#i think it's a royal thing

[the-chaotic-christian]

Smalls really is just out here running on coffee and his desire to fight death itself before admitting his feelings for Heather, isn't he, and no one's gonna stop him

[panthermouthh]

“I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel.”

[omrarchive]

[yrsonpurpose]

Imminent status as a revolutionary gay icon.

[chatlote]

let there be justice, love

[kroosluvr]

don't wanna talk, baby i just wanna dance

[afterthelambs]

I'm not sure if I believe the "Wakaba Isshiki did unethical experiments" theory in the fandom, but I do think this is the biggest proof of it in-game:

Because how the hell would she know that?

The first explanation is that she did experiments by sending people into palaces and then testing what happens to them if the palace collapses. Which is messed up for obvious reasons.

The second explanation is that she did NOT test it, meaning she was just making shit up. Which is funny but also would make her a terrible scientist. This explanation is less believable because everything else about her research is too accurate.

There's also a theory that Wakaba did unethical experiments on Akechi specifically. I'm not sure I believe that, since the evidence for it is pretty shallow (like the featherman game scientist experimenting on grey pigeon). But this scene is once again the biggest argument you could make for that theory. The researcher in the image above refers to palaces by their correct term 'palaces', which they say was based on Wakaba's research. But that's only something you would know with firsthand experience of the metaverse. And the only person they know who could access the metaverse was Akechi (that we know of, but i dont think Shido would rely only on Akechi if there were other options).

So yeah this scene is very sus. It's most likely the writers didn't think too deep about the implications. There's no way they wanted Futaba's mom to be sketchy, right? But even if it's not intentional, the scenes and their implications still exist. So in conclusion those theories make sense, I get it, and I don't blame anyone for headcanoning them and having fun. And tbh anyone involved with cognitive psience was portrayed as some degree of unethical (maruki for example), maybe this is just on-brand

[repmet]

@rwrbsource & @rwrbmovie’s rwrb appreciation month bingo: alex

[insp]

[spittyfishy]

I’m not the biggest Darling fan but this meme had such her vibes lol

[fosermi]

🎵Triplets born, the throne awaits

A seer warns of a deadly fate🎵

Listen, I love them ok?

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

how about that uhhhhh Fantasy Julie. she gets her sword <3 no one can take it from her <3

rambles:

SIKE you get an extra, lower quality doodle

SIKE AGAIN here's the rambles

yeah... i caved and gave her a tail... I'm Not Sorry! it's cute! i wanted to stick with her sorta flower motif - it's stronger in her princess look, since I imagine that when she was part of the royals she was very blatantly flower power based. it was her Thing!

but a Julie free of her noble shackles... she deserves her big sword. like yeah, she has flower magic, but who needs it when she has a Giant Blade??? on the royalty vein, and if we're classifying "rainbow monster" as a species, i feel like horn size/curve would be a status symbol of some kind. maybe Julie would have kept her horns filed short. but if she ran away from that life... longer horns! i like to imagine that they'll keep growing until she has a pair of Extra Weapons attached to her head! curved forward like mammoth tusks maybe!

i imagine that like Frank, she goes with minimal armor - range of movement over protection, yk? some scale mail over her front, a thick leather flower over her chest w/ scalloped leather pauldrons, wrist armor and metal knuckles! i'd think that the faux-suspenders include a back sheath for her sword... i wish i'd thought of that Before i finished the little ref! i don't feel like going back and editing!

i imagine that she was forced to cut her hair when it got caught in something (a gelatinous cube, mayhaps). it didn't look good! don't let anime and Mulan fool you! cutting your own hair with a blade will not look nice! but someone - Eddie, probably, he's good with scissors i'd assume - cleaned it up for her. and hey, it didn't look bad! plus, Julie probably liked being able to just tuck up her long strands into her hat when she's feeling a bit more like a Julius than a Julie!

it's been a fun challenge transforming their canon outfits into a similar variation with fantasy flavoring and twists! i want them to suit the setting but still maintain Themselves! Julie's was tough i gotta admit. i was messing around with the princess look and the fighter look side-by-side. it worked better when i sat back and thought "fighter Julie is Julie unrestrained. that version would be more aligned with her canon look"

i wanted her princess form to look Restrained! she has to be a ~delicate flower~, a noble woman, pristine and poised and very much a princess. soft colors, poofy clothing, bright white gloves that are not to be sullied. carefully bundled up hair! jewelry! that dress must be Heavy and hard to move in! her tail must be so cramped under there!

but Julie Unleashed? violent pinks! rose gold accents! short skirt so that she can sprint and Kick! fun boots that she can be active in and delight in watching them get dirty! her hair is free to whip in the wind and get caught in things! fun straps and Deadly Accessories! a sword that she stole from the royal armory on her way out the window! she has forearm wraps both to match Frank and to support her wrists!

[bbjobo]

Hello hi it’s me, your resident entertainment PR enthusiast. I simply need to talk about the sequel announcement. This is all speculation, but I work in entertainment-adjacent communications and once convinced a household name celebrity to stay at my event to do select press interviews when his wife was going to go into labor at literally any minute, so I like to think I've got a pretty good sense of all of this.

So buckle in, because I'm about how actually fantastic this rollout was, because I’d wager they’ve been planning this since the premiere. 

RWRB came out truly smack-dab in the middle of the actors' strike. We all know just how much press we must have missed out on, because the strike started before promo would have kicked off in earnest. And when it was finally over in November, the actors are potentially out of contract for promotion, and that’s not even taking into consideration that the holidays are coming up and the six weeks from American Thanksgiving to New Year’s is truly a black hole of press. So this little movie has to rely almost entirely on fan reaction and word of mouth to hit because they’re so limited in what they can do for promo. And it IS a hit! Records are broken! Comments for an extended version (which, ok Matthew we get it, does not exist) and a sequel start almost immediately.

