception of BDs as simple stories, as childish things aimed at a young audience, and at "Mickey-adjacent" (and thus Disney-adjacent) products.

A glorifying term? Le neuvième art, "the ninth art". This famous and common denomination (which ranks the BD production to the rank of "art") is based, not on the "seven arts" of the Middle-Ages, but rather on a different system of art classification... You see, in the 19th century, a certain "art hierarchy" was popularized (by Hegel). It deemed that there were five main arts, which in rank of importance were architecture, sculpture, painting, music and poetry. However, after Hegel's classification became popular many authors and thinkers started to add their own arts - in the 1920s, Ricciotti Canudo notably added the "sixth art" (dance) and the "seventh art" (cinema). Though not everybody agreed on what was what - for example, while today the sixth art is "dance", for quite some times it was "photography". And while Canudo added the sixth and seventh art, he had his own concept of the five arts - for him it was poetry, music, theater, plastic arts and eloquence/rhetoric.

Anyway, BD soon became the "ninth art". Morris (creator of the "Lucky Luke" series) and Pierre Vankeer wanted to officially call BD the "eighth art", but they discovered the term was already taken - Roger Clausse used it for radio in the 1940s, but it quickly became a common term for television as a whole and englobed within itself photography... So, Morris-Vankeer chose the "ninth" art for BD and, in a strange coincidence, on the very SAME year Morris-Vankeer published their denomination of "ninth art" (1964), Claude Beylie published his own article deemed BD the "ninth art". (And also, little historical trivia, the term existed by the 1920s but it was to designate gastronomy, and it never took off).

There is also quite a big debate over whether BD should be considered literature or not. It is primarily a narrative with prominent illustrations? Or is it primarily a visual art with some narrative stuck to it? What is more important, the drawing or the text? Is it closer to books or to paintings? Do we focus on the visual logic and the aesthetic, or the storytelling devices? It doesn't help that BDs come in a wide variety, from products very thick and heavy with text, to BDs without any text. From Boulet to Edgar P. Jacobs, from Les Cités Obscures to Blake et Mortimer...

Without going back to the Egyptians and their hieroglyphs, the class I took about the history of BD did point out how the roots of the "sequential art" in France could go back as far as the stained glass of churches, and the very famous Bayeux tapestry.

But the story of BD really begins with Rodolphe Töpffer, the man who is thought as the inventor of BD as a whole. You might know of him if you looked into the history of comics books because he is also thought of as the grandfather of American comics. What he wanted to create, first and foremost, was what he called "littérature en estampes" (literature in prints, literature by engravings). He was coming from the world of traditional books and novel-publishing, and thus had a very literary approach to it all. He wanted a form of literature where text and image would co-exist as equals, united for satirical and humoristic purposes. Because that was one of the main features of his work - to have caricatural characters, with exaggerated features, placed within comical situations.

With Töpffer, we find a true "balance of the sequential art". Because the images are clearly dependant and "submissive" to the text, in terms of narration and storytelling, but in return the visual has a much larger part on the page and is what catches the eye immediately. As a result, we have a proto-comic which relies heavily on the text, but where the drawing is what makes it interesting in the first place - and the visuals are needed to appreciate what the text is saying - and these texts usually explore the logic of mismatching, discordance, and absurdity.

Töpffer's work spread throughout Europe, and even reached the USA... And yet never gained any fame. It was not a huge success, it was never a best-seller, in fact it sold in small quantities and limited editions. And yet, it still had a big influence over the various illustrators and cartoonists of the time, and gained a small celebrity in the world of caricatures. But for Töpffer to REALLY become famous and a public figure, we would have to wait for when people started studying the history of BDs and comics...

And what Töpffer changed, through his work, was the idea of these doodles and cartoons existing on their own. Given the development of comics always deeply relied on the developments of the printing industry, they rarely could exist "alone" - unlike text, printing comics required more machines, more supplies, more technique, more effort, and so they usually appeared as caricatures within daily or weekly newspapers, or as comic strips to illustrate a text, they appeared within places of recurring, regular publications that were however not their "own". The BD industry grew out of this logic of recurring, repetitive publications, and still kept a format of "serial". But Töpffer published his little comics on their own, within their own books, without anything else but them - they were sold for themselves. And that's how it changed things.

