#also that means we have to go to retheme hell...

[liartheater]

IK THEY MIGHT AGREE BUT IM SO SCARED OF ASKING IDK WHY 😭😭😭

The overwhelming urge to retheme is growing but ifk what the other mods will think.... QJSKSNAKKAKAANHWNWMWJWJHQBANANANNANSNSNSNSN

[icharchivist]

I'm not sure if I should be jealous of you having cute coffee shop AU dreams with Belial or impressed by your prophetic vision

https://twitter.com/onkeikun/status/1686061715820101637

But also, Musk is a manchild and deserves to be mocked for it

I agree with your subconscious, I think Belial would mercilessly mock this man

But now I need to know more about your coffee shop. Do the drinks have inappropriate names? Is he flirting with customers to turn them into regulars?? Is Sandalphon your worst competitor??? Are you keeping Belial in line or is he walking all over you? I need answers

i truly have the stupidest prophetic visions at this point but i'm just going to be resigned about how it at least mean i got a cute dream with Belial. Because since he was set on mocking Musk the whole thing was actually very wholesome with me at least since he was just pulling his puppy eyes to make sure we would roast the hell out of Musk all over the shop. if you want to be jealous, go ahead, i was just left bewildered.

but thank you for the link!!!

so it's more Hosoyan asking why it was renamed to X and someone replying to him about the middle schooler syndrome.. but now that i see the tweets, i know "the middle schooler syndrome" is usually used derogatorily but it's also the archetype Grimnir is built around :( Musk deserves worse.

Musk definitely deserves to be roasted and i do believe Belial would participate in mocking him. He loves chaos after all and the man deserves it.

AND LMAOOO, i don't remember for the drinks, but i could imagine him insist for it to be the case. He was definitely flirting with customers to turn them into regulars though, bulleyes. Sandalphon was not involved in the dream but now i want to believe Belial insisted to open the coffeeshop just to spite Sandalphon and i agreed out of a misguided attempt at "maybe he'll find his passion there and stop causing problems?". And i'm TOTALLY keeping Belial in line in the dream in the sense that i know i've stopped him a few time firmly and he had to really use his charms in order to get me to agree with his stupid plans (and i don't mean like, rated R charms, i really mean, puppy eyes and trying to appeal to my chaos nature by telling me it'll be fun).

Honestly i don't remember much of the commercial part of the dream since we were mostly renovating the coffeeshop together during that dream and he would often try to find way to skip on his workload (despite the fact HE insisted for retheming the coffeeshop) so i had to drag him back to work, and all i really remember is taking a comemorative picture on a table that was covered with tweets trashing X, and we were on each side of the table with one elbow on it, posing for a camera, as this picture was used for a journal entry of "NEW LOCAL COFFEESHOP DISSES X, THEIR CUSTOMERS KEEP COMING BACK."

as for me i feel like Belial would have a personal beef with a man who retheme his entire business after the letter X while pretending to pretend it's not about sex. Like. That's insulting to the sexman. He's going to drag you to the ground for it. The tweets on the tables are probably a lot of tweets about how Musk is turning it into a sex business. That would be the Belial vision.

Why do i have those dreams even, Belial why did you do this to me.

[rbbalmung]

Alrighty: Let's talk about the Princess and the Frog ride.

I'm going to start off by saying I support this ride. Princess and the Frog is in my top 5 movies and I've been waiting for representation in the parks for years. I will also say that Splash Mountain is my Family's favorite ride. It's not any of our personal favorites (mine being Dinosaur), but it's one that we have always enjoyed together. We have a track record of riding it at least 3 times in one day when visiting. Do I understand that the movie it takes inspiration of is racist? Of course. Song of the South glorified slavery. I think Disney did a good job of removing the cartoon shorts from the movie and taking the basic story into a ride, but I can understand where it is a sore spot.

But that's not what I'm here to talk about. I'm here to talk about the execution of this retheming. Before I dissect exactly what I mean by that, I want to talk about Frozen Ever After (bear with me. It'll make sense in the long run). I'm not a huge fan of Frozen Ever After. I liked the originality and mystical nature of the Maelstrom. It was my favorite ride in Epcot. However, I always try to take away my bias and approach new rides with a fresh take. I liked Frozen Ever After the first time I rode it, but after that initial ride, something didn't hit the mark.