The marketing team makes the most of what they’ve got: they’re keeping up the official character accounts, they’re dropping deleted scenes and BTS. We get cornettos! The fireside scene! Bloopers! Notably absent? Brownstone Thanksgiving. We’ve seen BTS photos of it, we know it exists. Thanksgiving 2023 would have been a great time to drop it, but they don’t. This is the approximate point at which my own personal sequel speculation began. After the strike ends, the posting pace slows considerably but it’s still consistent. It’s just enough to keep it in your mind but not enough to be like “why are you still posting this much about it?” And this continues into 2024.

On the contracting side, conversations were likely actively happening at this point. I wouldn’t be surprised if negotiations picked up literally as soon as the strike ended. The producers would have had that time to get Matthew and Casey back on board and be fully prepped and ready to move on to contracting actors the minute they could. It’d be a shot in the dark to try to guess when these were finalized, but at some point between November 9 and May 9, yeah, they’re in.

But whew, Nicholas is booked and BUSY. Mary & George drops internationally March 5, The Idea of You closes SXSW on March 17, two weeks later M&G starts airing in the US and Canada, and a month after that, TIOY is available for streaming (and limited theatrical release, which is another whole post), and in between all those premieres, he’s everywhere. He’s criss-crossing the country (and tbh the Atlantic Ocean) for all of these appearances, truly going non-stop. The pacing of the premieres makes it nearly impossible to squeeze in another project announcement, and if they had, it would have been a bigger part of every interview he did after, which is something his own team would be working to balance. Plus between TIOY and RWRB, Prime would have been pitching stories against themselves. Better to let him finish out his other promotional appearances and then switch over.

At the same time, we’ve got awards and red carpet season starting. At nearly every red carpet appearance not for their own projects, both Taylor and Nick are asked about a sequel. If an interviewer is given enough time, they ask about a sequel. Sure, fans comment about a sequel on every vaguely rwrb social post from an official account, but the press asking about a sequel felt like a lot to me. Everyone always gave the same vague answer, that they’d be up for it if the story is right, that they don’t know but would be happy to. (Except one time, Nick does slip up and give an answer that feels a little more definitive here where he says “conversations are being had” all the way back in late February/early March). Press are asking the question so consistently that it felt like if it wasn’t happening, PR teams would have put the sequel on the do not ask list.

Then Prime starts actually ramping up on a FYC campaign for the movie. I'm gonna be honest, I was so surprised. It's a rom com, the odds of a rom com getting any sort of awards recognition is so slim, but I thought, "ok, sure, use FYC as a way to get the promo boost they need for an announcement of whatever's coming next." And then I looked up and Variety has picked it as the winner in the best television movie category, which is blowing my mind. The other categories they're submitting in are stacked and I think a nomination beyond television movie will be a long shot, but again, it's big for it to even be considered. And if they're being talked about, that means Prime's gotta put out a great showing for their FYC campaign.

Which brings us to this week. We start off on Monday with Nick at the Met Gala referring to Uma as his mother-in-law. Incredible. Love it. Wednesday and Thursday are a one-two punch of a FYC event and fan event, and the gang’s all here. At the FYC, we get the industry side of things: new portraits and interviews with Deadline, process talk, etc. Because this little rom com is actually doing pretty well and beating the odds? Knowing what we know now, the PR teams spent this week pre-briefing the press on the sequel announcement. Notable (at least to my knowledge) the sequel question doesn't get asked at the FYC event. Because the press already knows it's coming.

Now, on to yesterday. They do a fan screening and Q&A, and they literally roll out the red carpet. Nine months after the premiere and exactly six months after the strike ended, they get the gang back together with fans of the movie, who they relied on so heavily during the strike to help make the movie a success. The tagline on the screen’s giant promo image has been updated to specifically thank fans for “making history with us.” The moderator for the Q&A is the same person who interviewed Taylor and Nick at the beginning of FYC campaign season, their first joint interview since GQ (right? pretty sure. it's all a blur tbh). And at the end of the Q&A, minutes before 12 AM ET, when the embargo on the press release would have lifted, they make the announcement not to press, but to the fans. The fans who loved the book, who watched it over and over, who spread the word about the movie to help make it one of Prime’s top three rom coms OF ALL TIME.

It’s just… an absolute masterclass in how to execute a major announcement that embraces the fans in a time where fandom and interaction between creators and fans can be an absolute minefield. Prime saw the opportunity to lean into the fannishness of it all and they took it and it was a slam dunk.

So where do we go from here? IDK but here’s some unconnected thoughts in list form like Alex would want.

The book’s 5th anniversary is next Wednesday, the 14th.

Casey’s been posting about working on [redacted] for months at this point, which is almost certainly the screenplay

Nick mentioned needing to be back in the UK for filming soon

They would probably like to release this in US election off-cycle years, so that means 2025 or 2027 (and 2027 is too far away). 2026 would be less bad since it’s a midterm election, but still.

Filming could reasonably start sooner rather than later, and even without an unfinished script

I guess we’re back on content watch for blond hair and BTS pictures

[formerprincewille]

Something that really sets Wille and Simon apart from other queer ships is that when we say their love language is physical touch, IT REALLY IS PHYSICAL TOUCH. And I’m not speaking of just sex. Over the course of the show, the amount of touching between them is astronomical. And that’s really something rarely seen in queer media. There may be moments here or there, but often times there’s a lack of physical contact unless it’s for “the plot”. Wille and Simon feel like a real couple in the way they’re always physically reaching out for each other.

[yrsonpurpose]

It couldn't have just been the conference. Oh, my God, it is. It is, isn't it?

[likesummerrainn]

2021 // 2023

[personishfive]

in which his life is like a video game