The BD also primarily began as a form of... "degraded literature", so to speak. It was seen as a storytelling form perfect for almost-analphabetical people and for people with reading difficulties - first of all being children. The BD fed from this concept developed in the 19th century of "youth-literature for young readers", this idea that children could have and deserved their own books separate from the readings of their parents (Jules Vernes notably played a big role in creating this "literature for children" in France). This, tied to how crude, fast-made and easy-to-reproduce the BD drawings were at the time, resulted in a general perception of BD as a form of "futility". BD was there for humoristic satires, funny caricatures, children publications. It can be compared to how the "mangas" were originally drawings of a "low", "mundane" daily-life, opposed to the "high" and "real" art of drawing landscapes.

And this initial "futility" explains a LOT about the history of BD and how it evolved. The first step of the BD history was to prove its "interest" and its "utility", by becoming a "useful" thing, by turning into a tool of pedagogy or a "good" form of entertainment. And once the BD became a legitimate, mainstream, mass-produced "classic" thing, then came a second era of counter-culture, where BD became more experimental and more mature, reaching out for an adult audience.

The "periodical" publication of BDs by "chapters" or "issues" was not truly preserved. Unlike American comics and Japanese manga, where the serial chapter-publication or the periodic-issues release is still a foundation of the industry, the BD industry ditched it all and relies rather on the publication of full "volumes" or complete "collections", as a full book with a solid cover. Before it is true that the income of BD creators came from the "perodics", with their work only being bound in a single volume, a "hardcover", as a "bonus" or a "reward" that confirmed the success of the series - but today BD relies almost exclusively on the publication of full volumes.

After Töpffer, the "littérature dessinée" (drawn literature) affirmed itself more and more, through satirical caricatures and humoristic tales. It never became the main production of artists - they were primarily illustrators or photographs, and they only did proto-BD as an aside. You had Cham, who took a lot after Töpffer, you had Nadar, who caricatured the mid-19th century politics, you have Gustave Doré too, yes THE Gustave Doré...

But the next big turn, the one that changed the "generic humoristic stories" into a "specific illustrated literature for children" was "La Famille Fenouillard" by Christophe, considered one of the first real BD of France (1889-1893). And again, we find here a specific balance between text and image. You have a LOT of text, that is a big dependance on the text - it is there that all the story takes place... But the drawings meanwhile are very attracting, very insisting, because they are incomplete scenes and visual enigmas that encourage the reader to check what they are about. The image attracts the gaze, creates the curiosity, the wonder, creates the question, whereas the text offers the answer. We are still in quite simple, not complex stories, but they play a lot on dichotomy - for example the drawings offering joyfull, happy, positive situations, that get more shady, more dubious if not dangerous once you add the text to them.

While I speak a lot of France, Germany has its own things going on aside - most notably, it developed what would become a very common genre in European BD, the "petits garnements" genre. Stories of brats, mischievious boys and little devils - such as the classic "Max und Moritz" (1865). This resulted in a wide fashion of duos or trios of prankster-heroes, that would create a lasting associated in culture between "childhood, youth" and "transgression, disobedience, trick". But here, we are closer to an illustrated tale rather than a "true" comic.

For more about the history of BD, see you in the next post...

[physalian]

On eating your “Realism” cake and having it too

Inspired by another post I didn't want to hijack twice.

TL;DR, people are able to suspend their disbelief for many things, but once you invite them to start questioning things, if you have not done the groundwork, your lore might fall apart.

Example I love to use is Cars to Cars 2.

People were not nitpicking how car society works after Cars. It’s a kids movie about anthropomorphic vehicles, and for the most part, it kind of made sense. The courthouse in Radiator Springs was built for vehicles, Doc was a “doctor” but really a fancy mechanic, and the plot was about cars racing, doing car things.

Yeah you could wonder things like, how did they build the buildings? Why do they have both sentient aircraft (the helicopter and blimp) but also planes being piloted by cars (the flyover of the jets above the big race)? But these were negligible background details that didn’t matter to the plot.

Cars didn’t have to be ‘realistic’ and wasn’t pretending to be.

Cars 2 was when people got all up in arms nitpicking the hell out of every little thing, because in this movie, zero thought was given to the worldbuilding beyond “idk it’s earth but with humans instead of cars” except now it matters to the plot.

Why is Mater able to eat wasabi? Why does wasabi exist? Why is there a car pope? Why is there a car queen? How do cars have parents? What was the point of that one car with their eyes in the headlights? Are sentient battleships born or made into a life of combat? Are all commercial planes forced to be pack mules for their whole existence? How does the car class system work? Why do lemons exist?

All of this taking away from the grand prix plot that made much more sense for the universe, instead of the spy movie. Now, to try and solve the mystery and engage with the story, we have to think about all those incongruous details. All those details, the car queen and car pope would have been funny background gags if the movie was just about the grand prix.