Let me break it down for you: I feel that the make or break of a good dark ride (or ride in general) is a story. This works for a lot of Fantasyland rides because they take scenes from their movies and make you feel like you're living in it. Haunted Mansion is another good example because the overall story is that you are exploring a haunted house. It sounds simple at first, but the theming is superb in this ride. It feels like there's a mystery you're trying to solve.

What is Frozen Ever After's story? Its Elsa's special day. What...does that mean? The trolls break it down by saying," On a day, very much like today, Anna saved her sister with an act of true love that thawed the frozen heart." Olaf also says that Elsa is going to make summer snow and that they're going to her ice palace. Cool. What are the stakes? Hell, what is the story? This sounds like a silly criticism at first, but if you think about your favorite dark ride, there is always a story. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh follows the plot of the movie with the danger being introduced in the Heffalumps and Woozles room. Splash Mountain has Brer Rabbit trying to find his laughing place while Brer Fox and Brer Bear are hunting him down. Little mermaid follows the plot, which I will assume we all know by now. Frozen Ever After has no story line to follow, so you don't feel invested.

I think some rides can get away with this. Peter Pans Flight, for example, doesn't really have a story. However, you fill in the plot because you've seen the movie. I think you could do that with Frozen if they weren't hammering in that everything already happened and everyone is happy now. Its...safe (cough cough boring).

(This may be nitpicky, but why is Elsa sending you away in the Let it Go scene? I know its because that is how the Maelstrom was, but please at least explain it in the ride because I always think it's hilarious. Elsa doesn't want us there.)

Now, let's look at the ride in a more technical viewpoint. Personally, I do not like the screen faced animatronics. There is something about them that just feels weird (I understand that this is an opinion and not based in fact). I know they can make animatronic faces because of Navi River Journey (another ride with no plot. Disney, I'm onto you) and the new Beauty and the Beast ride coming to Tokyo. Also, if you pay attention, there is a completely black room between the ice castle and the marshmallow room. It's just walls painted a dark gray. Come on Disney, you could have at least projected something.

So where am I going with all of this? What I am scared of for the Princess and the Frog ride is that it will follow the current trend of no story dark rides that disney is making right now. From what I've read, this ride takes place after the movie happens. It's still in early stages of development so things are kept purposely vague, but if the story truly is Tiana and Louis getting ready for Mardi Gras, I'm concerned. Splash Mountain is about a 13 minute long ride, while Frozen Ever After is maybe 3. They didn't even have enough content to fill that time table, so I have no clue how they're planning on executing this new retheming. Is it impossible? No. Will it be difficult? I think so. Placing the ride story after the movie story also takes two major characters out because of death: Ray and Facilier. The villain is out of the picture, and so are the stakes. (I also just want a really cool friends on the other side section I mean COME ON).

This carries on into my next point: the infistructure of the ride. Much like the track for the Maelstrom didn't really work for Frozen, Splash Mountain is a behemoth to work with. It has 4 drops and a bunch of dark ride scenes. The ride layout goes hand in hand with the story of Splash Mountain, building the thrills up until the final drop. If the story is like Frozen Ever After where everyone is happy and there are no stakes, the drops are going to feel oddly placed.

What would I do? Make it the plot of the movie. Princess and the Frog is SUCH A GOOD MOVIE. The plot is already there for them! Facilier is a good villain and the shadow creatures chasing Tiana and Naveen makes for good stakes. Do we need to follow it beat for beat? Absolutely not. You cannot fit a whole movie in 13 minutes and personally, I don't want our two leads to be frogs the whole time. I think we could do this by still having it take place after the movie but maybe Facilier has come back from the dead and is tracking them down? That way, Tiana and Naveen get to stay human. You could even compromise by maybe they get cursed into frogs halfway through the ride and have to find a way to become human before the celebration. (Also, just a hint. Maybe dont name it off of Mardi Gras in Disney World's Frontierland? It'll be a bit of a stretch).

With that being said, I'm still excited. The reason I made this behemoth of a post is because I love Splash Mountain and I want the Princess and the Frog Ride to be even better. I love this movie property and want to see it properly represented in the parks. I also want to end on a positive note, so here's some of my other renovation thoughts: I think Guardians of the Galaxy Mission Breakout was a good retheming (just please leave the one in Disney World, Tower of Terror is one of my faves). I am excited for the Guardians coaster coming to Epcot. As much as I criticized Frozen Ever After, I don't think it's a bad ride. The atmosphere is good and some of the animatronics are top notch (the Olafs and Svens).

In conclusion, now that we finally have a Princess and the Frog ride coming, let's make sure it's a good one.