It’s still a kids movie, but now with all these details that don’t add up and cannot be ignored. Cars could be enjoyed by everyone. Cars 2 was made for money kids who weren’t supposed to think about all that.

—

If you as the author and your story take the tone of “this is for fun don’t think too hard” people will have a good time if they’re entertained and anyone who nitpicks can be met with, well, Dead Dove: What did you expect? It’s exactly what it says on the tin.

You can absolutely make shit up as you go along. I read a book that had dinosaurs on Mars. Why? Because it’s fun. There was a tiny scientific explanation given, but the plot did not rest on how and why these dinosaurs exist on Mars. The story never asked the audience to consider logic, nor did it have its characters questioning the worldbuilding.

You do not have to be “realistic,” in that way, to be good.

But once you start bringing attention to the elephant in the room, you need to have done your homework.

So, example.

I have a novel in which the sun does not shine, permanently, across the entire northern hemisphere of earth. This is fantasy, not sci-fi.

Option one: Ignore all the catastrophic consequences of such an apocalypse. How it works, why it happened, all that noise does not matter to the plot or the characters. No one ever questions it, no one’s choices ever depend on it. It’s just a fun aesthetic choice, in the same way that animals can talk to humans in Disney movies and no one questions it. Why and how they can talk does not matter, only that they can and we are now entertained by Mushu’s antics.

Option two: Okay, so I’ve taken the sun away from half the planet. I now need to think about the following: How does that affect the weather for the other half? What happens to all the plants and animals that lived in the North? How would one survive in that wasteland without easy access to food? What food could grow there without sunlight? By what other means can I get nutrients for plants and animals without sunlight, so people can eat, so communities can exist?

I went with option two. The plot of the book is very much tied to this lack of sunlight and the hazardous environment the characters are stuck in. The characters are wondering how it works and how they can overcome it constantly. I did my homework, I gave them a way to survive and even thrive up there. I am thus calling this post-apocalyptic setting “realistic”.

It’s still fantasy, so my explanation is still “because magic”, where the sun isn’t gone it’s just being blocked by a big magic blanket, to put it simply, but the consequences are based in realism. That way, my audience can follow along and understand how the world works and anticipate why characters do the things they do in their environment.

So if a geologist or climatologist reads my book and goes “um actually” and they point out that I’m wrong, I have to own that. I have to say “yeah I didn’t consider that, it’s a good point, but I can’t change the manuscript so to enjoy the book, try not to think about it.”

What I cannot do is protest all criticisms of my “realism” by going “it’s fantasy you’re not supposed to take it seriously” while turning around and also saying how smart I am and how clever and authentic my worldbuilding is.

Can’t eat your realism cake and have it too.

And this is only talking about the lore. I haven’t even touched escapist fantasy relationships.

A more famous example: Gandalf’s magic in Lord of the Rings.

Have not read the books in a hot minute so I’m referencing the movies as I’m more familiar with them.

Gandalf is a wizard. He can do an unexplained number of spells pretty much as the plot demands. What he cannot do is never given a hard limit, which tends to break most magic systems.

And yet. “Why didn’t Gandalf save the day?” isn’t a question that destroys the story.

Gandalf is a shepherd, not the hero. He can lead the race of Men to water, but he can’t make them drink. If he came in and started forcing all the power-hungry men to sit down, shut up, and cooperate, what magic Gandalf can and cannot do would be paramount to understanding the story. He can only nudge people in what he thinks is the right direction, but the choice to act is up to them.

Which is pretty heavily implied throughout the films.

As for his magic, Gandalf both never wins without consequence, and isn’t an aggressive character who resorts to his magic at every turn.

He took down the Balrog, but the Balrog got him, too

He warded off the nazgul with the big light beam outside Minas Tirith, but a lot of Gondorian soldiers still died, and he didn’t do any damage to the fellbeasts

He likes fun times and magic tricks, like the fireworks, more than spells for combat

He’s forgetful, like with the password to the door of Moria

He is not all-powerful

All this means that in any life or death situation, the weight of the plot does not rest solely on his shoulders.

So Tolkein isn’t “realistic” in that he consulted physicists about every little thing, but he’s “realistic” in that all the worldbuilding decisions and lore realistically fit the story. The choices of the characters, the behaviors of the different kingdoms, the perspectives of the different races all make sense for the world they live in.

—

It is nearly impossible, as a lone writer, to cover every potential plot hole that a reader could point out. It’s fiction, after all, and sometimes characters make choices because that’s what’s entertaining and the other option of “just go home” or “X did this because they forgot Y” is not entertaining.

But if you have, say, the series that inspired this post, with a world where winter shows up when the plot demands and lasts for years, you can either say “eh that’s just a thing that happens, it’s not important I just thought it was neat and a cool setting” and people will shrug it off.

Or you can say “this is absolutely critical to the entire story and impacts every society within my world” but don’t do your homework on what those impacts are, people can and will call you out on it.

[david-talks-sw]

"Bring in the flamethrowers!"

The above moment from The Clone Wars gets brought up a lot to illustrate Ki-Adi Mundi or the Jedi's moral decadence, a fall from grace caused by the war.

Figured I'd point out a couple of things in support of Ki-Adi!

1) Simple answer: the situation called for it.

The Geonosians attacking Ki-Adi were:

enemy fighters

with the element of surprise

who could fly and were thus harder to hit with the clones' blasters, hence why more wide-ranging weapons like flamethrowers were called for, as the clones were getting picked off one-by-one.

Time was of the essence, men were dying, Ki-Adi made a choice.

Wanna know what Jedi choose when a Geonosian isn't actively trying to kill them? They save its life (and get praised for it by their peers).

2) In-universe, the Geonosians are assholes.

From Attack of the Clones - The Illustrated Companion, 2002:

"Geonosians are a physically intimidating race conditioned to live and work in caste-segregated hives. The vast majority of Geonosians are subservient to the ruling caste, and throughout Geonosian society, there is evidence of a biologically engineered class system. Some Geonosians have wings, while drones do not. [...] The blind obedience of menial Geonosians makes them an easily exploitable workforce for the upper classes, who have built a highly profitable business manufacturing Battle Droids, Super Battle Droids, and Droideka Droids for the Trade Federation and its allies."

"For unusually intelligent Geonosians unlucky enough to be born into the lower castes, participating in the games provides the only chance they will ever get to escape the misery of their downtrodden lifestyles and the rigid social expectations of the upper classes. Triumph in the arena is often a hollow victory, however; while lower- and middle-class Geonosians may win the right to talk to their superiors, they can never earn their respect."

Okay, so the winged upper class are obviously elitist bastards, but how is that even remotely relevant--

-- oh. But hey, two of them don't have wings! Those are members of the drone caste, and they're all begotten underdogs, so--

"If there is one thing that unites Geonosians of all classes, it is their xenophobia. A traditionally isolationist species, they fear espionage attempts by rivals eager to learn the secrets behind their latest droids."

-- oh. Huh.

Bottom line: yes, they're sentient... but they're xenophobic, have an elitist caste system, and earn their living by forging weapons that melt your insides or blow up planets.

Now sure, this notion has been explored and deconstructed in Star Wars: Rebels...

... and I'm not entirely sure if the quoted info still holds true in current Disney canon (the lore is from 2002, after all), but if you ask me?

On a normal day, ol' Klik-Klak would be actively trying to murder the entirety of the Ghost crew for daring to even step their dirty non-Geonosian feet on his pure red planet.

3) Out-of-universe, the Geonosians are just "bug aliens". Nothing more.

The production team of Attack of the Clones referred to them as the "termite people". The script describes them as "winged creatures" who are heard "chuckling" once Anakin and Padmé are sentenced to a gruesome death. At some point, the storyboard artists considered introducing the Geonosian workers like you would a horror monster.

Hell, the whole Lucas decided to base them on termites is because his house was besieged by them.

They're not people, which is why they're not designed to look like people. They're purposefully dehumanized so that when one of them gets killed by our heroes, it's ethically "okay" and the audience doesn't need to stop and think "oh my God, that's murder!" or "hey! that's racist" whenever a clone calls one of them a "bug."

A similar logic is applied to the stormtroopers, who have face-covering helmets that dehumanizes them.

Functionally, a stormtrooper is a fascist goon, nothing more.

Same goes for the Geonosian. It's a bug alien, that's about it.

4) The flamethrowers were probably just added because they're cool.

Dave Filoni described how the decision to add flamethrowers came up, and it doesn't sound like George had deeper storytelling motives:

"You know, we're going through the tunnel with the Geonosians and George is like: “Yeah, well, here, we'll have the-- the tunnel and the flamethrowers. Yeah. How about that? ‘Bring in the flamethrowers!’ have Ki-Adi Mundi say ‘bring in the flame throwers!’” And it's like “flame—- What? Flamethrowers?!”" - Dave Filoni, “Return to Geonosis” Featurette, 2010

It sounds like he came up with it on the spot.

The flamethrowers aren't indicative of "the moral degradation of Ki-Adi and the Jedi Order." They're likely just in there 'cause they're cool (and if you've played Team Fortress 2, you know that's true)!

At the end of the day, when it comes to the Geonosians, I think that there's a certain irony to how their story ends.

They gleefully created the battle droids that tore the galaxy asunder and the Death Star, a weapon that enables the Empire to commit genocide... but fell victim to genocide themselves, at the hands of an even bigger monster.

They reaped what they sowed. They're not meant to be mourned.

And it's nice to see this aspect of the narrative doesn't get ignored as much as I would've expected.

I came across this video that basically rips into Ki-Adi for using flamethrowers, and I was ready to roll my eyes when I scrolled down to the comments section...

... but then, a happy surprise!

Most of the comments disagree with the video's stance! For once, logic prevails over anti-Jedi bias.

So yeah, that put a smile on my face.

[rowayneau]

Hazbin Hotel x Twisted Wonderland

An idea for an AU where the whole Hazbin Hotel ended up in Twisted Wonderland. The whole hotel(after ep 2) is suddenly transported to Night Raven College and somehow combines with The Ramshackle Dorm. Everyone is freaking out and is wondering where the hell are they, and who is this human kid (Yuu) and is that a talking cat?!?! Why are its ears on fire??? 

There will be a lot of chaos before everyone settles down. I can see Crowley will try to take advanta–ahem, show his kindness and let them stay on campus in exchange for helping out with the school.

Also this is a Hogwart/Disney school?? Where villains are being worshipped as heroes and history is not what it seems. I can see Charlie being a Disney fan will feel conflicted about this? Was their history wrong or the movies wrong? Not all the story is what it seems.

Charlie will learn a thing or two about perception in stories. How the story is being told depends on who's telling it, maybe her parents' story of hell might not be as accurate as they tell her.

But who cares about that right now, this is a magic school with wonders and amazement and new opportunities. But they are stuck being staff in a school full of douchebags kids with no pay. Yayyy…….. 

There are assigned different jobs and spread out across campus

Charlie: School's official therapist/counselor. Usually has no patients unless is an Overblot victim or Yuu coming in from an Overblot incident or dealing with Crowley’s bullshit. She is also Yuu’s primary caretaker, Crowley is irresponsible enough to leave Yuu on their own to fend for themselves doesn’t sit well with Charlie. So she stepped up and became a big sister to Yuu.(Which is a big relief. Have you seen what this kid went through in the game, especially in the later books?)

Yuu: Charlie assistant therapist/Crowley's gofer/Hotel gofer/Grim's caretaker. The unfortunate isekai protag who ends up cleaning up all the mess/incident at school. If that's not bad enough, with Ramshackle combining with the Hazbin Hotel, they will also need to deal with the Hazbin crew too. Will not be able to catch any break. At all.

Vaggie: School security and second gym coach. Will be extra protective of Charlie and super on edge due to being in a new environment and in an all boys school. Hates Coach Vargas as he reminds her of Adam and will be very strict towards the students and training them like a drill sergeant

Angel: Health/Sex-ed teacher. How did Crowley approve of this? No one knows. He is the teacher that everyone avoids but has to see due to being mandatory. Very uncomfortable and in way too many details of sex-ed during his class. Luckily for them, the students are all underage and he won't go that far. Except for Leona who is currently 20 years old. Yeah.....

Husk: School cafeteria worker. No different than working at the bar in Hotel but instead of hearing the Hazbin's moan and bitch about their problems, he gets to hear students moan and bitch about their problems. Oh and no alcohol since it's a school and all.

Niffty: School Janitor. Everyone is afraid of her and is cleaning up after themselves just to avoid her. Students with bug-like features or resembles it hides from her.

Alastor: School Announcer. This creepy fuck took over the school broadcasting system and turns it into his own radio studio. Keeps tabs on the student body and makes announcement that either is useful or just fuck with the student body. Very interested in this world of magic and trying to study them for his advantage. He is also looking into Unique Magic and is particularly interested in Azul's.

Sir Pentious: School Repairman. He mostly causes explosions with his inventions and his egg bois can be found all over campus. There are just so many of them, like an Easter egg hunt. His invention is interesting enough and everyone likes an airship with a death ray attached to it.

I can imagine in this AU they will be stuck until all 7 Overblots are resolved and then maybe they will find a way back to Hell. Along the way, they will get involved in a lot of shenanigans and start to grow fond of the kids. 

They can see the kids do their best, but they always lose. What surprised them is that even with constant failure and loss, they never gave up. The kids are so passionate about their dreams & ambitions when they fall down and crawl back up no matter what.

In a sense, they can see how these kids are similar to Charlie with her dreams. Maybe there is more in common to them in this world than they thought.